by Adam Mitzner
Gwen didn’t say goodbye. She just broke the connection.
But what would she have said next if it had not been for canned peas?
Then again, what more was there to say? She wanted them to be together again. That was everything.
He reached for the phone and considered what he’d say to her. But his thoughts were quickly invaded by the prospect that she had been drunk and most likely now regretted leaving the message—or perhaps didn’t even remember doing so.
Besides, even if she had meant what she said, what difference did it make? She had decided she wanted no part of him when he was a Maeve Grant employee under investigation for unwittingly being involved in money laundering. Why on earth would she want a future with someone who had gone completely over to the Dark Side?
He put down the phone. Then he got an answer to his first question of the morning. He hadn’t vomited last night, because he was about to be sick now.
Will spent the day drinking more. All the while spying his balcony, considering whether tossing himself off it might be the smartest decision he could make.
At 8:00 p.m., Will heard the dreaded knock at his door. But when he opened it, Eve was not there. Instead, he saw Gwen.
He blinked hard, thinking at first that this was some type of mirage. That he had drunk so much he was hallucinating.
“I’m sorry that I asked George not to announce I was coming up. I wanted to maintain the element of surprise, I guess. I figured you didn’t call me back for a reason, and I was afraid that if I buzzed up you wouldn’t let me visit.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or his genuine shock, but he couldn’t formulate any response. He just stared at her, worried that if he looked away, she might vanish.
“Can I come in, Will?”
He stepped aside and motioned for Gwen to enter. They sat down on his sofa, facing each other. Will felt as if he were being pulled in opposite directions. His heart told him to be thrilled by the prospect of Gwen’s reentry into his life, and that he should immediately declare his love for her in no uncertain terms before she changed her mind. But his head knew the reasons that she’d left in the first place, and those hadn’t changed. To the contrary, they’d grown exponentially worse, and Gwen had no idea.
So he said nothing and waited for Gwen to speak. To fill in the silence with the reason she had come.
“I’ve been fantasizing about this for so long,” Gwen said, looking as if she was trying to hold back tears. “About seeing you again. About what I was going to say, and what you’d say in response. And I’m not going to lie. A very big part of me wanted to say nothing and just yank you into bed.”
She stopped, as if she was asking him to concur. But as much as that sounded like heaven, he couldn’t.
Gwen must have sensed his reluctance, because after a beat she said, “But I know that we have a lot to talk about. So I figure we should do that first.”
He was still mute. He wondered if he could speak even if he had something to say. He could only imagine that he was a sorry sight. Although he had managed to shower and change into clothes at some point during his bender, he still looked and smelled like a man who had been drinking for the better part of the last twenty-four hours.
“I need to apologize before we talk about anything else,” she said. “What I did, the way I did it, was just awful. I’m so sorry. At the time, it made sense to me. I had just been selected for the Toolan team, and I knew I wasn’t going to have any time for you. And . . . I was afraid. Benjamin Ethan told us that the press would be investigating the lawyers on the trial team, and possibly also their friends and family. And . . . I don’t want it to sound like I did it for you, Will. I know that it was the most selfish thing I could have done, but there was a part of me that thought that you’d be better off too by it being over.”
She was now losing the battle to contain her tears. She rubbed her eyes, moving the evidence away.
“It wasn’t,” he said, surprised by the sound of his voice. It came out croaky, but he continued. “Better for me, I mean. I was devastated.”
“I’m so, so sorry. And all I can do now is tell you that I meant every word of what I said on the voice mail, Will. I love you. I know we can be happy together. Have a future together. And that means for better and for worse. I’m so ashamed that I abandoned you when you needed me. The first sign of ‘for worse,’ and I ran away. But I promise you that it will never happen again. Please forgive me and say that we can try again.”
Part of him just wanted to end it there, to take Gwen in his arms, and into his bed. But the better part of Will knew that he had to come clean with her, so their new life together would be free of the secrets he was keeping. Of course, he also knew that by sharing those secrets, it was much less likely that they’d ever have that life together.
He leaned in and kissed her, which brought out a soft, tentative smile. He mirrored one back.
“I love you too, Gwen. So much. I think you have no idea. And I have loved you from the first moments we were together. Like I said, I was really devastated when you ended things. I can’t lie about that. But I understood why you did it. Believe me, I understood—”
“Thank you,” she interrupted. She kissed him on the lips.
“I’m not done yet,” he said, pulling back. “There’s more. A lot more, unfortunately. It’s the reason I didn’t call you back. And I think I need to tell you everything, even though I’m really afraid to do that, because I don’t want you to leave again.”
“I won’t. I promise, Will. I won’t.”
“You can’t make that promise, Gwen. You don’t know what I’m going to tell you.”
She sat up straighter. “Then tell me, Will. I’m listening.”
Despite the fact that he’d been rehearsing this speech in his head for months, when he was finally called on to deliver it, he didn’t know where to begin. And then it just came out.
“Sam is dead. Eve killed him. I . . . was there. I helped her bury the body.”
