Authors: Sidney Sheldon
It was a cold January day in the Capitol when Adam Warner was sworn in as the fortieth President of the United States. His wife wore a sable hat and a dark sable coat that did wonderful things for her pale complexion and almost concealed her pregnancy. She stood next to her daughter and they both watched proudly as Adam took the oath of office, and the country rejoiced for the three of them. They were the best of America: decent and honest and good, and they belonged in the White House.
In a small law office in Kelso, Washington, Jennifer Parker sat alone looking at the inauguration on television. She watched until the last of the ceremony was over and Adam and Mary Beth and Samantha had left the podium, surrounded by secret service men. Then Jennifer turned off the television set and watched the images fade into nothingness. And it was like turning off the past: shutting out all that had happened
to her, the love and the death and the joy and the pain. Nothing had been able to destroy her. She was a survivor.
She put on her hat and coat and walked outside, pausing for a moment to look at the sign that said:
Jennifer Parker, Attorney at Law.
She thought for an instant of the jury that had acquitted her. She was still a lawyer, as her father had been a lawyer. And she would go on, searching for the elusive thing called justice. She turned and headed in the direction of the courthouse.
Jennifer walked slowly down the deserted, windswept street. A light snow had begun to fall, casting a chiffon veil over the world. From an apartment building nearby there came a sudden burst of merriment, and it was such an alien sound that she stopped for a moment to listen. She pulled her coat tighter about her and moved on down the street, peering into the curtain of snow ahead, as though she were trying to see into the future.
But she was looking into the past, trying to understand when it was that all the laughter died.
Lexi Templeton’s hands trembled as she read the letter. Sitting on the bed in her wedding dress, in what had once been her Great Grandmother’s bedroom, her quick mind began to race.
Think. You don’t have much time.
What would Kate Blackwell have done?
At forty one, Lexi Templeton was still a beautiful woman. Her lustrous blonde hair was untouched by gray and her slim, petite figure showed no sign of her recent pregnancy. She’d been determined to get her killer body back before her wedding. She wanted to do justice to her vintage Monique Lhullier gown, a clinging column of finest ivory-white lace. And she had.
Earlier, the hundred or so wedding guests gathered at Cedar Hill House, the Blackwell family’s legendary Maine estate, gasped when Lexi Templeton appeared on the lawn arm in arm with her father. Talk about beauty and the beast. Peter Templeton, Lexi’s father, once an eminent psychiatrist and one of New York’s most eligible bachelors was now an old man. Frail, bent almost double with age and grief, Peter Templeton lead his beautiful daughter towards the rose covered altar.
He thought:
I can go now. I can go to join my darling Alexandra. Our little girl is happy at last.
He was right. Lexi Templeton
was
happy. She knew she looked radiant. She was marrying the man she loved, surrounded by family and friends. Only one person was missing. That person would never witness another of Lexi’s triumphs. He would never delight in another of her failures. His life and Lexi’s had been intertwined since birth, like the tangled roots of a great tree. But now he was gone, never to return. Despite everything that had happened, Lexi missed him.
Can you see me, Max darling? Are you watching? Are you sorry now?
For a moment, Lexi Templeton felt a pang of loss. Then she laid eyes on her husband-to-be, and all her regrets evaporated. Today was going to be perfect. The cliché. The fairytale. The happiest day of her life.
The President of the United States was unable to make the wedding. There was a small matter of a war in the Middle East. But he sent a congratulatory telegram, which Lexi’s brother Robbie read aloud when the newlyweds cut the cake. And everybody else was there. Captains of Industry, Prime Ministers, Kings, Movie Stars. As Chairwoman of the mighty Kruger Brent Limited, Lexi Templeton was American royalty. She looked like a Queen because she was one. She had it all: great beauty, immense wealth and power that stretched to the four corners of the globe. Now, thanks to her new husband, she had love, too.
But she also had enemies. Powerful enemies. One of whom was determined to destroy her, even from beyond the grave.
Lexi read the letter again.
