No Way Back: Part 3 of 3

ANDREW GROSS

No Way Back Part 3

Table of Contents

Title Page

Cano

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Gillian

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy-One

Chapter Seventy-Two

Chapter Seventy-Three

Chapter Seventy-Four

Chapter Seventy-Five

Chapter Seventy-Six

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Novels by Andrew Gross

Copyright

About the Publisher

CANO

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The modern six-story brick-and-glass office building was on Atlantic and Summers Streets in downtown Stamford.

I got there at 7:30 A.M. and waited in the garage.

I had looked up the address for Sifton, Sloan and Rubin, where the article I’d read the day before said Harold Bachman was a partner. The underground garage had two floors. I asked the attendant at the entrance if there was any designated parking for the law firm, and he directed me down to the lower floor.

I just didn’t go in.

I positioned myself near the elevator, where I could get a decent look at anybody going in, and watched the procession of office workers and businesspeople arrive at work. None of them resembled Bachman.

The first hour felt like three. Worried that he might be away or still on leave and not even coming in, I called the firm from inside the garage and asked to speak with him. The receptionist who answered put me on hold and then told me he hadn’t come in yet. So I was pretty sure he’d be here at some point.

All I could do was pray he’d listen to me and wouldn’t alert the police.

At ten of nine, a white Mercedes 350 drove in and rounded my corner. Through the glass I saw the driver’s curly gray hair and wire-rim glasses. I checked the photo I had printed at the café.

It was him.

Bachman parked on the lower ramp, took out a leather briefcase from the backseat, locked the car with his remote, and made his way over to the elevator. I stepped out from between a couple of cars, my heart beating nervously.

“Mr. Bachman?”

He squinted back through his glasses, clearly taken by surprise. “Do I know you?”

“No. No you don’t,” I said. There was no one else around. “Can I talk with you just for a moment?”

I knew he wouldn’t recognize me. He had no reason in the world to suspect who I was, nor that I would be here looking for him. He glanced around; I figured I looked harmless enough, or desperate. He nodded and stepped away from the elevator to a spot near a handicapped parking space and shrugged. “All right. Sure.”

On the ride down from Boston I’d gone over at least a dozen times what I would say. But my blood was racing and I was nervous and scared, and there was no chance it would come out the way I planned. “Mr. Bachman, I’ve got something to tell you that will take you by surprise … and maybe bring up some things that I know are still painful … things you may not want to talk about. But I need you to just hear me out—”

“Who are you?” he asked me, his brow wrinkling.

I didn’t know how else to say it. I just handed him a copy of the New York Times. There was a photo of me, one taken with Dave at an advertising industry function we had attended a few months back. It didn’t exactly look like I did now. I lifted my sunglasses. But the headline said it all: WESTCHESTER WOMAN SOUGHT IN CONNECTION TO HOTEL SHOOTINGS.

Bachman looked back up at me and his eyes grew wide.

His gaze darted around again, trepidation coming onto his face, and if a security guard had come by at that particular moment, I don’t know what he would have done.

“Mr. Bachman, there’s no reason for you to be alarmed. I know what you’ve recently been through, and if there was anyone else in the world I could talk to, I would—I swear!—and not put you in this position …”

He looked at me and then glanced back down at the article. “You’re Wendy Gould?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“Ms. Gould, if you have any thoughts of me representing you, I’m afraid you’ve sought me out for the wrong reason. First, it’s not what I do; it’s not my specialty. I don’t do criminal work. And anyway, I’m not doing this kind of thing right now.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here,” I said. “I don’t need you to represent me—”

“You’re a federal fugitive, Ms. Gould.” He handed me back the paper. “I can’t talk to you. You’re wanted in connection with the murder of a government agent. Not to mention, if I remember correctly, the murder of your husband …”

“None of which is true.” If I could have shown him the truth with a single, steadfast look, my eyes as solid and steady as they’d ever been, I gave it to him now. “None. I swear. At least, not the way it’s being portrayed.”

“Then let me say, as a lawyer, Ms. Gould, someone’s doing an awfully good job of making you look bad.”

I swallowed, and nodded back with a resigned smile. “That’s the only part that is true. Mr. Bachman. Look, you can look around, but I’m the one who’s risking everything just being here with you now. You can see I’ve changed my appearance. What would it take for you to call for security or even the police and let them know? In an hour, everyone would know.”

“I appreciate the trust, Ms. Gould, and I’m truly sorry for your predicament, but unless you’re looking for someone to mediate the terms of handing yourself over to the police—”

“I can’t hand myself over to the police!” I shook my head defiantly. “I can’t. I’m not here because I found your name on some lawyer’s website. I’m here because you’re the only person I know who can help me prove that I’m being framed. Trust me. Otherwise I’d be as far away from here as I could. Please, just hear me out. Two minutes is all I’m asking. I’m begging you, Mr. Bachman … I don’t have anywhere else to turn.”