She looked at him in abject terror—eyes wide as saucers, mouth open. She even covered it with her hand. He wondered if she could take any more, and realized that there was so much more he had to say.
“Do you want me to go on? If you’ve already heard enough, I understand. But there’s more.”
She nodded. Now it was as if she was too scared to speak.
In a rush, Will told her everything. As the words came out, they sounded absurd even to him. How the meeting at the hockey game had been a setup. That Eve was actually a criminal mastermind, and Sam worked for her. That he’d lied to Gwen about Sam’s death because, at the time, Eve said that she’d killed him in self-defense, that Sam was enraged by jealousy and had tried to throw Eve off his balcony, and Will had believed her. He’d also believed that Sam’s business associates would kill Eve, and maybe him too, if they learned of Sam’s death, which was why he’d agreed to help her bury the body.
Gwen didn’t say a word in response. Her usual approach would have been to cross-examine him on every point, or at the very least ask questions for clarification. Her silence was so pronounced that he wondered if she even understood what he was saying. But once he’d started his confession, he couldn’t stop.
“I was fired from Maeve Grant. Eve withdrew all the money in Sam’s accounts. Then she said that I had to work for her, take over Sam’s role. That if I didn’t do what she said, she’d kill me. If I ran to the police, she’d tell them that I killed Sam. She put a fiber from one of the rugs that I bought on Sam’s body when we buried him. So once his body is identified, it’ll link back to me as his murderer. And if I tried to run, she said that she’d go after . . . you.”
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs enough that he knew he could have gone underwater for a long time. He wished that were an option.
“It’s okay if you want to go now,” he said. “I’ll understand. I was heartbroken to have you leave my life before, but I understood then too. I know th
at if I had originally put on my dating profile ‘broke, awaiting indictment, still engaged in criminal activity, possibly soon to be murdered,’ you wouldn’t have swiped right. But the one thing I ask of you—not even ask, but beg—is don’t stay now if you’re going to leave me later. I just can’t go through losing you again.”
44.
Gwen woke to the sweet sound of Will snoring lightly.
The light outside was still faint, suggesting that it was only shortly after daybreak. She smiled at the thought that she could spend the entire day with Will, and that he’d share her bed again tonight. After so many nights apart, she felt like a freed prisoner, thankful for every moment that they had together.
Looking at Will, there was no doubt in her mind that she was hopelessly, head over heels, in love. That feeling, which she’d always wondered whether she’d truly recognize, was finally here. She couldn’t say with certainty that it would last forever. Or even that someday she might not look upon this feeling and give to it a different name. But lying in bed beside him right now, she was experiencing something new. And she was equally certain it wasn’t any of the emotions that had previously led her to wonder whether she was in love: lust, or friendship, or longing.
These happy thoughts were shunted aside by the dark events Will had recounted the previous evening. She had no illusion that his problems were any less serious than he had made them out to be.
Even so, one of the things she loved about Will was his sense that anything was possible. The cynicism and suspicion that seemed to define every other person she knew were completely foreign to him. She had reveled in the fact that his sunny outlook was rubbing off on her, convinced that it was Will’s voice inside her head that made her so angry about Jasper Toolan when Benjamin Ethan had no qualms about representing a guilty client.
Will’s father would have been proud: his son was more like the dog than anyone she’d ever met. And maybe he was right to be. Maybe he—they—could still have a happy ending.
Will stirred, then turned onto his back. He opened his eyes and smiled as if he were looking at her face for the first time.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Thank God. I was worried that I was dreaming last night.”
“Maybe you were. Tell me what you remember, and I’ll tell you if it actually happened or not.”
“It went a little bit like this,” he said, and then put his lips on hers.
“Yes. I remember it now too,” she said, kissing him back. “Although it still seems a bit unreal to me.”
“Then let’s not ever wake up,” he said, rolling Gwen onto her back.
Gwen called in sick that day. She had no work to do anyway, not until George Graham assigned her a new case. She might as well take advantage of it.
Besides, she was sick. In the light of day, she was beside herself with worry over what Will had shared the previous evening. Although she had promised him that she would never leave, could she really stand by him through this?
She so desperately wanted to believe that happily ever after wasn’t just in fairy tales. That it was possible for regular people too. That the moral of the story could not be that those who believed amazing things could happen for them were destined to be defeated in the end by those who take advantage of that belief.
Which meant that she needed to help him figure a way out of this. That was the only thing that mattered now.
And she had a plan.
The first part of which was for her and Will to meet with his lawyer.
Later that day, Gwen and Will were sitting in the same windowless conference room at Jessica Shacter’s office as Will had occupied during the first meeting. Jessica appeared a moment later. She had a coffee mug in one hand and a red file folder with papers sticking out of it in the other.
When’d he asked for this meeting on such short notice, Will had told Jessica that there had been an important new development he needed to discuss with her right away. He’d also said that Gwen—whom he described as a lawyer and his girlfriend—would be joining them. “The more the merrier,” Jessica said.