“I know what you’ve done. I know everything.”
The net was closing in. Lexi felt the fear churn in her stomach like curdled milk.
There must be a way out of this. There’s always a way. I will not go to prison. I will not lose Kruger Brent. I will not lose my family. Think!
A few hours ago the Governor of Maine made a speech about Lexi at the reception.
…‘a remarkable woman, from a remarkable family. Lexi Templeton’s personal courage and integrity are known to all of us. Her spirit, her determination, her business acumen, her honesty…”
Honesty? If only they knew!
“…these make up the public face of Lexi Templeton. But today, we’re here to celebrate something else. A very private joy. A very private love. And a love that those of us who know Lexi know she so richly deserves.”
Lexi thought:
None of you know me. Not even my husband. I don’t ‘deserve’ his love. But I fought for it, and I won it, and I’m damned if I’m going to let anyone take it away from me. Least of all you.
Now most of the guests had gone. Lexi’s brother Robbie and his partner were still downstairs. So was Lexi’s baby daughter, Maxine, and the nanny. Any moment now Lexi’s husband would come looking for her. It was time to leave for their honeymoon.
It was time…
Lexi Templeton walked over to the window. Beyond the formal lawns of Cedar Hill House she could see the closely huddled white roofs of Dark Harbor, and behind them the dark, brooding sea. This evening the roiling water looked unusually ominous.
It’s waiting. One day it will swallow the island whole. A big wave will come and wipe everything out. As if none of this ever existed.
Two men in suits got out of their car and approached the security gate. Even before they pulled out their badges, Lext Templeton knew who they were. It was just like it said in the letter: ‘
The police are on their way. You have no way out Alexandra. Not this time.’
Tears stung the back of Lexi’s eyes. She could hear her Aunt Eve’s voice as clearly as if she were still alive, taunting her, laden with spite. Was she right? Was this really it? The end of the game? After all Lexi’s struggles? She remembered a Dylan Thomas poem she’d learned at school: “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Damn right I’ll rage. I’ll not let that old witch beat me without a fight.
The cops were through the gate now. They were almost at the door.
Lexi Templeton took a deep breath and went downstairs to meet them.
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind.
(Gordon Gekko, in
Wall Street.
1987)
New York: December 15, 2009
The day of reckoning had arrived.
The Gods had demanded a sacrifice. A human sacrifice. In Ancient Roman Times, when the city was at war, captured enemy leaders would have been ritually strangled on the battlefield in front of a statue of Mars, the War God. Crowds of soldiers would have cheered, screaming not for justice but for vengeance. For blood.
This was not Ancient Rome. It was modern day New York, the beating heart of civilized America. But New York was also a city at war. It was a city full of suffering, angry people who needed somebody to blame for their pain. Today’s human sacrifice would be offered up in the clinical, ordered surroundings of the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building. But it would be none the less bloody for that.
Normally, the TV crews and ghoulish hordes of spectators only showed up for murder trials. Today’s defendant, Grace Brookstein, had not murdered anybody. Not directly anyway. Yet there were plenty of New Yorkers who would have rejoiced to see Grace Brookstein sent to the electric chair. Her son-of-a-bitch husband had cheated them. Worse, he had cheated justice. Lenny Brookstein –
may he rot in hell –
had laughed in the face of the Gods. Well now the Gods must be appeased.
The man responsible for appeasing them – District Attorney Angelo Michele, representative of the people – looked across the courtroom at his intended victim. The woman sitting at the defendant’s table, hands clasped calmly in front of her, did not look like a criminal. A slight, attractive blonde in her early twenties, Grace Brookstein had the sweet, angelic features of a child. A competitive gymnast in her teens, she still carried herself with a dancer’s poise, back ramrod straight, hand gestures measured and fluid. Grace Brookstein was fragile. Delicate. Beautiful. She was the sort of woman that men instinctively wanted to protect. Or rather she would have been, had she not stolen $75 billion in the largest, most catastrophic fraud in US history.
