Reckless

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It was two in the morning and James Donovan was scared.

For weeks, he’d shut his eyes this time of night and listened to his wife’s steady breathing. He’d looked in on Zachy, his four-year-old, asleep in his room. He’d gone online, checked his positions. The Alt-A’s collapsing. Volumes drying up. Until he couldn’t take it anymore. Felt like he was about to explode.

Then he’d leashed up the dog and gone downstairs in the dead of night for some air.

He’d done something terribly wrong. Now he didn’t know how to take it back.

Tonight, the sharp breeze off the East River blew right through his parka. Remi, his white bichon, looked up at him as if she wanted to head back inside. James wasn’t ready yet.

He didn’t know what to do.

The first check he’d taken had been for 1.6 million dollars. Deposited into an account in the Cayman Islands he opened in his son’s name. He’d waited until the funds were in his hands. The next one was for 2.3. Life-changing money. Given what was going on in the markets, money he’d never have been able to duplicate. Not with the mortgage securities markets gone to hell. With the firm talking about no bonuses this year. Or next. With the stock slid all the way to six.

They were prepared to give him five million! How could he turn that kind of security away?

At first, it had been easy. Like with all sure things, it was easy to lure yourself in, justify it. Hard to pull yourself out.

It had made sense. For his family. Buddies of his, people he had gone to B-school with, they made that in a crappy year. Lapping up homes in the Hamptons. Shares in private jets. Renting villas in the Caribbean. Fancy wine cellars.

Why not him?

Besides, the firm was basically tapioca now. Tanking. He was just part of the picture.

But then everything changed. That guy from Wertheimer, in Greenwich. That changed the whole effing thing. Every time James thought of him he broke out in a clammy sweat.

They killed the guy’s whole family.

He led Remi farther up the block on the leash. He noticed the black SUV parked up the street from his building. The windows were blacked out, but still he thought he saw a face, the same face, one he’d seen before, watching.

Was he going crazy? Hadn’t he seen the same vehicle yesterday? As he came home from the office. The same man behind the glass. Hadn’t he been there the day before, when he and Leslie had snuck out for a bite? He’d asked the doorman. Hadn’t noticed it before. Manny just laughed and said, “Probably driving some big shot in 225 over there, Mr. Donovan.”

Yeah, some big shot, Manny. James wondered if the guy from Wertheimer had ever felt someone tracking him.

Or he could just have been making it all up. Driving himself nuts. He tugged on the dog. C’mon, do your thing. He felt like he was running on amphetamines. Like his brain was about to explode.

James knew, really knew, it was too late. Too late to undo everything. You’ve made your bed, Jimbo. You wanted it both ways. Now he just had to see it through.

If he came clean, he’d be fired on the spot. Probably prosecuted. Serve jail time. At the very least, he’d be banned from the business for life. What else did he know how to do? Christ, he was just thirty-two.

No, the better option was to simply see it through. Take the rest of the money. This thing with Marc Glassman just had him spooked.

He glanced at the parked SUV again.

James dragged Remi into the lobby. Carlos, the overnight attendant, waved, mopping the floor. Third time he had seen him this week. He must be wondering…

Upstairs, James unleashed the dog, took off his parka, flicked on Bloomberg. He took a glimpse at the overnights from Asia. Downward pressure again. The spread was like a spike driven into his heart. He grabbed a Dove bar out of the freezer and went back down the hall. Looked in on Zach sleeping. It was after three now. In two hours he had to get up and cover his trades.

How had he let his life fall apart?

In the bedroom, the light was now on. His wife, Leslie, sat up in bed and watched him come in. She’d noticed changes in him for weeks. Clamming up. Shutting her out. Not wanting to play with Zach.

James was sweating. His face was empty. He could no longer hold the tide back. He sat down, and she crawled up beside him worriedly and took his hand. He didn’t know what else to do except clasp on tight to hers.

Could he tell her?

Could he ever admit what he’d done?

“What’s going on with you, Jimmy?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Thanks for coming in, Ty.”

Hauck sat across from Tom Foley at San Pietro, a block from Talon’s Fifty-fifth Street headquarters. Foley had ordered a Belvedere vodka on the rocks with olives, and Hauck, who never drank during the day, asked for a beer. He had brought with him the file he’d assembled on Thibault and needed an okay before proceeding. Foley suggested lunch. The leather booth in the back gave them some privacy from the lunchtime crowd.

“Cheers.” Foley tilted his glass. “Here’s to staying afloat in the storm. Funny”-the Talon director chuckled-“some of the guys and I were just tossing out a few ideas, Ty, where we think you can be useful to the firm.”

“I’d love to hear about that”-Hauck took a sip of beer-“but I wanted to bring you up-to-date on Merrill Simons. You asked me to keep you informed.”

“Oh, right, of course…” Foley nodded, seeming almost distracted. He took a second sip of his vodka. “Shoot.”

“I know she’s a friend of yours,” Hauck said. He opened his satchel. Leaning forward, he told him what he and Richard Snell had put together. Thibault’s falsified background. His phony degrees, military service. His overstated claims about the Belgian royal family that bordered on fraud. The dead man’s identity he had stolen. Which brought up deeper things. “The guy’s a fraud, Tom. Maybe a whole lot worse. I’m sorry.”

Foley put on his glasses and paged through the file. He winced at some things and shook his head. “The prick. Knew it was too goddamn good to be true. Have you told her?”

“No. I thought I’d run it by you first.”

“She’s going to be crushed,” Foley said. He went to take a drink. “Maybe it’s best if-”

“Tom.” Hauck put his hand on Foley’s wrist. “There’s more.” He took out the photograph he had found of Thibault with Marc Glassman in Greenwich and slipped it on top of the file. “You see who that is?”

Foley squinted above his glasses, and when it registered, the composed Yankee demeanor almost cracked. “Sonova effing bitch!” He rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Where was this taken?”

“In Greenwich. At Conyers Farm. At a charity polo event, last summer. Listen, Tom…” Foley seemed to be trying to calculate just what this meant. “Alone it doesn’t prove anything. It could’ve occurred in a hundred ways. They may have been talking about what to feed the goddamn horse. But I checked around a bit. Glassman didn’t have any connections to Greenwich Polo and I can’t imagine he was part of Dani’s regular crowd.”

Foley nodded, pursing his thin lips in concern. “Anything else that ties the two of them together?”

“Not that I’ve found. Yet.”

“What about anything criminal in Thibault’s past?”

“Criminal,” Hauck asked, “or suspicious?”

“Something firm, Ty.”

Hauck shook his head. “Other than raising a substantial sum of money on an overstated relationship to the Belgian royal family and falsifying his identity…But I think this is something the FBI or Interpol might well show an interest in too.”

Foley placed the photo back on the pile. “Doesn’t prove anything, you know?”

“No.” Hauck nodded. “Not in itself. But there’s still an un-solved homicide in France. And I think maybe all those folks whose money he’s representing might want to know who he is.”

Foley gulped down the rest of his vodka and motioned to the waiter for another. Hauck shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“Have one,” Foley said, raising two fingers. He rested his forearms on the table, gold cufflinks showing through his sleeves. “Listen, Ty, I’d rather, if you can see it our way on this, that none of this had to come out.”

Hauck fixed his eyes on him, surprised.

Foley shrugged. “I mean, it’s clear Merrill should know her boyfriend’s a piece of refuse. But the rest…” He tapped the photo. “This other thing…”

“This other thing what, Tom? Marc Glassman brought down a Wall Street bank. His family’s murder is still an open homicide. Thibault’s got a murky past, is deep in certain financial circles, and is seen together with the victim. To me it’s a bit more than ‘this other thing.’”

Foley took in a breath and nodded. He rubbed his palms together in front of his face. “I want you to listen to me, Ty. We didn’t put you on here, give you all this money, so you could continue thinking like a cop. You’re not representing the town of Greenwich anymore. You’re representing us. Wertheimer’s gone. The Treasury’s carving up whatever meat is left on the bone and selling it off. Other than that fancy building, their only real asset is their retail brokerage operation. It’s still second only to Merrill Lynch. You have any idea who’s in line for that?”

Hauck stared at Foley. Now he did.

“Reynolds Reid. That’s who. Who also happens to be, other than the United States government, our largest account! See how it’s all fitting in, Ty? And our job is to protect the interests of our accounts now, not the people. Not investigate wrongdoing. That’s the government’s job.” His boss stared at him directly. “Now I know I asked you to check out this guy-for a friend-and you did. You did it well. But that’s it now. That’s as far as it goes. You’ve got no proof he’s done anything wrong. So he’s caught talking to a guy at a public venue whose luck happened to go the other way. You going to look into everyone Marc Glassman might have talked to? I bet if you checked out where these pictures are from, they’ve got him yapping to twenty people like Thibault that same day.”

“Tom, this is a guy who’s gone to great lengths to camouflage his past. Only people who do that are people with something to hide. At the very least, we have to look into who he is.”

“No.” Foley shook his head with a frozen stare. “No. At the very least, we do what we can to make sure our client sees through a very important deal. If rumors start to fly that this trader dude was dirty or compromised in some way, if people start looking into this Wertheimer thing and then it gets mixed back up with Merrill, the CEO’s ex-wife, or us…” The second round of drinks came and Foley winked at the pretty bartender who brought them over, then looked back to Hauck, his gaze tight. “You’re a partner here now. Not a cop, so I don’t expect you to act like one. So your priorities are ours. After the sale goes through, maybe then, in a couple of weeks…a month. Then you can rattle the cage a little harder. We’ll look at it again. How’s that?”

“And what about Merrill?’

Foley inhaled a deep, conflicted sort of breath, then shrugged. “This isn’t something she has to know about right now. Trust me. A month. String it along. We’ll see then. You see what I mean?”

Hauck wet his lips, a bitter taste in his mouth. It felt uncomfortable, soiled, even rolling over what Foley had proposed. In his past life…

But maybe things had changed. Accepting the job and the money. Maybe he had to get used to that. New priorities. After all, nothing had been proven. Hauck felt himself nodding, fighting the urge that he was going against everything he was made of inside.

“Good.” Foley smiled and gave a pat to Hauck’s shoulder. “A couple of weeks, a month.” He lifted his new glass, the color coming back to his complexion. “Now if that’s all done maybe we can shift the subject to you, Ty…and how we see you fitting into this organization.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The idea that Talon might use him as a kind of spokesperson appealed to Hauck, against his better nature, on the drive home.

Maybe it was helped along by a couple of beers.

His boss had talked about taking advantage of Hauck’s reputation for independence, uncovering money launderers and even a corrupt senior state senator, and thought that would go well with some of the government contracts they were after. While Hauck had shied away from any publicity after his last big case-the killing of a federal prosecutor from up in Hartford-the story had become front-page news and had brought an end to the career of one of the state’s most powerful politicians as well as put a stain on the legacy of one of its wealthiest tycoons.

He drove onto the Major Deegan Expressway, past Yankee Stadium, trying to push the questions about Dani Thibault and Marc Glassman out of his head.

He punched in Annie’s cell. She was at work, and he’d promised to let her know how the meeting went. But as soon as it began to ring, something made him think twice and, not sure why, he clicked the line off.

The truth was that nowhere in Hauck’s soul was there a single, isolated place where Foley’s response on how to handle Thibault sat peacefully in him, nowhere in the back-and-forth of his con-science that the option of just doing nothing, letting it sit-what’s right for our accounts, that’s your priority now-made sense.

Instead, as he swung the Beemer onto the parkway heading to Connecticut, twenty minutes from home, there was Merrill. The doubts he saw deep in her eyes. She didn’t want to put it aside. I want to know who the man I’m supposed to be falling in love with really is.

You’re not representing the town of Greenwich anymore…

Instead, there was Thibault. A cipher. A con man. Or much, much worse. Deals that didn’t happen. Relationships that didn’t exist. What kind of man did all that? What was it he had to hide?

You know who’s bidding on Wertheimer’s retail business, Ty? Foley had patted him on the shoulder.

He was feeling played.

Instead, there were headlines about the once-mighty Wall Street firm in ruins. Jobs lost. The Dow in freefall. Fortunes decimated. Marc Glassman and April and their beautiful daughter dead.

Now if that’s all done maybe we can shift the subject to you, Ty…

What is it, he thought as he lost himself in the rhythm of the drive, that’s really being protected here? Just because he had made this shift in his life, just because his company ID now said Talon, not the Greenwich police, he couldn’t just put it behind him. The unrest in his blood was the same, the same he’d always felt.

How do you put away something that is as true to you as the beating of your own heart?

How do you put the truth behind you?

“Well, the first thing you should know”-April smiled, taking a sip of coffee-“is you’re not going crazy. Insanity is inherited, you know.” She bit her lower lip. “You get it from your kids.”

He laughed, taking a sip of his latte too. “I always thought it was the other way around.”

“Popular misconception,” she said. “Forgiven. Everyone makes that mistake at first.”

“Thanks for initiating me.”

After his third time there, their eyes bumping into each other a few times, they had happened to leave the building together and talked for a second on the sidewalk. There was a Starbucks on the corner and she asked him if he liked mocha lattes.

“I’m more of a black, no sugar man. But I’m aching to have my horizons expanded.”

“Then my treat.”

They had walked over to a couch. She ordered for him. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened,” she said, stirring her coffee. There was something immediately open and trusting about her, and since the accident, since Hauck’s marriage had dissolved and he had walked away from the force, he hadn’t shared much with anyone. So it was nice just to sit down with someone. And she was pretty. And kind. “Losing a child.”

“Look,” he said, “things have a way of getting a bit gloomy upstairs, so we don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want. But thanks.”

“It’s not your fault, you know.” She shrugged. Her eyes were a soft moss green. “I know you don’t believe that now, but it isn’t.”

All he said was “I know.”

April’s smile widened. “No one would believe that you do, you know. Know that.”

He was in a state he had never felt before. Nothing had ever come easily to him. He had to work at everything-school, sports. Those rushing records in high school, they took every ounce of sweat and determination he had. Getting himself into Colby. His brother had talked his way into law school; for Hauck, it just seemed right to go a different direction. Onto the force. And he rose. Made detective before he was thirty. His fancy degree got him recruited to One Police Plaza. Department of Information. Under the eye of the assistant chief. His marriage thrived. Two adorable girls. Back then, the arc of his life seemed unlimited. Forever rising. For just a moment, a fleeting instant, he had let all that focus and dedication relax. Taken his eye off it.

You could never take your eye off it. Then…

“I may not be crazy,” he said, smiling back, “but I’ve sure done some crazy things. Recently…”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know, all seems kinda stupid now. After the thing with Norah, I sat outside a D’Agostino in Elmhurst for three hours in the middle of the night until I took a brick and flung it through the storefront window.”

“Oh? They give you a roast chicken past the sell date?”

“No.” He shook his head with a bit of a smile. “That’s where I was headed when I let the car back down the driveway…When…”

Even the way she looked at him made him feel better. Like there was an end to this. Like one day, someone would find him interesting again. “Seems stupid now. My precinct head had to intercede. Anyway, that’s how I got here.”

“I drove my daughter to ballet on a combination of OxyContin and antidepressants. I ended up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.”

“What was in Pennsylvania?” he asked.

April smiled. “Don’t know. The Amish. I just mean to say, you’ve got no monopoly on letting the walls fall down. Your daughter was killed. You felt responsible. Sometimes we all just have to do crazy things. Who threw that brick? You?”

“I don’t know.” Hauck shrugged. “Maybe someone inside me.”

“What does Dr. Paul say? Doctor-patient confidentiality aside, of course.”

“He said it would be good to find out who that person is.”

“Look…” She touched his arm, leaning closer. “Those people upstairs…Some of them have been coming to this group for over ten years. The honest-to-God truth is, there are two types-the ones whose brain chemistry has been out of whack since they were kids. Whose every day is a fight to keep things in balance. Then there’s the people for whom the walls that kept everything together have just temporarily come down. Like your walls. Whether you like it or not.” She cupped her hands around her mug. “Those are the ones just passing through.” There was a twinkle in her eyes. “Sorry, mister, that’s you.”

“Thanks,” he said. He felt almost embarrassed. He looked up and saw her staring at him, not suggestive in any way. But he was sure he saw a little sadness in her too.

“So which type are you?”

By the time Hauck hit the Merritt Parkway, the unrest had grown into something that he had felt many times before and wouldn’t easily go away.

Just passing through. She was right. He had gone to the group for eight sessions. That inner person, he knew damn well who it was now.

It was the person who was about to do this.

He reached for his cell and punched in a number off the speed dial. After a couple rings, a familiar voice picked up. “Collucci,” the person answered.

Vito Collucci was an ex-Stamford detective who had his own successful investigative agency now. Sometimes it had helped to have a source for these kinds of things outside of the force, and he had helped Hauck many times.

“Ty,” Vito said, sounding pleased, “I’m surprised a big shot like you has time to remember the little fish like me. You got my e-mail?”

“Yeah, Vito, that was nice of you. Thanks. You mentioned if you could help out in any way…”

“Jeez, that was only a figure of speech, my friend. But the hell with it, if you’re serious, shoot.”

“I need you to pull me a cell phone history.” Hauck reached over and opened his case. Holding the wheel, he pulled out the profile and read Vito the number. “The subject’s name is Thibault.” He spelled it for him. “First name Dieter. Or Dani. D-AN-I. I know this isn’t particularly glamorous, guy.”

“Yeah, and I can’t even charge you for it,” the private detective replied. “But I’m a little confused. Don’t you have people in that high-profile firm who do this kind of thing routinely?”

Hauck paused, exiting the parkway at Long Ridge Road. Just a small step, he cautioned himself. A toe in the water.

But that’s how everything always got started.

“If it’s okay, I was thinking we might keep this separate from my high-profile firm, Vito. Alright by you?”

The Stamford investigator laughed. “That didn’t take long, Ty.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

His daughter Jessie came up for the weekend. Now that she was fourteen, she took the train up from Grand Central. Every once in a while they drove up to Butternut in Western Massachusetts and went skiing or saw her cousins up near Hartford. Sometimes they just hung at the house and watched a bunch of movies. She was reaching for her independence now full-throttle, and Hauck realized it was getting harder and harder to lure her up there. Something was always popping up-a basketball game at school, Amanda’s party, a Rooney concert. More and more, she spent her time with him with her legs hanging over the couch, on Facebook or on her cell gabbing.

This time, he caved and agreed to take her to see Knocked Up, despite the R rating. Which he regretted from the opening credits.

“Jeez, Dad,” Jessie said afterward as Hauck checked uncomfortably for the sign of some other kids her age, “it’s not like it’s stuff I’ve never seen.”

When the hell had Nemo morphed into Seth Rogen?

That Sunday, he got up early and stole some time on the computer. He took a jog around Hope Cove, and the April morning air was salty and starting to warm. Another month and it would be time to take out the boat. It was anyone’s guess if Jessie would be up for that anymore.

Later, he made pancakes for her when she came out at nine thirty, wiping sleep out of her eyes. He watched her, as he sipped his coffee, in her sweatshirt and pajama bottoms, wondering if there was anything quite as hopeful or beautiful in the world. He missed Norah-he thought of her scrunched-up nose and singsong laughter every day. Eventually Jessie caught him staring blankly. “What, Dad?”

“Nothing,” he said.

After breakfast, he put his face in the sun on the deck overlooking the sound and took out the Sunday New York Times.

Jessie was already on the phone on the couch, watching Comedy Central. He started with the sports section. Tiger and Phil were gearing up for a showdown at the Masters. The Yanks lost to the Red Sox on opening day.

As he threw the sports aside and searched for business, a headline on the front page of the metro section grabbed him.

Suicide Victim in High-Rise Is Second Wall Street Trader

The body found hanging yesterday morning in the office of a superintendent of a midtown apartment building was identified as that of James Donovan, a mortgage bond trader at Wall Street firm Beeston Holloway. Mr. Donovan was a resident of the building.

The death is being considered a suicide, and Donovan is the second high-profile Wall Street trader in the past month to meet a sudden end. Mark Glassman, a securities trader at the recently collapsed Wertheimer Grant, was fatally shot along with his family in what was thought to be a break-in at his home in Greenwich, CT, on March 6. The resulting scandal of losses and trading mismanagement helped to take down the firm.

Donovan, 32, was a high rider, recently described by friends and coworkers as having appeared “bothered” and “preoccupied” of late, perhaps resulting from the precipitous turnaround in the mortgage bond market. Staff at the upscale building where he lived with his wife and son said he was often seen in the middle of the night walking his dog, and seemed to have some arrangement that allowed him access to the superintendent’s office, where his body was discovered early Friday morning as the building’s super, Luis Verga, arrived for work. Mr. Verga would not comment other than to say he knew Mr. Donovan and that “he was a good guy,” but one building staffer said Mr. Donovan often used the office to take late calls because “it was a twenty-four-hour-a-day job and he didn’t want to bother his wife at late hours. He was on the board. At Christmas, he made it worthwhile.”

Friends and coworkers described the successful trader as changed in the past few weeks, “kind of withdrawn and edgy.” “He felt under a lot of pressure,” one coworker said. Susan Fine, spokesperson for Beeston Holloway, said, “Jim was an excellent young man and an adept trader. His future was on the rise.”

