“The best thing to hold on to in life is each other.”—Audrey Hepburn
Coming into her second week at Mark’s, Honey acknowledged she couldn’t put it off any longer. She’d have to return to Forty-One Park and pack her things. Once she took stock, she’d get movers in to carry out the furniture she chose to hold onto, assuming she could afford short-term storage. Afterward she’d turn in her key to the doorman and close out that chapter of her life once and for all.
They arranged to go on a morning when Marc’s schedule allowed him to come with her. He insisted it wasn’t safe for her to go alone or with another woman such as Liz and as much as she disliked admitting it, he was probably right. She doubted Drew would come around during a weekday morning but then again he was a wildcard. She couldn’t bee too careful, especially now that she had so very much to live for.
Stepping inside the silent unit, she gasped, grabbing at Marc’s forearm. “Oh, no!”
Drew’s final revenge: her beautiful clothes, the fruits of more than six years of canvassing vintage clothing stores and flea markets throughout the city’s five boroughs, littered the floor in torn scraps. Her hats had taken it too, the crowns crushed, the ribbons and scarves, rosettes and other embellishments torn off. Pearls spilled everywhere. Mr. Pinky’s head was torn off, the stuffing bleeding out onto the bedspread. The sight, a tangible reminder of Drew’s viciousness, brought tears to her eyes. The stuffed animal cat, a gift from her mom, was her last link to Omaha and her childhood. Thank God she’d gotten the real-life Cat out in time.
Following her gaze, Marc crossed to the bed and picked up Pinky, scooping up the remains in his big, gentle hands. “I’m pretty sure there are people who specialize in repairing stuffed toys.”
“Thanks, but it’s okay. I have a real cat now.” And you. I have you, she almost added but bit back the statement. She didn’t want her declaration of love to take place amidst Drew’s destruction.
He set down the mutilated toy. Hands fisting, he shook his head. “There is nothing about this that comes close to okay.”
“You’re right, there isn’t,” she conceded. “But clothing and jewelry can be replaced. Living creatures can’t. I hate what happened here, but I’m also really grateful to be safe, to have Cat safe—to have you safe.”
He set his hands on her shoulders, their reassuring warmth seeping through her Ann Taylor linen trench coat, one of a very few clothing purchases she’d allowed him to make for her. Though new and off the rack, it reminded her of the trench Audrey had worn throughout Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Like Holly Golightly, she’d escaped from her past choices in the nick of time.
“I know that look. What else is on your mind?” Marc asked.
“I’ve been thinking about our … my living arrangements. Once I pass my GED and get some sort of job, I should start looking for a place of my own—just for a while.”
His face fell and his hands slid away. “I know Washington Heights isn’t exactly Park Avenue, but I have plenty of room and with a little practice, I can probably get my dirty socks into the hamper on the first shot. And Cat’s already used to it—and me.”
His offer warmed her but the more she thought about what Liz and Sarah had said in group, the more right her friends seemed. She needed some space on her own to figure things out. She still hadn’t scraped together the courage to tell him about her call-girl past. That was a lot for any man to accept. Marc cared for her deeply. She could feel it, see it in his eyes. He might even be on his way to loving her. But in love as in life, there were no guarantees. Once she admitted to going on “dates” with men for money, he might not feel the same about her.
“Darling, thank you, but I’m afraid I—”
“Can’t accept,” he finished for her, looking unhappy yet resigned. “Mind telling me why?”
It would be all too easy to cast aside any plans of her own and slip back into the pattern of allowing a man to take care of her. But if the past six years with Drew had taught her anything, it was that the easy way out wasn’t so easy at all. If she and Marc were to have a shot at a future, preferably one that led to a real-life Happily Ever After, first she was going to have to do the hard work involved in coming to him, and into their relationship, as an equal.
“I’ve never really had a place of my own. Before Drew, I was sharing a one-bedroom in Union Square with three other girls, and back in Omaha I lived at home with my mom and stepfather. I need to make it on my own … for a little while at least. Please try and understand.”
He hesitated and nodded. “I think I do. That doesn’t mean I have to like it—or stop trying to change your mind.”
Honey found her smile. “I’d be disappointed if you did.”
