No Way Back

CHAPTER ONE

He was handsome.

Not that I was really checking anyone out, or that I even looked at guys in that way anymore-married going on ten years now, and Neil, my youngest, my stepson actually, just off to college. I glanced away, pretending I hadn’t even noticed him. Especially in a bar by myself, no matter how stylish this one was. But in truth I guess I had. Noticed him. Just a little. Out of the corner of my eye…

Longish black hair and kind of dark, smoky eyes. A white V-neck T-shirt under a stylish blazer. Late thirties maybe, around my age, but seemed younger. I would’ve chalked him up as being just a shade too cool-too cool for my type anyway-if it wasn’t that something about him just seemed, I don’t know … natural. He sat down a few seats from me at the bar and ordered a Belvedere on the rocks, never looking my way. His watch was a rose-gold chronometer and looked expensive. When he finally did turn my way, shifting his stool to listen to the jazz pianist, his smile was pleasant, not too forward, just enough to acknowledge that there were three empty seats between us, and seemed to say nothing more than How are you tonight?

Actually the guy was pretty damn hot!

Truth was, it had been years since I’d been at a bar by myself at night, other than maybe waiting for a girlfriend to come back from the ladies’ room as part of a gals’ night out. And the only reason I even happened to be here was that I’d been in the city all day at this self-publishing seminar, a day after Dave and I had about the biggest fight of our married lives. Which had started out as nothing, of course, as these things usually did: whether or not you had to salt the steaks so heavily-twice, in fact-before putting them on the grill-he having read about it in Food & Wine magazine or something-which somehow managed to morph into how I felt he was always spoiling the kids, who were from Dave’s first marriage: Amy, who was in Barcelona on her junior year abroad, and Neil, who had taken his car with him as a freshman up at Bates. Which was actually all just a kind of code, I now realized, for some issues I had with his ex-wife, Joanie. How I felt she was always belittling me; always putting out there that she was the kids’ mother, even though I’d pretty much raised them since they were in grade school, and how I always felt Dave never fully supported me on this.

“She is their mother!” Dave said, pushing away from the table. “Maybe you should just butt out on this, Wendy. Maybe you just should.”

Then we both said some things I’m sure we regretted.

The rest of the night we barely exchanged a word-Dave shutting himself in the TV room with a hockey game, and me hiding out in the bedroom with my book. In the morning he was in his car at the crack of dawn, and I had my seminar in New York. We hadn’t spoken a word all day, which was rare, so I asked my buddy Pam to meet me for a drink and maybe something to eat, just to talk it all through before heading home.

Home was about the last place I wanted to be right now.

And here it was, ten after seven, and Pam was texting me that she was running twenty min late: the usual kid crisis-meaning Steve, her hedge-fund-honcho husband, still hadn’t left the office as promised, and her nanny was with April at dance practice…

And me, at the Hotel Kitano bar, a couple of blocks from Grand Central. Taking in the last, relaxing sips of a Patrón Gold margarita-another thing I rarely did!-one eye on the TV screen above me, which had a muted baseball game or something on, the other doing its best to avoid the eye of Mr. Cutie at the end of the bar. Maybe not looking my 100 percent, knockout best-I mean, it was just a self-publishing seminar and all-but still not exactly half-bad in an orange cashmere sweater, a black leather skirt, my Prada boots, and my wavy, dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Looking decently toned from the hot-yoga classes I’d been taking, texting back to Pam with a mischievous smile: BETTERHURRY. V. SEXYGUY @ BARANDTHINKHE’SABTTOMAKECONTACT. *GRIN*

And giggling inside when she wrote me back: HANDSOFF, HON! ORDEREDHIMESPFORME!

THENBETTERGETYOURASSHEREPRONTO:-) I texted back.

“Yanks or Red Sox?” I heard someone say.

“Sorry?” I looked up and it was you know who, who definitely had to be Bradley Cooper’s dreamy first cousin or something. Or at least that’s what the sudden acceleration in my heart rate was telling me.

“Yanks or Red Sox? I see you’re keeping tabs on the game.”

“Oh. Yanks, of course,” I said, a glance to the screen. “Born and bred. South Shore.”

“Sox.” He shrugged apologetically. “South Boston. Okay, Brookline,” he said with a smile, “if you force it out of me.”

I smiled back. He was pretty cute. “Actually I wasn’t even watching. Just waiting for a friend.” I figured I might as well cut this off now. No point in leading him on.

“No worries.” He smiled politely. Like he’s even interested, right?

“Who happens to be twenty minutes late!” I blurted, thinking I might have sounded just a bit harsh a moment ago.

“Well, traffic’s nuts out there tonight. Someone must be in town. Is he coming in from anywhere?”

“Yeah.” I laughed. “Park and Sixty-Third!” Then I heard myself add, not sure exactly why, “And it’s a she. Old college friend. Girls’ night out.”

He lifted his drink to me, and his dark eyes smiled gently. “Well, here’s to gridlock, then.”

Mr. Cutie and I shifted around and listened to the pianist. The bar was apparently known for its jazz. It was like the famous lounge at the Carlyle, only in midtown, which was why Pam had chosen it-close to both her place and Grand Central, for me to catch my train.

“She’s actually pretty good!” I said, suddenly not minding the thought of Pam stuck in a cab somewhere, at least for a while. Not to mention forgetting my husband, who, for a moment, was a million miles away.

“Donna St. James. She’s one of the best. She used to sing with George Benson and the Marsalis brothers.”

“Oh,” I said. Everyone in the lounge seemed to be clued in to this.

“It’s why I stay here when I’m in town. Some of the top names in the business just drop in unannounced. Last time I was here, Sarah Jewel got up and sang.”

“Sarah Jewel?”

“She used to record with Basie back in the day.” He pointed to a stylishly dressed black woman and an older white man at one of the round tables. “That’s Rosie Miller. She used to record with Miles Davis. Maybe she’ll get up later.”

“You’re in the business?” I asked. I mean, he did kind of look the part.

“No. Play a little though. Just for fun. My dad was actually an arranger back in the seventies and eighties. He… anyway, I don’t want to bore you with all that,” he said, shrugging and stirring his drink.

I took a sip of mine and caught his gaze. “You’re not boring me at all.”

A couple came in and went to take the two seats that were in between us, so Mr. Cutie picked up his drink and slid deftly around them, and asked, motioning to the seat next to me, “Do you mind?”

Truth was, I didn’t. I was actually kind of enjoying it. And I did have a rescue plan, if necessary. I checked the time: 7:25. Wherever the hell Pam was!

“So this friend of yours,” he asked with a coy half smile, “is she real or imaginary? Because if she’s imaginary, not to worry. I have several imaginary friends of my own back in Boston. We could set them up.”

“Oh, that would be nice.” I laughed. “But I’m afraid she’s quite real. At least she was this summer. She and her husband were in Spain with me and my…”

I was about to say my husband, of course, but something held me back. Though by this time I assumed he had taken note of the ring on my finger. Still, I couldn’t deny this was fun, sitting there with an attractive man who was paying me a little attention, still reeling from my argument with Dave.