Speculation that Donovan’s suicide was related to a pattern of financial mismanagement that helped bring down the once-mighty Wertheimer Grant began to circulate as soon as the news of the trader’s suicide hit the streets. “Such speculation is completely unfounded and untrue,” Fine said when asked to comment. “Beeston has tight operational controls.” She added that the firm, despite its own dramatic stock slide over the past weeks and rumors of impending write-downs against its balance sheet, “is on sound financial footing.”

Donovan, who is originally from Sayville, Long Island, and received an MBA from NYU, leaves behind his wife, Leslie, and a son, Zachary, four.

Hauck put the article down. He stared, doubt swarming in him, at the placid sound.

He didn’t really believe in coincidences, and like every cop, he lived by the rule “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

A second Wall Street trader suspiciously dead was now a fire.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

At 6:40 that Monday morning, Naomi came in from her early run along the Potomac. She threw her shell top on the chair in her two-level apartment in Alexandria, her gray Bon Jovi T-shirt and tight black leggings soaked through with sweat. She took a water bottle out of the fridge and placed the cool plastic against her forehead, exhaling. That felt good.

Six miles.

She had done it in a little under thirty-two minutes. She was building up for next year’s Marine Corp marathon. Pushing for an under-three-twenty time.

Next week she’d push herself up to eight.

She peeled off her shirt, down to her sports bra, and got ready to head into the shower. She checked her government e-mail.

This second dead Wall Street trader was on her radar. She was taught to look for patterns, and for this one she didn’t have to look very far. By seven, a staff assistant would forward her links to any news story that might be of interest, and over the Post, coffee, and the Financial Times Naomi would scroll through them to bring herself up to speed for the day. Yesterday, news came out on James Donovan, who had died under unusual circumstances. From Beeston Holloway. Hung himself. Couldn’t stand the pressure. These young guys had come out of college, made more their first year than Naomi had to her name. They’d only seen the market go one way-up!-their entire lives.

At least that’s how it was being portrayed in the press. She’d already brought it to Rob Whyte, her boss at Treasury. It didn’t smell right. No matter how it was being portrayed. “You watch,” she told him, “something’s not right on this. I should go check it out.” She scrolled through her in-box, looking for whatever had been posted on the trader’s suicide.

There was a new item flashing. Along with the red message light on her BlackBerry.

It was a text from Rob. Naomi saw that he’d posted a link.

The subject was “Second Trader Dead.” The only thing it said was “Need to talk on this TODAY!”

Something else had happened.

Putting her yogurt down, she clicked on the link, which turned out to be an update of the earlier story, on Bloomberg, dated only an hour ago.

DEAD BEESTON TRADER IMPLICATED IN SECOND INVESTOR SCANDAL. BILLIONS UNACCOUNTED FOR. COMPANY CALLS DAMAGE “MATERIAL AND PERVASIVE.” AUDIT UNDER WAY.

STOCK REELING IN OVERSEAS TRADING.

She knew it! She turned on the TV. CNBC was on it. Their angle was an out-of-control Wall Street unable to cope with the downturn. First Wertheimer, now Beeston.

No, she now felt sure-that wasn’t what was going on. Not at all.

She was taught to look for patterns. Patterns that could be woven into puzzles. Threats.

This one was right in front of her.

Naomi grabbed her BlackBerry and texted her boss. “Already on it,” she said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The second investment manager to die under suspicious circumstances quickly became front-page news.

The media paraded it as a sign of Wall Street “on ’roids!” No controls. All oversight shattered. Donovan became a tragic case of the life-altering pressures of highly remunerated “dice rollers” unable to cope with their evaporating positions. The post-boom world.

First it was the subprime debacle, Wertheimer going belly-up. Then it was Fannie and Freddie teetering, AIG coughing up blood. Now it was Beeston. Portfolio managers having to double down on their bets to make up their widening losses, taking their firms down with them. Over the edge. These people weren’t programmed for anything but success.

James Donovan had only known life one way. Up.

He just couldn’t handle it.

Hauck opened the door to the Seventeenth Precinct station house. He’d left work early that afternoon and driven to the city. Monday was the night he usually had Annie over and cooked dinner, but tonight, this new development was on his mind.

On the way in, he’d caught the news. Beeston said it was engaged in heated talks to save the company. They were now admitting Donovan had cost them billions. Pundits were speculating that he had started to panic when the scandal at Wertheimer hit, knowing he could no longer keep the lid on his own giant losses. Now the only momentum on the Street was toward outright panic. Wertheimer was history. Beeston Holloway could be next. The whole financial sector had zero support.

Hauck winced. The Dow had tumbled to its worst level in eight years yesterday.

The precinct station was on East Fifty-first. Hauck went upstairs and asked a woman sitting behind the duty desk for Detective Campbell.

The woman pointed toward a portly, red-haired man at a desk against the window in a V-neck sweater who was on the phone. “Over there.”

Hauck walked over and waited for the detective to finish up. Campbell was scribbling notes on a pad, his foot up on an open drawer. “Gimme a second,” he said, signaling Hauck with a look that told him to wait. His desk was piled high with open files and paperwork; against the wall he had two framed pictures of his kids. There was a wooden chair next to his desk and a couple of books stacked on it. Hauck took note of one: The Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Wall Street.

He chuckled.

When the detective finally got off, he wheeled around in his chair to face Hauck and crossed his legs. “Shep Campbell, sorry…”

“My name’s Hauck.” Hauck draped his sport jacket across his arm. “I used to be in homicide with the one fourteen in Queens, and later at the DOI, under Chief Burns.”

Campbell nodded, jabbing his finger in recognition. “Yeah, I know you, don’t I? Didn’t you get your face on the tube for some big case you had up there? The Grand Central bombing, right? That guy who wasn’t dead…You’re Hauck.”

“That’s it.” Hauck took out a card and handed it to him. The detective pursed his lips and blew out a frowning chirp. Cops who jumped ship to the private sector generally weren’t esteemed by those who had stuck around, worked out their time on a city salary. They came across a bit like sellouts.

Campbell took note of Hauck’s firm and put the card down. “Went over the wall, huh? Can’t exactly blame you. You found your ticket. Kids gotta go to school.” He cleared the books off the chair next to his desk and motioned for Hauck to sit down. “Bet yours are in some fancy academy up there now, right? What brings you back down?”

“The Donovan thing.” Hauck ignored the rest. “I was hoping I might ask you a few questions.”

Campbell sighed loudly. “Topic of the day.”

“I’m trying to figure out if there are any links to that other thing that took place up in Greenwich. That trader who was killed with his family.”

The detective nodded, grabbing a bag of pistachios, not offering one to Hauck. “I see. That thing was connected to a home break-in ring up there, wasn’t it?”

Hauck shrugged. “That’s what it was deemed at first.”

“Then I’m sure you read that this one was deemed to be a suicide.” He split a nut and tossed the shell into his trash bin. “What sort of similarities are you looking for?”

“Two money managers dead under suspicious circumstances? I was wondering if you had a chance to look over the victim’s phone records yet.”

“Phone records?”

“Or maybe at the building’s security cameras. I assume they have them.”

“For what?”

“For anyone who might’ve entered close to the time of death.”

“Security cameras…” The detective popped the nut into his mouth and looked at Hauck’s card again. “Hauck, right? Talon… Heard of it. Big firm. This says you’re a partner up there. I know it’s hard to turn down these kinds of opportunities. Maybe if something came my way…We all have to make a choice. You mind telling me just what is your particular point of interest here?”

A pushy ex-cop from out of town. A well-paid one at that. Coming around and sticking his nose into an active case. No particular jurisdiction. Hauck expected the response. “I knew a member of the Glassman family who was killed up there. I’m just following up to see if there’s any link between these two cases. Two rogue traders. Lots of losses. Two Wall Street firms driven over the edge. You heard the news today?”

“Yeah, it’s all here on page one oh six, right in my trusty bible.” Campbell picked up the Wall Street manual, smirking. “I assume you’re not buying into the home-invasion angle?”

Hauck shrugged. “All I’m buying is just to follow up. For a friend.”

Campbell nodded again, mock-sympathetically, but his gaze stayed on Hauck, then shifted again to his card. “Hmmph, you know, maybe this is my ticket out.” He snorted. “I’m not exactly Warren effing Buffett, y’know…Not much ever came my way. Listen, Mr. Hauck”-he made the name sound like “cancer”-“I know you’ve got some time in. You seem to have a personal interest here, and I don’t want to be nosy. I also know what it’s like when you leave the force.”

“Sorry?”

“You know, you leave early, miss the action. You probably deal with a lot of corporate stuff up there. White-collar clients. Like to keep your hands on the tiller.”

Hauck didn’t respond. The suffering-cop routine was starting to wear thin.

“But the facts are, Mr. Hauck, Mr. Donovan left his apartment in the night around three fifteen A.M. Like he was prone to doing lately. His wife woke up and took note of the time. Fell back to sleep. He had a key to the super’s office in the building, which is likely to get the poor sucker canned in this environment. The fingerprints on the door handle to the office were his and his alone. He used electrical wire the super kept in the storage closet there, which he slung over the ceiling pipes. The guy had a recent history of being upset. Not sleeping. He was on mood stabilizers. People at work said he was wired like a fuse. Not exactly a big surprise when someone’s lost the equivalent of the GNP of Belarus.” Campbell chuckled. “You notice how nothing less than a billion even makes the news today? Even his wife suggested the man was acting a little off lately. Forgot birthdays. Walking the dog at three A.M. You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to see the guy was depressed. Even his firm’s not pushing that anything was screwy on this. So why would we need to check his phone records? Or any video? Just who should we be looking for?”

Hauck could have answered, Maybe for a connection to Dani Thibault, or for the man April Glassman’s son had taken a shot of, with the braided red-brown hair, tattoo on his neck. But he didn’t want to bring up Thibault as a topic until he had something more to go on. Or until Foley gave him the green light.

And this guy was just trying to clear cases. And this one didn’t require much work.

“Like I said, just following up for a friend,” Hauck said, taking his jacket off his arm.

“You said you knew him, huh?”

“Knew whom?” Hauck wrinkled his brow, not sure who the guy meant.

“Donovan,” the detective said. “The vic.”

“I didn’t say I knew him. I said I knew one of the persons killed in Greenwich. A minute ago you didn’t seem to imply he was a vic.”

“No dealings with him at all?” the detective asked, removing another pistachio from the bag.

“No dealings.” Hauck looked at him quizzically. “Why?”

“No reason. Just trying to get things straight. That’s all.” He held up Hauck’s card. “Talon, huh? Mind if I keep this? May need some advice someday, if my ticket ever comes in.”

Hauck stood up and folded his jacket back over his arm. “Be my guest.”

“You know, maybe I will,” Campbell said, standing up as well; his gut was round and he was five inches shorter than Hauck. “Check out those phone records after all. Like you said. You never know what might turn up. If I did, you have a name I should be looking for?”

“You’ll let me know when you do,” Hauck replied, “and I’ll see if one comes to mind.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

On the way home, Hauck took a chance and stopped on East Fifty-third Street, at the building where Donovan had lived.

He was met by the doorman at the entrance and asked to speak with Donovan’s wife. The man, who’d clearly been alerted to keep the press and any interested outsiders at bay, looked over Hauck’s card as if there was a secret code in the paper stock. Hauck convinced him to call upstairs. “He says he was a policeman from Greenwich,” the doorman said into the phone, “that he’s following up on some things pertaining to some other case up there. He said it would only take a minute, Ms. Donovan. You want me to let him up?”

The answer was apparently yes, and, eventually, the doorman directed him to an elevator bank on the far end of the lobby. The lobby was a full walk-through with a rear entrance that led onto Fifty-second. Hauck spotted a security camera perched on the wall above the rear door.

As he passed, it occurred to him he’d like to have a shot at checking out that film.

When the elevator opened on fifteen, he was met by a dark-haired woman with a pained demeanor in a black dress, her hair tied back in a bun. She introduced herself as Deena Wolf, Leslie Donovan’s sister. “We just buried my brother-in-law yesterday,” she said, as if to dissuade him. “My sister’s already spoken several times with the police…”

“I’ll only take a second,” Hauck promised. “It’s important.”

The woman nodded, looking harried. “Please…”

Inside, about a dozen people were gathered in the foyer and small kitchen. Sounds of laughter and food being served mixed with the somber looks and hushed replies. A couple of young kids ran through the living room chasing a white bichon with their parents yelling after them.

“My sister’s in here.”

She took him into a small room that looked like a combination TV room and study. Wood shelves filled haphazardly with books and brochures. Financial documents all around. A leather couch and a wide-screen TV. Leslie Donovan sat on the couch. She had thick dark hair pulled back tightly and a pale complexion, and was dressed in a dark burgundy sweater and skirt.

“I appreciate you seeing me,” Hauck said. “I’m sorry for your loss. I won’t take up much of your time.” He’d been in these situations many times and didn’t want to impose.

The woman nodded a little blankly. She was pretty, with a small nose and high cheekbones, though the stress was apparent. “It’s okay. Carlos said you were a Greenwich policeman?”

“I was in charge of the detective unit up there for six years. Now I work for a private security firm.” Hauck sat down across from her and put his card on the coffee table. She picked it up. “You’re familiar with the Glassman murders that took place up there a month ago?”

“Of course we’re familiar with it, Mr. Hauck. Everyone in the industry followed it. That was when Jim first started acting a little strangely.”

“How do you mean?”

“He grew agitated. Withdrawn. He stopped sleeping. Got up at night. What is your connection to these murders, Mr. Hauck, if you don’t mind telling me?”

“I was close friends with one of the family who was killed. I’m looking into whether the two incidents might be connected in any way. Two traders, two Wall Street firms collapsed. I just have a few questions.”

“That poor family.” Leslie Donovan sighed, shaking her head. “Terrible. But my husband took his own life, Mr. Hauck. Surely you know that. What do you mean, ‘whether the two incidents might be connected’?”

Hauck removed a photo from an envelope. The photo Merrill had given him. Dani. “I was wondering if you know this person, Ms. Donovan. Or if anyone by the name Thibault had ever come up with your husband. He’s Belgian. Dieter Thibault, or maybe Dani?”

Donovan’s widow took the photo. “No. I don’t recognize him. I don’t know the name at all. Should I?”

“I don’t know.” Hauck shrugged, knowing it was a long shot. “He’s someone who had a connection to Marc Glassman that I came in contact with. Is there any chance his name might be in your husband’s phone log, or maybe somewhere in his records or on his desk? Here, or at work?”

“If you believe there’s some kind of connection between those murders and my husband, why don’t you just tell the police?” Donovan’s widow asked. “Detective Campbell of the local precinct has been very helpful. I’m sure he’d see you.”

“Already had the pleasure,” Hauck said. “But I didn’t mention this man. I’m just not at that stage. And I don’t want to upset you unnecessarily, until I know something more. You said the Glassman murders seemed to agitate your husband. Did he discuss the incident with you in any way? Was he unnaturally focused on it? Any special importance to it you can recall?”

“Of course he was focused on it, Mr. Hauck. They had similar jobs. The same kind of pressure. And now…” She wet her lips, shook her head. “With what’s come out, those losses…It only seems more so.” She took her thumb and forefinger and pressed them into her brow. Her sister sat down beside her on the couch and put her hand on Leslie Donovan’s knee. She drew a deep breath and shook her head, not, it seemed, in response to anything.

“Did your husband seem afraid in any way?” Hauck asked her. “Recently. Did he ever give you the impression someone might be threatening him or out to get him?”

Donovan’s widow stared at him. “You don’t think those poor people were killed in a break-in, do you? Or Jimmy…”

Hauck looked back at her and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“It’s hard enough for me to think that Jim actually could have done these things they’re accusing him of”-she pressed together her lips-“without having to think that maybe he was…” She didn’t finish the phrase. “Just what is it you are trying to say? He wasn’t sleeping. He would sometimes take calls late at night. Anyone who handles money knows what that is like. Of course, he showed a lot of stress. Of course, he wasn’t right. Look at what’s come out, Mr. Hauck. Just the other night…”

She covered her face with her hand. Not crying. Almost hiding. Her sister put her arm around her.

“Just the other night…Jim went downstairs. Took Remi out. At three A.M. I woke up when he came back up. He sat on the bed. He looked like he had seen a ghost. He started to tell me how he was afraid, what the losses he was suffering might mean to his career, to our family. I mean, everyone had losses. What he was hiding, I had no idea…He kept saying he’d seen the same car outside…I saw what he was going through. I wanted to help him in some way. I sat up with him for an hour. Yes, he seemed afraid. Yes, he was worried about things. But now he’s dead. It’s over. What difference does it make now, anyway?”

Hauck asked, “Do you think your husband killed himself, Ms. Donovan?” knowing it was more than he should have said.

Her sister looked up at him like That’s enough now. It’s time. Hauck collected the photo. He put it back in his sport coat. He stood up.

“Do I think he killed himself?” Donovan’s widow shook her head. “I didn’t think Jim was capable of any of the things they say he did. But take his own life? No. I can’t believe that, Mr. Hauck. I don’t think I ever will. He loved us far too much. If not me, then Zachy. His son was everything to him. So, no.”

“Why do you think your husband had a key to the superintendent’s office, Ms. Donovan? Seems to me he could have taken calls from here. It’s private, no matter what time of night.”

“I don’t know.” Leslie Donovan shook her head, tearing up. “I don’t know.”

Hauck figured he’d stayed long enough. “Thanks for your time. If you happen to look through his phone records, or any of his things, and come across that name-Thibault”-he pointed to his card-“you can reach me at that number.”

He went to the door and was about to say “I’m sorry” again, when he turned back. “One more thing…Do you remember what kind of car it was?”

“Excuse me?” Leslie Donovan looked up, surprised.

“What kind of car your husband said he saw. Outside. That he thought might be following him.”

“Some kind of SUV,” Leslie Donovan replied. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it was important. Black, I think.”

Hauck nodded. A black Suburban was the vehicle Evan Glassman had snapped a shot of outside his house.

“You know you’re the second person to ask me that question today?” Donovan’s widow looked up. “The make of the car.”

“Who was the first?” Hauck asked. Maybe that’s what Campbell had been hiding. That he knew something he didn’t share.

“A woman,” Leslie Donovan said. “She was up here earlier today. From Washington.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Hauck finally made it home at close to ten. He noticed Annie had let herself in, and it hit him then how he had promised to cook a meal for them tonight, her night off, curl up on the couch, and watch 24.

Soon as he came through the door he knew he was in some trouble.

“Nice meal,” Annie called out from the living room couch, her voice ringing with sarcasm.

Oh shit.

One glance at the kitchen told him she had done her best to resurrect what he was supposed to have put together: the flank steak that had been marinating in the fridge, along with one of her favorite weekday staples, spaghetti in oil and crushed black pepper-corns. He saw that 24 was finishing up on the tube and Annie was in PJ bottoms and a T-shirt with a plate perched on her lap.

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” he muttered, tossing his jacket over a chair. He came over and sat beside her. “Work.”

“I called work,” Annie said. “Brooke said you left early and went into the city.”

“Right.” Hauck cleared his throat contritely. “I left word. Would it make me out to be more or less of a heel if I told you how great everything smells?”

“More,” Annie said, not letting up. “So don’t try.” She put her plate down on the old trunk that doubled as Hauck’s coffee table. “You know, I take one night off a week, Ty, and it’s a night Jared stays up at school, and it would be nice if I was able to maybe spend it with the guy I’m supposedly involved with. Especially when he makes the big hunter-gatherer gesture that he’s going to cook.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “Truth is”-he tried to smile-“I never saw anyone so eager to get themselves poisoned.”

“No humor, Ty, please. That’s not the point.”

“I know it’s not the point.” He squeezed her warmly on her knee, his hand staying there. “I went into the city to follow up on a lead. I guess I just got wrapped up.”

“Ty, you’ve been wrapped up somewhere else since this woman was killed.” Annie faced him. “I’m sorry about that, Ty, I really am. But I deserve some attention too. It’s almost making me jealous. Like, is there anything you want to confess?”

Hauck shrugged and tried to smile. “Other than maybe taking you for granted from time to time.” He saw the tightness in her jaw start to soften. She drew her knees up and pushed back her hair. It took a lot to get Annie mad, and he’d overachieved. Laughter was a lot more natural for her than anger. The ticking digital clock flashed on the screen and 24 went into next week’s previews.

“Anyway, you missed a lights-out episode.” She stood up and picked up her dish. “There’s a plate for you in the microwave. A weak moment-don’t ask me why. And don’t even think of asking about what you missed because there’s no way I’m going to divulge…Even with sex,” she said, scrunching her nose playfully at him, climbing over him.

Hauck reached and caught her by the wrist and pulled her onto his lap. He squeezed her, hoping for a hint of forgiveness. “Wouldn’t even try,” he said. “However, I do have Dove bars in the freezer for dessert.” He knew she would kill for those. “I was hoping that might work.”

