No Way Back: A Novel

by Andrew Gross

  “You’ll go against your own law?”

  “If we have to,” Roxanne said.

  She looked at Harold. “And you agree, Mr. Bachman?”

  He nodded. “We talked it over. Yes, I agree.”

  Roxanne took her by the shoulders. “You’ll be safe out there. No one will know. I know it seems like you’ve lost, but we’re not done yet . . .”

  “Not by a long shot,” Harold said.

  Lauritzia pressed herself against Roxanne. Thirty days . . . She didn’t know, maybe the right thing was just to disappear. This was her fate, not theirs. She had already cost them enough. She felt love for them, these people who treated her like their own family. Yet she’d felt the bond of love before, and it had only turned to blood and tears.

  She should go.

  But she heard herself mutter back, “Thank you.” And felt the tears rush. Because it was a fight and she was not ready to give up. To pay her cuota. Not without one more battle.

  She hugged Roxanne and said a prayer for those who had died.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It would be so easy, Roxanne thought, gazing out the window on their trip back home to Greenwich, to simply let her go.

  They’d already done more than anyone could have asked. More than Lauritzia herself even asked. She wasn’t their family, no matter how many times Roxanne declared it. She simply wasn’t. They had their own lives. Their own kids. They could so easily just say that they had tried their best. A trial. Standing by her. Protecting her when others would have turned their heads.

  Simply let her go.

  It was night when they made the ride back home down Interstate 95. She and Harold didn’t say much to each other. Most of what they wanted to say had already been said. They both felt dismal about the outcome. Angry. They felt as if they had let her down. Their friends already thought they were crazy to have gone as far as they had. It would be easy to have treated the whole thing as if it were some kind of charity. Just write the girl a check, without ever having to have put yourself on the line. After all, it wasn’t their fight. Their fate.

  It was hers.

  And maybe in another life, another moment, Roxanne could have done all this. Before what had happened at the mall.

  But not now.

  When those shots rang out, Lauritzia’s only instinct had been to protect their kids. She’d put herself on the line for them. She’d made them her fight.

  Now it just seemed like the right thing, the only thing, to do the same for her.

  Roxanne asked herself, if a hundred blessed things came into their life—if Harold was named head of the firm, or got some honor, if the kids won some big recognition in school or some prestigious trophy, if she was honored by the local hospital for her charitable work there—would it offset knowing that they had cast Lauritzia away to an unknown fate? That they hadn’t done all they could?

  It would always haunt her.

  She thought, life was safe here, seemingly protected from harm. But sometimes in that safe, predictable life, you had to risk it all. You had to go “all in.” Or else the rest didn’t mean anything. Love is simply love, Roxanne realized as she stared out the window. You couldn’t legislate how it came into your life. Or defend yourself against it when it’s inconvenient. Or divvy it up, like vegetables on a plate. When it enters, it becomes the only thing that matters. The only thing of meaning. The rest . . . the rest is not the painting, it’s just the painter signing his name.

  She looked at Harold at the wheel. She reached over and put her hand on his arm. “Are we doing the right thing?” Roxanne asked. “People think we’re crazy.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure there is a right thing.” He looked back at her. “The right thing is only what you feel with a hundred percent certainty inside that you have to do.”

  Roxanne nodded. “Then we are.” She squeezed him and looked back out the window. Whichever way it goes. Whatever happens. She was sure. Her heart never felt more at peace.

  She looked back out the window.

  We are.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The following Wednesday was clear and bright. Harold had chartered a jet at Westchester County Airport to take Lauritzia out west. Everything was done in secrecy, including the flight plan. Only a handful of people who were connected with the case even knew.

  Roxanne decided to go along. She’d stay a couple of nights, make the house livable for Lauritzia, then come back home. Lauritzia was pleased to have her along. She’d only been out to the house there once. And the whole thing made her a bit nervous and overwhelmed. Relax, they all tried to assure her. No one knows where you’re going. It’s perfectly safe. We’ve covered every step.

  In a couple of weeks they would decide how to handle it legally.

  Harold drove them to the airport before heading to work. The jet, an eight-seat Citation from Globaljet, was set to leave from a section of the airfield for private planes located at Hangar E.

  Harold drove down Route 120 and through the airport gates and parked his white Mercedes in front of the private terminal. He unloaded the bags, which were taken by a Globaljet attendant. The sleek white jet was waiting on the tarmac.

  “So, uh, you both take it easy out there,” Harold said to Lauritzia with a smile. “No parties. Don’t hit the slopes.”

  Lauritzia giggled back and put her nerves behind her. She hugged him. “I have no words to thank you for everything you’re doing for me. You’re in my heart, and I know the grace of God will look down on you.”

  Harold said, “We’ll be in touch in a few days. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “I know.”

  She waved, in her jeans and black boots, her hair in a ponytail, and went inside the terminal.

  “You’re a good man, Harold Bachman,” Roxanne said, smiling at him. “Though most people probably think we’re crazy.”

  “We are crazy.” Harold smiled back. “Actually, though, I’ve never been prouder of you.”

