Nash Falls

by David Baldacci

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

The newest thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci!

Release date: November 11, 2025

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 416

Reader says this book is...: action-packed (1) emotionally riveting (1) entertaining story (1) suspenseful (1) terrific writing (1) unexpected twists (1) unputdownable (1)

Sample

WALTER NASH DID NOT WANT to attend the funeral. Who wanted to bury their father, even if the two were not close? Yet when he had been a little boy the pair had experienced many wonderful times together, the stuff of Hallmark movies and greeting cards.

Then, as the years crept by, Nash had the misfortune of becoming someone that his tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners Vietnam veteran father had been unable to respect, or apparently even like. After that, his father, Tiberius—universally referred to as Ty—had led his life and Nash his, and the two never saw one another for the most part, although they resided in the same town: his father in an ordinary cluster of old homes, Nash behind a security gate that kept out all others, including probably those who lived in the ordinary cluster of old homes.

Nash worked on his tie while he appraised himself in the mirror. Forty years old, a stitch over six feet three and lanky, but too thin with a bony, undeveloped chest and lackluster shoulders, and stick arms and legs; he’d never focused on muscling up. Unless you were an athlete, soldier, cop, or bouncer, what was the point? His brown hair was still thick and wavy, although graying slightly at the temples.

He and his wife, Judith, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Maggie, lived in a sprawling nine-thousand-square-foot, two-story, stone-and-stucco house with a finely appointed finished lower level, and a total of five bedrooms and seven bathrooms for just the trio of them. There was also a three-car sideload garage, with his big burgundy Range Rover, Judith’s silver Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan, and Maggie’s forest-green BMW convertible occupying the bays. The property was completed by a large, landscaped backyard anchored by an in-ground pool with iridescent tiles.

Maggie had been a college pregnancy, compelling Walter and Judith to hasten down to the local courthouse to say their wedding vows with a judge they did not know, and in the absence of both their families. A true honeymoon had never followed. They’d purchased a condo instead. It made far more sense, Nash had decided. For him honeymoons were simply very expensive photo album fillers. He had later sold the condo and paid off both their college loans with the profits.

Nash was a senior executive VP at Sybaritic Investments. He had risen to that title after years of hundred-hour weeks and brief or no vacations, and living at thirty-five thousand feet as he went from one state or country to the next, crunching numbers, analyzing business opportunities, negotiating terms, and putting together complicated deals that required legions of lawyers and mounds of paper, and a cool hand while under enormous pressure.

All of his hard work and sacrifice had paid off. He now earned a seven-figure salary plus substantial bonuses.

Although he adored them both, Nash was not overly close to his wife or daughter; it was simply not in his nature to be particularly intimate with anyone. They did not seem put off by his aloofness. Indeed, his wife and daughter welcomed him on those occasions when he did join in.

The truth was he had never made friends easily. An introvert, he was proficient and talented with numbers and moving money from here to there, and assembling business prospects together in ways that were visionary and value enhancing. He could articulate all sorts of substantive and meaningful things having to do with such tasks, and also be a motivating and fair leader with his team. However, in truth, he preferred to be alone.

He had had one friend, though, one that he missed terribly to this day. He was a labradoodle named Charly. They’d gotten him from a breeder when Maggie was four. A year ago, as age and illness had robbed the senior dog of any quality of life, they’d had to put Charly down. Nash had become so disoriented and breathless during the procedure that he had thought he was having either a panic attack or a heart attack.

Did that make me pathetic? Shedding tears for a dog when I didn’t come close to that level of grief for my father’s passing? Yes, it probably did.

Yet, in Nash’s defense, Charly had demanded nothing of his owner other than the ability, time, and space to adore him. And Nash’s father? Well, the man had done pretty much the opposite of that, much to his only child’s continued bewilderment.

Nash did take pride in providing his small family with a prosperous living. Judith had gone to college to study to become a teacher. However, with the pregnancy they had decided that she would stay home with Maggie. But now that their daughter was grown, Judith had talked about getting her teaching certificate and maybe starting out as a substitute teacher before seeing if she wanted to go full-time. Whether it was teaching or something else, Nash supported her a hundred percent.

