Everything to Lose: A Novel

by Andrew Gross

  Maybe the driver got blinded in the lights.

  The front of his car spun out. He was going around fifty, and was headed into a curve. I watched him make a last effort to brake, then the back end drifted off the shoulder and suddenly the car just rolled.

  A jolt of horror ripped through me.

  The curve was at a steep embankment and the car plummeted over the edge and tumbled down. I hit the brakes, craning my neck as I went by. I watched it roll over and over until it disappeared into the dense woods. I heard the jarring sound of impact as it came to a stop against a tree.

  Oh my God!

  I screeched to a stop about twenty yards past the crash site. I leaped out and ran back to take a look, my heart racing. I smelled the steamy burn of rubber on pavement and the smoke coming from the engine down below. I could see the car’s taillights, still on; it had cut a path though the thick brush. It was clear that whoever was inside had to be badly hurt.

  I was about to race down when another car backed up on the far side of the road, the one that must have passed it a moment earlier. The driver, a man with a round face and thin, reddish hair combed over a bald spot, put down his window. “What’s happened?”

  “Someone drove off the road,” I told him. “I’m going down.”

  I headed down the incline, tripping on the brush and losing my footing in the damp soil. I fell on my rear, scraping my arm, and got up. I knew I had to get there quick. The car had spun over twice and come to a rest right side up, the front grill sandwiched between a couple of trees. I saw that the roof near the driver’s seat was severely dented.

  I could see someone in the driver’s seat. A man. His door was wedged against a tree. I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. I peered through the window and didn’t see anyone else. I knew I had to get this guy out. He didn’t seem to be conscious. He could be dying. He looked around seventy, white hair, balding, slumped against the wheel, blood streaming down one side of his face. He wasn’t moving or uttering a sound.

  The engine was smoking.

  “Are you all right?” I rapped on the glass. “Can you hear me?”

  He didn’t respond. It was clear he was either dead or unconscious.

  “Mister, are you okay?” I tugged on the driver’s door one more time, but you’d have to rip it off or move the car.

  From above, I heard the driver of the other car call down, “Is everyone all right down there? Do you need help?”

  “Call 911!” I shouted back up. I’d left my phone in the car. “Tell ’em there’s a single driver who’s not responding. I can’t get to him. The door’s stuck, and I don’t know, I think maybe he’s dead. They need to send an ambulance.”

  I could barely catch a glimpse of the guy through the brush as he hurried back to his car. I looked at the smoking hood and had a sudden fear that any second the engine might catch fire. Maybe the right thing was to back off and wait for help, but with the guy nonresponsive, the engine smoking, the stronger voice inside me pushed me to see if he was alive.

  I ran around to the passenger side. The door there wasn’t obstructed and opened easily. I wedged myself into the seat. In front of me, the driver’s head was pitched forward and a trickle of blood ran down his forehead as if it had been bludgeoned against the wheel. His eyes were rolled up. His white hair was matted with red. I reached across and pushed him back against the seat. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?” Again, he didn’t respond. I’d taken a CPR course a few years back, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do for him.

  There was a black leather satchel on the floor mat that must have fallen off the seat in the crash. I picked it up so I could squeeze in closer.

  My heart almost jumped out of my chest at what I saw.

  A wad of money. Hundred-dollar bills. Neatly wrapped together. I couldn’t help but flip through. There had to be a hundred of them—Jesus, Hilary!—bound together by a rubber band. A hundred hundreds would be what . . . ? I did the math, ten thousand dollars. The satchel was open slightly at the top, and so far the guy hadn’t moved or even uttered a sound. I couldn’t help but satisfy my curiosity, unzipping it all the way open.

  This time my heart didn’t jump—it stopped. And if my eyes had been wide before, they surely doubled now.

  Holy shit, Hil . . .

  The bag was filled with similarly bound packets of cash. All hundreds! Reflexively I pawed through them. There were dozens of them. This time the math was a little harder to calculate.

