Four Thrillers by Lisa Unger

by Lisa Unger

  The kids were staying with Margie and Fred, so that Linda and Eric could have some couple time, something they had been sorely lacking. Now that there was a wireless hub, sixty-four-inch flat screen and a Wii in the Riverdale home, Emily and Trevor no longer considered a visit with their grandparents a hardship. There was a minimum of grousing. Therefore, Linda had only a minimum of guilt. Even when Emily called to complain that Margie was making fish and wouldn’t let them order pizza instead, Linda only smiled and told her daughter that fish was good for her and she’d have to bare up.

  “You don’t want to see the show again?” Linda teased her sister, embracing her gingerly, afraid to cause her pain. Izzy gave a weak laugh; she’d been to the show several times, had seen it even before it opened. She waited for a smart comment in return, but her sister didn’t say anything. In Linda’s arms, Isabel felt fragile. Linda was still waiting for the haunted look to disappear from her face. She felt as if she hadn’t seen her sister even really smile in months. Not that she could be blamed.

  *

  BACK AT THE loft, Erik ordered Chinese and then turned on the television. Izzy hadn’t said much on the walk home and Linda was starting to worry that they were making a mistake.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Linda asked.

  “I happen to think it’s a terrible idea,” said Jack. “It’s not as if we’re going to learn anything we don’t already know. This is the psychological equivalent to scab picking.”

  Erik nodded his agreement. “He’s right.”

  “I want to see it,” Izzy said, lowering herself on the couch. “I need to.”

  No one else offered any arguments. Anyway, it was too late. The newsmagazine show had already begun.

  A bestselling writer and her software designer husband are living the ultimate urban dream. With a beautiful home in Manhattan, skyrocketing careers, and an extravagant lifestyle, they seemed to want for little. Except that when it came to Isabel Connelly and the man everyone knew as Marcus Raine, nothing was as it seemed.

  “We were called to the scene of a triple homicide in the West Village at the offices of Razor Technologies,” said a well-coiffed Detective Grady Crowe. He was sharply dressed and looking very much the role of the celebrity cop. “We found the bodies of Rick Marino, Eileen Charlton, and Ronald Falco, the office trashed, every file and computer removed, and Isabel Connelly unconscious in her husband’s office. We knew we were looking at something big. We didn’t realize at the time that it was international in its scope and that it reached back to the unsolved case of a missing man from years earlier.”

  The hour wound on, detailing the disappearance and assumed murder of Marcus Raine after the betrayal of his girlfriend, Camilla Novak, how Kristof Ragan was able to steal the other man’s money and identity, then use Izzy’s Social Security number to establish an EIN for his new business. Some time was devoted to Kristof Ragan’s childhood in an orphanage, how he nearly made good by winning a scholarship to an American university.

  He was smart, charming, hardworking, could have made a legitimate success out of himself. What made him choose murder, identity theft, fraud? lamented the reporter in a voice-over, where they showed b-roll of the modern-day orphanage, where children sat at computers, played soccer, read books at round tables. They called in an expert psychologist to offer an explanation.

  “It wouldn’t be hard to understand the despair a child like Kristof Ragan felt, abandoned to an orphanage, possibly mistreated under communist rule,” said the very proper-looking gentleman with round glasses and a red bow tie. “It might cause long-reaching damage, a self-hatred, a desire to be someone else. Someone like Kristof Ragan was most likely a sociopath, operating without a conscience, using people like Camilla Novak and Isabel Connelly to further his own agenda.”

  Linda looked at Izzy Her sister’s face registered no expression at all. But Linda was pleased to see her leaning into Jack. He had his arm around her shoulder.

  “We’re just friends, same as ever,” Isabel had insisted just the other day. But Linda could see clearly that it was much more than that. “I’m not ready for anything else,” she’d said.

  “Not yet,” said Linda.

  “Not yet,” her sister conceded.

