Everything to Lose: A Novel

by Andrew Gross

  The only thing keeping me together was that there was no way anyone could get from him to me.

  Over the next few days I did my best to get my life back to normal. I went on that second interview—which went well, I thought, though I was told there were several candidates under consideration. I made an appointment for Brandon at the neurologist’s. We even went to the circus at the Westchester County Center in White Plains on Thursday night.

  Which was what we were on our way home from, he in a red clown’s cap and greasepaint, stuffed with cotton candy and twirling around one of those green-and-red plastic lights. Still laughing about how the elephants had stood up on their hind legs and circled around when the pretty trainer gal was being held captive by a lion.

  “It was like, you mean . . . me?” Brandon said, mugging a funny, wide-eyed face like the poor elephant in the skit.

  “Not much of a hero,” I played along. “Remind me never to call in an elephant if we’re ever in danger.”

  “We don’t exactly have an elephant, Mom,” Brandon said. “Only Remi.”

  “Yeah. And all she’d do is lick to death anyone who wanted to harm us.”

  He kept laughing. It was nice to see him happy and enthusiastic like any regular kid. I wished it happened more.

  We pulled into our driveway and I opened the garage with the remote. “You go in and get ready for bed. It’s still a school night, okay?”

  “Okay, Mommy.”

  “And send Remi out. I’ll bring out the trash.”

  It was a Thursday, recycling night. Elena usually took care of it before she left, but she’d had to go home early to take her son to the doctor, so I lugged the two bins of newspapers and bottles and cans up to the end of the driveway as Remi shot out to pee.

  We had two acres at the end of a cul-de-sac. The house next to us was barely visible, down the hill and around a curve. Jim had developed the entire street off Whippoorwill Road—six homes, high-ceilinged, lots of glass and windows, with large family rooms and designer kitchens in a neoclassic style.

  Remi ran up to say hello. We had an electric fence and she was trained not to go beyond the boundaries.

  “Do your business,” I exhorted her. She squatted down on the grass in the way she always did to tinkle. “Good girl!” She gave the mandatory barks at some imaginary foe in the woods. This time she did it more than usual. Must be something out there, maybe a deer. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

  We went back in through the open garage and the kitchen. I threw my bag and coat across a chair at the kitchen table, took out a tea bag and some calcium and magnesium I took at night.

  I noticed the doggie fence we used to confine Remi to the kitchen was up. I didn’t recall putting it up before we left. Then I almost stepped in a pee on the Mexican tile floor. “Damn. Remi—bad girl!” It was strange; she almost never made mistakes like that. We’d only been away a couple of hours.

  Her ears went back apologetically and she slinked into a corner. Blotting it up, I had the strangest sense that something wasn’t right. I looked around. The door to an antique hutch where I kept my china was open.

  And my iPad, which I was pretty sure I had left on the island before we went out, suddenly wasn’t there.

  Then I noticed an old majolica plate on the floor in pieces, and another, now just a hole on the shelf, that was missing.

  Someone had been in here.

  I stood up cautiously at first in disbelief, then with a feeling of fear beating in my chest. My first thought went to Brandon.

  “Brandon!” I called. He didn’t answer. “Brandon!” I yelled again. He was probably already upstairs.

  I hurried through the dining room and into the foyer, where I almost ran into him. He was in front of the stairs, strangely calm, but with his eyes wide and fixed on the living room.

  “Someone’s been here, Mommy.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The room was turned upside down. Ransacked.

  My hand shot to my mouth. “Oh my God!”

  The couch pillows were strewn everywhere, cushions from the couch upended. A framed photo of Brandon and me was knocked off a side table onto the floor. A painting on the wall hung crookedly, to the side. Jim and I used to collect antique Chinese ceramics, and I noticed that a Ming plate and a scalloped blue-and-white serving bowl were missing.

  “Oh, Jesus, Brandon.”

  Brandon’s eyes were wide as moons. And confused. “What’s happened, Mommy? Who did this?”