  “Tell me.” Her eyes beamed, and she wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “You remember what I said a while back. That somewhere in this is the reason that I love you. Well, it’s true, Rox. You put yourself on the line for people. You live ‘on purpose,’ as they say; the rest of us are just bouncing around in this world randomly. You’re the kind of person we would all want in our foxhole.”

  “Go on,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist with a wrinkle of her nose.

  “I would,” he said, hugging her back, “but I’m afraid the plane has a tight departure window.”

  “We are going to make this happen for her, aren’t we, Harold?” Maybe for the first time Harold saw doubt on her, a crack in her veneer.

  “We are. I believe it now more than ever.”

  “We’re not going to send her home, no matter what the judges say.”

  He shrugged and smiled philosophically.

  “Are we, Harold?”

  He shook his head. “No. We’re not.”

  She kissed him and strapped her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll call you when we land.”

  “You can call me in the air from one of these things. But don’t get used to it. The firm’s paying.”

  He lingered, looking at the reflection on his wife’s face, the sun off her freckles, her bangs in her blue eyes. He remembered how when he first saw her at a Merrill Lynch cocktail party he knew she was far too pretty for him. She had it all: smarts, looks, the kind of energy that attracted everyone around her. Out of his league. He had nothing to offer, other than a self-deprecating sense of humor and droopy eyes. It took him half an hour to work up the courage to go up to her.

  “You look like you’re dying to hear a little more about real estate bond financing,” he had said, smiling coyly.

  “You noticed!” she had replied.

  “I love you!” Roxanne turned and waved at the terminal doors. “Make sure the kids eat at six. And no watching the Knicks gam
e with Jamie past his bedtime.”

  “I love you too.” He waved. And she went in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lauritzia boarded first, while Roxanne finished up a call to the kids’ school’s auction committee. She wasn’t sure exactly where to sit, never having been in a plane like this before. Everything looked so sleek and modern. A pretty flight attendant welcome her aboard and told her to take any seat she wanted. She put herself in the first one she found.

  Then Roxanne climbed on and took the seat across from her and a row behind. “Everything okay?” She squeezed Lauritzia on the arm.

  “Sí.” Lauritzia nodded. “Everything is wonderful.” Though it was clear she really didn’t think so. It was just that being around Roxanne made her feel that way. Thirty days out there would go by like an instant. Then what? Her whole life was now in the hands of this family.

  “Would you like a glass of champagne or some orange juice?” the flight attendant asked, holding a tray of fluted glasses.

  “No, thank you,” Lauritzia answered.

  “Soft drink?”

  “Maybe a Sprite.”

  Then the attendant went past her to Roxanne. “You, ma’am?”

  Roxanne took a champagne.

  One of the pilots stepped out of the cockpit and made a quick speech about how long it would take for them to get to Denver—around four hours, as there were headwinds. Denver, they had decided, instead of Eagle Vail, in order to conceal their final destination. From there they would rent a car. He also told them that it would be a smooth flight and there were a bunch of treats to eat and drink on board, and that Kathy, the pretty flight attendant, would take excellent care of them.

  “They pay him to say that.” Kathy laughed. “But I’ll do my best.”

  The copilot pulled up the outside steps and shut the cabin door.

  Lauritzia started to grow nervous. She wasn’t the best flyer anyway—she had only been on a couple of planes, all with the Bachmans—and the sooner she left here, the safer she would feel. Feeling the engines start to vroom, she put her head back and looked out the window and tried to remember what it was like at the Bachmans’ place in the mountains.

  So pretty there. No one would know.

  She rested her head against the window. That’s when something unusual caught her eye.

  A baggage cart had pulled up alongside the plane, two or three suitcases on it. A man in an orange jumpsuit and sunglasses behind the wheel.

  She wasn’t sure what exactly made her pay attention to it, other than all the bags had already been loaded on and the compartment was on the other side. She had watched them go on as she boarded.

  Before the plane could leave its blocks, the vehicle came to a stop directly underneath the fuselage.

  What was going on?

  Lauritzia turned to Roxanne, who was sipping her champagne, leafing through a magazine. Seeing her unsettled expression, Roxanne just smiled. “Everything’s okay, Lauritzia. Just sit back and relax.”

  Lauritzia leaned forward to locate the baggage cart.

  The plane didn’t taxi out. The door to the cockpit was still open, and Lauritzia could see the copilot straining his neck, peering out the side window. They seemed to be asking over the radio for the tower to tell the cart to move.

  But it wasn’t moving.

  It just sat there, blocking them.

  Something didn’t seem right. Suddenly, the man in the orange jumpsuit jumped out and began to walk away, leaving the cart directly underneath them. Lauritzia watched him; instead of heading back toward the terminal, he just kept on going, in the direction of the wire gates leading to the parking lot. Everything was so open and relaxed.

  Lauritzia’s heart jumped in concern.

  “Missus,” she said, pointing to the window. “I think something isn’t right.”

  “Lauritzia, relax,” Roxanne said in a tone she might use with one of the kids, deep in her magazine. “Everything’s just fine.”