“Hmmm.” Annie nodded, thinking for a second, then rolled off of him. “You’re on dangerous turf there, mister…Maybe bring one upstairs when you’re done. And remember, forgiveness is predicated on performance.” She took her plate over to the sink and dumped it in. “Let’s just say we can agree the dishes are yours tonight. And by the way, there’s an envelope for you over there. It was under the door when I let myself in.” She went to the stairs. “I’m heading up.”

“Annie…”

She turned around on the landing in her baggy flannels and University of Michigan T-shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Hauck said again. “I really am.”

She continued up without saying anything but, to his delight, wiggled out of her top and tossed it back to the floor from the top of the stairs.

“Dove bar…,” she called teasingly.

“Got it.” Hauck laughed and went around to the kitchen, weighing whether to follow her up before she’d even shut the door-Right answer, he thought-or surrender to his growling stomach and the plate she had put in the microwave. He picked food. He hit the reheat button on the microwave and opened the fridge, pulling out a beer. He heard Annie in the bathroom and sat at the counter, waiting for the meal to heat.

He hadn’t been entirely forthcoming with her. And he was still holding back from being so right now. She was right; he had been elsewhere. He was sorry he’d let it all fall back on her, but he knew that if he was straight with her, it would only produce the lecture that maybe he should follow the advice of his boss right now and drop this thing for good.

While the meal warmed, Hauck reached out for the brown, taped-up legal envelope on the counter, which, he noticed immediately, had come from Vito. Good man! He slit it open and found a large ream of the phone records from Thibault he had asked for, along with a note on Vito’s company letterhead: “Bill to follow.”

Hauck chuckled.

He took a swig of beer. The microwave beeped. He went over and took out the plate and sat, flinching for a second from the heat, back at the counter. He cut into the steak, which was tender and flavorful, admiring how his own concoction of red wine, olive oil, soy sauce, and balsamic had come out to perfection, even if Annie had lit the grill.

Between bites, he leafed through the sheets.

He had homework to do. The stack was maybe two hundred pages thick. And he didn’t have much to go on. The logs went all the way back to October like he’d requested-six months. He had mulled things over maybe a dozen times on the ride from the city. Should he just drop it? He knew he was treading on thin ice. Steve Chrisafoulis was starting to get irritated. The detective in New York didn’t exactly seem like his new BFF. And then there was Foley, his boss…

“How is it down there?” Annie called from the upstairs landing.

“Pretty good,” Hauck yelled back. “Pasta’s not bad, but this flank steak is a ten!”

“Oh, you’re definitely pushing it, mister…”

“Up in a minute,” he said.

He gulped down a few last bites and quickly flipped forward to late-February and March, just before April and her family were killed.

At first glance he didn’t find any calls from Thibault to the dead trader. It was all pretty much just numbers and phone IDs he didn’t recognize. He leafed forward a month, to April, just a couple of weeks ago, the weeks before James Donovan’s death.

A number jumped out at him. 212-555-5719.

He put down his fork and knife and pushed away the plate. From a coffee mug near the wall phone where he kept things, he grabbed a yellow marker. He highlighted the number.

Then he leafed back through the stack of listings and locations. He searched for the same number. He found it several times, his pulse seeming to pick up each time. He noted the time of day of these calls.

One fifty-seven A.M.

Two fifteen A.M.

Three oh five.

Always in the middle of the night. Always to the same location. A location that just made that ice he was on even thinner.

He’d just been there today.

352 East Fifty-third Street. Donovan’s apartment building. He dialed the number on his cell. A voice recording came on. Hispanic. “This is the super’s office. No one is here to take your call…”

Hauck hung up. Something surged through his veins. Vindication.

That linked Dani Thibault to both dead traders.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The cheers from the crowd and the thwack of the ball on wooden sticks rang out on the Greenwich Academy field.

The Gators were playing the Lady Crusaders from St. Luke’s in field hockey. It was a crisp May afternoon. Greenwich was ranked number one in the state. About a hundred people were on the field or in the stands, mostly parents and friends, shouting, “Go, Green, go, Green!” as a determined blond attacker in the home jersey sprinted down the sideline past the last St. Luke’s defender. To rising cheers, she executed a spin and centered the ball directly in front of the visitor’s goal. There was a heated scrum for control. A teammate wound up and whacked the ball into the open net.

“Attaway, Jen! Good goal, good goal!”

The team celebrated with a bunch of high fives.

Dani Thibault made his way across the top row of the bleachers. A man in a red Lands’ End jacket and green bleached-out baseball cap stood up, clapping and yelling, “Way to go, Jen. Way to set Amy up!” Thibault waited until play resumed. He came over and took a seat behind him. St. Luke’s sent the ball down to the Greenwich end.

He leaned over the man in the cap. “Your daughter, right?”

The man continued clapping, Thibault’s voice seeming to take him by surprise. The man turned and recognized him from the meeting they had had in New York and also from the party circuit around town. “I didn’t know you had a kid here.”

“I don’t. That’s her who set up the goal, number fourteen, right?”

The man in the Lands’ End jacket nodded, standing up. He was a fund manager at one of the largest hedge funds in Greenwich. “Get it out of there, Jen! Dig it out! Thataway!” He sat back down and said, face forward, confused, “I thought we decided I’d contact you if I wanted to talk further.”

“Oh, yes, right, on that other issue,” Thibault said. “That situation is gone. Someone grabbed it. Another time. She’s very good, your daughter.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “North Carolina, isn’t it, next year?”

“Duke,” the man in the red jacket said, glancing along the bleachers, making sure they were alone.

“That’s right, Duke. And you’ve got two more right behind her, don’t you? Great girls, I hear. All top students…”

“Listen.” The man finally turned to him, perturbed. “It’s Dani, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Dani.” Thibault nodded.

Thibault knew the man’s story better than his own. He was a senior investment manager at a troubled fund that had just been bought by one of the large banks. He’d bet huge on the spread between mortgage rates and bonds, the evaporating spread, and now his positions were in free fall. The last two years, multimillion-dollar bonuses had been paid in restricted stock. And to support his fancy lifestyle-the kids in the right school, the ski house in Vail, the twelve-thousand-square-foot castle under construction-Lands’ End had been borrowing against it heavily. A little at a time, then more as the stock price went down. Never believing it was anything more than a blip. A blip that would reverse.

That blip was about to kill him now.

Thibault placed his hands squarely on the man’s shoulders. “Actually, I thought we might discuss something else.”

Soon he’d be getting margin calls. Calls, with all his cash pledged, that he couldn’t meet. Then he’d talk about maybe unloading some property, property that was plummeting just as fast, that wouldn’t sell. Who knew, in a month he might even lose his job. The sweats were definitely coming out at night. Thibault knew he was as good as dead, as dead as the banks. Just walking around. Zombie.

Piqued, the man said, “Listen, Dani, or whatever you go by, call me at the office if you have another deal. Not here. I’m watching my kid. You understand?”

Thibault had pitched him on a Dutch retailer that was for sale, a private equity thing. Just feeling him out. First they had met at the Field Club in Greenwich. Thibault had a nose for the smell of panic underneath his calm country-club veneer.

Zombie.

“I was just thinking about the future, that’s all. Those big bonuses are a thing of the past now, aren’t they, Ted? How much does it look like this year?’

“What are you now”-the man suddenly turned-“my fucking estate planner?”

“Yeah, Ted.” Thibault leveled his gaze on Ted’s eyes. “That’s exactly what I am, my friend. I’m your ticket out, if you’re smart. Your only ticket.”

The whistle blew. Half time. The girls on the field headed to their locker rooms. The man shifted around, annoyed. But didn’t walk away. “What are you talking about?”

“Maybe we can have a drink next week. About how you’re going to get out of this mess. How you’re going to finish that house. Fork up the hundred and fifty grand for the girls. Plus the place in Jupiter, right? You know what I mean?”

“I said we’d look at your proposal,” the hedge fund manager said. “If that’s gone, send me another. I’ll run it by the committee.”

“No, that’s all changed, Ted. I’m no longer looking for a penny from you.” Thibault’s cool, purposeful smile seemed to make the man uneasy. “It’s the other way around now. Enough to get you out of this mess. For good. Enough to sort out that life of yours that’s underwater. Enjoy the game,” Thibault said, looking past him to the field and patting him firmly on the shoulders. “I’m your banker now.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The connection he’d found between Dani Thibault and both dead traders weighed on Hauck the whole next day.

Taken separately, it all meant nothing. Only the loosest circumstantial connection that didn’t prove a thing. Thibault lived in that world. He might well have known both Glassman and Donovan. It wasn’t enough to take to Chrisafoulis or Foley.

Yet it was more than he could put aside.

Wednesday, he awoke clearheaded. And he knew what to do.

He called Steve Chrisafoulis at the station, Tom Foley’s admonition still in his mind. Steve wasn’t there. He chatted for a few seconds with Brenda, his old secretary. “Tell him to call me back,” he asked her. “It’s pretty important.”

For the next few hours he did his best to focus on things at work. But he was distracted. He waited for Steve’s return call. Thibault was connected. The two dead traders were connected. He knew it. But he just couldn’t prove it-at least not on his own. Everyone was right. He had made his choices. He wasn’t a cop anymore.

Now someone else had to run with the ball.

Around three, he realized he hadn’t heard back from Steve. He tried him once more. He needed to get what he knew off his chest. This time, Brenda told him, “He had to run into the city. You have his cell, don’t you?”

Hauck did. “Just tell him to give me a call on his way back.”

When his phone shook a short time later he figured it was Steve finally calling him back, but it turned out to be Richard Snell from London. Hauck glanced at his watch, figuring the time there. “You’re sure burning the candle a bit late…”

“I’m actually calling you from home,” the Talon British director said. “That search you had me looking into, Thibault-”

“Listen, Richard,” Hauck said, cutting him off, “I should’ve called. Tom Foley asked me to-”

“I know precisely what Tom asked,” Snell said. “He called here as well. But if you’ve got a paper and pen, I think I can be of some help. Something came back.”

Hauck grabbed a pen off his desk. “Go ahead.”

“Before we were told to stop, we started looking into his banking connections over here. Thibault maintains a personal account in his own name at RBS. Most of what goes on seems on the up-and-up. He pays for a flat in Kensington. A housekeeper. Some monthly expenses. What did strike me as interesting, however, is that every month, like clockwork, there’s a payment of three thousand euros wired from his account to another European bank.”

“To the Netherlands?” Hauck asked. That was where Thibault was supposedly from.

“No, to an AstraBanca,” the Brit replied. “In a town called Novi Pazar. In Serbia.”

“Serbia!” Hauck pushed back in his seat. “Wired to whom?”

“We’re not sure. A woman. The name on the account is a Maria Radisovic. Ring a bell?”

Hauck had never heard the name before. “No.”

“I’m not surprised. We did a quick check. She’s sixty-eight years old. Her husband, Evo, is dead. She’s got a daughter, Ola. Receives a small monthly pension from an auto parts factory there.”

Serbia.

It triggered Hauck’s memory of Merrill Simons’s mentioning a photograph she had found in Thibault’s wallet. Two women, one older, in an unidentified European city. The other, she thought, was around Dani’s age.

Hadn’t Thibault claimed to have been part of a Dutch force stationed in Serbia during the war?

“My suggestion,” Snell went on, “is to get me a set of prints. Or even better, a toothbrush or a drinking glass. His DNA. We’ll find out who the bastard really is. But if you want my guess,” the Brit said, “if we went and dug through the local birth records, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out your Dani Thibault-whatever his real name is-isn’t Dani Thibault at all, but most likely, in the end, Maria Radisovic’s son.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

What Snell had found coursed through Hauck. Thibault had claimed to be Dutch. Or Belgian. Now he had a tie-in to a woman in Serbia. He had lied about his past, his banking connections. Now he had a link to both dead traders. It was only getting deeper. Hauck knew it was gradually climbing over his head. He wasn’t sure what to do.

Merrill should know this. The FBI should know this. He had given his word not to divulge anything. To his boss and to his client.

But it was also a potential embarrassment if it ever got out that this was a guy the firm was protecting.

He tried Foley at the New York office. His secretary said he was in meetings and wouldn’t be free until after five. Hauck said he was coming in and insisted on a couple of minutes with him. This was always how it began. Something small, an accident, a confidential search he stumbled upon. That grew. Four people were now dead. Two large banks had failed. This was larger than the firm’s commitment to Reynolds Reid. Larger than something they could simply put on hold.

It was building speed like an avalanche-and he didn’t even have the charge to do anything about it.

Hauck grabbed his case and stuffed it with all the files he had been compiling: the photo of Thibault and Glassman, the phone records Vito had pulled for him, the connection between Thibault and Donovan. He told Brooke he was leaving for the day. He went downstairs to the ground-floor parking garage.

He found his Beemer in his private parking space and depressed the lock remote. He heard the familiar beep and opened the door. He threw his case on the passenger seat and went to climb in. He noticed something sitting on the windshield.

A book of some kind. He got back out and lifted it off.

The Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Wall Street.

Hauck froze.

“Thought you’d like the touch.” It was Shep Campbell’s voice.

Hauck turned around and saw the NYPD detective leaning on a nearby car.

“You really learn anything in that book or do you just use it as a prop?” Hauck asked, lifting it off his car.

“Nice wheels,” Campbell said, coming over. “But, hey, you deserve it, right?” A heavy-set black man remained leaning on the city detective’s car. “Say hi to Detective Washburn.” Campbell’s chummy tone was starting to wear thin. Bringing in his partner. Making this visit official. What was going on?

“Hey.” The large black dude waved. “Seen you on TV.”

Hauck nodded. If they hadn’t been two New York City cops, he’d have thought he was in for some kind of fight.

“Okay, I’m flattered.” Hauck shut the door. “What brings you by, detectives? I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a rush.”

Campbell came up to the other side of his car. “I took your advice. On the Donovan thing. I started looking at it in a different way.”

“No charge,” Hauck said.

“Talon.” The detective bunched his lips. “You’ve been working there around, what, four months?”

“I feel like we’ve already been through this, Campbell. Check with personnel.”

The auburn-haired detective cocked a finger at him and chuck-led, like he was saying, One for you, guy. “They handle a lot of banks, I see. Tough time for banks, isn’t it?”

“Listen, detective, I really don’t have the time…” Hauck had no clue where this was going.

The detective smiled smugly. “This thing’s been in your craw from the very beginning, hasn’t it?”

“What thing?”

“These murdered traders. That’s what you called it, isn’t it? Murder. You were at the crime scene in Greenwich. Then the station right after. Called the new head of detectives a few times. That guy who took your place. What’s his name, Chrisafoulis? Pumping him for details. Even harassed him at his kid’s school. You had something going on with that first guy’s wife?”

Hauck stared back, grabbing on to the door handle. To keep from slugging him. Only Steve knew about these things. Brenda said he’d been in the city. Where was Campbell going with this?

“Then you come into the city…All hopped up on this Donovan thing. Pushing me for info. Telling me how to do my job. Then, not an hour later, you’re harassing his widow. Tee-bo, wasn’t it?” He pronounced Dani’s name like it was a Cajun nickname. “The guy you’re trying to tie into all this. I checked him out myself.” Looked at his partner and grinned. “Y’know, I’m finding myself in a whole new social circle these days.”

“What do you want, Campbell?”

There was a click of heels against the pavement and a woman came out of the staircase and crossed over to her car. He waited for her to get inside and start the ignition.

“So, I’m trying to figure it out.” Campbell smirked. “Your prints are all over this mess, aren’t they, Mr. Private Executive? Mr. TV Star?”

“You check out the phone logs yet?”

Campbell shrugged.

“What about the security tapes in Donovan’s building? I saw a camera. You look at them?”

“Maybe I did,” Campbell said, smirking.

“So what’d you find?”

“What did we find?” Campbell glanced around to his partner, cockily scratching the back of his head. Then he dug into his inside jacket pocket like he was about to unholster a gun. To Hauck’s relief, he came back out with just an evidence bag, something inside, and tossed it on the hood of Hauck’s car, never taking his eyes off Hauck. “What we found was this.”

Hauck picked it up and stared at what was inside. As he did, it became clear to him exactly what was going on. His lungs deflated like he’d been punched in the stomach.

It was a pen. A corporate pen. The lettering on it familiar.

The Talon Group.

“We found it on the floor, next to the super’s desk,” the detective said with a self-satisfied smile. A grin that seemed to suggest he enjoyed watching Hauck’s worried reaction. “Could’ve fallen out of someone’s pocket, I guess. Maybe during a spat. Never made the connection until you came in.”

Hauck’s eyes locked on the pen. He had several like them. Everyone did there.

“Just wondering”-Campbell blinked annoyingly-“how the hell you think that got there.”

Hauck shook his head. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Kidding?” Campbell clucked at his partner. “I’d like to think I was kidding, Mr. Hauck. Mister Hero. But y’know, you come around, pump us for information on the case, no longer on the job. Then whaddaya know…whammo. Look what pops up at the crime scene. A bit of a major-league clusterfuck, wouldn’t you say?”

“It’s not my pen.”

“Well, I’m hoping that turns out to be the case.” Campbell laughed. He turned back to his partner. “Don’t you, Lee? You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Hauck said. But he wasn’t liking where his mind was going, bouncing back and forth, atoms careening through an accelerator, except in this case the atoms were saying, What if that somehow did turn out to be my pen? His prints on it. And worse, why…? Of course, he had never been to the building before, never even heard of Donovan prior to the incident. But what was it doing there? What if he was being set up?

He looked at Campbell squarely and smiled. “And you’re the one who said the other day it wasn’t even a crime scene.”

“Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I? But y’know, you’re starting to turn me around on that one. It’s sure starting to resemble one now.”

Hauck was thinking he could tell him what he would find in the phone log: Thibault’s phone number. The proof was sitting right on his car seat. But this jerk was the last person he was going to share it with, until he could figure out just what was going on.

“Just a Good Samaritan, huh?” The detective grinned, clearly cynical. “Just following up for an old friend…”

“A dead friend,” Hauck said, glaring.

“I’ve seen her picture. Must’ve been quite a friendship,” the city detective sniffed, glancing at his partner.

“I’m gonna head out now,” Hauck said. His fingers flexed and he felt his body heat up. The thought crossed his mind that slugging an NYPD detective with the case he was making would not be the best of moves. He tossed the evidence bag back to Campbell. “Unless there’s something else…”

“Just keep in touch,” the detective said, and winked. “Until this baby comes back from the lab. You know the drill.”

“Yeah, I know the drill. And here…” He tossed The Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Wall Street over to Campbell’s partner. “Does that book have a chapter in there that talks about collusion to defraud financial markets?”

“Not sure.” The black detective caught it, surprised.

“Too bad. Tell your partner he might want to find one that does.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Outside the garage, Hauck pulled the Beemer into the first spot he could find-an old steak place on Steamboat. His collar was wet with sweat, and he knew he shouldn’t run away with assumptions until he could think them through.

He had never met Donovan. Never been to his building before. Whoever killed him had had to sneak inside, gain access to the super’s office. He had to have been caught on the security tape. Someone Donovan knew. Someone who also knew Hauck was trying to connect Thibault to these deaths. Talon. Merrill. He wasn’t sure who to trust now. If he hadn’t stuck his nose into this mess, widened Campbell’s interest, no one would have ever attached any significance to that pen.

It was starting to concern him that the prints on it might actually be his.

Someone was trying to set him up.

Hauck realized his only options were crossing his boss and maybe getting himself fired-or ending up in jail.

He chose getting fired.

He dialed up Chrisafoulis on the detective’s cell. This time, on the second ring, Steve picked up, sounding as if he was glad to hear from him. “Ty!”

“Listen, Steve, we’ve got to talk.”

“I know we do, Ty. What the hell is going on? The city cops have been buzzing around all day. About you. They’re saying they found something of yours at the Donovan crime scene…”

“It’s not mine, Steve. But someone’s going to a lot of work to make it look that way. Where are you?”

“Back at the office. Listen, you should come in.”

“I’ll meet you there.” Hauck was about to hang up, then hesitated. “Steve, I can trust you on this, right?”

“Of course you can trust me, Ty.”

“I’ll be right there.”

It was only a couple of minutes’ drive, a few blocks up the hill, to the Greenwich station house on the avenue. Hauck left his car in a visitor’s spot in the lot and grabbed his briefcase. He realized his best option now was to clear himself of suspicion and just lay it out to Steve. Let the FBI or the SEC, or whatever agency handled this sort of thing, run with it.

And then hope he didn’t find himself in a viper’s nest at Talon.

He stepped inside the entrance on Mason, waving to the officer at the desk, who looked at him like, Been seeing you a lot around here lately, lieutenant. Chrisafoulis was waiting for him as Hauck headed for the stairs.

“Steve!” Hauck warmly squeezed the detective’s shoulder. “I have to show you some things. Let’s go find a place where we can talk.”

“Ty, don’t be upset,” Chrisafoulis said, looking a bit nervous, “but Fitz wants to see you on this, upstairs.”

Hauck felt whacked in the face. “Fitz?”

