by Andrew Gross
What else mattered now?
The ride home was the most nerve-racking half hour of my life. As soon as we got out of the tunnel, I checked Google News on my iPhone to see if the story had hit. So far it hadn’t. I looked in the faces of the people sitting across from me. Just regular commuters. A black woman with her young daughter who was playing a handheld electronic game. A businessman heading home from a late night at the office. A couple of loud twenty-somethings. Could they see it on me? Was it all over my face? Could they hear it in the pounding of my heart? What I’d done!
Pelham is the second stop in Westchester County. It was a quiet, upper-middle-class town tucked in between Mount Vernon and New Rochelle. I’d left my Audi SUV at the station. We live in Pelham Manor, an upscale neighborhood only a couple of minutes from the town, in an old Tudor on a wooded half acre with a carriage-house garage, just two blocks from the Long Island Sound. Dave was a partner in a small advertising company that was looking to merge with a larger one. That’s what his meeting tonight was about. It would be a huge moment for him, for us both, if it all went through. And it could mean a little money for us, which we surely could use. We lived well: We had a ski house in Vermont; we belonged to a nice country club, ate out pretty much whenever we wanted. But not so well that it wasn’t a struggle to pay full tuition for the kids in college and go out west, skiing in Snowmass with friends once a year.
All of a sudden, everything seemed threatened.
I drove home, my mind a daze, and went in through the garage. Once in my kitchen, surrounded by all our familiar things, I actually felt myself start to feel safe, for the first time since the incident. Dave wasn’t back yet. I threw off my coat, pulled off my boots, and heaved myself into a chair in the den. I had to decide what to do.
It all seemed like a dream to me—a haunting, nightmarish one. Had it all actually happened? I’d witnessed the execution of a defenseless man. I’d killed a government agent in self-defense. A rogue agent maybe. One who was about to kill me. But if I came forward, I’d probably destroy my life. A woman in the hotel room of a man she had met at the bar only an hour before? Who guiltily fled the scene? Over and over I replayed the seconds leading up to my firing that gun: the intruder shooting Curtis without even blinking. The second gun pushed off the edge of the bed within my reach. Screaming at Hruseff that I was an ex-cop and to put down his gun. Then the calculating expression that came over his face and the panic in my chest as he raised his gun toward me.
I’d had no choice. I knew I would have been dead if I hadn’t pulled that trigger.
But how could I ever explain it? To the police? Or to my husband?
He could walk through that door at any time. That this horrible thing had happened … that I was in a hotel room to screw some guy. Would he even believe that I had stopped it? That I had come to my senses? Would it even matter? Everything would fall apart. My marriage. My relationship with the kids, whom I’d basically raised and whom I adored.
Our trust.
My whole fucking life.
Sorry, honey, hope dinner went well with the prospective new partners and all, but while you were having salmon tartare at the Gotham Bar and Grill, your pretty little wife just killed a government agent after she was about to fuck a …
Hot flashes running all over me suddenly made it feel like it was a hundred degrees.
I got up, went into the bedroom, pulled off my clothes, and hopped into the shower, trying to wash off the oily film of guilt and complicity. It felt good, almost freeing, to be clean again. I was in my robe, in the kitchen having a cup of tea, when I heard the automatic garage door go up and then the back door open as Dave came in.
“How did it go?” I asked, my heart beating nervously. The first words we’d said to each other all day.
“Good. It went well.” He nodded. At first a bit stiffly. He’d worn his Zegna cashmere blazer and the green striped tie I’d bought for him last Christmas. He looked a little bit like Woody Harrelson, only handsomer, in my view. Then he grinned. “Actually, it went really, really well. I’m starting to think this might work out.”
I ran over and buried myself in his arms.
Did I say that this was my second marriage? For both of us. Dave’s first was with a magazine editor who developed a serious prescription pill problem, and he got custody of the kids. Mine was just a youthful mistake at twenty-one that lasted a year. We’d both put in a lot to make this one work. And for the most part it had.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he said, patting my shoulders. He could feel me shuddering against him, and I couldn’t stop crying. “Jeez, Pam must’ve been one hell of a support system …”
I couldn’t let go of him.
“Hey, what’s going on? This isn’t like you, Wend. Look …” He stroked my hair. “I know we have to talk. I know I said some things last night. Maybe this meeting was on my mind, I don’t know …”
“No, that’s not it. That doesn’t matter.” I looked at him and wiped my eyes. “Dave, something happened in the city tonight. You have to listen to me. I’ve stepped into a nightmare.”
CHAPTER FIVE
I didn’t know where to begin, so I just blurted it out.
“Dave, I shot someone tonight. I killed him.”
“What? What do you mean you shot someone, Wendy? What are you talking about?”
“Dave, please just listen to me!”
It was jumbled and rambling, and it felt like knives were stabbing me when I got to the part I dreaded most. Which was going up to that room.
“I don’t know why I did it, David.” I sat on a stool at the kitchen island holding a tissue, shaking my head. “I was just so angry from the things you said to me last night. Then Pam didn’t show up. This guy came up to the bar …”
It took everything I had to get the words out. I watched Dave’s face twitch in surprise at first, as he realized what I was telling him, then go blank, maybe waiting for the part when I said I was joking, which never came. Then it simply slackened with the most confused, heartbreaking look.
