Sidney Sheldon - Sidney Sheldons After the Darkness

Sidney Sheldons

After the Darkness

Tilly Bagshawe

For Kerstin and Louis Sparr.
With love.

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 formsgreed for life, for money, for love, for
knowledgehas marked the upward surge of mankind.

G ORDON G EKKO, IN W ALL S TREET , 1987

Contents

THE DAY OF RECKONING HAD ARRIVED.

WHAT DO YOU THINK, GRACIE? THE black or the blue?

IT WAS THE MORNING AFTER THE Quorum Ball, a Saturday.

SENATOR JACK WARNER WOKE UP ON Saturday morning with a

CONNIE GRAY STOOD IN THE PLAYGROUND, watching her sons on

LENNY AND GRACE BROOKSTEINS NANTUCKET ESTATE was an idyllic, sprawling,

JOHN MERRIVALE TIGHTENED HIS SEAT BELT and closed his eyes

LATER, THE PERIOD AFTER LENNYS DISAPPEARANCE blurred in Graces memory

DONNA SANCHEZ ENJOYED HER WORK AT the city morgue. Her

GRACE BROOKSTEIN PLAYED WITH THE BUTTONS on her Chanel boucl

GRACE BROOKSTEINS CONVICTION AND LIFE SENTENCEthe cumulative punishment for all

SHE WAS SURROUNDED BY BRILLIANT WHITE LIGHT. Not the peaceful

GRACES FIRST YEAR AT BEDFORD HILLS passed quickly.

KAREN WILLIS RUBBED HER EYES. IT was two in the

WARDEN MCINTOSH STORMED INTO THE CHILDRENS CENTER. All the kids

DETECTIVE MITCH CONNORS RETURNED TO HIS desk in a pensive

AS SHE CLIMBED INTO THE VAN, the warm air hit

MARIA PRESTON FLOATED INTO THE SIXTH-FLOOR Caprice restaurant in Hong

BEING IN NEW YORK AGAIN, EXPERIENCING the sights and smells,

MITCH BURST INTO THE INTENSIVE-CARE UNIT.

DAVEY BUCCOLA PACED HIS HOTEL ROOM like a caged tiger.

FOR THREE DAYS, GRACE LAY LOW. She found a new

ANDREW PRESTON WALKED DOWN WALL STREET with a familiar feeling

JASMINE DELEVIGNE ADMIRED HER NAKED BODY in the mirror. She

POLICE! OPEN THE DOOR, MS. DELEVIGNE.

AS SOON AS HE REALIZED GRACE had given him the

THE NAUSEA CAME IN WAVES.

SHE HEARD VOICES.

MITCH PUT A HAND OVER HIS MOUTH. There was an

MARIA PRESTON TOSSED BACK HER LONG mane of chestnut hair

UPSTAIRS, PARAMEDICS LEANED OVER ANDREW PRESTONS body, pumping the chest.

MITCH COULDNT UNDERSTAND IT.

CAROLINE MERRIVALE SAT DOWN AT HER dressing table, pulled back

JOHN MERRIVALE DID NOT LIKE FLYING. Pulling down the window

GRACE CLUNG TO THE RAIL of the fishing boat, wondering

HARRY BAIN TURNED TO MITCH CONNORS. I hate this shithole.

THE STREETS WERE DESERTED. ANTANANARIVO SLEPT. In a weeks time,

GRACE WATCHED HER LIFE FLASH BEFORE her eyes. Was this

WHAT YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER, GRACE, is how long ago

THE WOMAN IN THE HOSPITAL WAITING room whispered to her

LENNY BROOKSTEIN LOOKED AT THE STRAPS on the bed and

GRACE WALKED OUT OF THE HOSPITAL and down the street.

N EW Y ORK , D ECEMBER 15, 2009

T HE 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. Todays 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 hordes of ghoulish spectators showed up only for murder trials. Todays 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 themDistrict Attorney Angelo Michele, representative of the peoplelooked across the courtroom at his intended victim. The woman sitting at the defendants 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 dancers poise, back ramrod straight, hand gestures measured and fluid. Grace Brookstein was fragile. Delicate. Beautiful. She was the sort of woman whom men instinctively wanted to protect. Or rather she would have been, had she not stolen $75 billion in the largest, most catastrophic fraud in U.S. 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 wasnt 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, hardworking, 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 didnt know what was going on? She knew. She knew everything. She just didnt care. She spent your pension funds, your life savings, your kids college moneyJust 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 Brooksteins courtroom attire. Today, for the verdict, she had chosen a white Chanel shift ($7,600), matching boucl jacket ($5,200), Louis Vuitton pumps ($1,200) and purse ($18,600), and an exquisite floor-length mink handmade 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 Brooksteins cake-eating days were over. Enjoy those furs, lady. Thisll be the last day you get to wear em.

Angelo Michele was a tall, lean man in his midforties. He wore a plain Brooks Brothers suit and his thick black hair slicked back till it gleamed on top of his head like a shiny black helmet. Angelo Michele was an ambitious man and a fearsome bossall the junior D.A.s were terrified of himbut he was a good son. Angelos parents ran a pizza parlor in Brooklyn. Or they had run one 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 hardworking 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 defendants table was the man whose job it was to stop him. Francis Hammond III, Big Frank as he was known in 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 Hammonds 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 Brooksteins Great White Hope. His specialty was playing juries, uncovering fears and desires and prejudices that people didnt 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.