The collapse of Quorum, the hedge fund founded by Lenny Brookstein and co-owned by his young wife, had dealt a fatal blow to the already crippled American economy. Between them, the Brooksteins had ruined families, destroyed entire industries and brought the once great financial center of New York to its knees. They had stolen more than Madoff, but that wasn’t what hurt the most. Unlike Madoff, the Brooksteins had stolen not from the rich, but from the poor. Their victims were ordinary people: the elderly, small charities, hard-working, blue-collar families already struggling to get by. At least one young father made destitute by Quorum had shot himself, unable to bear the shame of seeing his children turned out on the streets. Not once had Grace Brookstein displayed so much as a shred of remorse.
Of course, there were those who argued that Grace Brookstein was not guilty of the crimes that had brought her to this courtroom. That it was Lenny Brookstein, not his wife, who had masterminded the Quorum Fraud. District Attorney Angelo Michele loathed such people.
Bleeding heart liberals. Fools! You think the wife didn’t know what was going on? She knew. She knew everything. She just didn’t care. She spent your pension funds, your life savings, your kids’ college money…just look at her now! Is she dressed like a woman who gives a shit that you lost your home?
Over the course of the trial, the press had made much of Grace Brookstein’s courtroom attire. Today, for the verdict, she had chosen a white Chanel shift ($7,600), matching Boucle jacket ($5,200), Louis Vuitton pumps ($1,200) and purse ($18,600), and an exquisite floor length mink hand-made for her in Paris, an anniversary present from her husband. The New York Post early edition was already on newsstands. Above a full length shot of Grace Brookstein arriving at Court 14 the front page headline screamed: ‘LET THEM EAT CAKE!’
District Attorney Angelo Michele intended to make sure that Grace Brookstein’s cake-eating days were over.
Enjoy those furs, Lady. This’ll be the last day you get to wear ‘em.
Angelo Michele was a tall, lean man in his mid-forties. He wore a plain, Brooks Brothers suit and his thick black hair slicked back til it gleamed on top of his head like a shiny black helmet. Angelo Michele was an ambitious man and a fearsome boss – all the junior DAs were terrified of him – but he was a good son. Angelo’s parents ran a pizza parlor in Brooklyn. Or they had done until Lenny Brookstein ‘lost’ their life savings and forced them into bankruptcy. Thank God Angelo earned good money. Without his income the Micheles would have been out on the streets in their old age, destitute like so many other hard-working Americans. As far as Angelo Michele was concerned, prison was too good for Grace Brookstein. But it was a start. And he was going to be the man who put her there.
Sitting next to Grace at the defendant’s table was the man whose job it was to stop him. Francis Hammond III, ‘Big Frank’ as he was known amongst the New York legal community, was the shortest man in the room. At five foot four, he was barely taller than his tiny client. But Frank Hammond’s intellect towered over his opponents like a behemoth. A brilliant defense attorney with the mind of a chess Grand Master and the morals of a gutter fighter, Frank Hammond was Grace Brookstein’s Great White Hope. His specialty was playing juries, uncovering fears and desires and prejudices that people didn’t even know they had and turning them to his clients’ advantage. In the past year alone, Frank Hammond had been responsible for the acquittals of two murdering mafia bosses and a child molesting actor. His cases were always high profile, and his clients always began their trials as underdogs. Grace Brookstein had originally hired another lawyer to represent her, but her friend and confidant John Merrivale had insisted she fire him and go with Big Frank.
“You’re innocent, Grace.
We
know that. But the rest of the world doesn’t. The m…m…media wants you hung drawn and quartered. Frank Hammond’s the only guy who can turn that around. He’s a genius.”
No one could understand why Big Frank had allowed Grace Brookstein to show up to court every day in such inflammatory outfits. Her clothes seemed designed to enrage the press still further, not to mention the jury. Surely a titanic mistake?
But Frank Hammond did not make mistakes. Angelo Michele knew that better than anyone.
There’s method in his madness. There has to be. I just wish I knew what it was.