  But when Camilla Novak decided she no longer wanted to be a pawn in Kristof Ragan’s game, she turned to the FBI, who launched a month-long investigation with Camilla Novak’s help. But the day before a raid was scheduled on Raines office and home, another kind of raid took place.

  The footage switched to the woman Izzy knew as S being led away in handcuffs from a Queens building by Detective Grady Crowe.

  “By pouring over banking and cell phone records, we saw that multiple calls were made to a cell phone registered to a Sara Benes,” said Detective Breslow to the camera, looking much more polished and a bit older than she did in real life.

  A former Czech intelligence officer, Benes allied herself with organized crime to run Services Unlimited, an escort service that was actually a prostitution ring. Apparently long associated with the two Ragan brothers—since childhood—and a longtime lover of Kristof Ragan, Benes was there when Ragan needed to pull up the lines on his life, assembling a team of thugs to trash Ragan’s office and home, removing any and all evidence that might have allowed for prosecution. Benes faces charges of murder, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. But she won’t face her charges in the U.S. In the country illegally, she’ll be deported to the Czech Republic.

  Linda watched as her sister absently lifted a finger to trace the scar on her forehead.

  Did Camilla Novak get cold feet and reveal her betrayal to Kristof Ragan in the hope that he would forgive her? Is that how he knew the FBI was closing in on him?

  “We think so.” Special Agent Tyler Long headed the federal investigation that was destroyed by Sara Benes and her crew.

  “Camilla Novak loved Ragan. She came to us out of hurt that he had used her and kept her dangling for so many years. In the end, I think she didn’t want to betray him. She would have gone with him if he’d let her.”

  But Kristof Ragan wasn’t the forgiving sort. Beware that the following images are quite graphic. On the screen flashed the pictures Izzy had retrieved from the thumb drive, showing Kristof Ragan killing the three men and leaving his brother to die on the dock.

  “When we first saw this, we thought that he must have some military training,” said Detective Grady “But the Czech government denies all knowledge of him. So we don’t really know where he learned to take down four armed men, but it’s not something everyone could do, is it?”

  But in the end, it was Kristof Ragan who was going down. Isabel Raine couldn’t endure her husband’s betrayal, and when she suspected that he’d returned to the Czech Republic, she followed. Her investigation led her to the orphanage where Ragan grew up. Banking records revealed that Ragan had been making anonymous donations to the facility for years.

  But Ragan, it seemed, was one step ahead of her. He arranged for her abduction and would likely have killed her if it hadn’t been for the work of NYPD detectives Crowe and Breslow.

  “We knew she was gone but we didn’t know where, though we had our suspicions,” said Detective Crowe. Linda knew her sister had promised him not to tell anyone about the e-mail he sent her, and she’d kept her promise.

  “After pouring over years’ worth of banking records for Razor Technologies, we learned that the company had purchased an apartment in Prague some years earlier. We contacted the local Czech authorities and they sent a team to the residence. Police arrived just as Isabel Raine was escaping from her husband. A chase ensued, ending with the shooting death of Kristof Ragan.”

  More graphic footage here from the camcorder of a tourist who heard commotion out his window early Christmas morning.

  A grainy, wobbly, black-and-white film sequence showed Kristof Ragan running, limping, gun drawn, across a cobblestone street, near a canal. He ran down a flight of stairs and hopped onto
a small boat that was docked, stuffed the gun in his pocket, and began undoing lines. Then Izzy moved into view. She stood at the rail alone for a moment before the police moved in behind her, started pulling her away. Linda watched her sister struggle and scream as Kristof Ragan raised his gun and the police started to fire.

  Now, sitting on the couch, Izzy covered her eyes and started to sob, while Jack wrapped his arms around her.

  “Turn this off, Erik,” Jack said quietly. Erik reached for the remote and started fumbling with it.

  Kristof Ragan died at the scene, his reign of deception and murder at an end on Devil’s Stream in Prague.

  “No,” said Isabel. “I want to finish it.”