Then he said, “I suspect there’s probably an imaginary husband back at home as well…”

“Right now”-I rolled my eyes and replied in a tone that was just a little digging-“I’m kind of wishing he was imaginary!” Then I shook my head. “That wasn’t nice. Tequila talking. We just had a little row last night. Subject for tonight with friend.”

“Ah. Sorry to hear. Just a newlywed spat, I’m sure,” he said, teasing. This time I was sure he was flirting.

“Yeah, right.” I chortled at the flattery. “Going on ten years.”

“Wow!” His eyes brightened in a way that I could only call admiring. “Well, I hope it’s okay if I say you surely don’t look it! I’m Curtis, by the way.”

I hesitated, thinking maybe I’d let things advance just a bit too far. Though I had to admit I wasn’t exactly minding it. And maybe in a way I was saying to my husband, So see, David, there are consequences to being a big, fat jerk!

“Wendy,” I said back. We shook hands. “But it sure would be nice to know where the hell Pam is. She was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.” I checked the time on my phone.

“Would it be all right if I order up another of whatever you’re drinking?” He raised his palms defensively. “Purely for the imaginary friend, of course…”

“Of course,” I said, playing along. “But no. One more of these and I’ll be up at that piano myself! And trust me, I wasn’t playing with anyone in the eighties… Anyway”-I shrugged, deadpan-“she only drinks imaginary vodka.”

Curtis grinned. “I’m acquainted with the bartender. Let me see what I can do.”

My iPhone vibrated. Pam, I was sure, announcing she was pulling up to the hotel now and for me to get a dirty martini going for her. But instead it read:

WEND, I’M SO SORRY. JUST CAN’T MAKE IT TONITE.

WHAT CAN I SAY…? I KNOW U NEED TO TALK. TOMORROW WORK?

Tomorrow? Tomorrow didn’t work. I was here. Now. And she was right, I did need to talk. And the last place I wanted to be right now was home. Will call, I wrote back, a little annoyed. I put down the phone. My eyes inevitably fell on Curtis’s. I’d already missed the 7:39.

“Sure, why don’t we do just that?” I nodded about that drink.

I’m not sure exactly what made me stay.

Maybe I was still feeling vulnerable from my fight with Dave. Or even a little annoyed at Pam, who had a habit of bagging out when I needed her most. I suppose you could toss in just a bit of undeniable interest in the present company.

Whatever it was, I did.

Knowing Dave was out for the night on business and that it was all just harmless anyway helped as well. And that there was a train every half hour. I could leave anytime I wanted.

We chatted some more, and Curtis said he was a freelance journalist here in town on a story. And I chuckled and told him that I was kind of in the same game too. That I’d actually worked for the Nassau County police in my twenties before going to law school for a year-having signed up after 9/11, after my brother, a NYPD cop himself, was killed-though I was forced to resign after a twelve-year-old boy was killed in a wrongful-death judgment. And that I’d written this novel about my experience, which was actually why I’d been in the city today at a self-publishing conference. That I’d been having a tough time getting it looked at by anyone, and that it likely wasn’t very good anyway.

“Care to read it?” I asked. I tapped the tote bag from my publishing conference. “Been lugging it around all day.”

“I would,” Curtis said, “but I’m afraid it’s not exactly my field.”

“Just joking,” I said. “So what is your field?”

He shrugged. “I’m a bit more into current events.”

I was about to follow up on that when the pianist finished her set. The crowded room gave her a warm round of applause. She got up and came over to the end of the bar, ordered a Perrier, and to my surprise, when it arrived, lifted it toward Curtis. “All warmed up, sugar.”

Curtis stood up. I looked at him wide-eyed. He shot me a slightly apologetic grin. “I did mention that I played…”

“You said a bit, for fun,” I replied.

“Well, you’ll be the judge. Look, I know you have a train to catch, and I don’t know if you’ll be around when I’m done”-he put out his hand-“but it was fun to chat with you, if you have to leave.”

“I probably should,” I said, glancing at the time. “It was nice to talk to you as well.”

“And best of luck,” he said, pointing as he backed away, “with that imaginary friend of yours.”

“Right! I’ll be sure to tell her!” I laughed.

He sat down at the piano, and I swiveled around, figuring I’d stick around a couple of minutes to hear how he played. But from the opening chords that rose magically from his fingers, just warming up, it was clear it was me he was playing when he coyly said he only played “a little.”

I was dumbstruck, completely wowed. The guy was a ten! He wasn’t just a dream to look at, and charming too-he played like he was totally at one with the instrument. He had the ease and polish of someone who clearly had been doing this from an early age. His fingers danced across the keyboard and the sounds rose as if on a cloud, then drifted back to earth as something beautiful. It had been a long time since goose bumps went down my arms over a guy.

Donna St. James leaned over. “You ever hear him before, honey?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“His father arranged a bunch of us back in the day. Sit back. You’re in for a treat.”

I did.

The first thing he played was this sumptuous, bluesy rendition of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and the handful of customers who were paying their checks, preparing to leave, started listening. Even the bartender was listening. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Whatever my definition of sexy had been an hour ago, forget it-he was definitely rewriting it for me now.

I didn’t leave.

I just sat there, slowly nursing my margarita, growing more and more intoxicated, but not by the drink. By the time he segued into a sultry version of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” it was as if his soul had risen from that keyboard and knotted itself with mine.

Our eyes came together a couple of times, my smile communicating, Okay, so I’m impressed… The twinkle in his eye simply saying he was happy I was still there.

By the time he finished up with Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” goose bumps were dancing up and down my arms with the rise and fall of his fingers along the keys. With a couple of margaritas in me-and fifteen years from the last time anyone looked at me quite that way-the little, cautioning voice that only a few minutes back was going, Wendy, this is crazy, you don’t do this kind of thing, had gone completely silent.

And when our eyes seemed to touch after his final note and didn’t separate, not for a while, I knew, sure as I knew my own name, that I was about to do something I could never have imagined when I walked into the place an hour before. Something I’d never, ever done before.

CHAPTER TWO

Ten minutes later we were up in his room, my coat and bag strewn on the floor, one meaningless comment about the view before my breath seemed to jump out of my skin the second he touched me and backed me against the wall.

I was waiting for that voice inside to go, Hold it, just a second, Wendy. You know this isn’t right.

But what I seemed to want even more was for his hands to be all over me. Under my top. Beneath my skirt. Electrical shocks dancing all over my body. Places I hadn’t let another man touch me in years.

In a second his mouth was on mine, and I kissed him back just as eagerly. I felt the feel of his tongue dance against mine, just as I had watched his fingers dance along the keys. Then he traced a meandering path with his lips along my neck, my breaths leaping. His hand slid inside my skirt and down my rear, and I felt a shiver travel down my thighs and my heartbeat go out of control. My mind was like a dark vault, shutting out any thoughts of whether this was right or wrong.

I lifted my arms and let him pull me out of my sweater. I undid my thick, dark hair, letting it drape all over him, every cell inside me bursting with desire. He lifted me up against the blue, Japanese-wallpapered wall, my arms around his neck, and we knocked into the bamboo desk, sending the hotel directory onto the floor, not even stopping to go “Oops” or acknowledge it. Every time his lips brushed along my skin, my body seemed to explode, as if a live electrical cord was jumping around in it, amazed at what I was letting him do. Eyes locked on each other, he pulled my bra straps off my shoulders, my heart speeding up and getting stronger.

