Andrew Gross - No Way Back

Pelham is the second stop in Westchester County. It was a quiet, upper-middle-class town tucked in between Mount Vernon and New Rochelle. I’d left my Audi SUV at the station. We live in Pelham Manor, an upscale neighborhood only a couple of minutes from the town, in an old Tudor on a wooded half acre with a carriage-house garage, just two blocks from the Long Island Sound. Dave was a partner in a small advertising company that was looking to merge with a larger one. That’s what his meeting tonight was about. It would be a huge moment for him, for us both, if it all went through. And it could mean a little money for us, which we surely could use. We lived well: We had a ski house in Vermont; we belonged to a nice country club, ate out pretty much whenever we wanted. But not so well that it wasn’t a struggle to pay full tuition for the kids in college and go out west, skiing in Snowmass with friends once a year.

All of a sudden, everything seemed threatened.

I drove home, my mind a daze, and went in through the garage. Once in my kitchen, surrounded by all our familiar things, I actually felt myself start to feel safe, for the first time since the incident. Dave wasn’t back yet. I threw off my coat, pulled off my boots, and heaved myself into a chair in the den. I had to decide what to do.

It all seemed like a dream to me—a haunting, nightmarish one. Had it all actually happened? I’d witnessed the execution of a defenseless man. I’d killed a government agent in self-defense. A rogue agent maybe. One who was about to kill me. But if I came forward, I’d probably destroy my life. A woman in the hotel room of a man she had met at the bar only an hour before? Who guiltily fled the scene? Over and over I replayed the seconds leading up to my firing that gun: the intruder shooting Curtis without even blinking. The second gun pushed off the edge of the bed within my reach. Screaming at Hruseff that I was an ex-cop and to put down his gun. Then the calculating expression that came over his face and the panic in my chest as he raised his gun toward me.

I’d had no choice. I knew I would have been dead if I hadn’t pulled that trigger.

But how could I ever explain it? To the police? Or to my husband?

He could walk through that door at any time. That this horrible thing had happened … that I was in a hotel room to screw some guy. Would he even believe that I had stopped it? That I had come to my senses? Would it even matter? Everything would fall apart. My marriage. My relationship with the kids, whom I’d basically raised and whom I adored.

Our trust.

My whole fucking life.

Sorry, honey, hope dinner went well with the prospective new partners and all, but while you were having salmon tartare at the Gotham Bar and Grill, your pretty little wife just killed a government agent after she was about to fuck a …

Hot flashes running all over me suddenly made it feel like it was a hundred degrees.

I got up, went into the bedroom, pulled off my clothes, and hopped into the shower, trying to wash off the oily film of guilt and complicity. It felt good, almost freeing, to be clean again. I was in my robe, in the kitchen having a cup of tea, when I heard the automatic garage door go up and then the back door open as Dave came in.

“How did it go?” I asked, my heart beating nervously. The first words we’d said to each other all day.

“Good. It went well.” He nodded. At first a bit stiffly. He’d worn his Zegna cashmere blazer and the green striped tie I’d bought for him last Christmas. He looked a little bit like Woody Harrelson, only handsomer, in my view. Then he grinned. “Actually, it went really, really well. I’m starting to think this might work out.”

I ran over and buried myself in his arms.

Did I say that this was my second marriage? For both of us. Dave’s first was with a magazine editor who developed a serious prescription pill problem, and he got custody of the kids. Mine was just a youthful mistake at twenty-one that lasted a year. We’d both put in a lot to make this one work. And for the most part it had.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he said, patting my shoulders. He could feel me shuddering against him, and I couldn’t stop crying. “Jeez, Pam must’ve been one hell of a support system …”

I couldn’t let go of him.

“Hey, what’s going on? This isn’t like you, Wend. Look …” He stroked my hair. “I know we have to talk. I know I said some things last night. Maybe this meeting was on my mind, I don’t know …”

“No, that’s not it. That doesn’t matter.” I looked at him and wiped my eyes. “Dave, something happened in the city tonight. You have to listen to me. I’ve stepped into a nightmare.”

I didn’t know where to begin, so I just blurted it out.

“Dave, I shot someone tonight. I killed him.”

“What? What do you mean you shot someone, Wendy? What are you talking about?”

“Dave, please just listen to me!”

It was jumbled and rambling, and it felt like knives were stabbing me when I got to the part I dreaded most. Which was going up to that room.

“I don’t know why I did it, David.” I sat on a stool at the kitchen island holding a tissue, shaking my head. “I was just so angry from the things you said to me last night. Then Pam didn’t show up. This guy came up to the bar …”

It took everything I had to get the words out. I watched Dave’s face twitch in surprise at first, as he realized what I was telling him, then go blank, maybe waiting for the part when I said I was joking, which never came. Then it simply slackened with the most confused, heartbreaking look.

“Dave, I swear to you, nothing really happened between us up there.” I reached out and took his hand. “I give you my word. I stopped it before it really got anywhere. I was just so angry, David—”

“You went up to this guy’s room?” He stared at me shell-shocked, and pulled his hand away. “To do what? To screw someone, Wendy?”

“Sweetheart, I never meant to hurt you.” I latched back onto him, my heart almost falling off a cliff. “My relationship with you means more to me than anything in the world, and I realize what I’ve done. But that’s not it! That’s not all I’m trying to tell you, David. Something else happened up there. Something even more important.”

“You shot someone?” His face screwed up in confusion. “What the hell did he do to you, Wendy?” His concern was mixed with anger and accusation. He searched my face and arms as if looking for signs of a struggle.

“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me, Dave. The guy’s dead. He was shot. By someone else. Someone else came into the room—as I was in the bathroom. Freshening up.”

“Freshening up?” This time the edge of accusation in his voice was clear.

“Dave, just listen to me! The guy was killed. Thank God I was in there, or I’d be dead too.” I took him through what happened. Hearing the killer’s voice. Curtis pushing the gun off the bed. Watching him be killed.

Picking up the gun and having no other choice than to do what I did.

My tears cleared and now there was only the deepest urgency in my eyes. “The guy was going to shoot me, David. I identified myself. I told him I was an ex-cop. I gave him every chance to put his weapon down. He didn’t. What he did do was raise it up to me. I shot him, David. I had no choice. He would have shot me!”

I drew myself close to him. I needed to feel his support so badly. Stiffly, he put his arm around me as my heart pattered against him. Then I finally felt him draw me close. Hesitantly. His arms seemed remote and strange.

“I don’t even know how to react to this, Wendy. What did the police say?”