A lovely, tall, and athletic woman, she kept fit and healthy, optimistic and energetic. She liked to garden, and was an excellent cook. She had been an attentive and hands-on mother to Maggie, volunteering liberally at school, being a member of the PTA, and also being steadily active in neighborhood functions, all while Nash was in London, Singapore, or Doha negotiating and closing yet another deal.

He knew he couldn’t have done what he did without her support. Nash had always considered theirs a true partnership. Judith had also been a game participant in all the corporate functions and other duties expected of spouses whose significant others were climbing what could be a very slippery business ladder.

A weekly cleaning crew looked after the house, and they had people to maintain the pool and yard. Judith also went on fun trips each year with her girlfriends. He and Judith occasionally went away on their own, or with Maggie, and when they did, it was always quite pleasant. Their sex life was right where it should be, he thought, for people of their age with two decades of marriage and a child behind them.

He had sensibly started Maggie’s college fund on the very day she had been born, but his daughter had decided to take a gap year after graduating from high school. She had been accepted at a handful of quality universities. However, Maggie had recently informed her parents that she wasn’t even certain that she wanted to go the college route.

She had started to make noises about becoming an influencer and a creator on social media and using some of her college funds to do that. Nash knew that she spent a lot of time in her room on her computer, like most people her age. She also had a sophisticated digital camera and an expensive Yeti microphone along with some editing equipment. He could hear noises coming from her room at odd hours.

He did not mind helping his daughter realize her dreams. She was full of positive spirit, and was also tall, like both her parents, and lovely, having taken after her mother in that regard. However, the parade of boyfriends that had come through their home during her high school years! They had run the gamut from cocky jocks to awkward nerds, and even some well-past-college men whom Maggie had met in ways she had never fully explained. Nash had sent the older gents away using his executive voice to let them see the potential liability of dating someone so much younger than themselves.

So if this influencer thing was partly a popularity contest, then Maggie might have a shot. But he also didn’t want to support her to such an extent that she ended up incapable of supporting herself. Relying on others was not a good idea.

Before their falling out his father had once told him: “You rise or fall on your own, sonny boy. Then you have no one to blame or thank except yourself.”

This made Nash think of the titular head of his company, its CEO, Everett Temple, who was five years younger than Nash. His lofty position was due entirely to his father, Barton Temple, who had founded Sybaritic and many other companies over the decades. Everett was worth at least $200 million, again solely due to daddy.

And Everett, who insisted on being called Rhett, thought himself the very smartest person in the room, because to see himself as anything less would be akin to confessing that his “success” had nothing to do with him. At least that’s what Nash conjectured, and he doubted he was wrong. Because very often Nash was the smartest person in the room, even if he never intimated that he was.

I surround myself with people just as smart or even smarter than me. That way, they collectively make me look brilliant.

But who knew what tomorrow would bring?

AS NASH FINISHED GETTING READY, he thought about his mother and the breast cancer that had taken her five years before. And long before Nash had been born, Agent Orange in Vietnam had gotten its miserable clutches into his father, filling the man with carcinogens that had, for decades, wreaked havoc on his once powerful body.

His father’s first wife had killed herself for reasons that had never been explained to Nash. He had married Nash’s mother when he’d been thirty-seven and they’d had Nash a year later. As an Army brat Nash didn’t have to move around much, because by the time he had come along his father was navigating the downhill portion of his enlisted ride to a full military pension. They had come here when Nash had turned three, and he had been here ever since, except for when Nash had left to attend college.

When Nash was a child, he and his father had spent a great deal of time together, doing things that fathers and sons normally did. Years in Little League baseball where, due to his clumsiness brought on by growing too much too fast, Nash played outfield and his father called out advice nonstop, or else screamed at the coaches, the ump, and other parents, sometimes throwing fists as well as insults. They had gone canoeing a few times and camped out once, but not for long as poison sumac waylaid Nash and nearly sent him to the hospital. By the time he was thirteen his father had taught him how to shoot like a pro and handle firearms exceptionally well. Nash, though, had absolutely refused to go hunting with his father. He could never see himself killing another living thing.

