Suspicion

51

When it finally came out, Danny was surprised at how matter-of-fact it sounded. How undramatic.

And what a relief it was to have this confirmed.

“Whoa,” Danny said softly.

Did he sound convincingly shocked? He hoped so. After all, it wasn’t entirely contrived. He was astonished that Galvin had just revealed something so explosive, so dangerous. That he trusted Danny enough to tell him.

But the question still remained: Why was he talking about this?

“Lina’s dad was what you call a pez gordo in the Sinaloa cartel. A big fish. A jefe. I guess he was sort of like their chief financial officer.”

“You had no idea until then?”

“I had a pretty good idea something was squirrelly. But like I say, I didn’t look too hard. Maybe I didn’t want to know.” Galvin furrowed his brow and scowled as he talked, as if it pained him to speak.

“You’re telling me you’re a… you launder money for the cartel?”

“No,” Galvin said firmly, almost with distaste. “I don’t launder money.”

A distant sound of a motor revving, big and throaty. A long way off, but it seemed to be coming from where they’d parked. Galvin turned around. It didn’t sound at all like the Suburban. Maybe just a passing truck.

Galvin gave Danny a quick, puzzled look, but then he resumed walking down the middle of the path, and Danny fell in alongside.

“They don’t need me for that anyway. They’ve got major banks for that.”

“In Mexico?”

“Here. In England. All over the place. You can Google the HSBC bank in London and the Wachovia bank here. Famous cases.”

“Then what did they want from you?”

“Their own money manager. Their own private equity investor.”

“The cartel did?”

Galvin nodded. “Lina’s dad was a smart dude. He saw all the cash they were generating-billions of dollars a year, and most of it sat in warehouses or locked away in suitcases. And he wondered why they couldn’t do something with all that money. Invest in real estate or restaurant chains or the stock market. Grow it, right? That’s what they wanted me for.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

He kept walking a while longer, as if he hadn’t heard.

“Tom,” Danny said.

Finally, Galvin stopped. He stood close to Danny. “I can’t have a private conversation at home. They’ve got it bugged. In Boston, too. They monitor my phone calls. They read my e-mails. Out here there’s no mobile phone reception, so no listening devices.”

“The cartel, you mean? They monitor you because they don’t trust you?”

“Oh, it’s nothing personal. They don’t trust anyone. They want to make sure I’m not cooperating with the FBI or the DEA, selling them out. I run two billion dollars of their money. They have to be careful.”

“I’d think you’re the one who really has to worry. You could go to jail.”

Galvin’s expression was inscrutable.

“Is your car… safe? To talk in, I mean?”

“Not in Boston. This one I just leased, so they wouldn’t have had time to wire it up. But the driver listens.”

“Your driver…?”

“Works for them, not for me. He’s not just a bodyguard, he’s a minder, too. Golden handcuffs, Danny. Golden handcuffs.”

“But… I still don’t get why you’re telling me all this.”

“Because I know you’ve seen some things, and I don’t want you poking around and asking questions. For my sake, and for your own sake. You saw me on the mountain. I don’t know what else you’ve seen, but I want to protect you.” He paused to watch a hawk, black with a yellow bill and a white-banded tail, gliding on the wind, tilting and swooping and searching for prey. “And something else. I’ll be honest, I’m scared out of my mind, and I don’t know who else to talk to.”

Surprised, Danny looked at him. Galvin’s face was strained and creased.

“Scared of what?” Danny said.

“You understand you can’t tell a soul? I can’t emphasize that strongly enough. For your own sake. And Abby’s.”

Danny nodded. The mention of Abby’s name clutched at his insides.

“The cartels have sources in US law enforcement like you wouldn’t believe. Especially the DEA-that place is riddled with moles. A couple of weeks back, the cartel got an internal DEA report about a new informant. Someone who was giving the DEA extremely in-depth information on the Sinaloa cartel. Names of contacts in the US, cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses. The name of a logistics company I helped create that we use as a shell, mostly to move cash around. Information that could only have come from me, they decided.”

Danny swallowed hard. It tasted bitter, metallic.

“So they did a sweep of my office. The house, my cars, even the plane. Everything.”

“And?”

