Everything to Lose: A Novel

by Andrew Gross

  Shutting the door, he made his way over to the wire fence and ran his hand along the links until he found a spot with some give. Here it would be easier to cut. Using two hands, he snapped the metal links one by one in a straight line down to the ground. Around twenty. Until he was able to pull a seam back in the fence—wide enough for him to wedge himself through and squeeze inside the yard. He planned not to have the same worries a little bit later when it was time to leave.

  A few lights marked the way and he headed toward the water, his heels crunching on the compacted earth and snow. The cold coming off the water stung his cheeks. He moved his fingers to keep them warm. He could almost taste the fear he was about to cause.

  As he got within a few yards of the office, he stopped. Across the narrow bay, lights flickered in Queens. He saw the hulking silhouette of boats up on blocks, plastic glinting off the intermittent spots, one of them blinking. A five-foot wooden boathook leaned against one of the boat blocks. He stepped more carefully now, removing the gun from his belt. A gull honked out on the water. That was the only sound. There was a large warehouse kind of structure with a retractable aluminum-sided door. And a small, shingled cabin with a wood porch adjoining it.

  He decided that was where she had to be.

  He blew out a frosty breath.

  He looked inside the windows. The interior was dark. He stopped. He didn’t hear anything from within. Or sense any movement. Here’s where the fun starts, partner . . .

  He put the gun to his side and stepped onto the porch.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I woke.

  I didn’t know if it was due to the temperature, which had suddenly gone through the roof as the space heater had kicked in full bore. Or that damn light that was flickering outside.

  I reached over and checked the time on my cell phone: 11:51. I threw off the blanket and lay there, feeling like it was a hundred degrees. I got up, turned down the heater, and cracked the window a couple of inches to let air in the room. I lay back on the bed and shut my eyes and tried to push everything away again. Last night’s break-in. Patrick. Whether someone was really after me. I was safe here, hearing nothing but the sizzle of the flickering spot outside, the occasional sound of a gull honking on the bay.

  That’s when I heard it. At first, just the sound of crunching snow.

  What was that?

  I listened. It could well be nothing. No one knew I was here. I didn’t hear anything again for a long time. I blew out a breath and closed my eyes to sleep.

  Then I heard it again. Like a branch cracking on the ground. Or footsteps. My eyes bolted open and my heart immediately came to a stop and stayed there. Totally immobile.

  This time there was no mistaking it.

  Something was outside.

  I froze. It could easily be an animal, I told myself. A raccoon. In winter, they liked to crawl under the shrink-wrap for warmth. Or a wharf rat. Big, ugly suckers—the size of a cat. Every yard had them. Then I heard it again. Not a fleeting, scurrying sound, but something flat. Crunching. Going along the side of the house.

  Footsteps.

  I pushed up to my elbows, ice now running through my veins. I listened so closely I heard the brush of the window shade against the glass, the dust blowing across the floor.

  There it was again. Oh God! This time it seemed to be moving away from me. Toward the front of the house.

  My heart was pounding crazily. Shit, Hilary, what the hell are you gonna do . . .

  I got to my feet, careful not to make a sound. I’d fallen asleep in my clothes, so all I had to do was slip on my shoes. I picked up my car keys and cell phone off the table. Patrick had told me to call at the first sign of anything suspicious. But before I did, I at least wanted to be sure. And anyway, what could he do? He was in Staten Island. An hour away. Call the cops?

  Then everything would be over.

  Silently, I tiptoed to the door to the main office. I stood, every cell in my body rigid, afraid to make a single sound.

  I scrolled to his number in my cell phone.

  For a long time there was only silence. I prayed that it was all somehow just the wind or an animal. A false alarm. I stood there, thinking how I could make it to my car. Trying to recall if I’d locked the front door to the office behind me. How could someone even get in here?

  Then I heard the creaking of a floorboard. Whoever it was had stepped up on the front porch.

  My God, he was coming in . . .

  My heart climbed up in my throat. I had to get out of here now.

