Reckless (37 page)
Authors: Andrew Gross
“I’m afraid I’m not exactly with the local police any longer,” Hauck admitted. He explained what he was doing now, then why he had called, keeping the reason vague. “Do you ski?”
“Sure. I’m Swiss, Ty. I grew up in a village near Davos. In younger days I was quite the racer.”
“Good. I need some information from another of your resorts. From Gstaad.”
“Gesh-
staad,
” the Swiss said, drawing out the German pronunciation. “Beautiful place there. What is it you need?”
“I want you to look at only the five-star hotels there for me. Just the very top echelon.”
“Understood,” the Swiss said. “The Grand Hotel Park. The Grand Hotel Bellevue. The Gstaad Palace. Do you need a booking, Ty? If so, I recommend you call the Ministry of Tourism, not me.”
Hauck laughed politely. “No, not a booking, Marcus, sorry. I’m going to give you a date. On or around June twenty-sixth of last year. I’m also going to give you a series of names…”
“The twenty-sixth of June, only the top hotels…Go ahead. What is it you’re looking for, Ty?”
“I’d rather not go into it, if that’s okay. It’s part of a private investigation. You understand.”
“I understand perfectly,” the inspector said without argument. “You may have heard, we Swiss are used to matters of privacy. So tell me, what it is that you need?”
“The hotel guest lists for those days,” Hauck said. “All of them, if you can.”
N
aomi flew back to Washington that Monday afternoon and went straight to her office across from the Treasury.
She threw herself behind her desk, which was submerged under piles of memos and security reports that had stacked up in her absence. So far there was still no word on the Mercedes. She tried to convince herself over and over that it was al-Bashir, not
her,
like Ty had said, who had put his family in danger. But still, she couldn’t shake the sting of feeling responsible. The boy’s panicked face, peering out the back window, had haunted her all the way home. She sank back wearily in her chair under the weight of never having lost anyone before.
She logged on to her computer and scanned for a message from her contact at the Swiss Federal Office of Police’s financial crimes division. With Thibault and al-Bashir gone, there was only one course left—to try to prove Hassani was in Gstaad at the same time as the others. That some kind of conspiracy had been hatched there.
Then there was the added worry of just how to proceed. Ty’s concern was real. Someone always seemed one step ahead of them. There were only a handful of people on the inside who knew, and she had grown to understand, as Ty said, this was no longer something she could go on managing in the usual way.
She was scanning through her e-mails and calls, sipping a latte to fight the jet lag, when her boss, Rob Whyte, appeared with a knock at the door.
“Talia said you were back.”
Naomi straightened up, surprised. She cleared her throat. “Just got in now.”
“I’m sorry,” Whyte said, coming in, “about what happened, Naomi.” He pulled out a chair across from her desk. “Still no word?”
She shook her head. “I think we’ve got to proceed as if they’re gone.”
Her boss nodded. “You realize, Naomi, there’ll have to be a review of this. How it all went down.”
“I understand.”
“I know how it must make you feel. You had him.”
“Thanks,” she said, growing suspicious that he was buttering her up for something.
Whyte sat. His tie was loosened, and for the first time Naomi felt something unspoken and distant between them, a stiffness in his eyes. Was it what had happened in London or something more? She had always trusted him completely. Why not? Rob had been JAG. An ambitious lawyer. Passionate about the good they were doing. One day he would go on to bigger things. It gave her a queasy feeling holding important information back from him. But Hassani had recruited al-Bashir. He had seduced Glassman and Donovan. Something had gone awry. And this was what she felt she had to do right now.
Her boss rocked back in the chair. “So where do we stand?”
“Back at square one. Al-Bashir was the only one who could fully implicate Hassani. Now that he’s gone, I’m going to have to try to retrace some of the movement of cash between Thibault and Hassani’s firms. It’s possible there were other people in play. I’ll try to see if we can find a fit.”
Whyte nodded, his fingers folded in front of his face. “That thing in Serbia, Naomi, what you did was crossing the line. It could get our department in a lot of trouble.”