“Why me? You said you’re aware I’ve been through a situation of my own …”

“And that’s exactly why I’m here.”

Maybe it was the utter desperation on my face. Or that I had sought him out, the one person who could prove my innocence. But Bachman put down his bag. He nodded reluctantly. “You have two minutes. Make it good, Ms. Gould.”

CHAPTER FORTY

“Do you know the name Curtis Kitchner?” I asked him.

“Kitchner? If I recall, he was the guy who was killed in New York up in that room?”

“That’s correct.”

He shrugged. “Then only what I’ve heard on the news.”

“Mr. Bachman, I did an incredibly foolish thing. I ended up in someone’s hotel room I had no right being in. I’d never done anything like that before in my life. But nothing happened up there … and I’ve had nothing to do with the murders I’m being implicated in. I was actually in the bathroom, preparing to leave, when I heard someone else come into the room.”

Bachman said, “I’m listening …”

Harried, I explained the whole thing to him. Hruseff. Curtis. How the agent killed him right in front of my eyes, and the second gun fell across the bed to me. “This person was a Homeland Security agent, Mr. Bachman. And I watched him kill Curtis. Not in a shoot-out. Not under any threat, or in self-defense as it’s been alleged. But in cold blood. Right in front of my eyes. Right there on the bed.”

Bachman shook his head in puzzlement at me. “Why?”

“That I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out. Curtis was a journalist. He was working on something that implicated the U.S. government in a shooting in Mexico. Look, I found something he wrote on the subject …” I reached inside my pocket and took out a copy of the article. “I’m certain he found out something to do with the Mexican drug trade. Something he shouldn’t have.”

“You said this other person in the room was a Homeland Security agent. He identified himself?”

“No. Afterward, I looked through his pockets and found his ID. And if he was an agent, he damn well wasn’t up there for any good. He was only there to kill Curtis, Mr. Bachman.”

The lawyer nodded, taking it in. We heard a car door slam, and a man who had parked nearby walked up to the elevator. Bachman smiled briefly, uttering, “Morning,” as I looked away. The elevator opened and the man stepped in. Then Bachman turned back to me. “The problem is, Ms. Gould, two other people ended up dead.”

I told him the rest. How I picked up the gun, knowing that the killer would come for me in the bathroom. How I identified myself and still the guy just raised his weapon. “Yes, I shot him. He was preparing to shoot me.”

“And then you just ran?”

I told him how I ran from the room and how the guy’s partner tried to silence me too. Then I told him how Dave died as well. I went through the whole thing. “Not in the kitchen. Not by my hand. They shot him! I left that gun on the bed back in that hotel room, Mr. Bachman. I swear!”

He kept looking at me with this lawyerly, evaluating stare. I had no idea if he actually believed me. But I kept going.

“I tried to turn myself in. You heard what happened at Grand Central the other day. I wasn’t trying to run away. They’re trying to silence me, Mr. Bachman. For what I saw. A close friend was trying to work out my arrest, and he ended up being shot too. That’s why I can’t turn myself in. Not until I find out why they’re trying to kill me.”

“So how do I fit in?” he asked. “Assuming I even believe all this. You said I was the only person who could help you.”

I reached inside my jeans and pulled out Curtis’s BlackBerry.

“I took this from Curtis’s hotel room when I ran. It belonged to him.” I pushed the power button and then scrolled through Curtis’s pictures. “This is the last one he took. Just a couple of days before he died.”

I held it out and watched Bachman’s eyes go wide. He stared at the photo of Lauritzia Velez.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The picture hit home. Harold Bachman’s face went ashen.

“Curtis visited her,” I said. “Just before he died. She knew something he needed to find out. I’m sure it was connected to Cano. To the killing of those two DEA agents down in Mexico, which he thought was connected to the airport bombing that took your wife. Maybe he was trying to get to her father. Maybe he suspected something else about why those agents were killed.”

Bachman shook his head. “This just isn’t something I can get involved in, Ms. Gould.”

“Mr. Bachman, this is the second time I’ve had to say this in the past two days, but we’ve both lost people we loved.” I put my hand on his arm. “Whether you believe me or not, I loved my husband every bit as much as you did your wife. The difference is, I can’t even grieve for him. I’ve got half of the United States government out looking for me. And I’m being framed for a horrible murder I didn’t do.

“And the thing is, their deaths are connected, Mr. Bachman. Your wife’s and my husband’s—whether you can see that or not. I need to find out why Curtis Kitchner was killed. It’s the only way I can clear myself and get my life back. Mourn who I’ve lost. And whatever that reason is”—I looked in his eyes—“I’m absolutely certain it leads through Lauritzia Velez. I’m here because I need to find her, Mr. Bachman.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Ms. Gould.”

