Read Online Don't Look Twice by Andrew Gross - Free Book Online

Hauck opened and knelt down as the excited dog jumped against his chest. “Hey, bud…”
    It seemed like days ago that he and Jessie were supposed to pick him up before heading onto the boat. But it was only hours. “You must be starved, guy.”
    He went into the bedroom, pulled off the soiled fleece pullover, and flung it into the hamper. He took a long look at himself in the mirror.
    His short, dark hair was matted from sweat, his clear blue eyes dulled and drawn from the day. Hauck’s body, still fit and athletic at forty-three, ached like it did after he’d been pounded by two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linemen back in college. He was exhausted. The bandaged gash on his neck had begun to throb. He couldn’t remember his last meal.
    He trudged back to the kitchen and opened a can of dog food and a Yuengling beer. He clicked on the TV, still standing there bare-chested in his jeans.
    â€œBrazen gunfire erupts in one of the area’s poshest suburbs…,” the newscaster announced, “and a rising young attorney is dead.”
    Hauck listened as the pretty reporter recounted the details of the drive-by shooting, set up in front of the darkened, blocked-off Exxon station on Putnam. She went through the details of how David Sanger was killed, the suspicion that he had stepped into a hail of gunfire intended for someone else. “A tragic act of revenge gone wrong,” she called it. He saw a shot of himself on the screen, a quick sound bite of him trying to urge calm and not sounding very effective.
    His cell phone rang.
    Hauck reached for it, pleased to see Karen’s name on the caller ID.
    â€œSo, how the hell was your day?” He exhaled, throwing himself on the couch in front of the TV.
    â€œTy…” Karen exclaimed. “I just heard. I can’t believe what I just saw on the news down here…”
    â€œSee what happens,” he sniffed, “when you bail out on me.”
    â€œTy, don’t joke about this, please. I just saw you being interviewed. You were there ?”
    â€œJess and I were getting ready to take the boat out one last time. We were waiting in line to pay.”
    â€œJessie was with you?”
    â€œDon’t worry, Karen, she’s okay. They took her to Greenwich Hospital, just for precautions. She’s back in Brooklyn with Beth now.”
    â€œMy God, Ty, that must have been awful! What about you? Are you okay?”
    For a moment he thought about telling her. His horror as he turned at the register and saw the red pickup’s window roll down. The feeling of hugging his daughter with everything he had, flashes of orange death all around. Seeing her body lying there, covered with blood.
    Instead, he just took in a breath and shut his eyes. “Yeah, I’m doing okay, Karen.”
    â€œI saw that someone was killed,” Karen said. “A lawyer.”
    â€œNot just a lawyer, a United States attorney. Based in Hartford. He lived here in town. We were all just sort of standing at the cooler a minute before picking out drinks.”
    â€œThey’re saying revenge?”
    â€œNot on him. Just the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    â€œOh, God, that’s so horrible, Ty.”
    â€œYeah. The guy’s cell phone started to ring. The body’s just lying there on the floor, eyes wide, whatever he’d been carrying, cans of soda, off to the side…And his phone starts chiming. His wife calling in. It goes into his voice mail. What the hell do you do then, Karen?”
    â€œI don’t know, Ty. I don’t know what you do.”
    Hauck paused, lowering the volume on the TV. “You just let it ring; what the hell else is there? You just stand there and suddenly you realize—she’s just wondering where he is, why’s hetaking so long. He just went to fill up the fucking car. Like any day…Except her whole world is about to implode on the other end of that line.