  Isabel Raine, known to millions as Isabel Connelly, declined to be interviewed for this segment, but we know from her agent and spokesperson, Jack Mannes, that she is recovering from injuries inflicted upon her by her husband, and is fully cooperating with the ongoing investigation. When the investigation is complete, some portion of the funds stolen from her and her family will be returned, though much of it seems to have disappeared without a trace.

  The reporter wrapped up with the same old cliché they’d been hearing for weeks about truth being stranger than fiction. Erik clicked off the television, and for a minute they all sat there looking at the blank screen, lost in their own thoughts.

  When the buzzer rang, everyone jumped, then laughed at themselves a bit.

  “The Chinese food,” Erik said, getting up.

  As they all rose to pull dishes from the cabinets, set the table, open the wine, Linda thought about how even in the shadow of the extraordinary, the ordinary still occupied them. They still slept, still cared for the children, still made love and ordered takeout.

  She and Erik were both guilty of terrible betrayals of trust, and yet he still kissed her as he handed her a glass of Pinot Grigio. Isabel had been injured in every way a person could be, but she offered an ironic smile as Jack mentioned that some of her books were back on the bestseller lists because of the recent events of her life. A man Linda had an affair with and cared for had almost laid waste to her life before ending his own, but she still said things like, “This soup is too salty.”

  She looked around the loft that they loved. They weren’t sure yet if they would have to sell it. Some of the money Kristof Ragan wire-transferred before he fled had been traced. No one would tell them how much or when they might see it. But her show was going well; she’d had some good sales. And Isabel had a new book contract. So they’d be all right. In comparison to everything that was almost lost, the money didn’t seem as important as it once had. What was important was that they were all together, safe, and if not happy exactly, if still damaged and haunted and unsure of the future, then at least hopeful.

  No one seemed to know what to say until Jack raised a glass and they all joined him.

  “Onward and forward. No looking back.”

  As she sipped her wine, Linda thought they’d all endured awful, life-changing events—some, maybe all, of those events invited through their own blindness and selfish deeds. But the foliage of mundane life just grew over the past a bit every day if you let it. And maybe that was the most extraordinary event of all.

  29

  I am alone with my keyboard again, weaving a universe culled from my experiences and my imagination—though I struggle with the idea that nothing I can imagine would compare to the actual events of my recent life. But I write because I have to, because I cannot do anything but this. I must metabolize my experience on the blank page, put it down, order it, control it in my way. This is how I understand the world. How I answer the question: Why?

  I write about a boy who was abandoned by his mother to an orphanage in communist Europe. I imagine his frightening early days and lonely, miserable nights. I imagine his longing for the mother who left him, for the comfort of the bed to which he was accustomed. I know about abandonment, about loss, about fear. I know about longing to be anyone, anyplace else. This boy is not known to me. But his feelings are; I can manage compassion for him even if the man he grew into almost destroyed me, put a bullet in me, tried to end my life to save his own. It is on the page that I can answer the question: Why? And the answers I find here are enough. They have to be.

  I hear Jack downstairs hammering. He is at work again on the house, building shelves for a room he calls my study. I tell him that we are not living together. That I am just staying with him until I can sell the apartment I shared with my husband and figure out how to move ahead with my life. Of course, he says. I know.

  Kristof Ragan was never my husband, not legally, not in any way. Just someone I loved and thought I knew. I still hear his voice, the wisdom he had and shared with me. I have happy memories of him. I do.

  The other morning I met Detective Grady Crowe for coffee in the East Village at Veselka’s on Second Avenue. I got there early and sat in the back watching the students, the goths and clubbers for whom it was late, not early, artist types, professionals—the typical New York City mix of people, not typical anywhere else.

  He looked fresh, well and happy as he walked in, scanned the crowd, then made his way over to me.

  “You look good,” he said, smiling, shaking my hand. “Don’t get up.”