“Why? Why is it impossible? You and your wife were her protectors. You represented her. You have to know where she is! I have to find out what she knows. Why Curtis needed to find her. What there was about the killing of those drug enforcement agents in Mexico that every one’s trying to keep quiet.”

“You don’t understand …” His voice lowered, but it was still firm. “This girl’s been the target of some very dangerous people, and I’m not about to put her in any more danger. Any more than I would put my own kids in danger. Besides, I’m quite sure she doesn’t know anything that can help you. She wasn’t a part of any of this.”

“Maybe what Curtis needed to know was how to find her father? He was a part of it.”

“I assure you she doesn’t know where her father is.” Bachman reached down and picked up his briefcase. “Look, I understand your predicament, Ms. Gould, and I’m sorry. I truly am. If you want, I’ll recommend someone who can represent what you’ve told me to the proper authorities. This is the United States, for God’s sake; they can’t just put you in a cell and make you disappear.”

“They damn well can, Mr. Bachman. They’ve already tried.”

“But I hope you understand it’s best if we don’t have any further direct contact. I can’t allow my name to be connected with this Cano person in any other way. I have my kids. My only goal is to protect them now. We’ve already seen what this man will do …”

He was slipping away from me, and without Lauritzia Velez I had nothing. Only possibilities. Suppositions. No proof on anyone. He made a move to leave, but I grabbed his arm. “You looked into those DEA murders yourself, Mr. Bachman. For Lauritzia’s trial. Did you ever come across someone named Gillian?”

“Gillian?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, no …” He moved toward the elevator.

“The agent who killed Curtis said that name. ‘This is for Gillian,’ he said, before he pulled the trigger and killed him. Maybe Ms. Velez would know who he meant.” My voice took on a tone of desperation. “Just let me speak with her once. That’s all I ask. Please …”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I have to go.” He pushed past me and pressed the elevator button several times. “I wish I could help you, Ms. Gould. You see the position I’m in.”

“Here …” I tried to force the article Curtis had written into his hand, but it fell to the floor. “Curtis wrote about all this. It’s what got him killed.”

“And that’s precisely why I can no longer afford to get involved. Don’t you understand?”

The elevator opened. Bachman stepped in.

I stood there looking back at him, my last chance to prove myself dissolving away. “Look up the agent I shot. Hruseff. You’ll see, he wasn’t always Homeland Security. He was in the DEA. He was reassigned. You’ll see.”

“I’m really sorry, Ms. Gould—”

“Look them all up,” I said as the doors began to close. “They’re all connected.”

Harold Bachman’s face disappeared, and I kneeled down to pick up Curtis’s article, sure my last chance to prove I was innocent was now gone.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Harold sat in his corner office on the sixth floor, a view of the Long Island Sound in its large picture window. He’d gotten his coffee, checked his schedule for the day. He started to prepare for his ten thirty meeting on the Lefco vs. Connecticut case, but his mind kept drifting back to Wendy Gould.

He thought he’d mishandled the situation. What he should have done, he decided, was gotten on his phone as soon as that elevator door closed and called 911. He was a lawyer. He was sworn to uphold the law. Whatever her guilt or innocence, she was a fugitive, wanted for her involvement in two capital crimes. He’d lost his wife a few months ago in such a crime. If true, Wendy’s story was a rough one, and he was sorry for that. He actually did believe her. But that was for the authorities to figure out, not him. He had his kids. He couldn’t get involved.

Putting down his brief, Harold had to admit he was nervous now. He wanted nothing to do with Eduardo Cano again. Since he first heard his name, it had caused him nothing but heartbreak and ruin. He still had Jamie and Taylor. Keeping them safe was the only thing that mattered now. Yet no matter how he tried to block him out of his mind, this Cano kept knifing his way back in. Back into his life. Someone he had never met but who had caused him the most pain he had ever known.

He glanced at his watch. He could still call 911. He could merely say that he had hesitated for an hour, that the whole thing had simply taken him by surprise. Surely the FBI would want to know her whereabouts. That she was around there.

So why haven’t I dialed?

He leaned back in his chair and swiveled to face the window. On the credenza in front of him were several photos of Roxanne, whom he missed more than anything in the world. Whom he still couldn’t contemplate having to spend the rest of his life without—who would not just call up, at any second, and ask him what he was doing for lunch or if he’d ever heard of this Off-Broadway play or this dance company that was performing in the city. Death was always something abstract and far away until it hit home; and then it became a black, bottomless pit you could never crawl your way out of. He picked up the photo of his wed-ding day, and then next to it one of them sailing off Nantucket, where Roxanne’s eyes shone as blue and brightly as the sea. And he remembered his thoughts as he looked at her that day from the tiller, thinking that he was the luckiest man in the world to have someone of such vitality and beauty. And courage. Roxie never backed down from anything she truly believed in. Look at what that had done to her now. He missed her more and more every day.