“Nice to meet you, Gwen,” Jessica said as the women shook hands. “I was surprised when Will said you were at Taylor Beckett that you’d be given permission to help out on this. The big firms almost never like to appear adverse to the big investment houses.”
“I got dispensation from Benjamin Ethan. I was on the Toolan team, so I guess he was feeling generous.”
This wasn’t true. Gwen hadn’t asked anyone for permission to be there that day. Will had said that he didn’t want Gwen risking her career for him, but Gwen had waved away his concerns. “It’s far less risky than what you’re going to do,” she’d said.
That was right, but also beside the point. Will had to stick his neck out to save it. Gwen, on the other hand, was putting herself at risk solely for him, for their future.
“Before you get to what you want to share with me, I have some news of my own to report,” Jessica said. “I just got off the phone with the US Attorney’s Office. The headline is this: you’re not the focus here. Obviously, that’s not a big surprise, but it’s still nice to hear. As we had already surmised, they believe that Sam Abaddon is the head of a very large criminal enterprise. They wouldn’t tell me what the underlying crimes are, but what they said was consistent with what David Bloom told me, which is to say that it is something relating to terrorism or at the very least the financing of terrorism. In other words, very serious stuff.”
Jessica looked down at her notes. She closely considered what was on the first page, but merely skimmed the second and third pages, running her hand down the center as if she was speed-reading.
“They said that your current designation is subject, but I find the whole witness-subject-target classification system to be virtually meaningless. In my experience, everyone is a subject until they’re told they’re a target—and that’s usually at the exact same time that they’re told they’re being indicted.”
“I’m sorry, what does all that mean?” Will said.
Gwen answered. “The Department of Justice has three categories. ‘Witness’ means just that. There’s no cause for anyone in law enforcement to believe the person has committed a crime. That’s obviously the best one. I think of those people like bystanders who see a shooting. On the other end of the spectrum are the targets. The DOJ has a definition that applies to them, which is that there’s a present intention to indict. Or that they have enough information right now to bring an indictment. Once you become a target, the DOJ is supposed to tell you that, which is why they technically label virtually everyone a subject until they’re ready to indict.”
“And that’s what I am? A subject?”
“Yes,” Jessica said. “As we discussed the first time, it seems pretty clear that Sam Abaddon is the target. Although they didn’t come right out and say that, it’s a reasonable extrapolation of what they did say, and what they want from you. Like I said, not much of a surprise. He’s the top guy, so of course that’s who they want to bring down.”
Will looked over to Gwen, to remind her that there was so much that Jessica did not yet know. Gwen provided a subtle nod, confirming her complicity in keeping Jessica in the dark that Sam was dead, and that he had been anything but the top guy even when he was alive. As well as the fact that the top guy was, in fact, a woman.
“So what do they want from me?” Will asked.
“To tell them where they can find Sam Abaddon.” Jessica waited a beat, and then added, “It’s just too bad you can’t help them with that. Because if you could, I might be able to get you out from under all this.”
“What if he could?” Gwen said. “What if Will could deliver Sam Abaddon to the FBI? Do you think that would be enough to get him immunity?”
This was exactly the plan Gwen had shared with him. The reason they were meeting with Jessica now. Will would give the FBI Sam’s whereabouts in exchange for immunity—after that was granted, he would also
claim to be the one who’d killed Sam, leaving Eve completely out of the narrative. Once that was done, Eve would have no leverage over him regarding Sam’s murder.
“She could still kill me,” Will had countered when first hearing the plan.
“But why would she?” was Gwen’s response. “You’ll just tell her that you want out, and in exchange, you’ll keep her secrets. She can’t go to the police about you killing Sam, because you’ll have immunity. And you’ll tell her that if anything happens to you, you’ve given a lawyer instructions to deliver the FBI a statement revealing everything you know.”
Jessica silently considered this turn of events. In their last meeting, Will had told her that he had no idea where to find Sam. Now Gwen was implying otherwise.
“Just telling them where to find Sam Abaddon won’t be enough for immunity,” Jessica said. “They’d need him to flip for that to be of any real value. So there are two things they’ll expect from you if you want immunity, Will: Sam’s present location and evidence from you that he committed some crime. Can you provide them both?”
Gwen had anticipated that merely providing Sam’s location would not merit immunity. But the rest of the information they were more than happy to divulge, since it all related to Sam and nothing on the paper trail mentioned Eve at all. It was Gwen’s idea that Will should make Jessica work to extract each piece, however. “That’s how it always works with clients,” Gwen told him. “They lie to you at every turn. It’s only at the end, when they can see the finish line, that they begin telling the truth.”
Jessica’s tone made clear that she had been onto Will’s lie from the get-go. He doubted that he was the first of her clients to lie to her face, but he nevertheless felt ashamed that even as he professed to tell her everything now, he would still be lying.
Nonetheless, Will stuck to the plan. He doled out information to Jessica slowly, but only as much as was necessary for him to get immunity.