“There’s a perfectly good bed over there,” he said, his own breaths growing short and rapid.

“I know. There is.” Then I kissed him again and almost smothered him in my hair, feeling the zipper on the back of my skirt being drawn down, the leather wiggling down my thighs, the click and tug of his belt becoming undone…

A part of me was going, Yes, yes, take me over. The bed.

Another part went, The hell with the bed… I’m ready… here. Now…

Now.

And then something stopped.

Inside me. Like the emergency brake pulled on a train.

It was as if that one shuddering sound, the click of his belt buckle being undone, shot through me like cold water reviving an unconscious man, rocketing me back to earth.

Instantly awakening me to the reality of what I was doing.

It suddenly shot through me just how incredibly wrong this was. Wrong what I was letting him do. Wrong to even be here, in this room.

Wrong to betray a marriage I had worked so hard to make successful. To do this to someone who I knew I loved. And who loved me! How maybe I was only doing this to get back at him.

Just wrong.

And then this overwhelming feeling of dread wormed through me. Of how, when trust is broken, like that first crack in a dam about to give way, it only leads to more and more pressure against it until it can no longer hold. And then it bursts. Not just your marriage, but your whole life. Whatever was truthful in it. It all just starts to crumble and wash away. Everything. And how this was that first crack, what I was doing now. And how you couldn’t do it, Wendy… You just couldn’t unless you were willing to take that risk. That everything will go.

Which I wasn’t willing to take.

No matter how it may have felt downstairs. Or even a moment ago.

No, I didn’t want it all to burst.

Something came out of my mouth that a minute earlier would have been the farthest thing from my mind. From my desires.

“Stop,” I said.

Maybe a little under my breath at first; it could have been mistaken for a shudder or a sigh. I wasn’t even sure Curtis actually heard me. He was slowly weaving his tongue along my belly, getting lower, eliciting electric waves.

But then I said it again. Louder. “Please… stop. I can’t.” My hands went to his shoulders and I eased him slightly away.

This time he looked up.

“Curtis, I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

My skin was on fire and slick with sweat, and part of me was begging to just say, Fuck it, and let him carry me over to that bed. But the better part of me drew in the deepest, most determined breath I’d ever drawn.

“I can’t.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Curtis gave me an uncomprehending smile, slowly rising.

“No. I’m not. I know how this must seem. But I just can’t. I’m sorry. It’s just not right.” I blew out a breath. “Curtis, you’re a totally irresistible guy, and I know there’s a part of me that is going to one hundred percent regret this in an hour on the train…” I shook my head. “But I can’t do this with you. I thought it was okay. Even a minute ago it seemed so. But it’s not.” I let my hand fall to his face, and I looked into his confused, almost incredulous eyes. I didn’t know how he was going to react. Clearly, I’d played as much a part as he had in getting us up here.

The fire in my eyes was suddenly replaced by tears. “I’m so sorry. I just can’t.”

He blinked.

I wasn’t sure exactly what was going through him. Confusion. Frustration. Disbelief.

Absolutely disbelief.

And there was a moment when I admit it crossed my mind, Shit, Wendy, you’re up here with a guy you don’t know. No telling what he might do now.

But all he did was take a step back and nod, slowly, resignation seeming to drown the ardor. He glanced down, his jeans undone, my skirt down around my thighs, my black panties drawn. My hand now covering my breasts; breasts that only a moment ago I was willingly offering up to him.

“I’m totally embarrassed,” I said, putting my other hand in front of my face.

My face that was now flushed with shame.

He nodded. Thankfully, not the nod of someone who was about to do something crazy, which I guess, in another situation, could have been the case. More like the nod of someone caught by the total absurdity of what had just happened. Clothes strewn all over the floor. Pants down. Sweat covering both of us. Breathing heavily.

“No chance this is simply your particular spin on foreplay?” He smiled hopefully. A last-ditch plea.

“I wish it was.” I shrugged, pushing the hair out of my face. “It would probably make the whole situation a lot easier. Sorry.”

His nod seemed almost dazed. “Figured it was worth a check.”

He took the waist of my skirt and shimmied it back up, letting out a deep sigh, as if to say, I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.

“Thank you,” I said. “You’re really a saint for not making me feel like a total shit.”

“I’m not sure the word saint exactly applies right now.”

“You’re right.” I just stood there covering myself, bursting with embarrassment. I shrugged. “I think I need to straighten up.”

He nodded resignedly. “Bathroom’s over there.”

About as awkwardly as I’d felt since maybe back in college, I scurried around, covering myself up with my bra, and picked up my sweater off the floor, my bag that had spilled over on the floor, my boots. “I can assure you, I haven’t been in this position in about twenty years.”

Curtis just looked on and picked up his own shirt. “You can trust me, neither have I!”

With my bra and my sweater covering me, my handbag dangling from my arm, I turned at the bathroom door, grinning. “I suppose this isn’t a particularly good time to ask you again to take a look at my novel?”

“No,” Curtis said, unable to hold back his laugh. “Definitely not.”

“Thought as much.” I forced a rueful smile. “I’ll be out in a while.”

I closed the door behind me and took a deep, releasing breath as I looked in the mirror. My face was profusely blushing with shame. How had I let it get this far? I knew I could never tell anyone. Surely not Dave. Never. Not even Pam. No, this one was mine to deal with and try to rationalize. In a way I felt lucky. Lucky I had come to my senses when I did. Lucky Curtis was actually a decent guy. It could have been a whole lot worse.

Lucky I hadn’t done something that I’d look at with shame for the rest of my life.

I ran the cold water, wet a washcloth and pressed it to my flushed face. I put my arms back through my bra and started to brush out my hair, until I began to resemble a manageably put-together version of the person who had come up here a few minutes before-though still far too ashamed to even look at myself fully. I threw on my sweater and straightened myself out. Even dabbed on a little makeup and lip gloss. Then I took a breath. Okay, Wendy, now, you have to face him one more time and make your way home.And then go on with your life and pretend like this never even happened.And when Pam asks you about that cute guy at the bar you were texting about, it’s “What guy?” I merely finished my drink and caught the 7:39 and was home by Law & Order … right?

I blew out a final, steadying breath and steeled myself, when suddenly, over the running water, I heard something coming from the bedroom.

Voices. At first I just thought it was Curtis on the phone.

Then I realized I was hearing someone else’s voice as well. Another man. I turned the water down slightly and listened. This was already embarrassing enough. The last thing I needed was to face anyone else.

I cracked the bathroom door open and peeked out.

My heart came up my throat at what I saw.

There was another man in the room. Gray suit, white shirt open. Salt-and-pepper hair. The second I saw him I realized I’d seen him before. Downstairs in the lounge. He and another man, a black man, had been sitting around a table.

Except now he had a gun pointed at Curtis, who was on the bed.

I instantly froze, then drew back inside. I didn’t know what to do. I was worried he would hear the running water. He’d see my jacket and shoes. He’d have to know I was here. Years before, I’d been on the Nassau County police force, but that was basically as a cadet, a lifetime ago. Eleven years. God forbid he did something terrible to Curtis. His next move would be to come in here for me!

