Sidney Sheldon’s After the Darkness

Chapter Six

John Merrivale tightened his seat belt and closed his eyes as the six-seater, twin-engine plane shuddered its way up through the clouds. A nervous flier at the best of times, he was terrified of these little puddle jumpers. It was like trusting your life to a lawn mower.

‘Don’t worry.’ The woman next to him smiled amiably. ‘It’s always bumpy first thing in the morning, before the sun burns through the clouds.’

John Merrivale thought, Can sun burn through clouds? then smiled at himself for being so philosophical, today of all days.

If the lawn mower didn’t fail them, they would land in Boston in twenty-five minutes.

It was 6:15 A.M.

At 8:15 A.M., Andrew Preston took his seat on a different airplane. The hundred-seater Fokker 100 was only two-thirds full. I guess not a lot of people fly to New York from Nantucket on a Tuesday morning. They all left yesterday.

He had mixed feelings when he got the call late last night, telling him he was needed urgently back at the office. Peter Finch, the head of the SEC investigative team looking into Quorum’s accounts, wanted some ‘face time.’ Andrew dreaded the meeting. He could think of no good reason why Finch would summon him back to New York, and quite a few bad ones. On the other hand, being away from the office made him feel hideously out of control. He believed he’d covered his tracks, but these SEC bastards were like bloodhounds.

In any case, he needed to get out of Nantucket. That guest cottage was starting to feel like a prison. After her public humiliation at dinner last night, Maria had flown into a hysterical fury, swearing and screaming at Andrew, even attacking him physically. Rolling up his sleeve now, he could still see the livid red scratch marks from her nails.

‘How dare you allow Lenny Brookstein to treat us like that! He made a complete fool of me, and you sat by and did nothing.’

Andrew fought back the urge to tell Maria that it was she who had started it, by trying to make a fool of Grace. Instead, he said, ‘What would you have me do? He’s my boss, Maria. He pays our bills.’

‘Barely! He pays you less than his goddamn cook. Didn’t you hear what he said? Doesn’t that bother you?’

Andrew had heard. And it did bother him. He was 90 percent sure that Lenny was joking. If the chef was making more than he was, she was certainly overpaid. But it wasn’t unheard of for Lenny’s generosity to prompt some peculiar decisions. He tried to reason with himself. Why should I care what Lenny pays somebody else? It’s his money, after all. He can do what he likes with it. But it still rankled. Perhaps, on some subconscious level, it justified what Andrew had done.

Maria was passed out cold when he left her this morning, exhausted from her drunken rage. When she woke up, she’d have a horrific hangover. Andrew didn’t want to be within a hundred miles of her when that happened. Now he wouldn’t have to be.

‘Cabin crew, please be seated for takeoff.’

Closing his eyes, Andrew Preston tried to relax.

Grace met her sisters for lunch at the Cliffside Beach Club.

After their awkward encounter the day before, Connie went out of her way to be solicitous to Grace, even presenting her with a beautiful guava-pink seashell she’d discovered on the beach that morning.

‘I know it’s not much, but I thought it would look pretty on your dressing table.’

Grace was touched. She knew how difficult Connie found apologies. The shell said more than any words.

Honor asked, ‘Are Caroline and Maria joining us?’

In a cream J.Crew sundress that washed her out, with her hair scraped back in a ponytail, Honor looked exhausted. Grace wondered if she and Jack had fought last night after Jack stormed out of the dining room, but was too tactful to ask.

‘I don’t think so. Caroline’s in town looking at a painting. And Maria’s still asleep, I believe.’

The sisters exchanged glances. ‘I wonder what she wears to bed?’ Connie giggled. ‘Spun-gold Versace pajamas?’

It was a nice, light moment. Grace finally started to relax.

The waitress came and took their order. They were sitting at an outdoor table, right on the beach, but by the time their appetizers arrived, storm clouds had begun to gather.

The manager appeared. ‘Would you like to move indoors, Mrs Brookstein? I have a lovely table by the window I can offer you ladies.’ At that instant a loud clap of thunder made everyone jump. Seconds later, the first heavy drops of rain began to splash onto the table.