  I ran to the maintenance shed door and flung it open. By now, my footsteps probably sounded like loud banging on the floorboards, giving me away. Whoever it was clearly heard me and ran up to the door. He twisted the knob, trying to open it. He pushed on the doorframe, rattling it forcefully. It would hold for only so long.

  What the hell do I do? I could try to wedge myself out the windows in back, but I’d have to push the glass up and kick out the screens. By that time he could be all over me. I heard the sound of glass shattering. A man’s hand snaked through a windowpane, trying to get to the lock.

  Panic took hold of me.

  The shed was my only way out.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  We called it a shed, but it was more like an airplane hangar, maybe eighty feet long, two stories high. It was pitch-dark and it felt as cold as a meat locker in there. The boats that were lined up in dry dock on blocks in long rows, the forklifts and other heavy machinery were only large, hulking shadows to me.

  I shut the door behind me. I could lock it from the inside, but that would only lock me in, anyway, so what good was that to me? There was a fuse box on the wall next to the door and I wildly switched six or seven fuses on one panel trying to disable the lights. Inside, I heard the front door finally crash open and whoever was there go in.

  He couldn’t be sure exactly where I’d headed. I figured his first move would be to go through the office, searching the back rooms. There could well be a rear door that I’d run out of.

  Then he’d come in here.

  I ran down the steps and onto the concrete floor, determined not to make a sound. My first thought was to make a run for the outside door. Actually, there were two doors. The large aluminum retractable one the boats went through, which took forever to go up and clattered like a noisy elevator. Which would immediately give me away.

  And a regular pedestrian door to the side. But they were sixty or seventy feet away. I stood there, unable to fully summon the courage, petrified that he’d hear me and I would never make it to the car.

  Which was where I had to get to.

  I weaved through the blocks where some of the smaller boats were stored to the far end of the shed where Artie had been painting the wooden-hulled boat. I heard footsteps inside the office and knew this was my chance. There were shelves everywhere, crammed with boxes of engine parts, oil, paints, waterproofing material, and I snaked in and out of a maze of boxes and equipment to get to that door.

  Then the shed door was flung open.

  He came in.

  I froze, crouched behind a canvas boat cover. I begged every cell in my body to stay completely still. Especially my heart, which was going off like a panic alarm to me.

  “There’s nowhere for you to go,” I heard the man call out. I shuddered. He was clicking switches one by one, trying to turn on the lights. But they didn’t go on. Thank God!

  “I know you’re in here.” I heard him come down the steps. “We both know I’m going to catch you. And then it won’t be pretty. The longer you resist is only going to make me madder and I reckon you’ve already seen what that results in. Right?”

  I ducked behind the forklift.

  “How about I make you a deal?” His voice started getting closer, his words bouncing into me like bullets. “You show me where the money is . . . I won’t hurt your son. How’s that? Sound good . . . ?” I heard him stepping in between the boats, looking behind the equipment shelves to s
ee if I was there. “You knew that was always a possibility, right? You’re a good mom. Why would you want to put that nice-looking boy of yours at risk? I saw him the other day. At your home . . .”

  His voice grew louder, penetrating through me like a knife. Making me shiver at the thought of him staying around and watching us after we arrived home. I glanced to the door. It was maybe forty feet away. No way I could make it there, get it open, and get to my car. Alive. I felt my heart going crazy. You’ve got to do something, Hilary . . . I was so scared I wanted to cry, but I thought of Brandon. Of him without me. Possibly never even knowing what had happened to me. I pushed the fear back.

  You have to be strong.

  “You know I was in there, right?” I heard his footsteps on the other side of the shed, kicking over boxes, pushing paint canisters on the concrete floor, making a sandpapery sound that raised the hairs on my arms. “You saw what I left for you? In your closet. Pretty good, you have to admit. Bet I gave you a jolt on that one! That’s why you went to Kelty’s son, right? Because you knew I’d found you and you wanted to give the money back. Am I right . . . ?”