“Pick it up!” I heard the man order him.

Holding my heart together, I peered back out.

He’d tossed a second gun onto the bed. It landed next to Curtis, who stared at it with growing terror.

“I said fucking pick it up!” the intruder said again, leveling his own gun menacingly.

“No, I’m not going to pick it up,” Curtis said, his voice in between panic and defiance. “I know what you’re going to do. You just want to make it look like I drew on you…” He pushed the gun away and it rolled to the edge of the bed and onto the floor. “You’re going to shoot me, no matter what I do?”

The intruder just looked at the gun and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter anyway… This is for Gillian, asshole.”

He pulled the trigger. My eyes bolted wide.

There was a loud, muffled pop, and Curtis’s body jumped off the bed with the impact. He tried to scream “No!” Then there was a second pop, and to my horror, Curtis jerked and then went limp.

I drew back inside, muffling a terrified scream. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen.

As I stared through the slit in the doorway, it was clear-a hundred percent clear, in that horrifying split second-that he had to know I was in there. His next move would be to come for me. My heart started to race uncontrollably. What the hell could I do? The bathroom door seemed to open on its own. My eyes locked on the gun on the floor, only a few feet from me. Old instincts kicked in, instincts I hadn’t felt in years. I stepped out of the bathroom and picked it up. The intruder had gone over to check on Curtis’s body.

I raised the gun at him, two-handed, shouting, “I’m an ex-cop! Put the gun down. Put your hands in the air!”

I hadn’t even held a gun in years, and never to someone’s face. In this kind of situation. My hands were visibly shaking.

The man just looked at me and put up his palms defensively, as if to say, Slow down, okay, honey…

But inwardly, I saw him sizing up the situation: My nerves. His chances. How quickly he could raise his gun. I’d just watched him commit a cold-blooded killing. I knew then he wasn’t about to let me call the cops on him.

“Lady, you have no idea what you stepped into…”

I leveled the gun at his chest. “I said lay the gun down and put your hands in the air!”

That’s when I saw it. A realization etched into his face. Something he knew and I didn’t. Like the situation had suddenly shifted, his way and not mine. And then in horror I realized just what it was. The gun I was holding had been a plant. To make it look like Curtis had drawn on him first. He would never have risked Curtis taking it and using it on him.

The safety was still on!

Frantically I turned the gun on its side and found the lever. I thumbed it forward, just as the killer took a step to the side and leveled his gun at me.

I screamed and pulled the trigger, the recoil knocking me backward.

He staggered back, continuing to hold out the gun.

I pulled it again.

The first shot struck him squarely in the chest. I saw a burst of crimson on his shirt, hurtling him back against the wall. The next shot hit him in the throat, his hand darting there as he slowly slid, blood smearing against the wallpaper, his gun clattering against the floor.

He was scarily still.

There was this awful, heart-stopping silence. I just stood there, an acrid, all-too-familiar smell filling up the room. My heart pounding like a boom box turned all the way up. Wendy, what have you done? Frozen, I stared at him in disbelief. The guy didn’t move a muscle, the flower of blood widening on his white shirt.

Oh my God, Wendy, what have you just fucking done?

Dazed, I put the gun back on the bed and rushed over to Curtis, who was clearly dead, the smoky, dark eyes that had so intrigued me at the bar just minutes before now glassy and fixed. You have no idea what you stepped into, the intruder had said. Okay, so what… what have I stepped into? What have you done, Curtis, to deserve this? I tried to think, but my mind was jumbled and confused.

My heart still racing, I ran over and checked the man on the floor. You didn’t have to be an MD to see he was dead as well, his cold, gray eyes glazed over and inert; the pool of blood on his chest continuing to spread. You killed him, Wendy… I’d pulled a trigger once before on the job, and it had changed my life. But not like this. Not at point-blank range. Not with my life on the line. I thought, What the hell do I do now? Call security? The police? You just killed someone, Wendy… I knew I didn’t have any choice. I’d just watched the son of a bitch kill Curtis in cold blood. He was about to shoot me too. I was lucky to even be alive.

Anyone would see it was clearly self-defense.

But then the reality of where I was swelled up inside me.

No. I couldn’t do that at all! Call the police. That was the last thing I could do. I was in the hotel room of a complete stranger. A place I absolutely shouldn’t have been. How would I possibly explain that? Not just to the police, even if I could convince them of what had happened.

But to my husband. To Dave. To our kids!

That I was up here to have sex with a guy I’d just met at the bar when the whole thing happened.

My whole life would be torn apart.

My eyes fell on the intruder. Who are you? Why were you following Curtis? What were you up here to do? Leaning over him, I saw he had an earphone in his ear. Which suddenly unnerved me even more, realizing that there was likely an accomplice somewhere. Probably in the hotel at that moment!

Possibly even right outside.

If he has any idea what had just happened in here…

Terrified, I took the earphone out and held it to my ear. I heard a voice on the other end.

“Ray? Ray, what’s going on up there? Answer me, Ray, are you all right?”

His jacket had fallen open, and I saw an ID folder in the breast pocket. I started thinking, What if he was security? Or maybe even the police? What then?

I was suddenly encased in sweat.

I opened the ID folder and stared. And whatever panic or fear I had felt up to that moment became just a dry run for what was rippling through me now.

I was staring at a badge. But not from hotel security.

It read, UNITEDSTATESOFAMERICA. DEPARTMENTOFHOMELANDSECURITY.

CHAPTER THREE

My heart, which to that point had been acting as if a live wire were loose in my chest, went instantly still, as if the power had been cut. The agent’s ID fell out of my hand.

I’d just killed a government agent.

Not just an agent-Raymond Hruseff. From the Department of fucking Homeland Security!

Who only seconds before I had watched commit a cold-blooded murder and then try to frame someone else. And who would have surely done the same to me had that gun not happened to be close by.

My throat went completely dry.

You have no idea what you stepped into, Hruseff had said to me. I turned to Curtis and wanted to shake him from the dead. Tell me… tell me, damn it, what did I stumble into? What the hell did you do?

I knew I had only seconds to decide what to do. But, clearly, staying here wasn’t an option.

I found a duplicate room key in the agent’s jacket pocket, which was no doubt how he’d gotten in. He had icily put two bullets into Curtis right in front of my eyes. He was in the process of trying to make it seem as if Curtis was the one about to shoot. Even more troubling, when I identified myself as an ex-cop, instead of laying down his weapon and putting his hands in the air-and identifying himself, standard operating procedure-he’d made a move to shoot me. Clearly, he wasn’t up here on official business.

What I’d stumbled into was an execution.

And I knew if the person on the other end of that earphone happened to find me in this room, I’d be as good as Curtis.

Wendy, you have to get the hell out of here now!

I hurried over to the bed, wiped down the gun I’d used to shoot Hruseff, and placed it back on the bed. I did the same with the bathroom doorknob and everything else I’d touched. I took my coat. Only a minute and a half or so had passed since the actual shooting. The shots might have attracted people’s attention. There might already be a crowd gathered outside the room.