‘Yes, please,’ said Grace, laughing. She thought about Lenny, out on the boat. I hope he’s safe and dry in the cabin, not out on deck catching his death of a cold.

It was almost four by the time the three sisters arrived home. By that time, the storm was in full force. Michael Gray met them at the front door.

‘Thank goodness you’re back,’ he said, hugging Connie tightly.

‘We only went for lunch at the club, honey.’ She laughed. ‘Why so panicked?’

‘I didn’t know where you were, that’s all. I thought you might have gone sailing with Jack. The conditions are awful out there.’

‘Jack’s gone sailing?’ Honor’s white face turned even whiter. ‘Are the girls with him?’

‘No,’ said Michael. ‘Don’t worry. Bobby and Rose are playing Chutes and Ladders with our boys in the kitchen. They’re a little bored, but other than that, they’re fine.’

‘And Jack? Has anyone heard from him?’

‘His radio’s down.’

Honor’s knees started shaking. Jack had been an avid sailor since his teens, but a storm like this would test anybody’s skill, even his.

‘It’s okay,’ said Michael. ‘The coast guard thinks they’ve located him. We should hear more soon. It’s been crazy out there, you can imagine, but they’re trying to get everybody back to harbor. Come on in out of the rain.’

‘What about Lenny?’

Connie and Honor had moved inside, but Grace stood frozen on the front path. Rain dripped from her hair and the tip of her nose. She looked about twelve years old.

Michael Gray frowned. ‘Lenny? I thought he was at the golf club. That’s what he told the staff here when he left this morning.’

Because he wanted to be alone. He didn’t want you or Jack to invite yourselves along.

‘No.’ Grace was shaking. ‘He’s on the boat.’

‘Did he take any crew?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

Michael tried to hide his concern. ‘Do you have any idea where he was going, Grace? What his plans were?’

Grace shook her head.

‘All right, sweetheart. Don’t worry, we’ll find him. Come on in and I’ll call the coast guard. Those guys are the best. He’ll be back home in no time, you’ll see.’

Jack Warner got to the house at six P.M., soaked to the skin and badly shaken.

‘I’ve never known a storm to close in that fast. Never.’ Honor hugged him. Without thinking, Jack hugged her back.

Connie and Michael were upstairs, putting the children to bed. Downstairs in the kitchen, Grace, Honor, Caroline and a still-green-looking Maria Preston sat waiting for news. Lenny’s yacht was still missing.

John Merrivale had gotten back from his business trip in Boston half an hour earlier. Walking over to Grace, he put his arm around her, ignoring Caroline’s dagger stares.

‘Try not to w-w-worry. Lenny’s an experienced sailor.’

Grace barely registered that he’d spoken. She was too busy praying.

I lost one father, Lord. Please, don’t let me lose another.

At 8:17 P.M. exactly, the phone rang. Grace pounced on it.

‘Hello?’

Ten seconds later, she hung up. Her teeth were chattering.

‘Grace?’ Caroline Merrivale moved toward her. ‘What is it? What did they say?’

‘They’ve found the boat.’

A chorus of ‘Thank Gods’ and ‘I told you sos’ echoed round the room. When they’d all stopped hugging her, Grace said softly, ‘Lenny wasn’t on it.’

Then she passed out.

Chapter Seven

Later, the period after Lenny’s disappearance blurred in Grace’s memory into one long, unbroken nightmare. Hours became days, days became weeks, but none of it seemed real. She was living in a trance, a hideous half-life from which only one person could awaken her. And that person was gone.

After three days, Sea Rescue called off its search. Around the globe the headlines screamed:

LEONARD BROOKSTEIN MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD

HEDGE FUND GENIUS LOST AT SEA

NEW YORK’S RICHEST MAN FEARED DROWNED

Grace had never read anything so awful in her life. Had anyone told her at the time that worse was to come, she would not have believed them. How could anything be worse than life without Lenny?

It was John Merrivale who brought her home to New York. Her sisters and the others had all gone back when the search was called off, but Grace couldn’t bring herself to leave Nantucket.

