Everything to Lose: A Novel

by Andrew Gross

  “The same kind who can kill an innocent eighteen-year-old girl who was heading off to start her life. Someone who doesn’t think or feel like you or me. Who doesn’t have an ounce of remorse or sympathy inside. Someone psychopathic. That’s an animal out there. I’m sorry. I’m going to turn this over to the authorities now.”

  “Patrick, wait!” My voice rang with panic. “We can’t bring this to the police! Something else has happened . . .”

  I told him about Brandon not showing up for his doctor’s appointment. And how I hadn’t been able to reach Elena. For the past couple of hours. “That man’s got him. I know he has. The one who tried to kill me. Charlie. I can feel it, Patrick. I’m going out of my mind. He’s just an innocent boy. The man mentioned my son when he was trying to find me at the yard. I know he’s got Brandon.”

  “Hilary, we don’t know what’s happened. It could be any number of things. Maybe her phone isn’t working. Maybe she lost it. She could be—”

  “No! She would never have missed that appointment. We’d just spoken about it earlier in the day. She’s never ever done anything like this before. So we can’t bring in the police. At least not yet. Not until we know. We have his money. We can give them back the missing pages. We can—”

  I heard a beep. My phone vibrated. Another call coming in. I checked the screen. My heart surged in relief.

  Elena.

  “My God, it’s her! Thank God!” The panic of a moment ago now turned to elation. “I’ll call you back in a minute. Let me talk to them. Then we’ll decide what to do.”

  “All right. Call me right away.”

  I pressed the green answer button and the call switched over. I didn’t give her a second to answer. I shouted, “Elena! Elena, I was so worried. What happened? Why didn’t you go to Dr. Goodwin’s?”

  But in that very second my elation collapsed. Another voice answered me, a voice I’d heard for the first time only yesterday calling out for me in the darkened shed of the boatyard. And all he said was, about as calmly as a person could say such words:

  “Do you ever want to see your son alive again?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  I froze. A scream rose in me that tried to make its way up my throat, but remained bottled up inside. “Don’t you hurt him,” I said. More like begged. “He’s just an innocent boy. Don’t you hurt him or I’ll make you pay. I swear I will.”

  Tears rushed into my eyes.

  “You’ll make me pay? That right?” the man said with a chortle. “Darlin’, I think you’ve got things a bit reversed, though all the passion is admirable. I figure this is an unsettling time. But that isn’t what I asked you, is it?” He waited. It was clear he wanted me to say the words.

  “Yes, I want to see him,” I said. The phone was shaking in my hands.

  “Alive? I wouldn’t be mistaken in assuming that would be the preferred state?”

  “Yes, please, alive! Alive!” I said, the tears on my cheeks now turning from ones of anger to helplessness. “I beg you, please, don’t hurt him.”

  “And the nanny? I figure you’d probably like to see her again too?”

  “Elena. She’s got a family. She’s a religious woman. She’d never hurt anyone. Yes. Both of them. Please . . .”

  “Then what do you say we get right down to business. You know what we want from you, right?”

  I nodded, clutching the phone with both hands. “Yes. I know.”

  “I mean, all of it, right? You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I know what it is you’re looking for. The missing pages from the diary.” I swallowed and said, “We have them.”

  “Good. And we can never forget about the money, can we?”

  “I have the money too.”

  “Well, good then. So grab a pen. Here’s what you have to do.”

  I ran into Patrick’s kitchen and searched around frantically for a pen. I found one in a drawer and scribbled everything down on the back of an envelope.

  “You know Bruckner Boulevard? In the Bronx?”

  “Yes.” In the South Bronx. It was one of the routes for leaving or driving into Manhattan going north. It fed into 95 North from the RFK Bridge. “I know it.”

  “There’s an entrance ramp. On 138th Street? It feeds up onto the expressway . . .”

  “Yes,” I said again. “I know it.” It was a run-down area of auto-body shops and check-cashing storefronts. At rush hour, there was always a backup there to get on the expressway. But the area would be deserted at night.

  “I want you to be there at two A.M. That’s in five hours. Pull onto the access road that’s adjacent to the entrance ramp leading to the expressway. Park there and turn your headlights off.”

  “I got it. I understand, 138th Street.”

  “Put the money in a plastic garbage bag and the pages in a clear folder so I can see them.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just yourself. No cops. No heroes. I hope I’m making myself a hundred percent clear on that.”

  “Yes, I hear you,” I said. My heart was pounding. “I know what you’re asking for. I understand.”

  “I see any sign of the police, or even anyone in particular who might hail from Staten Island . . . One stupid act, darlin’, and you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. He seems like a sweet boy. Not a good thing to see your son’s life come to an end right in front of your eyes. Or maybe worse, to never know what happened to him.”

  “No, I understand, please . . . All I want is for him to be safe.”

  “Good then. You have that all down? I’m counting on you being as smart as you are pretty. What did you say your name was . . . Jeanine?”

  Jeanine. My middle name. That was the name I had given Rollie. That was somehow how he found me.

