There was a long silence in the kitchen. I sat there at the table, nursing the coffee she’d made for me.
“They wouldn’t tell me,” he said. “He started some new project exactly a year ago, but the whole thing is a total secret. He was some kind of a very big deal up there, Reacher, that’s for sure. You should have heard the way they were all talking about him. Like talking about God.”
I went quiet for a while. I had known nothing about Joe. Nothing at all.
“Thing is, you see,” he said, “Mr. Hubble doesn’t work here anymore. We had to let him go, I’m afraid, about eighteen months ago.”
He trailed off again. Just went quiet.
“You bet your ass I’m a cautious guy, Finlay,” I said. “People are getting killed here. One of them was my only brother.”