Could she really be this happy? Could her life be working out despite all the mistakes she’d made?
“I have to run some errands but will you at least let me buy you lunch later? Despite all this, I feel like we should celebrate.”
“New leaves and new beginnings?” Honey suggested, the familiar words having a bitter ring.
“I was thinking more along the lines of a whole new book. Marc lowered his head and brushed his mouth across her. Pulling back, he smiled. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
*
“Honey Gladwell?’
Outside of Forty-One Park, Honey froze in her tracks. Another “friend” of Drew’s? Or perhaps a former client? Unsure which was worse, she spun around. A tall, slender man in a dark suit, crisp white shirt, and black wingtips stood on the sidewalk before her. Short-haired, clean shaven, and square jawed, he might have been in finance except for his suit, clearly off the rack. That and the dark tinted sunglasses gave him away; the latter were cheap as well but effective in completely hiding his eyes.
Her heart hammered. Perspiration broke out on her forehead despite her side of the street being all in shade. The urge to bolt was huge. She’d run in heels on plenty of occasions to catch a cab or the crosstown bus, only her legs seemed to have turned to Jell-O. Should she cry out for help instead, scream at the top of her lungs? But help from what—who?
Finding her voice, she managed to answer, “That depends. Who are you?”
“Special Agent Carlson. FBI.” He whipped out a badge, holding it low and cupped in his palm so that only she could see. “And you are Honey Gladwell, or Hortense Gustafson.”
Jesus, he really was with the FBI. Despite the bright sunny day, the scenario suddenly took on a film noire quality, a sense of sinister expectation dimming the lights and adding an inner chill to the otherwise soft spring breeze. The last time she’d felt this same frightening sense of helplessness, had such a foregone surety of defeat, Drew was dragging her into the stairwell.
“What if I am?”
Whatever was going on must have to do with her escort days. What else? Just as she’d always feared, her past was coming back to bite her. The timing of her retribution couldn’t be more ironic—or tragic. Just as she set her feet on the proverbial straight-and-narrow, just as she was finally getting her life together, hell was raining down. It was almost biblical. It was biblical. It seemed her mother had been right all along.
She was destined to come to a bad end.
Only it wasn’t only her anymore. There was Marc now. She was poison fruit. She could only hope the tastes he’d so far taken wouldn’t end up ruining him along with her.
Agent Carlson’s monotone brought her back to the moment. “We need to talk.”
Fresh panic flared. If she could buy some time, a day, she could maybe manage to get away, on the next bus out of New York. They’d catch up with her eventually, of course, but hopefully not before she’d managed to put some significant mileage between herself and Manhattan—and most importantly, Marc.
“I’m afraid I’m just on my way—”
“I need an hour of your time—in private.”
Despite her pounding pulse and almost out-of-body sense of disorientation, a smattering of reason wended its way into her buzzing brain. Admittedly prostitution was illegal, but it also had to be proven. Even if they had her dead to rights, she was a small fish in an altogether enormous pond of nefarious activity. Other than spreading her legs in exchange for money, most of which had gone to the agency, not her, she hadn’t been party to any crimes. She didn’t do drugs; certainly she never sold them. Surely the FBI had weightier matters to address than rousting a retired escort, especially one who’d taken herself out of the game six years ago.
“My past is in the past, and I prefer to leave it there. Unless you have a warrant, I can’t imagine why I should speak to you.”
Honey wasn’t certain law enforcement actually needed a warrant to interview someone but the words had popped into her head, likely the legacy of watching so many Cagney & Lacey reruns when she was little and, well, on the fly, it had sounded good.
His stone face assured her that her scripted response carried absolutely no weight. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Miss Gustafson. It’s in your best interest to cooperate. I’m going to need you to come downtown with me.”
As if on cue, a black SUV rolled up to the curb, stopping in front of them. Carlson took possession of her elbow, steering her toward the rear door. “Get in the car, ma’am.”
Panic climbed her throat. She whipped her head about to face him, the sharp motion knocking her hat askew. “And if I choose not to?”
Unsmiling, he stared back at her, or at least she imagined he did. His lenses were so tinted she couldn’t really tell. “Then I’d say you can count on wearing orange in your near future.”