  I was looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  I looked over at the driver and tried to figure out what some old guy driving a beat-up Honda would be doing with this kind of cash. Maybe the receipts from a business. No, that wouldn’t make sense; they wouldn’t be all hundreds. Maybe the guy’s life savings that he’d been hoarding for years under his bed.

  More likely something illegal, I speculated.

  I pulled myself across the seat and tried to determine one last time if he was alive or dead. I even put my hand on his shoulder and shook him. He didn’t move. I spotted a cell phone in his lap and picked it up. There was a phone number and a partially written text on the screen. “Heading back wi—”

  Heading back with what?

  Heading back with the cash, of course. What else would it be? The message hadn’t been sent. On a hunch I looked for the time of that last entry: 6:41 P.M. It was 6:44 now. He’d probably been about to text that when the deer bolted out in front of him. That’s why he couldn’t control his car. Something that every father begs his own son or daughter not to do . . .

  I put the phone back.

  It was clear there was nothing I could do for him. The EMTs and the police would be here any second. The engine continued to smoke; I realized I’d better get out of there. I pushed backward on the passenger seat and my eyes landed once again on the open satchel of cash.

  In business, I’d made a dozen deals for this amount of money, but I’d never actually seen so much in cash. At least, not staring directly up at me. It might have been only an instant in actual time, but yesterday’s events came flashing back to me: losing my job; the four weeks’ severance; how I’d had to beg for an extra month on the health plan. And how the past couple of years were such a struggle . . .

  Then this . . . Enough to take care of so many things: Brandon’s school, which was five months past due; a good chunk of my payments on a house that was now completely underwater. Even help my folks. Life-changing money for me. I’d never done a bad thing in my life. I mean, maybe smoked a little pot back in college. Stolen a book or two out of the library. But nothing like this.

  Nothing like what was suddenly racing through my mind. You must be crazy to even be thinking this, Hil . . .

  Suddenly the guy called from back up on the road. “They’re on the way!” I still couldn’t make him out through the brush. “I’m coming down.”

  Everything I’d been raised with, every code I lived my life by, every voice of conscience inside me told me just to let it sit. I didn’t know who it belonged to. It could be gambling or drug money for all I knew. Possibly even traceable. Whatever it was, it damn well wasn’t mine.

  I just stared.

  Then I felt my blood begin to surge. The guy was dead. Who would ever know? If I just got the hell out of here, didn’t take it with me now, but maybe hid it, then came back another time? I’d gone to a few Al-Anon meetings with a friend back in my twenties, and I remembered this role-playing game they used, on how easy it was to slide back into past behavior—in one ear, there was the addict side, to whom they gave the name Slick, and in the other, the person’s rational side. Slick, seductively whispering in your ear like the devil: “Come on, you can handle it; no one will know; it’ll just be this once.” On the other shoulder, your conscience countering, “You’ll know. This will only be the start of something bad. Once you do it you’ll never go back.”

  We all have a Slick inside, the exercise was meant to show.

  And it
all just caught me at a point when my life was crawling on this teetering sheet of ice. And I saw Brandon there, all the good work he had done taken away, on that ice with me, about to split into a hundred pieces beneath my feet. And nowhere to go but in. Into the black, freezing water.

  And I’d been there before.

  “Shit,” I heard the guy cry out on his way down, sliding in the wet brush as I had.

  “Be careful!” I yelled back. “It’s dangerous.”

  If you’re going to do it, you have to do it now, Hilary.

  In that moment there was no offsetting argument or rationale. Not that it was someone else’s money. Nor that it didn’t belong to me. Or whether it was legit or dirty.

  There was just Brandon. And the fear that I no longer could take care of my son. I didn’t see it as right or wrong. Only that fate had given me a way out. And I had to take it. My heart felt like it was beating at a hundred miles per hour.

  I zipped up the bag and lifted it out of the car. I hesitated a last second, almost hoping that the guy on his way down would suddenly appear and the decision would be out of my hands.

  But he didn’t.

