The Dark Tide Free for a Limited Time

by Andrew Gross

  “Missing…” Karen met his eyes, holding back anger. Saul had never mentioned anything about any missing money. “That’s why you’re here? Well, isn’t that just too bad, Mr. Gillespie? My husband’s dead, as you seem to know. He went in to work one morning eight months ago and never came home again. So please, tell me”—her eyes burned through him like X-rays, and she stood up—“just how much money are we talking about, Mr. Gillespie? I’ll go get my purse.”

  “We’re speaking of two hundred and fifty million dollars, Mrs. Friedman,” the accountant said. “Do you happen to keep that much in cash?”

  Karen’s heart almost stopped. She sat back down, the words striking her like bullets. The accountant’s expression never changed.

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  Roos took over again, edging slightly forward. “What we’re saying is that there’s a hell of a lot of money unaccounted for in your husband’s firm, Mrs. Friedman. And our clients want us to find out where it is.”

  Two hundred and fifty million. Karen was too stunned to even laugh. The proceeds had been finalized without a hitch. Charlie’s entire business was barely larger than that.

  She looked back into their dull, unchanging eyes. She knew they were implying something about her husband. Charlie was dead. He couldn’t defend himself.

  “I’m not sure we have anything further to discuss, Mr. Gillespie, Mr. Roos.” Karen stood again. She wanted these men to leave. She wanted them out of her house. Now. “I told you, I never got involved in my husband’s business. You’ll have to address your concerns to Mr. Lennick. I’d like you to go.”

  The accountants looked at each other. Gillespie folded his file back into his briefcase and clasped it shut. They rose.

  “We don’t mean any insult, Mrs. Friedman,” Roos said in a more conciliatory tone. “What I would tell you, though, is that there may well be some sort of investigation launched. I wouldn’t be spending any of those proceeds you received just yet.” He smiled transparently and glanced around.

  “Like I said, you have a lovely home…. But it’s only fair to warn you.” He turned at the door. “Your personal accounts may have to be looked at, too.”

  The hairs on Karen’s arms stood on edge.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It took just minutes, frantic ones, for Karen to get Saul Lennick on the phone.

  It was hard for his office to find him. He was out of the country, on business. But his secretary heard the agitation in Karen’s voice. Finally they tracked him down.

  “Karen…?”

  “Saul, I’m sorry to bother you.” She was almost on the verge of tears. She told him about the upsetting visit she’d had with two men from Archer.

  “Who?”

  “They’re from something called Archer and Bey Associates. They’re auditors, forensic investigators. It’s says they’re out of South Africa. They said they spoke with you.”

  He made her go through every detail again, injecting a few sharp questions about their names and specifically what they said.

  “Karen, listen. First, I want to assure you this is nothing you have to be concerned about. Harbor’s partnership dissolution is moving along smoothly, and I promise you it’s one hundred percent by the book. For the record, yes, Charlie may have taken a few losses at the end. He bet pretty heavily on some Canadian oil leases that took a hit.”

  “Who are these people, Saul?”

  “I don’t know. Some overseas accounting group, I suspect, but I’ll find out. They could have been hired by some of Charles’s investors over there, hoping to hold up the process.”

  “They’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, Saul! You know Charlie didn’t handle money like that. They were making these insinuations, warning me not to spend any of the proceeds. That’s Charlie’s money, Saul! It was creepy. They told me our personal accounts might be examined, too.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Karen. Look, there are some details pending that someone could make some issues on if they wanted—”

  “What kind of details, Saul?” She hadn’t heard any of that before.

  “Maybe some plays one could question. A glitch or two in one of Charles’s lending agreements. But I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. This isn’t the time.”

  “Charlie’s dead, Saul! He can’t defend himself. I mean, how many times did I hear him fretting over goddamn nickels and dimes for his clients? Fractions of a fucking point. And these people, making innuendos like that…They had no right to come here, Saul.”

  “Karen, I want to assure you there’s no basis at all to what they’re talking about. Whoever they are, they’re just trying to stir up trouble. And they just went about it the wrong way.”

  “Yeah, Saul, they did.” The fury in her blood began to recede. “They damn well did go about it the wrong way. I don’t want them back in my house again. Thank God Samantha and Alex weren’t here.”

  “Listen, I want you to fax me that card, Karen. I’ll look into it from here. I promise, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  “Charlie was a reputable guy, Saul. You know that better than anyone.”

  “I know that, Karen. Charlie was like a second son to me. You realize I always have your interests at heart.”

  She pushed the hair off her face to cool herself down. “I do….”

  “Send me the card, Karen. And I want to be the first to know if they contact you again.”

  “Thank you, Saul.”

  Suddenly something strange came over Karen, an unexplainable rush of tears. Sometimes it just happened like that. Out of nowhere. The thought of having to defend her husband. She let a few seconds elapse on the line while she regained control.

  “I mean it, Saul…. Really, thank you.”

  Her husband’s mentor told her softly, “You don’t even have to say it, Karen.”

  HE DIDN’T HAVE the heart to tell her now. Or the will.