“At first they thought the informant had to be Esteban, my driver.”

“Esteban? But why?”

“I’m not entirely sure. But they said it had to be someone who had access to my home office. Not my office downtown. I’ve got close to a hundred people working for me, but as far as any of them know, they’re working for a family office. I’m the only one who knows the truth. I’m the only one who’s in touch with cartel leadership. I’m the only one who has their personal e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers. So it had to be someone who had access to my home computer or my BlackBerry.”

“And that’s why you had to fire him?”

“Danny, the truth is, I didn’t fire him. I told you, he didn’t work for me. He worked for them. One day he was just… gone. I’m pretty sure they killed the guy.”

Danny closed his eyes. That image of Esteban, mutilated so horrifically, came to mind. “Wow,” he said at last.

“You know what kind of retirement package these boys offer? An all-expenses-paid one-way trip through the wood chipper. Understand? But that didn’t plug the leak. The information kept flowing.” He paused for a long time. “Now they think it’s me.”

“You mean your own father-in-law would have you whacked?”

He shook his head. “Who knows. He might have, if he was still alive. But he’s been gone a while. He had a stroke ten, twelve years ago.”

“So you have no protector anymore.”

Galvin nodded.

“But why the hell would you cooperate with the DEA?”

Galvin was silent for a long moment. He looked uncomfortable. As if there was something he couldn’t bring himself to say. After a few seconds, he shrugged. “That’s their theory. They think I made a deal. That I’m cooperating with the DEA to stay out of prison. That I sold out to save my own ass.”

“But… that’s obviously ridiculous.” Danny shook his head.

It took all the composure he could muster to keep up the façade. Inwardly he was racked with guilt. Danny knew that he was the DEA informant whose existence must have somehow leaked, setting off alarm bells at the top of the Sinaloa cartel. And while Galvin was spilling his guts, revealing the deepest, darkest secret he could possibly have, Danny wasn’t saying a word.

While putting Galvin and his entire family in peril.

Tom Galvin, who was a friend. Was that an exaggeration? Maybe they hadn’t been before, but they’d become friends, sort of, as much as men their age were capable of making new friends. Danny needed to sit down. Somewhere, anywhere. His heart was knocking wildly.

He argued with himself. He told himself he’d had no choice about cooperating with the DEA. He’d been cornered, blackmailed into it. He hadn’t even given Galvin a thought at the time. He’d barely known Galvin.

But that didn’t make it feel any better.

“Is it so ridiculous?” Galvin said. “I’ve been at this a long time. Long enough for the DEA to dig down deep into what I’ve been doing. And trap me. Force me to flip. That doesn’t seem crazy, does it?”

“No,” Danny admitted. “But it’s not true.”

“Of course not. But that was why we were meeting in Aspen. They demanded it. They almost never meet with me in person-way too risky. That was who I was meeting with on the mountain, when you followed me. Their North American chief of security.”

“He’s able to enter the country?”

“He’s a naturalized US citizen.”

“Well, they didn’t kill you. They just talked. That must mean something, right?”

“It means either they’re not sure I’m the source-too much contradictory information-or they need me alive a little while longer. My bet’s on the second theory. They want me to transfer assets and provide financial records. Until I do that, I’m too valuable to them. Then the wood chipper.”

“Jesus, Tom, I…” Danny found himself agonizing, arguing with himself. He couldn’t keep up this lie. He couldn’t do this to his friend.

“So while we were meeting, Alejandro was patrolling the north sector, and that was when he-well, he obviously didn’t recognize you. I assume you remember that.”

Danny nodded. Galvin thought he’d seen Alejandro’s face. No sense in pretending otherwise.

“I’m sorry about that,” Galvin said. “It was a stupid mistake. As soon as I saw your face, I told them you’d innocently followed me down the back of the mountain. Which happens to be true.”

He paused. Danny nodded.

“Basically, I was vouching for you, and they took me at my word. For the time being, anyway. But we had to abandon the meeting and call for help.”

“I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Danny said.

“It could have ended a lot differently. Fortunately, it didn’t.”

Danny nodded uneasily. “Fortunately.”

“Danny… I gotta ask you something. This-this is really important to me.”

