JACK HOLLCROFT, ACCORDING TO Fortune magazine, was the most conservative man in global business. “Among the sixty suits in his closet,” the editors jibed in a feature article, “there isn’t one lighter than charcoal gray. He regards colored shirts as the gaudy uniform of advertising hucksters and once told a colleague who appeared before him in suspenders that he looked like a sideshow barker.” It was an accurate description of the world’s most respected banker. Everything about Jack Hollcroft assured depositors that he would never gamble with their money.
He was an unimpressive-looking man of average weight and average height, with thinning gray hair, gray eyes, and a complexion that was slightly tanned all year round. His most remarkable feature was an easy smile that made him look a bit like a southerner even though he had been raised in the suburbs of Boston. His voice was perfectly modulated and never elevated in volume. He was known to be a generous patron of causes that involved small children and helpless animals. Yet successful men, with personnel entourages much larger than his, were known to stop in the men’s room and throw up their lunches before entering his office. You had to be well prepared for Hollcroft because, while he would allow a puppy to pee on his shoe, he couldn’t stomach fools.
He stood to meet Walter Childs halfway between his office door and his desk and then walked him over to a setting of antique furniture that was one of three informal groupings in his office. “What a terrible ordeal you’ve been through,” he sympathized. “Your wife kidnapped. I can’t imagine anything worse. You really shouldn’t have come in so quickly. What was it? Just yesterday that she was released. Really Walter, there’s nothing here that’s at all important compared with her recovery.”
He helped Walter into a corner of a sofa as if he were an infirm patient. “How is she?” he asked with genuine concern. “And how are you? It must have been horrible for you.”
Walter explained her harrowing escape from the clutches of a madman, elaborating on the police assault, the hostage situation, and the high-speed chase through a field of automatic weapons fire. “It’s the stuff of movies,” he told the president. “Horror films, I suppose.”
Hollcroft’s eyes were filling. “Awful. Just god-awful.” But after a discreet pause he added, “Andrew Hogan told me just yesterday about the kidnapping. And, of course, about her escape. But I had no idea of the degree of danger she was in. I really have none of the details.”
It was his invitation for Walter to fill in the details. He cleared his throat. “I imagine Andrew told you that the bank was the real target. I was nothing more than the key to the vault. It was the bank’s money they were after.”
The chairman nodded, but continued to give Walter his full attention. He wasn’t going to help him skip through the details of his disregard for the bank’s money. It was up to Walter to choose the right words.
“I was in a terrible dilemma, Jack. As you’ll see when Andrew gives you a copy of the ransom instructions, it was obvious that this person … or persons … was completely familiar with our operations. I thought, and Andrew agreed, that it could very well be someone inside the bank. The note said explicitly that they would know instantly if I contacted any of the bank authorities or, God help us, brought in the FBI or the police. If I did, I’d never hear from them, or from Emily, again.”
Another nod from Hollcroft. This time he adjusted the crease of his trousers, crossed his legs, and looked up expectantly.
Walter went on, dramatizing the agony as he had carefully, and responsibly, weighed his choices. “The only answer seemed to be to pretend to go along with them, and use the promise of… cooperation … as a way to trap them and ultimately reach Emily. That’s the way that Andrew and I tried to play it.” He kept bringing up the name of the security officer. He hoped that Hollcroft might be concluding that he hadn’t really violated bank policy. He had gone straight to the security officer the very next day.
His tale wove on to the events of Sunday morning, when he had finally realized that there was no other way to save Emily’s life. He detailed how he had wired the money to the numbered account in Fassen Bank. “We have to put a trace on that money,” he concluded bravely. “That’s why I wanted to come in as soon as I was sure of Emily’s health. I want to get working with Andrew to see if we can find where the money was delivered.”
The chairman’s hands rose defensively, indicating that he was overwhelmed by Walter’s thoughtfulness. “I wouldn’t hear of it, Walter. We have people here who will know exactly how to handle this. You belong with Emily.”
He stood up and Walter stood with him. “Jack, I’d really like to see this whole thing through to the end.”
Hollcroft was shaking his head. “Walter, there really isn’t much you can do. I’d be disappointed in Fassen Bank if they even admitted to paying out the funds, much less help us identify the person who received them. Herr Vogler has been running operations over there since he was a boy and I’ve never heard him admit that he had even a single depositor.”
They shook hands and then Walter took one last glance around the office that he had hoped would one day be his. He doubted that he would ever see the office, or Jack Hollcroft, again.
Helen Restivo was surprised to find Andrew Hogan in her office. She had gone from the carnage of Emily’s rescue to her home for a hot bath and a much-needed nap. She had assumed that Andrew would be sleeping for the next three days.
“You look like hell,” she said by way of greeting.