“Dave, I swear to you, nothing really happened between us up there.” I reached out and took his hand. “I give you my word. I stopped it before it really got anywhere. I was just so angry, David—”
“You went up to this guy’s room?” He stared at me shell-shocked, and pulled his hand away. “To do what? To screw someone, Wendy?”
“Sweetheart, I never meant to hurt you.” I latched back onto him, my heart almost falling off a cliff. “My relationship with you means more to me than anything in the world, and I realize what I’ve done. But that’s not it! That’s not all I’m trying to tell you, David. Something else happened up there. Something even more important.”
“You shot someone?” His face screwed up in confusion. “What the hell did he do to you, Wendy?” His concern was mixed with anger and accusation. He searched my face and arms as if looking for signs of a struggle.
“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me, Dave. The guy’s dead. He was shot. By someone else. Someone else came into the room—as I was in the bathroom. Freshening up.”
“Freshening up?” This time the edge of accusation in his voice was clear.
“Dave, just listen to me! The guy was killed. Thank God I was in there, or I’d be dead too.” I took him through what happened. Hearing the killer’s voice. Curtis pushing the gun off the bed. Watching him be killed.
Picking up the gun and having no other choice than to do what I did.
My tears cleared and now there was only the deepest urgency in my eyes. “The guy was going to shoot me, David. I identified myself. I told him I was an ex-cop. I gave him every chance to put his weapon down. He didn’t. What he did do was raise it up to me. I shot him, David. I had no choice. He would have shot me!”
I drew myself close to him. I needed to feel his support so badly. Stiffly, he put his arm around me as my heart pattered against him. Then I finally felt him draw me close. Hesitantly. His arms seemed remo
te and strange.
“I don’t even know how to react to this, Wendy. What did the police say?”
I shook my head against him. “I never went to the police, Dave. I couldn’t.”
“You shot a murderer in self-defense. You’d just watched him kill someone, right? No one would question it.”
“That’s not all that happened, Dave. I was scared. I realized my life was about to fall apart. Because of where I was. I just wanted to get home to you.” I lifted my face. “But that’s not all … The guy I shot wasn’t just a murderer. I checked him out and saw his ID after. He was a government agent, Dave. He was from Homeland Security.”
The rest I told him as if in one long, rambling sentence. How I ran from the hotel room, straight into the killer’s partner. How he shot at me, and I had to run. “I fled down the fire stairs, David. I’m lucky to be alive.”
“Oh God, Wendy …” I sensed both sympathy and disbelief in his voice. I didn’t know if I would believe it if he was telling it to me.
“I don’t know what I stumbled into, Dave. But whatever it was, it was a murder. And something these people wanted to cover up. If I went to the police, they would have brought me back to the hotel, to the very people who were trying to kill me. I’ve never been so afraid in my life. All I could think of was getting back here to you.” I cupped his face. “I knew whatever we had to do, we could do it together. Honey, I’m so sorry for what I did. I never meant for this to happen.”
“But it did. It did happen.” I could see he didn’t know how to react.
“Yes, it did.” I nodded guiltily.
“Does anyone know who you are?”
“I don’t think so. But it’s going to come out. There may be security cameras. And Pam knows I was there. I texted her about this guy. Besides, I killed someone…”
He blew out his cheeks and nodded somberly. “We don’t have any choice but to go to the police.”
“I know.” Though the thought of it filled me with dread. A married woman up in a strange hotel room—to screw some guy she’d only met an hour earlier. Then shooting a government agent and fleeing … Would it be seen as just trying to cover up what I had done? I thought of my family and stepkids. It was all going to come out. “I’m scared, Dave.” I kind of fell against him.
Again he wrapped his arms around me with a lukewarm squeeze. “I know you’re scared. We can let someone intercede. A lawyer. There’s Harvey Baum from the club.” He’d handled Dave’s divorce. “Or Hal …”
“Who the hell is Hal?”
“Hal Pritchard. He’s been advising us on the deal.”
My mind suddenly flashed to it. Given the sordid publicity, who the hell would want to merge with them now? “Dave, I’m so sorry I got you into this. I know how important everything was tonight.” I hugged him. “I can’t believe this has happened.”
“We’ll get through this,” he said. “They’ll have to understand. The rest … ” He looked at me measuredly. It was clear what he meant. “The rest we’ll have to deal with later. There are gonna be some things we have to talk over. Okay …”
“Okay.” I nodded against his chest. I shut my eyes, as if I could wish this whole nightmare away.
“This other guy,” Dave said. He pulled himself away from me. “The one who you …”
I knew perfectly who he meant. The one I went up there with. “Curtis.”
He shrugged. “What do you know about him? Who is he? What did he do?”
“I don’t know anything about him, Dave. I just met him at the bar.” I winced, hearing just how that sounded. “He just sat down, while I was waiting for Pam. I don’t even know if Curtis is his real name. Wait a second, I took his phone …”
“You took his phone?”