  I looked around in a state of stunned deflation. “I don’t know. Stay here,” I said.

  I went into the family room. It was the same in there. Total havoc. A row of books were flung onto the floor from a bookshelf, as if someone was systematically looking behind them.

  For what, a wall safe, maybe?

  Remi was barking crazily.

  I suddenly grew nervous. A terrifying thought rose up in me. What if whoever did this was still in the house?

  “Brandon, I want you to go back in the kitchen,” I said, pushing him in that direction. I hadn’t noticed a vehicle around, even on the street that led up to the house, but now, feeling a draft, I saw that the sliding glass door to the back deck was cracked open slightly. Maybe that was how they’d gotten in. I was praying they had left the same way. Living all the way out here, sometimes I didn’t lock it as I should. I listened carefully. I didn’t hear a sound. I’d read about the string of home robberies in Westchester, but they were all up in Mount Kisco or Chappaqua, far enough away. I never thought for a second that it would be me. I admonished myself for not putting on the alarm. I rarely did. Only if we were leaving town for a few days. And Armonk was one of the safest communities in the county.

  “Mommy, who’s been in here?” Brandon said again, not heeding my request. I didn’t want to go any farther in the house with him around. “I want to see my—”

  “Brandon, just go, please!” My heart started to pound. “Just listen to me this one time. Go back in the kitchen and stay there with Remi till I know what’s going on! Now!”

  “Okay.” He headed back in and I stood there, not sure what my strategy was now.

  The right thing, of course, would be to call the police. Take my son and get out. Before I took another step. But then I flashed to what I had under the deck, and I got nervous that the police might be the last people I wanted here right now. I didn’t hear a sound anywhere in the house. The deck door was ajar. I was starting to feel pretty certain that whoever had been in here was gone by now. I’d read about these break-ins. Mostly in affluent neighborhoods. I hadn’t heard that anyone had been hurt in one, or even confronted, so far. They were pros.

  My mind flashed to the money hidden under the deck. I was pretty certain no one in a million years could possibly find that.

  “Brandon, stay in there. If you hear anything, I want you to run. Run to Meg and Taylor’s.” Our closest neighbors. “Okay? I’m just taking a look around . . .”

  His voice was responsive yet mildly disappointed. “Okay, Mommy . . .”

  I didn’t care.

  I went down the first-floor hall and into the guest bedroom I used as my office.

  Christ . . . My stomach plummeted.

  My desk drawers were all pulled open and rifled through, files strewn about, a locked filing drawer where I kept our passports and insurance policies jimmied open. An identify thief’s dream. I kneeled down. I was shocked to find my passport was still there. And my checkbook was still on my desk, where I’d written one to Elena a few hours earlier. Then I remembered how burglars didn’t go for things like that, things that could tie them to a particular location. What they wanted were things of value they could pawn or sell quickly without a trace. My computer was a four-year-old Apple, not exactly state of the art. They’d left it. Maybe I’d gotten off lucky.

  That was when my mind flashed to my ring.

  My engagement ring. Not that the sentiment behind it meant anything now, but it was still about the most
valuable thing I owned. Close to four karats and really good quality. Jim had sprung for it after he sold a big home. I still wore it every once in a while. In fact, I’d had it on yesterday for my job interview. I usually locked it away in my safe upstairs, but I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t done that yesterday. I’d just tossed it in the change dish on my dresser.

  In plain view.

  Shit. A burglar in his first day on the job couldn’t have missed it.

  “Brandon, I’m going upstairs,” I yelled. “Just stay in there till you hear me call.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Did you hear me, Brandon? Please answer me. I just want you to say okay.”

  “Mommy, okay . . . ,” he called back, irritated.

  I headed up the stairs, Remi following me, my heart ricocheting back and forth against my ribs.