They also attended sporting events together where his father sucked down beers and Nash a soda. His father was the sort of fan who shouted and gesticulated no matter how well or poorly his team was performing. During these times Nash ate a hot dog and cheesy fries, and thought of other things. For the most part those times had been good; his father had been a fun, willing participant in the important moments of a little boy’s life.

As a child Nash had attended his father’s military retirement ceremony. He had experienced great pride during the ceremony as he watched his father in his full military regalia, his chest brimming with hard-earned ribbons and medals, being celebrated by other brave, tough, and strong men.

He’d also seen, when they would go to the beach on vacation, the permanent wounds grafted onto his father from his combat days. He had felt proud of his dad and sorry for him at the same time, that he’d had to go through that and suffer so.

These blissful times had ended when Nash had opted to play tennis instead of the manly sport of high school football. It had been for a simple reason: While already over six feet at age fourteen, Nash was very thin and underdeveloped, and he didn’t want to get his head knocked off. Playing a sport that could damage your brain for the rest of your life, for no compensation in return, had never struck him as a productive or intelligent use of his time.

His father, who Nash knew had been a football legend back in Mississippi, had completely changed toward his son after Nash had made his decision not to pursue football. There were no more fun times. No more father-son outings. There was only a wall between the two that Nash had never really understood because he couldn’t believe something so frivolous as choosing one sport over another could have such drastic and inane consequences.

Then high school was done, college had begun, and then Nash had married, become a dad at a young age, graduated with high honors with a degree in business, and begun forging his identity as a husband, father, and businessman extraordinaire.

His widowed father, who had lived only eight miles away, in the same little vinyl-sided house in a hardscrabble neighborhood where Nash had grown up, had not spoken to his son right up until the day he had died. He hadn’t even allowed Nash to come to hospice to say his goodbyes. He had never even told his son he had been taken to hospice. In fact, Nash had only heard of his father’s death from the man’s elderly neighbor.

So today was here and goodbyes would be made, and then what exactly?

His black dress shoes polished, his hair combed, and his slender jaw set as firm as he could manage, he walked out the door to join his family. Then they would drive off to pay final respects to a man who, for decades, had not respected his son in the least.

He was actually looking forward to tomorrow coming as quickly as possible. Then it would just be another day at the office where he could be reasonably sure of what to expect, for Nash was a man who, for the most part, loathed surprises.

And another day of his predictable life left on earth would be checked off to be followed by another day that was pretty much a facsimile of its predecessor.

Or so Walter Nash thought.

THE INCENSE SURPRISED NASH BECAUSE this was a nondenominational church. His mother had been raised Catholic and she had done the same for him, so he was well used to the smells and bells. His father had not attended Mass with them. He had explained to his son that the concept of God was for those who chose not to think for themselves.

“When you need to look to the sky for guidance, sonny boy, it’s time to call in a damn shrink,” he had told Nash, well out of his devout mother’s delicate earshot, for Ty Nash tried mightily not to upset his beloved wife.

Nash was also surprised that there was even a church service being held for his father. Or a casket. He had also assumed his father would go the cremation route, the pathway that his mother had chosen. Her funeral service had been the last time father and son had occupied the same space. A devastated Ty Nash had perched in the front pew, staring at the floor and looking like all substance and soul had left him. Nash had been three rows behind and sobbing heavily, as his wife and daughter took turns consoling him.

He had kept in touch with his mother throughout the estrangement with his father. She had been there for the birth of Maggie and later attended his college graduation. They would see each other for dinner occasionally, or she would come to his house for birthdays and holidays and the like, but he never went inside his childhood home. When they were together, they never spoke of his father, although Nash could tell, in his mother’s looks and the questions she sometimes phrased, that she wanted to broach the subject. Yet Nash knew a reconciliation was not possible. Unbeknownst to his mother, he had attempted one, soon after she had been diagnosed with the disease that would later claim her life.