  “Yes.” I took in a breath. I knew what I said next would shock him. “I have it all perfectly, Charlie.”

  There was only silence. It seemed for a good ten seconds. I’m sure I knocked him for a loop, telling him I knew his name too. I just wanted him to know that there were stakes for us both. If he did something stupid. It was all I had.

  “Well, someone’s been busy, busy, busy . . .” He sniffed admiringly.

  “I just thought you should know there are stakes for you too. In case you decide to do something stupid. And for the state senator as well.”

  “You are really walking a dangerous path with that one, hon . . .”

  “All I want is my son back. And Elena. After tonight, nothing that’s happened here even concerns me. Just give me back my son. It’ll all be something no one will ever be able to prove.”

  “Just so we’re clear, you or your boyfriend get any different ideas, that boy of yours will be a bloody mess, so help me God.”

  I steeled myself with a breath. “I hear you.”

  “So two A.M. then. And that’s all the warning you get. Don’t bother calling this number back. I’m pulling the battery.”

  “Then how will I find you?” It would be dark and mostly deserted near that underpass. You could shoot someone there at that hour; no one would even hear the sound.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Patrick didn’t make it back until around ten.

  I’d called him as soon as I hung up, pretty much out of my mind with panic, imagining Brandon being held by that man, my sweet little boy, and Elena, who didn’t even know what she had stumbled into.

  All I could think of was how afraid Brandon must be.

  When I finally saw the car lights pull up in front of the house and then heard the key in the front door, I basically ran into Patrick’s arms, hurling myself around him and burying my face in his chest, unable to stop the nerves and tears.

  “I know,” he said, brushing my hair gently. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “We can’t let him hurt him, Patrick,” I said, afraid to lift my head and look him in the eye. “Whatever happens, I just want m
y son. Nothing else matters.”

  “And we’re going to get him,” he said. “I promise.” He put his hands on my shoulders and gently eased me away. What I saw was a confident smile. “Okay?”

  Not even sure I believed it, I nodded.

  “Okay. So we have less than five hours. Let’s figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “You have the pages?”

  “I have them.” He took out a clear plastic folder. Inside I could see three water-stained, handwritten pages, clipped out of the original diary. The last days of a girl murdered over twenty years ago. I looked at the one on top. I saw the name written with a kind of squiggly, girlish underlining underneath it.

  Streak.

  “These are all there are?”

  “This is what they kept as insurance so that no one would come after them. My father told them they would be released. According to Mrs. O’Byrne, they were never even going to keep them. They were going to turn them over to the police with the ransom. The ransom was basically Landry’s confession. They figured that would be enough to exhume Deirdre’s body and check for Landry’s DNA. For twenty years she had no idea who her daughter’s killer was until she heard that interview.” He set the folder down on the coffee table. “The diary was lost in the storm. If it hadn’t washed up on the Jersey shore, and some couple brought it back to her, she’d have no proof.”

  “I’m sorry.” I brushed the tears out of my eyes. “I’m sorry for what she had to go through all these years. I’m sorry that we got mixed up in it. She deserves a whole lot better than just turning these over to that bastard just to get back my son.”

  “All she asked was that no one else be hurt on account of these . . .”

  “I understand how she feels. I hope I get to meet her one day.”

  “You will.”

  He sank into the chair across from me.

  “Patrick, he said if he saw any sign of the police, he’d kill them both. I can’t take that risk. Once we have him back, I don’t care what we do. We have to turn ourselves in. But now . . . I just want the two of us to get out of this and not do anything crazy.”

  “You mean the three of us,” Patrick said.

  I shook my head. “He said just me, Patrick. No one else. Even you, he said, otherwise he’d show me what it was like to see my boy killed in front of my eyes.” My eyes flooded up again. “That’s too much for me to risk.”

  “You know there’s not even a chance that I’d let you go there alone.” Patrick’s blue eyes shone resolutely. “He’ll kill you, Hilary. And then he’ll kill the nanny and then your boy. You can tie him to Rollie’s murder. I want Brandon back safely as much as you, but there’s just no way.”

  “I can’t lose my son, Patrick. I can’t.”

  “We’re not going to lose him. Landry wants those diary pages as much as you want Brandon. But I’m not going to let him walk away either. And not just for Deirdre.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Knowing what we know now, is there any way that what happened down in South America looks like an accident? It’s entirely possible this guy is covering up at least two murders. Not to mention Rollie McMahon. So we have to decide how we get your son back and still do what’s right. To Landry. Because that’s the price. That’s all Mrs. O’Byrne wanted for her daughter’s memory. To make him pay. So that’s what I’m gonna do . . . Get your son back, hopefully without landing us in jail. And get him. Both of them. Wait here . . . I’ll be right back.”

  Patrick got up. I heard him open a door and go down to the basement. A minute later he came back up carrying the nylon bag with the money in it. He dropped it to the floor. Then he went into the kitchen and came back with a large black garbage bag.

  “We have a lot to go over,” he said, unzipping the case and transferring the bundled cash into the garbage bag. “So let’s get prepared.”