He released her, reached for the door handle, and opened the door. Heart in her throat, Honey climbed in.
*
Honey was late. Not fashionably late, or Manhattan late, but late-late—by more than a half hour. Seated at one of the coveted tables by the open ceiling-to-floor windows of Il Cantinori, Marc checked his cell phone yet again. Still no message in response to his, no text, voicemail, or email, but then she was bad about letting her phone battery run low. It was the perfect spring day, perfect romantic restaurant, perfect wine list and menu—all perfect except for the one absolutely essential missing ingredient: Honey.
The bottle of champagne he’d ordered bobbed in its metal bucket of melting ice. He was on his second glass of tap water and his third slice of bread, and the server who’d started out so obsequious stood giving him the hairy eyeball from the vicinity of the bar. On his last tableside visit, he’d made a point of mentioning that lunch service stopped at 2:30. Marc didn’t blame him. He was a last-minute reservation taking up coveted table space without ordering, and he wasn’t anything close to a regular. In fact, it was his first time here. In the Manhattan top-tier restaurant trade, second to stiffing a server, table squatting was the closest thing to a sin. Be that as it may, he sure as hell wasn’t about to order lunch without Honey, not at these prices.
Where was she?
Could she have gone to the wrong restaurant? El Cantinero, a Mexican restaurant, was nearby. The names were similar enough for someone like him to get them confused, less likely for Honey. She was a walking Zagat’s for Manhattan fine dining establishments. He seriously doubted she would make such a mistake. Still, everyone had an off day once in a while, and seeing her belongings destroyed and her former apartment trashed had to be traumatic. Even for a sicko such as Winterthur, beheading her childhood stuffed animal was a seriously low blow. Though she seemed fine when he left her, it was possible she was having a delayed reaction, maybe even a mini meltdown.
Or maybe she really was waiting at El Cantinero, staring into her plastic basket of tortilla chips wondering why he was such an asshole? To be safe, he tapped out one last text message, this one containing his coordinates.
I’m still at Il Cantinori, 10th between Broadway & University. Champagne’s chilling. Where ARE you?
*
The conference room was windowless, featureless and neon-lit; the tea tepid, from a bag, and served in the sort of white Styrofoam cup that Honey hadn’t known they even manufactured anymore. Sandwiched between two federal agents in an interior conference room on the twenty-third floor of 26 Federal Plaza, Honey tamped down the temptation to go back to gnawing at her nails.
Not for the first time since she’d sat down twenty minutes ago, her thoughts went to Marc. He would be wondering where she was. Worse, he’d assume she’d stood him up. A smart girl would have text-messaged him an excuse, preferably one that was believable. With luck, he would even buy it. But she’d promised them both that she would never lie to him and despite the odd—horrendous—circumstances, it was a promise she was doing her level best to keep. Besides, Honey wasn’t feeling particularly smart at the moment; ditto for lucky.
She divided her gaze between Agent Carlson, seated at the conference table across from her, and his associate, the SUV driver, Agent Wilkes. Ten minutes into their interrogation, their good-cop bad-cop routine was already wearing thin. “I think it’s time you told me exactly what sort of trouble I’m supposedly in; otherwise I’d like to leave. I have a luncheon engagement,” she added, not that she expected them to care but because (a) it was true and (b) a luncheon was a far more respectable activity than how they probably imagined a former call girl passed her time.
The agents traded glances.
“If this is about my past, I can assure you that when I left the … service, I left that life behind. I don’t have any communication with anyone from those days, not the other girls, not the former clients, and certainly not the agency owners.”
“It’s not about your past … employment. It’s about your boyfriend.”
She hadn’t expected that. “My … ” Marc, what could they possibly want with Marc? He was as straight as straight arrows came. Though she hadn’t known him all that long, not really, she’d stake her life that he wouldn’t dream of doing anything remotely illegal.
Apparently reading her confusion, Agent Carlson quickly cut in, “Not the doctor, the other one—the finance guy, Andrew Winterthur.”
Staring down into her tea, which Agent Wilkes, a.k.a. Good Cop, had insisted on providing, she willed herself to relax. If Drew had gotten himself into some sort of trouble with the feds, that was too bad but it wasn’t her worry, not anymore. “I broke it off with him several weeks ago,” she said, never happier to admit the truth in all her life.
