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CHAPTER THREE

Maybe Anna is already on the FDR Drive.

That means she is either a world-class sprinter or she drove here. That surprises me. No one drives here. You take the F or M train. There is no nearby parking. Very few taxis pass this way. She could have called an Uber, I guess, but judging by where she is now, the Uber would have arrived in seconds, something again that doesn’t happen often in this part of the Lower East Side.

But maybe.

I, of course, don’t have my car. Garages are too expensive, so I mostly leave the decrepit 2002 Ford Taurus I bought off a sports agent ten years ago in my friend Craig’s driveway in Queens. He charges me fifty bucks a month. You may say, “Some friend,” but if you live around here, you know this is a bargain among bargains. I debate grabbing a taxi and telling the driver vaguely where to go as I watch the tracker, but that would be both suspicious and costly. Lenny’s GPS tracker is in her pocket. It’s working. I can afford a little patience.

I take the M line north into Queens and walk three blocks to Craig’s house. The lights are off. No one home. Craig keeps a car key in his kitchen. I have mine on me at all times. I get in the car, back out onto the road, and check the tracker app. Maybe Anna is stuck in traffic around 125th Street, not far from where the FDR Drive becomes the Harlem River Drive. I don’t know why they change the name of the road there. It’s the same road. It just confuses everyone, even locals, but heavy traffic on the FDR/Harlem River is the norm not the exception. The road’s main feature is a lot of nighttime closures for construction. I switch over to a navigation app to figure out how to get to her. Crossing at the RFK Bridge would be the best way to get close if she stays in Manhattan, but odds are, her car will keep heading farther north. With this much traffic, if Maybe Anna wanted to stay in Manhattan, she would have pulled off the FDR and taken local roads.

Still. I have zero idea where she is going, so I have to keep a steady eye on my smartphone screen. As I do, the phone rings. My wife Molly’s beautiful face lights up over my tracker app.

I hesitate, consider ignoring the call, but no, that won’t do. I hit the answer button, slide my thumb to bring the tracker map back up, and try to keep my voice neutral. “Hey,” I say.

“Hey, handsome. How was class?”

“Good,” I say.

I’ve kept a lot of secrets in my life. You do that when you drink too much. That’s not exactly a news flash. I’ve had a past of telling lies too often in relationships, and Molly’s had a past of being on the receiving end of them. When we got married last year, I promised her that was over for both of us, that no matter how bad or how big, there would be no lies or secrets between us. I have kept that promise, though I never told her about Anna or that summer in Spain. That might be a lie of omission, I don’t know. The only person in the world I’ve told the full story about that night is my father. His response was short: “Get the next plane home.”

He and I haven’t talked about it since. Not once.

“Are you on your way home?” Molly asks.

“Not yet,” I say. “I have to follow up on something.”

“Oh?”

I hear something I don’t like in her voice. I want to comfort her, but I am not going to lie. I am going to keep my promise.

“It will be impossible to explain on the phone,” I tell her.

“I see.”

“But it’s okay. I’ll tell you everything when I get home.”

I check the tracker. Maybe Anna is on the Cross Bronx Expressway heading east.

“How’s Henry?” I ask her.

Henry is our infant son. He is about to turn one. When Henry was born, my entire world shrank down into a six-pound, fifteen-ounce mass. Your world is one thing before you have a child. It is another after. I don’t mean this to advocate for or denigrate the act of having a child. Do your thing. But the reality is, want it to or not, a child changes absolutely everything down to a molecular level. No one is immune.

“He’s up and wired for sound,” Molly replies. Henry is not a great sleeper. Then she asks in a tone I still don’t like: “Do you know what time you’ll be home?”

“Not really,” I say.

“So this is something big, right?”

I am not sure how to reply to that. “It’s a lot, yeah. But it’s okay.”

“You’re being a tad cryptic,” Molly says.

“I don’t mean to be. I can try to explain now—”

“But you’d rather do it in person.”

“Yes,” I say. “Very much.”

“Okay. I love you, Sami.”

“I love you more,” I say because I do.

Molly disconnects first. I make up time on the Major Deegan and before I know it, we are both on Interstate 95 heading toward Connecticut. I check my gas gauge and am happy to see I still have half a tank. Craig often uses my car, which isn’t part of the deal, but he knows I don’t care and he’s usually good about putting gas back into the tank. Craig works administration for the Bronx Zoo. He lost his wife, Cassie, a boisterous explosion of a human, to ovarian cancer two years ago and now when Craig smiles, it never reaches his eyes.