  I took the bag and hurled it as far as I could deep into the woods. I prayed it wouldn’t be visible when it landed—sitting up there like a fucking neon arrow was pointing to it, and I’d have to admit to the police what I’d done. But it landed about ten yards in amid a thicket and disappeared into a clump of brush.

  It was done.

  The other motorist finally made it down. He seemed in his fifties, in a sports jacket, striped shirt, and loosened tie. As if he was on his way back from a hard day at the office. He had a flabby, ruddy face.

  “You were right. You could kill yourself getting down here.” Wide-eyed, he focused on the wreck and then the driver. “Shit,” he whistled, “is he . . . ?”

  “I think so. I tried to get at him, but he’s completely wedged in. I couldn’t even open the door. Not that I could have done anything anyway. He was already gone.” I nodded toward the engine. “I think we ought to back away . . .”

  “I think you’re right. The police said someone will be here soon. I saw the deer up there. It took off into the woods.”

  The police. At the sound of the word, I felt my heart start to patter. If they found me here, I’d be a witness; I’d have to leave my name. There’d be a record that I’d been first on the scene. If the money was ever reported missing, it would lead right back to me. I glanced at my watch. Four minutes had elapsed. Others driving by might see our cars and stop to help.

  “Listen . . . ,” I said, hesitating.

  “Rollie,” the guy said, pushing his hair across his brow. “McMahon.”

  “Jeanine,” I said, in a moment of panic, knowing I needed to say something, so I came up with my middle name. “Rollie, I know this is crazy, but I really have to get out of here. I’m already late to pick up my son. He’s in this basketball league. The cops will be here any second and, you know how it goes, they’ll have me tied up for an hour. You said you saw the deer . . .”

  He nodded. He seemed to think it over for a second, a round-shouldered, amiable dude. “I guess you’re right. No worries. I’ll wait for them. You can go on ahead.”

  “Thanks.” I blew out my cheeks. Realizing that every second I remained here might get me in a load of trouble. “You’re a lifesaver. Shit . . .” I looked at the body and grimaced at the choice of words.

  “You ought to leave me your info, though,” he said. “In case the police want to contact you.”

  “You’re right. I’ll leave my card on your car. Under the windshield wiper. That okay . . . ?”

  He nodded. And glanced back at the wreck. “Like you said, it’s not like there’s much we can do for him anyway.”

  “I’m really sorry to run out like this.” I looked at the dead guy one last time.

  “Go on. Go get your kid,” he said. “Raised three myself. I know what it’s like. I’ll wait here.”

  I waved thanks and hurried back up the slope, feeling like hell that I’d taken advantage of such a nice man.

  On the street, a car going in the other direction slowed to see what was going on. I averted my face and waved him on like everything was okay.

  Suddenly I heard the wail of a siren from behind. I turned and saw flashing red and blue lights through the trees, heading my way. Shit. I hurried to my car, climbed in quickly, and started it up. For a last second I questioned whether I should stay. Admit what I’d done now. Anyone might have been tempted. Probably nothing would even come of it.

  I heard myself say inside that I could always follow it up. I could track it and see if the money was ever reported missing. And if it did end up rightfully belonging to the guy, I could send some kind of note, anonymously, to his family, about where it could be found. They’d be happy to get it back. No one would even have to know what happened. Or care, ultimately.

  Right?

  The siren grew louder.

  I pulled away just as the police car came around the bend. I accelerated and looked back at it in the rearview mirror as the police car slowed.

  A hundred yards ahead, I passed a poster on an electrical pole. An election poster that hadn’t been taken down. BRENNAN FOR CONGRESS. In bold underneath his photo, COMMITMENT. INTEGRITY.

  If I ever needed to come back, I could use it as a marker.

  This time, Slick won out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jim and Janice lived in a colonial on a couple of acres with a pond in back.

  Janice’s house actually, whose CFO ex-husband had come through for her slightly more supportively than mine had for me.

