by Andrew Gross
“Oh, God…” Hauck groaned, sucking in a fortifying breath.
“I know, it’s horrible,” Annie said. She came up behind him and rested her chin on his shoulder, staring past him at the screen. “Are you okay?”
He nodded silently, not an answer as much as it was all he could do. A heavy weight fell inside him.
“I knew her,” he said.
CHAPTER THREE
The gleaming white Dassault Falcon touched down gracefully at Westchester County Airport, only a stone’s throw from the Greenwich town line.
The sleek six-passenger jet taxied off the runway to the NetJets private hangar. When the engines cut off, the door opened, and the attached stairway lowered down. An attractive couple stepped off—a stylish woman in her forties, blond hair flowing from underneath her cowboy hat, a fur draped around her shoulders; and her companion, dark complexioned, sunglasses, a little younger, in a navy cashmere blazer and jeans. The woman stopped at the top of the steps and said a word of thanks to the pilot, complimenting him on the landing.
“Always perfect, Mike.”
“Always a pleasure, Mrs. Simons. We’ll wait to hear from you on the Anguilla trip.”
“I’ll have Pam be in touch as soon as I know. You have a nice week.”
As they stepped down to the tarmac, both wore the tan of a week of spring skiing in Aspen.
Merrill Simons was forty-four and a household name around the charity circuit in Greenwich. Over the years she had chaired dozens of balls, served on a thousand committees, pretty much knew everyone. That went hand in hand with being married for twenty-three years to Peter Simons, chairman of Wall Street’s Reynolds Reid.
But that was all ancient history now. Their divorce had been finalized a year ago, six months after he had moved in with Erskina Menshikova, the Victoria’s Secret lingerie model, granting Merrill the house on Dublin Hill, the place in Palm Beach, and the penthouse overlooking the park on Fifth Avenue, not to mention continued use of the private jet.
The very same six months before the divorce was final, Merrill acknowledged, with a certain degree of relish, Reynolds Reid’s stock had begun to collapse, due to the firm’s heavy exposure in the mortgage crisis and the resulting wave of global sell-offs. She’d always suspected Peter didn’t know shit about dealing with a balance sheet, any more than he knew about being a father or keeping a marriage together.
She’d gotten that one right!
Now she enjoyed the thought that he was probably sweating bullets with a net worth about a quarter of what it was at the time of their settlement and was probably no longer able to get it up with his silky-thighed, golden-haired trophy catch. Which was only a matter of time anyway, she knew firsthand—regardless of Reynolds’s stock plunge.
Merrill had found her own “new chapter to write” as well, as Pete had aptly phrased it the day he told her he wanted to leave. Dani Thibault was handsome and successful in his own right. He had business interests throughout Europe—hotels and commercial office deals—partially financed by his ties to the Belgian royal family. He was a breeder on the polo circuit. Windsurfed. Skied like he’d been born on them. He didn’t seem to need her money, and he seemed to love how he had awakened her forty-four-year-old body from its long slumber. He did things to her that her husband hadn’t done since he was a trainee back in the bond department. Actually, had never done, if she was truthful! Dani seemed to know the world—he could line up fabulous evenings at private clubs in London, could get a table at El Bulli near Barcelona or Robuchon in Paris. Even her kids—Louisa was in L.A. working at a production company, and Jason was still a junior at GW—were taken with him too and loved the fact that their mom had pulled herself up and transitioned to a new and happier life. That she was getting laid. Merrill’s girlfriends in town, mired in their own tired, unfulfilling marriages, were ogling her in jealousy.
It was just that a few details that concerned her had recently come up. Regarding Dani.
She hadn’t shared them with him. She’d been keeping them to herself the entire trip. Things were getting deeper between them, and she’d begun to realize just how little she actually knew about him. About the man she was falling in love with.
And a little of what he had told her just wasn’t adding up.
As they deplaned, two cars were waiting on the tarmac. One, a black, chauffeured Mercedes C 63 AMG, was Dani’s. His familiar driver opened the door. The other was Merrill’s own silver Audi wagon.