Vern Fitzpatrick was Greenwich’s longtime chief of police. He’d hired Hauck, helped lift him back into the world after the year he’d dropped out. He’d been Hauck’s mentor for most of the time he was there. Groomed him to take his job. But on his last case, Hauck had begun to doubt which side of the fence Vern was actually on. A drumbeat of concern started to pound inside him. He started to back out of the station.

“That’s not going to work, Steve.”

“Ty.” Steve took his arm. “No one’s accusing you of anything. The detectives from the NYPD went to Fitz and got him involved. You need friends now, buddy, not anyone doubting you. But you leave here”-the detective looked at him solidly-“that list of people starts to get smaller and smaller. You understand, don’t you, Ty?”

He wasn’t sure what to do. And it scared him. But Chrisafoulis was right. He had stumbled into something he could no longer outrun or outmaneuver. And where was he going to go anyway? He had to trust someone now.

“Alright.” He nodded warily toward the stairs. “Lead the way.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The chief’s office had been relocated to the newly completed wing. Industrial carpeting, bright lights, modular workstations, computers on every desk. It looked more like CSI: Miami than the wear-worn wooden desks and fixtures from when Hauck had worked there.

Vern stood up at his desk in a plaid shirt and slacks. It had been six months since Hauck had seen him. “Ty.”

“Nice digs, Vern,” Hauck said, admiring the new paneling, the pictures of the chief with the governor, with Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus, with the state attorney general. And his grandkids, one of whom was serving in Iraq. A conference room next door. Vern’s hair was whiter, but his smile was just as trusting and friendly. Hauck had only seen him once since he had left. “Going up in the world, huh, guy?”

“One could say the same about you.” He came around the desk and they shook hands. “Until the present time, that is,” he said with a wise smile, motioning Hauck over to a seating area by the large window.

“Yeah.” Hauck smiled. “You might say that, Vern.”

“We miss you here, Ty,” the chief said, motioning for Hauck to sit down. “Steve’s doing a terrific job, but I don’t have to tell you that your imprint is all over the place here.”

“If I knew you were going to redo it like this I wouldn’t have left.”

He laughed. He crossed his legs and sank back in the couch. “So, how’s the private sector treating you?”

“It’s brought a few surprises.”

Fitzpatrick nodded sagely. “You were always a good man, Ty…But you always did have a special talent for stepping knee-deep in the shit bucket, didn’t you, son?”

Hauck smiled in return. “Yeah, Vern, guess I always did.”

“Well, hate to see that muck up the new career just as it’s starting to bloom. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

Steve came over and leaned against the wall. Hauck took his old boss through the tale of how it had all begun: Hearing the news about Marc Glassman that morning. Seeing April’s face. “She was a friend of mine, at a time before I moved up here, when I really needed one. I was part of a therapy group for a while. After Norah died. April helped me through. When I saw what happened…” Hauck took in a breath, blew it out, and smiled crookedly. “Well, you know me…”

“Yeah, I know you, Ty. I’m sorry. I wish we had made more progress on the Glassman thing. Still working it though.”

“Around the same time,” Hauck went on, “I was introduced to a woman through my job whose name I’d rather keep out of it for now. The assignment was confidential. It was a background search. She raised some doubts about a man she’d been seeing.”

Vern chuckled. “I thought they had you hobnobbing with congressmen and company heads over at that firm of yours. Didn’t realize it was the same old shit, just with a fancier shingle on the door.”

“It was a favor,” Hauck said. “For my boss. The managing director there. Let’s call the man Subject A.”

“Subject A.” Vern nodded. “Alright.”

“As I looked into him, it became clear most of her doubts were valid. The guy just got dirtier and dirtier. At the same time”-Hauck opened his case and nodded to Steve-“I guess I started sticking my nose into the Glassman thing.”

“Subject B. Can’t say that went over well here, Ty. You left. You moved on to other things.”

“She was a friend, Vern. During a rough patch of my life.” Hauck wet his lips and thought about how to make it sound right. “Everyone had the thing labeled as a burglary. Doesn’t matter now. What does matter is that in looking into this other subject, I came across something…”

Vern took off his wire-rims, folded them neatly, and put them in his breast pocket.

“Something that tied him back to the other case,” Hauck said. “To Marc Glassman.”

Now Vern’s eyes widened in interest. “What?”

“A photo.” Hauck reached into his case and took it out of the file. He laid it on the glass table. “That’s them there. In conversation. A polo event at Conyers Farm. Last summer.”

Vern looked it over. “The two of them talking…” He handed it to Steve with a skeptical gaze. “You haven’t been in the private sector that long not to know that a shot of two people talking in a public place isn’t exactly a slam dunk when it comes to evidence. And for what? What is it you’re trying to say? Steve’s been telling me you’ve been pushing that this Glassman thing wasn’t a home break-in from the start.”

“And I turned out to be right, didn’t I? And no, it doesn’t make much of a case for anything-by itself. That’s why when the guy in New York suddenly died as well, the other trader-”

“Subject C,” Vern said, nodding patiently. “The suicide that’s not a suicide.”

“The second guy who died under other suspicious circumstances. Who was covering up massive losses. Not to mention who brought down a second Wall Street firm. I went in to try to see if there was any connection.”

“That’s what sticking your nose into an ongoing police investigation and harassing the victim’s wife was all about?”

“There was no active investigation. And all I did was talk to her, Vern, with her consent. And yes, I can see how maybe I might’ve overstepped on some things. And how maybe it would be easy to think I’m a guy who just can’t get used to life away from the force, or that a photo of two guys talking at a polo match doesn’t mean shit-all of it-if it weren’t for what I found.”

The chief’s smile suddenly got narrow and Vern’s stare steadied on him. “You mean like a pen with your company logo on it found at the crime scene?”

“Come on, Vern, you really think I killed that guy? For what? So I could short Beeston Holloway in my 401(k)?” He turned to Steve. “What kind of vehicle did the Glassman kid claim to have seen at the end of the driveway that night?”

“A black Suburban. Unmarked.”

“The same thing James Donovan’s wife told me her husband spotted outside their apartment building two days before he died.”

Vern wrinkled his brow. “Jeez, Ty, that’s even weaker than the photo.”

Hauck took out the rest of the file. He dropped Thibault’s phone log in front of Vern on the table. He jabbed his finger at it. “How about I place three separate calls from that same person in that photograph to the very office where James Donovan hung himself? One, Vern, the night before he died. Are we getting warmer?”

Vern picked up the sheets and put on his glasses and scanned over the yellow highlights delineating Dani Thibault’s phone calls to Donovan’s apartment building.

“That enough to maybe make you rethink the home break-in theory?” Hauck pointed to the highlighting. “That’s why they did it there. It wouldn’t show up on a routine search of Donovan’s phone records. The only reason it did turn up is I happened to be looking into the other case. C’mon, Vern, Steve, you don’t have to know what a credit-default swap is to figure out two successful traders are dead, traders who lost billions and whose two firms are history now…”

Fitzpatrick nodded, seeming to glance in the direction of the adjoining conference room. “You said this was part of a confidential search. What does your firm think of what you stumbled on?”

Hauck shrugged. “This is where it starts to get a little sticky for me, Vern. I haven’t told them.”

“Haven’t told them?” Vern put down the papers. “Some things don’t seem to change, do they, son?”

“One of the firm’s largest clients is Reynolds Reid. Apparently, they’re seeking to pick up some of Wertheimer Grant’s assets. Their retail broker division. My boss doesn’t want to muck up the deal by bringing out possible revelations of fraud or a possible scandal. So they pushed me off the case.”

“Some people might find it sticky that two New York City detectives are trying to tie you into a murder case, Ty.”

“Someone’s trying to set me up. I don’t know whether that pen is mine or not. I don’t know what they’ll find on it. More to the point, what does it even matter? Do I have to prove myself to you? You think you’re going to find my face on some security tape sneaking into the building? That’s why I couldn’t go to my firm. I can’t trust them. Four people are dead, Vern. I don’t know why they had to be killed, but while I’m out there having to prove my innocence two banks have collapsed. Am I the only person in the world who sees what may be going on?”

Fitzpatrick was silent. His gaze was fixed on the sheets. Hauck took back the evidence. He placed it back in the file. Stood up. He wrapped his briefcase around his shoulder and looked back at him.

“Am I, Vern?”

Suddenly the door to the adjoining room opened. A woman stepped out. In a navy pantsuit. Slim. Pretty. Round, gray eyes and short, dark hair.

Hauck’s stomach almost hit the floor.

“No.” She shook her head. “You’re not the only one who sees it, Mr. Hauck.”

Hauck looked back at Steve and Vern with a sinking feeling in his stomach that he had just been betrayed. “Who are you?”

The woman dropped a federal ID in front of his face. Department of the Treasury.

“I’d like to see just what you have,” the woman said. “And I promise, no one, at least no one with half a brain, thinks you had anything to do with those murders.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

My name is Naomi Blum, Mr. Hauck,” the petite agent said. “I’m an investigator with the Treasury Department.” She put away her ID. “And yes, I’m interested in how these deaths are connected too.”

Hauck swung his gaze back to Vern. His first instinct was that the very people he thought were his friends had turned him in. And he’d laid it all out for them.

On a platter.

And a government investigator had been listening to every word.

“Ty, she came to us,” Fitz said. “She only wants to hear what you found. No one turned you in.”

“You’re not under any investigation, Mr. Hauck.” The Treasury agent met his gaze. “No one’s thinking you had anything to do with either of these deaths. But if it’s all right with Chief Fitzpatrick, I would like to speak with you alone, if possible.” She motioned to the conference room. “On the record this time.”

As a rule, Hauck trusted government agents about as much as car salesmen. He’d butted heads with enough over the years, last but not least on the David Sanger drive-by shooting last year. And he still hadn’t figured out what side of the mess the FBI had come down on there.

But something about this agent seemed to put him at ease. He needed someone to run with what he’d found. And the last thing he needed after his run-in with the NYPD was to give anyone the sense that he had something to hide.

“Sure.” He nodded. He looked at Vern and Steve with a grunt of disappointment. “Thanks. I’ll decide later whether to buy you a beer or take a swing at you.”

“I think I’d go for the beer,” Naomi Blum said with a smile. “They both went to bat for you one hundred percent. They told me there was zero probability you were involved.”

“Cheers,” Hauck chortled, managing a dry half smile.

He and Agent Blum went into the adjoining room. There was a large polished table that would seat ten or twelve in front of a picture window overlooking the courtyard between the new and old buildings. Hauck took a seat at one side of the table. Instead of sitting across from him, Naomi pulled up the adjacent chair and swung it around to face him.

She had bright, intelligent eyes.

“I guess it was you who spoke with Leslie Donovan?” Hauck said to her.

She nodded. “And Detective Campbell of the NYPD. Sharp as a tack, that man.” She rolled her eyes. He liked her even more. “I’d like to record this, if it’s okay. Your call. Technically, you’re not under any official obligation to do so. Although we both know I could have a judge’s writ to make it official in about a quarter of an hour if you choose to decline.”

“You had me at ‘sharp as a tack,’” Hauck said with a smile. “Go ahead. It would be good, however, if whatever I say could be kept clear of my current employers, only so I have a job to go back to when we finish up, if that’s okay.”

The agent took out a small digital recorder from her briefcase. “You seem to be eliminating that prospect rather well on your own,” she said, matching his smile.

“Touché.”

She flicked on the recorder. “Anyway, it’s a deal,” she said, adjusting the volume and placing it between them. “I’d like to go back over a few details of what you said in the other room, but first, it would be good to get a few things out on the table. You’ve never met either Mr. Glassman or Mr. Donovan, is that correct?”

“Never.” Hauck shook his head.

“But you did have a connection to Mr. Glassman’s wife? I think her name was April?”

“Yes,” Hauck said. “I knew her several years ago, before I even moved up to Greenwich. It’s what first made me look into her murder.”

Naomi Blum turned off the recorder. “Do you mind characterizing that relationship on the record?”

“I’m not sure what bearing it has on the case.”

“It has the bearing that it will help eliminate any suspicion that your motives in looking into her death had any connection to her husband,” she said.

“Okay.” Hauck shrugged. “What the hell…” Agent Blum turned the machine back on. Hauck noticed that her fingers were slim and graceful and her nails brightly polished, a stylish brown to match a highlight in her hair. She restated the question.

“We were friends,” Hauck answered. “We met as part of a support group for handling depression under the care of a Doctor Paul Rose in Manhattan.” He shrugged awkwardly. “I had lost a daughter in an accident, and my marriage had fallen apart. I left the force. It was part of my union separation agreement. I stayed in the group for around four months. April-Ms. Glassman,” Hauck corrected himself, “she helped me back onto my feet.” The rest he felt he could leave out. “After I left, I never saw her again until years later, here in Greenwich. On the street. And only one time. That was three years ago. But what happened to her”-he wet his lips-“I couldn’t put that aside.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Picking up where we were before, you had never been to Mr. Donovan’s place of residence, the place where he died, prior to the conversation you had with his wife, Leslie, in her apartment, after his death?”

“No, I had not.”

“And you claim you have no idea how the pen found by the NYPD at the place of Mr. Donovan’s apparent suicide, with the logo of the Talon Group, the company you work for, got there?”

He shook his head. “None.”

“Even if, after testing, your fingerprints turn out to be on the pen?”

“Especially if my prints turn out to be on it,” he said. “If that’s the case, the pen could have come from a variety of sources. From a jacket. Directly from my desk. A business meeting…”

“Why would someone be interested in placing a pen that could be tied back to you at the scene where an unrelated person took his own life?”

“The obvious thought might be that someone was trying to set me up.”

“Set you up?” The Treasury agent jotted on her pad. “For what purpose, Mr. Hauck?”

“My guess, since it would likely never be enough on its own to warrant any indictment, would be to distract me from linking the deaths of Mr. Glassman and Mr. Donovan.”

“You said inside you were looking into a person’s background on behalf of your firm? You referred to him as Subject A?”

“Confidentially, Agent Blum. I could get into a boatload of trouble if that got out.”

“You’re already in a sizable amount of trouble, Mr. Hauck. You’ve illegally obtained private phone records. You’re being looked into by the NYPD. I don’t know what your definition of a boatload is, but if I were you, I’d start to look at me as the person who’s going to get you out.”

He could have asked for an attorney. For a guarantee against further prosecution. But he decided there was no gain. He had done nothing wrong. Whoever was trying to steer him off, he had to trust someone, he realized. Agent Blum seemed capable and earnest. She might as well be the one.

“His name is Thibault,” Hauck said. He spelled it out. “First name Dieter. He also goes by Dani.”

“This Mr. Thibault is an American citizen?” Naomi Blum asked, making a note on her pad.

“Dutch. Or at least, that’s what he claims. His passport is Dutch. He might also have a Belgian one as well. Of course, that’s only the beginning.” He shook his head and smiled.

“So what is it people might want to distract you from, Mr. Hauck? Take me through.”

He did. Starting in his office with Merrill Simons. Then Thibault. The Conyers Farm photo-Thibault’s connection to Glassman. Knowing he could get himself fired for what he was divulging, for going around Foley-and probably would. Finally Thibault’s connection to Donovan, the phone calls to the super’s office where the second trader died.

Agent Blum made notes. She could take it from here. She had the resources on the highest levels. Find out who Thibault was. Subpoena the security video in Donovan’s building. Trace it back to Cat Rock Road. The black SUVs. Find the guy with the red knotted hair and the tat. Maybe a hundred ways everything could be tied to Thibault. What his motives were. Where it all led from there.

April. Find who killed her.

Naomi listened, making occasional notes. She asked astute questions. Her sharp eyes deepened as the links to Thibault grew more clear. When he was done, around forty minutes later, she thanked him. Made copies of what he’d found. He felt a little deflated when it was over. After giving up everything he knew. He realized that for four weeks his juices had been running.

And he realized how much he had missed that. How good it felt again.

When she was arranging her notes, Hauck said, “I’ve given what I have to you. Now you owe me a couple.”

Naomi Blum turned to him. “Okay.”

“The first is, how did you get onto this? You visited Donovan’s widow. That was a police matter, not Treasury. You weren’t looking into either of these people. How did you know?”

The agent shrugged. “When two high-level money managers die and both their firms fall apart due to their actions, it’s my job to check it out.”

“What do you think is happening?”

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid that’s one I can’t fully answer right now.” The agent started to get up. “What’s the second question? You said there were two.”

Hauck placed his hand on her arm, stopping her. “I want to stay involved.”

“Stay in?”

“I have a reason to keep looking into Thibault. Without attracting notice. There’s also the chance my firm could even be involved. It won’t hurt to have someone on the inside.”

Naomi shook her head. “Look, Mr. Hauck-”

“Ms. Blum…” She sat back down. “These people think I’m onto something. As far as they know I’m only looking into this matter for a client. But that can be useful. Whatever they’re hiding. You can chase down all the money wires, the fake passports, the overheard chatter, the e-mail trails. But I’m already involved.”

“How about I think about it,” the Treasury agent said. “It’s not exactly the policy of the U.S. government to put private citizens at that kind of risk.”

“I’ll take the risk.”

“I said I’ll think about it,” the agent said, standing up. “Look, Mr. Hauck, I know your background, and the United States of America owes you its full appreciation. But we have people who handle this sort of thing. Interagency people. The kind of money it takes to do what they’re doing-it’s the kind of money that takes on governments, Mr. Hauck, not suburban police departments. I know what you’ve already done, but to put it plainly,” the pretty agent said, looking at him directly, “you have no idea the shit-storm of trouble staying in this could bring on.”

Hauck stood up as well, opening the door for her. “I don’t mind trouble.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

There might have been a time, years back, Jack “Red” O’Toole reflected, riding the Metro-North train to Greenwich, that his soul was worth saving.

The teenage girl texting on her BlackBerry reminded him of someone from long ago. A girl he knew back in high school. Desiree Flynn. When he played linebacker at Haysville High in Kansas and the thought of stuffing the line and knocking heads for the blue and white of Kansas State was something he could reach out and touch. When maybe a job at a lathe at Great Plains Tool Company like his father had was a dream worth living for.

But that was before the sky grew dark and an F5 tornado crashed through town one May afternoon, leveling half of it, including the die plant.

Red O’Toole’s parents too.

Before he left to go into the army and developed a deft touch with an M4. Before IEDs exploded in his ears or, amped on Dianabol, he chased a fleeing insurgent into a stone hut in Hilla and emptied his mag on six “unfriendlies” sitting there-who turned out to be a family at the dinner table and their ten-year-old son, who’d been chasing after a soccer ball.

That was when the army sent him home with a full discharge, and he came back to a town of rubble and zero prospects, bad as anything he had seen over there, and he spent all of six days there, Desiree off in Utah somewhere, before signing up for two years with Global Threat Management, making five times what he did for Uncle Sam.

And got a bona fide, free license to use his skills.

They played a game when they went out on a field trip, beyond the Green Zone. They called it Tin Can. Try to knock one off the fence with their M4s. Except the “can” was more likely an old man who popped his head up watering his plants or boys playing cards on a rooftop as their armored convoy sped by.

O’Toole kept looking at the girl across from him. She kept texting, as if she didn’t even notice him.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Like shooting a tin can off a fence in a dusty field.

The train slowed, approaching his destination. “Greenwich,” the conductor announced over the loudspeaker. “Greenwich. Old Greenwich will be next.”

O’Toole stood up. He took one last look at the texting girl, who, he decided, didn’t look like Desiree at all. He stood in the line of passengers waiting to disembark.

The door opened.

O’Toole crossed onto the platform. The exiting passengers funneled down into the station. O’Toole continued along the track.

The man he was looking for was reading a magazine, hair smoothed back, wearing wire-rim glasses, waiting on a bench on the northbound side.

O’Toole took a seat next to him. He glanced at his watch. “Right on time.”

“If you can’t trust Metro-North, who can you trust?” the man replied.

“Always a good question. I ask myself that a lot.”

“Well, in your case,” the man said, “I’m afraid you have to trust me.” He closed what he was reading, the Economist, and removed an eight-by-eleven manila envelope from the pages. He slid it along the concrete bench to O’Toole.

“We have another job for you.” O’Toole opened the envelope. “I want him to become disinterested in our affairs.”

There was a series of photos inside. On top, a man he might characterize as rugged, handsome, opening the door to an office building. The next was a not-so-bad-looking chick with short, dark hair getting out of a Prius.

The third was a kid in an oversize hockey jersey. O’Toole noticed he clearly had something wrong with him.

Retard, he thought. What did they call them? Down syndrome or something.

He flipped back to the first photo. Hauck. An ex-cop. “You want him dead?”

“What I want is for him to be no longer engaged in our affairs.” His contact took off his glasses and started to clean them. “What you do is your business. I always trust the judgment of my people on the ground.”

O’Toole slipped the photos back inside the envelope. “Sounds reasonable.”

His contact stood up.

“You know, I was thinking,” O’Toole said. “See that guy over there?” A man on the other side of the platform, reading a newspaper, waiting for a train.

“The one in the suit?”

“If a twister hadn’t leveled my town when I was a kid, that might’ve been me, waiting for that train. Coming home from work. Someone waiting for me with a beer. Maybe a kid. Who knows”-O’Toole raised his shades and grinned at him-“I might’ve even been like you.”

