by Kira Peikoff
Down at street level, a familiar stride caught her attention. There were those long legs, that lean torso, that proud posture. His effortless dignity was one of the things she loved most about him. A real class act, her friends used to tell her enviously. You got to marry not just a doctor, but a gentleman.
She watched him disappear inside their lobby, imagined him heading to the express elevator—just ten more seconds—what was she going to say?
“Hi, what the hell is going on?”
That wouldn’t do. She fled to the bathroom to buy time. Any second now. Was she prepared to leave him? Were these the dying moments of their marriage—one that had, until recently, been filled with mutual love and respect?
And then it was upon her, his key inside the lock, the turning of the door. It swung open and his voice called out, kind and welcoming—
“Sweetie, I’m home!”
“Hi!” she yelled back, too harshly. Her tone was all wrong. There was no way he would miss it. She heard his footsteps approach the bathroom door, then his gentle knock.
“You okay in there?”
She was sitting on the toilet lid, about to cry, when a sudden calm came over her. The facts stood out in sharp relief: He had lied. She needed the truth. Like any trained journalist, she knew she had to separate her emotions from the reporting if she wanted the whole story.
Neither polite questioning nor covert stalking had done the trick. The only strategy left was a bold play.
After splashing some water on her face, she opened the door. Standing there in his dapper suit, his brow furrowed, Greg broke into a grin at the sight of her. A cold drop trickled down her forehead. He leaned in to kiss it away.
Even then, she wanted to yield to him, to feel his lips on her skin, to be held and reassured and protected and loved. Just for a little longer.
“No,” she said. The firmness in her own voice surprised her. “No more.”
He pulled back, confused. “What?”
She stepped past without letting him touch her. “I think you know what.” She perched on the edge of the bed, her arms crossed. “No more playing dumb. No more lies. No more bullshit.”
He stood completely still, as though one slight move might prompt an explosion. When he spoke after a moment, his voice sounded tired. “Please tell me what’s going on.”
Her eyes never left his. “You put our house up for sale without telling me.”
His eyebrows shot up. He glanced to the floor, swallowed. Still no gestures. Like other ER doctors, he’d automatized repression during a crisis. He always had.
“Well?” she said acidly. “Aren’t you at least going to own up to it?”
“How did you find out?”
“That’s what you care about? Not that I’m two seconds away from walking out of here?”
His features scrunched into an expression she almost never saw: fear.
“No! Don’t leave. Just give me a chance to explain. I’m sorry you found out however you did, and not from me. But you have to realize I was only trying to protect you.”
The torment in his eyes seemed sincere, and she almost felt sorry for him. She recognized the same look from when he’d finally told her about his addiction all those years ago—guilt, sadness, panic. But never evil. Never betrayal.
She took a deep breath. If he bore any resemblance to the man she married, then there was a damn good explanation. Maybe even a redeeming one.
“I’ll stay,” she said, “on one condition: You tell me absolutely everything. Or we’re done.”
“Deal. God, I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, but I didn’t want you to get hurt . . .” he trailed off. “I thought I could fix everything without bringing you into it.”
She refused to let herself soften—yet. “Spit it out.”
He walked over and sat next to her on the bed. “You’re not going to like this, but please just hear me out. Because I love you more than anything on God’s green Earth and I need you now more than ever.”
The intensity of her dread left her speechless.
He picked up her trembling hand and bowed his head. “I have a confession.”
CHAPTER 13
The Diary of Richard Barnett
11 days before, Key West
I can’t say I blame you for accusing me of a malicious setup, Isabel. When you stormed into my office that day, you were pretty shaken up. A perma-wrinkle cut a deep groove between your brows. Your long dark locks hung in limp waves, bluish circles underscored your eyes, and your yellow sundress did little to counteract the blackness of your fury.
Will you forgive me for thinking you were still beautiful?
“Undo the deal,” you demanded from the doorway, after describing your near-drowning incident. “Undo everything. I don’t care what it costs. I want nothing to do with you and your psycho investor.”
I listened calmly. Your experience, while no doubt frightening, was less a testament to my guilt than your own. On some level, you clearly felt bad about your double mastectomy and it was manifesting in paranoia.
“No one is out to get you,” I said. “I’ve been in this business a long time. Relax.”
My failure to buy into your version of events irked you even more. You marched up to me and for a moment I thought you were going to slap me. I think you considered it. But then you crossed your arms and glared.
“I want it undone. Today.”
“Sorry, lives are nonrefundable.”
“But I can pay back every cent! My show was a hit and I’ve signed on for a second season.”
“Doesn’t matter. A deal’s a deal.”
You whipped your head in frustration. “But someone is trying to kill me!”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I gently put my hand on your shoulder. You shook it off. I was undeterred. “It’s quite common for clients to have second thoughts later, then rush to me freaking out. You probably didn’t drop anchor properly and your boat got swept out by the current. I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
Your scowl persisted. “What about my mastectomy? I ripped him off and now it’s payback.”
