Sidney Sheldon’s After the Darkness
Tilly Bagshawe

Copyright

Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2010

Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Ebook Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 9780007352388

Version: 2019-01-03

For Kerstin and Louis Sparr, with love.

Greed is right.Greed works.Greed clarifies, cuts through, and capturesthe essence of the evolutionary spirit.Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money,for love, for knowledge – has marked theupward surge of mankind.

—Gordon Gekko, in Wall Street, 1987

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Prologue

BOOK ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

BOOK TWO

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

BOOK THREE

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Praise

Also by Sidney Sheldon

About the Publisher

Prologue

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 hordes of ghoulish 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 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 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, 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 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 bouclé 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 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 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 boss – all the junior D.A.s were terrified of him – but he was a good son. Angelo’s 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 defendant’s table was the man whose job it was to stop him. Francis Hammond III, ‘Big Frank’ as he was known among 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 hanged, 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 a method in his madness. There has to be. I just wish I knew what it was.

Still, it didn’t really matter. Today was the last day of the trial and Angelo Michele was convinced he had built an airtight case. Grace Brookstein was going down. First to jail. And then to hell.

Grace Brookstein had woken up that morning in the Merrivales’ guest bedroom suffused with a deep sense of peace. She’d had a dream about Lenny. They were at their estate in Nantucket, always Grace’s favorite of their many multimillion-dollar homes. They were walking in the rose garden. Lenny was holding her hand. Grace could feel the warmth of his skin, the familiar roughness of his palms.

‘It will be okay, my darling. Have faith, Gracie. It will all be okay.’

Walking into court this morning, arm in arm with her attorney, Grace Brookstein had felt the crowd’s hatred, hundreds of pairs of eyes burning a hole in her back. She had heard the catcalls. Bitch. Liar. Thief. But she held on to her inner peace, to Lenny’s voice inside her head.

It will all be okay.

Have faith.

John Merrivale had said the same thing on the phone last night. Thank God for John! Without him, Grace would have been completely lost. Everyone else had deserted her in her hour of need, her friends, even her own sisters. Rats on a sinking ship. It was John Merrivale who had forced Grace to hire Frank Hammond. And now Frank Hammond was going to save her.

Grace watched him summing up now, this fiery little man, strutting back and forth in front of the jury like a farmyard rooster. She only understood a fragment of what Hammond was saying. The legal arguments were way over her head. But she knew with certainty that her attorney would get her an acquittal. Then, and only then, would her real work begin.

Walking free from court is just the start. I still have to clear my name. And Lenny’s. God, I miss him. I miss him so much. Why did God have to take him away from me? Why did any of this have to happen?

Frank Hammond finished speaking. Now it was Angelo Michele’s turn.

‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Over the last five days you have heard a lot of complex legal arguments, some of them from me, and some of them from Mr Hammond. Unfortunately it had to be that way. The scale of the fraud at Quorum: seventy-five billion dollars…’

Angelo Michele paused to let the impact of the number sink in. Even after so many months of repetition, the sheer size of the Brooksteins’ theft never failed to shock.

‘…means that, by its very nature, this case is complicated. The fact that the bulk of that money is still missing makes it even more complicated. Lenny Brookstein was a wicked man. But he was not a stupid man. Nor is his wife, Grace Brookstein, a stupid woman. The paper trail they left behind them at Quorum is so complicated, so impenetrable, that the truth is, we may never recover that money. Or what’s left of it.’

Angelo Michele looked at Grace with naked loathing. At least two female jurors did the same.

‘But let me tell you what’s not complicated about this case. Greed.’

Another pause.

‘Arrogance.’

And another.

‘Lenny and Grace Brookstein believed they were above the law. Like so many of their kind, the rich bankers on Wall Street who have raped and pillaged this great country of ours, who have taken tax payers’ money, your money, and squandered it with such shameless abandon, the Brooksteins don’t believe that the rules of the Little People apply to them. Take a good look at Mrs Brookstein, ladies and gentlemen. Do you see a woman who understands what ordinary people in this country are suffering? Do you see a woman who cares? Because I don’t. I see a woman born into wealth, a woman married into wealth, a woman who considers wealth – obscene wealth – to be her God-given right.’

