Mistress of the Game

"BUT WHY DO WE HAVE TO GO?" MAX WEBSTER SWUNG HIS legs impatiently, kicking the back of the chauffeur's seat. "We hate the Templetons."



"Nonsense, Max," Keith Webster said firmly. "We don't hate anyone. Especially not family."



Max was traveling across town with his parents to visit his cousin, Lexi in the hospital. Three weeks after her dramatic rescue, she was finally allowed visitors. Keith Webster had insisted to Eve that they should be the first.



By now the whole of America knew about Lexi's kidnap ordeal. Miraculously, Agent Edwards had persuaded the media to hold fire on the story while Lexi was missing. Any press coverage might have put her life in jeopardy, and neither Rupert Murdoch nor Ted Turner wanted Blackwell blood on their hands. But after the debacle at the New Jersey mill, it was open season on the juiciest story to hit the headlines in a generation:



EIGHT-YEAR-OLD HEIRESS KIDNAPPED, DEAFENED IN BUNGLED RESCUE



KRUGER-BRENT CHILD MUTE AFTER TRAUMA



FBI HERO FIGHTS FOR LIFE



BLACKWELL KIDNAPPERS STILL AT LARGE



Rumors that Lexi had been abused, or even raped, reverberated around Manhattan high society, adding a delicious frisson of excitement to the summer's party circuit.



Peter heard none of the whispers and read none of the headlines. He had not left the hospital since Lexi was admitted. At night, he kept a constant vigil at her bedside. During the days, he held her hand through the battery of tests, treatments and therapy sessions that had become the new normality for both of them. His hopes had soared when the doctors told him that cochlear implants might restore Lexi's hearing. But after a severe allergic reaction to the first device, Peter refused to put her through any more operations. "She's already been through so much." He did not ask the doctors when they thought Lexi would be able to come home. The prospect terrified him. He dreaded the day when the comforting routine of Mount Sinai would be snatched away and he would be left to care for Lexi alone.



What if he couldn't do it? What if he failed her again?



The thought brought tears to his eyes.



In New Orleans, Robbie watched the news reports of his sister's progress on television. He was staying at the apartment of a man he'd met in a piano bar the night he arrived in the city: Tony. Tony was in his midthirties, a writer, and though he was neither particularly attractive nor wildly dynamic, he was kind and reliable. Tony's apartment was a run-down two-bedroom perched above a restaurant that sold nothing but Cajun chicken. The smell of grease, salt and chicken fat had seeped into everything, from the curtains to the carpets, couch and sheets.



Dom Dellal had chickened out at the last moment and decided to stay in New York, but Robbie wasn't sorry. He needed a fresh start. Tony had given him one.



"What are you watching?"



Tony's voice drifted in from the kitchen, but Robbie didn't reply. His eyes were glued to the screen and the Asian reporter standing outside Mount Sinai Medical Center.



"Eight-year-old Alexandra Templeton was admitted here in the early hours of this morning, along with an adult male said to be in critical condition."



They cut to footage of firefighters battling thirty-foot walls of flame in what looked like an old factory.



"The story just breaking is one of the most dramatic, if not the most dramatic, to involve the celebrated Blackwell family. It appears that the child, Alexandra, known as Lexi, was abducted from her home more than two weeks ago by persons unknown, and that a ransom of ten million dollars was demanded. Last night, a top secret rescue operation was launched involving both the FBI and the Marine Corps. All we know right now is that the little girl, Alexandra Templeton, is alive. A number of other individuals involved in last night's operation are reported to have died in the fire. More on this incredible story as we get it..."



"Rob? What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."



Tony Terrell sat down on the couch beside the radiant blond boy who had miraculously walked into his life two weeks ago. He knew nothing about the kid except that he was beautiful. So beautiful, it was astonishing he'd even spoken to Tony, never mind come home with him and proceeded to make love with sobbing, passionate desperation for five straight hours. Of course, it couldn't last. Beautiful boys like Rob didn't settle down with gentle, neurotic, prematurely balding poets like Tony. But Tony would savor the two weeks they spent together for the rest of his life.



"It's my sister." Robbie was still staring at the TV.



Tony laughed. "Yeah, right. In your dreams, buddy. That little girl's a Blackwell." Then he noticed Robbie's ashen face. "Oh my God. You're serious. She really is your sister."



"I have to go home."



Eve stared out of the tinted glass window of the limousine. It was more than a year since she'd set foot outside the apartment. The streets of New York were so intensely alive, they made her eyes hurt. Ice-cream and hot-dog vendors on every corner, two old men fighting loudly over a cab, Wall Street businessmen in smart suits eyeing pretty girl joggers as they passed.



I miss life. I miss the world. This is what Keith stole from me.



She glanced at her son, gazing sullenly out the other window. Max didn't want to be here any more than she did. Eve had taught him to hate his Templeton cousins, fed him on an intravenous drip of loathing since before he could crawl.



We don't hate anyone, Max. Especially not family.



Beneath her veil, a smile danced across Eve's lips.



Lexi was giggling. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with Peter and Rachel, her interpreter, she was playing a game of pick-up sticks.



She signed to Rachel. "I'm winning."



The interpreter, a pretty redhead not more than twenty or twenty-one, grinned and signed back: "I know."