While his mother was in the hospital for treatment, he had shown up unannounced on his father’s doorstep, with a hot takeout dinner for them to share in one hand, and a six-pack of his father’s favorite beer in the other. His father had taken one look at the offered food and his son’s sympathetic features, and then knocked the food out of Nash’s hand and grabbed the beer. He followed that up by violently sending Nash off the porch with a vicious right hook to the head that his son had never seen coming, because Nash had ventured there to make peace and break bread with his dad, not pummel him. His jaw and back had ached for a month.

The church crowd today was fairly large, and somewhat rowdy, the latter condition due entirely to one set of mourners. The Harleys he had seen parked outside had portended the presence of Ty Nash’s Vietnam veteran chums. His father had been a founding member of this motorcycle group, which they’d called the “Fuck Off” club. They’d even had leather jackets made up with that phrase stitched on the back.

The vets sat together, their suits mostly ancient and rumpled, but their hair combed and their faces clean, and none of them seemed to be too stoned. But he was certain they would all get shit-faced afterward and go on ad nauseum about the exploits of Ty Nash, soldier, husband and… father. Now they were talking in voices that carried and their words were not all that appropriate for a house of worship. However, Nash was sure no one had the guts to tell the battle-hardened wild bunch to knock it off. He certainly didn’t.

The Nash family sat in the second row of pews, behind a woman who was the only one perched in the first row, which had been marked as reserved. She had been introduced to them as Rosie Parker by Harriet Segura, a longtime friend of the family. Segura had also been the elderly neighbor to alert Nash to his father’s death. Parker was in her sixties, tall, thin, and big-boned with a long, flattened face, and eyes that seemed to bite into Nash’s flesh like no-see-ums. Her dress was ill fitting and seemed decades old. After the introduction to the Nash family, she mumbled something incoherent, seeming to tremble with the slight effort.

What the hell was that about? thought Nash. His wife squeezed his hand in support and sympathy; his daughter was glued to her phone while she twirled a strand of her bouncy blond hair.

Harriet Segura leaned forward from the row behind and said quietly into Nash’s ear, “She’s been living with Ty for the past couple of years or so, his girlfriend of sorts. Least he held her out to be that.” Segura, a grim, matronly sort, had added, “Ask me, she’s a damn gold digger and your father too sick to notice.”

Nash was blithely unaware that his father possessed any gold to dig, nor did Parker look remotely like a gold digger, but he decided to table that, for now. He tried never to draw conclusions without sufficient data.

He had not been asked to speak at the service and was glad of that. He was startled when Parker rose and went to the altar after being called on by the minister. She quietly and haltingly read a psalm, and then spoke more forcefully about Ty being a wonderful partner, and lover. Nash gasped at this last word, although there were hoots and catcalls from the Harley section of the church.

Judith’s fingers tightened around his.

The final speaker called upon was a mountain of a man whom Nash knew well from his childhood.

Oh shit.

His name was Isaiah York, but he was universally known as “Shock.” Nash had never known from where that moniker had originated. As a boy he had once asked his father about it. Ty Nash had growled, “Maybe I’ll tell you at some point, sonny boy, but you have to earn that right.”

Apparently, Nash never had, and thus the genesis of “Shock” remained a mystery.

The size of a Mack truck, the Black man had been Ty Nash’s best friend growing up in Mississippi, and then his chief mate in Vietnam, although Nash senior had not been the most enlightened when it came to race relations. As a child Nash had even heard his father call Shock the N-word, but the enormous man seemed to somehow take it as a sign of respect or affection, or something. Maybe it was an Army or perhaps a Vietnam thing, Nash didn’t know. He just thought it was weird as hell.

Shock, stylishly attired in a dark pinstripe suit that fit his enormous body well, reached the lectern, turned to face the crowd, gave his old comrades a thumbs-up, and, in a voice that mirrored his size, boomed, “Some folks here who should be here all right.” Hoots and hollers came from the Harley club. Shock let it quiet down before turning to look directly at… Walter Nash.

Oh, for the love of God, thought Nash as he sensed what was coming.

“Then you got you folks never should be sittin’ their damn asses down on these fine pews to send off this man’s man to his eternal rest and reward. No sir. To hell with ’em, I say, right, crew?”

The Harleys all started to clap and hoot their agreement.

