Andrew Gross - The Dark Tide

So this is how it is…

An image of his daughter came into his mind, not Norah but Jessie, which seemed strange to him. He realized he hadn’t called her since he’d been back. For a second he thought that she was supposed to come up or something this weekend, wasn’t she?

He heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

He put his hand inside his jacket pocket. Instinctively, he fumbled for something there. Charlie’s phone-he couldn’t let him take that! Or was it the Beretta? His brain was numb.

Breathing heavily, he looked across the street again to Richard and Jacqueline’s.

The footsteps stopped. Glassily, Hauck looked up. A man stood over him.

“Hey, asshole, remember me?”

Hodges.

“Yeah…” Hauck nodded. “I remember you.”

The man knelt over him. “You look a poor sight, Lieutenant. All busted up.”

Hauck felt in his jacket and wrapped his fingers around the metal object there.

“You know what I’ve been carrying around the past two weeks?” Hodges said. He placed two fingers in front of Hauck’s face. Hazily, Hauck made out the dark, flattened shape he was holding there. A bullet. Hodges pried open Hauck’s mouth, pushed in the barrel of his gun, all metallic and warm, smelling of cordite, clicked the hammer.

“Been meaning to give this back to you.”

Hauck looked into his laughing eyes. “Keep it.”

He squeezed on the trigger in his pocket. A sharp pop rang out, followed by a burning smell. The bullet struck Hodges under the chin, the smile still stapled to his face. His head snapped back, blood exploding out of his mouth. His body jerked off of Hauck, as if yanked. His eyes rolled back.

Hauck pulled his legs from under the dead man’s. Hodges’s gun had fallen onto his chest. He just wanted to sit there a while. Pain lanced through his entire body. But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t what was worrying him.

Dread that fought its way through the pain.

Karen.

Using all his strength, Hauck pushed his way up to his feet. A slick coating of blood came off on his palm from his side.

He took Hodges’s gun and staggered over to the Bronco. He opened the door and reached for the radio. He patched into the Greenwich station. The duty officer answered, but Hauck didn’t recognize the voice.

“This is Lieutenant Hauck,” he said. He bit back against the pain. “There’s been a shooting at my house, 713 Euclid Avenue in Stamford. I need a local team dispatched there.”

A pause. “Jesus, Lieutenant Hauck…?”

“Who am I speaking to?” Hauck asked, wincing. He twisted the key in the ignition, closed the door, and backed out of the driveway, crashing into a car parked on the street, and drove.

“This is Sergeant Dicenzio, Lieutenant.”

“Sergeant, listen, you heard what I just said-but first, this is important, I need a couple of teams, whoever’s closest out there, sent immediately to 73 Surfside Road in Old Greenwich. I want the house secured and controlled. You understand, Sergeant? I want the woman who lives there, Karen Friedman, accounted for. Possibly dangerous situation. Do you read me, Sergeant Dicenzio?”

“I read you loud and clear, Lieutenant.”

“I’m on my way there now.”

A blade of fear knifed through Karen as the blood drained from her face. Disbelieving, she just shook her head. “No, that’s a bluff, Saul.” Ty couldn’t be dead. He’d just left her. He was headed to the station. He was going to come back and pick her up.

“I’m afraid so, Karen. We had an old friend of his awaiting his arrival at home. He might even have been carrying something of interest to us on his person. Am I right, dear?”

“No!” She stood up. Her blood stiffened in denial and rage. “No!” She went to lunge at Lennick, but the ponytailed man who had crept up behind grabbed her by the arms and held her back.

She tried to wrench them away. “Go to fucking hell, Saul!”

“Maybe later.” He shrugged. “But in the meantime, Karen, I’m afraid it’s simply back to my house for a late dinner. And you…” He smoothed out the wrinkles from his sweater and straightened his collar. He had a look on his face that was almost sad. “You know I don’t take any pleasure in doing this, Karen. I’ve always been fond of you. But you must realize there’s just no way we can afford to let you go.”

At that moment the French doors to the backyard opened and another man stepped in-shorter, dark-haired, with a graying mustache.

Karen knew him instantly from the descriptions. Dietz.

“All clear,” he said. Karen noticed that his shoes were caked with dirt and sand.

Lennick nodded. “Good.”

Fear swelled up in Karen. “What are you going to do with me, Saul?”

“A little late-night swim, maybe. Overcome with grief and dismay at finding your husband alive-then dead again. It’s a lot for anybody, Karen.”

Karen shook her head. “It’s not gonna hold up, Saul. Hauck’s already been to his boss. He told him everything. About the hit-and-runs, Dietz, and Hodges. They’re gonna know who did this. They’re gonna come after you, Saul.”

“After me?” Lennick headed toward the door as Karen struggled against the man who pinned her arms. “Don’t worry your little head about it, dear. Our friend Hodges is going to have a rather difficult go of it tonight himself. And Mr. Dietz here”-Lennick nodded conspiratorially-“well, I might as well let him explain his situation to you himself.”

She pulled against her assailant’s grip, tears of hate burning in her eyes. “How did you ever become such a reptile, Saul? How can you ever look at my children again after this?”

“Sam and Alex.” He brushed his thin hair back. “Oh, rest assured they’ll be very well taken care of, Karen. Those kids will have a lot of money coming to them. Your late husband was a very wealthy man. Didn’t you know?”

“Rot in hell, Saul! You bastard!” Karen twisted around as he closed the front door.

He left. Karen started to sob. Hauck. Charles. Never seeing Sam and Alex again. The idea of Saul “grieving” over her. The anger burning inside her that her kids would never know. She thought of Ty, and a sharp sadness came over her. She had gotten him into this. She thought of his own daughter, who would never know.

Then she turned to Dietz, petrified. Hot tears and mucus were running down her face.

“You don’t have to do this,” she begged.

“Oh, don’t get yourself into such a state,” the man with the mustache sneered. “They say it’s like falling asleep. Just give yourself over to it. It’s sort of like sex, right? Do you want it rough? Or do you want it easy?” He chuckled to his partner. “We’re not exactly savages here, are we, Cates?”

“Savages? No,” the man holding her said. He kneed her in the back of the legs, and Karen cried out, her weight crumbling. “C’mon…”

Dietz picked up a roll of packing tape that was sitting on the table. He tore a piece off and placed it firmly over Karen’s mouth. It cut off her breath. Then he ripped a longer strip and wrapped it tightly around her wrists. “C’mon, doll…” He took her by the arms. “Shame about your boyfriend, though. I mean, after busting into my house like that-I’d have liked to have done that one myself.”

They dragged her through the open French doors out onto the patio in back. Karen could hear Tobey barking wildly from where he was locked up, fighting them, forced into the dark against her will, his helpless yelps filled her not only with worry but with a rising sadness, too.

Why the hell do they get to win?

They pulled her off the deck into the backyard. There was a path behind her property through a wooden gate that led to the town road to Teddy’s Beach, restricted to local residents, just a block away.