“Anything happens to that girl,” Hauck said, “either by you, or by someone connected to you, even someone I just may think is connected to you … Say, someone who just might show up in town, kind of like what happened to that Watkins boy last week, and she has a similar accident on the river, or maybe doesn’t show up for work one day and simply disappears. Or even if she just slips on the ice during ski season and chips a nail. You hear me, Chief, a single hair on that kid’s head is out of place …”
“And what?” The chief chuffed back a smile. “You’ll hold me responsible?”
“Oh, I won’t hold you responsible …” Hauck kept an arm on the car door, blocking his way. “I’ll come back out here and I’ll kill you. Myself. I’ll put that fancy gun you carry around in your mouth and blow the back of your head into a hundred pieces. And you can take that one to the bank and cash it. Just so we understand. And any time you feel like arresting me, Chief, for threatening a police representative … you be my guest. There’s a lot of things that don’t look so kosher out here that if I was a sixty-year-old ex-drunk on his last job I wouldn’t want to be getting out.”
Dunn twitched. He blew a blast out of his nostrils, his last pretense of crusty resolve receding into a pallid nod. He put his hat back on. “I don’t think it’ll come to that,” he said. Hauck took his arm away and Dunn climbed into his car. “So where is she? Dani. Don’t get all riled up now. I just want to say hello and make sure she’s okay?”
“Maybe better left unsaid.” Hauck shut the door. “I hope that meeting goes well, Chief …”
Dunn just sat there for a moment. He sniffed into a smile Hauck couldn’t quite read. “I read up on what you’ve done. Back east. I know, maybe you’ve gone up against some bigger folk in the past, bigger than those oil boys up there. But let me tell you,” he said, his eyes twinkling, “I bet your last dollar you’ve never run up against none who want what they want with more resolve.”
“I’ll consider us both warned then,” Hauck said back.
“It’s been nice having you out here, Mr. Hauck.” Wade smiled and started the engine. “Not sure I’ll be seeing you again.” He pressed on the accelerator and the SUV roared to life.
“You never know …” Hauck slapped the door shut. “But next time I hope it’s for a foot of fresh powder.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Around 6:30 P.M. Geoff came by and picked up Dani. She still wasn’t happy to leave, but she finally went, reluctantly, Blu trailing along. Geoff seemed like a good guy who genuinely cared about her. His said his friend’s house was empty for a week and Snowmass was twenty-five miles from Carbondale, and no one would have any idea she was there. He promised Hauck he wouldn’t mention it to anyone.
Hauck drove into Aspen and checked into the Hotel Jerome. He figured as long as he was out here, while he figured out his next step, why not enjoy the stay. The Jerome was a famous, redbrick building on Main Street, a holdover from Aspen’s nineteenth-century mining heyday. Its brass-trimmed, Old West-style lobby combined the charm of old Aspen with a trendier, modern-day style and crowd.
Besides, Hauck had been there before and liked the bar.
He checked in, sent out some clothes to be express washed for the next day, took a long shower, and put on the one clean shirt he had left. Then he headed down to the bar. He ordered a Stoli on the rocks with olives. He was able to finally decompress from all that had happened today.
“Crazy day?” the bartender asked. He seemed in his forties, handsome, fit. His idea of a crazy day was likely when his mountain bike suffered a flat.
Hauck shook his head and laughed. “You don’t have any idea.”
He noticed four women at a table in bright-colored tops, short leather jackets, and stylish jeans. The sound of southern accents. Texas, he was thinking. Probably a girls’ weekend. One of them, a pretty brunette in a leopard-print top, seemed to glance over a couple of times, catching his eye.
His mind drifted to Naomi. She was the third woman he had gotten involved with in the past five years. First, there was Karen. Together they had searched for her husband, Charlie, a hedge fund manager who had engineered his own disappearance in the smoke and chaos of a Metro-North train bombing. After a year together, she’d gone back to Virginia to take care of her dad, which had pretty much broken Hauck’s heart at the time. Then Annie, who still had her restaurant in town, and her son, Brandon, who had Down syndrome and whom Hauck still took skating every once in a while.
Then Naomi. If you could even call what they had being involved.
The brunette in the drapey leopard top kept looking his way. They were probably out in Aspen for some fun. He signaled to the bartender for another. Hauck needed a meal badly. He’d have him recommend a restaurant.
His cell phone sounded.
Hauck looked at the screen and saw that it was from Talon.
It was awfully late back home. Maybe Foley had come back with something on Alpha after all. He took the phone and went to an empty corner in the bar area where no one would hear. “Tom, it’s after ten back there …” he answered.
“Well, things don’t just stop just because you’re lazing your way out there in Colorado.”
“Not exactly how I would describe it,” Hauck said, “but … Any chance you found out anything on what I asked?”
“To be truthful,” his boss replied, “I can’t say I tried.”
“Oh.” There was a seriousness in Foley’s voice. This had the earmarks of a different kind of conversation altogether. “What’s going on?”
“Ty, I have to be frank. I’ve spoken with the executive committee. We all feel this sabbatical of yours has to come to an end.”