The guy’s partner could be on his way up!

I grabbed my bag and my leather jacket, which had fallen off the desk chair and onto the floor, and saw Curtis’s cell phone next to his laptop. I threw his phone into my bag, thinking that down the line I might well need something to prove my innocence, and I had no idea in hell who the guy even was.

I didn’t even know if Curtis was his real name!

I hurried over to the door. It was 8:41. It seemed like an eternity had passed since the shooting, but it had only been about two minutes. I prayed that people hadn’t been inside their rooms. That they would be out to dinner somewhere, or at a play, or at the fucking Knicks game for all I cared. Just somewhere! I put on my floppy cap and covered my face with my scarf as best I could, my blood pulsing with adrenaline. Collecting myself, I opened the door a notch and looked out. Thank God, the only people I saw in the hallway were an elderly couple heading to the elevators at the far end. Still, I didn’t think I could risk it. I needed another way out of the hotel. There had to be an emergency stairwell somewhere.

I stepped out, averting my face from any possible cameras, but just as I headed down the hall in the opposite direction from the elevators, someone bolted around the corner, behind me.

I spun.

It was the black guy who I had seen with the dead agent down in the lounge. Who had to be the person I’d just heard on the radio.

Our eyes locked and he seemed to recognize me. Then he reached inside his jacket for his gun.

Oh my God, Wendy…

“Federal agent!” he yelled. “Stop and put your hands in the air!”

I stood, frozen. A voice inside me shouted that a federal agent had just ordered me to stop.

But another, far more convincing, told me, If you do, this guy might kill you, Wendy! You just watched his partner murder a man. They were clearly here for something dirty. You can’t chance it. You have to get out of here now!

“Here’s in there!” Backing down the hall, I pointed toward the hotel room door. “Your partner. He’s been shot.”

Then I started to run.

“Stop. Now!” I heard him shout again from behind me.

I didn’t. Ten feet away, the hallway turned to the right and I flung myself around the corner just as a bullet whizzed by my head and slammed into the wall.

I screamed.

I prayed that he wouldn’t come right after me but instead would check on his partner. Who could be bleeding out. Or even dead. Which hopefully would buy me a few seconds.

Or maybe he’d radio a third person. Down in the lobby. I had no idea how many were even involved.

I sprinted down the long hallway, not sure what he was doing behind me. I knew that even if I screamed bloody murder and pounded frantically on the doors; even if people came out of their rooms to see what was going on and I was somehow spared; even if the police believed my story of what actually had happened in there, I would still have to face my husband and tell him what I’d done. Either way, my life would come crashing down.

I raced around another corner, no idea if there was even a stairwell there. Up ahead, I saw a dimly lit sign that read Emergency. Thank God! I barreled through the door without looking behind, flew down the fire stairs as fast as my boots would take me-seven floors, my heart racing almost as frenetically as my feet. I had no idea what awaited me at the bottom. Hotel security? The police? With guns drawn?

Maybe a third agent?

I made it down the seven floors in what seemed like seconds. Above me, I heard the echo of the door opening and someone shouting down the stairwell. Loud footsteps coming after me.

Oh, God, Wendy, hurry…

Almost out of breath, I pushed through the security door on the ground floor. It opened to an unfamiliar part of the lobby, and I let out a gasp of relief that no one was around. Composing myself, I got my bearings and hurried toward the main entrance. An hour ago, I had come through it, a marital spat with my husband the most pressing thing on my mind.

Now I was a witness to a murder. Now I had killed someone myself.

Now I was just hoping to stay alive.

I buried my face in my jacket and scarf and hurried through the revolving doors, the brown-uniformed doorman pushing me through with an accommodating wave. “Have a nice night.”

I gave him a quick wave in return, not knowing what else to do.

Outside, I didn’t know which way to turn. I wasn’t sure how close behind me the agent was. Park Avenue is a two-way street, bisected by a divider in the middle. The closest cross street was Thirty-Eighth, but the block to Madison Avenue was straight and long, and if the guy came out and saw me turn, there would be no place for me to hide.

Grand Central station was four blocks north. Even at this hour, it would be busy with commuter traffic and offer plenty of places to hide. I knew I’d be safe there.

I buried my head in my down coat and ran across to the other side of the street, heading north. I clung to the dark cover of the high-rise buildings.

A block away I glanced back and saw the agent who’d been chasing me come out of the hotel. He looked up and down. I pressed myself against a large, bronze sculpture in the courtyard of an office building on Fortieth Street. My heart was ricocheting off my ribs, and I was praying he hadn’t seen me. He looked in all directions, gesturing in frustration, and spoke into a radio. I didn’t move a muscle. He looked around again; he seemed to be staring directly at me.

I went rigid.

Then finally he went back in.

I think I exhaled so loudly in relief that a person a block away would have turned at the sound. I was in tears, tears from the thought of what I had just witnessed. At what I’d just done. Not knowing if I was safe, or about to be implicated in a double murder? Or if my family was about to fall apart? I knew I had to bring this to the police. But I also knew that then everything would spill out. Everything! And they would likely just bring me back to the hotel and hand me over to the very people who had just tried to kill me.

All I could think of was to just get home. To the person I trusted most in the world. If this was going to come out, he was damn well going to hear it from my lips, and not from the police. I had no idea what I would say to him. Or how he would react. I only knew that together, we’d figure out the right thing to do. How could I possibly hold it inside? A dark, shameful secret that would haunt me the rest of my life? Every time I looked at my husband.

Every time I looked at myself in the mirror.

Not just what I’d done to a federal agent…

But having that second drink. Going up to that room.

Everything!

CHAPTER FOUR

It only took about five minutes to make it the couple of blocks to Grand Central.

There were a couple of policemen stationed at the entrance. I thought about stopping them and telling them what happened. But I just ran past.

I saw on the large schedule screen in the Grand Concourse that there was a 9:11 train back to Pelham. That was only five minutes from now.

I headed down to Track 24. Before going underground, I called the house. It didn’t surprise me that there was no answer. Dave had a business dinner with some prospective new partners. When our voice mail came on, I hung up and tried his cell. No answer again. This time I left a harried message, trying to calm my voice as best I could: “Honey, I’m sorry about what happened last night. I’m on the nine-eleven. I’m looking forward to seeing you at home. Please, I need to talk to you about something. I love you.”

What else mattered now?

The ride home was the most nerve-racking half hour of my life. As soon as we got out of the tunnel, I checked Google News on my iPhone to see if the story had hit. So far it hadn’t. I looked in the faces of the people sitting across from me. Just regular commuters. A black woman with her young daughter who was playing a handheld electronic game. A businessman heading home from a late night at the office. A couple of loud twenty-somethings. Could they see it on me? Was it all over my face? Could they hear it in the pounding of my heart? What I’d done!

Pelham is the second stop in Westchester County. It was a quiet, upper-middle-class town tucked in between Mount Vernon and New Rochelle. I’d left my Audi SUV at the station. We live in Pelham Manor, an upscale neighborhood only a couple of minutes from the town, in an old Tudor on a wooded half acre with a carriage-house garage, just two blocks from the Long Island Sound. Dave was a partner in a small advertising company that was looking to merge with a larger one. That’s what his meeting tonight was about. It would be a huge moment for him, for us both, if it all went through. And it could mean a little money for us, which we surely could use. We lived well: We had a ski house in Vermont; we belonged to a nice country club, ate out pretty much whenever we wanted. But not so well that it wasn’t a struggle to pay full tuition for the kids in college and go out west skiing in Snowmass with friends once a year.

