NINE FIFTEEN. ASSUMING NO traffic, which was assuming a lot, Jacks was still counting on an hour’s drive. Sitting behind a school bus trying to make a left-hand turn on the most traveled street in Wilshire, she could feel the steady flow of adrenaline like a perfectly calibrated IV drip. She wasn’t panicked—not yet. But the blood was flowing. The bus turned and she sped past it, along South Avenue to the Parkway ramp. The cars were moving. Thank God. She pressed her foot to the floor and felt her Mercedes take flight.
The night had been long, restless, maybe even entirely sleepless, though she couldn’t recall one way or another. She had been in the bed, heart pounding, mind racing, and there had certainly been moments of delusion. None of this mattered. She’d copied everything she could think of. The mortgage papers, the 401(k) reports, credit card bills, bank statements. She’d downloaded their budget and investment schedule from the Excel file on the family computer, then printed it out. For hours, she’d gone over it all—the financial landscape of the Halstead family—and the numbers were still playing before her eyes.
As she passed the last exit for Wilshire, the stream of traffic thinned, leaving only those on the road who were heading north toward the grayer parts of Connecticut. With her Starbucks cup in one hand and her eyes glued to the road, she put the pedal to the metal again.
Where had it all gone? David had told her the equity in the house was down because of the money they’d spent on the addition. He’d complained about the drop in the housing market, and Jacks had bought it. What did she know about these things? Now, nothing he’d told her made sense. They had borrowed nearly two million dollars with the home equity loan, yet the contractor’s bills Jacks dug up totaled less than one million. They were covering that loan with a mortgage payment that had jumped from $50,000 a year to $170,000. And the checkbook for the account was missing. It was the same everywhere she looked. The 401(k) had been divested in large chunks over the past several months, their private equity investments sold, all at a loss.
She had their budget down cold in her head, partly because it had shocked her, and mostly because she was moving that much closer to believing the life they had was ending. They would never make it with what was left. Home maintenance, yard, pool—that alone topped fifty thousand. The maid was another fifty. The nanny was seventy. Car payments, sixty. Private clubs, another sixty. Private school for three girls, eighty-five. Donations to the same schools, another hundred. Dance, piano, squash, riding: thirty thousand. Then there were the gifts, parties, clothes, trips. Another eighty. Now add in the utilities, gas, oil, cable, and phones: sixty thousand. They had a seven-thousand-square-foot house to heat and cool. The list went on. Medical expenses, therapists. The Christmas season, with the endless array of presents and gatherings. And, last but not least, taxes.
They could pare down. Of course they could. Jacks had a mental checklist of all the things that would go first. But at the end of the night, after the mind-bending analysis of their financial reality had taken her into the little cracks and crevasses of their existence, the larger picture emerged. Living on a smaller income didn’t alarm her. Nor did the vanishing equity and 401(k). Those things could be rebuilt over time. It was what they said together that had Jacks racing north for the slums of Connecticut.
It took forty minutes to reach the exit. She turned off the Parkway and drove to the end of the ramp. As she waited for the light to change, she exhaled for what felt like the first time all morning. With the car stopped, she allowed herself to take in the dismal surroundings. Dull, gray concrete littered with debris, cracked sidewalks, dilapidated brick town houses with rusty metal railings and clothes hanging from lines out back. The only foliage was the occasional weed that no one bothered to pull or spray, as though it would make a difference. The accumulated neglect lent itself to more neglect. What could one person possibly do to hold back the tide that swept through cities like this one? It was a plight Jacks knew well, having grown up in places so similar, she felt a wave of remembrance every time she came here. They had their own feel, their own smell—gas fumes, garbage. It was the smell of rot. The feel of hopelessness, the acute kind that makes a person want to flee, and if that proved impossible, then to find another avenue of escape. Alcohol. Drugs. And, if one were lucky, a man like David Halstead.
The light turned, and she went through it, one hand on the wheel and the other curled up over her mouth as though she could hold back the air that was trying to get inside her. She had made it out, for seventeen years she’d been on a kind of parole, a furlough, and the thought of returning for good was as impossible as anything she could imagine for herself, let alone the children. She drove two blocks, made a turn. Another three blocks, another turn, her mind seeing documents and numbers as she drove. She knew the way by heart. By feel. She’d been going there for over twenty years.
