My heart instantly ticked up to a frenzied pace, beating so loud I was sure she could hear it. The rush of adrenaline made me nauseous and light-headed. I tried to hide my nervousness. I had to control the interview. I needed her to trust me, to believe me. I sucked in a deep breath and released it, slow and measured. Turning away from Detective Simmons, I walked over to the large window on the far side of the room and focused on the lush green of the park below.
“My husband and son…are they all right?” I asked.
“Yes, Ms. Maguire, they’re fine. I believe they’re on their way and should be here quite soon, in fact. So I’d like to get this wrapped up. Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
I sighed, and, with my back still turned on Detective Simmons, I shook my head.
“Just start at the beginning,” she said.
I took another deep breath. “Well…I had just dropped my son off at his father’s apartment. My husband and I had recently separated, and Conner was spending the holiday weekend with him. I hadn’t been home for more than a few minutes when I heard the bell ring.”
I became quiet and lost in my thoughts as I inwardly recalled seeing Ty for the first time. I leaned my shoulder against the window frame and gazed down at Golden Gate Park, stretching westward for several miles before me. I had never felt such consuming despair in all my life. I wrapped my bruised arms around myself, hoping it would somehow hold me together and keep the fragments of my heart from escaping the broken shell of my body.
Detective Simmons asked questions from behind me, but I couldn’t focus on what she was saying. I tuned her out. I couldn’t face reliving everything in order to answer her questions, especially when she broached each one with suspicion. I rolled my head against the window as I looked down, willing the tears to stop. I wished I could push through the glass and escape. I wished the detective would go away and leave me in peace. I wished that I could erase the last week of my life.
No.
I wished Tyler would come back to me again. To save me, to hold me, to hurt me. Anything to have him near me once more. I felt so twisted to want that, but I couldn’t deny what was in my heart, what I wanted down deep inside.
“Ms. Maguire, I realize this is difficult, but we really need to continue with your statement. If you would just sit back down and focus on the timeline, we could get through this much easier.”
We? Easier? Are you kidding me? She had no clue, and if I were to confess everything, she’d probably have me committed. But maybe I deserved that.
“Ms. Maguire? Would you please come back and continue? Ms. Maguire?”
I pulled my head away from the glass, sighing with the amount of effort it took, and wiped away the tears. “Yes, Detective, just...give me a moment.”
I turned around to face her and walked into the soft light. As our eyes met, she winced in regret. That made me feel even more violated, as if she saw the stain I carried, like it was written all over my body, all over my face. I wondered what she was thinking. She knew who I was, where I lived, and the bloody trail left behind there. Would she guess the real reason before I gave her my version of the story? What could I tell her to alter her suspicions? The truth was not an option. I vowed to keep that to myself and twist the facts to serve me better, to serve him better. She would never understand. Ty certainly didn’t. Nobody would. Least of all me.
“Why don’t you lay back down in bed and rest while we go over all this?” Simmons asked. “I think if you were more comfortable, you might get through it easier, all right?”
I walked around the bed, clutching the rails for support. I sat on the edge and pulled my legs up under the rough sheets. Detective Simmons’ eyes grazed over my body, her lips pursing at the bruises and scrapes covering my limbs. She turned her head away and steadied her emotions before she looked back up with a false smile.
“Okay, you left off when you heard the doorbell ring. What happened next?”
I laid my head back and recalled the morning that had changed the course of my life forever. I told her very little, only what Tyler and I had agreed upon, that he had shown up at my door, thinking I was Erin, and I had straightened him out. I described how a strange man had broken in and attacked us both before we escaped in my car; how he attacked us again at that Oregon motel; and how Tyler had saved us from certain death. I took her all the way to the moment I was kidnapped by Dmitri’s man and delivered to his home. When I was finished, Detective Simmons peered at me through narrowed eyes as she tried to decipher whether I was being honest or not.
“So you went willingly with Mr. Karras? You weren’t taken forcibly from your home…without your consent?”
I sighed and shook my head. “No, Detective, I was not kidnapped. I went willingly with Mr. Karras. We drove to San Francisco, and after he informed me that he had straightened everything out, he bought me a plane ticket home and arranged for a car to take me to the airport.” I hung my head again, remembering the true course of events, even as I chronicled the lies. “That was how I was taken by Dmitri’s man, while I waited for a ride to the airport. They took me, Detective Simmons, not Mr. Karras. He tried his best to protect me, to keep me safe. If it weren’t for him…well… I don’t want to think about what might have happened, what would have become of me.”
“So what happened after you were taken from the hotel?”
I turned away and stared into the darkened room. “I can’t get into that, Detective. It was…humiliating and…degrading. The man responsible is dead and no amount of justice can be gained. So I have no desire to discuss it…with you or anyone else. Ever.”
Simmons eyed me curiously. “What about Dmitri Chernov’s role in your kidnapping and assault? Don’t you think he deserves a measure of justice?”
I was tired of her questions, sick of discussing it. I didn’t want to think about anything associated with the last five days of my life. I cocked my head to the side and looked straight at Detective Simmons.
