7

New York City

“So, where is your husband, anyway?”

“I don’t know. I’m waiting to hear from him.” Miranda Havens rubs her arms with her hands. The rooftop of the Gansevoort is gorgeous, but out of the sun this late in the day in October it can be chilly.

“He might be better off getting himself arrested,” Deborah Salvado says. “You know, safer.”

“You’re probably right. But he’s more interested in . . . preventing whatever’s about to happen than self-preservation.”

“What do you think is in the works?”

Miranda takes a sip of Pinot Noir. She wasn’t planning on drinking, but once Deb ordered a Bloody, she couldn’t resist. “I don’t know. From what I’ve heard from Drew, from what I’ve read, I’d have to say some kind of major market fraud; gaming it at the very least.”

“What has Drew found out?”

Miranda pauses. “Deb, yesterday you practically threw me out of your house for asking too many questions, and now you’re grilling me . . .”

“I was wrong. I was trying to protect my money. I gave him everything, so many years, loveless, friendless, childless. Wealth became my child, the thing to which I paid the most attention and felt the most loyalty. It defined me, Mir, because nothing else did, and I was determined to walk away from it with something, even if it meant looking the other way when he did something to some other greedy bastard. . . .”

“Why the change?”

“Because this is different. He’s different. I know you and Drew and you’re not bad. I knew that young man, Weiss. He danced with me last year at the holiday party, and you could tell that the job was just part of a much larger life; he made me laugh.”

“He was a good kid. Drew never spoke as fondly about anyone else his entire time at the fund. But still, you knew this all yesterday.”

Deb nods. “I did. And a lot more than that. But yesterday I didn’t think he would kill me.”

“Today?”

She nods. “Today, I know he will. I could hear it in his voice. This morning. I told him you visited. It was a mistake. I did it as a ploy, because I was rattled by what you had said and I realized I could lose everything. But his reaction . . . I know how he gets.”

Miranda takes another sip of wine. “We think he had Weiss killed because he discovered something he wasn’t supposed to. Drew is twisted up over this because he hired Weiss and put him up to it. Not to uncover any crime, but because he couldn’t understand what was happening with the fund. He never could have imagined what Weiss would find.”

“What?”

“Bare minimum, Rick’s had traders killed in at least four other cities around the world, all after executing trades he’s linked to.”

“Why?”

“As a lead-up to something bigger. That’s the working model.”

“Why not come forward?”

“You already said it. Rick’s untouchable right now. Drew is wanted for murder. No one will believe him, unless he has all the answers.”

Deborah Salvado looks for sun in the overcast sky ahead. Maybe the rooftop in mid-October was a bad idea after all. “You know, after all he’s been through, he’ll have us killed. Whatever he’s up to, he will kill, or at least have someone do it for him, to protect his money and his legacy.”

“I know.” Miranda leans across the table. Her hands are trembling and her eyes shine on the verge of tears. “This is insane, Deb. What is he up to with these trades, these murders?”

Deborah Salvado takes a gray 8½-by-11 envelope out of her bag and lays it on the white tablecloth. “When I finally had enough, when he had hit me a second time after a goddamn whore barely out of high school came to my home looking for him, telling me that she loved him, I threw him out. After that, I ransacked his drawers, his office, his safe. I hacked into his e-mail, his phone accounts . . . fifteen hundred texts to this one bimbo alone! Then, in a box in a closet, next to his childhood belongings, photo albums and scrapbooks and newspaper clippings about the alleged traumatic collapse of his family, I found things.”

Miranda looks at the envelope but doesn’t reach for it. “Things?”

“Travel documents to Russia. The northern Caucasus. Chechnya. Dagestan. In addition to his real passport, he has a second, under his mother’s maiden name.”

“How long ago did it start?”

“The trips began in 2002, just before he began The Rising. Once a year or so. Twice after he cashed in 2008. As you know, he made a fortune. I’m talking billions, Mir.”

“Thanks to my husband.”

“This is true. Drew created the model that uncovered the opportunity, but my husband put up the money. Anyway, in ’02 someone stepped up and fronted him the liquidity to start over. He always said it was former clients, but based on this it looks like he struck up some kind of deal with these Russian . . . whatever they are. Anyway, after 2008, you’d think he’d have been at an all-time high. Fulfilled. Satisfied with his life. But if anything he became angrier, more hateful. At least privately. It’s like he used his mind-blowing success as the jumping off point to . . . to destroy everything.”

“Do you think he would have tried this if he hadn’t made billions?”

She stares into Miranda’s eyes while she considers the question. “I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t expect to make billions in 2008. Maybe the money and glory made it that much more difficult to cash out on his deal because, you now, he’s an egomaniac. Because he became addicted to the attention.” After another pause, eyes still fixed on Miranda’s, Deborah Salvado says, “And of course he’d never have been able to operate on this scale, and had so much at his disposal, if your husband hadn’t figured out a way to get those billions into his hands, to turn him into a superstar.”

“So, do you think he’s a terrorist, Deb?”

Deborah Salvado draws a long breath, then drinks deeply from the Bloody Mary glass. “It’s semantics, but no, I don’t,” she says, stirring up the horseradish at the bottom with a celery stalk. “A terrorist acts for some kind of political or ideological gain, right? But Rick, he could care less about politics or policy, ideology or religion. Now, revenge? Vengeance? Hatred? That’s what obsesses him. Always. His successes big or small were never about achievement or fulfillment; they were all about vindication and vengeance for something that he’s permitted to fester in his brain, to twist him up and consume him.

“So, no, I don’t think he’s a terrorist.” With a trembling hand she moves the envelope closer to Miranda and finishes. “What my husband is, is a sociopath.”