‘You can’t stay entombed on this island forever, Gracie. All your friends are in the city. Your f-family. You need a support network.’

‘But I can’t leave Lenny, John. It’s like I’m abandoning him.’

‘Darling Grace. I know it’s hard. T-t-terribly hard. But Lenny is gone. You have to accept that. No one could survive a day in those w-waters. It’s been two weeks.’

With her rational mind, Grace knew John was right. It was her heart she had trouble convincing. Lenny wasn’t gone. He couldn’t be gone. Until she saw his dead body with her own two eyes, she could not give up hope.

Miracles happen. They happen all the time. Perhaps he was rescued by another fishing boat? Maybe a foreign boat, simple people who don’t know who he is? Maybe he’s lost his memory? Or found his way to an island somewhere?

It was all nonsense, of course. Voices in her head. But in those early days, Grace clung to the voices for dear life. They were all she had left of Lenny and she wasn’t prepared to give them up. Not yet.

When she got back to their Park Avenue apartment, Grace found hundreds of bouquets of flowers waiting for her. She could have piled the condolence cards up to the ceiling.

‘See?’ said John. ‘Everybody l-loves you, Grace. Everybody wants to help.’

But the cards and flowers didn’t help. They were unwanted, tangible reminders that as far as the world was concerned, Lenny was dead.

Three miles away, in the FBI’s New York offices at 26 Federal Plaza, three men sat around a table:

Peter Finch from the SEC was a short, amiable man, completely bald except for a thin tonsure of ginger hair that made him look like a monk. Normally, Finch was known for his good humor. Not today.

‘What we’re looking at here is the tip of the iceberg,’ he said grimly.

‘Pretty big fucking iceberg.’ Harry Bain, the FBI’s assistant director in New York, shook his head in disbelief. At forty-two, Bain was one of the Bureau’s highest fliers. Handsome, charming and Harvard educated, with jet-black hair and piercing green eyes, Harry Bain had foiled two of the most significant domestic terror plots ever attempted on U.S. soil. Those had both been pretty huge cases. But if what Peter Finch was saying was true, this one could be even bigger.

‘How much money are we talking about? Exactly?’ Gavin Williams, another FBI agent who reported to Bain, spoke without looking up. A former SEC man himself, Williams had left the agency in disgust after the Bernie Madoff fiasco. A brilliant mathematician with higher degrees in modeling, statistics, data programming and analysis, as a young man he had dreamed of becoming an investment banker himself, joining the J.P. Morgan training program straight out of Wharton. But Gavin Williams had never quite made it. He lacked the killer commercial instincts necessary to take him to the top, as well as the political, people skills that helped his far-less-intellectually-gifted classmates amass private fortunes in the tens of millions. Tall and wiry with close-cropped gray hair and a military bearing, Williams was a loner, as dour and emotionless as a statue. Brilliant, he might be. But in the clubby world of Wall Street, nobody wanted to do business with him.

Deeply embittered by this rejection, Gavin Williams made the decision to devote the rest of his life to the pursuit of those who had made it to the top, cataloging their misdemeanors with crazed zeal. In the early days, working at the SEC had given him a tremendous sense of purpose. But all that changed after Madoff. The agency’s failings in that case were catastrophic. Gavin himself hadn’t worked on the case, but he felt tainted by collective embarrassment. Blinded by a simple Ponzi scheme! The thought of it still gave Gavin Williams sleepless nights, even now in his new dream job as the FBI’s top man on securities fraud.

Peter Finch said, ‘It’s not yet clear. On the surface the accounts looked clean. But after Brookstein disappeared, all Quorum’s investors wanted their money back at once. It’s those redemptions that have revealed this black hole. And it’s growing by the day.’

‘But there are billions of dollars missing here.’ Harry Bain scratched his head. ‘How can that kind of money just evaporate?’

‘It can’t. Maybe it got spent. Or lost, siphoned off into speculative, unprofitable private businesses controlled by Leonard Brookstein and his cronies. More likely Brookstein stashed it away somewhere. That’s what we’ve got to find out.’

‘Okay.’ Harry Bain’s quick mind was working. ‘How long before this gets into the press?’