“Right now, I’m done with all of this. I just want to go home. It’s the FBI’s problem now, right?” I asked and she nodded. “Well, then, let them worry about Dmitri Chernov. I’m finished. With everyone...including you, Detective. So if you wouldn’t mind, please close the door on your way out.”
Detective Simmons huffed and gathered herself up. “Okay. That’s all for now, but I’ll be in touch, Ms. Maguire.”
“Actually, Detective, I would rather you weren’t. You may speak to my attorney, if you must, but otherwise, I prefer to be left alone and never speak of this again.”
“That’s fine, Ms. Maguire, but the FBI wants answers. If you don’t talk to me, they might show up asking all kinds of uncomfortable questions. Is that what you want?”
“What I want is to be left alone. Goodbye, Detective.”
I closed my eyes and turned my head away, effectively ending the interview and praying for an end to this episode of my life.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Tyler
Eight Months Later
I stood outside the door of the federal courthouse on Market Street in San Francisco and looked around at the city I’d called home for nearly ten years. A comforting flood of familiar intimacy overwhelmed me. Even on this chilly winter afternoon, with the sky a steel grey and threatening rain, I realized how much I had missed this beautiful city by the bay. Just a few months ago, I’d been longing for the cool, foggy days of summer and the warm, sunny days of autumn here in The City. I’d spent last summer living—or maybe hiding would be more accurate—in Chicago, where the heat and humidity had nearly driven me mad.
In October, when the FBI had detected a threat against my life, I was allowed to travel back to Melbourne, Australia, escorted by my own private special agent, where I marked what would have been my first wedding anniversary alone in a small, sparsely furnished apartment, courtesy of the United States government. It was there I could remember Nick best, as he was as a boy, unbound by the complications of physical pain and chemical
dependence, carefree and unbridled, his eyes worry-free, and his laugh spirited.
I needed to remember him that way, before my actions changed the course of our lives. I had always been so hard on Nick, my way of keeping him at a distance, of breaking free of my family. And all he had ever wanted was to be close to his big brother. I never saw the sacrifices he’d made for me. I was too preoccupied with my own life, my own anger and resentment.
He was everything I was not, but believed myself to be. I never was that man I saw in the mirror. My disgrace at coming to terms with that was unbearable. But in the end, Nick had taught me something: that family meant acceptance without judgment, forgiveness without condition, and love without expectation. That all we are is who we surround ourselves with and let into our hearts. Those were hard-learned lessons.
I took a lot of time to reflect back on my life over the last year and all that had happened, especially since I’d last spoken to Hannah late last spring. I vowed never to allow myself to be ruled by my emotions again, a promise I should have known I could never actually keep. It just wasn’t in my nature, I guess.
Now that I was back on American soil, I yearned for the familiarity of home and the tenderness of loved ones, neither of which I currently had. It was difficult to be here and no longer feel at home. Even still, it was wonderful to be standing in San Francisco again.
I loved its rhythm and vibrancy, the eclectic mix of cultures, and the endless possibilities to entertain and explore. Mostly, this was the only place where I’d felt connected and truly happy. I longed, with every fiber of my body, to feel connected like that again. But, although I had once called this home, and I could not imagine living anywhere else, I knew now that it was not the actual place, but rather the people in my life that had made me feel that way. And now, without Jillian and Nick here to hold onto, I felt like a kite with its string cut, flying wildly in the breeze, not knowing if I would return to earth, and, if I did, where I would land and what condition I would be in.
It was disconcerting to be among all that was so familiar yet feel that the heart that beat within my chest was not actually my own. I was lost, like a child separated from a parent in a large crowd. Not alone, yet quintessentially lonely. I needed to find home again, and now that so much had changed, I felt it might actually be possible to do so.
Eight months ago, when I thought I had no other choice, I turned my back on my own life and identity. I left my brother to be buried by strangers. I said goodbye to Hannah and broke her heart, hoping she would move on more easily and forget me. It was stupid of me, though, to think that I could put her out of my thoughts and move on. The longer she was apart from me, the more I felt pulled toward her. Until now, I’d had no hope of ever reconciling with Hannah.
That frame of mind was not ideal as I detoxed myself from all the booze and pills. It took many difficult weeks of drying out and counseling to learn to be clean and sober again, and then many more to remember and reconcile with the man I used to be.
With Herculean effort, I came to terms with the monster I’d become. I took emotional responsibility for nearly raping then kidnapping an innocent woman, for exposing her to danger so extreme she very well could have died or, at the very least, lost her freedom and any sense of her humanity.
Even the lives of Dmitri’s men, which I took in defense of Hannah and myself, weighed heavy. It was impossible not to measure Hannah’s life, or even my own, in greater balance than the lives of those I took, but just as Nick had joined Dmitri’s crew under duress, I had no way of knowing who those men were, why they had chosen that life, or the loved ones they had left behind because of my actions. I faced down each and every facet of that monster and vanquished him forever. Then I worked hard every day to carve out a new man who could somehow straddle the world I’d created between.
