The Dark Tide

by Andrew Gross

  How could Saul have done this to her? To Charles?

  Someone she’d trusted like family over the past ten years. Someone she’d run to for support herself. It almost made her retch. He had lied to her. He had used her to get to Charlie, just as he’d used her husband. And Karen knew she had brought it on herself. She suddenly felt complicit in everything that had happened.

  Even in Charlie’s death.

  Her mind flashed to Saul, standing up at the memorial, speaking so lovingly about Charles. How it must have amused him, Karen seethed, for fate to have intervened so beautifully. To get such a potential liability out of the way.

  And all the while Charlie was alive.

  Did Charlie know? Did he ever realize who it was who was after him? He thought it was his investors, in retribution. These are bad people, Karen…. But Dietz and Hodges, they worked for Saul. All along it was just his frightened longtime partner. Trying to protect his own cowardly ass.

  Oh, Charlie, you always did get it wrong, didn’t you?

  She turned onto Shore, heading toward the water. She thought of going straight to Paula’s but then remembered what Ty had told her. She turned onto Sea Wall. No sign of anybody. She pulled the Lexus into the driveway of her house.

  The house lights were off.

  Karen hurried in through the entrance off the garage and flicked on a light as soon as she got into the kitchen.

  Immediately something didn’t feel right.

  “Tobey!” she called. She straightened the mail she’d left on the kitchen island. A few bills and catalogs. It always felt a little different with Alex and Sam out of the house. Since Charlie was gone. Coming back to a darkened house.

  She called again, “Tobey? Hey, guy?” He was usually scratching at the door.

  No answer.

  Karen removed a bottle of water from the fridge and went into the house with the mail.

  Suddenly she heard the dog—but somewhere distant, yelping.

  The office, upstairs? Karen stopped, thought back. Hadn’t she left him in the kitchen when she went out?

  She headed through the house, following the sound of the dog. She flicked on a light near the front door.

  An icy jolt traveled up her spine.

  Saul Lennick sat facing her in a living-room chair, legs crossed.

  “Hello, Karen.”

  CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT

  Her heart crawled up her throat. She looked back, frozen, the mail falling to the floor.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Saul?”

  “Come over here and sit down.” He motioned, patting the cushions of the couch next to him.

  “What are you doing here?” Karen asked again, a tremor of fear tingling across her skin.

  Something in her shouted that she should immediately run. She was near the door. Get out of here, Karen. Now. Holding her breath, her gaze darted toward the front door.

  “Sit down, Karen,” Lennick said again. “Don’t even think of leaving. I’m afraid that’s not in the cards.”

  A figure stepped out of the shadows from down the hallway to her office, where Tobey was loudly barking.

  Karen froze. “What do you want, Saul?”

  “We have a few things to go over, you and I, don’t we, dear?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Saul.”

  “Let’s not pretend, shall we? We both know you saw Charles. And now we both know he’s dead. Finally dead, Karen. C’mon….” He patted the couch as if he was coaxing over a niece or nephew. “Sit across from me, dear.”

  “Don’t call me ‘dear,’ Saul.” Karen glared at him. “I know what you’ve done.”

  “What I’ve done?” Lennick’s fingers locked together. The avuncular warmth in his eyes dimmed. “What I’m asking you isn’t a request, Karen.” The man down the corridor moved toward her. He was tall, wearing a beach shirt, his hair gathered up in back in one of those short ponytails. Somehow she thought she’d seen him before.

  “I said come here.”

  Her heart starting to pound, Karen moved toward him slowly. Her mind flashed to Ty. How could she get word to him? What were they going to do with her? She lowered herself onto the couch where Lennick had indicated.

  He smiled. “I want you to try to conceptualize, Karen, just what the figure ‘a billion’ really means. If it were time, a million seconds would be about eleven and a half days. A billion, Karen—that’s over thirty-one years! A trillion—” Lennick’s eyes lit up. “Well, that’s hard to even contemplate—thirty-one thousand years.”

  Karen looked at him nervously. “Why are you telling me this, Saul?”

