The Dark Tide Free for a Limited Time (34 page)

Hauck headed home from the coffeehouse in Old Greenwich, about five minutes up the Post Road. He planned to copy the recording onto a tape, then take it over to Carl Fitzpatrick, who lived close by in Riverside, that very night. Karen had found exactly what he needed—evidence that was untainted. Fitzpatrick would have to open everything back up now.

In Stamford he veered off the Post Road onto Elm, soaring. He crossed back under the highway and the Metro-North tracks to Cove, toward the water, Euclid, where he lived. There were lights on across the street from his house, at Robert and Jacqueline’s, the furniture restorers. It looked like they were having a party. Hauck made a left into the one-car driveway in front of his house.

He opened his glove compartment, pulled out the Beretta he had given Karen, and shoved it into his jacket. He slammed the Bronco’s door shut and bounded up the stairs, stopping to pick up the mail.

Taking out his keys, he couldn’t help but smile as his thoughts
flashed to Karen. What Charles had told her before he died, how she’d put it all together and found the phone. Wouldn’t make a half-bad cop—he laughed—if the real-estate thing didn’t work out. In fact…

A man stepped out of the darkness, pointing something at his chest.

Before he fired, Hauck stared back at him, recognizing him in an instant, and in that same instant, his thoughts flashing to Karen, he realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

The first shot took him down, a searing, burning pain lancing through his lower abdomen as he twisted away. He reached futilely into his pocket for the Beretta as he started to fall.

The second struck him in the thigh as he toppled backward, tumbling helplessly down the stairs.

He never heard a sound.

Frantic, Hauck grasped out for the banister and, missing it, rolled all the way to the bottom of the stairs. He came to rest in a sitting position in the vestibule, a dull obfuscation clouding his head. One image pushed its way through, accompanied by a paralyzing sense of dread.

Karen.

His assailant stepped toward him down the stairs.

Hauck tried to lift himself up, but everything was rubbery. He turned over to face Richard and Jacqueline’s and blinked at the glaring lights. He knew something bad was about to happen. He tried to call out. Loudly. He opened his mouth, but only a coppery taste slid over his tongue. He tried to think, but his brain was just jumbled. A blank.

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.

Teddy’s Beach
. Suddenly a new fear swept through Karen’s
body. That beach was tiny and deserted. It had a protective rock-wall jetty, and other than a few teenagers who might’ve gone down there at night to make a bonfire or smoke some pot, Karen realized that it would be totally deserted. And blocked from the other homes.

That’s what Dietz had meant when he’d said “All clear.”

Goddamn it, no.
She kicked Dietz in the shins with the point of her shoe, and he spun, angry, and smacked her in the face with the back of his rough hand. Blood spurted out Karen’s nose. She choked on it.

Dietz glared at her. “
I said behave!”

He hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of flour and ripped off her shoes. He thrust the barrel of a gun up into her nose. “Listen, bitch, I told you what the choice was. You want it easy—or rough? You can fucking decide. Me, I can do it either way. My advice is to lie back and enjoy the ride. It’s gonna be over before you even know it. Trust me, you got a much better ticket than your boyfriend.”

He carried her through the tightly wooded path, thorns and brambles scratching her legs. Her only hope was that someone would see them. She screamed and fought against the tape, but she could barely make a sound.
Please, let someone be down here,
she begged,
please….

But what would that even get her? Probably only a bullet in the head.

They came out of the woods onto the end of the town road. Totally dark and deserted. No one. The salty breeze crept into her nostrils. A few lights shone from houses in the distance, across the cove.

Dietz dropped her and pulled her by the arms. “Let’s go.”

No…
Karen was crying. Fiercely, she wrenched her bound wrists away from him, but there was nothing she could do. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She thought of Ty, and the tears grew heavier and uncontrollable, choking her, making her unable to
breathe.
Oh, baby, you can’t be dead. Please, Ty, please, hear me….
Her heart almost split in two at the thought that she had caused him harm.