“No.” The man in the wire-rims rolled up his magazine and tapped O’Toole’s knee. “You would never have been like me. Just make sure he’s clear of our affairs. Whatever you decide, make it something he’ll clearly understand.”

“You know, we had a saying over there…” O’Toole squinted back at him. “‘The unwanted, doing the unthinkable-for the ungrateful.’”

“Really.” The man in the glasses smiled. He dropped another envelope on his lap. This time a fat one. “I think you’ll find us grateful. As usual. Next train back’s at five thirty-two.”

He walked off, leaving O’Toole on the platform. He tapped the thick envelope against his knee and studied the man on the other side of the track.

Yeah, he thought, laughing to himself; his contact was right. That was never in the cards. He rubbed the back of his neck. Where his panther was. Shiva. The tattoo had kept him safe through five tours to the Sandbox. The tip of her long, bright claw reaching onto his neck.

If he had ever been worth saving, the statute of limitations had long run out. The pieces of his soul had scattered across the globe. Like an F5 blowing into town. Leveling most everything. Scattering the rest.

He reached back and reknotted his thick, red-brown hair.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The man in the Burberry raincoat turned up his collar against the drizzle as he stepped out of the office building onto Madison Avenue. He chatted for a second with a woman-maybe a coworker-who waved good-bye and headed north.

Thibault started walking the other way to the south.

Across the street, Hauck followed, several paces behind.

He had left the office early, telling Brooke he had some errands to attend to. He felt a little out of practice at what he was doing. He hadn’t done this kind of thing in years.

On Fifty-fourth, Thibault stopped in front of a store window, seeming to admire a tie. Then he continued, taking a call on his cell. On Fifty-third Street he made a right, heading west. Hauck crossed after him, hunching into his jacket against the rain, twenty yards behind.

Tall, swarthy, with thick, black hair that came over his collar, Thibault cut a commanding presence. It wasn’t hard to see why women might be drawn to him. Halfway down the block he veered into a recessed courtyard set between two larger buildings. It looked like a restaurant. He opened the glass doors and went inside.

The place was called Alto. Hauck had heard of it. Italian, fancy. The kind of place his boss, Foley, was always trying to drag him to. Annie would have been impressed.

He went up to the door, and through the glass, he saw Thibault remove his coat and hand it to a pretty hostess. It looked as if they were familiar with him there. He seemed to recognize someone at the bar and went straight up to him.

Hauck waited as Thibault greeted the man and took a seat, and then stepped in.

“Dining with us tonight?” The hostess, a twentysomething gal in a sexy black dress, smiled from behind a counter.

Hauck smiled back. “Just meeting a friend at the bar.”

Thibault was seated at the far end of the crowded bar. His friend, who was Mediterranean looking, wore a nicely tailored sport jacket and open white shirt.

Hauck found a nook at the opposite end. The female bartender came up and he ordered a beer. Something Belgian. Palm. For the occasion. Through the maze of shifting bodies and faces, he watched them.

The two appeared to be friends. Even over the loud din, Hauck occasionally heard Thibault’s deep-throated laugh. He’d gotten a drink-it looked like vodka-and he shifted the stool around and sat, his back to Hauck, chatting with his friend. They clinked glasses, Thibault patting him affectionately on the shoulder.

Hauck knew he was crossing the line. He had resolved not to accelerate the situation but to find out whatever he could, and at the same time, he knew this would send Foley off the deep end. But Thibault was clearly concealing something, and whatever it was, Hauck felt certain it led back to Glassman and Donovan. On his cell, he snapped a photo of them through the crowd. When the time came, maybe he’d have something he could give to Naomi or Chrisafoulis.

With a cherry on top.

Thibault signaled for another drink. When he turned, there was a moment when it was almost as if the man’s eyes shifted down the bar and, through the crowd of faces, locked directly on Hauck. Their gazes met momentarily.

Hauck took a sip and glanced away. A shiver traveled down his spine. Don’t be careless. Whatever you do.

A moment later the hostess came up and told them their table was ready. Thibault threw out some bills, signaled for the drinks to be sent directly. He let his companion proceed first, with a pat to his back, then followed as the hostess led them both upstairs.

Hauck watched them disappear, then slipped out of his spot at the bar and went over to where Thibault had been sitting. The female bartender tried to clear off his space. Hauck reached for the empty glass.

“Mind if I take this?” He winked. “Souvenir.”

The bartender hesitated at first, her eyes darting past Hauck, maybe to search out someone in charge, not sure.

Hauck put a fifty on the bar. “This ought to cover, right?”

Her eyes grew wide, and she started clearing off the remaining glasses and napkins, raking in the bill. She nodded. “Ought to cover it just fine.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Thomas Keaton, secretary of the treasury, to whom the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence reported, was able to spare Naomi and Rob Whyte, her boss, just ten minutes. That was all. He had a meeting at the AG’s office. Naomi and Rob literally rushed over to the main building, making some last-second copies, files in hand. She had shared what she knew with her boss, and he decided it was worth the call.

She was a little nervous. This was by far the most sensitive investigation of her career. She had looked into some of the notable hedge fund frauds and the possible dealings of an Iranian bank to dump dollars through the Middle East, trying to drive the currency down, but never anything like this. The stock market was down 30 percent since the beginning of March. Two of the world’s largest investment banks had failed. Two more, Citi and Bank of America, had plummeted into single digits. Not to mention Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which were reeling.

And now she could pretty much prove that the deaths of two rogue traders, traders whose losses had sunk their banks, were, in fact, not unrelated incidents but connected.

The whole thing was one large domino effect, and she felt she knew exactly the point where it all started.

At this point, whatever “evidence” she had, at least from a prosecutorial point of view, was, at best, flimsy. No more than a weak connection between a shadowy individual and the traders who had suddenly died. Looking deeper would have to involve other agencies. The FBI, the SEC, the AG’s office, maybe Interpol. They had to find out who Thibault really was. Who his contacts were. Whether there were any deeper involvements with the two dead traders. Whether money had changed hands. And most likely without taking him into custody. The cryptic message delivered to Marty al-Bashir that had sat on her desk without any apparent meaning now tolled in her brain like a warning bell.

The planes are in the air.

The secretary’s office was at a corner of Treasury’s vast limestone building overlooking the Washington Mall. Naomi had never even been to this part of the building before. Timeless portraits of past secretaries and historic figures lined the mahogany-paneled halls. Hamilton. Chase. Morgenthau. Baker.

“Don’t be nervous,” Rob said as they sat outside the suite waiting. “If you happen to be wrong on this, I can always land a job as a regional bank auditor in northern Montana.”

Naomi nodded, adjusting her suit. “Hopefully, you’ll need a secretary there.”

The door opened and Keaton’s secretary came out. “The secretary will see you now.”

Whyte stood up. Let out a breath. “More like a snow blower.”

They stepped into the large, window-lined office. Keaton, in a pinstripe suit and with a shock of white hair, came around to what seemed the mother of all conference tables, and just to add to the effect, the Washington Monument was clearly visible through the window. Naomi swallowed. No pressure here. The head of the Treasury had been at Justice, not to mention his highly regarded career as a Wall Street deal maker. Naomi had met him once briefly when he set up their task force and visited them across the street.

“Ms. Blum,” he said, nodding cordially but not shaking her hand. “Rob. I asked Mitch Hastings to sit in, if that’s alright with you?”

It wasn’t meant as a question. Hastings was the no-nonsense chief counsel to the Treasury Department. She had seen him in the background at the hedge fund CEO and auto bailout congressional hearings.

“Of course.” Whyte nodded. “Mitch…” The lawyer smiled back tightly and indifferently.

Naomi bit her bottom lip and took a breath. Here goes…

“I’m afraid I have to be at the AG’s office in ten minutes.” Keaton glanced at his watch and then at Whyte. “So I’ll ask you to start right in.”

“Mr. Secretary,” Rob said, “Naomi’s come up with a few things. Things we think you ought to be aware of.”

The treasury secretary sat down directly across from her, nodding peremptorily. “Alright.”

Two of the most influential figures in the government had their gazes directly on her.

“A few months back”-Naomi cleared her throat and removed a file from out of her bag-“a phone transcript landed on my desk. From the NSA. The text of a call between a well-known Bahraini financial figure, Hassan ibn Hassani, who is suspected of passing funds to certain organizations that appeared on the Terrorist Watch List, and an investment manager in London. A Saudi named Mashhur al-Bashir-Marty al-Bashir, as he’s known in the trade. He’s currently the chief investment officer of the Royal Saudi Partnership.”

Thomas Keaton folded his hands in front of his face. “I’m familiar with his name.”

“The transcript,” Naomi said, her leg racing under the table, “referred to some kind of ‘change in direction’ for their strategy. If al-Bashir was to be involved I can only assume it meant a change in investment policy. Why a Bahraini financier would be discussing this with him, we don’t know. But the conversation concluded with a bit of a concerning statement-‘the planes are in the air.’”

The treasury secretary raised his eyes. His gaze shifted to Naomi’s boss, Whyte. “This conversation was a couple of months back?”

Whyte nodded. “Yes, in March, sir.”

“So clearly there were no ‘planes.’” The treasury secretary exhaled. “At least in the most ominous sense, thank God.”

Naomi cleared her throat. “I’m not so sure.”

Keaton looked back at her. “Go on.”

“February eighth was a Sunday,” Naomi said, drawing their attention to the next exhibit. “Beginning the following Monday, February ninth, our analysts who track this sort of thing indicate the Royal Saudi Partnership began to systematically divest itself of its positions in U.S. stocks, starting with its positions in the financial sector-which, as you can imagine, were quite sizable-and this had the effect of driving these stocks down. I won’t waste your time on it here”-Naomi flipped over a page-“but I can chart how the decline in these stocks originated from this particular point and how it weighed on the market as a whole. What it started was a worldwide sell-off in stocks.”

“Helped along, I could add,” Hastings, the secretary’s counsel, countered, “by a wide array of factors.”

“Yes, sir,” Naomi said, “no doubt. That’s precisely what I came here to discuss.”

She opened another file and got up, placing hastily made copies in front of the two Treasury figures. She explained that it was nothing she could be 100 percent firm on yet, just the most circumstantial links between Thibault, as mapped out by the person she had interviewed, Ty Hauck, and the two traders who had suspiciously died. Traders whose concealed losses were of such a size they were the death knells of Wertheimer Grant and Beeston Holloway, dragging the rest of the financial markets to the edge.

“And we all know where that has led,” Naomi finished up.

“You’re suggesting there’s a possible criminal connection between these two investment managers’ deaths?” Keaton drew in a hesitant breath, paging through Naomi’s exhibits.

“I’m saying that’s possible, sir,” Naomi said.

“And that it’s somehow tied back to this Mashhur al-Bashir. Through this figure Thibault? Why?”

“I’m just forwarding a theory, sir. One of our jobs is to put together possible unmaterialized threats and anticipate what might happen next.”

“Yes, yes.” Keaton rolled his hand, fast-forwarding. “Go on.”

“Okay.” Naomi took a breath. Here goes…“What if there were people on an organized basis, people of influence,” she suggested, “who wanted to do our country systemic harm, using a new strategy, a ‘change in direction,’ as they referred to it.” She steeled herself. “Not by flying a plane through our tallest buildings, like before, but by driving one, figuratively, sir, through the heart of our most vital national asset. The root of everything we stand for.”

Keaton narrowed his eyes at her. Naomi had no idea if he was buying it.

“The economy, sir,” she said. “The amount of economic wealth we have lost since the downturn, not to mention the unrest of our citizens, is impossible to measure. One could trace the start of the slide, I believe, to these two Wall Street investment houses going down.”

The treasury secretary’s face began to whiten, almost matching his hair. He nodded soberly, glancing at his chief counsel, and seemed to draw his words with care. “But who would possibly gain? We are in a global economy. Every stock exchange around the world is reeling from the decline. Oil is selling at less than half what it once was. It would be economic suicide.”

Naomi shrugged, anticipating the question. “I don’t know that yet.”

“And you think there’s a chance this Thibault person might be somehow at the heart of this scheme?”

“I’m saying it’s possible, sir, yes.”

Keaton leaned back in his seat. “What do we know about him?”

“His past is a bit vague, sir. He has a Dutch passport. It’s entirely possible he holds multiple passports. This ex-detective I mentioned, Hauck, he’s done some preliminary investigation through his firm and he seems to think he may, in fact, be Serbian.”

“Serbian?” The secretary’s eyes widened. He leafed through Naomi’s exhibits. “Do we have the findings of this firm?”

“No, sir, I don’t think we can go there, at least not right now. It seems someone has been trying to push Hauck off his investigation. And it’s possible, I only say possible,” Naomi added, knowing she was rolling the dice here, “his own firm may be somehow complicit in this.”

Keaton looked up. “Run that one by me again.”

“It seems they represent other parties,” Naomi said, “who might have a vested interest in this story not coming to light.”

“Other parties?” Now the treasury secretary’s gaze grew heated. “Other parties such as whom, Ms. Blum?”

“Such as Reynolds Reid, sir. I’m told they’re seeking to pick up some of Wertheimer Grant’s operations…”

“Yes, we’re involved in those negotiations. For Christ’s sake, what’s the name of this security firm?”

“The Talon Group,” answered Naomi.

“Talon?” Keaton swallowed, concerned. “You must be kidding. They’re all over this fucking town.”

Keaton stared blankly back at her and pushed back his chair. His eyes flicked to his watch. He gritted his teeth.

Naomi glanced at Whyte, wondering if he was asking himself the same thing-whether they should both be making their reservations to Missoula around now.

“This doesn’t get out!” The head of the Treasury looked at Hastings peremptorily. “Not to the FBI, not to Justice. And for God’s sake, not to the press. Until we have more. Agent Blum, you’ve done a creditable job on this. You can engage whatever means necessary with respect to these two traders’ untimely deaths to find out whatever you can on this Thibault figure.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’ll authorize a probe by NSA. Maybe there’s been some direct contact between him and this Marty figure, the Saudi fund manager. Or that Bahraini, Hassani…”

Naomi looked toward her boss, pleased. “I’m already on that, sir.”

“And maybe this Hauck might prove useful. You say he’s an ex-detective. How the hell did he ever get himself involved in this situation in the first place?”

“Marc Glassman’s wife, who was killed along with her husband at their house in Greenwich…” Naomi shrugged. “Apparently, she was a friend of his. He was looking into her death on the side and became doubtful it was part of a burglary break-in. It was simply a coincidence that his security firm got him involved in probing into Thibault on a personal matter.”

“A personal matter?” The treasury secretary pushed back his chair, standing up. “Well, it seems we’re damn lucky if you ask me. Just following up on the death of a friend…What is the man, some kind of white knight?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Naomi said, suppressing a slight smile.

“Well, he’s about to get his armor dinged a bit if this turns out to be true. Give me something to go on, Agent Blum. Find out who Thibault is. Just keep it, for now, under the radar. I don’t want this out.” He headed around to his desk. Naomi assembled her files to leave. “And Agent Blum…”

“Sir?” Naomi turned.

The treasury secretary smiled. “Good job.”

“Thank you, sir.”

A rush of relief mixed with exhilaration followed Naomi all the way back to her office. She almost felt lifted off her heels.

“Good job,” Rob Whyte said, exhaling, as they crossed M Street to their building.

“Cancel that reservation then?” she replied playfully. “To northern Montana?”

He patted her on the shoulder. “Why don’t we just see how it goes?”

When she got back to her office, Naomi stepped behind her desk. Files on various cases she was looking into were piled high. Thick, bound reports as high as the slit in the basement wall they called a half window.

Maybe she’d work her way up to a full window soon.

Her assistant, Talia, came in after her expectantly. “So how did it go?”

“Well”-Naomi blew out her cheeks in mock relief-“I’m still here!” Of course, she hadn’t told Talia what her meeting had been about.

“This came for you while you were out.” Talia dropped a FedEx carton on her desk.

The sender’s address read Greenwich, Connecticut.

“Thanks.”

Naomi waited for her to leave, then slit open the top of the heavily taped carton. She took out a large plastic bag, and sealed in it, protected carefully in bubble wrap, was a clear drinking glass, like a lowball glass.

There was a note attached. Naomi opened it.

Compliments of Dani Thibault, it was signed. Then underlined: Go to town!

Naomi smiled.

She knew exactly who it was from. This would get the ball rolling.

And underneath, the white knight had written, underlined again, Have you thought it over yet?

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

That Saturday night, at the Hamill rink in Greenwich, the twelve-and-under Trident-Allen Value Fund Bruins took it to the Commack, Long Island, Ducks by the score of six to one.

As the final buzzer sounded, Hauck stepped onto the ice and gave a handshake to the opposing coach as his players raised their sticks in the air and high-fived their opponents. Jared, whom Hauck had brought along, went onto the ice as well, going, “Good game, Kyle! Good game, Tony.”

Some of them skated by, knocking elbows with him, saying, “Thanks for getting us ready, dude!”

As they headed out, Hauck rallied the kids around him for a couple of minutes. “Solid game. Way to play defense, guys.” He clapped. “Okay, remember, we have practice Wednesday at eight. No absentees! Good game, everyone! And remember to collect your gear.”

As the team filed off the ice, one or two of the parents came over to say hi and congratulate him on the game. While they did, Jared grabbed a stick and took the chance to shoot a few stray pucks into the sideboards. Ted, the rink manager, got in the Zamboni and started to smooth out the ice. It was almost ten-theirs was the last match of the night. Annie was at her café until around eleven. Hauck had said he’d drop Jared off, hang out at the bar, and have dessert. Celebrate the win.

Within minutes, the place was virtually empty. Elated kids piled into their parents’ cars. The Zamboni finished up on the ice. Ted dimmed the lights.

Hauck noticed a guy in a black nylon jacket he had never seen before just watching from the other end of the rink.

“Hey, Ted, you got a minute!”

Hauck went over and chatted with the manager, whom he knew from when he was on the force, proposing the idea of a fund-raiser for an assistant coach of one of the other teams who had lost his job and was in need of a kidney transplant. Hauck thought maybe he could get the police and firemen to spar off in an exhibition.

“Jared,” he yelled, “you mind going into the locker room and grabbing me the team bag?” The duffel held a bunch of practice pucks and rolls of tape, some extra equipment. Hauck had tossed his own gear in there after the skate-around.

Jared waved. “Sure, Ty.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” the manager said. “Lemme check the schedule and see what’s free.”

“That would be great, Ted.”

“Solid game tonight,” Ted called, parking the Zamboni.

Hauck tossed him a thumbs-up. “Yeah, guess they listen every once in a while!”

He made his way back across the ice. He grabbed his jacket from off the bench. He waited for Jared to come out with the bag. He’d been in there a long time.

Something wasn’t feeling right to him. Call it twenty years on the job, his antennae buzzing. He glanced to the far end of the ice.

The man in the Windbreaker wasn’t there.

CHAPTER FORTY

Red O’Toole pulled the van into the crowded lot a little before nine thirty and waited outside the rink.

Sonny Merced hunched beside him in the passenger seat. They’d been together before, on the Glassman job. They’d served together back in the Sandbox. But Sonny’s tale was just a bit different than his. He was an expert with a knife, could skin a cat with one, not to mention a man-and O’Toole had seen him. At Camp Victory, he’d been accused of rape three times. But getting female grunts to testify was another tale and each time they backed down. The third time, he got bounced home. Sonny was a liability the army didn’t need. He kicked around with a couple of private security firms, came home, got a job digging pools in Michigan, no chance of a real job. Then he fell into drugs and had to support his habit.

O’Toole looked at what he did as a job, the only one he was qualified for. Sonny looked at it as a thrill.

The parking lot was filled. Some kind of game was obviously going on. A half hour ago, he had gone and stuck his head in the rink and saw the match still in progress. Parents cheering. The scoreboard ticking down. Now, he looked at his watch and nudged Sonny. “Mount up. It’s showtime, man.”

People finally started coming out of the rink. Parents starting up their cars, kids yelping, whooping it up, sticks held high. In a couple of minutes, the parking lot grew empty, except for a couple of cars.

They didn’t see Hauck or the kid.

O’Toole told Sonny, “Go in and see what’s going on.”

Sonny zipped up his black nylon Windbreaker and crawled out of the van.

A few minutes passed. O’Toole put on the radio. He didn’t entirely trust Sonny. The dude was reckless, a little crazed. It always got him into trouble. But O’Toole always knew how to calm him down.

Suddenly his throwaway cell phone rang. “What the hell is going on? I told you to check it out, not go for a goddamn skate.”

“Relax,” Sonny Merced said, “start the car. I’m doing it now.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Jared!” Hauck shouted toward the locker room and waited for a reply.

None came.

The whole rink was dark now. Ted was somewhere in the back. The stranger who he’d seen standing at the opposite end of the rink was nowhere to be found. The antennae for trouble Hauck had built up over the years was buzzing like crazy.

“Jared!” he called out again. Why wasn’t he answering?

Something was wrong.