There was something to that line of reasoning, I had to admit. Usually, the investors knew what they were getting and the deal paid off in a straightforward way. I’d never encountered such a twist before, but I couldn’t conceive of murder as a real possibility. I also didn’t understand who we were up against—and how desperate he might become.
“I’ll talk to Robbie,” I said to reassure you. “He has tons of other lives, so if one doesn’t mature for many years, it’s no big deal. The fund will still come out ahead in the long run.”
You uttered a disgusted snort. “Your euphemisms are killing me.”
I smiled at your unintentional pun, hoping to lighten the mood. It didn’t work. You turned your back on me and headed for the door. What else could you do? I hadn’t given you much choice.
“I’ll let you know what he says,” I called. “You’ll see there’s nothing to it.”
“Just like there’s nothing to your new Beamer outside,” you shot back. “Hope your blood money drives well.”
“I earned that fair and square,” I snapped. But you were already out the door. I didn’t have time to explain that the crash of the economy in recent months had rocketed my brokerage into the stratosphere. Business was up over 200 percent, thanks to all the people who suddenly needed fast cash and ran to me to sell their policies. I was getting rich off of honest work, nothing sinister.
With anyone else, I wouldn’t have been so insulted. I would have had a smoke and laughed it off. But with you, it was different. I needed you to know I wasn’t the slimy jerk you believed. Proving you wrong would also give me an excuse to contact you again. Maybe even see you one last time.
I set up the record function on my phone so I could play you the call later. Then I dialed Robbie. I couldn’t wait to show you that the corruption you pinned on me—and him—was purely imaginary.<
br />
His tough nasal voice came on the line. I detected a dash of blue-collar Midwesterner in his otherwise accent-free speech. Later I would realize this was all I had to go on.
“This is Robbie.”
“Barnett here,” I said. “Just a quick follow-up about my client Isabel Leon. Did you get her updated medical records I sent last week?”
“I did.” His tone was ice.
“Everything okay?”
“What do you think? Do you think it’s okay that she cut off her breasts?” His voice turned outright hostile. “What the hell did I pay for?”
This was not at all what I was expecting. I switched to a harder tone to match his. “That was a risk you were taking. You knew this surgery existed for cases like hers.”
“She should have said something if that’s what she was planning!”
“Maybe she didn’t know then! You can’t blame her for wanting to stay alive.”
“Like hell I can’t.”
Was that a threat? Was it just hot air? I wanted to know desperately for your sake, but I had to be careful. Accusing him of stalking you would get me nowhere. I had no evidence to connect him to your missing boat. And if I had any hope of going to the authorities, I needed some kernel of evidence. So I tried a different tactic.
My voice turned sympathetic. “I get you. Let’s find a solution.”
At the same time, I was doing a quick Google search on SkyBridge Asset Management. For years, Robbie Merriman been nothing to me but a voice on the phone, a reliable buyer who paid well and on time. But who was he? And where was he? I had never cared to find out until now.
“There is no solution,” he snarled. “She screwed me over.”
His checks were issued from a bank in the Caymans. His cell phone was an area code from Connecticut, and his fund had a PO box in Manhattan. That was all.
He could be anyone, anywhere.
“Maybe we could meet in person to figure something out?” I asked, hoping to glean useful information.
“My time’s been wasted enough.” He sounded like he was about to hang up, so I rushed to stop him.
“Wait!” I said. “She’ll pay you back her settlement fee. I know there’s no precedent for it, but then you’ll have nothing against her.”
There was a pause. “It’s not enough. I was counting on two mil long-term.”
I blurted out my next thought, however reckless. “What if I find a fall guy then? Some other client who will pay off so fast and so big, you’ll forget all about her?”
He shot back an impossible bargain: “Only if you can net me at least a million.”
Or else what? I didn’t know, but I didn’t want you to find out.
“Oh,” he added, “and I’d need it by the end of next week.”
“Done,” I said. My heart was thudding against my ribs—what was I agreeing to? Yet did I have a choice? This was your life at stake, Isabel. There was nothing the police or the FBI could do to find him before it was too late, especially given the lack of hard evidence linking him to your missing boat. But I shared your suspicions now. I was the only one who could help you.
I needed to track down somebody who was on the verge of death, with a huge policy, willing to sell it at a cut rate.
“Ten days,” he said. “Make it happen.”
My voice shook only a little. “I have just the right person in mind.”
CHAPTER 14
Joan
11 days before, New York
Joan braced herself. “What is it?”
Beside her on the bed, Greg was bowing his head and refusing to make eye contact. Possible catastrophes hurtled through her mind: he wasn’t just having an affair, but a baby. He wasn’t just doing drugs, but dealing them. He wasn’t just getting fired from the hospital, but losing his license. Anything but what he whispered next:
“We’re going broke.”