Finch shrugged. ‘Not long. A few days, a week at most. Once investors start talking, it’ll be out there. I don’t need to tell you the implications this could have on the wider economy. Quorum was bigger than GM, almost as big as AIG. Every small business in New York had exposure. Pensioners, families.’

Bain got the picture. ‘I’ll handpick a task force of our best men to work on this today. The instant new information comes in, you pass it to Gavin. Gavin, you report directly to me. None of the information discussed today is to leave this room. Understood? I want to keep the media out for as long as possible. The NYPD, too. The last thing we need is those idiots running around, sabotaging our case.’

Peter Finch nodded. Gavin Williams sat frozen, his face impassive, inscrutable. Harry Bain thought, I feel like Jim Kirk, working with Spock. He felt the familiar rush of adrenaline at the prospect of spearheading such a vital operation. If I track down that money, I’ll be a hero. I might even get a shot at the directorship. Harry thought about his wife, Lisa, and how proud she’d be. Of course, if I fail…

But Harry Bain wouldn’t fail.

He had never failed in his life.

‘There’s a trustees meeting next month, Grace, on the twenty-sixth. I think it’s important that you be there. If you can b-b-bear it.’

It had been two weeks since Grace’s return to Manhattan, and John and Caroline Merrivale had invited her over for supper. When she declined the invitation, Caroline drove over to her apartment and frog-marched her into a waiting cab.

Grace looked pained. ‘Can’t you deal with it, John? I won’t understand a word they say anyway. Lenny always handled all the legal things.’

‘You must go, Grace,’ said Caroline. ‘John will be there with you. But you’re the sole beneficiary of Lenny’s estate. There’ll be things you need to approve.’

‘Am I? The sole beneficiary?’

Caroline gave a short, derisory laugh. ‘Of course you are, dear. You were his wife.’

Grace thought, I’m still his wife. We don’t know he’s dead yet. Not for sure. But she didn’t have the energy to fight about it. Grace couldn’t help but notice that Caroline had gotten rather bossy since Lenny…since the accident. Whenever John spoke to Grace, he was firm, but deferential. I really feel so and so. If you can, you should try to do such and such. Caroline was much more autocratic. Do this. Say that.

Still, perhaps that’s what I need right now? God knows I don’t seem able to make any decisions for myself.

Grace agreed to meet the trustees.

It was hard to pinpoint exactly when the change started. Like all these things, it began almost imperceptibly. First the flowers stopped coming. Then the calls. Invitations to lunch or dinner began to dry up. On the one day that Grace tried to make an effort and drag herself out of the apartment – she went to the tennis club for coffee – she noticed many of her old girlfriends avoiding her. Tammy Rees practically broke into a run when she bumped into Grace in the powder room, mumbling the quickest of ‘How are yous’ before scuttling out the door.

Grace tried to talk to her sisters about it, but both Honor and Connie were distracted, distant almost. Neither had time to chat. Grace even called her mother, Holly, a sign of desperation if ever there was one.

It was a mistake.

‘You’re probably imagining it, darling. Why don’t you go on a lovely cruise somewhere? Take your mind off things. I met Roberto on a cruise, you know. One never knows when Cupid might strike.’

A cruise? I won’t set foot on a boat again as long as I live.

The next day, Grace’s platinum Amex card was declined at Bergdorf Goodman. Grace felt herself blushing scarlet as the women in line behind her stared.

‘I think there must be some mistake,’ she said meekly. ‘I have unlimited credit.’

The salesgirl was kind. ‘I’m sure it’s just a mix-up, Mrs Brookstein. But you’d best take it up with American Express. I’ll be happy to keep the bag on hold for you if you’d like.’

I don’t want the stupid bag! I only came here to try to distract myself for five minutes. To forget about Lenny. As if I could ever do that!

‘Thank you, that’s okay. I’ll, er…I’ll go home and sort this out.’

Grace called Amex. A drone told her that Lenny’s account had been ‘terminated.’

‘What do you mean, “terminated”? By whom? I didn’t terminate it.’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t help you. Your husband’s account has been closed.’