  “Why? Do you have any idea just how much money is on deposit offshore in banks on Grand Cayman and in the British Virgin Islands, Karen? It’s about 1.6 trillion dollars. Hard to imagine just what that is—more than a third of all the cash deposits in the United States. It’s almost as much as the GNP of Britain or France, Karen. The ‘turquoise economy,’ as it’s referred to. So tell me, Karen, a sum so vast, so consequential, how can it be wrong?”

  “What is it you’re trying to justify to me, Saul?”

  “Justify.” He was wearing a brown cashmere V-neck sweater, a white dress shirt underneath. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “I don’t have to justify anything to you, Karen. Or to Charles. I have ten Charleses. Each with sums under investments just as large. Do you have any idea who we represent? You could Google them, Karen, if you wished, and find some of the most prominent and influential people in the world. Names you would know. Important families, Karen, tycoons, others…”

  “Criminals, Saul!”

  “Criminals?” He laughed. “We don’t launder money, Karen. We invest it. When it comes to us, whether from the sale of an Old Master painting or from a trust in Liechtenstein, it’s just plain old cash, Karen. As green as yours or mine. You don’t judge cash, Karen. Even Charlie would have told you that. You multiply it. You invest it.”

  “You had Charles killed, Saul! He loved you!”

  Saul smiled, as if amused. “Charlie needed me, Karen. Just as, for the purpose of what he did, I needed him.”

  “You’re a snake, Saul!” Tears trembled in Karen’s eyes. “How is it I could be hearing you like this? How could I have gotten it so wrong?”

  “What do you want me to admit, Karen? That I’ve done things? I’ve had to, Karen. So did Charles. You think he was such a saint? He defrauded banks. He falsified his accounts—”

  “You had that boy killed, Saul, in Greenwich.”

  “I had him killed? I kept fucking around with those tankers?” Lennick’s face grew taut. “He lost over a billion dollars of their fucking money, Karen! He was playing a shell game with his own bank loans. Loans I set up. I killed him? What choice did we have, Karen? What do you think these people do? Pat you on the back? Tell you, ‘Jolly good run of it, we’ll do better next time’? We’re all at risk here, Karen. Anyone who plays this game. Not just Charles.”

  Karen glared at him. “So who was Archer, Saul? Who was that man in the back of Samantha’s car? Did they come from you? You bastard, you used me. You used my children, Saul. You used Sam. To get to my husband, your friend. To kill him, Saul.”

  He nodded, a bit guiltily, but his eyes were cold and dull. “Yes, I used you, Karen. Once we discovered that Charles was somehow alive. Once we realized that all the fees that had remained in his accounts offshore after he supposedly died had been withdrawn. Who else could it have been? Then I found that note sheet on his desk with the numbers of that safe-deposit box. I had to find out what was in them, Karen. We weren’t getting anywhere tracing the accounts. So we tried to frighten you a bit, that’s all. Put you in play, in the hope, slim as it was, that Charles might contact you. There was no other choice, Karen. You can’t blame me for that.”

  “You preyed on me?” Karen gasped, her eyes wide. Why, Saul, why? “You were like a brother to him. You got up and eulogized him at his memorial—”

&n
bsp; “He lost over a billion dollars of their money, Karen!”

  “No.” She gazed at him, this man who had always seemed so important, so wielding of control. And in a strange way, she suddenly felt she was stronger than him, no matter who was standing behind her. No matter what he might do. “It was never, ever about the money, was it, Saul?”

  His face softened. He didn’t even try to hide it. “No.”

  “It wasn’t all that missing money you were looking for, why your people trashed his boat.” Karen smiled. “Did you find it, Saul?”

  “We found whatever we needed, Karen.”

  “No.” Karen shook her head, emboldened. “I think not. He beat you, Saul. You may not realize it, but he did. You had that young boy killed. To protect your own interests. To keep silent what his father had managed to find out. Because you were behind it all, weren’t you, Saul? The big, important man pulling all the strings. But then when you realized that Charlie’s accounts had been drawn down, you suddenly understood he was alive. That he was out there, right, Saul? Your friend. Your partner. Who knew the truth about you, right?”