“I’m sorry that’s the way you look at it, Tom.”
“How else are we supposed to look at it? We’ve extended ourselves for you a good deal now. We’ve tried to be flexible. We’re running a business here, son, not a wellness clinic. I know you went through a rough patch and you had a little soul-searching to do. But that time is up now.”
“Sounds like there’s an ultimatum coming here …”
“Call it whatever you want. I would simply say it’s a reality check. We want you back to work here. Tomorrow. The day after, the latest. This thing you’re on out there has got to come to an end. If not—and the choice is yours, son—we’ll have no option but to nullify your partnership agreement with the firm. You’re an asset here, Ty. But only if you’re here. I’ve sent you an email putting all this in writing, so there’s no misunderstandings.”
In writing … “No misunderstandings, Tom. Except only a couple of days ago you were willing to check into Alpha for me, and whether you knew anyone out here who could help. What’s changed?”
“What’s changed is that it’s time to put this whole thing behind you, Ty, that’s all. And come back home.”
“Six people are dead out here, Tom. If you knew what happened today, you’d—”
“Look, that all sounds bad and I’m sorry for them,” Foley said, cutting him off. “I really am. But there are agencies to look into that. Police. We have our own things to get done here, and we’ve met, and we’re united in how we feel about it. You find your way back here, and let’s get on to doing great things. Or we revoke your agreement—I think we’re long past the clause that says you execute your job ‘in a timely, accepted manner’—and that’s that. I’ll give you the night to sleep on it. As long as you realize, there’s an awful lot you’d be throwing away. Do I need to repeat any part of this, Ty?”
“No, no need to repeat a word of it, Tom. It’s all perfectly clear.” Hauck knew that Foley’s patience had been running thin. But revoking his partnership? Forcing him to come back. Tomorrow? Something surely had changed. “I guess how I’m reading it is, it was okay to go off and get myself shot up and my life threatened when it involved company business. But it’s not okay if there’s nothing to be gained.”
“I’m not exactly sure that’s quite how I would put it, Ty. I t
end to think of it as doing the smart thing for your career and keeping that young niece of yours, or whatever she is, safe, which is where I might put my priorities right now.”
Hauck didn’t reply.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this, Ty. Is there any part of what I said you need me to go over?”
“No, Tom. I think everything’s perfectly clear.”
“Then I’ll look forward to your reply. Say by noon. Tomorrow. I know you’re two hours behind out there.”
“That’s awfully considerate of you, Tom.”
“If we don’t hear from you by then, we’ll consider our agreement void. Think long and hard on it tonight, son. I hope you make the right choice.”
After they hung up, Hauck sat there, his stomach hollow, his skin tingling, then sank back against the bench. The choice was to walk away from Alpha. His promise to Watkins and Dani. From making Robertson pay for what he’d done. Because he damn well knew that if he didn’t, no one else would lift a finger to. Or walk away from Talon. His career.
I hope you make the right choice, son.
He thought about how Kelli Watkins would feel. They all leave. Or become part of them.
And Chuck Watkins, who’d just taken a bullet meant for Hauck.
He got up and went back to the bar. The group of gals had left. The bartender came up again. Hauck indicated another drink.
“The pretty brunette over there said they’d be at Justice Snow’s later if you wanted to come by. It’s a hot spot here in town.”
“Thanks.”
He sat back at the bar. His insides were buzzing like a tuning fork. We’ve all met and we’re pretty united. Hauck didn’t exactly have a graduate degree in corporate shrewdness. What had changed?
Then it struck him. A shot to the belly at first; then it wormed up like something heated in his bloodstream until it was a throbbing in his head. He thought back to the first time Foley had called him out here. Or Brooke.
“Take that young niece of yours or whatever she is and …”
He was pretty sure he had never mentioned Dani. To either of them. All he’d said was that he was out here for a friend.
The bartender brought his drink and Hauck downed it in a couple of gulps. What the hell did Foley know?
“You gonna join them over at Justice’s?” he asked. “Fun times.”
Hauck shook his head and motioned for a check. “Room service.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
He got the answer he was looking for just a few minutes later.
An NBA playoff game was on that he wasn’t paying much attention to, and he had just picked through a pretty fair burger. He was surfing around on his phone—answering an email from Vern Fitzpatrick, the head of the Greenwich police force, his old boss, who wanted to see him, and a couple of business-related things that he forwarded on to Brooke.
At the same time, going over his conversation with Foley.
If there was one thing he’d learned in the time he was on the boat, it was that what drove him wasn’t the money. Or the fame. Or power. He’d surely been on enough news shows. I hope you make the right choice, son. He thought back to a time when he was the happiest, and it somehow took him back to when he was working for the NYPD, on the fast track to detective, his whole career ahead of him, with Jessie and Rachel, his two young girls, his family whole and together, immune from harm.
He could never go back to that, of course.
He’d been happy when he was drifting around the Caribbean with Naomi, no plan or destination. But he knew that was more of a postponement than a life. And he knew he could never go back to that, either.