  I figured if anyone was up there I would have heard the creaking of the floor by now. I had most of my valuables here: pearls my mother had given me that had come from her mother; a gold and diamond Roberto Coin bracelet that was an anniversary present. The Cartier Ballon Bleu watch I’d sprung for myself a few years back. I was certain they had to be history now. A part of me was angry to have been so unlucky. Another part was even angrier that I hadn’t turned on the alarm.

  A last part was still wrestling with the thought that someone might still be in the house. And I was walking right into it. What then?

  I went along the bridge that connected the stairs to my bedroom wing and paused at the doorway. My heart still, I listened for any sign of movement.

  Nothing.

  “If anyone’s in here, please, just get the fuck out!” I yelled. “Please . . .” Knowing that didn’t exactly sound threatening.

  Nothing came back.

  My nerves buzzing, I stepped inside my bedroom. I expected the same scene as downstairs. Drawers open. Things ripped apart. The contents flung everywhere.

  But it wasn’t.

  The bed was still made, my clothes, the things on my night table just as I’d left them a few hours earlier. Amazingly, everything seemed to be okay.

  Maybe I’d come home and surprised whoever it was before they’d had a chance to get up here. Maybe they’d run out the back just as we arrived. That was why the door was left cracked open. That gave me a creepy feeling as well.

  I stepped inside the master closet. It was large, like an airplane hangar, I always joked—one of Jim’s big selling points: the fancy master suite, with its built-in dresser drawers and a tower of shoe shelves Imelda Marcos would have gushed over.

  The dresser drawers were open—but I was pretty sure, open as I had left them. Everything seemed to be in place. My jewelry box was there as well. Open. But after a quick inspection, everything seemed to be there. I saw my watch, my pearls. I let out a huge sigh of relief.

  My ring?

  I went over to my dresser and I saw it. Not in the dish where I was pretty sure I had left it. But right there on the dresser top.

  Staring up at me.

  “Thank God!” I blew out my cheeks. It definitely looked as if no one had been up here.

  For the first time since I’d come home I allowed myself to relax. I went to pick it up, thanking my lucky stars.

  That was when I noticed something else, sitting directly under it, in plain view, and the elation I was feeling rushed out of me like water down a drain. In its place I felt an icy stab of fear.

  My eyes fixed on the spot where I had found it. Not in the change dish, but on the dresser.

  Sitting there for anyone to see.

  And a face was smiling up at me, one I’d seen a lot these past ten days.

  Ben Franklin’s face.

  My ring was sitting on a crisp new hundred-dollar bill.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  From the woods, Mirho focused on the house through a set of night binoculars.

  He had no idea if this Hilary Jeanine Cantor was the woman Rollie was with at Kelty’s crash site.

  Or even if she was, if she was the who one had taken the satchel of cash. She did fit the description: the right age, the right area where she lived, the Acura SUV. And not a bad looker either, he confirmed through the yellowy lens as he followed her and her son into the house.

  He certainly seemed a little shrimpy to be playing basketball.

  Until he could be sure, it wouldn’t have been wise to wait for her inside. Not like Rollie.

  Not with the kid. The kid made it all messy. And would draw a lot of attention to something he wanted at all costs to keep quiet. All he could do was to get her attention. Which he was now sure he was about to get pretty good.

  Three, two, one . . .

  Through the lens, he followed her from window to window. The lights went on; he saw her son run ahead. He heard barking, the dog flipping out. If she was smart, seeing the fence up, she probably already knew.

  Then she appeared. It hadn’t been hard to get inside. The kind of slide lock on the glass doors leading to the deck he could’ve opened while getting a blow job. She made it all the easier by not activating the alarm. Most people didn’t, he found.

  Mirho watched the lights go on in her office. There ya go, doll . . . A sight of her through the shades, over her desk, looking through the disrupted files.

  He enjoyed the anxiety and worry she would be feeling. And the fact that she had no idea what was actually happening yet. It gave him a tingling sense of control.