As Shock’s gaze bore into Nash he closed his eyes for a moment and felt his wife’s fingers clutch ever tighter over his. When he opened his eyes, Maggie was no longer manhandling her phone or playing with her hair. She was staring up at Shock, along with everyone else.

The elderly minister had looked like he’d been electrified when Shock had cursed from the altar. “Sir, really, that is hardly—”

“Now,” boomed Shock. “We here to see us off a good man, a brother, in peace and war. Die for the dude and he do the same for me. In Nam. And right here in the good old US of Fuckin’ A.” He held up a knotty fist the size of a pineapple for emphasis. “Truth. No lie.”

More hoots, hollers, and claps came from the Harley crew.

The now red-faced minister rose and made a few tottering steps along an altar that had been verbally desecrated by a man who did not look remotely finished F-bombing out.

Shock swiveled his gaze to the flag-draped casket, which stood on a wheeled platform in the center of the aisle.

“Ty, you be gone but I’mma tell you somethin’.” Shock pounded his beefy chest. “This Black ass is gonna miss you, Ty, like I ain’t never missed nobody in my whole goddamn life. No lie. No lie!”

Nash glanced at the minister, who had now frozen in his walk.

Shock first pointed to the sky and then to the floor. “Ty, ain’t sure where your ass be endin’ up there or down there, just like my ass when it be my time to kick off.” Shock looked back at the fine coffin. “But wherever you be, Ty, I’mma always have your back, man. When I get there, you see. We endin’ up in the same place, that be for damn sure.” Shock pounded the lectern. “God or the devil, here come Ty Nash, right to your sucklin’ breast.”

Nash again eyed the minister, who still seemed rocked by the goddamn comment, but the suckling breast reference appeared to have scored an impact, too.

Shock glanced at the shocked minister. “Okay, Man ’a God. All yours, baby. Let’s finish this thing. Ty got to get on goin’. No lie! But first things first. Men! Tention! Forward, march!”

The Harleys stood as one and lined up in formation like the fine soldiers they had once been. They trooped single-file to the casket. There, Shock joined them. And each man took a turn pounding on the casket three times. Six men, eighteen blows. And then Shock finished it off in a voice that boomed like cannon fire: “Can I get me an Amen for this man gone to his eternal salvation, or damnation? Can I, people? Come on now! Do your duty!”

Everyone in the stunned crowd, including Nash, his wife and daughter, and even the stricken minister, joined in with a hearty Amen.

Shock then marched over to where Nash was sitting, pointed a long finger at his head, and bellowed, “He thought you was the biggest stuck-up prick in the whole goddamn world. And I’mma tell you what. Where I lookin’ from, man be right on the money. Just like always. Ty know. Ty know. No lie. No lie!”

“Good God!” exclaimed Nash. “My choosing tennis over football in high school? That’s the reason for all this!”

Shock eyed him steadily. “If you think that, you ain’t nearly as smart as your daddy said you was.”

He then glanced at Judith and Maggie and said tenderly, “Ladies, my heartfelt condolences on your loss.”

Shock looked once more at Nash and mouthed one word: prick.

On that final note, Shock turned and walked out with his crew.

A minute later, the Harleys powered up, and they all listened to the throaty roar of side pipes and rubber winding up across asphalt. Nash thought he could hear Shock scream above all this cacophony of baffling noise, “Bro!”

TO HIS CREDIT, THE MAN of God finished the rest of the church service in one minute, fifty-three seconds flat. Nash knew this because he was staring dead at his watch the whole time, the blood drained from his face. He was paralyzed by what had just happened, but not just for the verbal abuse he’d endured.

My father called me smart?

His wife rose and pulled him up for the closing hymn. Maggie stood next to him, while again hammering away on her phone.

Later, Rosie Parker accompanied her dead “partner and lover” out to the hearse and then climbed into the sleek ride provided by the funeral home. She was apparently more family than Ty Nash’s actual family.

Nash led his family to the Range Rover.