Lexi's progress had been astonishing. Within a week, she had picked up the rudiments of sign language and her lip-reading was quick and accurate. When her body rejected the cochlear implant, Peter had broken down in tears. But Lexi herself was as confident and unfazed as only an eight-year-old could be, taking her deafness in stride. Apart from the lone screaming episode on the first day, she'd displayed no signs of trauma or distress whatsoever.



"It's not uncommon for children to have a delayed reaction to these things," the chief psychotherapist explained to Peter. Using dolls and pictures, Lexi had shown the police and the doctors exactly what had happened to her - the sexual and physical abuse - but she had done so with a cheerfulness that was almost disturbing. "What you're seeing now is a self-defense strategy. But she won't be able to block this stuff out forever."



As part of Lexi's rehabilitation, she was taken to the burn unit to visit Agent Edwards, the man who'd risked his life to save her. Against all the odds, he had survived, but the burns to his torso and face had left him permanently disfigured.



"She may well break down," the psychologists warned Peter. But Lexi did not break down. She walked calmly to Agent Edwards's bedside, took his hand, and smiled.



Afterward, Agent Edwards said to Peter: "That's quite a kid you've got there."



"I know. And she's only alive thanks to you."



That afternoon, Peter deposited $3 million into Agent Edwards's bank account. He couldn't give the poor man back his face. But he could ensure that he lived the rest of his life in luxury. It was the least he could do.



A nurse knocked on the door.



"You have a visitor."



Keith Webster had let Peter know that he, Eve and Max were on their way. The call was a surprise. The two families had never been close. Peter didn't trust Eve as far as he could throw her, and Keith had always struck him as a little odd. But Max seemed like a sweet kid. It would be nice if he and Lexi became friends.



"Show them in."



The door opened. Lexi's eyes lit up like candles on a birthday cake.



"Hey, kiddo. I missed you."



Robbie swept his little sister up into his arms. The two of them clung to each other like limpets.



Peter stood rooted to the spot. It was awful to admit it, but in the last three weeks he had not thought about Robbie once. Lexi's kidnapping had driven every other thought out of his mind. Robbie and his problems felt like part of another lifetime. But now here he was. It was only three weeks since their last meeting, but his son looked different.



"I've stopped drinking, Dad. And the drugs. For good."



Lexi was superglued to her brother's neck as he spoke.



"I made a deal with God. If He saved Lexi, if He let her be okay, I'd get my shit together. I'm gonna make something of my life, Dad. I promise you."



"I hope so, Robert."



Peter put an arm awkwardly around his son's shoulders. He remembered what a beautiful, gentle little boy Robbie used to be. Was that person still inside somewhere? If he was, would he ever be able to forgive his father for what he'd done?



I could have shot him. I could have killed my own son.



Still holding on to Robbie, Lexi put one arm around Peter's neck, pulling father and son closer together. Reluctantly, Peter met Robbie's eyes. The old anger was gone. But there was still a sadness there. Perhaps there always would be.



What a lovely family, thought the interpreter, Rachel. They've been through so much. No wonder they're so close, poor things.



"I hope we're not interrupting. We can come back later, if you prefer."



Keith Webster was smiling in the doorway. Behind him stood Eve and Max, hand in hand.



"No, no." Peter pulled away from his children, glad of an excuse to break the tension. "It's good of you to come. You remember Robert?"



"Of course." Keith smiled. "My goodness, you've grown. Last time we saw you, you were knee-high to a grasshopper, wasn't he, Eve?"



"Mmmm." Eve nodded.



Shut up, you obsequious cretin! What the hell is Robert doing here? He's supposed to be shooting up in a doorway somewhere. Lionel Neuman told me he'd signed away his inheritance. Has he come to try to claw back his shares in Kruger-Brent?



Since Alex's death, Eve and Keith had seen Peter and his kids a handful of times at family functions, but the two families were not close. Years ago, Peter had warned Alex about her twin sister's psychotic personality, a slight that Eve had neither forgotten nor forgiven.



"Max. Go say hello to your cousin." Keith pushed the boy forward. "Why don't you give Lexi her present?"



Reluctantly, Max thrust a brightly wrapped box at Lexi.



The two children eyed each other warily.



Max thought: I hate you. You and your brother. You want to steal Kruger-Brent from me.



Lexi thought: He hates me. I wonder why?



She opened the present. It was the latest limited-edition Barbie doll. The one with roller skates that she'd been hankering after all summer. Before it happened. Before the terror. Before the pig.



The psychiatrists thought Lexi was blocking out what had happened to her. She could read their lips: Repressed memory syndrome. Classic posttraumatic stress responses. But they were wrong. They were all wrong.



Lexi remembered everything. Every hair on his forearm, every mark on his skin, every cadence in his voice, every grunt, the fetid smell of his breath.



She may have nightmares. Deep-rooted fear of the bad men returning.



Lexi wasn't afraid. She was determined. She knew her kidnappers had escaped justice and she knew why. Because it was her destiny to find them, to pay them back for what they'd done. She had told the police nothing. Pretended that she remembered no details. But she remembered it all.



One day, pig, I will find you.



One day...



"Lexi" Rachel was signing at her. "Aren't you going to say thank you?"



Lexi looked down at the doll. She touched her lips with the front fingers of her right hand, then moved her hand away from her face with her palm upward, smiling.



"That's the sign for 'thanks,'" Rachel explained.



Max said, "You're welcome."



His mouth returned his cousin's smile. But his glinting black eyes were as cold as the grave.