“Is that why we found you standing outside of Forty-One Park, the building where he’s put you up for the last six years?”
“How long have you been following me?”
Carlson’s gaze shuttered. “Answer the question, ma’am.”
“Very well, I was there to collect my belongings.”
“And yet, other than your shoulder bag, you walked out empty handed.”
A mental picture of the apartment in the aftermath of Drew’s rampage leapt to mind. Even though she had bigger worries now than replacing her ruined things, a lot bigger, anger swelled, squeezing out the fear—for now.
“That’s because he didn’t leave me anything to pack. If you don’t believe me, then maybe you’ll believe this.” She opened her Prada purse and pulled out Mr. Pinky’s remains, stuffing spilling from the severed head. In a last weak moment, she’d scooped him up in the hope he might be salvaged after all. “He slashed or smashed every piece of clothing, every memento, every photo I’d left in the apartment. Other than the clothes on my back, a few toiletries, and my rescue kitten, I have nothing left.”
“I’m sorry.” The two agents exchanged looks. As much as Honey wanted to believe they were expressions of sympathy, she was too smart for that degree of self-deception.
“Is there any chance he might take you back?” Wilkes asked.
“Take me back! He put me in the hospital last February. He could have killed me. He broke my wrist. I shouldn’t have gone back to him after that, but I did. I certainly wouldn’t be so stupid, or self-destructive, a second time.”
“You may not have a choice,” Carlson said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“How much do you know about the Wolfgang Fund?”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“What about HG Enterprises—that ring any bells?” Carlson persisted.
Stunned, Honey stared up at him. With the sunglasses removed, she saw that his eyes were blue, weary-looking and bracketed by lines. He probably wasn’t much more than forty, and yet he had the mien of a much older man. And suddenly she got it. He and his partner might be gaming her, but only to a point.
She really was in a serious lot of trouble.
“Other than that it’s my initials, I’ve never heard of it,” she answered honestly. Drew, what the hell have you done now?
Carlson’s gaze bore into hers. “Sure about that? I should remind you that lying to a federal agent brings a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.”
“Of course I’m sure!” Lowering her voice, she added, “Drew never spoke to me about his business dealings.”
“Never? Do you mean to say that in six years, there was no pillow talk ever?”
The thought of drinking more tea gagged her. She pushed the cup aside. “Beyond the general complaint here and there, there wasn’t. Look, I was his mistress. When he visited me, it was for sex, not to gather my opinions on the latest market trends.”
It was the truth—but would the truth be enough?
“In that case, allow me to enlighten you. HG Enterprises is one of several dummy corporations Winterthur and his partner, Frank Dawes, set up almost six years ago. Like the others, it’s a ghost corporation—it doesn’t exist anywhere but on paper.”
She fitted a hand to her forehead, pounding apace with her heart. “I don’t understand. Drew is a partner at his firm. I may not know anything about finance, but I do know it’s a very well-respected private equity firm with offices not only in New York but worldwide.”
“That’s true, but it seemed your boy was feeling entrepreneurial—and greedy. He set up the Wolfgang Fund as a shadow syndicate operating within his private equity firm. Right now it looks like he and Dawes are the only insiders involved, though it’s too soon to be conclusive. Most of his marks are middle-class folks from out of state looking to make some scratch for their kids’ college funds, time share properties, supplemental income for retirement, that type of thing. When he cold-calls from his interior office line, his firm is what shows up on their caller IDs—perfectly legit, or so it would seem to the average Joe.”
“But that’s—”
Carlson cut her off. “Fraud, Ms. Gustafson—securities fraud, and we have reason to suspect money laundering, too. Like it or not, you’re implicated. He set up that dummy corp in your name, using your social security number and what looks an awful lot like your signature. Are you telling me it’s not, that it’s a forgery?”
He nodded to Wilkes, who slid a stapled sheaf of papers across the conference table toward her. Feeling numb, Honey picked them up and began flipping through to the final page.
“Oh my God.” The signature was unmistakably hers, down to the thick blue-felt pen she used.