I keep my eyes glued on the road. The tracker veers off at Exit 3. I do the same. I try to think it through, try to figure out how it could be Anna and why she came to my class, but then I remember the Sherlock Holmes quote on that old blackboard:

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

In short, keep your mind open. Don’t theorize so fast. Wait until you know more.

Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

I flash back to that cop in Fuengirola, Carlos Osorio, his youthful yet world-weary face indicating he didn’t believe one word I said when I was telling the truth. Or part of the truth anyway. Not the whole truth. Who would tell a police officer the whole truth in that situation? Who would mention, for example, waking up with the murder weapon in your hand? But I was a dumb kid—I’m sure Osorio could sense I wasn’t coming completely clean. I remember the way he folded his arms and waited patiently until I was wise enough to shut up and then he launched the pointed questions: “How much did you drink?… How much did you smoke?… How much did you snort?… Should I give you a drug test right now?”

I follow the tracker down a high-rent main street that Molly would call “cutesy,” with upscale restaurants and well-coiffed boutiques that seem more hobby than business. My old clunker of a car fits into these wealthy environs like a cigarette in a health club. I crank down the window so I can smell the money. I curve off to the left and onto streets lined with ever-growing mansions—the farther you move from the main street, the larger and more remote the estates.

A mile passes. Then two. I can still see the occasional home, but only via twinkling lights through thick hedges. There are gates at driveways and elaborate iron fencing. It is hard to believe that this exists in the same world as the Lower East Side, which again is neither an indictment nor an acquittal of one over the other. I’m clearly not a rich man, and while I get the primitive draw of the ginormous mansion—the simple human need for “more”—who really needs or wants that much space? How many rooms can you be in at one time? There is an idiom my father used as a warning about greed: You can’t ride two horses with one behind.

I think that fits here.

The tracker hasn’t moved, according to the app, in seven minutes.

Is she home? Don’t know. But if I’m reading this tracker correctly, she is not on a street. I use my fingers to zoom in. From the tracker’s viewpoint, it appears as though Anna is 1.8 miles away from where I’m now driving, in a remote spot at least two or three hundred yards from the nearest road.

Odd.

A satellite view option would be handy, but the tracker doesn’t have one. I pull my car onto the shoulder of the road and click the three dots on the top right-hand corner of the app. The drop-down menu offers up the target’s precise latitude-longitude coordinates. I copy and paste them into Google Earth and wait as the globe spins around.

When it stops, I say to myself in a low voice, “Oh boy.”

The spot where Anna—just for ease, I’m going to call her Anna instead of Maybe Anna for now—the spot where the tracker claims Anna has now stopped for the past nine minutes is blurred out on the satellite image.

Blurred out?

That’s fairly unusual. The government can request that satellite maps blur sensitive locations like military bases or certain bureaucratic buildings. I doubt this is either, because the rent out here is too high for such riffraff. But it’s a possibility. Google Earth will sometimes blur out a location if there is a compelling reason for privacy or sensitivity in a private home. They do not do it often. And it usually costs.

In short, someone with some power or money wants to keep this location—the location Anna seems to be at—a secret.

Now what?

I should go home, of course. Take a breath. Talk to Molly. Do some research. I have Anna’s location now. At least, I think I do. For all I know this is just a pit stop. Or she’s visiting a friend who lives here. Or she’s spending a few hours or just one night. She could, in fact, move on in an hour or tomorrow or anytime.

I check the battery icon in the upper left-hand corner. The tracker only has eleven percent left. What’s that give me in terms of tracking? Another hour tops?

Then Anna could disappear again.

Can’t risk that, can I?

The streets are still, the only real illumination coming from my headlights. I don’t think I’ve seen another car in the past three or four miles. I head down the wooded road closest to where the tracker tells me Anna is. There is a driveway through a break in the trees. I slow and see that the driveway is blocked by a wrought iron grill gate. The gate is tall with spikes on top. There is a hut next to the gate. The light is on in the hut, and I can see the silhouette of what I assume is a security guard.

Hefty protection for a private home.

If this is indeed a private home.

I quickly look for a sign or house number or anything like that—I don’t want to linger—but there’s nothing. I debate driving up to the gate, but then what? It’s after ten p.m. I can’t pretend I’m delivering a package—and saying “I’m here to see Anna,” well, I just don’t think that’s going to play.