He grabbed a stray stick off the glass and headed back to the locker room, his blood starting to race with trepidation. This was Annie’s son. He turned the corner, accelerating into a run, and pushed through the swinging doors into the locker room, shouting, “Jared?”

“Ty!” His voice came back. Jared’s voice. Scared.

He turned to the lockers and saw the man he had spotted lurking outside, his hand cupped over Jared’s mouth, the boy’s eyes wide as melons, fear in them. He was dragging Jared toward the bathroom area. The guy had a heavy stubble on his face, sideburns, and a thick mustache. He looked about fifty but he was probably twenty years younger. Wearing a black nylon jacket.

He had a knife held under Jared’s chin.

Hauck froze.

“Hey, hero, get the fuck out of here!” The man glared at Hauck. With one arm he jerked Jared’s head to the side. With the other, he deftly clenched the blade underneath Jared’s jaw. “Do what I say, man, or I’ll split him in two.”

Jared, who didn’t have it in him to hurt a flea, twisted vainly against the man’s grasp, hyperventilating.

Tears flashed in his petrified eyes.

“Let the boy go,” Hauck said. He squeezed the hockey stick two fisted and took a step toward them, fixing on the man’s eyes. “Why are you here?”

“You know damn well why I’m here. Doesn’t he, kid? Ask him why I’m here. Ask him what he’s stuck his nose into.” He dug the blade point into Jared’s Adam’s apple, causing the boy’s eyes to bulge. “You and I, kid. We’re walking out of here. You first.” He motioned to Hauck. “One wrong move”-he twitched the sharp edge-“just one, Mr. Ex-Cop, and you can kiss your goofy little buddy here good-bye.”

Jared freed his mouth momentarily. Gripped by fear, confusion, he uttered, “Why is he doing this, Ty?”

“Jared, I’m not going to let him hurt you,” Hauck said. His blood pulsed with rage and intensity. “He’s an innocent kid,” he said to the man. “You can see he’s not all together. Let him go. Take me. It’s what you came here for anyway, isn’t it?”

“Ty…” Jared’s face was white, his breaths rapid and hard. “Don’t let him hurt me, Ty. Okay?”

“He won’t, Jared.” The man knew who he was. Which he realized was bad. This wasn’t some random pervert. Hauck knew he was clearly here for him. He also realized there was no gain in killing the boy. If Hauck went at him, it would only incapacitate the blade.

“He’s going to let you go.” Hauck looked in Jared’s cowering eyes, taking a step closer. Then he switched to the attacker. “And when he does, Jared”-Hauck flexed the stick-“I want you to run out of here, fast as you can. Don’t go outside.” It occurred to Hauck the man might not be alone. “Stay in the rink. I want you to find Ted and hide somewhere. Call 911.”

Jared nodded fearfully. Hauck took another step. “You understand, don’t you, son?”

He nodded again, petrified.

Hauck winked at him. “Good.”

The man arched back the boy’s neck, chortling, “Fuck I’m going to let him go…”

Hauck shifted his gaze solidly to the man. The knife gleamed. An army combat blade. He no longer felt nerves, just that he was the only thing between the boy’s life and death, and he was glad it was him. He gave the man a purposeful smile.

“You know damn well I’m not gonna let that boy out of my sight.”

The assailant tensed his grip on the blade.

“You came for me.” Hauck nodded to the man. “Have at it, asshole.”

He lunged with the stick at his attacker’s head.

Hauck knew from twenty years on the job what people in these situations do, no matter what they’ve threatened, when a SWAT team charges into a room. They defend themselves. What the survival instinct orders them to do.

The man threw up his hands.

Stick high, Hauck swung it with all his might across the assailant’s shoulder, the arm holding the knife. The man took a step back, reflexively put out his arm, letting Jared go.

As the stick split in half across his arm.

The man cried out. Jared ran, screaming, out of the assailant’s grasp. Hauck took what was left of the stick and charged him, knocking the guy backward and pinning the arm holding the knife against the concrete locker-room wall.

He tried to squeeze the blade from the man’s grip.

“Jared, get out! Do as I say. Get out of here!”

But the boy just stood there, paralyzed, as Hauck wrestled for the blade against the wall. The man was strong. Like Hauck suspected, no amateur. He kept squeezing the man’s arm against the wall, trying to pry the knife free. “Jared, go!”

He spun, tried to ram the man in his belly with the butt of the stick, but the assailant pivoted and drove his knee into Hauck’s groin, crushing the air out of him. The pain shot through him. He wrenched Hauck back, rolling him over a bench, against the edge of an open, metal locker door.

Hauck felt dazed, breathless, his belly on fire like he’d been speared.

The man came at him, flexing the blade in a way that said he knew exactly how to use it. Hauck scrambled to his feet, clinging to the jagged edge of the stick to defend himself.

The man grinned cockily. “Always have to play the hero, don’t you, dude.”

He swung, ripping through Hauck’s sweatshirt, scraping Hauck on the arm as Hauck tried to block the knife with the shaft of the stick.

Hauck cried out in pain.

He looked past him for a second. Jared was still standing there, paralyzed with fear. “Jared, please!”

The attacker dove at him again. This time Hauck flung out an open metal locker door, catching him flush. Skates, pads cascading all over them. Summoning every bit of his strength, Hauck slammed the open door against the man’s hand-two, three times-trying to free the knife. Blood rushed into the guy’s face as he tried to hold on.

Miraculously, the knife fell from his grasp and clattered to the floor.

Both their eyes darted to it.

With his free hand, the assailant took Hauck by the collar and drove him hard against the locker, the pain shooting up his spine. In the same motion, he lunged across the floor for the blade. Hauck dove on him, blood trickling from his mouth, his arm burning like it had been flayed by a slicing machine. They both fell across the wooden bench and onto the floor. The man spun Hauck on his back. Suddenly he picked up the splintered hockey stick and pinned it across Hauck’s throat, venom in his eyes. Hauck’s left arm was momentarily pinned behind the metal legs of the bench. Straining, the man realized his advantage and forced the stick into Hauck’s larynx.

“Chew on this, fucker.”

Hauck pushed back against it vainly, his arm finally freed, but it was too late.

The assailant was too strong, too adept, and he leaned on top of Hauck with all his leverage. Hauck started to gag. He couldn’t push it back. His eyes flashed to Jared standing across the room, transfixed, squeezing a sliver of space for air, shouting to him, “Jared, please, run. Now!”

The boy took a step toward the door.

Hauck felt the oxygen and strength slowly seeping out of him. He strained, lungs bursting, pushing back with everything he had, twisting his torso to push the guy off. But he couldn’t! He looked into the dark, wide pupils of the man’s gloating eyes and realized, his breaths growing short and frantic, he might die here.

“Next time, be careful where you stick your nose…” The man grinned triumphantly.

Hauck’s lungs were exploding. He looked helplessly at Jared one more time, unable to even beg him now. With the last of his strength, he reached, desperate for anything he could find, fingers grasping at his side-pads, towels, nothing…

A skate.

Suddenly he felt his hand come into contact with it. His fingers fumbled at the leather boot, the laces. He slid it along the floor, clutching on to the laces.

This could save his life.

That’s when he heard someone scream. “Get off him! Get off!”

Jared coming over and beating on the man. What was he doing?

The boy’s hands around the man’s neck, trying to twist him back. “Let him go!”

Jared’s blows were meaningless. The man flung his arm around, sending him flying into the wall of lockers.

It gave Hauck the instant he needed.

He squeezed on the boot and swung it upward, catching the startled attacker in the face just as he turned back, his eyes widening in surprise.

The grunt that came out of him was fearful, garbled; his hands rushed to his face.

Hauck spun him off. They both fell onto the floor, Hauck rolling on top of him. He heard a deep-rooted groan, more of a gurgling sound, and a crack, the weight of Hauck’s body lodging the skate blade deep in his attacker’s chest.

A matted slick of blood appeared.

Eyes glazing over, the man began to breathe heavily. Blood oozed from his jacket.

Hauck rolled off him, collapsing back in exhaustion against the row of lockers.

The man just looked at him, helpless, a pool of dark blood building up by his side.

“Who?” Hauck’s throat was so tight and rasping he could barely speak. “Who sent you?”

The man just looked at him, taking short, croaking breaths. Denial in his eyes. Lips quivering. Until he stopped.

Jared ran up to Hauck. He pulled the traumatized boy against him, an arm around his shoulders, stroking his face. “It’s going to be alright, son,” he said, shielding Jared’s view from the bloody sight of the man dying.

He repeated it, telling himself as well. “It’s going to be okay.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The Greenwich police arrived a few minutes later. The first officer, a ten-year vet, found Hauck sitting, bloodied, against a wall outside the locker room, with his arm around Jared. The cop stuck his head inside and came out white-faced. “My God…”

Maybe two minutes later, the medical team arrived. They checked out Jared-he was okay, thank God, other than a few marks on his neck where the blade had nicked him. Just in a state of shock. Hauck had called Annie. She was on her way now. One of the med techs took a look at Hauck’s arm. The knife wound hadn’t gone too deep, but the flesh was torn pretty good. He’d need stitches.

Soon after that, the on-duty detectives arrived. Ed Sinclair and Sally Combes, doing the weekend graveyard shift. Followed a short while after by Steve Chrisafoulis, who’d been with his family coming out of the movies in White Plains. Shell-shocked, he looked at Hauck, relieved to find him okay. Hauck’s arm was being dressed and he had lacerations all over his face and neck. Steve asked, eyes wide in disbelief, “Who won?”

“We did,” Hauck said. “Six to one.”

“Not funny, Ty.” The head of detectives shook his head. “What the hell is it with you? Can’t a guy just enjoy a relaxing Saturday night?”

Hauck shrugged. “If I can’t, why should you?” The med tech applied a temporary bandage to his arm.

“How’s the kid?” Steve looked over at Jared.

“A little shaken. Take a look inside. You’ll understand why.”

Steve nodded, scratching at his mustache. “You?”

Hauck exhaled, the kind of equivocation in his eye that said he was not exactly sure. He knew he’d come within an inch of losing his life. If he hadn’t found that skate with his last breaths, if Jared hadn’t distracted his assailant, Hauck was pretty sure it would have been him they’d be in there looking over. “Lucky to be alive.”

“You don’t exactly look it,” Steve said. He put his arm on Hauck’s shoulder and squeezed. “You know we can do this ourselves. Why don’t you go outside and get some air? I’ll have Ed and Sally take your statement in a while.”

“No. I’m alright.” He pulled himself up.

The tech finished up on his arm. “That ought to hold.”

Hauck rolled down his sweatshirt. “Let’s get it done.”

Steve went in and asked Ed and Sally if he and Hauck could have a minute in the locker room alone. It was an unusual request, but they nodded, “Sure,” given that only a few months ago, Hauck had been their boss.

Steve stopped and gazed soberly at the inert body, his eyes growing large at the sight of the skate still lodged in his chest, the pool of blood congealing next to him. He shook his head. “Jesus, Ty…”

“I know.”

“These hockey dads are just gonna have to learn not to take things so damn seriously.”

This time Hauck smiled and then told him how it had all happened. Chrisafoulis bent down over the body. He stretched on rubber gloves and turned it, gently, rummaging through the guy’s pockets. “What do you think, was he after you?”

“He knew who I was.” Hauck shrugged. “He knew I was an ex-cop. My gut says he was trying to prove a point with the boy. Trying to get to me by going after him.”

“Get to you how?”

“I think you already know the answer to that one, lieutenant…”

The detective lifted a wallet out of the corpse’s pants. “James Alan Merced. The address says Pismo Beach, California. There’s an armed forces ID in here too. The guy’s a vet. Camp Victory. Iraq.”

He dug his finger deep inside the billfold and pulled something out. A small badge-a wreath of gold leaf overset with what looked like a World War I rifle.

Hauck shrugged. “What’s that?”

“CIB badge,” Steve said. “Means he saw hand-to-hand combat. You’re a lucky dude.”

“There’s also a cell phone in the jacket pocket,” Hauck said. “That should tell you something.”

Chrisafoulis looked up at him reprovingly. Only the investigators were supposed to touch the body.

Hauck shrugged sheepishly. “Couldn’t help myself. Old habits are tough to break.”

Soon after, Annie rushed in, straight from the kitchen. She embraced her son tightly, her eyes wet with joyful tears. “Oh, baby, baby, what happened? Thank God you’re okay.”

“The man tried to hurt me, Mom.” Jared squeezed her. “But Ty came in and saved me. They had a big fight. He told me to run, but I tried to help him, Mom.”

“I know, baby, I know,” Annie said. “I heard. You’re such a brave little man.” She hugged him again and looked up at Hauck. “He’s alright?”

“The med tech said just a little shock. Some small cuts on his neck.”

“Ty got cut, Mom. He’s hurt.”

Annie draped her fingers across Jared’s face and went over to Hauck. She put out her arms and gave him a strong, grateful hug, so tightly he could feel the worry and fear in her own accelerated heartbeat. He didn’t resist. It felt good to be in someone’s arms. Someone who loved him.

“They told me outside what happened. I don’t know how to ever thank you enough. You know what Jared means to me. He-” She pressed her lips together tightly to hold back from crying. “You’re hurt?”

“Just a cut. Enough to make me look a little sexy.”

Annie said, “There’s nothing you could ever do that will make you look any sexier to me. I owe you my son’s life. Who’d want to hurt him, Ty? What kind of bastard would do something like this?”

“Someone who may have wanted to hurt me.”

Her eyes flashed with anger. “I want to see him, Ty.”

“No, you don’t want to see him, Annie. I know how you feel…” He put his arm around her and wiped the tears off her face. “You have to take him away from here, Annie…Away from me. Anywhere. And you too. The two of you just can’t be around me right now.”

She looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Because it puts you in danger, Annie. Because whoever was behind this might try it again. Because someone wants to stop me and they’ll hurt any part of me they can get to. Any part that makes me vulnerable.”

“We’re not running away from you right now, Ty.”

“You’re not running away. You’re protecting him. Keep him up at school. Send him back to California to visit your folks. You know how I feel about him, Annie. But he just can’t be around me right now.”

The look of hurt that came on her face shone with fear and worry. She looked at him deeply. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Ty?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll take you home,” Annie said. “I know you need to give a statement, but I’m not going to let you be alone.”

He shook his head. “No, you should be with your son.”

“Ty, please… You were almost killed! You’re hurt. That guy in there doesn’t get to win by driving us away. Please…”

“You go on home,” Hauck said. He put his hand gently on her cheek and walked her over to Jared. “They may need to talk to him again in the morning. I’ll work that out.”

Annie nodded, frustrated, not sure what she could do.

He knelt down and said so long to Jared. “You saved my life, guy! You are one brave little dude!”

The boy got up and hugged him, hard. Hauck realized he would have died himself if he had let anything happen to him. Even now, who knew how he was going to be able to process this? To Jared there was no evil in the world, only kindness. Hauck pulled the boy’s face to his side and mussed his hair. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Jared nodded, putting on a brave smile. “That was a good game, wasn’t it, Ty?”

“Yeah, son, a really good game.”

Annie left the rink with him. Hauck felt a weight of sadness pulling him down. He gave a detailed statement to the detectives, leaving out his suspicion on who might be behind this.

When he finished up, his blood was still pumping and he wasn’t quite sure how to calm it. In his old job, he would’ve started the investigation. Looked into the cell phone. Run a criminal search on Merced.

But now there was really nothing for him to do but just go home.

Steve came up to him. “I can have someone follow you in your car, Ty. You want me to drive you home?”

“No. Thanks,” he said. He shook Steve’s hand. “I’m really okay.”

“Sorry to say this, LT,” the head of detectives said, calling Hauck by his old title, “but you don’t look so okay.”

A tight-fisted pressure had risen up inside him. An overheating boiler. About to explode. He realized just how close he had come to dying and what he would have been leaving behind. He had a sudden flash of feeling totally alone. He wasn’t sure who to call or what to do.

Steve patted him on the shoulder. “Go home. I’m glad you’re okay, Ty. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”

Hauck took the detective’s advice and went out to his car. The chill in the air felt good. The wind beating against his face. A light rain had begun to fall. He stepped around the corner and leaned against the concrete wall, his legs starting to weaken, what strength he still had starting to bleed way.

He lowered himself to the ground. He drew in a long, cooling breath of precious air. It felt good, cleansing, just to be alive. The wind from the sound on his face. The rain. The whoosh of the thruway off in the distance.

Grateful tears filled up Hauck’s eyes.

He sniffed them back, took out his cell, and found a number on the speed dial. His heart racing, he waited for the line to pick up.

Jessie answered on the second ring. “Hey, Daddy-o, what’s going on? It’s a Saturday night…”

“Nothing’s going on, hon.” He blew out his cheeks. “I know it’s a Saturday. I just wanted to hear your voice. What’s going on with you?”

“A bunch of us are over at Kellie’s and we’re watching a movie. Ten Things I Hate About You. Have you seen it, Dad?”

“No.”

“You’d like it. It’s not just a dumb teen flick. It’s based on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.”

“No kidding, babe…” He sat, tears starting to roll down his cheeks. He moved the phone away and pressed it tightly against his sweatshirt, imagining the horror if this had all had a different outcome. What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Ty? “That’s great, hon.”

Jessie paused. “Dad, are you okay?”

“Sure, honey, I’m okay. It’s just… Go back to your friends. You have a fun night. I just wanted to say I love you. That’s all.”

“Dad, you’re sounding a little strange. You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Everything’s fine, hon.” He wiped the tears off his cheeks. “Scout’s honor.”

“You never were a scout, Dad.”

“Right,” he said, chuckling. “Then how about, ‘cross my heart and hope to die’!”

Jessie waited for a second. There was some high-pitched girl chatter in the background. “I love you too, Daddy.”

He clicked off the line and continued to sit against the wall. His fists were coiled in anger-maybe in relief. He sucked a cooling breath into his chest. He felt ready to take them on. The man with the tattoo, the one who had killed April. He was still out there. Hauck was sure this one, at the rink, hadn’t acted alone. He was going to get him; that he would bet his life on. For himself. For April.

He just had no idea who it was.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Y ou have to learn to relax more, Ty.” April grinned, tapping his hand with her nail. “You seem like you’re itching for a fight.”

It had become a regular thing between them now. Lingering over a coffee up the block from the doctor’s after their sessions. Before Hauck headed back to Queens and April to Connecticut. Occasionally, she stayed in town and went to dinner or a business function with Marc. Today they walked through Madison Square Park.

“I just feel like I’m going a little crazy,” Hauck said. “Stir crazy,” he pointed out with a smile.

“Glad you clarified that!” April said.

“It’s just that it’s time to get back to work. Figure out what’s next.”

Businessmen were sunning themselves at lunch. The cafés around the perimeter were busy. He got a soda and she got a chai at a local Asian market. They sat on a bench.

“See, I told you, you were just passing through…”

“You know, I sorta missed you,” he said, taking a sip of Diet Coke. She hadn’t been there for a couple of weeks. He missed their talks. He’d begun to think of her as a new friend, and his others, some choosing to rally behind Beth in the breakup, some just not a part of what he was going through, he no longer wanted to be around. “You guys were away?”

“No.” She played with a string of brown pearls around her neck. “Just some things going on.”

He stared at her, waiting to see if she was comfortable explaining.

“Nothing you want to know, Ty.”

“Actually, I thought that’s what this was all about. Marc…?”

“No.” She shook her head and smiled, as if with amusement. She cupped her hands around her tea and took a breath. “Okay. You asked for it. Agoraphobia. You know it?”

“Fear of going out?” Hauck said.

“Fear of going out. Fear of attachment. Fear of abandonment. Fear of fucking fear.” She looked at him, hesitating, almost as if she was afraid she had disappointed him. “It’s not that I’m fearful of the world. It’s not like that with me. It’s part of the depression thing. Sometimes it’s like there’s just this weight that pushes on me. I don’t feel connected to anything. I have to force myself just to go out. Just to take my daughter to school.”

“Tell me.”

She pushed her long, sandy hair out of her eyes. “You’re sure you’re into this?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

She exhaled. “Okay. It goes back. I grew up in a small town in Virginia. Where I got my accent from, in case you hadn’t noticed. Actually grew up riding a horse. Did competitions. My dad, who was a local lawyer, taught me how to shoot a shotgun before I knew how to braid my hair. I loved my dad,” she said, eyes beaming. “He was like Atticus Finch to me, Ty. You know what I mean? Everyone in town looked up to him.

“My mom-maybe at one time she was a capable person, but by the time I remember she was simply a country-club drunk. Everything was always an effort for her. Parties. Why she couldn’t make it to my riding events. Just getting dinner on the table. My dad, he was the glue that held everything together. Everything.”

“I know what you mean,” Hauck said, though his own dad, who worked for the Greenwich Department of Water for thirty years, was a million miles away from that.

“Do you?” April said. “When I was sixteen, I pulled my VW into the garage, grabbed my books from the passenger seat, and saw my father lying there…” Her jaw grew tight. “Sitting there against the wall, like he was wondering what shirt to wear, except there was this bright red pattern sprayed against the plaster behind his head. His shotgun was in his lap. Like he wanted me to find him there.”