Danny turned and saw that something-was it agony?-had come over Galvin’s face. He didn’t recognize it at first, because he hadn’t seen it before, but Galvin was overcome by emotion. “Of course-what is it?”

“Listen, if anything happens-to me, to me and Celina…” He fell silent.

Danny nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“Will you promise me?-promise you’ll take care of my kids. Especially Jenna.”

“Well, I mean-um, of course-”

“Danny, I need this. I need to know. I’ve got nowhere else to turn.”

52

As they wound their way back along the cliffside road to the car, Danny felt light-headed, woozy.

He glanced to his left, at the chasm below. Here and there the jagged rock face was dusted with patches of ice and powdered-sugar snowdrifts. The sight made his head swim with vertigo.

“Okay,” Danny said, because he didn’t know what else to say. He nodded. Galvin was trapped just like Danny was trapped.

“Brother?”

Danny turned. Galvin was looking down.

“Danny, I’m trusting you like I’ve never trusted anyone in my life. It’s a relief just to be able to talk about it. You know, to know I can trust you.”

Galvin’s words sliced into him. Danny was almost overcome with guilt. All he could manage to say was, “Of course.”

The Suburban was parked in the same place it had been. But Alejandro the driver wasn’t behind the wheel. Galvin stopped ten feet or so away and peered warily around.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

The car was there, but not the driver.

“Maybe he went to take a piss?”

Galvin, who had a stricken look on his face, shook his head.

Danny took a couple of steps and looked. The ground in front of the Suburban was stained dark, in a large irregular oval, like an oil slick. The snowdrifts and ice-crusted ruts were stained with red. Strewn here and there were gobbets and streamers of wine red and greasy tangled cords of sickly yellow.

It looked like the kill floor of an industrial slaughterhouse.

Danny whispered “No” and came closer and saw a carcass on the ground, too small to be human. The body of a horribly slaughtered animal. A dog or a fox, maybe?

Galvin followed Danny around to the front of the Suburban-Alejandro must have moved it while waiting for them-looking perplexed. “What the hell is this?”

Even stranger, the carcass appeared to be fastened to the front of the truck. A stainless steel winch cable had been tied around the hump, which was in turn looped into a galvanized hook fastened to the trailer hitch behind the front bumper.

The hump moved. It was still alive.

Danny looked at Galvin, who suddenly pitched forward and vomited, the splash audible.

“Jesus,” Danny said and took another step closer.

Once out of the shadow, the carcass began to take on a recognizable contour. It was too small, indeed, to be a human body; it was maybe half the length of a body, and now it became clear why.

A chuff and a ragged breath and then a keening, an animal whimper.

What he saw he knew at once he’d never forget.

Something scrabbled in the blood-soaked earth, something attached to the hump, and he saw fingers, human fingers, twitching and wriggling.

“Oh, dear God in heaven,” Galvin whispered. He lunged for the door handle on the driver’s side, doubling over, then struggling up to grab the handle, steadying himself.

Danny, too, vomited, and the keening filled his ears and he stared dully at the crab-scuttling fingers.

Galvin yanked the car door open. All the while he was gasping and gagging and moaning. “My God, my God,” he said, again and again.

Galvin now came around the front of the car, a black pistol in one hand. He thumbed the safety, racked the slide like a seasoned hunter, and then he pulled the trigger and shot his chauffeur in the head. Finally, thank God, the desperate clawing fingers were still.

53

Danny knew now what had happened.

His understanding came in waves. Isolated details aligned and then realigned themselves into new patterns like a kaleidoscope turning.

Ten feet from the Suburban’s grille the tire tracks of a much larger truck rutted deeply in the ground. It was where the other truck must have parked and spun forward, Alejandro’s legs yoked to its rear bumper. He must have been gagged so that neither Danny nor Galvin could hear his screams.

He knew from his web searches that what had just happened there was a type of execution favored by the Mexican drug cartels in certain instances.

He wondered whether the cartels knew they were reenacting one of the most macabre executions of the medieval era, reserved for those found guilty of high treason. He’d read once about a Frenchman named François Ravaillac, who assassinated King Henry IV of France, for which he was punished in a particularly gruesome manner. Each of his arms and legs was roped to a different horse in the Place de Grève. The horses were then whipped to run in four different directions, tearing the man apart, literally limb from limb. Drawn and quartered.