“I have to head into the city,” Dani said in his hard-to-pin-down but definitely sexy European accent. She had guessed German; he said Dutch, with a touch of French in it, maybe, from Brussels. “I have meetings until five. Then we have this thing at the library tonight, right? I’ll change at the apartment, if that’s okay.”
“Of course. I’ll have Louis bring me in.”
“Look smashing.” He grinned, his hand sliding underneath her fur jacket and giving her butt a squeeze. “I’ll walk around until I spot the sexiest woman there.”
“Better be on time then,” Merrill said, winking coyly. “Someone else may have the same idea.”
“It’s been lovely sharing the slopes with you, Ms. Simons.” Dani clasped her fingers in his. “Let’s do it again.”
“And you, Sven.” She giggled, using the ski-instructor fantasy name she had given him after two bottles of champagne. “Please feel free to come off the trail whenever you’re in town.”
He smiled, drawing her to him to give her a kiss. Merrill put her palm against his shirt and held him off just slightly, brushing her lips across his cheek. “I’ll see you there.”
His BlackBerry rang. He sighed when he saw the caller. “I have to take this,” he said. He motioned to the driver and climbed into the backseat of the Merc. He waved to her. “Until tonight.”
The black doors shut and the darkened window rose, slowly obliterating Dani’s face.
Merrill’s houseman, Louis, packed her bags in the Audi. He opened the door and she got in.
Yes, everything is perfect, she reflected. The Audi passed through the wire gate of the private terminal and wound onto the access road leading from the airport.
Everyone loved Dani. He was charming, affable, and successful, and he made her feel twenty years younger in bed. She’d be a fool to let something get in the way.
She didn’t like the sensation of distrust gnawing inside her.
There was just this one thing.
“Back to the house, Ms. Simons?” Louis turned around and asked.
“Yes. I have to change. I have an appointment in town.”
CHAPTER FOUR
They didn’t talk about it much. Over their coffee. The grisly scene on TV.
Only that it was someone Hauck had known from around town, Annie lamenting how these break-ins were getting crazy and how lots of people were buzzing about it, even at the restaurant. She shook her head, bewildered. “And what kind of person could have done that to such a beautiful family? For what? Money?”
Hauck shook his head in dismay. He didn’t know.
He chewed on seven-grain toast, quiet, leafing through the papers, until Annie realized he was still affected by it. There was something there that didn’t seem to be going away.
“I know you feel you have to do something about this.” She came around the counter and put her arms around him from behind, stroked her knuckles softly against his face. “But that’s over now. You’re a businessman now, right?”
He nodded halfheartedly.
She winked and pinched his nose. “So, go biz.”
Hauck had been working for the Talon Group for six months now. He still felt a little awkward with the transition, being an executive for the first time in his life after being a cop for so long. Dressing up in a suit and tie, doing meet-and-greets at Fortune 500 companies, trying to close deals for data protection and internal forensics with corporate controllers and heads of company security who sometimes recognized his name from the prominent cases he h
ad worked.
Part of him still felt like a fish out of water. Even when he deposited his paycheck and saw about three times what he’d been earning before.
Hauck showered and shaved, his short dark hair barely needing to be brushed. He still looked trim and fit in his towel, despite being on the other side of forty. He dressed, choosing an oxford shirt and a salmon-colored tie to go with his blazer. Annie hopped in as he was getting out. It was a visiting day at her son’s school. Afterward she’d trade her dress for jeans and head to the restaurant.
In her towel and with wet hair, she straightened Hauck’s knot when he came in to say good-bye. She centered his jacket across his shoulders and smiled, pleased. “You look nice.”
“So do you,” he said, his finger tracing along the edge of her towel. “We should pick up on that thought later.”
“Sorry. Later I’ve got two turns for dinner and about two dozen lobster and jicama spring rolls to make. Rain check though.”