  His voice knifed through me. It was as if he was waiting for me to panic, knowing how scared I was, and just blurt something out.

  And I almost did.

  A sheen of sweat rose up, completely covering my skin.

  “Of course, it’s not just about the money.” I stood there, listening to him come closer. “The money’s only part of it.”

  What did he mean?

  “Which is why your boyfriend has got to be next. Did you find what I’m talking about? Those pages? Kelty kept it. A diary, maybe a photocopy of one. Maybe he had it in the car. Perhaps you saw it . . .” He came to a stop. About twenty feet from me. My heart stood still.

  “So here we are . . . you and me, Jeanine, just us . . . And now it’s time to get down to business.”

  I eyed the door and knew I had to run for it. I also knew I’d never make it. Even if I got there, he’d overpower me before I ever started up my car.

  “The longer you hold out, you know that’s only going to make me madder.”

  I looked up and my eyes landed on the hydraulic hoist that was suspended over the boat Artie had up on the blocks. They used it to pull out the engines to work on them. He was nearby. Kicking over boxes. Coming closer. The power station and maneuvering arm were on the wall just behind me.

  I looked at the forklift and something crazy went through my brain.

  The lift was one of two we kept. A large one that lifted the boats, with an enclosed driver’s cabin. And the one I was crouched behind, much smaller, for lifting heavy boxes and supplies. With an open operator’s seat. I spotted the key in a dish on the console. I heard the man coming around near the boat. I reached out and took the key and guided it into the ignition. I closed my eyes for a second and held my breath. Just work. Please. My life depended on this.

  I twisted it and heard the soft click. The yellow power light went on.

  Thank God!

  The guy was now directly beneath the boat Artie had up on the blocks. He was just a darkened figure, but I saw him kneel, looking underneath it. For the first time I could see he had a gun. That sent my heart rate galloping.

  Then he looked up at the boat above him.

  “Mirror, mirror on the wall . . . Who’s the craftiest sonovabitch of them all? I wonder . . .”

  The boat might well be a place to hide. That guy Tsarnaev had done it, up in Boston, the marathon bombing suspect. There was a ladder leaning against the hull. What Artie would have used to get up there. The man took one or two steps up.

  “I know how it goes,” he said. “You probably never expected anything like this when you took that money. How could you? But you know, maybe you should have thought of that, right? When you did.” He raised up and peered into the boat. “Now look what it’s come down to. You see the consequences of it. Stuff just happens, right?”

  I drew a bolstering breath deep into my lungs.

  Right.

  I slapped the power switch to the hoist on the wall and the large hydraulic arm loudly came to life.

  The guy’s eyes shot above him, startled.

  I jumped behind the wheel of the forklift and started it up. The guy probably didn’t know which way to look or what was happening. I jammed it in gear, forward, and headed toward him, concealed by the darkness at first, and by the noise from the hoist. The whole shed seemed to be shaking.

  By the time he saw which noise was the one to pay attention to, it was too late.

  He leaped off the ladder, training his gun on the advancing lift, and fired. I screamed, seeing a flash that could end my life and hearing the bullet ricochet off the lift.

  I barreled into the ladder, which fell back over him, the side of my lift careening into the wooden blocks holding up the boat, knocking into one of the stanchions. The boat teetered for a second; then the whole structure collapsed, rolling over the forklift and toppling over me with a loud crash.

  I screamed, wooden tiers and a three-thousand-pound boat coming down around me.

  For a moment I was sure I was dead. The wood-hulled boat toppled over both of us. But the safety bars on the forklift held and the craft rolled, crashing into a ten-foot aluminum shelf filled with paint cans, oil canisters, and engine parts.

  Like an entire building imploding.

  It took a second for me to realize that I was all right. Dazed, I pulled myself out of the lift. I heard the guy with the gun, buried under the debris, groaning, “Shit. Fuck.” I spotted his gun. It must have fallen free in the crash. I ran over and grabbed it, the guy slowly trying to unpin himself. I’d never even held a gun before.