The Mexican drug cartels preferred the brisk efficiency of two cars or trucks driving in opposite directions, though. Lacking a key to the Suburban, they’d obviously used just their own vehicle.

But it did the job.

“We have to dump his body,” Galvin said. “No choice.” He looked around wildly, pointing the weapon. “Can’t involve the cops.” Danny looked around as well. Whoever had done this might still be in the immediate vicinity. He saw no one.

Galvin beckoned him over. Danny moved like a sleepwalker, as if hypnotized. Slowly, like wading through a pond.

The lower half of Alejandro’s body had been dumped on a snowbank a ways down the road. Galvin waved Danny over. Danny followed the broad swath of blood on the ground that had gouted from the man’s dismembered legs and torso.

Wound around his feet and ankles was more steel cable, also attached to a galvanized hook. On the feet were black leather boots. On the legs, dress slacks. Above the belt tumbled loops of glistening viscera.

He said, “Oh, dear God,” and was sick again.

“Do you have gloves?”

Danny shook his head.

“Me neither. Just-” Galvin leaned over and grabbed the steel hook, which was dappled with blood. He tried to lift the ruined body, but it was too heavy. Instead, with concerted effort he dragged it along the ground as if it were a side of beef, toward the cliff road. His mouth was set, his face drawn.

“You’re going to throw it over?” Danny asked.

When Galvin didn’t answer, Danny said, “Why?”

“For the vultures, damn them,” Galvin said.

Danny looked at him. He was gritting his teeth in exertion. “At least it’ll slow down the identification of the body.”

“Someone’s going to see all that blood and the… and call the police.”

“Luckily, it’s snowing. Maybe that’ll cover this up. Buy us some time. You take the other…” Galvin gestured with a nod toward the Suburban, toward the horror that had been his driver’s head and hands and torso. He had gone quickly from a near catatonic to a man firmly in control.

In any other circumstance, Danny would have refused. To cover up a crime was to be implicated. But now he assented without a word. He went to the front of the Suburban and reached down and unhitched the galvanized hook from the bumper.

“Oh, good God,” Galvin said, looking away from the torso. “They carved a Z on him.”

“A Z? What’s that-for?”

But Galvin just shook his head.

The shadows cast on the mountains had grown longer and more distinct, midnight blue in the clefts and hollows. The jags and promontories were bathed in amber light. The sun hung low in the sky, a fat orange globe against the deepening blue. Above it, streaks and ribbons and whorls of clouds, charcoal and white, seemed to be lit from within. Opposite the sun the narrow pink smear of alpenglow glimmered over the mountaintops.

It had grown cold.

“We have to get the hell out of here. Get the hell out of Aspen, I mean.”

“Who, all of us?”

“All of us, right. Back to Boston.”

“You think-the women are in danger?”

“Maybe. It’s possible.”

“How are we going to explain it to them? Does your wife…? No, of course she knows.”

“We’ll tell them I have an emergency meeting in Boston that just came up. I have to fly back, and since I’ve got the plane, everyone’s going with me. It’s a bummer we have to cut the weekend short, but they’ll deal.”

Danny nodded. “The girls won’t be happy.”

“Call your girlfriend and tell her to pack up,” Galvin said. “Your stuff, too. And Abby. Tell them we need to leave immediately.”

54

Galvin noticed blood spatters on the front bumper and grille. He pulled out a handkerchief and tried to wipe them away, but couldn’t. The blood had frozen on the metal.

“Shit,” he said. “We have to hose the car down or something. I can’t have blood tying this thing back to me.”

“I saw a car wash back in Carbondale,” Danny said. “You think we’d have time to stop?”

Galvin grimaced. “No, not really. But we don’t have a choice.”

After they’d gotten into the Suburban, and Galvin was behind the wheel, he tore open the Velcro closure of the left-hand pocket of his parka and took out his phone.

“Curtis,” he said. “Change in plans. I need the jet fueled up and ready to go in an hour. Can you do that?” A pause. “And file the flight plan. Ninety minutes, then. That’s fine. Thanks.” He disconnected the call without looking at the phone.

