The Mistaken (46 page)

It was disconcerting to be among all that was so
familiar yet feel that the heart that beat within my chest was not
actually my own. I was lost, like a child separated from a parent
in a large crowd. Not alone, yet quintessentially lonely. I needed
to find home again, and now that so much had changed, I felt it
might actually be possible to do so.

Eight months ago, when I thought I had no other
choice, I turned my back on my own life and identity. I left my
brother to be buried by strangers. I said goodbye to Hannah and
broke her heart, hoping she would move on more easily and forget
me. It was stupid of me, though, to think that I could put her out
of my thoughts and move on. The longer she was apart from me, the
more I felt pulled toward her. Until now, I’d had no hope of ever
reconciling with Hannah.

That frame of mind was not ideal as I detoxed myself
from all the booze and pills. It took many difficult weeks of
drying out and counseling to learn to be clean and sober again, and
then many more to remember and reconcile with the man I used to
be.

With Herculean effort, I came to terms with the
monster I’d become. I took emotional responsibility for nearly
raping then kidnapping an innocent woman, for exposing her to
danger so extreme she very well could have died or, at the very
least, lost her freedom and any sense of her humanity.

Even the lives of Dmitri’s men, which I took in
defense of Hannah and myself, weighed heavy. It was impossible not
to measure Hannah’s life, or even my own, in greater balance than
the lives of those I took, but just as Nick had joined Dmitri’s
crew under duress, I had no way of knowing who those men were, why
they had chosen that life, or the loved ones they had left behind
because of my actions. I faced down each and every facet of that
monster and vanquished him forever. Then I worked hard every day to
carve out a new man who could somehow straddle the world I’d
created between.

Afterwards, I spent months preparing and testifying
at every hearing prior to Dmitri Chernov’s trial. I had returned to
San Francisco this week to finish up, countering Dmitri’s
accusations against me with the story Hannah had sworn me to tell.
I was assured by the federal prosecutor that I was more believable,
but testifying to the lies bothered me nonetheless. I was still on
the stand completing the last of my promised testimony when Dmitri
suffered a mild heart attack in the court room. He clutched
frantically at his chest as sweat popped from his ashen face. The
courtroom erupted into loud chaos when the bailiff jumped to
Chernov’s side, grasping his arm as he settled Dmitri onto the
floor.

He was taken by ambulance to San Francisco General,
at the government’s expense, where a procedure to unblock an artery
was being undertaken when he suffered a major stroke. Dmitri
lingered for several days with tubes and wires attached to his
withered body in an attempt to keep him alive, so that he might
face the justice he so richly deserved. But fate had intervened,
and Dmitri died early yesterday morning. While I hoped he burned in
hell, I decided it best to never think of him again.

I turned my thoughts to my future instead. And it
was
my
future again, not an assumed one. There was no threat
against me anymore. Over the last few months, Dmitri’s organization
had collapsed without clear leadership, and its members had moved
on within the broad confines of the
vory v zakone
. I was
free again.

I raised my face up into the cold breeze, closed my
eyes, and imagined what my life would be like now, where I could
find my heart again. I knew the answer to that already. I would
follow the echoing heartbeat to the Puget Sound and up to Seattle’s
Eastside, where I knew Hannah still lived.

“Yo, Karras!” a loud voice rang out.

I opened my eyes. It was Agent Aaron Moody. “Aaron,
I’m glad you came. I wanted to see you one last time and thank you
for all you’ve done.”

“Hey, man, it’s my job,” he said.

But I knew it was much more than that. We’d spent a
great deal of time together over the last eight months after Moody
was assigned to protect me. He told me about his family, the high
school sweetheart who had become wife, and about his three kids. He
also explained how his folks had been murdered during an armed bank
robbery when he was still in law school, and how that had motivated
him to join the FBI.

I shared parts of my sad story, as well, about my
parents and sister, my wife and child, how Hannah and I had grown
close, how we’d clung to each other in our most desperate moments.
With so much of our lives laid bare between us, Moody and I had
come to think of each other as great friends, and so, when the
trial was discontinued after Dmitri’s death, Agent Moody did me two
great favors.

First, he pulled a great deal of strings and had
Nick’s body disinterred from The City’s cemetery, allowing me to
bury my brother next to my parents, sister, and Jillian. I was
grateful they all now lay at rest together, and it gave me great
peace to know that Nick no longer lay lost and forgotten. I ordered
a new monument engraved with all their names and an empty space at
the bottom for my own someday.

After a great deal of professional therapy and
personal reflection, I’d finally found a small measure of peace
regarding all their deaths. It was a matter of understanding why I
had become so rigid in my values, and accepting accountability for
my role in their lives, knowing that I could have, and should have,
chosen a path less selfish. I held everyone to a standard I felt
I
deserved, while not looking hard enough at myself and
realizing where I fell short.

I accepted all my shortcomings and forgave myself as
best I could. I had to let Jillian go, and Nick, too. I needed to
move on. It was the only way I could survive.

To that end, Agent Moody had found out where Hannah
was currently living. Against orders, I had tried to contact her,
but she’d moved, and her phone numbers were disconnected. I asked
Moody if he could provide that information for me, and he did so,
against agency protocol, because he knew, almost better than I did
myself, just how much Hannah meant to me. Moody was a romantic, a
sucker for a happy ending.

“You’ve done much more than your job,” I
replied.

Moody clapped me on the shoulder and shook my hand.
“The FBI appreciates all your hard work and patience, my man. It’s
too bad it didn’t all work out.”

“Oh, but it did,” I argued. “That bastard is exactly
where he belongs.”

Moody snorted a short laugh. “I’d like to think so.
Anyway, you take care of yourself, you hear? Stay in touch,” he
said. “And good luck. I really hope you find what you’re looking
for, man.” He waved goodbye as he walked down the sidewalk, away
from the federal court house.