Up in the gallery, John Merrivale whispered to his wife.

‘This isn’t a l-legal argument. It’s a witch hunt.’

The district attorney went on.

‘Grace Brookstein was a partner in Quorum. An equal equity partner. She was not only legally responsible for the fund’s actions. She was morally responsible for them. Make no mistake. Grace Brookstein knew what her husband was doing. And she supported and encouraged him every step of the way.

‘Don’t let the complexity of this case fool you, ladies and gentlemen. Underneath all the jargon and paperwork, all the offshore bank accounts and derivative transactions, what happened here is really very simple. Grace Brookstein stole. She stole because she was greedy. She stole because she thought she could get away with it.’

He looked at Grace one last time.

‘She still thinks she can get away with it. It’s up to you to prove her wrong.’

Grace Brookstein watched District Attorney Angelo Michele sit down. He’d given a bravura performance, far more eloquent than Frank Hammond’s. The jury looked as if they wanted to burst into spontaneous applause.

If he weren’t trying to destroy me, I’d feel sorry for him. Poor man, he’s tried so hard. And such passion! Perhaps, if we’d met in other circumstances, we’d have been friends?

The general consensus in the media was that the jury would take at least a day to deliberate. The mountain of evidence in the case was so enormous that it was hard to see how they could review it any quicker. In fact, they came back to Court 14 in less than an hour. Just like Frank Hammond said they would.

The judge spoke solemnly. ‘Have you reached your verdict?’

The foreman, a black man in his fifties, nodded. ‘We have, Your Honor.’

‘And how do you find the defendant? Guilty, or not guilty?’

The foreman looked directly at Grace Brookstein.

And smiled.

BOOK ONE

Chapter One

New York, Six Months Earlier

‘What do you think, Gracie? The black or the blue?’

Lenny Brookstein held up two bespoke suits. It was the night before the Quorum Charity Ball, New York’s most glamorous annual fund-raiser, and he and Grace were getting ready for bed.

‘Black,’ said Grace, not looking up. ‘It’s more classic.’

She was sitting at her priceless Louis XVI walnut dressing table, brushing her long blond hair. The champagne silk La Perla negligee Lenny bought her last week clung to her perfect gymnast’s body, accentuating every curve. Lenny Brookstein thought, I’m a lucky man. Then he laughed aloud. Talk about an understatement.

Lenny Brookstein was the undisputed king of Wall Street. But he hadn’t been born into royalty. Today, everyone in America recognized the heavyset fifty-eight-year-old: the wiry gray hair, the broken nose from a childhood brawl that he’d never gotten fixed (why should he? He won), the sparkling, intelligent amber eyes. All these features made up a face as familiar to ordinary Americans as Uncle Sam or Ronald McDonald. In many ways, Lenny Brookstein was America. Ambitious. Hardworking. Generous. Warmhearted. Nowhere was he more loved than here, in his native New York.

It hadn’t always been so.

Born Leonard Alvin Brookstein, the fifth child and second son of Jacob and Rachel Brookstein, Lenny had a horrific childhood. In later life, one of the few things that could rouse Lenny Brookstein’s rarely seen temper were books and movies that seemed to romanticize poverty. Misery Memoirs, that’s what they called them. Where did those guys get off? Lenny Brookstein grew up in poverty – crushing, soul-destroying poverty – and there was nothing romantic or noble about it. It wasn’t romantic when his father came home drunk and beat his mother unconscious in front of him and his siblings. Or when his beloved elder sister Rosa threw herself under a subway train after three boys from the Brooksteins’ filthy housing project gang-raped her on her way home from school one night. It wasn’t noble when Lenny and his brothers got attacked at school for eating ‘stinky’ Jewish food. Or when Lenny’s mother died of cervical cancer at the age of thirty-four because she couldn’t take the time off work to see a doctor for her stomach cramps. Poverty did not bring Lenny Brookstein’s family closer together. It pulled them apart. Then, one by one, it pulled them to pieces. All except Lenny.