Galvin was driving crazily. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. A few times, on the winding narrow road, he nearly slammed into the guardrail.

“Jesus, Tom-slow down.”

Galvin just muttered to himself. The car veered off the side of the road and hit a snowbank, then swerved back onto the road. Danny caught his breath and gripped the door handle for support.

“Holy shit! Let’s get there in one piece.”

Galvin groaned. “Great choice of words.” He sighed in frustration. “We gotta get home, make sure they’re okay. And make sure they hustle.”

Danny waited until Galvin’s driving was less frantic, then he called Lucy.

“What happened to you?” she said. “Where’d you go?”

“For a ride with Tom-listen, Tom needs to get back to Boston right away, which means we have to fly back with him.”

“Huh? Did something happen?”

“An important meeting just came up. An emergency.”

“We can’t stay on, the rest of us?”

“He’s taking the plane.”

“Okay, right. Well, that’s a shame. Baby, are you sure you’re okay? You sound-I don’t know, different, somehow. After that head injury-”

“Just bad reception. I’m fine. We’ll be back soon-maybe half an hour or so. Just-hurry.” And he ended the call.

“There it is,” Galvin said, pointing to a car wash up ahead on the right. Tires squealing, he pulled into the lot. It was open, with no other customers around.

A minute or so later, the Suburban bumped along the conveyor track through the clear vinyl panels and into the tunnel, with Danny and Galvin inside.

Danny interrupted the tense silence. “What happened back there, Tom? This is the second driver of yours to be targeted. That I know of.”

Galvin said nothing for a few seconds. He seemed distracted, but maybe he was just scared. “I told you, they’re not just drivers,” he said finally. “They’re babysitters. Minders planted by the cartel. To watch me-and to watch out for me. Which also makes them convenient targets.”

The car moved through the mitter curtains, hanging flaps of cloth that slapped the car’s exterior, swishing and wriggling back and forth. It crawled along at what seemed an excruciatingly slow pace.

“So who did it? Your bosses, the Sinaloans?”

“No… Remember that Z carved into his… abdomen? Tells me it’s Los Zetas.”

“Zetas? What-?”

“That’s another cartel,” Galvin said. “There’s seven major cartels. Biggest players are Sinaloa-my guys-and Los Zetas. Some people say the Zetas are the most sophisticated, the most dangerous of them all. And that thing with the body and the two cars? That’s a Zeta signature.”

“But why would a rival cartel target your driver?”

He shook his head. He shrugged. “I don’t have any earthly idea,” he said, looking at Danny, fear in his eyes.

Danny thought of Alejandro standing outside the coffee shop that morning. He’d seen Danny meeting with the DEA guy, Slocum. Obviously, Danny couldn’t say anything to Galvin about it, but he couldn’t help but wonder: Did Alejandro’s murder have something to do with his seeing Danny that morning?

His BlackBerry played “Sweet Home Alabama.”

“Sweetie,” he answered. “Querida.” He launched into a hurried conversation in Spanish. Danny could make out only a few words. Inmediatamente. And protección. And peligro, which he knew meant “danger.” Words like that. He was telling her what had just happened, maybe. Telling her they had to leave.

The high-pressure nozzles assaulted the Suburban’s windows and its flanks. It was like driving through the worst rainstorm ever.

He hung up and for a long while he said nothing, just watched the hot air blast from the nozzles on either side, blowing the droplets away, the wind from a dozen hair dryers.

“My time is up,” he said finally. “I have to vanish.”

“Vanish?”

“And only you and my wife can know about it.”

55

Graciela Arriaga had worked at the Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, for almost eighteen years.

She was a file clerk in the Records Management Unit. She knew her colleagues mocked her behind her back, considered her humorless, uptight, rigid, rules-bound. A stiff. They called her Debbie Downer.

The truth was, she was none of those things. She was a woman who just wanted to do her job and do it right, keep her head down, earn a living, be left alone.

Somehow she had to support a daughter and a granddaughter on a GS-6 salary and the negligible survivors’ pension the VA paid for her husband, Luis, a Vietnam vet who’d died more than a decade ago.