Hauck reached for her hand. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to go back over-”

“You wanted to know, right? You wanted to know what makes me tick. Anyway, that’s not it. That was a long time ago. Just backstory, as they say. Bank fraud,” she said in response to Hauck’s questioning eyes. “He’d been receiving kickbacks from a local bank where he was directing business. During the big S and L crisis. The thing was ripe with fraud and my father was a part of it.” She chuckled bitterly. “Atticus Finch…I guess you can add fear of being let down to the list as well. Anyway, I ended up at UVA. I majored in art. Did a year of grad school at NYU. You ever hear of the Minimalist movement?”

He shook his head. “Can’t say I have.”

“Sol LeWitt. He did these amazing wall drawings. Richard Tuttle. That was my thing. I studied under Richard Dunn, who was the big cheese in that world. Sort of studied under him. More like I ended up perpetually under him. He was forty-two. I was twenty-three. I always was attracted to older guys. You getting the picture? Anyway, Richard”-April shook her head-“whatever scant trust or faith in myself had managed to make it through to that point, well, he took care of the rest. He was a pompous, spiteful bastard, but he had a long ponytail and everyone in the art world bowed down to him. I spent three years with him. I think he was screwing anyone who knew Rembrandt was Dutch.”

“I thought he was Flemish.” Hauck grinned.

“Well, then you’d have had nothing to worry about.” April laughed. “And believe me, I think he was into that too. Finally I had to just leave the whole program. Dropped out. I stayed in a friend’s apartment for about three months. Lost about twenty pounds. Not sure I ever went out. Read the Upanishads cover to cover. Got involved in a bunch of self-actualization things. I finally took a job selling ad space for this financial magazine. That’s where I met this nice, sort of square, something-a-little-cute-about-him-somewhere guy who was into complex investment models and standard deviations from the mean”-she smiled-“but who I knew wouldn’t let me down and seemed to think I was the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Marc?” Hauck said, smiling.

She nodded.

“Did he know Rembrandt wasn’t Flemish?”

She chuckled. “I just didn’t want to be hurt again.” There was a shimmering in her wide, round eyes. “It wasn’t like there was this great love. He’s just the most stable man I ever met, and I didn’t want to be let down.”

“But you built a life.”

“Yeah.” She nodded brightly, happily. “We built a life. I have a beautiful little girl and a husband who gets up in the middle of the night like clockwork to check his overseas positions. We live in a fancy home. And go on nice vacations. I help out at Becca’s school.” She rotated her cup. “It’s just…It’s May. There are days it just comes and goes. I found my dad the first week of May. It’s always a rough time.” She shrugged and smiled. “See, for me, when you say ‘happy,’ I say that’s just a piece of time I don’t see my father’s face in that garage.”

Hauck looked at her across the bench. He squeezed her on the shoulder. “I won’t let you down.”

“No…” April smiled. “You wouldn’t, would you?” She covered his hand. “That’s why it’s nice being with you. Like I said, you’re just a guest at the old spa-not a resident.”

“You don’t have to be a resident either, April. Look at how you’ve helped me.”

April glanced at her watch. Her eyes grew wide. “Good Lord, I have to go. Becca’s got dance tonight. What kind of mother am I, going on so long with such a cute guy…” An idea seemed to hit her. “You know what we should do?”

“What?” he asked.

“We should take a picture. I have a camera here. You and I.”

“A picture?”

She shrugged. “You never know, one day that might be all we have.”

“That won’t happen,” Hauck said, “but sure…”

She dug into her purse, and as she did, it pushed her sleeve up, accidentally exposing her arm. April had always kept them covered.

Hauck’s gaze went to it. A bit in shock-a bit in sadness too.

There were marks. Several short slashes up her arm. Most appeared to have long since healed, but one or two still looked fresh and bright. He suddenly realized why.

His eyes lifted to April’s.

She smiled at him, as if her secret was now out. “So now you know…”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

The phone that they removed from Sonny Merced’s body led to a sister in California who hadn’t spoken to him in months; a sometimes girlfriend who claimed she never wanted to see him again; a phone-in sex line; and a number that had been dialed just minutes before the attack, which led to a Michael Cassidy in Union, New Jersey. Who turned out to be a twelve-year-old kid, who, a week before, had lost his phone. Merced’s address was a post office box, the account for which was two months delinquent.

Merced was an ex-army ranger with the Eighty-second Airborne unit who had been drummed out of the service and had been an unindicted suspect in three rape investigations while over in the Middle East. He had an expired Michigan license and had been picked up twice in the past year on assault and drug possession charges. He had made a call to Cassidy’s stolen line minutes before attacking Jared and the police had found no unclaimed car in the rink lot afterward.

Whatever Merced’s motive, it was clear he wasn’t acting alone.

Sunday, the local papers and news channels carried the story of the Iraq War vet who had assaulted a handicapped boy in the locker room of the Hamill rink the night before. The fight to the death of the ex-detective in town who had managed to intercede.

Monday, back at work, everyone seemed to know all the de-tails. In the halls, catching coffee, they all were genuinely disbelieving and shocked, grateful Hauck was alright.

Basically, he tried to stay out of sight, at his desk doing paperwork, fielding a few calls. He asked Brooke to shield him from the press. But as the day went on, his mind couldn’t put aside the possible connection between the interests of his own firm, people here, and the investigation into Dani Thibault. Hauck had crossed the line by continuing to look into him. Had someone here tried to stop it by planting that pen? Setting him up.

Around eleven, his cell phone rang. When he checked the display, “United States Government” came on the screen.

Naomi Blum.

“You got my gift?” Hauck answered without saying hello.

“I got your gift. Thanks. And I’m about to give you one in return. But first, I heard what happened. Are you okay?”

“My arm feels like it’s gone through a chopper, but I’ll mend. Make any progress on the glass?”

“I want you to know,” she said, “we’re starting an investigation into Thibault and his connections. Thanks to you. One of the ways is to follow up on the person who attacked you. Assuming, of course, we’re not just dealing with some kind of sick perv.”

“I think we both know that’s a pretty safe bet. Besides, he knew who I was; he called me an ex-cop. You still have lingering doubts on whether there’s any connection between James Donovan’s and Marc Glassman’s deaths?”

“I didn’t have any after I met you,” Naomi Blum said. “I just put my career on the line.”

There was something about her that Hauck couldn’t help but like. That was winning him over. She hadn’t fallen for the setup with the Talon pen. She thought Campbell was a dipshit. She’d done her homework on his background. And now she had run with what he’d shared. Put her career on the line. There was a lot of heart and energy in that little body.

Not to mention a not-half-bad set of bright, gray eyes. “You ready yet to tell me what you think this is all about?”

“How’s the boy?” she asked, dodging him.

“A little rattled. But he’s fine. He’s back at school. The local police have agreed to beef up the security…How does it sit with you that someone would try to get me to back off by harming an innocent kid like that?”

“I warned you, didn’t I, what you could expect for trouble.” She paused a moment and Hauck sensed some genuine concern. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re both okay.”

“So am I in or out?” Hauck asked. He figured he might as well throw all his cards on the table now.

Naomi chortled. “Didn’t you just get yourself a pretty good lesson in what being ‘in’ means?”

“Yeah, and I thought I kinda passed. I can help. Seems to me it’s a little late to pretend I’m on the sidelines.”

She paused. Hauck thought he might have her. She finally said, “Haven’t decided yet.”

“Thanks. Why don’t you let me know if there’s anything short of getting myself killed that can aid you in the decision.”

That made her laugh. “You were worried what it was going to be like for you back at work. Feeling any more comfortable?”

There was a knock at his door. Hauck wheeled around as it opened.

Tom Foley stepped in.

“How about I get back to you on that one.” He clicked off the phone, surprised to see his boss. “Tom.” He stood up. “C’mon in.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Hauck came around his desk. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”

“Everybody’s buzzing about what happened.” Foley was in a three-piece pinstripe suit and yellow tie. He came up to him. “Horrible thing.” He shook his head. “Horrible to have to go through. I heard you were in, and I had some things I could get done up here today. How are you doing, Ty?” His boss’s handshake was strong and concerned. He placed his arm around Hauck’s shoulder. “There’s no point saying just how glad we all are that you’re okay.”

“Thanks, Tom. It was a bit of a close call.”

“I heard you were hurt.” Foley released his grip and took a glance at his arm.

“Just a cut.” Hauck waved it off. “Lucky.”

“We’re all lucky,” he said. “Everyone in this organization knows what kind of person you are.” He shook his head with empathy and gritted his teeth. “What kind of a sick fuck would even do something like that?”

Hauck had spent twenty years gauging reactions. People who had something to hide. Foley never once blinked. His outrage seemed genuine and concerned. But there was always something held a little in reserve. A measured quality in his tone Hauck could never quite figure out. He just shook his head in agreement. “I don’t know, Tom.”

Were they both playing the same game?

Hauck had defied his boss’s warning about stepping up the investigation on Thibault. Did Foley know? Hauck hadn’t been forthcoming about the New York police finding the Talon pen at James Donovan’s suicide scene. Had Campbell spoken to him? Had someone planted it there?

Worse, Hauck had shared all he knew about Thibault with the U.S. government. Things learned in the process of a confidential search. Technically, Talon’s information. He saw his boss’s steely gaze. The directness in his eyes. The twitch in his smile. Was he holding back?

“You know, as long as I’m up here, we should talk,” Foley said, guiding Hauck back to his desk, dropping himself familiarly into the chair in front. He crossed his legs.

“Okay.” Not sure what he meant, Hauck eased himself behind his desk.

“First, how’s Annie’s son?” Foley locked his hands behind his head and slumped back.

“Fine. Just a bit rattled.” Foley had met Annie once or twice. Hauck had brought her along to a company dinner when the Greenwich office opened. He seemed to genuinely like her. Her easy laugh and natural charm seemed to cut through Foley’s polished New England manners. “We thought it best to get him away from everything…”

Something made Hauck hold back the exact location.

“That’s wise. I’d do the same. Maybe we can help with that.”

“Thanks,” Hauck said. “Annie doesn’t want to attract any attention.”

Foley grimaced, shaking his head. “Just thinking about someone trying to do that to a kid…You know what I mean, Ty?” He was looking right at Hauck, his tone somehow direct, suggestive.

Then, without waiting for an answer, he suddenly shifted. “You dropped that little matter we spoke on the other day as I asked? On that guy you’d come up with?”

“What guy, Tom?” Hauck tried to read the guy’s eyes.

“You know, the one Merrill had us looking into.” Foley snapped his finger. “What was his name…?”

“Thibault.”

“Yeah, Thibault.” Foley jabbed the air. “That’s the one.”

An uneasiness wormed its way through Hauck. Foley’s measuring gaze seemed to bore right through him. Hauck wasn’t sure how he should reply.

“You asked me to, Tom.”

“Good.” His boss winked and took off his glasses, blew on them to clean them. “Thattaboy…”

Suddenly Hauck had this exposed, pulse-stopping feeling, like he was working undercover and his identity had just been blown. Like Foley was about to lay something on him, and at any moment everything could fall apart. He shuffled a couple of papers on his desk. “So how’s that Reynolds Reid matter shaping up?”

“Sorry?” Foley put back on his glasses. His stare said he had no idea what Hauck was talking about.

“The Wertheimer thing they were looking to pick up. Why we were holding everything back. From Merrill.”

“Right!” He smiled, clear eyed. “Moving along just fine, Ty, or so I’m told. In fact, the company and the government panel of overseers are meeting on it today. Some conflict-of-interest details, mostly in Europe, I hear. May have to divest that part. Should be brought to a head soon.”

“Good.”

“Good?” Foley looked at him a little funny. “For Talon, it’s a frigging bonanza.”

“I meant good that we can finally share what we have with Merrill,” Hauck said.

“Got ya.” Foley nodded. He gave Hauck a lingering look that ended up in a tight smile. “I’m glad you’re okay, Ty. There’s a couple of things I’d like to run by you…” He pushed himself up. “But that can wait for another day. Big doings out there today, in case you haven’t heard.”

“I haven’t, Tom. What?”

“One of the top overseers of Freddie Mac blew his brains out in his study. Imagine, his own children found him when they were getting ready for school.” He shook his head. “Only ratchets up all the worry that there’s more shit to come. Citi. AIG. The whole world’s crumbling, Ty. Shit, even my wife’s starting to break a sweat. Asks me for the first time in twenty years about our stock portfolio. Tells me she and all her girlfriends haven’t bought a pair of shoes in weeks. Not a single new spring outfit. Everyone bleeds in their own way. Still…” He headed toward the door and chuckled. “Doesn’t mind hopping the company jet down to Naples. That’s why we have to be one of the winners. Know what I mean?”

Hauck followed him to the door.

Foley turned. “You know, that old job, Ty, what you were doing before…That was sort of like splashing around in the kiddie pool, if you know what I mean. You get yourself wet, everyone has a good time. But try and work up a stroke.”

Hauck nodded, not sure what he was agreeing to.

“But here”-his boss’s smile was gone-“here, it’s all kinda part of the big mosaic. One hand washes the government. The other some of the largest companies in the world. Everyone splashing around.”

Hauck met his eyes. “Just what is it we’re talking about, Tom?”

“The Wertheimer thing, of course!” Foley flashed an innocent smile. “That’s what you meant, wasn’t it, Ty?” He gave Hauck a gentle pat. “I’m glad you’re okay. I really am. It’s our job to keep tabs on what’s going on. With our key employees. In all our clients’ firms. Even at Treasury. Comprende?”

Hauck stared.

“Dumbass effing traders…Who knew what hell they wrought, huh?” He cocked both hands at him like two loaded pistols. “In case you don’t know it, son, you’re swimming in the grown-up pool now.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

News of the impending collapse of the American banking system was met with a grin of amusement and even pride by Dani Thibault, who watched it in his midtown Manhattan office.

Pacific-West, the largest bank in California, had just failed.

His pride stemmed from the fact that behind the scenes, he had helped put it all in motion. And he was amused because with all the world’s eyes focused on the causes-the housing bubble, CDOs, credit-default swaps, overleverage, regulators looking the other way-no one had any idea what was really happening.

The treasury secretary was appearing before Congress, stammering like a first-year loan officer trying to explain a risky loan.

The Dow had just hit a six-year low.

Yes, the system had already been weakened, the banks leveraging up their balance sheets with tiers of worthless assets and debt. Sure, the two desperate traders he had lured with the promise of millions, millions they would no longer be able to receive from their firms, had simply been the final, artfully conceived nudge of the rotted carcass off the ledge.

Ultimately, Thibault knew, there was some larger purpose to the small but profitable role he played in this. His was just to put the plan in motion. The whole system, already foundering, was just waiting for the right flick of an invisible finger to send it off the edge. And he had found them! Borrowed up to their dicks against their own company’s tumbling stock. A margin call away from extinction. Yet still controlling billions of their company’s assets. Traders who with one push of the button could sway the fortunes of a large bank.

And who had put it all in play? A simple hog farmer’s son. Who had shoveled shit out of the pens until he was seventeen. Yes, he definitely took some pride in that. And at the same time he had carried his deception right into the bed of one of the most wealthy and desirable women in the world. He had used her to reach his ends, like he had used everyone and everything he had encountered along the way.

Now he was known in the most elite circles. The press referred to him as an “international financier.” It was just like that royal Belgian slut had done for him. Only better! Merrill had opened more doors for him than the head of a multinational corporation. Soon, he’d be moving on anyway. He had gotten about all he could out of her. And there were younger, fresher fields for him to sow.

Dani put his feet up on his desk. He couldn’t help but admire how it all had worked since, on the run, his path had crossed with that faggot Belgian banker in a bar in Lyon. How he’d driven out into the country on the pretense of finding a secluded spot to fuck him. Stopped the car along a lake, then smashed his head with a rock, with the guy’s pants down and his dick out and ready. Threw the body into a leechy pond. Driven in his own car back to his town in Belgium, copied his birth documents, falsified his history. Applied for a job at RezionsBank.

A new man.

Thibault watched as some hayseed congressmen who didn’t even know how to add raked the treasury secretary over the coals over monetary policy. Trying to assure the world it would hold together.

He laughed. They had no idea the disaster that lay ahead.

Thibault’s cell phone chimed, his private one. The one he used for only this purpose. He took it out, noticed the scrambled number from Dubai that was completely secure.

Dani answered. “I’m just watching the proceedings now. Have you checked out the markets? The Dow is down over seven hundred points…” He leaned back, looking over the view of Manhattan with satisfaction. He’d done so well, his employers might well double what they had paid him.

“Yes, an excellent job, my friend,” the caller acknowledged in heavily accented English. “You can be assured we won’t forget.” The man was one of the most powerful people on the planet. His backers controlled those who influenced the purse strings of billions. Behind the shadowy curtain that divided the highest levels of finance and those who had their own agenda to bring that same world down, his influence was unequaled. “But now there is something important that you should know.”

“And what is that?” Dani Thibault asked, barely noticing the shift in tone.

“You are presently under investigation, Dani. By the United States government. The Department of the Treasury.”

“What?” Thibault sat up. What he was saying was impossible, of course, a joke. But he also knew the caller was not the kind to trifle with idle rumor or speculation. He turned down the TV. “Just what are you talking about?”

“They know your name,” the caller said. “They know you had dealings with both deceased traders.”

“That’s impossible!” Dani jumped to his feet. In that instant, he retraced every contact he had made on all his assignments. There was just no chance. Who would have connected him? He had covered every trail perfectly. He had left no link to himself. “How?” he asked, stammering in disbelief. “How could anyone possibly know that?”

“How doesn’t matter, Dani. What does is that you must become invisible to the world. And now.”

“You’re sure of this?” A tremor of concern pounded in his chest. “This information is one hundred percent reliable?”

“More reliable than even you, my friend,” the caller said, his tone unmistakable. “I warned you your prick was your Achilles heel. Apparently, the connection was revealed through your girlfriend.”

“Merrill?” Thibault almost choked. How could Merrill know? She had never even met Glassman or Donovan. Their names had never surfaced. All the bitch cared about was passing herself off as ten years younger than she was or going to her silly garden club gatherings in Greenwich and Palm Beach. She was too busy combing Saks with her personal shoppers for Prada shoes. How could Merrill know shit?

“You know how this has to be handled now, Dani?”

Thibault realized the man on the other end of the line was not someone to be fucked with. He had the network to do anything. He would already be dead if that was the man’s wish. “Yes, you’re right,” he acknowledged-what else could he do? “It’s time to disappear.”

“I can have one of my associates pick you up. I’ve already taken the precaution of having a jet at Teterboro that can take you out of the country, no questions asked.”

“To where?” Suddenly the concern beating in Thibault’s chest became full-out panic. It occurred to him that he was the one go-between among all the connected parties. He had recruited Glassman and Donovan. He had paid them. The funds, however well hidden, originated from his accounts, where, through the maze of partnerships, counterparties, and countries, it would simply appear to be an investment in one of Thibault’s many deals. Out of the country? Thibault swallowed nervously.

There was no way he would ever make it through the Lincoln Tunnel alive.

“A stretch here in Dubai might do you some good about now, don’t you think, Dani? No worry over extradition. And I assure you, we have our own pleasures here too.”

“Yes,” Thibault said, his mind flashing forward. “I think so…”

They arranged for a car to pick him up at five that afternoon. At Dani’s apartment on Central Park South. In three hours. Dani knew he was one dead Serb if he ever got in that car.

As soon as he hung up, he ran over to his safe, hidden behind a false shelf in the bookcase. Fingers barely cooperating, he feverishly spun the lock open and reached for the thick folder of documents he kept inside for just this purpose. Passports. Each with an identity and destination he had worked out. He leafed through the stack and chose the one he wanted. And into the altered bottom of his alligator Hermès briefcase he stuffed several wads of cash, each more than ten thousand dollars in dollars and euros.

Most of what he had stored away was perfectly safe in various banks in Geneva and the Cayman Islands. The rest he would leave where it was, in his accounts in London and New York, so as not to attract attention.

He had rehearsed this moment well.

There was an alternate exit from Dani’s office building. It led straight to the Grand Central subway station. He had chosen the location for just such a situation as this. If the government was investigating him, they might be watching him as well.

He called Air France himself and made a first-class reservation on the seven thirty flight to Paris in the name on the new passport he had chosen.

Three hours. Dani’s blood grew heated. As he thought of how he had somehow been exposed, it irked him more. Merrill. How? Dani Thibault was dead. He had reinvented himself before. Now it was time to do it again.

He just wished, in the time he had left, he could give that bitch one last lesson she would never forget.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Over the past few days Hauck had done his best to put what happened at the rink behind him.

He put the finishing touches on a deal he’d been working on with the town of Milford police department. He gave a second deposition to the police, who were digging into James Merced’s contacts over the past weeks. He talked with Annie. She told him Jared was doing much better. That she might send him back to California to visit his grandparents until things settled down. He was still trying to figure out just how Tom Foley and Talon all fit in.

Wednesday he was coming out of a meeting when his cell phone chimed. He noticed the caller. The United States Government. He went into his office and shut the door and plopped in the chair behind his desk. “So-you made a decision yet?”