All of a sudden, everything seemed threatened.

I drove home, my mind a daze, and went in through the garage. Once in my kitchen, surrounded by all our familiar things, I actually felt myself start to feel safe, for the first time since the incident. Dave wasn’t back yet. I threw off my coat, pulled off my boots, and heaved myself into a chair in the den. I had to decide what to do.

It all seemed like a dream to me-a haunting, nightmarish one. Had it all actually happened? I’d witnessed the execution of a defenseless man. I’d killed a government agent in self-defense. A rogue agent maybe. One who was about to kill me. But if I came forward, I’d probably destroy my life. A woman in the hotel room of a man she had met at the bar only an hour before? Who guiltily fled the scene? Over and over I replayed the seconds leading up to my firing that gun: the intruder shooting Curtis without even blinking. The second gun pushed off the edge of the bed within my reach. Screaming at Hruseff that I was an ex-cop and to put down his gun. Then the calculating expression that came over his face and the panic in my chest as he raised his gun toward me.

I’d had no choice. I knew I would have been dead if I hadn’t pulled that trigger.

But how could I ever explain it? To the police? Or to my husband?

He could walk through that door at any time. That this horrible thing had happened… that I was in a hotel room to screw some guy. Would he even believe that I had stopped it? That I had come to my senses? Would it even matter? Everything would fall apart. My marriage. My relationship with the kids, whom I’d basically raised and whom I adored.

Our trust.

My whole fucking life.

Sorry, honey, hope dinner went well with the prospective new partners and all, but while you were having salmon tartare at the Gotham Bar and Grill, your pretty little wife just killed a government agent after she was about to fuck a…

Hot flashes running all over me suddenly made it feel like it was a hundred degrees.

I got up, went into the bedroom, pulled off my clothes, and hopped into the shower, trying to wash off the oily film of guilt and complicity. It felt good, almost freeing, to be clean again. I was in my robe, in the kitchen having a cup of tea, when I heard the automatic garage door go up and then the back door open as Dave came in.

“How did it go?” I asked, my heart beating nervously. The first words we’d said to each other all day.

“Good. It went well.” He nodded. At first a bit stiffly. He’d worn his Zegna cashmere blazer and the green striped tie I’d bought for him last Christmas. He looked a little bit like Woody Harrelson, only handsomer, in my view. Then he grinned. “Actually, it went really, really well. I’m starting to think this might work out.”

I ran over and buried myself in his arms.

Did I say that this was my second marriage? For both of us. Dave’s first was with a magazine editor who developed a serious prescription pill problem, and he got custody of the kids. Mine was just a youthful mistake at twenty-one that lasted a year. We’d both put in a lot to make this one work. And for the most part it had.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he said, patting my shoulders. He could feel me shuddering against him, and I couldn’t stop crying. “Jeez, Pam must’ve been one hell of a support system…”

I couldn’t let go of him.

“Hey, what’s going on? This isn’t like you, Wend. Look…” He stroked my hair. “I know we have to talk. I know I said some things last night. Maybe this meeting was on my mind, I don’t know…”

“No, that’s not it. That doesn’t matter.” I looked at him and wiped my eyes. “Dave, something happened in the city tonight. You have to listen to me. I’ve stepped into a nightmare.”

CHAPTER FIVE

I didn’t know where to begin, so I just blurted it out.

“Dave, I shot someone tonight. I killed him.”

“What? What do you mean you shot someone, Wendy? What are you talking about?”

“Dave, please just listen to me!”

It was jumbled and rambling, and it felt like knives were stabbing me when I got to the part I dreaded most. Which was going up to that room.

“I don’t know why I did it, David.” I sat on a stool at the kitchen island holding a tissue, shaking my head. “I was just so angry from the things you said to me last night. Then Pam didn’t show up. This guy came up to the bar…”

It took everything I had to get the words out. I watched Dave’s face twitch in surprise at first, as he realized what I was telling him, then go blank, maybe waiting for the part when I said I was joking, which never came. Then it simply slackened with the most confused, heartbreaking look.

“Dave, I swear to you, nothing really happened between us up there.” I reached out and took his hand. “I give you my word. I stopped it before it really got anywhere. I was just so angry, David-”

“You went up to this guy’s room?” He stared at me shell-shocked, and pulled his hand away. “To do what? To screw someone, Wendy?”

“Sweetheart, I never meant to hurt you.” I latched back onto him, my heart almost falling off a cliff. “My relationship with you means more to me than anything in the world, and I realize what I’ve done. But that’s not it! That’s not all I’m trying to tell you, David. Something else happened up there. Something even more important.”

“You shot someone?” His face screwed up in confusion. “What the hell did he do to you, Wendy?” His concern was mixed with anger and accusation. He searched my face and arms as if looking for signs of a struggle.

“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me, Dave. The guy’s dead. He was shot. By someone else. Someone else came into the room-as I was in the bathroom. Freshening up.”

“Freshening up?” This time the edge of accusation in his voice was clear.

“Dave, just listen to me! The guy was killed. Thank God I was in there, or I’d be dead too.” I took him through what happened. Hearing the killer’s voice. Curtis pushing the gun off the bed. Watching him be killed.

Picking up the gun and having no other choice than to do what I did.

My tears cleared and now there was only the deepest urgency in my eyes. “The guy was going to shoot me, David. I identified myself. I told him I was an ex-cop. I gave him every chance to put his weapon down. He didn’t. What he did do was raise it up to me. I shot him, David. I had no choice. He would have shot me!”

I drew myself close to him. I needed to feel his support so badly. Stiffly, he put his arm around me as my heart pattered against him. Then I finally felt him draw me close. Hesitantly. His arms seemed remote and strange.

“I don’t even know how to react to this, Wendy. What did the police say?”

I shook my head against him. “I never went to the police, Dave. I couldn’t.”

“You shot a murderer in self-defense. You’d just watched him kill someone, right? No one would question it.”

“That’s not all that happened, Dave. I was scared. I realized my life was about to fall apart. Because of where I was. I just wanted to get home to you.” I lifted my face. “But that’s not all… The guy I shot wasn’t just a murderer. I checked him out and saw his ID after. He was a government agent, Dave. He was from Homeland Security.”

The rest I told him as if in one long, rambling sentence. How I ran from the hotel room, straight into the killer’s partner. How he shot at me, and I had to run. “I fled down the fire stairs, David. I’m lucky to be alive.”

“Oh God, Wendy…” I sensed both sympathy and disbelief in his voice. I didn’t know if I would believe it if he was telling it to me.

“I don’t know what I stumbled into, Dave. But whatever it was, it was a murder. And something these people wanted to cover up. If I went to the police, they would have brought me back to the hotel, to the very people who were trying to kill me. I’ve never been so afraid in my life. All I could think of was getting back here to you.” I cupped his face. “I knew whatever we had to do, we could do it together. Honey, I’m so sorry for what I did. I never meant for this to happen.”