Lenny dropped out of high school at sixteen and left home the same year. He never looked back. He went to work for a pawnbroker in Queens, a job that provided him with more proof, if any were needed, that the poor did not ‘pull together’ in times of trouble. They ripped one another’s throats out. It was tough watching old women handing over objects of huge sentimental value – a dead husband’s watch, a daughter’s cherished silver christening spoon – in return for a grudging handful of dirty bills. Mr Grady, the pawnbroker, had had heart bypass surgery the year before Lenny went to work for him. Evidently the surgeon had removed his compassion at the same time.

Mr Grady used to tell Lenny: ‘Value is not what something is worth, kid. That’s a fairy tale. Value is what someone is willing to pay. Or be paid.’

Lenny Brookstein had no respect for Mr Grady, as a person or a businessman. But the truth of those words stuck with him. Later, much later, they became the foundation for Lenny Brookstein’s fortune and Quorum’s sensational success. Lenny Brookstein understood what ordinary, poor people were willing to accept. That one person’s concept of ‘value’ was different from another’s, and that the market’s could be different again.

I owe the old bastard for that.

The story of Lenny Brookstein’s rise from pawnbroker’s lackey to world-respected billionaire had become an American legend, part of the country’s folklore. George Washington could not tell a lie. Lenny Brookstein could not make a bad investment. After a successful run of bets on the horses in his late teens (Jacob Brookstein, Lenny’s father, had been an inveterate gambler), Lenny decided to try his luck on the stock market. At Saratoga and Monticello, Lenny had learned the importance of developing a system and sticking to it. On Wall Street, they called a system a ‘model’ but it was the same thing. Unlike his father, Lenny also had the discipline to cut his losses and walk away when he needed to. In the movie Wall Street, Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko had famously declared: ‘Greed is good.’ Lenny Brookstein profoundly disagreed with that statement. Greed wasn’t good. On the contrary, it was the downfall of almost all unsuccessful investors. Discipline was good. Finding the right model and sticking to it, through hell or high water. That was the key.

Lenny Brookstein was already a millionaire many times over by the time he met John Merrivale. The two men could not have had less in common. Lenny was self-made, confident, a walking ball of energy and joie de vivre. He never spoke about his past because he never thought about it. His brilliant amber eyes were always fixed on the future, the next trade, the next opportunity. John Merrivale was upper class, shy, cerebral and prone to depression. A skinny, redheaded young man, he was nicknamed ‘Matchstick’ at Harvard Business School, where he graduated top in his class, as his father and grandfather had both done before him. Everybody, including John Merrivale himself, expected he would go into one of the top-tier Wall Street firms, Goldman or Morgan, and begin his slow but predictable rise to the top. But then Lenny Brookstein burst into John Merrivale’s life like a meteor and everything changed.

‘I’m starting a hedge fund,’ Lenny told John the night they met, at a mutual acquaintance’s party. ‘I’ll make the investment decisions. But I need a partner, someone with a blue-chip background to help bring in outside capital. Someone like you.’

John Merrivale was flattered. No one had ever believed in him before. ‘Thank you. But I’m not a marketing guy. T-t-t-trust me. I’m a thinker, not a s-s-salesman.’ He blushed. Goddamn stammer. Why the hell can’t I get over it already?

Lenny Brookstein thought: And a stammer, too. You couldn’t make this guy up. He’s perfect.

Lenny told John, ‘Listen. Salesmen are a dime a dozen. What I need is someone low-key and credible. Someone who can get an eighty-five-year-old Swiss banker to trust him with his mother’s life savings. I can’t do that. I’m too…’ He cast around for the right word. ‘Flamboyant. I need someone that makes a risk-averse pension fund manager think: “You know what? This guy’s honest. And he knows his shit. I like him better than that sharp, cocky kid from Morgan Stanley.” I’m telling you, John. It’s you.’