Worse was to come. Bills started arriving for unpaid services. An unpleasant man rang the apartment and informed Grace curtly that her mortgage payments were five months in arrears.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but I think you must have me confused with someone else. We don’t have a mortgage.’

‘Mrs Brookstein. It is Mrs Brookstein I’m speaking to, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘The outstanding balance on your mortgage is sixteen million seven hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars and fourteen cents. That’s in your and your husband’s joint names. Would you like me to resend you the statements?’

It wasn’t until Conchita, Grace’s loyal maid, quit over unpaid wages – ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Brookstein. But my ’usband, he won’t let me keep coming here. Not unless you pay me’ – that Grace finally overcame her embarrassment and confessed her money worries to John Merrivale.

‘It’s insanity,’ she sobbed on the phone. ‘Lenny’s worth billions, but suddenly I’m getting all these bills. No one will take my cards. I don’t understand it.’

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

‘John? Are you there?’

‘I’m here, Gracie. I think perhaps you’d better come over.’

John Merrivale was nervous. Even more nervous than usual. Grace noticed the way he kept scratching at his neck and his eyes rarely met hers. She sat opposite him on the couch in his study as he began to explain.

‘There have been rumors for s-some time now, Grace. Rumors on Wall Street and among our investors. After Lenny…after what happened, the FBI became involved.’

Grace’s eyes widened. ‘The FBI? Why? What sort of rumors?’

‘Lenny was a b-brilliant man. An uncannily shrewd investor. One of the reasons for Quorum’s success is that he never d-divulged his strategy. Like most of the best hedge fund managers, his model was a c-closely guarded secret.’

Grace nodded. ‘He told me it was like inheriting your grandmother’s recipe for spaghetti sauce. Everyone who eats it tries to figure out the secret ingredient, but you can never tell.’

‘Exactly.’ John Merrivale smiled. She really is a child. ‘My job was to raise f-funds for Quorum. With Lenny’s performance, that was easy. We were t-turning away money. It was Lenny’s job to invest those funds. No one – n-not even me – knew exactly where he put the money. Until his disappearance, it had never really mattered.’

‘But afterward?’

‘Despite its size and huge success, Quorum was still f-fundamentally a one-man show. When Lenny disappeared, people w-wanted to withdraw their capital. A lot of people. All at the s-s-same time.’

‘And that was a problem?’

John Merrivale sighed. ‘Yes. A lot of the money is…well, we don’t know where it is exactly. It’s unaccounted for. It’s complicated.’

‘I see.’ Grace thought about this for a few moments. ‘So is that why the FBI is involved? To try to sort out the confusion?’

John’s scratching intensified. ‘In a way, yes. But I’m afraid there are some unpleasant sides to this. Because the amount of money involved is so large – tens of billions of d-dollars, at a minimum – the police believe that Lenny m-may have deliberately st-stolen it.’

‘That’s ridiculous! Lenny would never steal. Besides, why would he rob his own fund?’

‘I d-don’t believe he did, Grace. I want you to know that.’ John took her hand. ‘But other people – the FBI, investors, the n-newspapers, are jumping to conclusions. They say that once the SEC started investigating, Lenny knew Quorum would collapse and that he would be exposed. G-Grace, they’re saying that Lenny might have c-committed suicide.’

Grace felt sick.

Suicide? Lenny? No. Never. Even if he had stolen some money, he would never leave me. He would never take his own life.

She struggled to keep her voice steady.

‘Whatever happened on that boat, John, it was an accident. Lenny was happy when he left me that morning. Why hasn’t the FBI spoken to me? I would have told them that!’

‘I’m sure they will want to talk to you eventually. Once a d-death certificate is issued, there’ll likely be an inquest. Right now the p-primary focus is on locating the m-missing money. Until that happens, all Quorum’s assets have been frozen, as well as your p-personal accounts.’

Grace looked so small and lost, perched on the edge of the couch. Had John Merrivale been a more tactile man, he’d have gone over and hugged her. As it was, he said, ‘Try not to worry. I know it’s hard. But you and I b-both know Lenny wasn’t a thief. The truth will come out eventually. Everything will be okay.’