Her daughter, María Elena, worked in customer service at Marshalls in the Snowden Square Shopping Center. Her take-home pay barely covered day care for her two-year-old boy, Jayden, with just enough left over for food and clothing.

So María Elena and Jayden lived in the second bedroom of Graciela’s apartment, on the fourth floor of the ugly dun brick building on Columbia Road, in Columbia Heights, Maryland. Graciela’s son, Raúl, was in prison in Hagerstown for boosting a Zipcar.

Graciela was not the type of person ever to do anything that might put her job at risk. Yet there were all the money problems. And there was Tía Yolanda, back home in Mazatlán, and her nine children and twenty-four grandchildren. They needed whatever money Graciela could spare to send them.

Life did not always give you choices.

Wearing a long puffy charcoal-colored down coat with gray pants and simple black shoes, she climbed to the fourth floor and keyed open the top and bottom locks and then the police lock. Graciela had high cheekbones and wore prim black glasses and had once been considered reasonably pretty. Now she was generally regarded as matronly.

Her tabby cat, Señor Don Gato, meowed loudly when she entered, and brushed up against her leg. That was unlike him. Most days he scarcely bothered to rouse himself from the sofa.

Graciela sniffed. The kitty litter needed changing. She hung up her down coat on the wall hook next to little Jaden’s snow pants. She noted with disapproval the dishes still in the sink. She was always asking María Elena not to leave the breakfast dishes unwashed.

Then she lit the flame under the kettle to make herself a cup of tea and selected her favorite mug from the cupboard: WORLD’S BEST MOM.

“Make two cups, if you don’t mind.”

The voice-a soft baritone-startled her. She turned, saw the silhouette in the shadowed recesses of the living room.

“You know who I am, don’t you?”

She nodded mutely. The mug slipped from her hand and thudded to the linoleum floor of the kitchenette, where it bounced but didn’t break.

“I hope you have something for me,” the man said.

56

“Anything you need,” Danny said. “I’m here.”

“I’m going to need you to vouch for me.”

Danny looked at Galvin curiously. “Vouch for you? How do you mean?”

“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, brother: I’ll need you to lie to law enforcement after I disappear. Back up an alibi for me. When the FBI question you-and they will, believe me-just say I told you I was flying down to meet some business contacts in Mexico.”

“Where will you really be?”

“Probably best you not know. Belize, at first. Then somewhere else. Cuba, Venezuela. Maybe Kazakhstan or Croatia or Dubai.” He was driving less erratically now, though just as fast. “There’s this remote fishing village in New Zealand Celina and I discovered on our honeymoon. It… it’s the town that time forgot. On the west coast of the South Island, in the middle of nowhere. The landscape’s out of Lord of the Rings. Maybe a dozen ancient stone houses, green rolling hills dotted with sheep. You sit there eating the greatest fish and chips from a little shack on the water’s edge. Watching the dolphins playing and the fishing boats bobbing in the bluest water you’ve ever seen.”

Danny nodded. “You’re taking your plane?”

“Right. But as I told you, it’s chartered. I don’t own it. Means I have to file a flight plan. Which I will, but it’ll be a bogus one. I’ll be requesting one particular pilot, and I know he’ll cooperate. He’ll fly me wherever I ask. For a briefcase full of cash.”

“So you want US law enforcement to think you were meeting with cartel officials and were abducted. Something like that?”

Galvin nodded.

“So what’s-what’s your plan? Just fly away one day?”

“Pretty much.”

“Do you have a fake passport or something?”

“No. A real one.”

“I don’t get it.”

“If you know the right people and you have the right kind of money, you can buy an absolutely one hundred percent genuine US passport under a different name.”

“Jesus, Tom. You sure it’s real? It’s not counterfeit-not something that might be flagged and get you arrested?”

“It’s absolutely authentic. And it was extremely expensive.”

Danny went quiet for a moment. Neither man spoke. Then Danny said, “You’re talking about leaving your family behind?”

He nodded. “It’s for their own protection.”

“Would you… will you… tell them?”

“Just Celina. She knows this may happen someday. As for the boys and Jenna-I couldn’t burden them with the knowledge. When the time is right, I’ll say good-bye to them as if I was just going away for a week or so on business.”