As she pulled up to the house, she felt strangely relieved. Even with the state of things, the peeling paint, the unruly patch of grass littered with plastic balls that were faded from the sun and blackened with mildew after a rainy month. Nothing had been done to this house for years, nothing could. Her sister was so damned stubborn.
She drove around back and parked next to an old Ford station wagon. She gathered the papers from the front seat, grabbed her purse, and headed for the back door.
“Kel?” she called in through the screened window, pressing her face closer to see inside. The kitchen was dark, even through the morning hours, shaded by the other units that crowded around.
She heard the footsteps, then the familiar voice. “Coming, Jacks—hold on a sec. . . .”
When Kelly Moore finally appeared through the doorway, she was in her usual state of controlled chaos. Still dressed in a beige Holiday Inn uniform, her name tag slightly askew as it hung from her chest, she was pulling a long drag from a cigarette with one hand and steadying a cup of coffee with the other. A broad smile came across her face as she opened the door and saw her sister.
“Hey, baby girl,” she said, throwing her arms around Jacks. “You okay?”
Jacks squeezed her back as the competing forces of her own need and profound guilt tugged at her emotions. With everything that she had, it seemed entirely wrong to have turned here—of all places—for help. Still, it was the only family she had left, and she found herself letting go.
“Shhh . . . it’s okay,” Kelly said as her sister cried in her arms.
“Come sit down. Did you bring the papers?”
That had always been her sister’s way, to focus on the task at hand, worry about one thing at a time. It was how she had survived their childhood, and the many mistakes she’d made since then, including the reckless behavior that had produced two children over the years.
“I have them.” Jacks wiped her face and followed Kelly to the metal table set up next to the window in the small family room. Having only two rooms on the first floor, Kelly had struggled to transform the space to serve as a dining room as well, and a place for her kids to do their homework. There were crates with school supplies set up against one wall, and a large bulletin board with a chore wheel. Tirelessly, she had done her best to make the home tolerable—torn out the old carpet and wallpaper, sanded the floors, painted the walls and sewn window treatments. It was tidy, orderly. She ran a tight ship for those kids. All that with two jobs—hotel clerk for the benefits, nanny in a neighboring, more affluent town for money. There wasn’t a moment in her life that Kelly Moore didn’t devote to her children. Still, the problems came, which was exactly what had Jacks sitting here now.
“I only have an hour. Mrs. Linder took the baby to the doctor, but she wants to get her hair done.” Kelly dropped the cigarette into the coffee mug, then turned on a fan to push the smoke out the window. “Goddamned cigarettes.”
Jacks reached out and touched her hand. “It’s okay. You do what you can do.”
Kelly smiled and nodded, but the sadness on her face was unwavering. Nothing she did would ever be enough. Not now. Not ever. Her face turned deadly serious. “This can’t happen. Not after all these years . . . after everything.”
They looked at each other then, and in a way that took them both back in time. It had been years, decades since they’d shared this look. Not that anything had been forgotten, or ever could be. But there had been a sense of calm, a reordering of priorities. Urgency had been replaced with long-term planning, parochial school for Kelly’s children, a college fund. They were close to teenagers now. They were almost there. She had refused to take a dime for anything else, not a piece of clothing or furniture or food. It was more than just her pride, though her pride was not insignificant. Kelly understood people, even people like David Halstead. It was how she had gotten by for so many years. Giving the poor relations money for school made him feel good. Wondering what might be next—loans for the phone bill, a new car, the list could be endless—would make him feel used. Kelly knew the difference, and so she remained disciplined, even in the face of deprivation. She accepted the school tuition and, at Christmas, a small trip somewhere, a time when the two families could be together on equal footing. The cousins had grown close because of it, and in spite of the vast disparities in wealth. Kelly had dreamed of their futures, the things that college could give them. The things she had never had. It was the light at the end of this long, miserable tunnel, the reason she tolerated one boss who grabbed her ass and another who belittled her. It couldn’t be for nothing.
There was a knock at the front door, and Kelly jumped to get it. From her seat at the table, Jacks watched as a chubby middle-aged man passed through the entry and into the house. She could smell the stale alcohol from across the room.
They spoke quietly for a moment, this odd little man and her sister, and it soon became clear from Kelly’s demeanor that she was uncomfortable around him. He was standing close, too close even for a hushed conversation, and though Kelly hid it, Jacks could see the repulsion spreading across her face. A pasty, bloated hand reached out for Kelly’s waist, accompanied by a seedy grin, and that was, apparently, the last straw. Kelly pushed him away and turned toward the table, where Jacks was waiting. The man followed, somehow amused by this most recent interaction.