She heard the words but didn’t comprehend them. She was surrounded by luxury—her bare feet rested on a heated wood floor. She was sitting on a ten-thousand-dollar memory foam mattress. Her arm hair was prickling against the sleeve of his Prada suit.
His forehead was lined with pained wrinkles. “I screwed up really bad. I didn’t want to tell you, I thought I could fix it—”
“How?” she interrupted. “What? When?”
He heaved a sigh. “When the economy started going to hell about six months ago, I got nervous. We were heavily exposed—”
“Were? Or are?” As far as she knew, most of their money was invested in either stocks or real estate holdings that paid regular dividends. Greg thought it was a waste to let cash sit in safer places like banks or bonds.
“Were,” he said. “As the market got worse and worse, we lost an insane amount—but I was scared to pull out. I thought it would come back . . .”
“You should have told me.”
“You hate dealing with money. That’s always been my job.”
It was true; their marriage was very traditional that way. She rarely asked about their finances, and he didn’t often volunteer. She just assumed he had it under control. But there’d never been such a downturn in their lifetimes. It was only getting worse still.
“I don’t care.” She felt heat radiating from her face. “You should have told me! What were you thinking?”
He stood and began pacing at the foot of the bed, his hands clasped behind his head. “Honestly I couldn’t bear to see you get as panicked as I was. I just wanted to fix it. But then our condos in Hawaii and Florida went vacant practically overnight and I was stuck with the bill, plus the mortgage on this apartment, and then the hospital furloughed our shifts—and on top of it you wanted us to help Adam. I knew we couldn’t swing it, but I didn’t want to disappoint you or him. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I had to do something. I had to get our money back.”
“Oh God.” If she was sure of anything, it was that Greg hated to lose. Once, on a family vacation to Las Vegas, he’d parked himself at the blackjack table for six volatile hours, doubling each bet to recoup what he’d already lost. Only when he was victorious did he finally walk away, jittery and drained, a measly two hundred dollars richer.
Before he even said the words, she pressed her fingertips to her temples. “Tell me you didn’t.”
He spoke in a rush, as if to gloss over the ugliest bits. “I cashed out a lot of our remaining stocks, borrowed some additional money from the charity, and started playing online poker. I got really good, and for a while, I was making thousands a week, keeping us going. But then I got arrogant, made a few bad calls, and needed more capital again, so I pawned off a few things—my Rolex watch, my father’s collection of gold coins. But the money wasn’t growing fast enough, and the bills were piling up like crazy—so I put the apartment up for sale just to see what kind of offer we could get. I still was hoping the market would come back up, or our properties would start paying off again, or I would hit it really big so we wouldn’t need to sell. So you would be spared any involvement in this crisis.”
He paused to gulp short bursts of air, as though his throat was closing. He gnawed on his bottom lip, snatching nervous glances at her reaction. She was glaring at him, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her mind flashed back to the three or four times over the last few months that he’d asked her to join him for lunch somewhere, usually at the last minute; now she realized that his desire to get her out of the house had probably been due to a Realtor coming around to show their place.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Her flat tone lacked inflection. “I can tell.”
In tacit assent, he resumed pacing, keeping his eyes on the floor. “We never got an offer on the apartment, and the creditors were starting to call, so I had to do something else to raise money right away—”
She jumped to her feet, cutting him off. “You better not have touched Adam’s inheritance!”
“No! Never. I’d rather be out on the street than bring him into it.”
Her pulse
was racing all the way down to her fingertips. A mistake that hurt their son could never be forgiven. There was a fine line between a screwup and a savage. “You swear to God?”
“Absolutely,” he declared, holding his hands up. “It’s ironclad.”
“Then why didn’t you want to give him access to it before? All that talk about him needing to be independent—that was crap, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “I was trying to protect him, too. No one can touch his trust until I die.” He paused gravely. “But if I were to grant permission now, my creditors could seize it as one of my assets.”
“Jesus. They’re already after you?”
“They were, until . . .” he rubbed his neck, glancing out the window. The words seemed difficult to get out. “A few weeks ago, I sold my life insurance policy for cash.”
She felt her stomach tense as if she were dropping from a great height. Of course he would think of doing that. For some years, he’d leveraged his medical knowledge into a lucrative consulting gig for one of the many hedge funds that specialized in buying up life insurance policies and that needed a doctor’s expertise in predicting patient mortality. By the time the side gig eventually dried up, Greg had become inured to the creepiness of the industry in a way she never had. She knew he considered it as professional as any other sector of finance.
He still wouldn’t look at her, and that’s when she knew there was something more, a dagger at the bottom waiting to break her fall.
“My settlement was enough to cover our immediate bills,” he went on, “but at what cost?” He turned toward her again, and she was startled to see that his blue eyes were clouded with tears. “There’s an auction website where you can put your policy up for sale. I accepted the highest bidder, a fantastic offer from some faceless hedge fund I’d never heard of, and thought that was the end of it. But I don’t think it was. I know I always told you this business wasn’t sketchy, but I might’ve been wrong.”