You couldn’t do this to me, could you, Charlie? To us …
Not you …
It had to be some kind of coincidence. A freakish one. I trust you, Charlie…. I trusted you in life, and I’m goddamned going to trust you now. In a million years, he would never hurt her this way.
Karen kept coming back to the one thing she still had of him. The torn sheet from his notepad someone had found in Grand Central. From the Desk of Charlie Friedman.
She felt him there. Trust had to win out here. The trust of eighteen years. Whatever she saw on that screen, she knew damn well in her heart just who her husband was.
For the first time, Karen looked at the note sheet. Really looked at it. Not just as a keepsake. Megan Walsh. The random name scrawled there in Charlie’s barely legible script. The scribbled phone number: 964–1650. And another number, underlined in his bold, broad strokes:
B1254.
Karen closed her eyes.
Don’t even go there, she admonished herself, suspicion snaking through her. That wasn’t Charlie. It couldn’t be.
But suddenly Karen stared wide-eyed at the scribbled numbers. The doubts kept tearing at her. Seeing his face up on that screen. It was like a piece of his past, a link to him—the only link.
Crazy as it is, you’ve got to go ahead and call, Karen.
If only to stop yourself from totally going insane.
It took everything Karen had to do it.
In a way it made her feel like she was cheating on him, on his memory. What if that wasn’t even him up on that screen? What if she was making all this up, over someone who simply looked like him?
Her husband had been dead for over a year!
But she dialed, secretly praying inside that the number wasn’t to some hotel and B1254 a room there, and this was how she would have to think of him. The weirdest doubts crossed Karen’s mind.
“JP Morgan Chase. Fortieth and Third Avenue branch,” a woman on the line answered.
Karen exhaled, relief mixed with a little shame. But as long as she’d gone this far, she might as well go all the way. “I’d like to speak with Megan Walsh, please.”
“One moment, please.”
It turned out Megan Walsh was the manager in charge of the Private Banking Department there. And after she’d explained that her husband was now deceased and that Karen was the sole beneficiary of his estate, B1254 turned out to be a safe-deposit box that had been opened at the branch a couple of years before.
In Charlie’s name.
Karen drove into town the following morning. The bank was a large, high-ceilinged branch, only a few blocks from Charlie’s office. Megan Walsh was an attractive woman in her thirties, with long dark hair and dressed in a tasteful suit. She took Karen back to her cubicle office along a row with the other managers.
“I remember Mr. Friedman,” she told Karen, her lips pressed tightly in sympathy. “I opened the account with him myself. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“I was just piecing through some of his things,” Karen said. “This wasn’t even listed as part of his estate. I never even knew it existed.”
The bank manager perused Karen’s copy of Charlie’s death certificate and the letter of execution from the estate. She asked her a couple of questions: First, the name of their dog. Karen smiled. (It turned out he had listed Sasha.) His mother’s maiden name. Then she took Karen back into a private room near the vault.
“The account was opened about eighteen months ago, last October.” Ms. Walsh handed Karen the paperwork. The signature on the box was plainly Charlie’s.
Probably just business stuff, Karen assumed. She’d see what was in there and turn whatever it was over to Saul.
Megan Walsh excused herself and returned shortly with a large metal container.
“Feel free to take as much time as you need,” she explained. She placed it on the table, unlocking the clasp in Karen’s presence with her own duplicate key. “If there’s anything you need, or if you’d care to transfer anything into an account, I’ll be happy to help you when you’re done.”
“Thank you.” Karen nodded.
She hesitated over it for a few moments, after the door had closed and she was left alone with this piece of her husband he had never shared with her.
There was the shock of seeing his face up on that screen. Now this box that had never been mentioned as part of the estate or even come up in any of Charlie’s business files. She ran her hand a little cautiously along the metal sides. What could he be keeping from her in here?
Karen drew open the large container from the top and peered inside.
Her eyes stretched wide.
The box was filled with neatly arranged bundles of cash. Wrapped packets of hundred-dollar bills. Bearer-bond notes bound with rubber bands with denominations scrawled on the top sheet in Charlie’s handwriting: $76,000, $210,000. Karen lifted a couple of packets, catching her breath.
There’s at least a couple of million dollars here.
She knew immediately this wasn’t right. Where would Charlie get his hands on this kind of cash? They shared everything. Numbly, she let the packets of bundled cash drop back into the case. Why would he have kept all this from her?
Her stomach knotted. She flashed back to the two men from Archer two months before. A considerable amount of money missing. And the incident with Samantha in her car. Two hundred and fifty million dollars. This was only a fraction of that amount.
She was still gaping at the contents of the box—it started to scare her. What the hell is going on, Charlie?
Toward the bottom of the container, there was more. Karen dug around and came out with a manila envelope. She unfastened the clasp and slid out what was inside. She couldn’t believe what she saw.
A passport.
New, unused. Karen flipped through it. It had Charlie’s face inside.
Charlie’s face—but with a completely different name. A fake one.
Weitzman. Alan Weitzman.
In addition, she slid out a couple of credit cards, all made out to the same false name. Karen’s jaw fell slack. Her head started to ache. What are you hiding from me, Charlie?
Confused, Karen sank back into the chair. There had to be some reason for all this that would make sense. Maybe the face she’d seen on that screen was not really Charlie’s.
But here it was…. Suddenly it seemed impossible to pretend anything else. She ran her eyes down the activity sheet again. The box had been opened two years before. A year before he died. Charlie’s signature, plain as day. All the entries had been his. A couple shortly after the box was opened. Then once or twice a month, seemingly like clockwork, almost as if he were preparing for something. Karen skimmed to the bottom, her gaze locking on the final entry.
There was Charlie’s signature. His quick, forward-leaning scrawl.
But the date … April 9. The day of the Grand Central bombing.
Her eyes fastened on the time—1:35 P.M. Karen felt the sweats come over her.
That