That conversation had been fifteen years ago. Since then, Quorum had grown to become the largest, most profitable hedge fund of all time, its tentacles reaching into every aspect of American life: real estate, mortgages, manufacturing, services, technology. One in six New Yorkers – one in six – was employed by a company whose balance sheet depended on Quorum’s performance. And Quorum’s performance was dependable. Even now, in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, with giants like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns hitting the wall, and the government bailing out once untouchable firms like AIG to the tune of billions, Quorum continued turning a modest, consistent profit. The world was on fire, Wall Street was on its knees. But Lenny Brookstein stuck to his system, the same way he always had. And the good times kept rolling.

For years Lenny Brookstein believed he had everything he wanted. He had bought himself homes all over the globe, but rarely left America, dividing his time between his mansion in Palm Beach, his Fifth Avenue apartment and his idyllic beachfront estate on Nantucket Island. He threw parties that everybody came to. He donated millions of dollars to his favorite causes and felt a warm glow inside. He bought a three-hundred-foot yacht, interior-designed by Terence Disdale, and a private Airbus A340 quad jet that he flew in only twice. Occasionally he slept with one of the models who made it their business to be around him, should he suddenly find himself in the mood for sex. But he never had ‘girlfriends.’ He was surrounded by people, many of whom he liked, but he did not have ‘friends’ in the traditional sense of that word. Lenny Brookstein was beloved by all who knew him. But he didn’t ‘do’ intimacy. Everybody knew that.

Then he met Grace Knowles.

More than thirty years Lenny Brookstein’s junior, Grace Knowles was the youngest of the famous Knowles sisters, New York socialite daughters of the late Cooper Knowles. Cooper Knowles had been a real estate guy, worth a couple of hundred million in his heyday. Never as big as ‘the Donald,’ Cooper was always far better liked. Even business rivals invariably described him as ‘charming,’ ‘a gentleman,’ ‘old-school.’ Like her elder sisters, Constance and Honor, Grace adored her father. She was eleven years old when Cooper died, and his death left a void in her life that nothing could fill.

Grace’s mother remarried – three times in total – and moved permanently to East Hampton, where the girls’ lives continued much as they had before. School, shopping, parties, vacations, more shopping. Connie and Honor were both pretty and much sought after by New York’s eligible young bachelors. It was generally accepted, however, that Grace was the most beautiful of the Knowles sisters. When she took up gymnastics competitively at thirteen in an attempt to distract herself from her ongoing grief for her father, her elder sisters were secretly relieved. Gymnastics meant training, and traveling out of state, a lot. Once they were safely married off, it would be fine to have Grace come to parties with them again. But until then, Connie and Honor heartily encouraged their baby sister’s love affair with the parallel bars.

By the time she was eighteen, Grace’s days as a competition-level gymnast were over. But that was okay. By then Connie had married a movie-star-handsome investment banker named Michael Gray, a real up-and-comer at Lehman Brothers. And Honor had hit the marital jackpot by landing Jack Warner, the Republican congressman for New York’s 20th Congressional District. Jack was already being hotly touted as a candidate for the Senate, and perhaps even one day for the presidency. The Warners’ wedding was all over Page 6, and photographs of the honeymoon appeared in a number of national tabloids. As the new Caroline Kennedy, Honor could afford to be gracious to her little sister. It was Honor who invited Grace to the garden party where she first met Lenny Brookstein.

In later years, both Lenny and Grace would describe that first meeting as the proverbial thunderbolt. Grace was eighteen, a child, with no experience of the world outside her cosseted, pampered East Hampton existence. Even her friends from gymnastics were wealthy. And yet there was something wonderfully unspoiled about her. Lenny Brookstein had grown used to what his mother would have called ‘fast’ women. Every girl he’d ever slept with wanted something from him. Jewels, money…something. Grace Knowles was the opposite. She had a quality that Lenny himself had never had and wanted badly. Something so precious and elusive, he had almost given up believing it existed: innocence. Lenny Brookstein wanted to capture Grace Knowles. To hold that innocence in his hands. To own it.

For Grace, the attraction was even simpler. She needed a father. Someone who would protect her and love her for herself, the way that Cooper Knowles had loved her when she was a little girl. The truth was, Grace Knowles wanted to go back to being a little girl. To go back to a time when she was totally, blissfully happy. Lenny Brookstein offered her that chance. Grace grabbed it with both hands.