  Karen chuckled. “You’re pathetic, Saul. You didn’t kill him for money. That might even give you some dignity. You had him killed out of cowardice, Saul—fear. Because he had the goods on you and you couldn’t trust him. Because one day he might testify. And it was like a ticking bomb. You would never know when. One day, when he simply got tired of running…What do they call that, Saul, in business circles? A deferred liability?”

  “A billion dollars, Karen! I gave him every chance. I put my life on the line for him—my own grandkids’ lives! No—I couldn’t have that hanging over me, Karen. I could no longer trust him. Not after what he’d done. One day, when he got tired, tired of running, he could just come in, make a deal.” Saul’s gray eyebrows narrowed. “You get used to it, Karen. Influence, power. I’m truly sorry if when you look at me, you don’t like what you see.”

  “What I see?” She stared at him, eyes glistening with angry tears. “What I see isn’t someone powerful, Saul. I see someone old—and scared. And pathetic. But guess what? He won. Charles won, Saul. You knew he had something on you. That’s why you’re here now, isn’t it? To find out just what I know. Well, here it is, Saul, you fucking, cowardly bastard: He made a tape. Of your voice, Saul. Your clear, conspiring voice going over what you were getting ready to do to that boy. How’d you say it? With your people, who take care of these things? And right now—and I hope you find the same amusement I do in this, Saul—that tape is in the hands of the police, and they’re swearing out a warrant against you. So whatever you and your lackeys had in mind to do to me, there’s no point anymore. Even you can see that, Saul, not that that would cause you to lose even an hour of sleep. It’s too late. They know. They know it’s you, Saul. They already do.”

  Karen stared with a fierceness burning in her eyes. And for a second, Saul looked a little weak, unsure of what to do now, the arrogance melting. She waited for the composure to crack on Lennick’s face.

  It didn’t.

  Instead he shrugged and his lips curled into a smile. “You don’t mean that detective friend of yours, Karen. Hauck?”

  Karen’s glare remained on him, but in her stomach a worm of fear began to squirm through.

  “Because if that’s what you had in mind, I’m afraid he’s already been taken care of, Karen. Good cop, though—dogged. Seems to genuinely care about you, too.” Saul stood up, glanced at his watch, and sighed.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think he’s even alive now, as we speak.”

  CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

  Hauck headed home from the coffeehouse in Old Greenwich, about five minutes up the Post Road. He planned to copy the recording onto a tape, then take it over to Carl Fitzpatrick, who lived close by in Riverside, that very night. Karen had found exactly what he needed—evidence that was untainted. Fitzpatrick would have to open everything back up now.

  In Stamford he veered off the Post Road onto Elm, soaring. He crossed back under the highway and the Metro-North tracks to Cove, toward the water, Euclid, where he lived. There were lights on across the street from his house, at Robert and Jacqueline’s, the furniture restorers. It looked like they were having a party. Hauck made a left into the one-car driveway in front of his house.

  He opened his glove compartment, pulled out the Beretta he had given Karen, and shoved it into his jacket. He slammed the Bronco’s door shut and bounded up the stairs, stopping to pick up the mail.

  Taking out his keys, he couldn’t help but smile as his thoughts flashed to Karen. What Charles had told her before he died, how she’d put it all together and found the phone. Wouldn’t make a half-bad cop—he laughed—if the real-estate thing didn’t work out. In fact…

  A man stepped out of the darkness, pointing something at his chest.

  Before he fired, Hauck stared back at him, recognizing him in an instant, and in that same instant, his thoughts flashing to Karen, he realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

  The first shot took him down, a searing, burning pain lancing through his lower abdomen as he twisted away. He reached futilely into his pocket for the Beretta as he started to fall.

  The second struck him in the thigh as he toppled backward, tumbling helplessly down the stairs.

  He never heard a sound.

  Frantic, Hauck grasped out for the banister and, missing it, rolled all the way to the bottom of the stairs. He came to rest in a sitting position in the vestibule, a dull obfuscation clouding his head. One image pushed its way through, accompanied by a paralyzing sense of dread.