At the cemetery they stood under a small, mildewed tent as the rain splattered down. The still-frazzled minister speed-sermonized through his remarks, ending with how inspiring it was that death was surely to be followed by rebirth. When he was done no one else came forward to speak. Shock had apparently said all there was to say, the Harley crew had not bothered to come to this part of the service, and Nash was still in such a muddle that he could not form words.

As they were heading back to their vehicle, a small, wiry man in his seventies and wearing a decades-old three-piece gray suit walked up to Nash.

“Mort Dickey, Mr. Nash. You are Walter Nash, son of the deceased, Tiberius Nash?”

Nash had not heard anyone refer to his father by his full name since the man’s retirement party, where it was made good-natured fun of by Shock and the other storm troopers.

“I am,” he replied.

“I was, or rather still am, at least for a little while, your father’s attorney.” He held out a card, which Nash took. “Give me a call when convenient. Terms of the will, estate matters, that sort of thing. Being a businessman, I’m sure you understand.”

Nash shook his head. “No, I don’t understand. I know my father left me nothing. And I’m certain he did not make me his executor.”

“Well, then you would be wrong on both counts, wouldn’t you?” He tapped the card. “I’m in the office all week.” Dickey nodded at Judith and Maggie and strode off.

Nash pocketed the card, got into the Rover, and drove on autopilot all the way home.

By midnight the rain was still pouring and Nash had finished more scotch than was good for him. Judith had stayed up as long as she could before he had emphatically—and a bit drunkenly—sent her off to bed. Maggie had gone to her room as soon as they had returned from the cemetery.

Nash took a full bottle of brandy and his favorite cut crystal snifter glass, which he’d gotten in Spain, and walked out to the roofed-in and comfortably furnished back patio. He stood and drank the brandy and watched the rain fall, and Nash wondered if the dead really could come back to life.

Oh, and by the way, Shock, and Dad, I am not and never have been a stuck-up prick. And it was my decision to play tennis over football that started this nightmare.

He swallowed more brandy and pulled out the lawyer’s card and looked at the address. Not the best side of town, but his father’s side. Nash would have to make sure the man was actually a lawyer. He wouldn’t put it past Shock and the other meatheads to pull a final, stupid prank on him in his father’s loving memory.

He abruptly turned to the side and threw up first the brandy and then the scotch and then what else he wasn’t sure. Some splashed on his pantleg, and his first thought was the dry cleaner. He would have to drop them off. And they were relatively new, a nice, lightweight gray summer weave, not pleated or cuffed, but with a subdued taper at the ankle, as was the style now.

And why in the hell are you even thinking about that?

He bent down and put the brandy and snifter on a low table.

As he straightened he nearly toppled back over when the man stepped out of the gloom of shadows and rain with an umbrella shielding him from the downpour.

“Holy shit,” exclaimed Nash, nearly vomiting again. “Who in the hell are you?”

The man stepped next to Nash and out of the rain, reached into his jacket pocket, and produced something that looked like a black leather wallet. When he dexterously opened it and held up one half and then the other, Nash saw by the dimmed overhead light that it was not remotely close to being a wallet.

The impressive badge was shiny, even in the gloom, with the gold bird with wings spread at the top, and something else the woozy Nash couldn’t make out down below. The ID card on the other half read Special Agent Reed Morris.

“I’m with the FBI, Mr. Nash. I’d like to have a chat if that’s okay.”

A white-faced Nash, teetering between more nausea and what he knew to be the coming mother of a hangover, exclaimed, “Now? You want to have a chat now? I just buried my father, for Chrissakes, it’s after midnight, and it’s pouring a shitstorm.”

“I take it you’ve been drinking?” said Morris, who looked to be in his forties, short and compactly built, with salt-and-pepper hair. He looked tough and confident in his off-the-rack suit and sensible rubber-soled wingtips. The FBI agent made a show of glancing at the snifter and the bottle of brandy on the table.

Nash, who had clearly reached the limits of his ability to remain civil, barked, “No shit, Sherlock. And I don’t see how that’s any fucking business of yours.”

“I’m thinking of the cognitive issue, sir, nothing more. We need to be clear on things, you see. Might we go into the house? Where it’ll be private? We’ll stay on the lower level. I would not want anyone else aware of this meeting.”

Nash stared at h