  Lennick replaced the house phone in its cradle in the Old World lobby of the Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel in Munich.

  A week ago his contact from the Royal Bank of Scotland had called, one of the lenders he had arranged for Charlie, who advanced his firm funds. It sounded perfunctory. The banker had a tone of slight concern.

  A random check of an oil tanker by a customs official in Jakarta had reached their attention.

  Lennick’s heart had come to a stop. He wheeled around back to his desk. “Why?”

  “Some kind of discrepancy,” the banker explained, “in the stated contents of the cargo.” Which was declared to have been 1.4 million barrels of oil.

  The tanker was found to be empty, the bank official declared.

  Lennick had turned ashen.

  “I’m sure there’s simply been some kind of mistake,” the Scottish banker said to him. It seemed that 1.4 million barrels at sixty-six dollars per had been previously pledged by Charles Friedman as collateral against their loan.

  The banker cleared his throat. “Is there any cause for alarm?”

  Lennick felt a shiver of concern race down his spine. He’d look into it, he told the man, and that was enough to make the banker feel appeased. But as soon as he put down the phone, Lennick closed his eyes.

  He thought of Charlie’s recent losses, the pressure he’d been under. The pressure they’d all been under. How heavily he’d leveraged up on his funds.

  You stupid son of a bitch, Charlie. Lennick sighed. He reached for the phone and started to dial a number. How could you be so desperate, you fool, so careless? Don’t you have any idea who these people are?

  People who didn’t like to be looked into. Or have their affairs examined. Now everything had to be reconstructed. Everything, Charlie.

  Even now, weeks later, in the Vier Jahreszeiten’s lobby, the banker’s all-too-delicate question made Lennick’s mouth go dry.

  Is there any cause for alarm?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was the second day of field-hockey practice,
near the end of February. Sam Friedman tossed her stick into the bottom of her locker.

  She played right forward for the girls’ team. They’d lost a couple of their best attackers from last year, so this season it was going to be tough. Sam grabbed her parka off the hook and scanned over a few books. She had an English quiz tomorrow on a story by Tobias Wolfe, a chapter to skim on Vietnam. Since she’d gotten into Tufts, Early Decision 2 in January, she’d pretty much been coasting. Tonight a bunch of them were meeting in town at Thataways for wings and maybe sneak a beer.

  Senior slump was in full throttle.

  Outside, Sam ran over to her blue Acura SUV, which she’d parked in the west lot after lunch. She jumped in and tossed her bag onto the seat, and started up the engine. Then she plugged her iPod into the port and scrolled to her favorite tune.

  “And I am telling you I’m not going…,” she sang, belting it out as closely as she could to Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls. She went to slip the Acura into drive.

  That’s when the hand wrapped around her mouth and jerked her head back to the headrest.

  Samantha’s eyes peeled back and she tried to let out a muffled scream.

  “Don’t make a sound, Samantha,” a voice from behind her said.

  Oh my God! That scared her even more, that the person knew her name. She felt a bolt of fear race down her spine, her eyes darting around, straining to glance at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Uh-uh, Samantha.” The assailant redirected her face forward. “Don’t try to look at me. It’ll be better for you that way.”

  How did he know her name?

  This was bad. She ratcheted through a million things she had always heard in case something like this occurred. Don’t fight back. Let him do what he wants. Give him your money, jewelry, even if it’s something important. Let him have his way.

  Anything.

  “You’re scared, Samantha, aren’t you?” the man asked in a subdued voice. He had his hand wrapped tightly over her mouth, her eyes stretched wide.

  She nodded.

  “I don’t blame you. I’d be scared, too.”

  She glanced outside, praying someone might come by. But it was late, and dark. The lot was empty. She felt his breath, hot on the back of her neck. She closed her eyes. Oh, God, he’s going to rape me. Or worse…

  “But it’s your lucky day. I’m not going to hurt you, Samantha. I just want you to deliver a message to someone. Will you do that for me?”

  Yes, Samantha nodded, yes. Stay together, stay together, she begged herself. He’s going to let you go.

  “To your mom.”

  My mom… What did her mom have to do with this?

  “I want you to tell her, Sam, that the investigation is going to start very soon. And that it’s going to get very personal. She’ll understand. And that we’re not the types to wait around patiently—forever. I think you can see that, can’t you? Do you understand that, Sam?”

  She shut her eyes. Shaking. Nodded.

  “Good. Be sure and tell her that the clock’s ticking. And she doesn’t want it to run out, I can promise that. Do you hear me, Sam?” He loosened his hand just slightly from her mouth.

  “Yes,” Sam whispered, her voice quaking.

  “Now, don’t look around,” he said. “I’m going to slip out the back.” The man had a hooded sweatshirt pulled over his face. “Trust me, the less you see, the better for you.”

  Samantha sat rigid. Her head moved up and down. “I understand.”

  “Good.” The door opened. The man slipped out. She didn’t look. Or turn to follow. She just sat there staring. Exactly as she was told.

  “You are your father’s little girl, aren’t you, Sam?”

  Her eyes shot wide.

