Andrew Gross - Reckless

Hauck nodded. A black Suburban was the vehicle Evan Glassman had snapped a shot of outside his house.

“You know you’re the second person to ask me that question today?” Donovan’s widow looked up. “The make of the car.”

“Who was the first?” Hauck asked. Maybe that’s what Campbell had been hiding. That he knew something he didn’t share.

“A woman,” Leslie Donovan said. “She was up here earlier today. From Washington.”

Hauck finally made it home at close to ten. He noticed Annie had let herself in, and it hit him then how he had promised to cook a meal for them tonight, her night off, curl up on the couch, and watch 24.

Soon as he came through the door he knew he was in some trouble.

“Nice meal,” Annie called out from the living room couch, her voice ringing with sarcasm.

Oh shit.

One glance at the kitchen told him she had done her best to resurrect what he was supposed to have put together: the flank steak that had been marinating in the fridge, along with one of her favorite weekday staples, spaghetti in oil and crushed black pepper-corns. He saw that 24 was finishing up on the tube and Annie was in PJ bottoms and a T-shirt with a plate perched on her lap.

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” he muttered, tossing his jacket over a chair. He came over and sat beside her. “Work.”

“I called work,” Annie said. “Brooke said you left early and went into the city.”

“Right.” Hauck cleared his throat contritely. “I left word. Would it make me out to be more or less of a heel if I told you how great everything smells?”

“More,” Annie said, not letting up. “So don’t try.” She put her plate down on the old trunk that doubled as Hauck’s coffee table. “You know, I take one night off a week, Ty, and it’s a night Jared stays up at school, and it would be nice if I was able to maybe spend it with the guy I’m supposedly involved with. Especially when he makes the big hunter-gatherer gesture that he’s going to cook.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “Truth is”-he tried to smile-“I never saw anyone so eager to get themselves poisoned.”

“No humor, Ty, please. That’s not the point.”

“I know it’s not the point.” He squeezed her warmly on her knee, his hand staying there. “I went into the city to follow up on a lead. I guess I just got wrapped up.”

“Ty, you’ve been wrapped up somewhere else since this woman was killed.” Annie faced him. “I’m sorry about that, Ty, I really am. But I deserve some attention too. It’s almost making me jealous. Like, is there anything you want to confess?”

Hauck shrugged and tried to smile. “Other than maybe taking you for granted from time to time.” He saw the tightness in her jaw start to soften. She drew her knees up and pushed back her hair. It took a lot to get Annie mad, and he’d overachieved. Laughter was a lot more natural for her than anger. The ticking digital clock flashed on the screen and 24 went into next week’s previews.

“Anyway, you missed a lights-out episode.” She stood up and picked up her dish. “There’s a plate for you in the microwave. A weak moment-don’t ask me why. And don’t even think of asking about what you missed because there’s no way I’m going to divulge…Even with sex,” she said, scrunching her nose playfully at him, climbing over him.

Hauck reached and caught her by the wrist and pulled her onto his lap. He squeezed her, hoping for a hint of forgiveness. “Wouldn’t even try,” he said. “However, I do have Dove bars in the freezer for dessert.” He knew she would kill for those. “I was hoping that might work.”

“Hmmm.” Annie nodded, thinking for a second, then rolled off of him. “You’re on dangerous turf there, mister…Maybe bring one upstairs when you’re done. And remember, forgiveness is predicated on performance.” She took her plate over to the sink and dumped it in. “Let’s just say we can agree the dishes are yours tonight. And by the way, there’s an envelope for you over there. It was under the door when I let myself in.” She went to the stairs. “I’m heading up.”

“Annie…”

She turned around on the landing in her baggy flannels and University of Michigan T-shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Hauck said again. “I really am.”

She continued up without saying anything but, to his delight, wiggled out of her top and tossed it back to the floor from the top of the stairs.

“Dove bar…,” she called teasingly.

“Got it.” Hauck laughed and went around to the kitchen, weighing whether to follow her up before she’d even shut the door-Right answer, he thought-or surrender to his growling stomach and the plate she had put in the microwave. He picked food. He hit the reheat button on the microwave and opened the fridge, pulling out a beer. He heard Annie in the bathroom and sat at the counter, waiting for the meal to heat.

He hadn’t been entirely forthcoming with her. And he was still holding back from being so right now. She was right; he had been elsewhere. He was sorry he’d let it all fall back on her, but he knew that if he was straight with her, it would only produce the lecture that maybe he should follow the advice of his boss right now and drop this thing for good.

While the meal warmed, Hauck reached out for the brown, taped-up legal envelope on the counter, which, he noticed immediately, had come from Vito. Good man! He slit it open and found a large ream of the phone records from Thibault he had asked for, along with a note on Vito’s company letterhead: “Bill to follow.”

Hauck chuckled.

He took a swig of beer. The microwave beeped. He went over and took out the plate and sat, flinching for a second from the heat, back at the counter. He cut into the steak, which was tender and flavorful, admiring how his own concoction of red wine, olive oil, soy sauce, and balsamic had come out to perfection, even if Annie had lit the grill.

Between bites, he leafed through the sheets.

He had homework to do. The stack was maybe two hundred pages thick. And he didn’t have much to go on. The logs went all the way back to October like he’d requested-six months. He had mulled things over maybe a dozen times on the ride from the city. Should he just drop it? He knew he was treading on thin ice. Steve Chrisafoulis was starting to get irritated. The detective in New York didn’t exactly seem like his new BFF. And then there was Foley, his boss…

“How is it down there?” Annie called from the upstairs landing.

“Pretty good,” Hauck yelled back. “Pasta’s not bad, but this flank steak is a ten!”

“Oh, you’re definitely pushing it, mister…”

“Up in a minute,” he said.

He gulped down a few last bites and quickly flipped forward to late-February and March, just before April and her family were killed.

At first glance he didn’t find any calls from Thibault to the dead trader. It was all pretty much just numbers and phone IDs he didn’t recognize. He leafed forward a month, to April, just a couple of weeks ago, the weeks before James Donovan’s death.

A number jumped out at him. 212-555-5719.

He put down his fork and knife and pushed away the plate. From a coffee mug near the wall phone where he kept things, he grabbed a yellow marker. He highlighted the number.

Then he leafed back through the stack of listings and locations. He searched for the same number. He found it several times, his pulse seeming to pick up each time. He noted the time of day of these calls.

One fifty-seven A.M.

Two fifteen A.M.

Three oh five.

Always in the middle of the night. Always to the same location. A location that just made that ice he was on even thinner.