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. October 24. Six months 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 was four and a half hours after her husband had supposedly died.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Karen held back the urge to retch.

She felt dizzy. Light-headed. She grabbed onto the edge of the table to steady herself, unable to free her eyes from what she saw on that sheet.

1:35 P.M.

Suddenly, there was very little that made sense to Karen in that moment. But one thing did, flashing back to his grainy image from that handheld camera up on that screen.

Her husband was definitely alive.

Reeling, Karen ran through the contents of the safe-deposit box once again, accepting in that moment that everything she had felt and taken for granted over the past year, every shudder of grief and loss, every time she’d wondered empathetically what Charlie must have felt, every time she’d crawled over to his side of the bed at night and hugged his pillow, asking, Why…why?-it had all been nothing but a lie.

He had kept it all from her. He had planned this.

He didn’t die there that day. In the blast. In the hellish flames.

He was alive.

Karen’s mind shot back to that morning…Charlie hollering to her over the dryer, about taking in the car. In her haste, words she had barely heard.

He’s alive.

Then to the shock that had gripped her at the yoga studio as, glued to the screen, panic taking over her, she slowly came to accept that he was on that train. His call-the very last sound of his voice-about bringing home dinner that night. That was 8:34 A.M. The blown-apart top piece of the briefcase with his initials on it. The sheet from his notepad that someone had sent.

It all came tumbling back-deepening with the force of a storm circling in her mind. All the pain and anguish she had felt, every tear…

He was there. On that train.

He just hadn’t died.

At first it was like the cramp of a stomach flu forcing her insides up. She fought back the urge to gag. She should be jubilant. He was alive! But then she just stared blankly at the cash and the fake passport. He hadn’t let her know. He’d let her suffer with the thought all the past year. Her confusion turned to anger. She sat there staring at the fake passport photo. Weitzman. Why, Charlie, why? What were you devising? How could you do something like this to me?

To us, Charlie?

They had loved each other. They had a life together. A family. They traveled. They talked about things they were going to do once the kids were gone. They still made love. How do you fake that? How do you possibly do this to someone you loved?

Suddenly Karen felt jelly-legged. All that money, that passport, what did it mean? Had Charlie committed some kind of crime? The room began to close in on her.

She felt she had to get out of there. Now.

Karen clasped the box shut and called outside. In a moment Megan Walsh came back in.

“I’d like to just leave this here if I could for now,” Karen said, brushing the perspiration off her cheeks.

“Of course,” Ms. Walsh replied. “I’ll just give you my card.”

Karen asked her, “Did anyone else have access to this box?”

“No, just your husband.” The bank official looked back quizzically. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” Karen lied. She took her purse but before running out requested a copy of the activity sheet. “I’ll be back in a few days to decide what to do.”

“That’s fine, Mrs. Friedman, just let me know.”

Out on the street, Karen sucked a breath of cooling air into her lungs. She steadied herself against a signpost. Slowly, her equilibrium began to return.

What the hell is going on here, Charlie? She turned away from people passing by on the sidewalk, afraid they would think her a lunatic to be reeling around in such a distraught state.

Didn’t I take care of you? Wasn’t I good to you, baby? I loved you. I trusted you. I mourned you, Charlie. It tore me fucking apart when I thought you were dead.

How can you possibly be alive?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Saul Lennick’s office was close by, on the forty-second floor of one of those tall glass office towers on Forty-seventh and Park.

Karen hurried over, without even calling, praying he was there. His secretary, Maureen, came out and immediately saw the distress and nerves all over Karen’s face.

“Can I get you anything, Ms. Friedman?” she asked solicitously. “A glass of water?”

Karen shook her head.

“Please come on back. Mr. Lennick’s available. He can see you now.”

“Thank you.” Karen exhaled with relief. Thank God!

Saul Lennick’s office was large and important-looking, filled with a collection of African masks and Balinese burial artifacts, with a view of the Manhattan skyline and, to the north, Central Park.

He had just hung up from a call, and he stood with a look of concern as Maureen rang Karen in.

“Karen?”

“Something’s going on, Saul. I don’t know what it is. But Charlie’s done something…in his business.”

“What?” Lennick inquired. He came around and pulled out a chair for her in front of his large desk, then sat back down.

She was about to blurt out everything she knew and had discovered-starting with seeing Charlie’s face in the documentary. And that he was alive!

But she managed to catch herself at the last second, worried that maybe Saul might think he was talking to a raving lunatic, and decided to tell him only what she’d seen today.