They married on Nantucket six weeks later, in front of six hundred of Lenny Brookstein’s closest friends. John Merrivale was best man. His wife, Caroline, and Grace’s sisters were the matrons of honor. On their honeymoon in Mustique, Lenny turned to Grace nervously one night and asked: ‘What about children? We never discussed it. I suppose you’ll want to be a mother at some stage?’

Grace gazed pensively out across the ocean. Soft, gray moonlight danced upon the waves. At last, she said: ‘Not really. Of course, if you want children, I’ll gladly give them to you. But I’m so happy as we are. There’s nothing missing, Lenny. Do you know what I mean?’

Lenny Brookstein knew what she meant.

It was one of the happiest moments of his life.

‘Do you know what you’re wearing yet?’ Lenny pulled some papers out of his briefcase and put on his reading glasses before climbing into bed.

‘I do,’ said Grace. ‘But it’s a secret. I want to surprise you.’

Earlier that afternoon Grace had spent three happy hours in Valentino with her elder sister Honor. Honor had always had an amazing sense of style and the sisters loved to shop together. The manager had closed the store especially so that they could peruse the gowns in peace.

‘I feel quite the rebel.’ Grace giggled. ‘Leaving it to the last minute like this.’

‘I know! We’re kicking over the traces, Gracie.’

The Quorum Ball was the society event of the season. Always held in early June, it marked the start of summer for Manhattan’s privileged elite, who decamped en masse to East Hampton the following week. Most of the women attending tomorrow night at The Plaza would have begun planning their outfits like generals before a military campaign months ago, ordering in silks from Paris and diamonds from Israel, starving themselves for weeks in order to look their flat-stomached best.

Of course, this year there would be some belt tightening. Everyone was talking about the economy and how dire it was. People in Detroit were rioting, apparently. In California, thousands of homeless people had pitched tents along the banks of the American River. The headlines were dreadful. For Grace Brookstein and her friends, nothing compared to the shock they’d felt the day they heard that Lehman Brothers had gone bankrupt. Lehman’s collapse was a tragedy far closer to home. Grace’s own brother-in-law Michael Gray had seen his net worth decimated overnight. Poor Connie. It really was too awful.

Lenny told Grace, ‘We have to strike a different tone this year, Gracie. The Quorum Ball must go ahead. People need the money that charities like ours provide now more than ever.’

‘Of course they do, darling.’

‘But it’s important we aren’t too ostentatious. Compassion. Compassion and restraint. Those must be our watchwords.’

With Honor’s help, Grace had picked out a very restrained black silk shift from Valentino, with almost no beading whatsoever. As for her Louboutin pumps? Simplicity itself. She couldn’t wait for Lenny to see her in them.

Slipping into bed beside him, Grace turned off her bedside lamp.

‘Just a second, sweetie.’ Lenny reached over and turned it on again. ‘I need you to sign something for me. Where is it now?’ He fumbled through the sheets of paper littering his side of the bed. ‘Ah. Here we are.’

He handed Grace the document. She took Lenny’s pen and was about to sign it.

‘Whoa there!’ Lenny laughed. ‘Aren’t you going to read it first?’

‘No. Why would I?’

‘Because you don’t know what you’re signing, Gracie. That’s why. Didn’t your father ever tell you not to sign anything you haven’t read?’

Grace leaned over and kissed him. ‘Yes, my darling. But you’ve read it, haven’t you? I trust you with my life, Lenny, you know that.’

Lenny Brookstein smiled. Grace was right. He did know it. And he thanked God for it every day.

On the corner of Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, a battalion of media had gathered in front of The Plaza’s iconic Beaux Arts façade. Lenny Brookstein was having a party – the party – and as always, the stars were out in force. Billionaires and princes, supermodels and politicians, actors, rock stars, philanthropists; everyone attending tonight’s Quorum Ball had one crucial thing in common, and it wasn’t a burning desire to help the needy. They were all winners.

Senator Jack Warner and his wife, Honor, were among the first to arrive.

‘Go around the block,’ Senator Warner barked at his driver. ‘Why the hell did you get us here so early?’

