Desperate (33 page)

I nodded. “Yeah, more lies.”

Anna began to cry into her hands—real tears or crocodile ones, who could tell?—while I went to my car and popped open the trunk. I took her bag out and dropped it at her feet.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, watching me through sad, red eyes glossed with salty tears. “What are you going to do with me?” Her expression pleaded for mercy or a change of heart.

“I’m going to leave you here, Anna,” I said. “I’m going to leave you in the middle of nowhere without a wallet, or money, or an ID, or a phone. You’ll have nothing because that’s what you are. Nothing. I don’t want to bother with police. What’s that going to do? You conned me into giving garbage product plans to our competitor. I gave you nothing. No money ever exchanged hands. You’d do a couple years in prison, if that. And what then? I’d have to live with this story being told over and over again. I’d be confronted with reminders of how you defiled the memory of my son and my wife, my real wife, in every media channel across the country. I don’t want to think of you. I don’t want to give you any more of my time or energy.”

“What . . . what am I going to do?”

“You’ll figure something out, Anna. You’re good at that.”

I pushed her away from me, using my foot. I wanted to spit on her, I wanted to punch her, I wanted to put the gun in her mouth and pull the damn trigger, but instead I put the weapon back into the glove compartment and fired up the car’s engine. I drove away, leaving Anna sitting on the pavement of a deserted parking lot somewhere in Connecticut. I’d toss her purse and wallet into some trash can once I got a few miles away.

In my rearview mirror I watched Anna get back to her feet. She stood in the middle of the empty space with her arms dangling at her sides, looking lost and alone.

Just like me.

T
he man who called himself Roy Ripson—his name as flexible as his appearance—sat at an ornate, round metal table on the outside patio of a café in Sonoma, California, sipping from his cup of espresso. His fake tattoos had faded some in the month since everything went wrong, but they still served as a painful reminder of the only job he’d ever failed to complete.

With him were two women. The younger of the pair, a woman named Lily, drank from a bottle of Evian water while she checked her appearance in a compact mirror. She was grateful to have stopped eating all the garbage food that had helped her to gain weight. It would take some time to get back to her peak physical condition, but hours in the gym, coupled with a regular regiment of yoga and Pilates, would do the trick eventually.

Sitting beside Lily was a woman named Anna. Anna appeared removed, preoccupied, as though she had misplaced something of great value and was trying to recall where it might be. Her face was tired, and those who knew her best, but had not seen her for some time, would think she’d aged years in weeks.

Roy, by contrast, was looking far more relaxed than he had of late, his demeanor bordering on jubilant. He was a hunter who was back on the hunt again. While Lily needed time to rebuild her body, Roy feared it would take far longer to reclaim his tarnished reputation. He was accustomed to having a waiting list of clients, but word had spread among his associates of a failed attempt to steal the product plans for a revolutionary type of lithium ion battery.

In the aftermath of this debacle, Roy’s client list had dried up as quickly as a pool of rainwater in the summer’s heat. He knew those clients would return eventually—greed and power had always proved strong motivators—and those who knew and respected his ability would soon forget his only failure. But even Roy was surprised at how quickly this new opportunity had emerged. Maybe it was luck, maybe they didn’t know about Lithio Systems; whatever the reason, Roy was grateful for the opportunity and committed to giving it his all. He was studying his sheets of paper carefully, only now bringing Lily and Anna up to speed on his research.

“His name is Andre Rosen. He’s the CTO of a leading Nanoimprint Lithography company.”

Lily showed her interest, but Anna remained distant.

“What’s that?” Lily asked.

“It’s the future of chip making, my sweet,” Roy said. His accent was unremarkable, different from the one he used with Gage Dekker. His voice, same as his appearance, could change as often as he needed. “It’s the gateway to ultrafast, ultracheap electronics and communications.”

“Sounds pricey,” Lily said.

Anna’s gaze remained elsewhere.

“It’s very pricey, and I do believe Mr. Rosen has access to the information our new client would like to purchase.”

“Should we just ask him for it?” Lily inquired. Her pert mouth bowed into a sly smile. Of course they wouldn’t ask.

Roy checked his papers once more.

“It would appear Mr. Rosen has a thing for expensive girls.”

“Prostitutes,” Lily said, her eyebrows arching.

Anna remained silent.

“Well, classier,” Roy replied. “Which is why I believe he’ll find you quite attractive, Lily, darling. But it will be a shame when you OD in his hotel room. Naturally, things could get ugly from there.”

Roy thought back to his earliest days of his business. It had begun with something similar to what he was now planning for Mr. Rosen. A dead call girl in a hotel room; a payout demanded; sensitive information exchanging hands to salvage equally sensitive reputations. It was sad to think he was regressing, rehashing an old con he’d performed so many years ago like some pimped-out stage magician, a ragged mule barely a shadow of his former greatness. But Roy would not let himself be relegated to the equivalent of some eighties rock band, touring the country on the strength and merits of their past hits. Eventually, with time and determination, he would build back up to another opus like the one he had almost pulled off.