“Thank you,” he said, rubbing his hand over the stubble of his beard and confirming that she was undoubtedly right. “I have a few more things to do before I have the luxury of rest.”
Helen nodded knowingly. They had managed to rescue Mrs. Childs, but the rest of their investigation had been a disaster. Andrew would have to explain the botched traps that they had set for the kidnappers and worse, the loss of a great deal of his employer’s money. It was very probable that Andrew would join Walter Childs on the unemployment rolls. “I don’t envy you,” she said sincerely. “InterBank won’t be a fun place today.”
“Screw InterBank,” Hogan answered. “They were hit and they lost some money. They don’t need my report to tell them that. All those MBAs ought to be able to figure it out by themselves.”
Helen was stunned. She had assumed that Andrew’s defense would be a detailed indictment of Walter Childs. He had a senior vice president’s word that no funds would be transferred. He had no authority to direct a senior officer’s actions. “You’re not going to tell them what happened.”
“The money is gone and so is Walter Childs. That’s what happened.”
Helen smiled in disbelief. “What about his affair with the lovely Miss Hilliard?”
“Like you said, it’s his affair. And by the way, it appears that Miss Hilliard has decided to leave the employ of the bank.”
“What?”
Andrew nodded. “She’s cleaned out all her files, cut her ID card in half, and left no forwarding address.”
“But you must know where she is,” Helen said, tipping her head suspiciously.
“If I had to guess, I’d guess Switzerland. Isn’t that what we always say? ‘Follow the money.’ ”
“Then it was Angela who set this whole thing up.”
He shrugged. “Could be, although she would have to have been working with someone else. I noticed that there was a tennis racquet on the shelf of her closet. You don’t suppose she’s taking lessons from Billy Leary?”
“No damn way,” Helen said. “They come from two different planets. He’s from Pluto, or wherever idiots originate.”
“Or maybe Walter Childs wasn’t the only senior executive she was favoring,” Andrew suggested. “Did you ever pick up any dirt on Mitchell Price?”
She was bewildered by his attitude. Andrew Hogan didn’t generally make light of crime. And she had never known him to drop an investigation until he had most of the answers. “Do you know who did this?” she demanded. “Because I’ve taken my lumps on this case. I’m entitled to know.”
“Could be a lot of people,” he said. “Walter Childs is still my prime candidate. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he’s left for Zurich himself.”
“And you don’t care?” Helen snapped.
“Not really,” Hogan said. “I’ve decided to leave the bank. If the MBAs want to run down the bank robbers, let them do it on their own.”
Helen sat staring at him. She was dumbfounded. “Then what is it you have to do that’s so important?”
He smiled and glanced shyly down at his hands. “I had to talk with you.”
“About the investigation?”
He shook his head. “No, about us. You and me.”
Her blank expression suddenly registered. “About us? Didn’t we have this conversation a couple of days ago?”
“Yeah, but I’ve been thinking about what I said. I want to make it perfectly clear that I don’t feel responsible for your wounds, nor the least bit guilty about your lost career. That’s not why you’re my responsibility. I’m responsible for you because I’m very much in love with you. I have been for a very long time.”
Her expression went back to bewilderment.
“So what I had to do was ask you to marry me.”
“Again?” Helen asked.
“Yeah, but this time I have a better reason. I need you, and even though I’ve wasted the best part of my life, I need to spend the rest of it with you. If I don’t, then I’ll have wasted the whole thing.”
He kept staring at his hands, hoping for some hint of her reaction. There was every chance she would simply repeat her no. Even worse, she might just break out laughing. But there was no response. He had to take his chances and look her in the eye.
He found her smiling.
“You think I’m an idiot,” he said.
“I think you need to get some sleep.”
His lips pursed. “I guess that means no.”
“No,” Helen said. “It means yes if you still want to marry me after you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep.”
Hogan smiled broadly as he stood. “I’ll call you tonight.”
“Andrew.” He stopped and turned back to her. “Are you the one who hit the bank?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Because you’re quitting your job, getting married, and going into retirement. When did you become filthy rich?”
It took him a while to answer. “About ten seconds ago,” he told her.
Walter let himself into the back door of Angela’s building and then through the steel door to the fire stairs. He had raced all the way to her floor before he realized that his heart was pounding and that he was gulping for every breath.
The key didn’t fit into the lock and he kept changing its position and trying to force it Then he got hold of himself, paused to take a few breaths, and found that the key worked easily. He stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and stood leaning on it while he looked around. Everything seemed normal. Absolutely normal. What the hell had Andrew Hogan been talking about?
He glanced at the computer as he crossed the living room. The power light on the scanner was glowing green. Christ, her computer was still connected. In the bedroom, he threw open the closet door and ran his hand across the clothes. Some of the outfits he recognized as her favorites. What did Hogan think? That she would just walk away from several thousand dollars worth of clothes? He dashed into the bathroom and slid open the medicine cabinet. Nothing had changed. Her prescription medicines were sitting there in their brown bottles. Then he walked through the kitchen. She had to be coming back.