Naomi shrugged. “I did what I felt I had to do, Rob.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that, when Justice finds out…They’re already bent out of shape we didn’t bring them in on taking al-Bashir into custody. They’re calling us a bunch of amateurs.”
“I don’t care what they’re calling us. There was no time.”
He nodded. “Listen…there’s something else. Hassani is in the States.”
“The States?”
Naomi put down her coffee and fixed her gaze directly on him.
“Uh-huh. He’s here for the Reynolds Reid annual meeting. You know he helped arrange that preferred financing for the Bahraini royal family…”
Naomi’s blood began to surge. “Then we can pick him up, Rob. We can question him. He’s here!”
“Question him on what, if you don’t mind me asking? On some perfectly legal flow of funds that, at worst, might tie him to Dieter Thibault? Which he would clearly insist he knew nothing about. You haven’t established a single direct contact between him and Thibault. Only that phone conversation with al-Bashir. He’ll deny it meant anything, just as al-Bashir did. What’s there to use as leverage against him? Two co-conspirators, both dead? This is a big fish, Naomi…”
She looked back at him, suddenly feeling something different, a weakening in her boss’s will. A loss of nerves? His career path suddenly in jeopardy, would he take on the very institutions he might one day look to for a deal?
Or maybe it was worse…
“That auditor’s position up in Montana,” Naomi said, smiling cautiously, “you’re thinking that may not be such a joke…”
Whyte got up. He smiled only enough to let her know he wasn’t amused. “Come back to me with something firm. Facts, Naomi—not conspiracies. You’re a goddamn Treasury agent, not Jack Bauer on
24
.”
In his gaze Naomi suddenly saw that everything was now in play.
Her
future as well. That auditor’s position up north, it might not be Rob’s next posting.
She might get there first.
“I’m working on something, Rob…”
T
hat first night back, Annie came over. Mondays, Hauck generally cooked. Then they’d hang out on the couch and watch a game or rent a movie. Monday was Annie’s only night off and the last thing she needed was to spend it at a restaurant.
That Monday, Hauck felt a little nervous how things would go.
He knew he hadn’t been completely honest with her. About what had been taking up his attention as of late. Where he had been in the past week and why. It was time to come clean. As she came up the stairs, in a pair of torn white jeans and a cute orange tee, she waved brightly, but he could tell in her reserved smile that something was a little wrong.
“Hey, stranger.” He gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Glad you’re back,” she said, hugging him back.
Tonight, Hauck was doing lamb burgers on the grill, with caramelized onions in balsamic and topped with Danish bleu.
“Sounds awfully good,” she said. “Spoil me.”
They opened some wine and sat on the deck overlooking the sound, feet up on the railing. A nice breeze came off the water. She didn’t ask about the trip. It was like she was waiting for him to volunteer it. They chatted about the restaurant. How it was time to get his boat in the water. He asked about Jared. She said he was doing okay. The conversation felt like the weight of a two-ton truck pressed across his back. They both felt it. There was something distant between them tonight.
How could there not be?
Hauck stood up. “Maybe I should go fire up the grill…”
“Listen, Ty—”
“Me first.” He sat back down. “I’ve actually got something to say. About where I was. What it is I’ve been up to lately. I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Annie, and—”
“I know what you’ve been up to, Ty…”
He stopped, looked at her. Annie’s eyes were round and totally nonjudgmental. Still, her gaze made him feel a bit ashamed.
She said, “I let myself in here while you were away.” She put her wine down and faced him. “I wasn’t snooping. I’d left my earrings the last time I was here and I went upstairs to look for them. I found them, on your dresser. Elena must’ve put them there…I also found something else.”
Hauck swallowed. The breath he inhaled almost hurt him; he knew what it was.
“I found that picture, Ty. It was right there. I think you know the one I’m talking about. That gal who was killed…What was her name, April?”
“April.” He nodded a little guiltily.
“And you.” Her eyes stayed solidly on him. Not accusingly; more like she was hurt. “Who was she, Ty? I’m not jealous. Well, maybe a little…But you’ve been different since the very day that happened, and you withheld it from me. I think I deserve to hear the truth.”