They dragged her down through the sand, and she shook her head back and forth, screaming inside,
No!

Cates, the ponytailed bastard, yanked her into the water.

Karen kneed him in the groin. He howled and then spun in rage. “Goddamn it!” and kicked her in the stomach. He dropped her at last, face-first, in the shallow water. Exhausted, out of resistance. Forcing Karen’s face under the warm foam.

“Heard the jet stream’s nice this time of year.” Cates chuckled. “Shouldn’t be too bad.”

It took just minutes, Hauck’s Bronco speeding down Route 1 with its top hat flashing, for him to pull outside the house on Sea Wall.

Two local blue-and-whites had already beaten him there.

Hauck noticed Karen’s white Lexus parked in front of the garage. He grabbed his gun and slid out of the Bronco, favoring his right leg. Two uniformed cops, each carrying lit Maglites, were exiting the front door. He recognized one from the station, Torres. Hauck went up to them, clutching his side.

“Anyone inside?”

Torres shrugged. “There was a dog locked in one of the rooms, Lieutenant. Other than that, negative.”

That didn’t wash. Karen’s car was here. If they had come after him, it seemed inevitable that they had come after her. “What about Mrs. Friedman? Did you check upstairs?”

“All over the house, Lieutenant. O’Hearn and Pallacio are still in there.” The officer’s eyes fell to Hauck’s side. “Jesus, sir…”

Hauck headed past him into the open house, the patrolman left staring at the trail of blood.

He called out, “
Karen?
” No reply. Hauck’s heart started to beat wildly. He heard barking. Officer Pallacio came down the stairs, with his gun drawn.

“Fucking dog.” He shook his head. “Shot by me like a Formula One.” He looked surprised to see Hauck. “Lieutenant!”

“Is anybody here?” Hauck demanded.

“No one, sir. Just Rin Tin Tin out there.” He pointed out back.

“Did you check the basement?”

The cop nodded. “All over, sir.”

Shit.
Karen’s car was here. Maybe she had gone to her friend’s…. He racked his brain. What was her name?
Paula.
Hauck’s gaze fixed on a roll of packing tape on a chair. A pile of mail and magazines were scattered about the floor. The French doors leading to the patio were ajar—Tobey barking like crazy out there.

He didn’t like what he was feeling at all.

He went through the doors and looked out at the yard. The night was bright, clear. He smelled the nearby sound. The dog was on the deck, barking nonstop. Clearly upset.

“Where the hell is she, Tobey?” Hauck sucked in a breath. Every time he did, it killed him.

Limping, he made his way into the backyard. There was a small pool out there, a couple of chaises. Every instinct in his body told him Karen was in danger. She had talked with Charles. She knew. He should never have let her come back here without him.
Why would it make sense to silence only him?

Farther along, his eyes were drawn to something lying in the grass.

Shoes.
Karen’s.
The ones she’d been wearing earlier tonight. A pattering of nerves drummed up in him. The beating in his heart intensified.

“
Karen?
” he called.

Why would they be out here?

He looked further. There was some gardening equipment on the ground, a plastic watering jug. Near the end of the yard, he came upon a wooden gate—unlatched. It opened to a narrow wooded path. He went through it. Hauck suddenly realized what it was.

It led around to the end of the town road off Surfside.

To Teddy’s Beach.

He heard a voice from behind him. “Lieutenant, you need any help out there?”

Clutching his gun, forcing the pain out of his mind, Hauck stepped along the path. He pushed a few branches out of his way. After thirty or forty yards, weaving behind other houses on Sea Wall, he saw the opening to the town road.

He cupped his hands over his mouth. “
Karen!
”

No reply.

Something on the ground caught Hauck’s eye. He knelt, almost buckling from the surge of pain shooting through his thigh.

A sliver of fabric. Orange.

His heart stopped still. Karen had been wearing an orange top.

A tremor of dread rose up in him. He looked out toward the beach.
Oh, Jesus
. He did his best to run.