  From his waist he also took out a gun and placed it on top of the diary.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” I said, nerves shooting down my spine.

  “I hope so too.”

  “You ever use that?” I asked, pointing to the gun on the table.

  “Not in years.” He finished transferring the cash, then looked at me. He smiled, I knew trying to bolster me, but there was resignation in it, and duty; we were crossing a line in the sand for him too.

  “But fortunately I know a bunch of people who have.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Mirho strapped the boy and the Latino nanny into the Escalade. Their hands were bound. The kid kept babbling in these nonsensical sounds. Weird. Like he was touched in the head. The nanny kept praying in Spanish and trying to comfort the kid. “Relax, soon it’ll all be over,” Mirho said. “One way or another, you’ll be out of my hair.”

  That didn’t stop her.

  “Just shut the fuck up,” he tried, glaring at them.

  Finally he just taped their mouths shut.

  “Now that’s an improvement.”

  He drove, an hour before the meet time. He had other plans to finish. I’m sorry, he thought, but it just ain’t gonna end good for anyone. He rubbed his nose; he figured it was broken from the boatyard. It had swelled up to twice its size. And his ribs ached. It hurt to breathe, much less talk. The bitch was going to regret she had ever stumbled into this mess. He owed her.

  He covered the HK 9 millimeter that was on the seat next to him.

  “I know it’s past your bedtime,” he said as he came down the Bronx River Parkway. “Don’t let it worry you,” he said to the nanny, meeting her wide eyes in the rearview mirror. “You’ll all be catching up on your sleep real soon.”

  He pulled off the parkway and onto the Bruckner. It was dead this time of night. A totally abandoned part of the city. You could give money away and you’d have trouble finding anyone to come around.

  His cell rang. Clearly it could be only one person. “Mirho,” he answered.

  “Where are you?” the senator asked.

  “Getting you back a good night’s sleep, what you hired me to do. I’ve got the gal coming with the cash and the journal. Give me an hour. You’ll have what you want.”

  “That woman’s only a part of it,” the senator said. “Those pages came from somewhere. There are still two others out there who know. You think there’s still a way to keep this quiet?”

  No, there was no way to keep this quiet anymore, Mirho knew.

  “Just what are you up to?” Mirho asked.

  “Let’s just say I’m doing what comes naturally. However this goes, it’s all going to end tonight.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  At close to two in the morning we made it to the Bruckner in twenty minutes. We drove separately, me in the Acura, which Patrick had had a friend check out and remove from it a GPS device, and Patrick in his truck. We pulled onto a deserted side street in the Bronx just across the RFK Bridge, about ten blocks from the meet site.

  The area was dark and abandoned, graffiti all over the empty row houses, and an abandoned lot. I’d have been petrified to be here at this time of night were it not for Patrick. We parked, he came over and got into my car, and we went over the plan one more time.

  He’d be in the cargo compartment hidden from view until Brandon and Elena were safely in the car. I had the money in the plastic bag next to me on the passenger seat and Deirdre’s diary pages in a clear plastic folder.

  “Whatever you do, don’t get out of the car,” Patrick instructed me, I think for the third time. “Hand him the money first—and don’t hand over the diary until Brandon and Elena are safely in the car. Ask to see his hands if he keeps one of them hidden. You’re not armed; you want to know what he’s hiding. Say you’re uncomfortable otherwise. If you see anything resembling a gun, say something like ‘That gun is scaring Brandon.’ Anything. Just so I’ll know. Remember, he wants those pages as much as you want your son, so keep your wits about you and just make it an exchange of goods. If it’s anything else, I’ll be
here. As soon as they’re back in your car and you’ve handed him the pages, hit the gas and get the hell out of there. You’ll be facing north, so jump on the expressway as fast as you can.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “You don’t have to think about what’s going to happen to him. All you have to do is keep your wits about you and you’ll have your son. If he makes a wrong move, I promise, it’ll be his last.”

  “Please let me do this alone, Patrick. I’m scared. What if he sees you in there?”

  “He wants his merchandise, Hilary. If he doesn’t get it, you can nail his boss’s ass for murder. Just don’t give him the journal pages before Brandon and Elena are safely back. Whatever he does. This is what he does for a living. You have to stay strong.”

  “I’m so sorry that Brandon has to go through this,” I said.

  “I know. But it’ll all be over soon.”

  I checked the time. It was eight before two. My heart was beating about three times its normal rate. “Now put down the rear windows.” Patrick gave me a squeeze on the arm. “I’ll climb in back. Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.” I heard the crack in my voice. Then I shook my head. “No. I’m not okay. I’m scared to death. For Brandon.”

  “C’mere . . .” He leaned across and gave me a comforting hug. I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to wake up from this and find out it had all been a dream. A horrible one. He let me go and he held on to my hand. He squeezed it. “I promise. He’s gonna be okay.”

  I sucked in a breath. “Okay . . .”

  I lowered the rear windows. Patrick went around and climbed into the back. He pulled a blanket over himself, and some shopping bags I had back there, and a mat I used for exercise. My windows were darkened, so there was no way anyone could see.