Almost . . .

As much as Roy loved the art of the con, he fed on the increasingly elaborate nature of his creations. Over the years, Roy had transformed himself into a master craftsman who took the “art” in “con artist” quite seriously. As his reputation and abilities grew, so did his appetite for the extravagant. It was not long before merely conning someone—just another information retrieval job—wasn’t enough; it no longer satisfied. Roy felt a compulsion, a yearning need to penetrate the lives of his marks at the deepest of levels, to embed himself into the fabric of their souls. The more sophisticated, the better. The more complex, the more it satisfied. He was a vampire for whom common blood no longer satiated his constant, unyielding hunger. It had to be something truly special—like Gage Dekker—for it to be meaningful.

But Roy was a practical man as well as a cunning one, and he understood the need to retreat, recalibrate, and reengage. When the time was right, and he’d know when it was, Roy vowed to orchestrate a job that would put all his others to shame. It would be his crowning achievement, the stuff of legend.

“We haven’t done the prostitute bit in quite a while,” Lily said. “I’ll tell you this much, I don’t ever want to play pregnant again.”

Roy knew she wouldn’t have to but kept quiet about his intentions. In fact, if he was careful in planning, they could probably swing the Rosen job without having to hire extra help, though that would disappoint his many contacts—actors in his company—who had come to depend on Roy for part, if not all, of their livelihood.

Roy was protective of his troupe, as he’d taken to calling the players in his organization. He would not want to keep them on the sidelines for long, but he needed this time to lick his wounds. Roy took a mental note to thank one of his favorite troupe members with a hefty bonus. He would use the upfront money from the Lithio job— money his Chinese employers demanded he repay for his failure to deliver.

It was a lucky break Jack Hutchinson had been out getting sandwiches when Gage Dekker made his daring assault. Hutchinson had been able to free Jorge and Lucas and get them all upstairs before the fire department showed, so when they did arrive, the only thing out of the ordinary was a busted window and a faulty boiler. Roy had heard from Hutchinson that the police had contacted him regarding a story Gage Dekker had told, but there was no evidence and no follow up. Still, Hutchinson was spooked. The money from the Chinese might go some way to smoothing things over.

Technically, Roy should have paid his client back part, if not all, of his fee when they discovered the fault in the plans. But Roy found it difficult to part with his hard-earned cash, and had enough evidence of illegal doings to hold his former client at bay. After all, he had done the hard work, the heavy lifting. He
had
pulled it off. The last part in Hutchinson’s warehouse, a grand display of Roy’s improvisational abilities, an adrenaline rush like no other, should have worked. It almost did.

Almost . . .

Anna stood up suddenly, but Lily pulled her back down.

“Don’t be that way, Anna,” Lily said.

“I’m not being any way. I just want to go.”

“You still have feelings for him, don’t you?” Roy said.

“I just don’t want to do this anymore,” Anna said.

Roy checked his papers.

“It appears Mr. Rosen prefers more than one girl at a time,” he said, peering at Anna over the top of his sheets.

Anna sighed and stood once more.

“I’m not doing this again,” she said to Lily.

Roy and Lily stood as well.

“If the numbers work out right,” Roy said, “you won’t have to.”

Roy and Anna locked eyes. In his estimation, Anna was something special. She was a rare bird who equaled, if not bested, Lily’s gifts. Perhaps Roy would take Anna as a lover, same as he had Lily. For now, he was satisfied just to admire her talents. But one thing was certain: Anna would never give up the rush. They were the same in that regard, both addicts who got high off telling lies. Anna thought she still loved Gage Dekker, but Roy knew that was nothing more than a lie she told herself.

Roy left a sizable tip—he was feeling quite optimistic—and the trio headed for the parking lot.

Three hundred yards away, Jian Wu stood on a nearby hillside overlooking the café. Watching. He was a short, solidly built man with jet-black hair and dark eyes focused on his targets. His wicked grin broadened as he saw them walk toward a cobalt-blue Tesla. His dossier held three pictures, and all three were together. What good fortune! He had inquired about a fourth individual, the inside man at Lithio Systems, but his employers had told him he was not to be touched. Jian didn’t question why. It was not his place to question. He had a job to do.

And soon, very soon, his employer would be pleased with a job well done.

T
he field was a stretch of grass several hundred yards wide with sixty-foot pine trees lining the edge of an adjacent forest. It was early autumn and the perfect day for a rocket launch with cloudless skies and wind speeds of less than five miles per hour. There wasn’t an airplane in sight as I inspected the circular launch pad a second time, looking for defects. I had taught Max to double-check his work prior to liftoff and felt satisfied it was constructed to a standard we both would have approved. Brad helped me set the rocket on the launch pad, while I made sure it was perfectly positioned. We stepped back to appraise it from a distance.