“Deal. Anyway, say hi to Jared for me. You remind him I want to see him at practice Wednesday.” Hauck had begun coaching a twelve-and-under hockey team and he was teaching Jared, Annie’s son, who was nine and had Down syndrome, how to skate. The other kids seemed to like having him around and all picked up on his positive attitude. Jared seemed to enjoy it too.
“I will. And you sure you’re okay, babe? I know how you can’t do anything about that poor family now and how that makes you feel.”
“I’m okay,” he said, patting her butt. “Promise.”
Annie smiled and pushed him to get out. “Like you would even tell me if you weren’t…”
Downstairs, Hauck tossed the newspaper and his briefcase into the front seat of his new, white BMW 550i—the one change he’d allowed in his life since accepting the job with Talon, having traded in his ten-year-old, gas-guzzling Bronco—and pulled out of the garage.
He drove down to Greenwich on the Post Road, which ran parallel to the highway. Greenwich was different now. Even here, downturn had hit hard. For the first time in years, you could find vacancies along the avenue. Whole floors were now empty in the red-brick office complexes where once-inviolable hedge funds had reigned supreme. Word was that half the gated homes along North Street were privately for sale.
For years, the joke was that “white-gloved” cops directed the traffic on Greenwich Avenue, past Saks and Polo.
Now the cops were gone—no need anymore.
Stopping at a light, Hauck went over his day. He’d been trying to track down this mortgage “thief” who had closed on three multimillion-dollar refinancings on the same property on the same day—the county clerk’s office having taken several months to catch up with the high volume in mortgage recordings—and was now, surprise to no one, nowhere to be found. He also had a one o’clock with Tom Foley, his boss, who wanted him to meet someone.
At every light, the image of the murdered Glassman family kept edging into his mind.
C’mon, he urged himself, flicking on the radio. Like Annie said, that chapter of your life is over now. He had to accept there was nothing he could do. He turned to the all-sports channel and wove onto Bruce Park toward the bottom of Greenwich Avenue, past the station where he used to work, minutes from his new, fancy office on Steamboat. He listened vacantly to the sports jockeys rambling on about the free-agent baseball signings, basketball playoffs, all the while his blood continuing to heat like a backed-up furnace and throbbing with a familiar ardor.
Are you okay? Ty…?
No, he wasn’t okay. He sat at the light with this pent-up feeling in his chest, fingers wrapped tightly around the wheel.
Until he couldn’t take it anymore.
Hell with the new chapter.
As the light changed, he jerked the Beemer into a sharp left onto Mason, barely avoiding a turning bakery truck, its horn blaring. He sped back up the hill and onto the Post Road, swinging a left onto Stanwich, his heart racing with the same familiar rush he’d felt for twenty years.
CHAPTER FIVE
About two miles down, Hauck hung a right at Cat Rock Road, the fancy houses thinning on each side. A mile down, he ran into a police barricade, the winding road narrowing to one lane. A blue and white police car was set up blocking the road, waving only local traffic through. Hauck downshifted. A chain of news vans had pulled up on the side of the road like a caravan.
Lowering his window as he approached, Hauck saw a patrolman he recognized, Rob Feretti.
“Lieutenant!” the cop exclaimed, peering in the window, instinctually addressing Hauck with his old rank. “Nice wheels…What brings you out here?”
“Steve Chrisafoulis up there?” There were lots of flashing lights up near the house.
“He is, sir.” Feretti nodded.
“You mind if I go through?”
“Thought you gave all this up?” The patrolman grinned. “The house is just up there on the left. It’s a bad scene in there.”
“I bet it is, Rob. Thanks.”
He was waved forward, around a short bend where there were two more blue-and-whites stationed, lights flashing, blocking the entrance to a drive. Feretti had radioed ahead and Hauck was let through. Just a few months ago he was in charge of these men. No way the fact that he was a civilian would change that now.
He drove between the stone pillars and down a long, curving driveway leading up to the large house. It was an impressive red-brick Georgian. Hauck parked at the far end of the circular drive. There was a heavy congestion of police vehicles and medical vans in front. In the months since he had left, he’d been back to the office only a couple times—once for the opening of the new first responders wing, and once for a retirement party for Ray Reiger, one of the old-timers on his staff.