  Karen.

  His assailant stepped toward him down the stairs.

  Hauck tried to lift himself up, but everything was rubbery. He turned over to face Richard and Jacqueline’s and blinked at the glaring lights. He knew something bad was about to happen. He tried to call out. Loudly. He opened his mouth, but only a coppery taste slid over his tongue. He tried to think, but his brain was just jumbled. A blank.

  So this is how it is….

  An image of his daughter came into his mind, not Norah but Jessie, which seemed strange to him. He realized he hadn’t called her since he’d been back. For a second he thought that she was supposed to come up or something this weekend, wasn’t she?

  He heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

  He put his hand inside his jacket pocket. Instinctively, he fumbled for something there. Charlie’s phone—he couldn’t let him take that! Or was it the Beretta? His brain was numb.

  Breathing heavily, he looked across the street again to Richard and Jacqueline’s.

  The footsteps stopped. Glassily, Hauck looked up. A man stood over him.

  “Hey, asshole, remember me?”

  Hodges.

  “Yeah…” Hauck nodded. “I remember you.”

  The man knelt over him. “You look a poor sight, Lieutenant. All busted up.”

  Hauck felt in his jacket and wrapped his fingers around the metal object there.

  “You know what I’ve been carrying around the past two weeks?” Hodges said. He placed two fingers in front of Hauck’s face. Hazily, Hauck made out the dark, flattened shape he was holding there. A bullet. Hodges pried open Hauck’s mouth, pushed in the barrel of his gun, all metallic and warm, smelling of cordite, clicked the hammer.

  “Been meaning to give this back to you.”

  Hauck looked into his laughing eyes. “Keep it.”

  He squeezed on the trigger in his pocket. A sharp pop rang out, followed by a burning smell. The bullet struck Hodges under the chin, the smile still stapled to his face. His head snapped back, blood exploding out of his mouth. His body jerked off of Hauck, as if yanked. His eyes rolled back.

  Hauck pulled his legs from under the dead man’s. Hodges’s gun had fallen onto his chest. He just wanted to sit there a while. Pain lanced through his entire body. But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t what was worrying him.

  Dread that fought its way through
the pain.

  Karen.

  Using all his strength, Hauck pushed his way up to his feet. A slick coating of blood came off on his palm from his side.

  He took Hodges’s gun and staggered over to the Bronco. He opened the door and reached for the radio. He patched into the Greenwich station. The duty officer answered, but Hauck didn’t recognize the voice.

  “This is Lieutenant Hauck,” he said. He bit back against the pain. “There’s been a shooting at my house, 713 Euclid Avenue in Stamford. I need a local team dispatched there.”

  A pause. “Jesus, Lieutenant Hauck…?”

  “Who am I speaking to?” Hauck asked, wincing. He twisted the key in the ignition, closed the door, and backed out of the driveway, crashing into a car parked on the street, and drove.

  “This is Sergeant Dicenzio, Lieutenant.”

  “Sergeant, listen, you heard what I just said—but first, this is important, I need a couple of teams, whoever’s closest out there, sent immediately to 73 Surfside Road in Old Greenwich. I want the house secured and controlled. You understand, Sergeant? I want the woman who lives there, Karen Friedman, accounted for. Possibly dangerous situation. Do you read me, Sergeant Dicenzio?”

  “I read you loud and clear, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m on my way there now.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED

  A blade of fear knifed through Karen as the blood drained from her face. Disbelieving, she just shook her head. “No, that’s a bluff, Saul.” Ty couldn’t be dead. He’d just left her. He was headed to the station. He was going to come back and pick her up.

  “I’m afraid so, Karen. We had an old friend of his awaiting his arrival at home. He might even have been carrying something of interest to us on his person. Am I right, dear?”

  “No!” She stood up. Her blood stiffened in denial and rage. “No!” She went to lunge at Lennick, but the ponytailed man who had crept up behind grabbed her by the arms and held her back.

  She tried to wrench them away. “Go to fucking hell, Saul!”