Afterwards, I spent months preparing and testifying at every hearing prior to Dmitri Chernov’s trial. I had returned to San Francisco this week to finish up, countering Dmitri’s accusations against me with the story Hannah had sworn me to tell. I was assured by the federal prosecutor that I was more believable, but testifying to the lies bothered me nonetheless. I was still on the stand completing the last of my promised testimony when Dmitri suffered a mild heart attack in the court room. He clutched frantically at his chest as sweat popped from his ashen face. The courtroom erupted into loud chaos when the bailiff jumped to Chernov’s side, grasping his arm as he settled Dmitri onto the floor.
He was taken by ambulance to San Francisco General, at the government’s expense, where a procedure to unblock an artery was being undertaken when he suffered a major stroke. Dmitri lingered for several days with tubes and wires attached to his withered body in an attempt to keep him alive, so that he might face the justice he so richly deserved. But fate had intervened, and Dmitri died early yesterday morning. While I hoped he burned in hell, I decided it best to never think of him again.
I turned my thoughts to my future instead. And it was my future again, not an assumed one. There was no threat against me anymore. Over the last few months, Dmitri’s organization had collapsed without clear leadership, and its members had moved on within the broad confines of the vory v zakone. I was free again.
I raised my face up into the cold breeze, closed my eyes, and imagined what my life would be like now, where I could find my heart again. I knew the answer to that already. I would follow the echoing heartbeat to the Puget Sound and up to Seattle’s Eastside, where I knew Hannah still lived.
“Yo, Karras!” a loud voice rang out.
I opened my eyes. It was Agent Aaron Moody. “Aaron, I’m glad you came. I wanted to see you one last time and thank you for all you’ve done.”
“Hey, man, it’s my job,” he said.
But I knew it was much more than that. We’d spent a great deal of time together over the last eight months after Moody was assigned to protect me. He told me about his family, the high school sweetheart who had become wife, and about his three kids. He also explained how his folks had been murdered during an armed bank robbery when he was still in law school, and how that had motivated him to join the FBI.
I shared parts of my sad story, as well, about my parents and sister, my wife and child, how Hannah and I had grown close, how we’d clung to each other in our most desperate moments. With so much of our lives laid bare between us, Moody and I had come to think of each other as great friends, and so, when the trial was discontinued after Dmitri’s death, Agent Moody did me two great favors.
First, he pulled a great deal of strings and had Nick’s body disinterred from The City’s cemetery, allowing me to bury my brother next to my parents, sister, and Jillian. I was grateful they all now lay at rest together, and it gave me great peace to know that Nick no longer lay lost and forgotten. I ordered a new monument engraved with all their names and an empty space at the bottom for my own someday.
After a great deal of professional therapy and personal reflection, I’d finally found a small measure of peace regarding all their deaths. It was a matter of understanding why I had become so rigid in my values, and accepting accountability for my role in their lives, knowing that I could have, and should have, chosen a path less selfish. I held everyone to a standard I felt I deserved, while not looking hard enough at myself and realizing where I fell short.
I accepted all my shortcomings and forgave myself as best I could. I had to let Jillian go, and Nick, too. I needed to move on. It was the only way I could survive.
To that end, Agent Moody had found out where Hannah was currently living. Against orders, I had tried to contact her, but she’d moved, and her phone numbers were disconnected. I asked Moody if he could provide that information for me, and he did so, against agency protocol, because he knew, almost better than I did myself, just how much Hannah meant to me. Moody was a romantic, a sucker for a happy ending.
“You’ve done much more than your job,” I replied.
Moody clapped me on the shoulder and shook my ha
nd. “The FBI appreciates all your hard work and patience, my man. It’s too bad it didn’t all work out.”
“Oh, but it did,” I argued. “That bastard is exactly where he belongs.”
Moody snorted a short laugh. “I’d like to think so. Anyway, you take care of yourself, you hear? Stay in touch,” he said. “And good luck. I really hope you find what you’re looking for, man.” He waved goodbye as he walked down the sidewalk, away from the federal court house.
I smiled at his back and turned northeast up Market Street to the Embarcadero BART station which I knew would take me to SFO, San Francisco International Airport. In a little more than three hours, I would be in Seattle and one step closer to the beat of my heart.
Chapter Fifty
Hannah
It was a very cold day, but, thankfully, it was sunny and dry, a minor miracle for the Seattle area in January. I dressed in several thin layers, easily shed when I eventually warmed up. I planned on a two-hour run up at the Tradition Plateau trailhead on Tiger Mountain. Though the hike up was steep, once up on the main trail, it was mostly flat and firm.
I loved to run in the forested wetland. It was so densely green with pine and fern, the smell so fresh and earthy. It helped clear my head and calm my soul, and though there were always other hikers about, it was never crowded.
It was mostly a safe place to hike, walk, or run, but there had recently been an incident where a man had used a stun gun in an attempt to incapacitate a female conservation corps worker tending to a trail. She fought back and escaped unharmed, but now trail users were urged to travel in groups. That wasn’t an option for me this day, but I wasn’t going to let it stop me. I kept my head up, my eyes on the trail ahead, and let the rhythm of my footfalls hypnotize my mind into a relaxed state.
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