Impulse Me still wants to make that play. Impulse Me wants to drive right up to the security guard and say, “I’m here to see Anna. Tell her it’s Sami Kierce and we met in the Costa del Sol of Spain twenty-two years ago.” Impulse Me often makes mistakes. Impulse Me was the one who ran out of that bedroom and left Anna behind. Impulse Me was the one who went to the Fuengirola police station and reported a murder to Osorio. Impulse Me chased PJ onto that roof and made him fall. Impulse Me let Maya Stern go unaccompanied to Farnwood, Judith Burkett’s enormous estate, a mistake which led to my fall from quasi grace.

Maybe Impulse Me should stay out of this—but either way, I’m not just going home.

I drive slowly down the heavily wooded street and pull off where I see a little opening. My car is still visible from the road, but only if you’re looking hard for it. I turn off the engine and make sure the interior lights are off. I don’t think anyone will see, but then again I don’t plan on being here long enough for the police to call a tow truck. I grab a piece of paper and pen from the glove compartment and scribble a note: “Car Broke Down, Back Soon.” I debate adding that I’m a police officer, but that is both beside the point and no longer true.

I get out of the car. The night is crisp, the tang of autumn in the air. The stars are bright out here in a way you never get in the city. I’m holding the app like a compass. The tracker I put in Anna’s pocket is two-tenths of a mile from where I now stand, but the entire trek is through the woods.

No reason to dawdle.

I start into the trees. I debate turning on my phone flashlight, but out of an abundance of caution, I’d rather leave it off for now. It is hard to see more than a few feet in front of my face. I walk Frankenstein style, arms lifted and parallel to the ground, hands stretched out so I don’t walk into a tree face-first.

Once I’m inside the woods, the trees thin a bit, making my trek faster. I don’t know what kind of security they have out here. The manned gate was impressive, but that didn’t mean you could guard an entire estate that way. It may have been for show. They could have trip wire in the woods, I guess, or motion detectors, but that’s unlikely. There are many deer and squirrels and assorted suburban wildlife out here. There would be too many false alarms.

I keep moving. I’m not quiet about it, hearing twigs and leaves beneath my feet, but what else can I do? When I am within a tenth of a mile of the tracker, I start seeing lights filtering through the trees. I move closer and, as though on cue, a huge estate begins to rise on the horizon. I stop and look at the tracker. According to the help section on the app, the tracker is accurate to within ten meters. Assuming that’s correct, Anna and/or her coat is inside the estate.

The tracker battery is down to eight percent. I am at the clearing now. I stay on the edge, half in the woods, half on the start of a large expanse of lawn. The house itself is a jaw-dropper—an enormous Colonial-style stone castle that looks like something out of The Great Gatsby . The landscape lights illuminate sprawling symmetrical gardens with matching topiary on either side. There is a pool and a glass-house cabana. Two cars are parked near the door—a Porsche and a Mercedes, both black.

No other movement. No guards patrolling the grounds.

As I watch, debating what to do, a light goes on in an upstairs bedroom on the left. I duck down, even though I’m still a good one hundred yards away from the house. I get my breathing back under control and look toward the window.

Anna walks by it.

I check my watch. Almost eleven p.m. I quickly run through my next possible moves. Should I just knock on the door or ring the bell or whatever? Just be direct? That seems weird and I don’t know how security, assuming there is some, might react. Still, it’s a possibility. I could also maybe, I don’t know, grab some pebbles and toss them at her window. That feels a little too “movie,” if you will—and the most logical outcome from such a move would be her screaming for help.

But do I care if she does?

I want to get to her. I want an explanation.

It is then, as I stand there and consider my options, mere seconds after I saw Anna at the window, that I hear dogs.

I should point out that I love dogs. When Henry is a little older, Molly and I want to get a friendly little Havanese for our family.

This doesn’t sound like a friendly little Havanese.

This sounds like—and now looks to be—several snarling Doberman pinschers. They are hurtling full speed right down the center of the symmetrical gardens.

Toward me.

My heart leaps into my throat. No need for Impulse Me to tell me what to do. I snap-turn to run back through the woods, knowing I have no chance of outrunning the dogs. Zero. I jump two steps back into the woods and I can tell by the barking the dogs are mere seconds away. I take one more step and then one of the Dobermans leaps up and he knocks me down.

I scream as I crash to the ground.

