Andrew Gross - Reckless

“I put my résumé out to a few places,” he told the doctor after the last session. “One in a town outside of Boston, where my sister lives. One in PA. I even sent one up to Greenwich.”

Dr. Rose seemed pleased. “In the group you said you still blame yourself a little. For what happened…”

Hauck shook his hand and smiled. “I guess I’ll always blame myself a little; I just figure I can do it with a paycheck coming in.”

It bothered him that April hadn’t been there. They had grown close over these weeks. Their talks…He would miss her. And he wondered: when they saw each other again, in a different place and time, would it ever be the same? Life would interfere. It always seemed to. He wished he could tell her they would always be friends.

He took the subway home, picked up something to eat at the Italian deli down the block. Went upstairs.

Around eight, he was watching a game when his cell phone rang.

April. Her voice sounded a little fuzzy. “Ty…”

“Gee, you skipped out on me,” he said, pretending to be hurt, not fully realizing it then. “I wanted to say good-bye.”

“I didn’t talk to Becca’s school,” she said, woozily. “I’m sorry, Ty. They won’t know on Monday…”

Her words were garbled, her thoughts random and unclear. Alarm sprang up in him. His mind immediately flashed to her wrists. “Know what? April, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m alright, Ty, I told you, didn’t I…you were just passing through…”

He bolted up. “April, listen to me, what have you done? You’re not sounding right. Have you taken something?”

“Just to make me sleep, Ty…I really need to sleep. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you…”

“Where’s Marc?” His blood rushed with alarm. “Where’s your husband, April? Where’s Becca?”

“He’s away, Ty…Always away. In Hong Kong. Becca’s with her friend…” Her voice started trailing off.

“Where are you, April? Where are you now?”

“At our place. In the city. I’m sorry, Ty; you know that, don’t you? I so wanted to be there for you…I…”

He knew the address. On East Sixty-fourth. He had dropped her off there once after one of their talks. “You keep it together, April! I’m coming. You hear me, April? I need you to stay awake. You hang on. I’ll be right there!”

On his landline he dialed 911. Reported a possible suicide in progress. Gave the address. Her name. On his cell he tried to keep her on the line. Alert. Her voice kept growing woozy. It sounded bad.

He ran downstairs and into his Bronco, talking to her all the time. He had an old rotating top hat from his department days and threw it on top.

Lights flashing, he sped down the Van Wyck, to the LIE, to Queens Boulevard and the Queensboro Bridge. He kept pushing her to hang on, to stay awake. He felt like he was losing her.

At some point, April’s voice fell off.

“April!” He veered off the bridge onto Sixtieth, his heart racing at a hundred miles an hour. A minute later he was there.

An EMT van and a police car with a flashing light were pulled up in front. Hauck screeched to a stop behind them. He talked his way up, flashing his old police ID at one of the cops. When he got there, they already had her on a gurney with an IV in her veins and were giving her oxygen. Her eyes were rolled back, her pupils small. He kneeled down and took her by the hand and squeezed. “I’m here, April. I’m here…”

A glimmer of life flashed back into her eyes.

She murmured, “Ty…I’m sorry, Ty. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. Your big day…I just didn’t want to feel so alone. Not anymore.”

“You’re not alone, April.” They said they had to take her now. Her pulse was weak and they’d already called the hospital. He held her hand as they wheeled her out to the elevator. “Not anymore.”

He stayed in the ICU while she slept until dawn. The doctors said she would recover. But if they’d been fifteen minutes later…She’d taken seven Sonestas along with some muscle relaxers.

When she finally opened her eyes he was there.

She turned her face and smiled foggily at him. “It would be you, wouldn’t it, Ty…”

“I told you, didn’t I, I wasn’t just passing through.”

“No, maybe you’re not.” Her pupils shined with a sparkle of green back in them. Then she looked away. “I’m a terrible mother, Ty. Marc wants more. I just-”

“No.” He moved closer. “You’re not a terrible mother. Any more than I was a terrible dad. I called him. I found his number on your cell. He’s on his way back.”

She shut her eyes, tears making their way down her cheeks, shaking her head. “I’m so ashamed…”

“No, no, don’t…,” Hauck said. He winked. “You remember what they say about crazy…”

She nodded with her hands over her face. A tear fell onto the sheet. “I know.” She looked at him. “I wish…” He knew what she wanted to say. What maybe they both were thinking. I wish it were you. Why couldn’t it be you? And in a way maybe he was feeling it too. Things just hadn’t worked that way.

She smiled, sniffing back her tears. “What did you say? When you called him…Who you were.”

“I just said I was a friend.”

She smiled, looking back up, monitors beeping her vitals, IV pumping life back into her blood. She seemed to draw some comfort from the word. “You are, Ty.” She nodded. “You are.”

They spoke once or twice after she was released and on her way to getting better.

Then they didn’t see each other again for four years.

See, you were wrong. Hauck smiled, staring out at the sound. You were always wrong. I wasn’t just passing through.

He took hold of his cell and scrolled to the familiar number he was searching for. He pushed Send and waited for the call to connect.

Annie answered on the third ring. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” he said. “Busy?”

“Swamped. Manuel’s out sick. I’m holding my end down and doubling on desserts too. Can’t really talk now. Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He stood up, leaned against the railing. The plane he had been following had disappeared. “I just wanted to let you know,” he said, “something’s come up. I’m going to be away for a while.”

The international airport at Belgrade in Serbia looked like any other modern European terminal-sweeping curves of glass and digital flight boards. Hauck barely dozed on the flight over, his anticipation running wild.

He had told the people at Talon that he needed a couple of days off, and that ran into Memorial Day weekend. So he kept what he was doing to himself. All he told Annie was that he wouldn’t be around for a few days. And she only asked back, a little helplessly, What are you getting involved in, Ty?

Thibault had fled through Paris. Hauck felt pretty certain that if Thibault needed to disappear, if he needed to blend into a backdrop where the outside world would never find him, he knew where he would be.

Richard Snell had traced wire transfers every month from Thibault’s RBS account in the UK to a local branch of AstraBanca in a town called Novi Pazar in southern Serbia. The recipient’s name was Maria Radisovic. That had to be Thibault’s family back home, Hauck figured, a sister or his mother. It seemed right that no one would judge him where he had grown up in Serbia for what he had done in the war. He would have family to protect him. He could blend back into his roots.

On the flight over, Naomi mapped out how tricky and sensitive this all was. He couldn’t help but notice how cute she looked out of work clothes, in slim-fitting jeans, a white T-shirt, and a loose lavender sweater. She explained that even if they were able to locate Thibault, the last people the government wanted to get involved were the Serbian police or their security arm, the BIA. First, there was no acting extradition treaty between the two countries. There was some Serbian basketball player who had assaulted a fellow student while in college in the U.S. The legal battle to get him back to stand trial had gone on for years. And if it got wrapped up in the fight to bring back someone who had been part of atrocities in the Kosovo War, the story would be in headlines all over the world. The Serbian government would never back down. The press there would go crazy if they let a suspected war criminal be ushered back to the U.S. for a lesser crime. Naomi’s team would lose whatever leverage they had against him.