  “Remember about the sum. Two hundred and fifty million dollars. You tell your mom we won’t wait long.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Karen clung to her daughter on the living-room couch. Samantha was sobbing, her head buried against her mother’s shoulder, barely able to speak. She’d called Karen after the man had left, then driven home in a panic. Karen immediately called the police. Outside, the quiet street was ablaze in flashing lights.

  Karen went through it with the first officers who’d arrived. “How could there be no protection at the school? How could they just let anyone in there?” Then to Sam, in total frustration, “Baby, how could you not have locked the car?”

  “I don’t know, Mom.”

  But inside she knew—her daughter’s fingers tight and trembling, her face smeared with tears—that this wasn’t about Samantha. Or more protection at school. Or locking the car door.

  It was about Charlie.

  This was about something he had done. Something she was growing more and more afraid that he had withheld from her.

  They would have found Samantha at the mall, or at someone’s house, or at the club where she worked. But they weren’t trying to get to Samantha, she knew.

  They were trying to get to her.

  And the scariest part was, Karen had no idea what these people wanted from her.

  When she spotted Lieutenant Hauck come through the front door, her body almost gave out all at once. She leaped up and ran over to him. She had to hold herself back from hugging him.

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Is she all right?”

  “Yes.” Karen nodded in relief. “I think so.”

  “I know she’s already been through it a couple of times, but I need to talk with her, too.”

  Karen took him over to her daughter. “Okay.”

  Hauck sat down on the coffee table directly across from Samantha. “Sam, my name’s Lieutenant Hauck. I’m the head of detectives with the Greenwich police here in town. I know your mom a little from when your dad died. I want you to tell me exactly what took place.”

  Karen nodded to her, sitting next to her on the couch and taking her hand.

  Sniffling back tears, Sam went through it all again. Coming out of the gym after practice, stepping into her car, putting on her iPod. The man in the backseat, completely surprising her from behind. Cupping her mouth so she couldn’t scream, his voice so chilling and close to her ear that his words seemed to tingle down her spine.

  “It was so scary, Mom.”

  Karen squeezed. “I know, baby, I know….”

  She told Hauck that she’d never gotten a good look at him. “He told me not to.” She was certain she was about to be raped or killed.

  “You did right, honey,” Hauck said.

  “He said that the investigation was going to start soon. And that it was going to get very personal. He said something about two hundred and fifty million dollars.” Samantha looked up at Karen. “What the hell did he mean by that, Mom?”

  Karen fitfully shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  When they’d finished, Karen eased herself away from her daughter. She asked Hauck if he would come outside with her. The awning on the patio wasn’t up yet. Still too cold. In the darkness there were lights flashing out on the sound.

  “Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?” he asked.

  Karen drew a sharp breath and nodded. “Yes.”

  And no…

  She took him through the visit she’d received. The two men from Archer and Bey, who had pressured her about all that missing money. “Two hundred and fifty million dollars,” she admitted.

  Now this.

  “I don’t know what the hell is going on.” She shook her head, eyes glistening. “Charlie’s trustee—he’s a friend—he promises that everything in the partnership was one hundred percent by the book. And I’m sure it was. These people…” Karen looked at Hauck, flustered. “Charlie was a good man. He didn’t handle that kind of money. It’s like they’ve targeted the wrong person, Lieutenant. My husband had a handful of clients. Morgan Stanley, a few well-to-do families he’d known a long time.”

  “You understand I have to look into this,” Hauck said.

  Karen nodded.
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  “But I need to tell you that without a physical description from your daughter, it’s going to be very tough. There are cameras at the school entrances. Maybe someone around spotted a car. But it was dark and pretty much deserted at that time. And whoever these people are, they’re clearly professional.”

  Karen nodded again. “I know.”

  She leaned toward him, suddenly so full of questions she felt light-headed, her knees on the verge of buckling.

  The lieutenant placed his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t pull away.

  She’d handled Charlie’s death, the long months of uncertainty and loneliness, the breakup of his business. But this was too much. Tears rushed in her eyes—burning. Tears of mounting fear and confusion. The fear that her children had suddenly become involved. The fear of what she did not know. More tears started to flow. She hated this feeling. This doubt that had so abruptly sprung up about her husband. She hated these people who had invaded their lives.

  “I’ll make sure you have some protection,” the lieutenant said, squeezing Karen’s shoulder. “I’ll station someone outside the house. We’ll see that someone follows the kids to school for a while.”

  She looked at him, sucking in a tense breath. “I have this feeling that my husband might have done something, Lieutenant. In his business. Charlie always took risks, and now one of them has come back to haunt us. But he’s dead. He can’t untangle this for us.” She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “He’s gone, and we’re still here.”

  “I’ll need a list of his clients,” Hauck said, his hand still perched upon her shoulder.

  “Okay.”

  “And I’ll need to talk to Lennick, your husband’s trustee.”

  “I understand.” Karen pulled back, taking in a breath, trying to compose herself. Her mascara had run. She dabbed her eyes.

  “I’ll find something. I promise you. I’ll do my best to make sure you’re safe.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She leaned against him. “For everything.”

  Static from her sweater rippled against his hand as he took it away.