The driver thought, Ten minutes ago you were on my case for driving too slow. Make your goddamn mind up, asshole.

‘Yes, Senator Warner. Sorry, Senator Warner.’

Honor Warner studied her husband’s angry features as they turned onto West Fifty-seventh Street. He’s been like this all day, ever since he got back from his meeting with Lenny. I hope he isn’t going to ruin this evening for us.

Honor Warner tried to be an understanding wife. She knew that politics was a stressful profession. It had been bad enough when Jack was a congressman, but since his elevation to the Senate (at the remarkably young age of thirty-six), it had gotten worse. The world knew Jack Warner as the Republican’s messiah – a conservative Jack Kennedy for the new millennium. Tall, blond and chiseled, with a strong jaw and a steady, blue-eyed gaze, Senator Warner was adored by voters, especially women. He stood for decency, for old-fashioned family values, for a strong, proud America that many people feared was crumbling daily beneath their feet. Just watching Senator Warner on the news, hand in hand with his beautiful wife, their two towheaded daughters skipping along beside them, was enough to restore people’s faith in the American Dream.

Honor Warner thought, If only they knew.

But how could they? Nobody knew.

Tentatively, she turned to her husband. ‘Do you like my dress, Jack?’

Senator Jack Warner looked at his wife and tried to remember the last time he had found her sexually attractive. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with her. She’s pretty enough, I guess. She’s not fat.

Honor Warner, in fact, was much more than pretty. With her wide-set green eyes, blond curls and high cheekbones, she was widely considered a striking beauty. Not as striking as her sister Grace, perhaps, but gorgeous nonetheless. Tonight Honor was poured into a skintight, strapless Valentino gown the same sea green as her eyes. It was a pull-all-the-stops-out dress. To any impartial observer, Honor Warner looked sexy as hell.

Jack said brusquely. ‘It’s fine. How much did it cost?’

Honor bit her lower lip hard. I mustn’t cry. My mascara’ll run.

‘It’s on loan. Like the emeralds. Grace pulled some strings.’

Senator Jack Warner laughed bitterly. ‘How generous of her.’

‘Please, Jack.’

Honor touched his leg in a conciliatory gesture, but he shrugged away her hand. Knocking on the glass partition, he said to the driver: ‘You can turn the car around now. Let’s get this evening over with.’

By nine P.M., The Plaza’s cream-and-gold Grand Ballroom was packed to bursting. On either side of the room, beneath the splendidly restored arches, tables gleamed with brilliantly polished silverware. Light from the candelabras glinted off the women’s diamonds as they mingled in the center of the room, admiring one another’s priceless couture dresses and swapping horror stories about their husbands’ latest financial woes.

‘There’s no way we can afford Saint-Tropez this year. Ain’t happening.’

‘Harry’s going to sell the yacht. Can you believe it? He loved that thing. He’d sell the children first if he thought anyone would buy them.’

‘Did you hear about the Jonases? They just listed their town house. Lucy wants twenty-three million for it, but in this market? Carl thinks they’ll be lucky to get half that.’

At nine-thirty exactly, dinner was served. All eyes were on the top table. Surrounded by their inner circle of Quorum courtiers, Lenny and Grace Brookstein sat in regal splendor, with eyes only for each other. Other, lesser hosts might have chosen to seat the most glamorous, famous guests at their table. Prince Albert of Monaco was there. So were Brad and Angelina, and Bono and his wife, Ali. But the Brooksteins pointedly kept close to their family and close friends: John and Caroline Merrivale, the vice president and second lady of Quorum; Andrew Preston, another senior Quorum exec, and his voluptuous wife, Maria; Senator Warner and his wife, Grace Brookstein’s sister Honor; and the eldest of the Knowles sisters, Constance, with her husband, Michael.

Lenny Brookstein proposed a toast.

‘To Quorum! And all who sail in her!’

‘To Quorum!’

Andrew Preston, a handsome, well-built man in his midforties with kind eyes and a gentle, self-deprecating smile, watched his wife stand up, champagne glass in hand, and thought: Another new dress. How am I supposed to pay for that?