“On what?” Naomi Blum answered, acting coy.

Hauck leaned back, knowing his gift of Thibault’s prints and DNA was a game changer. “On whether I’m in or out.”

“In. Do you have lunch plans?” the agent asked totally out of the blue.

“I was just gonna have a sandwich at my desk.”

“Then how ’bout you have one with me?”

“Where are you?” Hauck spun around, looking out the window at the harbor and waterfront estates of Glenhaven, as if somehow she was watching him.

“In a car. Across the street from your office.” Her voice grew in excitement. “We know who Thibault is, Ty.”

“I’ll be right down.”

They bagged the sandwich and drove to the Boxcar Cantina, a Mexican place. He figured it was the most inconspicuous place they could find.

A few tables were filled with moms in yoga outfits and office types in casual business attire. He waved to the owner, Regina, who directed them over to a booth. Naomi was in a stylish brown pantsuit, her short, dark hair curled around her ears. And shades. She had a couple of freckles on her cheeks. Wide, gray eyes. Seemingly not an ounce of body fat on her. She wore a simple chain around her neck with some sort of pendant hidden under her top, which looked to Hauck like a military dog tag. There was something about her, her directness, her brains, that he couldn’t help but find attractive.

The waitress came up. Naomi ordered the tortilla soup and an iced tea, Hauck a chicken enchilada and a Diet Coke. When the waitress left he leaned back against the wooden booth. “So what do you have?”

“The prints you supplied us with came back. They were flagged by Interpol.” Naomi took out a file folder and placed two photos on the table. “You were right.” Her eyes twinkled. “He’s Serbian.”

The large black and white photos were police mug shots. Thibault, maybe ten years younger, his wavy, dark hair sheared close, military style. His meaty face more gaunt, hungry looking. A dark intensity in his brooding eyes.

The name underneath the photo wasn’t Thibault but Franko Kostavic.

And there was a number underneath that: K43750. A prisoner number. And a date, August 23, 1999.

“Kostavic?” Hauck said, studying the photo. The likeness was unmistakable. “These are mug shots?”

“NATO.” Naomi nodded. “You see the date? He was a major in the Serbian Army during the Kosovo War. He was part of what they called the Scorpion Brigade. Apparently, Thibault-Kostavic,” Naomi corrected herself, “was taken into custody after the war trying to make his way through the Italian border.”

“Make his way from what?”

Naomi put another paper in front of him. A report. “The Scorpions were a secret paramilitary offshoot of the Serb army that operated freely during the war and was responsible for some of the most brutal genocidal atrocities.”

“Atrocities?” Hauck looked at the report. Thibault had boasted of how he had seen action in the war. Since he’d claimed to be Dutch, they had all assumed he was part of the NATO contingent there. Richard Snell had done the search, but his name was nowhere to be found. Now Hauck knew why. The scent of Dani Thibault’s secret past had just grown decidedly more rancid.

“Yes.” Naomi nodded.

Their drinks came and she passed over a new series of photos. What Hauck was looking at was completely stomach turning. A long maze of dead bodies strewn together in a deep ravine. Dozens. More than dozens. There was also a photocopied report from the UN War Crimes Commission.

“Franko Kostavic was being held by the new Serbian government in connection with his role in events that took place on the night of August fourth, in the village of Donje Velke in Kosovo. Sixty-seven townspeople, mostly women and children, were massacred in a Serbian raid.”

Hauck felt the moisture dry up in his mouth. He fixed on the grisly photos. Bullet-riddled bodies in nightclothes and traditional native garb, lying in a seemingly endless line at the bottom of a gorge. Old men and women. Kids. Painful as it was, it was hard to remove his eyes from them. It was one of the saddest things he had ever seen.

“Donje Velke is in the Drenica valley,” Naomi explained, “a region that was home to much of the Kosovan resistance. On August fourth, Serbian forces came in after midnight. The Scorpion Brigade was an unmonitored military arm. Its commanders were said to take their orders directly from Milosevic himself. It was filled with violent thugs and common criminals and led by zealots who committed the most brutal acts in the name of ethnic cleansing. From what I’ve learned, the village, mostly ethnic Albanians, was rousted up in the night from sleep. The men who came in went door to door. Some were in uniforms, others wore civilian clothes. They concentrated on women and children. Some were raped and then lined up against the walls of their own homes and shot in the head, right where they stood. The rest were marched up the trail to the gorge and flung in. Machine-gunned. The troops forced the remaining townspeople to fill the ravine with dirt. Lye was spread over it. Because the village was isolated, for years it was just a rumor that anything like that even took place. As you know, there were many such atrocities. The townspeople claimed they always feared the men would come back. After the war, NATO got involved, the UN War Crimes Commission. Witnesses finally spoke up.”

Hauck raised his eyes from the terrible photos. His blood was boiling. “Thibault?”

Naomi nodded. “Never proven, of course. He was never brought to trial. It was his unit, the sixth regiment, that was proven to have been involved. According to the UN affidavits, he had boasted about leading the raid, along with several others. Some of the witnesses talked about a man who led the raid who matches up. He was being held in connection with it. In the aftermath of the war, with emotions still mixed on both sides and graft running high, he escaped from the local prison in Split where he was being held. That was 1999.” Naomi collected the photos. “Not a big fish,” she said with a shrug, “one of hundreds. According to the Council on War Crimes at the Hague, he was never seen since.”

“Until he was seen here, in the United States,” Hauck said, “under someone else’s name.”

“I checked with Interpol.” Naomi nodded. “Dieter Thibault was a Dutch national who was born in Rotterdam in 1964. He went to the University of Rotterdam and emigrated to Belgium, where he worked as an account manager for the NazionsBank in Anderlecht, outside of Brussels. In 2000, he disappeared while on a business trip to France and was never found.”

Hauck recalled the file he had given to Naomi and the information he had gotten from Snell.

“Yet not long after, not that anyone would have checked, there was a Dieter Thibault employed by the RezionsBank in Brussels. Then at the KronenBank in Lichtenstein, where he was a senior investment manager…”

Hauck leafed through the file. A hard lump the size of a rock stuck in his throat. Thibault was scum. He had likely overseen the killing of dozens of innocent victims. There was no telling how the real Dieter Thibault had disappeared. Hauck looked up and met Naomi’s level eyes. In them, he saw the same glint he knew was in his eyes. This had far eclipsed two dead traders. Far eclipsed April.

This was a guy they had to bring down.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Their food arrived, but neither of them felt particularly hungry.

“He told Merrill he had been in the Kosovo War,” Hauck said. “He claimed he was Belgian and Dutch. We thought to look only among the NATO forces.”

Naomi nodded. “And he’s been hiding under the radar ever since. Ten years. Right in plain sight. Building a new life. Not so prominent a case that anyone was really looking for him. Christ, he was right there in the European gossip columns, clubbing around with cousins of Princess Beatrix of Belgium. But Donje Velke was just one of many such incidents in that war. He was never even a priority on the UN’s list. Bigger fish to fry. It would have gone on indefinitely if-”

“If Merrill Simons hadn’t come to us to look into him,” Hauck said, finishing her thought.

Naomi nodded with a smile. “Or until some midlevel magistrate in the Hague who happened to have a fetish for the party-hopping friends of the Belgian royals finally made it to the bottom of his open files. And even then, he barely looks the same and operates under a new ID.”

A surge of anger started to burn in Hauck’s chest. Merrill Simons’s instincts had been right from the start. Dani was never who he claimed, not the freewheeling financier, not the attentive boyfriend. But how for a second could even she have suspected this? A wave of sadness for her came over him.

“So now you have a reason to pick him up,” Hauck said. He dropped the UN report back in front of her. “I assume there’s a valid Interpol warrant outstanding against him?”

“There is,” Naomi said. She leaned forward and looked him firmly in the eye. “But I think you can understand how the people I work for aren’t altogether keen on cleaning up the files for some bureaucratic war-crimes commission in the Hague with all that’s going on. What’s pressing today”-she tapped her nail against Dani’s photo-“is to find out what Thibault’s role was in the deaths of Marc Glassman and James Donovan and, even more important, where that might lead. Later, we can always hand him off to the UN to answer for what he’s done.”

“So then pick him up.” Hauck shrugged. “You have sufficient cause. There’s nothing stopping you now.”

“Yes, there is.” Naomi looked at him directly. “Just one thing…”

Suddenly Hauck started to wonder why they were even meeting. Why she was sharing all this with him.

“Thibault’s missing.”

“Missing!”

Naomi nodded. “He’s gone underground. We were keeping tabs on him-loosely, until we could fill in the details. He went into work in his office two days ago. According to the agents tracking him, they haven’t seen him since.”

“Someone doesn’t just completely disappear!”

“That’s exactly what he did. He never came back out. According to his secretary, he told her he had a sudden trip that had come up and he’d be back in a few days. So far, he hasn’t called in. We executed a warrant and impounded his computer. We found a wall safe in his office, cleaned out. We think he may have kept alternate passports in there.”

“He knew you were onto him,” Hauck said, putting it all together. “He fled.”

“The agents who were watching him claim there’s no way they could have been made. If he fled, it wasn’t under his own name. I don’t know if he got tipped off, but there’s no record of Thibault leaving the country. There is, however”-Naomi reached inside her case and pushed across a series of new black and white photos-“this.”

The photos showed a bearded man in a black leather jacket with a baseball cap drawn over his eyes passing through an airport security station. “It’s at Newark international. Last Tuesday night. The same day he went missing. It could be him. We’ve interviewed various gate agents and they seem to recall someone similar boarding an Air France flight for Paris.”

Hauck stared closely at the photo. He felt a fist clench in his gut. “It is him.”

“How can you be sure?”

“That’s the same satchel he had with him the night I followed him to the restaurant and got his DNA.” He passed the photos back across to Naomi with a shrug. “That’s him.”

“Look, until we know for sure what the hell is going on, all of this-Thibault, Kostavic, whatever he may have done-is not to be shared, you understand?” She tapped her nail and it brushed against his hand. “Especially when it comes to other investigative arms of the government. Or Merrill Simons, for that matter. That’s clear, right?”

Hauck met her round, gray eyes. “It’s clear.”

He had known for a time this would lead somewhere. When he first had doubts about Talon. When he pressed Naomi to let him remain involved. Maybe that day when he first saw April Glassman’s face on that screen.

“You believe Thibault recruited these traders, don’t you? To go off the reservation, so to speak. To drive their firms under.”

“It all fits.” The Treasury agent’s eyes shone with the same intensity. “Both of them were used to earning millions; both were bonused largely in their own company stock, stock against which they had borrowed heavily to cover their lifestyles and that was now underwater. Both had margin calls against them just a few days away.”

“So where’s the money trail?” Hauck asked. “If Thibault bribed them, it had to be for something big.”

“It was something big.” She grinned. “Depending, of course, on your definition of big.” She reached back inside her case and this time came back with a photocopied, handwritten note. The stationery letterhead read James Donovan. She slipped it across the table to Hauck. “Leslie Donovan came to me. A couple of days after you went to see her. She didn’t know what to do with this. She had no idea what it meant, only that her husband was seemingly into something she couldn’t explain. She said you had asked her if she honestly thought he had taken his own life…”

Hauck read it. The note was written in an awkward, harried script.

Les, my love, I’ve asked Bill to give you this in the event anything should happen to me and I’m not there. Not being with you and Zach is the most painful thing I can ever imagine. Not seeing him grow into the person I know he will become. Not being there to take care of you. Listen-I’ve managed to put away some money. Money that can help take care of you, in the event I’m not around. It’s in an account that no one knows about at the Caribe Sun Trust on Grand Cayman Island. The account number is 4345672209. The account is in both of our names. You may remember, I had you sign something once. The pin code is Zachy. (Corny, I know!) Your signature is on file.

Whatever you do, this is money that must not be explained and cannot, cannot be brought back to this country. I can’t go into it other than to say it’s all a measure of my love for you. I’m hoping this is a letter you will never have to read, but if you do, don’t tell anyone. I’m not proud, but it’s to protect you when I’m not there.

The letter went on to talk about his love and it was signed Jim.

Hauck put it down. “So what’s your definition of big?”

Naomi pushed him another photocopy. This time, it was a bank statement, from the Caribe Sun Trust.

Hauck scanned down the list of deposits until he hit the bottom. It showed over eight million dollars in the account.

Hauck whistled. “Works for me…”

“It was probably only a down payment,” Naomi said. “This is a guy who was teetering on the edge financially. A guy with a six-thousand-a-month apartment in New York and two vacation homes who had leveraged himself heavily against his company stock, which in the near term had no prospect of ever coming back. A guy whose future earnings flow was up in the air. Why would I not be surprised to find a similar account somewhere when we dig into Marc Glassman?”

Hauck nodded. He would definitely believe it. “But you think there was a full-out conspiracy here. There’s more?”

Naomi looked at him. “Yeah, there’s more. But now we’re getting into things that someone like me shouldn’t be telling someone like you. You understand?”

He nodded. “I understand.”

She told him about the call intercepted from Hassan ibn Hassani to Marty al-Bashir in London. The sudden shift of one of the largest investment funds in the world, which started the plunge of the financial markets the very next day, building on the mortgage debacle, fears of Fannie and Freddie failing, the world creeping to the edge.

Glassman and Donovan just gave it the final, invisible nudge.

“Someone was paying them off. Someone used them to start the slide in motion. You want to hazard a guess, when we fully dig into Thibault’s accounts, where the flow of all that money originated from?”

It was huge. If this was an organized, plotted attack, it was terrorism. Poor April, he thought…How could she have known the forces behind what happened? Her family never had a chance.

“So why me?” Hauck asked finally.

“My people don’t want an interagency thing on this until we know more. If any of this leaks, it’s the sort of thing that would only create more chaos in the markets. Plus”-the agent’s gaze softened and for the first time she didn’t try to hold back her smile-“you seemed to desperately want in.”

Hauck smiled back. “I suppose I did, didn’t I? Look, my 401(k)’s in the shitter as much as the next guy’s, Agent Blum, but for me, this isn’t about the markets. It’s not about what happened to Wertheimer Grant. These people did what they did. But innocent people were killed to hide what they knew. One of them was a friend.”

“I understand.” The Treasury agent nodded.

“That said”-he shrugged-“I have been known to stumble into a well-concealed conspiracy every once in a while…”

She nodded, pleased. “So I’ve heard.”

“The first thing is to locate Thibault-Kostavic,” Hauck said, correcting himself. He looked at her.

“I have my people tracing him out of Paris.”

“Any luck so far?”

“Not yet.” She shook her head. “It’s a big world.”

“It is…” Hauck’s mind flashed back to something he remembered from weeks before. “Luckily for you, I think I know where he is.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The easy part was grabbing a few days from the office.

He was owed that much. Foley had even suggested it. Not to mention he had just brought in a fat new account.

The hard part was squaring what he was about to do with Annie.

Not telling her the truth behind what he had let himself be drawn into. The reason her son had been attacked. About where he was about to go. And why.

He’d wanted in all along, hadn’t he? If he was honest.

From the start.

Hauck sat on the deck in the dark with a beer, looking over the sound. He followed the flickering lights of planes descending into LaGuardia across the water. He put his moccasins up on the railing.

It was one of those shifting lines in the sand where you had to make a call. What side you came down on. Who you fought for.

Who you let down.

April deserved that much, didn’t she? He thought back to the last time he had seen her and remembered her beaming face. This is Evan, Ty…

Then the wind suddenly shifted and the line was gone all over again. He knew why he was doing it. Why he was putting it all at risk. His job. Everything he had grown comfortable with.

Annie.

He knew why, and if he was honest with himself he could say it now.

It wasn’t all buried in the past.

It was his last time there-at the group. Dr. Rose had given him the okay to leave. His obligation to the department was complete. For weeks, he’d been feeling restless, boxed in. Ready to get on with it again. He’d grown to accept that there were simply things that had happened. Events out of his control. An unguarded moment where fate had intervened.

“I put my résumé out to a few places,” he told the doctor after the last session. “One in a town outside of Boston, where my sister lives. One in PA. I even sent one up to Greenwich.”

Dr. Rose seemed pleased. “In the group you said you still blame yourself a little. For what happened…”

Hauck shook his hand and smiled. “I guess I’ll always blame myself a little; I just figure I can do it with a paycheck coming in.”

It bothered him that April hadn’t been there. They had grown close over these weeks. Their talks…He would miss her. And he wondered: when they saw each other again, in a different place and time, would it ever be the same? Life would interfere. It always seemed to. He wished he could tell her they would always be friends.

He took the subway home, picked up something to eat at the Italian deli down the block. Went upstairs.

Around eight, he was watching a game when his cell phone rang.

April. Her voice sounded a little fuzzy. “Ty…”

“Gee, you skipped out on me,” he said, pretending to be hurt, not fully realizing it then. “I wanted to say good-bye.”

“I didn’t talk to Becca’s school,” she said, woozily. “I’m sorry, Ty. They won’t know on Monday…”

Her words were garbled, her thoughts random and unclear. Alarm sprang up in him. His mind immediately flashed to her wrists. “Know what? April, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m alright, Ty, I told you, didn’t I…you were just passing through…”

He bolted up. “April, listen to me, what have you done? You’re not sounding right. Have you taken something?”

“Just to make me sleep, Ty…I really need to sleep. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you…”

“Where’s Marc?” His blood rushed with alarm. “Where’s your husband, April? Where’s Becca?”

“He’s away, Ty…Always away. In Hong Kong. Becca’s with her friend…” Her voice started trailing off.

“Where are you, April? Where are you now?”

“At our place. In the city. I’m sorry, Ty; you know that, don’t you? I so wanted to be there for you…I…”

He knew the address. On East Sixty-fourth. He had dropped her off there once after one of their talks. “You keep it together, April! I’m coming. You hear me, April? I need you to stay awake. You hang on. I’ll be right there!”

On his landline he dialed 911. Reported a possible suicide in progress. Gave the address. Her name. On his cell he tried to keep her on the line. Alert. Her voice kept growing woozy. It sounded bad.

He ran downstairs and into his Bronco, talking to her all the time. He had an old rotating top hat from his department days and threw it on top.

Lights flashing, he sped down the Van Wyck, to the LIE, to Queens Boulevard and the Queensboro Bridge. He kept pushing her to hang on, to stay awake. He felt like he was losing her.

At some point, April’s voice fell off.

“April!” He veered off the bridge onto Sixtieth, his heart racing at a hundred miles an hour. A minute later he was there.

An EMT van and a police car with a flashing light were pulled up in front. Hauck screeched to a stop behind them. He talked his way up, flashing his old police ID at one of the cops. When he got there, they already had her on a gurney with an IV in her veins and were giving her oxygen. Her eyes were rolled back, her pupils small. He kneeled down and took her by the hand and squeezed. “I’m here, April. I’m here…”

A glimmer of life flashed back into her eyes.

She murmured, “Ty…I’m sorry, Ty. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. Your big day…I just didn’t want to feel so alone. Not anymore.”

“You’re not alone, April.” They said they had to take her now. Her pulse was weak and they’d already called the hospital. He held her hand as they wheeled her out to the elevator. “Not anymore.”

He stayed in the ICU while she slept until dawn. The doctors said she would recover. But if they’d been fifteen minutes later…She’d taken seven Sonestas along with some muscle relaxers.

When she finally opened her eyes he was there.

She turned her face and smiled foggily at him. “It would be you, wouldn’t it, Ty…”

“I told you, didn’t I, I wasn’t just passing through.”

“No, maybe you’re not.” Her pupils shined with a sparkle of green back in them. Then she looked away. “I’m a terrible mother, Ty. Marc wants more. I just-”

“No.” He moved closer. “You’re not a terrible mother. Any more than I was a terrible dad. I called him. I found his number on your cell. He’s on his way back.”

She shut her eyes, tears making their way down her cheeks, shaking her head. “I’m so ashamed…”

“No, no, don’t…,” Hauck said. He winked. “You remember what they say about crazy…”

She nodded with her hands over her face. A tear fell onto the sheet. “I know.” She looked at him. “I wish…” He knew what she wanted to say. What maybe they both were thinking. I wish it were you. Why couldn’t it be you? And in a way maybe he was feeling it too. Things just hadn’t worked that way.

She smiled, sniffing back her tears. “What did you say? When you called him…Who you were.”

“I just said I was a friend.”

She smiled, looking back up, monitors beeping her vitals, IV pumping life back into her blood. She seemed to draw some comfort from the word. “You are, Ty.” She nodded. “You are.”

They spoke once or twice after she was released and on her way to getting better.

Then they didn’t see each other again for four years.

See, you were wrong. Hauck smiled, staring out at the sound. You were always wrong. I wasn’t just passing through.

He took hold of his cell and scrolled to the familiar number he was searching for. He pushed Send and waited for the call to connect.

Annie answered on the third ring. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” he said. “Busy?”

“Swamped. Manuel’s out sick. I’m holding my end down and doubling on desserts too. Can’t really talk now. Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He stood up, leaned against the railing. The plane he had been following had disappeared. “I just wanted to let you know,” he said, “something’s come up. I’m going to be away for a while.”