“But it did. It did happen.” I could see he didn’t know how to react.

“Yes, it did.” I nodded guiltily.

“Does anyone know who you are?”

“I don’t think so. But it’s going to come out. There may be security cameras. And Pam knows I was there. I texted her about this guy. Besides, I killed someone…”

He blew out his cheeks and nodded somberly. “We don’t have any choice but to go to the police.”

“I know.” Though the thought of it filled me with dread. A married woman up in a strange hotel room-to screw some guy she’d only met an hour earlier. Then shooting a government agent and fleeing… Would it be seen as just trying to cover up what I had done? I thought of my family and stepkids. It was all going to come out. “I’m scared, Dave.” I kind of fell against him.

Again he wrapped his arms around me with a lukewarm squeeze. “I know you’re scared. We can let someone intercede. A lawyer. There’s Harvey Baum from the club.” He’d handled Dave’s divorce. “Or Hal…”

“Who the hell is Hal?”

“Hal Pritchard. He’s been advising us on the deal.”

My mind suddenly flashed to it. Given the sordid publicity, who the hell would want to merge with them now? “Dave, I’m so sorry I got you into this. I know how important everything was tonight.” I hugged him. “I can’t believe this has happened.”

“We’ll get through this,” he said. “They’ll have to understand. The rest… ” He looked at me measuredly. It was clear what he meant. “The rest we’ll have to deal with later. There are gonna be some things we have to talk over. Okay…”

“Okay.” I nodded against his chest. I shut my eyes, as if I could wish this whole nightmare away.

“This other guy,” Dave said. He pulled himself away from me. “The one who you…”

I knew perfectly who he meant. The one I went up there with. “Curtis.”

He shrugged. “What do you know about him? Who is he? What did he do?”

“I don’t know anything about him, Dave. I just met him at the bar.” I winced, hearing just how that sounded. “He just sat down, while I was waiting for Pam. I don’t even know if Curtis is his real name. Wait a second, I took his phone…”

“You took his phone?”

“From the room. I thought I might need it. To help me prove what happened.”

I ran up to the bedroom and came back with my bag. Dave had turned on the television. It was almost 11:00 P.M. “This had to have made the news…”

I dug around in my bag, searching for his BlackBerry, and found it, at the bottom next to my iPhone.

I put the bag down and a weird feeling came over me. Something didn’t seem right.

Like something was missing.

I sifted through my purse, finding my makeup kit, my e-reader, trying to figure out what it was. Then it hit me.

My tote bag. With my program and some materials from the conference. It wasn’t with my bag or on the kitchen island, where I put things down when I come in.

A feeling of dread came over me.

“What’s wrong?” Dave asked.

“Something’s not here.” I went out the kitchen door to the garage and searched around my Audi. It wasn’t there either. I recalled I’d had it at the bar. I’d even joked to Curtis about it. And I remembered taking it up to the room. I’d thrown it on the floor along with my bag and coat. We weren’t exactly focused on that then. But in my haste, I must’ve left it.

For the third time that night my insides turned to a block of ice.

I came back in, my face no doubt white. Dave looked at me. “What’s missing?”

“My program. From the conference I went to today. It was in a tote bag. Along with some other stuff. It’s not here…”

“Our life is falling apart. Who gives a shit about the fucking tote bag, Wendy?”

“You don’t understand… it’s not the program.” I could have cared less about my goddamn program.

It was that it said Wendy Gould. Pelham, New York on the printed label on the cover.

It could identify me.

My heart clutched in horror. The people looking for me, who had tried to kill me twice to keep what I had seen quiet…

They probably had my name right now!

CHAPTER SIX

Dave, we have to leave,” I said, urgency crackling in my voice.

“We will. I just want to see if it’s public yet. Then I’ll call Harvey-”

“Dave, you don’t understand. I think they know who I am. We have to get out of here now!”

That was the moment the news came on. The lead-in sent a shiver down me: “A shooting in a room at a posh midtown hotel, and two people are dead.”

I watched in horror.

The reporter came on and described how an unspecified victim had been shot in his room at the “posh” Hotel Kitano, along with a second victim-details still unclear-“who was rumored to be a possible government agent.”

She said that a third person was being sought. A woman, who might have been in that room when it all happened, and who had fled the scene.

My stomach wound into a knot. I was that third person.

The person they were looking for was me!

The newscast went on. By this time they’d have found the tote bag. So they had to know who that third person was. More than three hours had passed. If the police knew, why weren’t they already here?

The only possible answer hit me. And it didn’t make me feel any better. If the NYPD had it, they’d have been here by now. The neighborhood would be lit up with flashing lights. They wouldn’t have even mentioned a third person on the news…

They would already have me in custody.

But if the people who had killed Curtis had found it first, they’d want to keep the whole thing quiet. They might not hand it over so quickly. They’d be just as scared that I’d be in the hands of the police and divulge what I had seen, which they’d want to cover up. Which meant…

I felt my throat go dry.

Which meant they might be heading here themselves, at that very second. To finish the job.

Their role in all this could remain secret as long as I stayed away from the police.

Or was dead.

Suddenly I became encased in sweat. We weren’t safe here. We had to get out of here now.

“Dave, I’m going to get dressed. It’s not safe to be here. You wanted to go to the police. So let’s go! Let’s just get out of here now!”

I ran to the bedroom and threw on some jeans and a fleece pullover. Back in the kitchen I grabbed my bag and Curtis’s phone. We headed into the garage and climbed into Dave’s Range Rover, me behind the wheel.

I opened the garage door and turned on the ignition.

Dave put his hand on my arm. “We’ll make this all work out, Wendy…”

“I know,” I said. “Thanks.” I started to back out.

Suddenly a bright light enveloped us from behind. Headlights from a vehicle at the end of our driveway.

“Hands in the air!” someone yelled. “Out of the car! Now!”

I spun around in fear.

It was over. The police were here. I let out a deep breath, ready to comply. Thinking what I was going to say.

Then I saw that the light was from a black SUV. A single SUV.

“It’s them,” I said. I grabbed my husband’s arm, terror running through me. “Oh, Jesus, Dave, they’re here.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Someone stepped out of the passenger’s side of the SUV and cautiously approached us along the circular drive, his gun extended from the top of the semicircular drive.

Dave turned to me. “Wendy, you said these people were from the government. I’ll talk to them.”

That’s when I looked out the window and saw the same black agent who had shot at me at the hotel perched behind the SUV’s open driver’s door.

My heart almost exploded in fear.

“David, we can’t go out there!” I seized his arm. “These aren’t the police. You heard what I told you. They’re here to kill us!”

“Kill us?” His tone was as skeptical as it was uncomprehending. “Wendy, we have to go out there. I’ll call Harvey. I promise, I’m not gonna let them take you without knowing where-” He started to open the door.

“No! Don’t!” I screamed, reaching over to him. “You’re not going out there, Dave!”

There was no time to convince him. I threw the car into reverse and floored it. With a roar, the Range Rover lurched out of the garage and shot right at the oncoming agent, who dove out of the way.