But today those eyes seemed disappointed in him. They seemed to contain a form of accusation. For him having backed down when someone needed him so much.

To have given in to the fear when inwardly he really wanted to stand up. Stand up and say, Yes, I believe you. I will help you. In his heart he knew what Wendy said was true. He felt she was innocent. He could hear it in her story; he saw it in her eyes.

Look what it has gotten you, Roxie … He put down his wife’s photo and looked away. All the “standing up” in the world. He put his hands over his eyes and felt like weeping.

Look what it has gotten you.

Was it such a crime, wanting to keep Jamie and Taylor safe? To keep this evil away from their already damaged lives? He wanted that more than anything. Except for maybe one thing … one thing that did burn deeply inside him. A flame he could not put out. And that was to see the person responsible for Roxie’s death brought to justice.

Made to pay.

To know he wasn’t out there, living in some lavish home. Basking in the rewards of his evil, gloating, never knowing the pain he’d caused and the beautiful life he’d extinguished.

Both their deaths are tied together, Wendy Gould had said. Whether you accept it or not. And as much as he wanted to deny that, the throbbing in his soul told him she was right. They are connected.

He looked at the phone. Why haven’t you made that call?

Look them all up, she had said, the desperation clear in her eyes as the elevator door closed. They’re all connected.

Connected to whom?

Harold logged on to his computer. He went into Google and typed in the name she’d told him to look up, Hruseff. The agent she had shot.

He paged through several articles, finally finding one that gave his personal bio. Growing up in Roanoke, Virginia. His two tours in Iraq. His short tenure at Homeland Security. Before that at ICE. There was a shooting incident the agent was involved in on the border, in which he was cleared of any guilt. “After earning his release from the army, Hruseff spent four years as an agent for the DEA …”

Was that what Wendy Gould was referring to? Harold took note of the years: 2006–10. He read on:

“… rising to the rank of Senior Field Agent, based out of the agency’s regional headquarters in El Paso, Texas.”

That’s what stopped him. The dates. El Paso.

Harold minimized his search on Hruseff and typed a new subject into the search box.

Sabrina Stein.

He dug up a government press release announcing her appointment to the DOJ, which also contained her past history. It credited her success in running the El Paso DEA office, and the Intelligence Center there, in what they called “Ground Zero in the government’s war against narco-terrorism …”

Her tenure coincided with Hruseff’s. Hruseff worked for her.

The killings of the DEA agents in Culiacán took place in 2009, when both of them were there.

Harold felt the blood seep out of his face. He knew anyone who stepped into his room at this very moment would be facing a ghost.

Look them all up. They’re all connected. Was this what she meant?

He took another look back at his wife, then picked up his phone.

But instead of calling 911, he paged his secretary. “Janice, I need a favor. See if Sabrina Stein can see me tomorrow in DC.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Joe Esterhaus pointed to the tree-shaded Tudor at the end of the cul-de-sac. “That’s the one.” Only three days out of the hospital, he still had his arm in a sling. “Pull up over there.”

His daughter, Robin, drove the car over to the curb and turned it off. There was a double line of yellow police tape still blocking both entrances of the semicircular driveway. She stared at the pretty house, thinking that only a week before this was the scene of a creepy murder. “That tape’s up there for a reason, Dad. You sure you should be doing this?”

“I’m just gonna walk around a little and see what gives. You just stay in the car.”

He pulled himself out, grimacing at the pain that still stabbed at his shoulder. Besides the yellow tape, a crime lock barred the front door. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

“I’d say, ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’” Robin called after him, “but I know there’s not much chance of that.”

“Not much chance at all.” Esterhaus laughed, ducking under the tape line leading to the bricked, half-circle driveway. He winced. He still had to wear the sling, at least for another week. Then came weeks and weeks of physio. All trying to get mobility back for a guy who for the past two years could no longer put peas into his mouth with a fork. What the hell was it all for anyway?

He went down to the house and tried the front door. He knew it was a waste of time. He stared in through a frosted-glass window. The crime boys had already done their work. Been through the kitchen on their hands and knees. He had no clue what he would possibly find. Still, it was worth a look. Wendy needed anything that could drive a hole in their story.

He waved to his daughter, who was watching him while on her cell phone. Then he headed around the back. Wendy’s lot was a wooded, three-quarter acre bordering a golf club. Through the gaps in the tall oaks and pines, he could see a fairway. There was a pool in the back that was covered up, and a hot tub a few steps away. Nice. He tried the French doors off the patio outside the living room. They wouldn’t budge. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to get in after all.