“What the fuck, Burke?” I yelled. “Is that really alcohol on your breath? Since when the fuck have you been drinking? And why the hell did two FBI agents come to our apartment this morning? Why did I just bail you out of jail?”
He looked truly terrible as he sat up straighter, rubbing his nose and propping himself against the pillows. His normally clean-shaven face was coated in a layer of dark stubble.
“Oh, Bones.” Fresh tears gathered in his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“Just tell me what’s going on, Burke.” I forced my tone to soften. “Tell me this is some kind of misunderstanding.”
“I—it’s not, Bones.” Burke’s voice was gravelly.
“What? How?”
Burke sighed, and I listened to him explain how it had started a couple of months ago, during the height of the merger he’d been working on all fall.
“At first it was just a line or two at the office. Everyone does it.”
“Everyone does cocaine at the office?”
“A lot of people do, Heather. You don’t understand. You have no idea what it’s like. We’re all drowning in work and exhausted and … I watched the other analysts and associates do it for months. I couldn’t pull such late hours and I was falling behind—”
“So you turned to drugs?” I scowled. “Back to fucking drugs? After all these years? Jesus Christ.”
“I made a mistake.” Burke bowed his head, rubbing his eyes again. He reminded me of Garrett when he did that. “I fucked up. And then—soon after that I—I started drinking. I was out with a colleague one night—Doug Kemp, I’m sure you’ve heard me mention him before. He’s in Global Markets but sits on my floor, and he always makes an effort to say hi to me, even though most of these guys all know each other from their college lacrosse teams and don’t give a shit about trying to be buddies with me. Anyway, I’d had a particularly awful day. Just tense and long and horrible. Doug saw me heading for the vending machine around dinnertime and suggested we grab a burger. It felt so nice to just hang out with a guy who gets it, you know? Then Doug ordered a Scotch, and I had all this coke in my system and I just—I just couldn’t not order one, too. That’s the best way I can explain it. I just couldn’t not order one.”
“Because you’re an addict, Burke.” I dropped to my knees on the floor, feeling cold and numb. “That’s why you committed to getting clean in the first place.”
“I know.” Burke nodded solemnly. “I’m an addict.”
I exhaled. “So then what happened? What does this have to do with you getting arrested for insider trading?”
I listened to Burke explain that a couple of nights later—a night he told me he was working late—he and Doug went out drinking again, and Doug presented him with an idea. Doug had a close friend, Julian Martell, looking to invest a substantial amount of money in the market. Apparently, Julian’s last remaining grandparent had died, and Julian was looking to grow his inheritance （what is it with these trust-fund babies?）， and Doug was thinking of giving him a heads-up about the impending merger. It was illegal, tipping someone off, but Doug said if done correctly, sharing the information would be simple and the returns astronomical.
But Doug couldn’t do it alone. Doug and Julian had gone to UVA together—they were in the same fraternity for Christ’s sake—the connection would’ve been obvious to anyone who noticed Julian’s gains from the potential investment. That’s where Burke came in. Burke—a stranger to Julian—would provide Julian with the information he needed to profit. Doug, Burke, and Julian would then split the return—Doug promised at least half a million in total—and no one would know a thing. And if anyone ever did look into Doug, there’d be nothing to find. The plan was bulletproof.
Well, the plan was bulletproof to my idiotic husband, who’d begun numbing himself with Johnnie Walker and coke after six and a half years of sobriety. And nothing is what it seems when you’re on a two-month-long bender and putting the fate of your job in the hands of a guy named Doug Kemp, a sleazy opportunist who sees that you’re vulnerable and doesn’t think twice about using you as a human shield.
The SEC noticed Julian’s gargantuan stock purchases. They informed the FBI, who linked Julian to his lifelong friend and college-fraternity brother Doug Kemp of Credit Suisse. And the FBI didn’t stop at Doug; they plowed deeper into the system and discovered Julian’s multiple phone calls with Doug’s colleague Burke Michaels, only twenty-four hours before the order was placed.
For the life of me I couldn’t fathom why Burke had done it, why he had risked the job he’d worked so hard to get for an amount of money that could’ve been his annual salary a few years down the line.
“I was shit-faced last night, Bones,” he said finally, his face crumpling. “Some guys and I went out for a nightcap after work. I’ve been shit-faced for two months, if I’m being honest. That’s why I did this. That’s why I let this happen. I’m so fucking sorry.”
How had I not known? How had I—his wife—never traced the Scotch on his breath until that day? And then I remembered a couple strange nights. Nights when something in Burke was off. A sour smell to his shirts in the wash. But it would’ve been unthinkable, Burke off the wagon again. Perhaps we only see what we want to see.
“Burke.” I sat down next to him on the edge of the bed, smoothed his forehead. “This happened. You made a mistake. But if you do it again, you’ll make me wish I’d never married you.”
“I’m gonna get clean again, Bones. I promise.”
“I know you will. I believe in you. I have always believed in you.”
“But the arrest, the FBI—”
“Take a deep breath,” I told him, though my own mind was spinning. “It’ll all be okay. You’ll have to pay a fine, I’m sure, but try to have some perspective. It’s not like you killed someone. If Credit Suisse fires you, you’ll get a job at a different bank.”
“If Credit Suisse fires me?” Burke met my gaze, his blue eyes watery and lost. “You don’t get it, do you, Heather? I’m already history to Credit Suisse, and a fine is the least of my concerns. This thing is going to court. Insider trading is a federal crime. If they find me guilty, not only will I get prison time, but I’ll never work in finance again.”
I heard the words come out of his mouth, but they wouldn’t land. They remained in the air, floating in the space between us like weightless dust particles.
Garrett began to howl from his crib, and I turned from Burke, not saying another word. A surge of equal parts panic and fury filled every cell in my body. Burke had understood these consequences, and he’d done what he did anyway. He’d made a conscious decision to blow coke with Doug and drink himself into oblivion. High or not, it had been Burke’s choice to put the future of our family—our growing family—on the line.
The next day an HR person from Credit Suisse came by the apartment with the contents of Burke’s desk, along with an official letter of termination.