The Estes Cosmic Explorer Flying Model Rocket with laser-cut fins and waterslide decals looked powerful enough to leave the atmosphere. Max would have been calm, stoic even, as we prepared for liftoff. He would have been quiet and focused while we walked through our checklist.

Rocket attached to the launch pad? Check.

Launcher disarmed? Check.

Alligator clips attached to igniter leads? Check.

“We’re ready for lift-off,” I said to Brad.

I don’t think I’d ever spent more time prepping a rocket for a launch. The box it came in was covered in dust when I pulled it out from under my bed. For several minutes I couldn’t bring myself to open the lid. When I did, my breath caught. It was like taking a glimpse into my past, confronting a rush of painful memories coming at me faster than the Class IV rapids of the Kennebunk River we never got the chance to ride.

“Max, buddy,” I said, gazing up at the sky to wherever he might be. “Remember that rocket we were building? Well, I’m going to launch it now. I think I’m finally ready to launch it. It doesn’t mean I’m going to stop thinking about you any less. I promise, you’re always in my thoughts. But I think it’s about time we let this one rocket get its flight on. What do you say, buddy? Shouldn’t we let her ride?”

My question was met with silence, but my heart knew the answer, and that answer was yes.

A gust of wind kicked up, and for a second I worried we might have to delay the launch. Quick as it came, it settled, and once again we were ready to send her skyward.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Brad asked.

“I’m sure.”

Brad knew how much this rocket meant to me, what it represented. Now it represented something else—a time for me to move on with my life.

It wasn’t just the rocket I was letting go of. Before heading to the launch site, I had used a hammer to pulverize my entire supply of Adderall into a fine dust. As a final act of defiance, I covered the launch pad with the remnants of my addiction, until it looked like the entire surface area was coated in a thin dusting of snow. Soon, a burst of flame from the rocket’s fire would turn that dust into ash.

“I just wish Max were here to see it take off.”

“I know you do,” Brad answered, putting his arm around my shoulder.

I visualized the trajectory and felt confident the flight path would carry the rocket to someplace deep into the woods. I didn’t know exactly where it would end up. The modifications I’d made were something I’d never tried before. Instead of a normal engine, I made the jump to E18-4 and added weight to the tip of the nose cone using epoxy and a few ball bearings. My eyes squinted against the sun’s glare, taking in the rocket’s shape.

It was perfect.

While I was changing the batteries in the ignition switch, Brad asked, “Have you decided where you’re going?”

“I’m thinking about the Caribbean,” I said. “I could use a little sun and sand to rejuvenate. I’ll figure something out from there.”

One thing was certain: I wasn’t going back to Lithio Systems. I gave them my notice with not much of an explanation. Both Patrice and Peter offered to give me a reference, and each was open to the idea of my coming to work for them again if I changed my mind. But I wasn’t going to change. I knew I’d land on my feet. I’d find something else to do. But I couldn’t in good conscience keep working there, and I guess Matt Simons felt the same, because he resigned on my last day of work.

Neither in good conscience could I let Roy orchestrate another elaborate con, so after a bit of reflection, I went to the police with my story. By then Roy and the rest of his crew had vanished, including Jack Hutchinson, but at least they were on somebody’s radar.

Brad and I spoke the countdown together, ten down to one. As soon as I hit the ignition switch, a loud
swoosh
filled the air as the engine caught fire. The coating of Adderall on the launch pad vanished within a billowy cloud of gray smoke. Shielding my eyes against the sun’s glare, I craned my neck to watch the magnificent rocket cut an arcing trail across the sky.

For a moment, I felt sad that something this beautiful had spent so long collecting dust. I wondered if somebody walking through the forest would one day find the note I wrote to Max; if they would pull it out from the hollow tubular body, thinking they’d found something like a message in a bottle. I wondered what they would make of the Red Sox ticket stub I’d put in there.

Would they give the note a real good read? Would the words have meaning to them? I hoped so. I wanted the note to be a stark reminder that we aren’t guaranteed anything in this amazing world we all share, and that we should love wholeheartedly and live each day filled with gratitude, because all anybody really has is right here and right now. The words I had written to Max were etched into my memory, and there they would stay. But maybe somebody else would find them, and maybe they would mean something.

This beautiful rocket had spent so long collecting dust, it felt good to watch it take flight. No, it felt great, liberating, as if part of my soul had truly been set free. Watching the rocket’s smoky trail, I knew that I would rebuild my life—again. I would. Not for Karen or Max, but for me. My wounds will heal. I will go on, because the obligation of the living is to live.