I gunned it toward the SUV.

“Close the door!” I screamed at Dave, twisting around to see behind me. “Close the fucking door!”

He couldn’t. We smashed full force into the grill of the government SUV, Dave’s door flying open. I was jolted out of my seat, my head hitting against the sun roof. The black agent disappeared. I didn’t know if I had hit him or not. I didn’t care! I had to remind myself that these weren’t the good guys-they were covering up a cold-blooded murder. That I was the one trying to save our lives.

Two shots rang out. Not loud cracks. More like muted thuds. Suddenly the rear windshield splintered and my heart almost clawed up my throat. Dave looked at me, his gaze bewildered as mine was fearful and panicked.

If there had been any doubt what these people were here for, it was clear now.

I jammed the car into drive and floored it again, this time forward. Dave’s door was still open, the car’s wheels screeching.

“Wendy!” he shouted. I hit the gas and steered toward the far entrance of our driveway.

By then, the first agent had risen to his feet. He ran ahead to block our way out, his weapon trained on us.

I bore down on him, prepared to run him over.

This time he leaped out of the way on Dave’s side, firing as we sped by. “No!” Another shot thudded into us from behind, the rear windshield shattering. Another hit the side as I turned.

“Dave, close the fucking door!”

He reached for it in desperation, bullets flying into the car. The agent was emptying his gun. I heard a horrifying “Oooof” over the rain of glass and the engine roar. I looked at my husband. His head pitched slightly forward and he had a glazed look in his eye, and I realized in panic what had happened before I saw the blood flower on his chest and his hand drop limply to his side.

“Oh my God, David!” I screamed in horror.

Even as I rambled over our front circle, our eyes met for an instant. Our last instant. I’m not sure if there was anything in them anymore, just a kind of blankness and futility, as if he was somehow letting me down. It was a look I’ll carry with me the rest of my life.

Frantically, I lunged for him, as we bounced over the Belgian block, the force of the turn pitching him to the side. And then Dave slid, fell out of my grasp, and onto the pavement like some lifeless sack of grain, as I turned the corner of the driveway onto our street.

I slammed on the brakes and stared at him in horror. “David!”

I knew he was dead. The glassy eyes staring blankly up at me. And dead only because of what I’d done. Staring up at me, like some disturbing image I’d seen on a news clip, someone else’s husband, twisted, inert, two dark blotches on his chest.

Another shot pinged through the car from behind me, and I saw Agent Number One running toward me. I knew if I stayed even a moment longer, I’d be dead as well. I looked one last time at Dave.

My heart was crumbling.

I hit the gas, the Range Rover lunging forward. I sped away, tears flooding my eyes. I drove down my dark, sleeping street, anguish tearing at me. Disbelief. I told myself that this was only some horrifying, nightmarish dream and screamed at myself to wake up from it. Now. Wake up!

Please.

But as I sped through the darkened town, cutting down side streets and weaving through a parking lot only a resident would know to make certain I wasn’t being followed, not knowing where I was driving, only that I had to get away, as far away from this as I could; I knew with certainty it was no dream.

Oh, Dave…

And I saw clearly how it was all going to look once it became public. That I’d killed a government agent in a panic after being caught in a stranger’s hotel room, and now, having escaped the law enforcement agents who had come for me, I’d gotten my husband killed too. How, after an argument the night before, I’d betrayed him. I could just hear Pam on some news clip tomorrow reinforcing the whole thing. How down I had sounded. How desperate I’d been to meet her at the hotel.

And even if the police did somehow believe me about how the shootings there went down, how would the people who did this ever let me be, having witnessed what I had? How would I ever feel safe again, knowing they had to cover this up too?

They would never let me be free.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I drove.

I’m not sure for how long or how far. Until I felt far enough away that I was certain no one was following me. Every set of headlights that flashed in my mirror sent a shiver of dread rattling through me. Several times I was sure I’d been found. Several times I froze, rigid with fear, waiting for the inevitable siren or flashing light.

But it didn’t come.

I came to my senses on the Hutchinson River Parkway, heading north. A few miles up, I merged onto 684, just getting as far away as I could. Then Route 22 into Dutchess County. I finally stopped, from sheer exhaustion and the throes of grief taking over me. That time of night, I was practically the only car on the dark road. I pulled into a dark, closed-up gas station and cut my lights. It was going on 1:00 A.M. My heart had barely slowed a beat since the shooting.

I started to sob. Deep, shame-filled sobs, everything starting to come up all over again, my forehead slumped on the wheel. My body convulsing. Over and over, I pictured Dave’s empty face staring up at me. That final, befuddled look in his eye, how he didn’t understand. How could he? His final word to me simply a helpless plea. “Wendy!”

And I knew he was dead only because of me. Because of what I’d done. How I’d betrayed him.

I screamed to no one, “Why did I ever go up to that room?” And no one answered. Tears cascaded down my cheeks.

I reached across the seat for my bag, fumbling for something I could use to dry my eyes.

Instead I found Curtis’s phone.

An unstoppable urge came over me to hurl it as far away as I possibly could. Since I’d set eyes on him, it had only brought me hell. I opened the door, took the phone in my hand, and went to fling it into the darkness.

Then I stopped. Suddenly it occurred to me this might be the one thing that could help me.

There had to be something in it that would show what Curtis was into. Why he was being targeted. Who his killers were, and why they wanted him dead. What had Hruseff said? “This is for Gillian…”

It might well be my only chance to find out. I knew in the morning I’d be a hunted woman, sought for a connection to one murder and complicity in another. And that even I, if I looked at the situation through impartial eyes, would likely be convinced I was guilty. Until I knew why they wanted Curtis dead, I’d be a wanted woman. I’d never see my children again. I’d be running for the rest of my life.

I turned the phone on, the BlackBerry powering to life. I scrolled through his recent e-mails and texts, scanning for something from Hruseff or from someone named Gillian. I didn’t find either. What I did find out was Curtis’s last name-Kitchner. CBKitchner@gmail.com being his e-mail account. I looked over his messages. From friends. His family. His Facebook account. I looked under his contacts for a Gillian. Nothing. I didn’t know where to begin.

I was about to put it aside when something made me look through his photos. Maybe it was simply the worry that once I put aside his phone I had no idea what my next move would be. I didn’t know in which direction to drive. Maybe I was just so desperate to find out anything I could about him and what he might have done.

I saw his life: with friends at bars, a team photo of what looked like a rugby match. Then some in rugged terrain-Curtis with some soldiers in combat gear. It looked like Iraq or Afghanistan to me. He and a woman I took to be his sister at a table with what I took to be his parents. They were all smiling and happy. They probably had no idea yet they had lost a son.

Then something caught my eye. A woman. The last picture he had taken. She was pretty and small, dark-featured, with full, dark hair pulled back. I noticed what appeared to be cuts and bruises on her face, and as I enlarged the shot, I saw that she was in a bed, wearing a green hospital gown. There was a date-five days ago. The only identification was simply an initial, L.

A shiver traveled down my spine.

The dark complexion. The oval shape of the face. Anyone might have easily made the mistake. Anyone who had been watching us… perhaps from the hotel bar.

I was staring at someone who looked a lot like me.