She remembered that pen as well as the day. Certain she was embarking on her fairy tale future, she’d stepped over the threshold of 6C, Forty-One Park for the very first time, hand-in-hand with Drew.
“Like it?” he asked, leading her about the empty apartment.
She turned to him, her mouth tiring from all the smiling she’d been doing. “Like it? Darling, I adore it.”
They made love on the air mattress he’d just happened to have waiting and inflated. Afterward, while sipping champagne in bed, a lease document (or so he’d told her at the time), had materialized along with a pen.
“Babe, I need your social for the lease. No need to read it, baby, just fill in your SSN and sign on the dotted line; I’ll take care of all the rest. This way if anything happens to me, I’ve got you covered.”
I’ve got you covered.
Honey replaced the top page and slid the stapled document back to Carlson. “No, it’s not a forgery. I thought … He told me I was co-signing the lease on our apartment.”
“You know what, Ms. Gustafson, I believe you. Agent Wilkes, you believe her, don’t you?”
“Sure I do.”
Carlson turned back to her. “We believe you, ma’am, but whether or not a jury buys your story, well, that’s another matter.”
“A jury!”
The two agents nodded. Carlson answered, “Whatever promises Winterthur made you, the bottom line is that he’s a married man and you’re the other woman, and not just the other woman but a former escort who was paid for her … services. You’re not going to have much luck playing the sympathy card with a jury, not in this economy.” Yep, definitely the Bad Cop.
“You’re arresting me!” So much for one hour of her time! Had she traded one prison for yet another impenetrable one?
“Not yet,” he admitted, “but there’s a pretty high probability it’s going to come down to that—unless you cooperate.”
“Cooperate how? I’ve told you everything I know, which is nothing. What more can I possibly do?” she added, half-afraid to find out.
Wilkes regarded her over steepled hands. “Winterthur’s holding an Investor Day at the Waldorf Astoria this Friday. It seems the natives are getting restless—it was a suspicious investor who tipped us off. He’s past year five, the year when investors expect a liquidation event to occur, only there’s nothing to sell or take public. To cover his ass and buy more time, he’s flying in his top investors from as far away as Ohio for a day-long dog-and-pony show at the Waldorf, a razzle-dazzle play to make them feel important, special. Little do they know it’s all smoke and mirrors, and they’re footing the bill for all of it—the venue, the booze and food, even the hookers. Apologies, ma’am, no offense intended.”
As much as she hated to, Honey thought back to her last night with Drew, to the early part of the evening before Frank showed up and things went from weird to crazy bad.
“Remember I told you about that Investor Day I wanted to throw? Well, the funding came through and it’s happening: a blowout bash at the Waldorf for my key out-of-town investment clients, and I want you there.”
And later Frank had said, “If he wants me to cover his ass on Investor Day, he knows he has to keep me happy …”
At the time she’d been too terrified to think beyond getting herself and Cat safely out of there and to Marc’s, but in retrospect the veiled exchanges made stunning, sickening sense. Drew had used her yet again, only instead of emotionally and physically battering her, he’d set her up as his patsy. Unless she “cooperated,” whatever that meant, she might well end up going to prison for him.
It seemed her mother’s prophecy was to be proven true after all. She really was about to come to a bad end.
Carlson’s voice called her back to the current moment. “Text him and say you’ve thought things through and you realize you’ve made a mistake. Play to his ego. Tell him you want to come back—and to prove it, you’ll be at the Investor Day as promised—only what he won’t know is that you’ll be wearing a wire.”
Honey shook her head, which was drumming apace with her heart. “But I told him I never wanted to see him again. I threatened to call his wife if he didn’t leave me alone. Obviously he believed me, otherwise he wouldn’t have destroyed all my things. If I contact him out of the blue, suddenly willing to forgive and forget, won’t that make him suspicious, even spoil your investigation?”
This time Wilkes took the lead on answering. “Ego is always these guys’ downfall. They operate on the assumption that the rules don’t apply to them. They think they’re always the smartest guy in the room and though that’s often the case, eventually they trip themselves up. Jeffrey Skilling, Bernie Madoff, Jordan Belfort—history repeats itself again and again. Right now Winterthur figures he’s covered his tracks. We’ve given him no reason to suspect otherwise. Play your part well and there’s no reason he will.”