“She was just a friend, Annie,” Hauck said. “I promise, that’s all. That photo was taken a long time ago.”
“I know it was a long time ago, Ty. So
why…
Why did you have to hide it all from me? Why couldn’t you just tell me? Whatever your connection to her. You knew her—and not just from around town.”
He nodded, releasing a contrite blast of air from his cheeks. “There’s a period in my life, Annie, I’ve never gone into much. With anyone. Not just you. After Norah was killed. As things started to fall apart with Beth…”
He told her about how he walked out of his job at the NYPD. The dark period that followed. The guilt he bore. About not being able to find a reason to even get up in the morning. “One night I just sat in my car in front of the store I was heading to when it happened. I was so angry…I took a rock and hurled it through the window. The cops came…If I wasn’t a cop, I would have spent the night in jail. Maybe it was depression.” He shrugged. “Maybe it was just blame. I had a lot of it. I didn’t know how to talk about it then. Clearly, I’m not exactly a whiz now…April just helped me back, that’s all. We met in a depression group. We started to meet, afterward, for coffee. I needed someone then. I don’t know how I would have made it on my own. I don’t even think about that period now, but when I saw she was killed…”
Annie stared at him. “You’ve been following up on her death, haven’t you? All this time. You don’t think I saw it in your face? You don’t think I felt that something had changed? That maybe I had done something—”
“You haven’t done anything, Annie.”
All of a sudden her expression changed and her hand covered her mouth. “Oh my God! That’s what the attack on Jared was all about, wasn’t it? It was meant for you—to pressure you off the case. Did you keep that from me too? Did they try to hurt my son because of you?”
He nodded, flattening his lips. “Yeah, I think so, Annie.”
“Oh, Ty…”
Her eyes glistened. “How could you possibly keep something like that from me?” She stared, tears about to flow, as if she was looking into a face she had seen a million times but that had now changed. “What have you gotten into, Ty? You have a new life for yourself. You have
me.
What hold does she have on you? What is it that’s dragging you back there, Ty?”
“I’m not dragged back anywhere, Annie…”
“Yes, you are.” She nodded. “
You are…
This woman’s dead, Ty.
I’m here.
Why are you willing to throw it all away? Why can’t you love me like that?”
“I do love you, Annie,” he said. “I do.”
“No.”
She shook her head with tears in her eyes. “Not like that.”
He wanted to reach out and take her in. He wanted to tell her there was more to it. More than he was saying. But what hurt him was that she was right. They had only made one commitment to each other. Dealing in the truth. Honesty. She deserved that one thing.
And he had withheld it from her.
“I won’t even ask you where you’ve been.” She tried to smile bravely. “I mean, it’s not my business. You’re a good man, Ty. I know that, and I know you’d do anything for me. And for Jared. You’ve already proven that. You treat him like a son. But he’s not; I know that. And I’m not your wife either.”
“I was in Serbia, Annie. And London.” He swallowed. “I was with an agent from the Treasury Department, and we were tracking someone who may have been responsible for her death.”
“Serbia?”
Annie shook her head, wiping away a tear. “London. Well, at least it wasn’t anywhere exciting or glamorous, right?”
“We weren’t exactly on a Butterfield and Robinson bike tour, Annie.”
That made her smile. “I’m sure. Was it dangerous?”
He looked at her, not really wanting to say. Not now. “I guess.”
“You guess…” She sniffed a little cynically and shook her head. “So did you catch him? The person who did this thing.”
“No. He’s dead. Annie, listen…” He took hold of her hand and squeezed it in his own. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I held things from you. I’m sorry to have hurt you in any way. That’s the last thing I wanted to do. Or that you deserve.”
“You’re damn right it’s the last thing I deserve. But I can’t make you love me either, can I? And I deserve
that
too. I don’t need the roses or the Valentine’s Day hearts or some big commitment. But I deserve to be loved, don’t I?”
“I do love you, Annie…”
“No.” She shook her head. “I meant like her.”
She smiled at him one more time, then glanced at her watch. “I guess firing up the grill doesn’t exactly seem like the thing to do right now.”
He looked at her and tried to smile back. “No, I guess not.”