I smiled at his back and turned northeast up Market
Street to the Embarcadero BART station which I knew would take me
to SFO, San Francisco International Airport. In a little more than
three hours, I would be in Seattle and one step closer to the beat
of my heart.

Chapter Fifty

Hannah

It was a very cold day, but, thankfully, it was
sunny and dry, a minor miracle for the Seattle area in January. I
dressed in several thin layers, easily shed when I eventually
warmed up. I planned on a two-hour run up at the Tradition Plateau
trailhead on Tiger Mountain. Though the hike up was steep, once up
on the main trail, it was mostly flat and firm.

I loved to run in the forested wetland. It was so
densely green with pine and fern, the smell so fresh and earthy. It
helped clear my head and calm my soul, and though there were always
other hikers about, it was never crowded.

It was mostly a safe place to hike, walk, or run,
but there had recently been an incident where a man had used a stun
gun in an attempt to incapacitate a female conservation corps
worker tending to a trail. She fought back and escaped unharmed,
but now trail users were urged to travel in groups. That wasn’t an
option for me this day, but I wasn’t going to let it stop me. I
kept my head up, my eyes on the trail ahead, and let the rhythm of
my footfalls hypnotize my mind into a relaxed state.

This was where I worked out all my anxieties and
problems. I’d spent too many hours to count up here, sorting
through all that had happened to me in the last year. The time
alone helped me change my life in so many ways since returning home
from California, allowing me to rebound from what surely would have
destroyed me.

After I fully recovered from my injuries, I made
myself a bucket list of sorts. My plan was to take back control of
my life in every way possible. I would not let my past define who I
was or who I would someday become.

My first matter of business was to hire a new
cutthroat divorce attorney. I was not out for blood so much as I
was making up for lost time. I was determined to get everything
that was legally coming to me after seventeen years of marriage,
especially after the last five had been spent in anything
but
wedded bliss. After a little light digging, and with
Sam’s original report in hand, it was determined that while Erin
Anderson had been his only long term affair, there were many more
women with whom Beck had had repeated relations over a number of
years.

I considered each of these women to have a monetary
value because Beck had spent company time and money on them, and if
his employer were to ever find out, not only would they fire him,
they would require that he reimburse the company for every penny he
could not physically account for. I had my husband backed into a
corner, and he was forced to reckon with me for every slight and
dalliance, especially for Erin, whom he continued to see
occasionally, against my objections, and with the knowledge of all
the damage she had done, to us, as well as to Tyler and Jillian
Karras and their unborn child.

Beck managed to display a fair amount of guilt, not
so much over his infidelities, but rather because of what he
believed I had suffered. I never shared the details of what had
happened, not in San Francisco, and certainly not at our home, but
he had culled a small number of facts from the police reports, as
well as the medical billing, for which he was required to pay. Beck
not quite knowing everything, yet enough to feel guilt over, put me
in a rather advantageous position, and I was not above milking it
for all it was worth. He owed me that and much more.

I was also determined to change my living situation.
After getting the house in the divorce, I sold it for a nice profit
and moved to Olde Town, a section of Issaquah nestled at the very
foot of Tiger Mountain. I bought an older, modest little bungalow
with a picket fence surrounding the large lot, and a huge garden
out back.

My new neighbors were friendly and warm, always
available for a borrowed egg, help with composting, or putting
Christmas lights up on the house. We shared our family histories
while sipping coffee over the fence or rocking gently back and
forth on porch swings as we listened to coyotes bay in the
night.

We watched each other’s children and organized block
parties during national holidays. And when someone new moved into
the neighborhood, we all rallied around them, bringing them food,
information on local services, or just a welcoming presence so they
knew they were part of a real community where every member cared
for and protected one another.

Conner enrolled at the local high school and was
much happier with kids who placed greater value on true friendship
than on material wealth. When he turned sixteen, he passed his
driver’s test and acquired his license, and when his father offered
to buy him a new car, perhaps a BMW of his own, Conner insisted on
something a bit more practical. I couldn’t have been more
proud.

It was a peaceful, meaningful, and bountiful life
Conner and I shared in Olde Town, and I would not have been happier
anywhere else, though I often worried that Ty would not be able to
find me should he ever come looking. But that was just wishful
thinking. I knew he never could.

I also decided to concentrate on my physical, as
well as my mental health. I took up walking which turned into
running. With Tiger, Cougar, and Squawk Mountains all within a few
miles of home, I often ran on the many trails frequented by the
locals. I took up kickboxing at a local women’s club, and though I
was no expert, I could effectively defend myself now that I was
strong and healthy. I enrolled in design classes at the local
college and worked part-time at a small studio in town.

I felt good about every aspect of my life, save one.
Because I was so busy, I didn’t allow myself much time to feel
lonely, but late in the evenings when my mind was quiet, I felt the
empty space around me all too keenly. I continued to fantasize
about clear blue eyes invitingly wrinkled at the corners smiling
down upon me, hard-muscled shoulders to hold onto, and a finely
shaped mouth to rest my lips upon. I shook my head and chastised
myself for useless daydreaming. Why could I not move on from that
part of my life? I sighed and accepted that only time would heal
the ragged edges of my heart, though thus far, the calendar had
done very little in the way of reparation.

Undoubtedly, the most satisfying part of my life
was, at first, a shock, and then a major hassle, but when I
realized the opportunity I was being offered, I attacked with the
full fury of a woman wronged. Erin Anderson had made a poorly
calculated mistake when she used her relationship with Beck to
assume my identity. She had a fake ID made with her photo and my
information. From there, she was able to forge other documents,
gaining access to my accounts and stealing from me.