“This is Red,” Kelly announced, her eyes avoiding the man. “My neighbor.”
Red extended his hand, and Jacks felt obliged to take it. “Red?” she asked, observing the waxy white pool ball of a head that seemed to be resting on the man’s sternum. Not a neck in sight.
He chuckled and rubbed his scalp, clearly unaware of just how unattractive he truly was. “Yeah. Used to have a full mop. You have to get to know me a lot better to see the evidence.” He winked then, eyebrows raised, provoking a loud sigh from Kelly.
“Christ, Red, give it a rest.”
Jacks smiled politely and changed the subject. “So . . . Kelly said you were an accountant?”
Red sat down, nodding with pride. “Am an accountant. Just between firms at the moment. I think I’m gonna open my own . . . you know, get some clients, hang a shingle. Everybody’s got taxes, right? I’m what you’d call a necessary evil.”
“You should pass out some business cards at the Pink Panty,” Kelly said, stifling her disgust. Red had moved in next door three months ago following his release from prison on a vehicular homicide. He’d plowed down an old man after a night of heavy drinking. Now he spent his days and nights at a sleazy strip club, drinking away what was left of his savings, and his conscience.
“I might just do that. Those girls make a lot of dough. I keep telling your sister . . . she could work half the hours—”
“Well, thanks for agreeing to meet with me,” Jacks said, interrupting his train of thought before Kelly took a bat to his bald little head.
“Oh, yeah. No problem. I know it doesn’t look that way, but I handled a lot of corporate investment reports. I know my way around the paperwork.”
Jacks could see he was serious, though Kelly was now rolling her eyes. No matter—even if he was merely half the man he seemed to think himself, he was free and far from Wilshire. She cleared her throat, then reached for the papers she’d copied through the night. “I brought what I could. I know there’s over seven million dollars missing from all of our assets.”
Red took the papers, his interest now piqued. “Seven million, you said?” Still, his tone was nonchalant. “And you said there were letters from the government?”
Jacks nodded. “They’re in there—at the back. They haven’t charged him with anything. That’s good, right? Wouldn’t they charge him if he’d done something wrong?”
“Depends,” he said, reading over the letters from the U.S. Attorney’s office. “They’re still asking for explanations.”
“For what?”
He looked up then, his face solemn. “This statute—the one they’ve cited here. It’s . . . well, it’s basically embezzlement.”
The words tore through her. She knew what David did for a living—gathering other people’s money, pooling it all, and investing it in large-scale deals that none of them could afford on their own. There were no stocks or bonds, no securities regulations he had to worry about. The hedge fund business had been the Wild West of Wall Street. Private money. Private investments. And just enough rope for David to hang himself with.
Kelly reached out and took her sister’s hand. “Red, what does this mean? What has her husband done with the money?”
“That’s what the government wants to know. It looks like he and his partner raised two funds. It’s the second group of investors that have lodged the complaint. They’re probably gearing up for a civil suit—the criminal complaint is the first step.”
“But what would he have done with their money!” Kelly was growing impatient. They needed answers, and they needed them soon.
“Look—there could be tens of millions that disappeared here. And that would be a small fund for this business. Could be in the hundreds.”
“Hundreds of millions?” Jacks hadn’t imagined it could be that much. “What would he have done with hundreds of millions of dollars? And why would he need our seven?”
Red shrugged as he dug through the pile of papers. “Just give me a minute—let me see if there’s anything here—”
“This can’t be happening. . . .” Jacks got up from the table, her face flushed with panic. “Why is this happening?”
Kelly left Red at the table and joined her sister. It was incredible, impossible. David Halstead was as steady as they came. Duke undergrad. Harvard Business School. Five years at a top firm, then many more years of success on his own. His two lovely parents had retired to a farm in Vermont. His sister was a nurse. They were good people. Solid people. How could Jacks have been so wrong?
Standing behind Jacks now, Kelly wrapped her arms around her little sister and rested her chin on her shoulder. Cheek to cheek, she whispered into Jacks’s ear, “It’s okay . . . we’ll be okay,” and Jacks was taken back to that dark night three decades gone, when Kelly had left for good, left her alone to wait and hope and fear what might be coming. It was months before she’d returned for Jacks. The familiar desperation was in her now, the feeling that all was lost. How easily it came back, after so many years—years that had been filled with contentment, even joy at times. They had made it out. Kelly had saved them back then, but things were different now. They couldn’t scrap it out day by day, sleep in the subway, clean up in a public bathroom somewhere. They had five children between them.