“Don’t you think you’re giving me too much credit? After all, I did sign incorporation papers thinking they were a co-op lease. I’m not exactly Mensa material.”
Carlson stared at her askance. “I think you can play dumb with the best of them when it suits your purposes, as it does now. Sure, at the time it was easier to go along and not look too closely at the fine print, but that time is past. If Winterthur isn’t stopped, a whole lot of people are going to lose a whole lot of money, some of them their life savings.”
Honey bit her lip. Until now, she’d told herself the only person her poor life choices had hurt was herself. Now she was forced to see that wasn’t so.
“What makes you so certain he hasn’t moved on to some other girl already? He may not have prostitutes on his payroll, but I promise you he’ll have hired models as servers. He can be funny and charming when he wants something—or someone. Finding a girl to take my place at Forty-One Park won’t be hard. He may have one in mind to move in already.”
Once, the prospect of Drew replacing her would have prompted panic and thrown her into a total tailspin. Now she could only hope that he had. If she reached out to him and was rebuffed, would she still be let off the hook? Even in the midst of all the unknowns she suddenly faced, she paused to appreciate how far she’d come. In these last few weeks, she’d evolved to a better place—thanks, once again, to Marc.
Carlson didn’t exactly roll his eyes, but he looked like he wanted to. “Don’t be so modest, Ms. Gustafson. Like all rich guys, Winterthur can have—buy—anything and anyone he wants, and yet he picks you. And not only does he pick you, but he sticks with you for six years, puts you up on Park Avenue, no less. A guy like that doesn’t go to that kind of trouble and expense, not to mention risking his marriage, unless he feels he’s getting a good … return on his investment. Obviously, he thought you were worth it. You’re the one who broke things off, not him.”
“But he—”
“Knocked you around and wrecked your stuff, I know, and I’m sorry for your suffering, I am. But you, Miss Gustafson, had to have some idea of who you were … getting into bed with. Joe and Judy Smith from Cleveland don’t know who they’re dealing with. What happens to them when they realize HG Enterprises is a bust and they’re looking at living out their supposed golden years with next to no savings? Do you want that on your conscience, ma’am? Because I surely don’t want it on mine.”
“If he finds out I’m betraying him, he’ll kill me, Mr. Carlson. I know I’m no better than a hooker to you, but still, do you really want my death on your conscience?”
“He’ll never touch you, you have my word,” Wilkes, the Good Cop, broke in. “We’ll be in a van parked a few blocks away, listening to every word. The moment things get too hot to handle, we’ll get you out.”
“You really think he’ll take me back?”
“I don’t think—I know he will,” Carlson answered. “How do I know? I know because Andrew Winterthur is obsessed with you. Even more so than his ego, you’re his Achilles’ heel—and I intend to use that, you, to put him away.”
Honey bristled. “And if I won’t be used?”
All her life men had been manipulating her, telling her what to do and when and how to do it. Her stepfather Sam, the paunchy thin-haired “suits” who’d paid for her favors, Drew, and now Carlson and company—they all seemed to be cut from the same cloth. They’d all been out to take as much from her as they could—a piece of her ass, her self-respect, her future. The one exception was Marc. Other than trying to save her from going back to Drew, he never asked anything of her other than to be herself, to be “real” with him. And he’d given her so much—friendship, a safe haven, superlative sex—all without expecting anything in return.
Carlson’s eyes, weary-looking no longer, drilled into hers. “With or without your help, eventually I am going to get this son of a bitch. And when I do, I’m going to put him away for the next twenty-five years, not to mention the millions of dollars in restitution he’s going to have to pay to the government and SEC. The only question is whether, when I do, you go away too or stay free to live your life. It’s your choice, but I need you to make it now, this minute. Are you in or are you out, Ms. Gustafson? What’s it going to be?”
Honey swallowed hard. “Choice” in this context was really an egregious misnomer. There was only one path left open to her. Her “choice” came down to taking it—or not.
“I’m in, Agent Carlson. Only, under the circumstances, hadn’t you better start calling me Honey?”