He was halfway out the door when he remembered her jewelry. It was a small collection, but they were all exquisite pieces. Angela would never leave them behind. He raced back to the bedroom, crawled into the closet, and pulled free the six-inch molding. Her jewelry case was gone.
Walter’s return to the bank was disastrous. Word of his situation had apparently reached the secretaries and been carried instantly down to the elevator starters. The security guard didn’t even look at him as he signed back in, and in the elevator he had the feeling that two complete strangers had pulled back from him as if his cancer were showing. His office staff became instantly busy as soon as he opened the outer door, with not a single face looking up from the desk. Even Joanne turned away to hunt in a file drawer, acting as if she wasn’t aware that he had passed within a foot of her.
There were no messages on his desk, which meant that if anyone had called Walter wasn’t expected to call back. And when he settled into his chair, the phone that was always ringing remained terribly silent. He was gone already. His office was empty. How long he chose to leave his body at the desk was entirely up to him.
He tried Angela again on his private line and then tried her apartment. The recorded voices seemed mocking, as if she were listening to monitor the calls, knew it was he, and couldn’t help smirking. He sat through a silent hour, then called for a limousine and headed back out to Short Hills.
Emily was up and fully dressed, moving about the house with her usual energy. Walter commented on how well she looked. “Makeup does wonders,” she answered. Unconsciously, her hand went up to the side of her face, toward the place under her hair where the top of her ear had been severed. But she stopped her fingers short. That’s a habit I don’t want to get into, she reminded herself. The disfigurement was minimal and she had to train herself to stop calling attention to it.
All her physical injuries had proven minimal, which was why she was back home after only a day of hospital rest. A plastic surgeon had tended her ear and assured her that it could be totally reconstructed. Emily had looked in the handheld mirror and decided not to bother. Her hairdo concealed the damage adequately. X rays revealed that her jaw and cheekbones were intact, and although the discoloration was increasing, the swelling was already subsiding. The other wounds, to her hands and knees, were superficial.
Less certain was the severity of the wounds to her mind. Her terror had been prolonged. Her jailer’s horrendous threats had been convincing. Her preference for dying had been real. “She’s been through more horror in just a few hours,” the hospital psychiatrist had explained to her family, “than most of us face in a lifetime.” Her bravado, he warned, was just that—a public glossing over a severe private pain.
Walter knew that the pain went even deeper than the doctors suspected. For several months, Emily had been glossing over the pain of being abandoned. She had known of his affair and suspected his intentions for her and yet had pretended that their family life was going on happily.
Amanda, with her usual lack of delicacy, had stated the situation clearly. “Everything was a lie, wasn’t it? You were pretending to love her while you were getting ready to dump her. That must have hurt her terribly.”
“I wasn’t pretending anything,” Walter had argued. “I have always loved your mother and wanted the best for her.”
“Well, are you still going to dump her? You have to decide, Dad. And you have to tell the truth. The lying has to stop if Mom is ever going to get better.”
He hadn’t been able to give his children an honest answer. There was no corner of his life that wasn’t in turmoil. All he could tell them was that he and their mother would have a great deal to talk about and important decisions to make. But he did promise that the lying would stop.
Alex and Amanda had planned to stay for a few days until Emily was back on her feet. But she had sent them back to their own lives, assuring them that she was completely capable of taking care of herself. Then she and Walter had shared a quiet dinner ordered in from an Italian restaurant and transferred from the tinfoil pans directly onto their everyday china. Walter had offered to brighten the event with a bottle of Brunello from his modest wine rack. Emily had put the meal in perspective by settling for ice water. Then Emily went back to repairing the damage the house had suffered while in the care of her husband and children, while Walter followed her about. They commented cordially about the things that had been misplaced and disorganized. But they never talked.
Walter was staring blankly at late-night television news when Emily touched him on the shoulder and announced that she was going to bed. She mentioned that she had made up another room, which was a polite way of telling him that he wasn’t invited to join her.
He followed her to the foot of the stairs. “Emily?”
She broke her stride and turned back to him.
“We should talk … about … things … us. …”
She nodded. “You’re right, Walter. I’ll let you know when I want to talk.”
Then she continued on up to their bedroom and closed the door behind her. He heard the lock click.
Walter went to his car and used his cell phone to call Angela. It wasn’t a legal precaution, because he knew his wireless calls could be traced and reported just as easily as the ones he made from a house phone. But, now, it didn’t seem fair to be calling Angela from Emily’s kitchen. He dialed, listened to the ringing, and then to Angela’s recorded voice directing him to leave a message and promising to “get right back.” It was the same promise that he had been hearing all day.