“And then just disappear.”

“Right.”

Another long silence. “I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“How you can actually do this. The way you love your kids… the way you love Celina… how you could bring yourself to decide one day you’ll never see them again.”

Galvin exhaled slowly. Then he replied, hesitantly, stumblingly. “I can’t-I mean-I mean, consider the alternatives! Having their father in prison for the rest of his life? Having their father killed by the cartel? And them in jeopardy, too?”

“So why is this any better, Tom? Leaving your kids to think you just ran off one day? Or that you were abducted and killed. But never knowing?”

Galvin sounded weary, even defeated. “They’ll figure out in time that I had to leave, that I had no choice. Maybe they’ll hate me for it. But they’ll know this was the only way to protect them. Anyway, they all have money in trusts. They’ll be taken care of.”

Taken care of, Danny thought: What a phrase. When the one thing his kids wouldn’t be was taken care of. They’d have money, like they’d always had. But to have their father just be gone one day without a word of explanation? It was difficult to think of anything harder or more painful than losing a mother to cancer, as Abby had. But losing a parent without closure, without ever knowing how and why? That would be painful beyond words.

“Well,” Danny said softly, “I just can’t imagine it.”

“I’ve had twenty-some years to think about this. Though it doesn’t make this any easier.”

Danny looked at Galvin’s gun resting on the console between the seats. It was matte black and had a seal stamped on its handle that read R. BERETTA. He picked it up. It was cold and heavier than he’d expected.

He didn’t like guns particularly-they made him nervous-and didn’t own any. But his father had taught him to fire pistols and shotguns at the Nauset Rod and Gun Club on the Cape. He knew how to use one if he had to.

“Careful,” Galvin said. “That’s loaded.”

Danny nodded. “The safety’s on.”

“You know something about guns?”

“Enough. Do you have another one?”

Galvin looked away from the road, gave Danny a searching glance, then turned back. “There’s another one under your seat. Could you pull the trigger if you had to? I mean, and shoot someone?”

Danny was silent for five or six seconds. “Yeah,” he replied. He swallowed hard. “I could now.”

57

Danny reached down and felt something flat and hard. A metal flap. He pulled it open. Inside the compartment, he felt the cold smooth steel carcass of another gun and a small cardboard box. He slipped out the gun and the box. An identical Beretta. The box contained Cor-Bon jacketed hollow-point high-velocity ammunition and felt heavy.

He checked the magazine and saw it was full. The gun was loaded.

“What happens if they send a bunch of cartel guys with AK-47s after us?” Danny said. “A pistol’s not going to be much help.”

“If they send anyone after me, it’s not going to be what they call a fusilado. More like a tiro de gracia.”

“Translation, please?”

“A single shot. Not a firing squad. If and when it comes to that, I mean. They’re not going to send a bunch of goons with submachine guns after me. Not here. Not back in Boston, either.”

“Why not? They have the manpower, right?”

“They have armies. But they don’t need it, not for one guy. And they’re limited by the surroundings. Around here, a truck full of scary Mexicans with tats and Uzis isn’t going to blend into the background so easy. And something else: Even if they want to kill me, they’re not going to do it right away.”

Galvin paused, and Danny looked at him. He shrugged. “I don’t follow.”

Galvin tapped the side of his head with a forefinger. “There’s too much up here they need. Passwords to bank accounts and such.”

“Meaning they’ll torture you first.”

Galvin nodded.

Danny felt a wave of revulsion. He tried to keep those goddamned Internet videos of beheadings and castrations from playing in his mind.

“Oh, Jesus,” Danny said.

Galvin said, “But I don’t plan to give them the opportunity.”

Danny nodded.

“For now, I’ll just need you to keep a watch at the house. We have to get the women to the airport and onto the plane uneventfully. And make sure Abby and Lucy have no idea anything’s wrong, okay?”

“I’ll do what I can, but-”

“You’re a good friend. None of this has anything to do with you. You could just walk away if you wanted, but you’re not. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

If you only knew, Danny thought, but he just shrugged.

As they pulled into the long driveway in front of his house, Galvin said, “See the window over the garage?”

Danny nodded.