  My first thought was, did I just hold him there at gunpoint and call the police? Turn everything over now. Or call Patrick, who was at least an hour away. I surely knew I couldn’t just hold him that long. Truth was, I didn’t know if I could shoot. So I ran. I took his gun and sprinted toward the front of the shed, hurling myself into the door. Twisting the knob.

  It didn’t budge.

  God, no! It was locked. I looked behind me. The guy was climbing out from under the rubble. Frantically I twisted the knob as hard as I could. Open, open. . . .

  Please. Now!

  It must have been locked from the outside. I jammed my hand on the button for the big retractable door. Noisily it sprang to life and started to slowly climb. It got as far as my knees, my waist, rattling and clanking at a snail’s pace. I looked back and saw the guy get to his feet, searching around for his gun.

  Then he must’ve just said the hell with it and started coming after me.

  My heart climbed up my throat in panic.

  I ducked under the retracting door and ran as hard as I could around the bend to where I’d left my car. I reached into my pocket for my keys and took them, dropping them on the ground, then grabbing them and yanking open the car door and jamming the key into the ignition just as I saw the guy come out of the shed, looking around, and as soon as he heard the car go on, head toward me.

  I jammed it into reverse and hit the gas, doing a half U-turn, my heart slamming in my chest. I pressed the door-lock button and heard the click just as he reached me. He grabbed on the door handle, futilely pulling on it, then slamming his fist against the window in fury. I screamed, jumping out of my seat. Then I hit the gas again, gunning the vehicle as hard as I could, the Acura lurching forward and pulling out of his grasp, barely missing a tree as I went by and headed for the front gate.

  It was maybe fifty yards in front of me.

  Which was the moment when I realized that it was locked! The gate was a heavy chain link. No way I could just ram through it. Oh God . . . I had to wait for it to open on an automatic sensor.

  I looked behind and suddenly couldn’t find any sight of him. He was probably going for his car, wherever it was. I got within a few yards of the gate and braked, my heart doing its best imitation of a chain saw trying to slice through my ches
t. “Where the hell are you?” I yelled, panicked. “Where?”

  In front of me, the gates slowly began to open. I suddenly had the sensation that I was going to make it. Three or four seconds and there would be enough space for me to bolt through. I pulled forward, ready to gun the engine.

  Then everything just imploded.

  The car shook. Glass splintering all around me.

  I never saw him—only felt the force of something heavy crash through the window and a rain of shattered glass in my lap.

  I screamed.

  Like some animal, he charged at me on the passenger side, the six-foot wooden boathook I’d seen against the office now like a lance jammed through the car. It had missed my head by a millimeter.

  The man jammed his hand through the caved-in window, trying to wrestle the door open.

  Oh God!

  I gunned the car, pulling away from him, tearing through the open gate, the hook still sticking through the car. I skidded onto Harbor, making a sharp turn.

  I looked behind and saw a figure come out into the street, futilely watching me.

  My body was shuddering. My face was mashed with tears.

  “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay!” I shouted to myself. Half crying, half convulsing, craning my head around to be sure no one was following.

  I drove until I made it back over the bridge and into Queens. I drove on Long Beach Road for blocks and then made a left onto Atlantic Avenue into a darkened gas station. I pulled around to the back and turned off my lights.

  My hands were still shaking as I took out my phone and pressed Patrick’s number.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  What’s happened?” Patrick said, picking up on the third ring. It was twenty minutes after midnight. Why else would I be calling? I was sure he could hear the panic in my voice.

  “Patrick, they found me!” I said, my heart pumping as furiously as when I’d driven away from the boatyard only minutes before. “I was at my father’s boatyard on Long Beach Island, and this man . . . He must have followed me there somehow and gotten in. He was trying to kill me, Patrick.” I held my phone with both hands, trying to keep it from shaking. “He chased me. I can’t believe what I had to do. I can’t believe I was able to get away.”