  Clearly, Janice had gone in the opposite direction when it came to Jim, who was, at heart, a big-shouldered, overgrown teenager. The truth is, there’s not much not to like about him: he’s always happy, usually finds the fun in life; always the last one to ever figure out that anything’s actually gone wrong. Other than maybe he’s way more of a dreamer than he is a provider, and a little light on the scale when it comes to family responsibility.

  I met him when he’d just turned a couple of torn-down sixties ranches into brick and glass McMansions at the height of the housing boom. He took me sailing to Nantucket and up the coast of Maine on his motorcycle, things I’d never done in my life, having grown up in the Bronx and majored in cultural anthropology at NYU. He was kind of a furry brown bear to me; that’s even what I called him—Bear. No one I knew ever understood the match.

  There was nothing particularly acrimonious about our split. We just grew apart. We still remained friendly mostly. I didn’t even mind that as his business declined, the alimony and child support payments gradually petered out. It was just Jim being Jim, in my view, until he got back on his feet. The thing that was hard to swallow was how he seemed to enjoy being a dad to Janice’s boys a lot more than he did to Brandon, who tried hard when it came to sports, but let’s be honest, we were talking a different league. Janice’s kids played squash and did moguls. At Milton Farms, the varsity basketball team was co-ed.

  Not to mention, I didn’t come with a couple of mil in the stock portfolio . . . And her kids didn’t beat their heads against the wall until they turned blue when you took away their Xbox.

  I pulled into the driveway and noticed the gleaming blue new Carrera parked in front of the garage. Jim’s old Targa was like a relic compared to it. I parked, still reeling a bit from what had just happened on the road. Jim must have heard me drive up because he met me at the door on the wide front porch with his arms wide, as if I was bringing the beer to a Super Bowl party. “Hey, Hil . . .” He shot me that walruslike, everything’s-cool-here smile through his thick brown mustache. “You’re sure looking nice.”

  “Thanks.” He put a hand on my arm, and we stood there awkwardly before he leaned in and gave me a kiss. “Thanks for letting me come by.”

  “Come on in.” He was in painter’s pants and beat-up Cole Haans. He looked like he’d added an extr
a ten pounds. “You sounded anxious. The boys are upstairs doing homework. Pinot . . . ?”

  I would have loved a glass of wine. Shit, a couple of them would have gone down smoothly about now. My heart still hadn’t calmed a beat. “No, it’s okay,” I said. “Thanks.” I didn’t want to be any more relaxed than I had to be.

  “Come on in the study.” He shuffled through the foyer that had a perfectly polished Biedermeier table and antique candelabra, framed pictures of the boys and Janice.

  Who suddenly appeared as if on cue from the kitchen. Her blond hair in a short ponytail, in a form-fitting fuchsia lululemon yoga outfit, holding one of the boys’ crested Brunswick jackets. “Hil . . .”

  “Hi, Janice. Been a while.”

  “It has.” She came over and gave me a kiss. “Sorry the place looks like it does . . .” I noticed a couple of suitcases at the bottom of the stairs. “The kids are on break Friday if we can get through exams and squash practice, and then we’re headed out to Vail.” She blew out a weary breath and wiped her brow as if she’d been shoveling the driveway. “Crazy, right?”

  Other than the suitcases, the place looked like it was being photographed for Architectural Digest in the morning. And it was nice of her to frame so vividly how differently our lives had vectored. Brandon and I had gone to Epcot in Orlando two springs ago.

  “Yeah, crazy.”

  “Well, I’ll let you two go over whatever it is you’re here to discuss . . .” As if she had no clue in the world about what that might be or why I would be there. “How’s Brandon, by the way?”

  “He’s actually doing great, Janice. Thanks. He’s almost caught up to grade level in math and you ought to see what he’s drawing these days. The place has really had such an amazing effect.”

  “That’s so inspiring. We’ll have to have him for a weekend when we get back.”

  “I know he’d love that,” I said. Actually he’d hate that. He always felt like an outsider, unable to compete with her boys at almost anything. And over the past two years, those invitations had become fewer and fewer, always revolving around the boys’ sports practices and family trips. Jim rarely even showed up at school on parents’ day anymore.