A couple dozen police and crime-scene techs were crowded around the entrance. Hauck said hi to a few of them, who instinctively waved back with surprise. “Hey, lieutenant!” No one stopped him. He stepped past a uniformed officer stationed at the door. Inside, there was a large, two-story foyer with a round marble table and a winding staircase leading to the second floor.
A small crowd was gathered in a room off the entrance hall. Hauck stepped in. It looked like someone’s office, probably Marc Glassman’s. Built-in shelves filled with books and photos. Signed baseballs. The actual bodies were gone, but the blue outline drawn on the floor by the desk next to a large bloodstain was marked “1.” Marc Glassman had been shot downstairs, Hauck recalled. He took a look around and saw a wall safe open and the desk drawers removed and overturned on the floor. Police believe that the motive behind this family’s tragic end was simply a robbery gone bad…
Across the room, Hauck spotted Steve Chrisafoulis, who had taken over his job as head of detectives, talking to Ed Sinclair, one of his crew.
Steve gave him a look between confusion and surprise. “Whasamatter, new job not keeping you busy, Ty?”
“First big case…” Hauck shrugged to Steve, waving hi to Ed. “Couldn’t stay away.”
“Pretty morbid, if you ask me.” He and Steve shook hands. Hauck liked the man, who’d put in fifteen years in the city before he moved up to Greenwich. In fact, Hauck had pushed for him to take his place after Freddy Munoz was killed. The detective had been devoted to him. Follow you into hell with gas tanks on, he had once joked. Chrisafoulis shrugged apologetically. “Listen, Ty, I don’t mean to be short, but you can see there’s a lot going on…”
“I know that. I was wondering if I might look around.”
“Look around?”
“April Glassman,” Hauck said. He glanced at the blue-taped outline of her husband on the floor. “We worked on a few projects together over at the Teen Center.”
His stomach shifted at the bald-faced lie.
The new head of detectives scratched at his mustache. “Look, Ty, I don’t know…Fitz could show up anytime…” Fitz was Vern Fitzpatrick, Greenwich’s chief of police, Hauck’s old boss. Hauck had left the force after they’d had a parting on his last big
case, no longer certain where the chief’s loyalties were.
Instead, Hauck said, “You’re pretty sure this paints up as a robbery?”
Chrisafoulis shrugged. “Safe’s open. Whatever was in there’s gone. Drawers rifled through. The fourth such break-in in six weeks out in the backcountry…Same upstairs, next to the wife and daughter. Call me crazy…”
Hauck nodded grudgingly. “I heard there was a boy as well?”
Steve nodded. “In fact, it was the kid who called it in. Seven. Woke up with the whole thing happening. He hid out in a hall closet.”
“Unharmed?”
“Unharmed,” Steve confirmed. “Pretty resourceful bugger too. He snapped off a few shots on his sister’s cell phone as the perps took off.”
“Anything come back?”
“Two of them. Wearing ski masks, work uniforms. The lab is working them over now.” He grinned good-naturedly. “Maybe I ought to leave something for that press conference, huh, LT?”
A call came in scratchily over the detective’s handheld radio. Brenda, the department’s secretary, who used to be Hauck’s secretary too. “Chief wanted you to know, they scheduled a press conference at eleven thirty, lieutenant…”
Chrisafoulis responded, “Tell him I’ll be there.” He clicked off the radio and snorted back a laugh. “Must be a little strange to hear, huh?”
“You mean ‘lieutenant’?” Hauck shrugged it off. “Listen, I knew what I was doing, Steve.”
“You know, today, you’re welcome to have it back if you want to rethink it,” the detective said, gloomily looking around. “You assured me it was just a walk in the park out here in the burbs.”
Someone called for him from outside the room. Steve waved, bobbed the radio in his palm like a heavy weight.
“Those other jobs,” Hauck said, “if I remember right, one time the perps came in and found the family at home?”
“The Nelson place.” Steve nodded. “Out on Riversville.”