I don’t know if I should try to fight my way out of this, but I distantly recall my police training on dog attacks. If you’re already down on the ground, stop moving. Curl in a ball and cover your neck and head with your arms. I do that now, go into a protective shell, my phone still in my hand.

The dogs are on me now, surrounding me. The barking has stopped. They are low-growling, staring at me with black eyes and bared teeth. They look ready to pounce. I stay very still and wait. It is, to put it mildly, terrifying.

Then a man shouts, “Down!”

The growling stops immediately. The dogs’ teeth vanish. Their tails wag as they back away. I risk a look and see the silhouette of two men standing near me. One of them is pointing a gun in my direction.

I blink up at them and say, “I’m sorry for the intrusion. I was just taking a walk and got lost.”

“Were you now?” one of the men, the smaller one, replies, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Get up.”

I manage to lift myself up and move back onto the edge of the grounds. Yep, two men. The bigger one, the one with the gun, has a moon-shaped head, complete with old-zit craters.

“Nice place,” I say.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a cop.”

“Can we see your badge?”

“Ex-cop actually.”

“An ex-cop hiking in the dark on private property,” Smaller Guy says. “Is that what you’re telling us?”

I try a smile. “Well, I have had a bit to drink,” I say, hoping that explains it. His face tells me that it doesn’t explain a damn thing. Gun Guy looks at Smaller Guy and nods. Smaller Guy takes out his phone.

“Spell your name,” Smaller Guy says to me. I do. Gun Guy keeps the gun on me while Smaller Guy types into what I assume is his phone’s search engine. While he does, Gun Guy strolls over to me and, without the slightest warning, punches me deep in the stomach with his free hand. The air whooshes out of me. I drop yet again to my knees, trying to gather a breath.

Gun Guy grabs me by the hair. “Can’t leave us alone, can you?”

I try to gather a breath. Gun Guy looks back at Smaller Guy. Smaller Guy says, “Sami Kierce, ex-NYPD detective, fired for endangering civilians and incompetence.”

Gun Guy still has his hand in my hair. “Who hired you, Sami?”

I shake my head, the breath finally returning. “No one,” I manage.

“One way or the other,” Gun Guy says, “you’re going to tell us why you’re here.”

I decide to go with something close to the truth. “I’m an old friend of Anna’s.”

I check their faces for a response, but the lighting makes it difficult to see expressions. I am still on my knees. He still grips my hair.

“I could just shoot you,” Gun Guy says. “What do you think, Tee?”

“Hmm.” Smaller Guy Tee is reading off his phone, his face aglow from the screen. “Whoa, check this out. This is the guy who messed up the Burkett case.” He looks up at me. “Do you know we’re friends with the Burketts?”

I say nothing.

He looks back down at his phone. “Kierce here was fired for violating police protocol. Multiple times, it says here, including the Burkett case. Being sued up the wazoo for putting a civilian in the hospital. Lots of his arrests are now being challenged, including—get this—the murder of his own fiancée. Described as erratic and dangerous.” Smaller Guy Tee looks up from the phone and grins. “Yeah, we could definitely kill him and claim self-defense. I mean, he’s erratic, dangerous—and trespassing.”

“Right,” Gun Guy says. “Exactly. Oh, and guess what? I have another gun on me. Untraceable.”

Smaller Guy Tee is warming up to this. “So we just say he pulled it on us. Our word against the word of a dead man.”

“Yes. And once we shoot him—once he’s dead—we can put the gun in his hand. Fire it even, so he has powder residue.”

Smaller Tee nods. “No one will question it.”

“No one,” Gun Guy agrees. “We make it look like we had no choice.”

They both smile at me, clearly warming to this plan.

“So”—Gun Guy aims the gun at me—“what do you say to all that, Sami Kierce?”

Now it’s my turn to smile. I have a good smile. You should know this about me. It’s far and away my best physical feature. Molly said she fell for me when I smiled. But that’s not the smile I’m displaying now. This smile of mine is far more maniacal. This smile is just south of sane. It makes both men, even the one holding a gun on me, step back.

“Say it louder,” I say.

Gun Guy looks confused. “What?”

I shake his hand off my hair. Then I lift my other hand into view. My phone is still in it, only now they can see a face on the screen. While they talked, I managed to hit my FaceTime.

“Come on, Tee,” I say as I rise to my feet, the maniacal smile still plastered on my face. “Or should I call you ‘the Tee-ster’? I’m not sure my friends at the NYPD heard you clearly. Say how you’re going to kill me louder.”