  “No! It isn’t! It isn’t!” She watched the man in the jumpsuit quicken his pace, her eyes growing wide. The concern that had been nagging her now heightened into outright fear. She had seen these things. El Pirate can reach anywhere! He can know anything. She unbuckled her seat belt. “Missus, we have to get out of here now! Something is not right.”

  “Lauritzia, what are you talking about?” Roxanne finally started paying attention.

  “That man, look! He—”

  The copilot climbed out of the cockpit. “Not to worry, Mrs. Bachman,” he said, “but we just want to take a precaution.” He pushed out the staircase door. “There’s a baggage cart blocking the plane. I think we’re going to have you exit. Just a precaution. Sorry for the inconvenience. But if I can get you to—”

  Lauritzia pointed. “Look!”

  The man in the orange suit was in a full run now, slipping through the wire gate to the parking lot. She was sure she saw him take out a cell phone.

  “Mrs. B!” Lauritzia’s eyes grew wide with terror. She grabbed Roxanne’s arm and frantically started to pull her out of her seat. Unbuckle her belt. She had to get her out of there. They had to get out now!

  The pilot shouted something to the flight attendant about getting everyone off the plane. Lauritzia knew the sensation—that something terrible was about to take place. And the knowledge that there was nothing she could do.

  Nothing.

  Oh, Mrs. B!

  When the blast blew, Lauritzia had made it out of her seat, trying desperately to help Roxanne out. It blew her into the air and slammed her against the cockpit ceiling, and a whoosh of searing, suffocating, orange heat engulfed the plane.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Harold had barely made it out the airport gate when he heard the blast. Even in his car, it almost rocked him out of his seat. He turned, seeing the plume of orange flame shooting up, followed by the spire of smoke.

  What just happened?

  He jammed on the brakes and spun the car around. The thing that truly terrified him was that it seemed to be coming from exactly where he’d just been. The private terminal at Hangar E.

  No, no! a voice was screaming inside him. This couldn’t have happened. It can’t be.

  He drove at full speed back toward the terminal. As he got close, the billow of smoke rose higher in the sky, and grew darker too. He could see it came from the tarmac he had just left. Which was scaring the shit out of him. He kept repeating to himself that it couldn’t be—it couldn’t be Roxanne’s plane. It had to be something else. Only a handful of people knew. And all were people he trusted. Cano couldn’t have found out. He sped into the terminal’s parking lot. It had to be something else.

  But the closer he got, the more he knew his hopes were futile.

  He screeched to a stop in front of the terminal and bolted out of the car, leaving the door wide open. The smell of burning metal and jet fuel almost made him retch. He raced through the terminal’s glass doors, the same doors his wife had just walked through as he waved good-bye to her. A woman was shouting on the phone, staring out the window at the tarmac in horror.

  “My wife is on that plane!” Harold shouted, running by. “My wife!”

  He bolted through the security gate. “Sir, you can’t go out there,” the woman shouted, trying to go after him.

  Everyone was out on the tarmac. He pushed his way through the gate. Harold saw the same white Citation he had just been waving good-bye to—tail number CG9875. His heart sank at the sight. Only this time the fuselage was a knot of twisted, burning metal. Dense black smoke poured out of it, and orange flames whipped all around.

  Oh my God, no, no . . .

  It had only been a minute or two. A fire truck hadn’t even arrived. Underneath the fuselage there was a mangled chassis of what Harold thought resembled a baggage cart. Harold looked at the plane and understood the same horrifying thought he had had years ago when he stared at the World Trade Center’s North Tower in flames. This is bad. No one’s gett
ing out of there. No one could possibly be in there and be alive.

  Except this time it was his wife in there!

  “Roxanne! Roxanne!” he screamed, running toward the smoldering plane.

  There was confusion all around. No one stopped him. The stairs were down, dark smoke billowing out from inside. His heart plummeted at the sight. “Oh my God, baby, no, no . . .”

  Two rescuers carrying out a body. It was one of the pilots Harold had seen—dead. They put him down on the tarmac, on a yellow plastic tarp that was whipping in the fire’s wind. Then they pushed their way back inside.

  “My wife’s in there!” Harold looked in panic at the EMT. “We were chartering the plane.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, you have to wait. The smoke is unbearable. They’re trying to get everyone off now.”

  “No!” Harold ran toward the plane, covering his face in the intense heat.

  The EMT tried to stop him. “Sir!”

  He didn’t care. Harold pushed him away and headed up the stairs into the burning fuselage. The smoke was dense and black, and suffocating. His eyes instantly began to burn. He covered his face. There were two rescuers leaning over someone. Was it her? Roxanne? She was blond. Or had been—her hair was now black. It was almost impossible to see. Harold kept his hand over his eyes, which stung like acid was burning in them.

  It wasn’t Roxanne. She was wearing a uniform, though it was all sheared and charred.

  The flight attendant.

  “Sir, you have to get out of here now!” an emergency worker yelled above the sound of sirens and whipping flames. “The fuel is burning.”