And he was happy when he went up against the Gstaad Group, a force much more powerful than himself, and whom no one had had the will or the courage to take down.
He had.
Or the other times in his life he’d stood up when no one else did.
And Hauck saw it now. Clearly. As if for the first time. Just who he was. Stripped of the high-arcing career and all the TV interviews and fleeting fame. Out here. In a place he had no connection to. Alone.
He saw that he felt most alive, most infused with purpose, when he went up against them.
Against those forces no one else would.
What he was doing here.
It wasn’t very complex. It wasn’t even remotely heroic, no matter what they said.
All he’d ever wanted to feel was the sense that he was doing some good.
He leaned back and watched some Indiana Pacer guard do a crazy-ass dunk on a fast break. His whole life wasn’t so much more than a big, transparent cliché. There are those in the white hats and the black hats, Jen Keeler had told him, and don’t confuse the two.
He didn’t. He’d never confused them.
There was never much doubt about which hat he wore.
The game turned into a rout and there was nothing more he could occupy himself with online. He scrolled down Google News before calling it a night. He had to make up his mind about Foley’s ultimatum, but something told him that he already had, and that he had for a long time, weeks, while his soul and body mended. He just hadn’t admitted it to himself maybe. Until now.
Flicking through the headlines, something caught his eye.
Normally he might have breezed right by it, but a single word grabbed him, pretty much punched him, listed under Colorado Business news:
“RMM Agrees to Be Acquired by Oil Conglomerate.”
He opened the link. The oil and gas exploration company had agreed to be taken over. Jen Keeler had said they were in talks for this. Whatever they could pump out of the ground only improved the bottom line. And for that, they needed all the water they could get. The stock had jumped sixteen points that day.
But it was something else that caused Hauck to stop, that gave him the answer he was searching for, and changed the course this whole thing was heading in.
What’s changed, Tom?
In a way, it even made him chuckle with mock respect.
It explained Foley’s ultimatum. Why Talon’s board had gotten together. Why it was so urgent that he come back. Why it had to be done tonight.
It also explained how his boss knew about Dani.
The company acquiring RMM was Global Exploration.
Talon’s client.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
So that’s how Foley was getting his information. And why it was all so important. Why it had to be acted on now. He needed Hauck out of the way. What Hauck was trying to do was only stirring up things up out here. Things that could screw the deal should they come out.
I’ve spoken with the executive committee. We’re united on it.
Bravo, Tom, you played your role to a T. Hauck couldn’t help but give him a sardonic applause.
His phone sounded again. Hauck checked the screen. Geoff Davies. He pressed the answer button.
Dani.
“How’re you doing?” he answered.
“I guess all right. It’s all kind of like a dream, what happened today.”
“I know.”
“But I’m glad I’m here. With Geoff. You were right, I couldn’t have been alone. I just called to say thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Call any time, my rates are pretty fair.”
Dani laughed. Hauck was pleased to hear the lightness back in her voice again. Then she said, “I just wanted to say thank you for being there for me, Uncle Ty.”
“Hey, you were the one who made all the difference, Dani, not me.”
“I didn’t mean just for today … I meant, for coming out here in the first place. For just caring. I’ve been thinking, since my mom and dad split, the truth is, I haven’t had anyone in a while. Someone I could count on. That I trusted. My dad was always off somewhere. You know how busy he is with his work. Then Mom got sick, and it was more me taking care of her than anyone. There was Wade. But even back then I knew he was always out for himself. Plus he had Kyle, who got hurt and needed so much attention.”
“I understand.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t think you do fully understand. I always felt like I had to be so tough and independent of everything. And everyone. To prove I could handle whatever came at me. Maybe that’s why I stayed out here and why I do what I do, when everyone else is starting to put their lives together. And I kind of saw all that today … in that tank. I saw all I was, was just alone. And scared. Not scared to give up or to let people down. Scared to die. I just wanted to get out of that tank and live.”
“Anyone would have been just as scared, Dani. And wanted the same thing. Put me at the top of the list.”
“You’re never scared, Uncle Ty.”
“No,” Hauck said. “That’s not true.”
“What are you scared of?”
He had been to the edge many times. Scared of losing the people he loved. Scared of letting them down. Scared sometimes that the bastards would win. “Just things.”
“But there was one thing I had faith in,” Dani said, “the whole time I was in there. And in a way, that’s what kept me going.”
“What was that?”
“You, Uncle Ty. That you would be there for me. That if I could just hold on, you’d come. And you did.”
Hauck felt a wave of warmth travel through him. “Like I said, you were the one who led me to you, Dani.”
“Maybe. But there was something else I knew, and I just wanted you to know it. And it gave me a little peace when I wasn’t sure I would make it through.”
“And what was that?”
“I knew that you’d get them. I told them that. That one day, no matter what happened to me, you’d kill them for what they did to me.”
Hauck smiled inside. She could have been his own.
She said, “I was right about that, wasn’t I, Uncle Ty?”
“Yes.” Hauck drew in a breath and nodded to himself. “You were right.”
That was exactly what he was going to do.
One Mile Under Page 25