“Do me a favor and keep a watch from that room while everyone’s getting packed. That’s probably the best vantage point. You see someone with a gun drawn, shoot ’em.”

“Got it.”

When they came inside, Galvin clapped his hands like a grade school gym teacher and said, “Let’s go, girls. We need to be at the airport in half an hour. Less, if we can. We’ve all got to hustle.”

The girls were on the landing, on their way upstairs. “Well, this totally sucks,” Jenna said.

“Right?” Abby said. They were both still wearing their ski attire, their faces rosy from hours on the slopes.

“We don’t even have time to take a shower?”

“No.”

“Is what’s-his-name, Alejandro, going to come up and get our stuff or do we have to bring it down?”

“Alejandro isn’t working tonight,” Galvin said without a pause. “Bring your own stuff downstairs and I’ll load the car.”

“You’re not even packed, are you?” Celina asked her daughter. “Upstairs and pack. Now.”

“They’re not packed yet?” Danny said. “Come on, Abby, move it!”

The girls trundled loudly up the stairs. Celina bustled around the big main room, picking up miscellaneous items the girls had scattered about. Jenna’s iPad, a phone charger, lip gloss. She didn’t look at her husband. She wasn’t wearing any lipstick, or else it had worn off, and her eye makeup was smeared. Her eyes were bloodshot. She’d been crying.

Lucy wasn’t there. She was probably upstairs packing.

“Come on,” Galvin said, following the girls up the stairs. He stopped at one of the first doors off the long hall that led to their guest room. He switched on the light. The room had the faint solvent smell of newly installed carpeting. It was much smaller than the room where Lucy and Danny had spent the night. The only furniture in here was a queen-size bed with a chenille bedspread, a couple of end tables, and a bureau. Galvin pointed at the window.

“You should be able to get a good angle from here without standing directly in the path. If you have to fire through the window, do it.”

“Understood,” Danny said.

Galvin turned and left quickly without closing the door.

Passing headlights bloomed and faded on the road at the end of the driveway. They came by at the rate of around one car or truck every minute. He shifted from one foot to the other, tense.

“Danny?”

Lucy’s voice. He turned, saw her standing in the hallway, her blond hair gleaming in the overhead light.

The gun in his hand.

“Danny, what are you doing?”

58

Danny carried the Beretta onto the plane in the pocket of his down parka.

It went just as Galvin had promised. No going through security. No metal detectors or wands or pat-downs. He just walked right onto the plane as he’d done in Boston. Galvin had told him to keep the gun with him.

The seating arrangement on the plane was slightly different on the way back.

Celina sat next to her husband. They spoke almost continuously, in low voices, alternating between Spanish and English. Danny couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Celina looked worried and upset, and Galvin seemed to be trying to placate her.

The two girls sat next to each other on the couch at the back, as before. Jenna was reading the book Abby had just finished, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Abby was reading a novel by Jodi Picoult.

Danny took the seat near Lucy’s, but she appeared not to be speaking to him. She hadn’t said a word in the Suburban on the way to the airport, and as soon as the plane took off, she’d opened her Cleopatra biography. A couple of times he’d caught her eye, or took her hand, only to get no response. An averted glance, a limp hand.

She smoldered. He’d never seen her so angry. In fact, he could barely think of times when he’d seen her angry at all. Nothing more than momentary irritation. But this was different. She was angry, and she was frightened.

She’d seen him holding a gun, and there hadn’t been an opportunity for him to explain without someone else overhearing. It must have freaked her out to see a gun in his hands.

“Hey,” he said softly.

She arched a brow, turned a page. “Hmm?”

“We need to talk. It’s important.”

She closed the book on her index finger. As if to say: I’ll give you a minute, no more. “Important enough to involve me? And maybe your daughter?”

Her voice sounded high, constricted. Indignant. A faint tremble.

She looked at him, eyes hooded, a hostile expression that said either I really don’t care or I don’t believe a word you’re saying.

“Oh?”

“I can’t talk about it here. But as soon as we get home. I just want to say I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, returned to her book.

The horror he’d witnessed that afternoon on the mountain pass had changed everything.

For far too long, he’d kept the real situation from the woman he loved.

It was time to tell her the truth.