  Then he saw the lights go on upstairs. She was heading to the bedroom. She’d be distraught, confused. Angry at herself for not activating the alarm. All that fine jewelry, it had to be gone, right? She was probably on the verge of tears . . .

  He couldn’t see in, but by now he knew she had seen what he had left for her.

  Bingo.

  If it was her, he knew, her mind would be going a mile a minute and she’d be going crazy with panic. Trying to figure out what to do next. How she was going to get out of this.

  That, or else she’d be thinking she was simply the luckiest burglarized person in the world.

  Mirho waited.

  He checked his watch. It would sure make things a lot easier if she would do something stupid. Like retrieving that satchel. Maybe even getting in the car and leaving with it, taking it somewhere else. That was what an amateur did. Panic. And she wasn’t exactly accustomed to this. That was how you could catch them.

  Panicking.

  But that didn’t happen.

  Twenty minutes later he was still keeping his eyes trained. She didn’t leave.

  An hour.

  Maybe she didn’t have it here. Maybe it was in a safety deposit box somewhere. Or maybe she’d already gotten rid of it—found someone who would take on the risk of the cash in exchange for something she could more easily deposit. They were out there.

  Or maybe she wasn’t even the one. Maybe he was out two grand. Maybe she didn’t even have it.

  Though he was pretty sure she had already told him she did.

  He took out the GPS device he would affix to her car.

  Not by anything she’d done. Other than why else would she not have given Rollie her real name?

  But more by what she hadn’t done.

  First there was the sticker on the back of her car.

  “I couldn’t read it because I never got that close,” Rollie had said, hanging there. “But it began with the letter M.”

  Mirho squinted on it through the scope. Milton Farms.

  And the other thing . . . that made it kind of certain. She hadn’t done the one thing a person would do if they had nothing to hide. If their home was broken into.

  She hadn’t called the cops.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I don’t know if I ever fully understood the meaning of the word “petrified” until I stayed in that house with my son for the rest of that night.

  I was certain whoever was looking for that money had somehow found me. I just couldn’t figure out how. I stared at that bill for long
minutes, the hairs raised on my arms, trying to come to grips with whether I was reading something into this or, if not, just what it meant.

  It meant that someone out there knew I had it.

  It also meant that Rollie McMahon hadn’t hanged himself at all.

  The sweats came over me, staring at that bill, Ben Franklin’s knowing smile. I almost threw up in fear.

  I ran around the house and made sure every outside door was locked. And double-locked. I pulled Brandon into his room and made him stay there. I threw the house back in some kind of order as best I could.

  I didn’t want Elena to know.

  How could anyone have gotten to me? It was a message; that was sure. But it was also a message that whoever it was wasn’t completely certain. Otherwise I was pretty sure I’d be just like Rollie. Tortured until I divulged something. Dead.

  Brandon too.

  Of course there was also the very real possibility that I was imagining all this. I sat down in the kitchen, going over and over it again. Had anyone actually been up there? It surely didn’t seem so. Nothing else was disturbed. Truth was, I wasn’t 100 percent sure where I had even left the ring. Think, Hilary . . . Could that bill have been mine? Maybe Elena had put it there. I did usually pay her in hundreds.

  Think. What you do next may determine whether you and Brandon make it out alive.

  Part of me wanted to grab Brandon and just get the hell out. Go anywhere. To a hotel. To a friend’s.

  To the police.

  But if I did, what did I really have to tell them? A break-in that may well have been just that. A murder that all the facts said was just a suicide. A ring that wasn’t stolen. In plain sight. A random hundred-dollar bill.

  A warning that only I would understand.

  And then what, turn myself in and admit what I’d done? Who knew where that would lead? I’d likely be arrested. I might be separated from Brandon. Over what? All these things that didn’t fully add up to anything. I kept coming back to the fact that whoever had broken in here couldn’t be 100 percent sure. Otherwise they wouldn’t have sent me a warning. They’d have had me up on the boards like poor Rollie.