  He sat across from me. We’d been through all the professional stuff, the questioning, the accusations, the reprimands. I found I actually liked him in spite of what had passed between us when he thought we were on opposite sides.

  “You look happy,” I said.

  He held up his left hand, tapped his ring. “My wife. She came back. We’re having a baby.”

  The information hurt more than it should, made my stomach bottom out with a powerful regret and sadness. He saw it.

  “I’m sorry. I’m an insensitive jerk sometimes. A lot of the time.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “You deserve to be happy.”

  “So do you.”

  I thought of Jack. “I’m getting there.”

  We ordered some coffee and potato pancakes.

  “So what’s up? Or did you just miss me?” he asked with a smart smile. He was a handsome guy, I realized. Much better looking happy than bitter and angry—like everyone, I suppose.

  “I don’t know. I guess I just wondered if there’s anything I don’t know. Something you held back from that news show, from me?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. I was wondering about the FBI. When they started their investigation, how Kristof found out about it. Why they didn’t act sooner.”

  “Camilla went to the FBI about a month before Ragan disappeared. They started their investigation right away, but the feds are all about collecting evidence for their case. They take their time.” He took a sip of his coffee. “They suspect that Camilla told Ragan at the last minute, giving him time to get away before their raid. She felt guilty about betraying him. Maybe she thought he would forgive her. He didn’t.”

  “But who was Camilla meeting in the park? The man I watched die? Why was she bringing those pictures to him?”

  “The man who died that night was identified as Vasco Berisha, an Albanian thug with ties to Ivan Ragan, among others.”

  “Why would they want those pictures? What use would they be? And if they were surveillance shots, how did they come to be in her possession?”

  “They weren’t technically surveillance shots. Camilla Novak took them. She was following Ragan, using information Charlie Shane gave her about his comings and goings, working for the FBI. We found them on her digital camera, too. She turned over a set to the FBI and was apparently bringing them to Berisha. My personal theory is that after she confessed her betrayal to Ragan, and before he killed her, she realized she’d misplayed her hand. She knew he wasn’t going to forgive her and take her away after all. I suspect she didn’t think the FBI would be able to find Kristof Ragan, but his brother’s associates would. He killed some of their men; they’d want revenge. She wanted them to
have it.”

  I shook my head.

  “What?” Grady asked.

  “Then Berisha couldn’t have known where Kristof Ragan had gone. He was just a lackey. He was the reason I went to Prague. I thought he said, ‘Praha.’ Prague in Czech. But maybe he didn’t say that.”

  “But Ragan was in Prague. Maybe Berisha—whatever he said—just gave you an excuse to follow your instincts. Or maybe he did know. It’s possible.”

  “I heard what I wanted to hear.”

  “Maybe. You knew where he would go, but maybe you didn’t trust yourself anymore. You needed something else besides your gut to follow.”

  I thought about that night in the park. I am sure that’s what he said. But Detective Crowe was right, I didn’t trust myself very much about these things.

  “Do you have a contact at the FBI who might talk to me about all of this?”

  “It doesn’t much matter now, does it?”

  It matters. How the pieces fit together. It helps me to understand what happened to me. But that’s the problem with life, as opposed to fiction; sometimes the pieces don’t fit. The waitress brought our order and I poured some cream in my coffee.

  “I’ve been guilty, as you know, of not asking enough questions. Of seeing what I wanted to see and editing out the rest. I don’t want to do that here.”

  He nodded his understanding.

  “There’s nothing I haven’t told you. I promise. But I’ll put you in touch with Agent Long. He’s a good guy.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  He gave me a sly look. “You’re not writing a book about all this, are you?”

  I smiled at that but didn’t answer.

  We chatted a bit. He told me he’d read one of my books and liked it but mentioned that I’d gotten some procedure wrong. I asked him if I could call with questions in the future. He agreed, seemed to like the idea.

  “So—are you going to write about what happened to you?” he asked, again not letting me off the hook.