“From the room. I thought I might need it. To help me prove what happened.”
I ran up to the bedroom and came back with my bag. Dave had turned on the television. It was almost 11:00 P.M. “This had to have made the news …”
I dug around in my bag, searching for his BlackBerry, and found it, at the bottom next to my iPhone.
I put the bag down and a weird feeling came over me. Something didn’t seem right.
Like something was missing.
I sifted through my purse, finding my makeup kit, my e-reader, trying to figure out what it was. Then it hit me.
My tote bag. With my program and some materials from the conference. It wasn’t with my bag or on the kitchen island, where I put things down when I come in.
A feeling of dread came over me.
“What’s wrong?” Dave asked.
“Something’s not here.” I went out the kitchen door to the garage and searched around my Audi. It wasn’t there either. I recalled I’d had it at the bar. I’d even joked to Curtis about it. And I remembered taking it up to the room. I’d thrown it on the floor along with my bag and coat. We weren’t exactly focused on that then. But in my haste, I must’ve left it.
For the third time that night my insides turned to a block of ice.
I came back in, my face no doubt white. Dave looked at me. “What’s missing?”
“My program. From the conference I went to today. It was in a tote bag. Along with some other stuff. It’s not here …”
“Our life is falling apart. Who gives a shit about the fucking tote bag, Wendy?”
“You don’t understand … it’s not the program.” I could have cared less about my goddamn program.
It was that it said Wendy Gould. Pelham, New York on the printed label on the cover.
It could identify me.
My heart clutched in horror. The people looking for me, who had tried to kill me twice to keep what I had seen quiet …
They probably had my name right now!
CHAPTER SIX
“Dave, we have to leave,” I said, urgency crackling in my voice.
“We will. I just want to see if it’s public yet. Then I’ll call Harvey—”
“Dave, you don’t understand. I think they know who I am. We have to get out of here now!”
That was the moment the news came on. The lead-in sent a shiver down me: “A shooting in a room at a posh midtown hotel, and two people are dead.”
I watched in horror.
The reporter came on and described how an unspecified victim had been shot in his room at the “posh” Hotel Kitano, along with a second victim—details still unclear—“who was rumored to be a possible government agent.”
She said that a third person was being sought. A woman, who might have been in that room when it all happened, and who had fled the scene.
My stomach wound into a knot. I was that third person.
The person they were looking for was me!
The newscast went on. By this time they’d have found the tote bag. So they had to know who that third person was. More than three hours had passed. If the police knew, why weren’t they already here?
The only possible answer hit me. And it didn’t make me feel any better. If the NYPD had it, they’d have been here by now. The neighborhood would be lit up with flashing lights. They wouldn’t have even mentioned a third person on the news …
They would already have me in custody.
But if the people who had killed Curtis had found it first, they’d want to keep the whole thing quiet. They might not hand it over so quickly. They’d be just as scared that I’d be in the hands of the police and divulge what I had seen, which they’d want to cover up. Which meant …
I felt my throat go dry.
Which meant they might be heading here themselves, at that very second. To finish the job.
Their role in all this could remain secret as long as I stayed away from the police.
Or was dead.
Suddenly I became encased in sweat. We weren’t safe here. We had to get out of here now.
“Dave, I’m going to get dressed. It’s not safe to be here. You wanted to go to the police. So let’s go! Let’s just get out of here now!”
/> I ran to the bedroom and threw on some jeans and a fleece pullover. Back in the kitchen I grabbed my bag and Curtis’s phone. We headed into the garage and climbed into Dave’s Range Rover, me behind the wheel.
I opened the garage door and turned on the ignition.
Dave put his hand on my arm. “We’ll make this all work out, Wendy …”
“I know,” I said. “Thanks.” I started to back out.
Suddenly a bright light enveloped us from behind. Headlights from a vehicle at the end of our driveway.
“Hands in the air!” someone yelled. “Out of the car! Now!”
I spun around in fear.
It was over. The police were here. I let out a deep breath, ready to comply. Thinking what I was going to say.
Then I saw that the light was from a black SUV. A single SUV.
“It’s them,” I said. I grabbed my husband’s arm, terror running through me. “Oh, Jesus, Dave, they’re here.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Someone stepped out of the passenger’s side of the SUV and cautiously approached us along the circular drive, his gun extended from the top of the semicircular drive.
Dave turned to me. “Wendy, you said these people were from the government. I’ll talk to them.”
That’s when I looked out the window and saw the same black agent who had shot at me at the hotel perched behind the SUV’s open driver’s door.
My heart almost exploded in fear.
“David, we can’t go out there!” I seized his arm. “These aren’t the police. You heard what I told you. They’re here to kill us!”
“Kill us?” His tone was as skeptical as it was uncomprehending. “Wendy, we have to go out there. I’ll call Harvey. I promise, I’m not gonna let them take you without knowing where—” He started to open the door.
“No! Don’t!” I screamed, reaching over to him. “You’re not going out there, Dave!”
There was no time to convince him. I threw the car into reverse and floored it. With a roar, the Range Rover lurched out of the garage and shot right at the oncoming agent, who dove out of the way.
