Hauck swallowed. The breath he inhaled almost hurt him; he knew what it was.
“I found that picture, Ty. It was right there. I think you know the one I’m talking about. That gal who was killed…What was her name, April?”
“April.” He nodded a little guiltily.
“And you.” Her eyes stayed solidly on him. Not accusingly; more like she was hurt. “Who was she, Ty? I’m not jealous. Well, maybe a little…But you’ve been different since the very day that happened, and you withheld it from me. I think I deserve to hear the truth.”
“She was just a friend, Annie,” Hauck said. “I promise, that’s all. That photo was taken a long time ago.”
“I know it was a long time ago, Ty. So why… Why did you have to hide it all from me? Why couldn’t you just tell me? Whatever your connection to her. You knew her-and not just from around town.”
He nodded, releasing a contrite blast of air from his cheeks. “There’s a period in my life, Annie, I’ve never gone into much. With anyone. Not just you. After Norah was killed. As things started to fall apart with Beth…”
He told her about how he walked out of his job at the NYPD. The dark period that followed. The guilt he bore. About not being able to find a reason to even get up in the morning. “One night I just sat in my car in front of the store I was heading to when it happened. I was so angry…I took a rock and hurled it through the window. The cops came…If I wasn’t a cop, I would have spent the night in jail. Maybe it was depression.” He shrugged. “Maybe it was just blame. I had a lot of it. I didn’t know how to talk about it then. Clearly, I’m not exactly a whiz now…April just helped me back, that’s all. We met in a depression group. We started to meet, afterward, for coffee. I needed someone then. I don’t know how I would have made it on my own. I don’t even think about that period now, but when I saw she was killed…”
Annie stared at him. “You’ve been following up on her death, haven’t you? All this time. You don’t think I saw it in your face? You don’t think I felt that something had changed? That maybe I had done something-”
“You haven’t done anything, Annie.”
All of a sudden her expression changed and her hand covered her mouth. “Oh my God! That’s what the attack on Jared was all about, wasn’t it? It was meant for you-to pressure you off the case. Did you keep that from me too? Did they try to hurt my son because of you?”
He nodded, flattening his lips. “Yeah, I think so, Annie.”
“Oh, Ty…” Her eyes glistened. “How could you possibly keep something like that from me?” She stared, tears about to flow, as if she was looking into a face she had seen a million times but that had now changed. “What have you gotten into, Ty? You have a new life for yourself. You have me. What hold does she have on you? What is it that’s dragging you back there, Ty?”
“I’m not dragged back anywhere, Annie…”
“Yes, you are.” She nodded. “You are… This woman’s dead, Ty. I’m here. Why are you willing to throw it all away? Why can’t you love me like that?”
“I do love you, Annie,” he said. “I do.”
“No.” She shook her head with tears in her eyes. “Not like that.”
He wanted to reach out and take her in. He wanted to tell her there was more to it. More than he was saying. But what hurt him was that she was right. They had only made one commitment to each other. Dealing in the truth. Honesty. She deserved that one thing.
And he had withheld it from her.
“I won’t even ask you where you’ve been.” She tried to smile bravely. “I mean, it’s not my business. You’re a good man, Ty. I know that, and I know you’d do anything for me. And for Jared. You’ve already proven that. You treat him like a son. But he’s not; I know that. And I’m not your wife either.”
“I was in Serbia, Annie. And London.” He swallowed. “I was with an agent from the Treasury Department, and we were tracking someone who may have been responsible for her death.”
“Serbia?” Annie shook her head, wiping away a tear. “London. Well, at least it wasn’t anywhere exciting or glamorous, right?”
“We weren’t exactly on a Butterfield and Robinson bike tour, Annie.”
That made her smile. “I’m sure. Was it dangerous?”
He looked at her, not really wanting to say. Not now. “I guess.”
“You guess…” She sniffed a little cynically and shook her head. “So did you catch him? The person who did this thing.”
“No. He’s dead. Annie, listen…” He took hold of her hand and squeezed it in his own. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I held things from you. I’m sorry to have hurt you in any way. That’s the last thing I wanted to do. Or that you deserve.”
“You’re damn right it’s the last thing I deserve. But I can’t make you love me either, can I? And I deserve that too. I don’t need the roses or the Valentine’s Day hearts or some big commitment. But I deserve to be loved, don’t I?”
“I do love you, Annie…”
“No.” She shook her head. “I meant like her.”
She smiled at him one more time, then glanced at her watch. “I guess firing up the grill doesn’t exactly seem like the thing to do right now.”
He looked at her and tried to smile back. “No, I guess not.”
“I hope you find ’em, Ty.”
“Who?”
“The one you’re looking for.”
Hauck didn’t know if she was talking about April’s murderer or maybe someone else.
She got up. “You know, it’s not like me to leave with something corny like this…” There was a wistful twinkle in her clear blue eyes. “But I guess I was always hoping, inside, when you went to someplace like London, it might have been with me.”
She brushed past him and he reached for her arm.
She stood there for a second in his grasp.
“Regarding April, I haven’t told you everything. There’s one more thing…”
“I’m sorry, Ty.” Annie pulled free. “But I don’t want to know.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
The e-mail flashed on Naomi’s laptop when she logged on at six the next morning. It was a short, three-line response, and she stared at it in her oversize Princeton tee. She read it twice, just to make sure.
It changed everything.
She waited as long as she could, showered, her heart racing. Then she punched in the number on her speed dial. “Ty…”
“Hey.” He sounded groggy.
“I figured you’d be jet lagged. You okay?”
“I’m okay,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Didn’t sleep much. I’ve been up since three. Just something personal. What’s going on?”
“I got something back from Bern.” Her voice shook with excitement. She told him about the response. From the assistant consul general at the embassy there. “A private jet, registered to a Dubai aviation company, landed in Geneva at seven twenty-one A.M. June twenty-fifth. Hassani passed through immigration there half an hour later. That’s the day before Thibault’s lift ticket was dated, Ty.”
“Geneva’s not Gstaad, Naomi.”
“Geneva’s the closest airport to Gstaad for someone clearing immigration. It’s only a two-hour drive away. I checked. Hassani was there, Ty!”
She had tried desperately to fit it all together ever since she had received the reply. It was clear now something important had taken place there. A conspiracy mapped out, put in motion months later by the largest stock fund in the world dumping U.S. securities. Two investment managers secretly paid off to conceal massive losses at their teetering banks, then killed, setting in motion a terrible slide in the already reeling financial sector. Stocks sent plummeting. Banks going under.
The walls tumbling down.
Now she had to get her people involved. Hassani was in New York. This might be their only chance to get him. The FBI, the Justice Department…What she had to do now was figure out who she could trust.