A moment passed before the two women let go of each other. Their connection was like a force field, their minds running along the same track. They were apples from the same tree, and even now, living lives at polar extremes, they moved in unison.
“Maybe he’s tucked it away somewhere—the Caymans . . . ,” Kelly said, releasing Jacks from her arms.
Jacks shook her head, smiling sadly. They both knew that wasn’t the case. It just didn’t fit.
“Yeah.” Kelly nodded. “Wishful thinking.”
“What if I just tell him? At least then we’d know what’s going on.”
Kelly’s face tightened. She took a step toward her sister and grabbed hold of her arms. “You can’t. Tell me—promise me you won’t!”
Jacks was puzzled by the intensity of her sister’s reaction. “He’s my husband, Kel. He’ll tell me the truth.”
“Really? Is that why he’s been hiding it all these weeks?”
“He’s just afraid. And ashamed.”
Kelly walked away then, past Red, who was pretending not to listen, and into the kitchen, where she lit another cigarette. Jacks followed.
“It’s not the same,” Jacks said. This was not the first time they had covered this ground.
Kelly took a long drag, then let it out. “No, it’s not the same. This time there are other lives at stake.”
“Oh, Kel. You think I don’t know that?”
Kelly turned then to face Jacks. “It’s too late now.”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late to trust him,” Kelly said, her words pleading. “He’s lied to you for weeks, maybe years. He’s taken every asset he could get his hands on. Can’t you see? He’s already done it! This isn’t something that’s happened to him. He did it to himself—and now it’s on you, the lives of these children.” Her eyes grew wide as she made her case. “We have to rethink everything we’ve ever believed about him. People don’t just up and do something like this. Are you really willing to bet your life on a man who’s stolen your future?”
Jacks felt the shift inside her, the same shift she’d been having for weeks, back and forth, back and forth between two versions of the same reality. David Halstead, loving father and husband. David Halstead, thief. And who was she, the comfortable housewife or the woman on the brink of ruin?
“I’m sorry,” Red said loudly from his seat in the other room. “I need more time to look through this. Can I have a day or so?”
Jacks started to turn for the doorway, but Kelly took hold of her arm one last time. “Promise me,” she said.
In spite of everything Jacks had come to know, the safety of being one in a couple, a wife to a wealthy man, she could feel herself residing now in the past lived not with David, but with the woman whose blood she shared. Telling David was a one-way street. There would be no turning back. She couldn’t afford to lose any option that came her way.
Jacks nodded then, and Kelly slowly released her hold. Pulling themselves together, the sisters returned to the living room and stood beside Red.
“Please—just give me your gut reaction,” Jacks said, ready to get down to business.
Red sighed, his face almost apologetic for what he was about to say. “I think he lost it.”
“Lost it? How can you lose that much money?” Kelly asked.
“Bad investments. I think he lost most of the first fund, then raised a second fund to cover the first, hoping to buy some time.”
“To do what?” Jacks was confused. “Why wouldn’t he just tell the investors the deals went bad?”
“He probably thought he could hit a big payoff with whatever money he had left. Then he could show a decent return on the second fund—not great, but nothing to raise eyebrows—and he’d be saved. His firm, his reputation. All of it would be saved.”
Kelly got it. “It’s a pyramid scheme. Isn’t that what you’ve just described?”
“Basically. And it’s illegal. He could face jail time. And all of your assets—”
“What’s left of them—”
“What’s left of them. They could be seized as well.”
Jacks nodded with resignation. It was all just speculation, but something about it struck her as real. She just couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe it was the humiliation of choosing the wrong deals or stocks or whatever he’d sunk his investors’ money into that had driven him to this point. He was Harvard. He was Wall Street. He was a winner. Still, this was far more than unwise investing. He’d spiraled out of control, and she could not stop the image of her father from transposing with that of her husband. But all this wondering, this bone-deep confusion about who her husband really was or was not—that was beside the point. Kelly’s words resounded inside her. This was on her now.
She looked at her sister and drew a long breath. “Call me when you know something.”
“We will. Red can stay all day. Can’t you, Red?”
It would be a long day crunching through these papers, not so much as a beer in sight. But there was something in the room, a profound need—and with it a sense of purpose—that had taken hold. He nodded. “I’ll stay.”