Not that she didn’t look wonderful in it. Maria always looked wonderful. A former actress and opera star, Maria Preston was a force of nature. Her mane of chestnut hair and gravity-defying, creamy white breasts made her beautiful. But it was her manner, the sparkle in her eye, the deep, throaty vibration of her laugh, the flirtatious swing of her hips, that made men fall at her feet. No one could understand what had possessed a live wire like Maria Carmine to marry an ordinary, standard-issue businessman like Andrew Preston. Andrew himself understood it least of all.

She could have had anyone. A movie star. Or a billionaire like Lenny. Perhaps it would have been better if she had.

Andrew Preston loved his wife unreservedly. It was because of his love, and his deep sense of unworthiness, that he forgave her so much. The affairs. The lies. The uncontrollable spending. Andrew earned good money at Quorum. A small fortune by most people’s standards. But the more he earned, the more Maria spent. It was a disease with her, an addiction. Month after month, she charged hundreds of thousands of dollars to their Amex card. Clothes, cars, flowers, diamonds, eight-thousand-dollar-a night hotel suites where she spent the night with God knows who…it didn’t matter. Maria spent for the thrill of spending.

‘You want me to look like a pauper, Andy? You want me to sit next to that smug little bitch Grace Brookstein in some off-the-rack monstrosity?’

Maria was jealous of Grace. Then again, she was jealous of every woman. It was part of her fiery Italian nature, part of what Andrew Preston loved about her. He tried to reassure her.

‘Darling, you’re twice the woman Grace is. You could wear a sack and you would still outshine her.’

‘You want me to wear a sack now?’

‘No, no, of course not. But, Maria, our mortgage payments…Perhaps one of your other dresses, darling? Just this year. You have so many…’

It was the wrong thing to say, of course. Now Maria had punished him by not only buying a new dress, but buying the most expensive dress she could find, a jewel-encrusted riot of feathers and lace. Looking at it, Andrew felt his heart tighten. Their debts were getting serious.

I’ll have to talk to Lenny again. But the old man has already been so generous. How much further can I push him before he snaps?

Andrew Preston reached into the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket. When no one was looking, he slipped three Xanax into his mouth, washing them down with a slug of champagne.

You always knew Maria would be hard to hold on to. Find a way, Andrew. Find a way.

‘Are you all right, Andrew?’ Caroline Merrivale, John Merrivale’s wife, noticed Andrew Preston’s ashen face. ‘You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.’

‘Ha ha! Not at all.’ Andrew forced a smile. ‘You look ravishing tonight, Caro, as always.’

‘Thank you. John and I both made an effort to be low-key. You know, given the current economic circumstances.’

It was a deliberate dig at Maria. Andrew let it pass, but thought again how much he loathed Caroline Merrivale. Poor John, being pussy-whipped through life by that harridan. No wonder he always looked so downtrodden.

It was obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that the Merrivale marriage was an unhappy one. Anyone, that is, other than Lenny and Grace Brookstein. Those two were so nauseatingly in love, they seemed to assume that everybody else had what they had. Easy to keep the love alive when you have billions of dollars to throw at it. But perhaps Andrew was being unfair? The young Mrs Brookstein was no gold digger. She was naive, that was all, and clearly believed that Caroline Merrivale was her friend. Grace never saw the envy that blazed in the older woman’s eyes whenever her back was turned. But Andrew Preston saw it. Caroline Merrivale was a bitch.

Caroline had always bitterly resented Grace’s position as first lady of Quorum. She, Caroline Merrivale, would have been so much better suited to the role. Handsome rather than beautiful, with strong, intelligent features and a sharply cut bob of black hair, Caroline had once had a flourishing career as a trial lawyer. Of course, that was years ago now. Thanks to Lenny Brookstein, her husband, John, had become an immensely wealthy and successful man. Caroline’s working days were over. But her ambition was far from extinguished.

John Merrivale, by contrast, had never been ambitious. He worked hard at Quorum, accepted whatever Lenny chose to give him, and was grateful. Caroline would taunt him: ‘You’re like a puppy, John. Curled up at your master’s feet, loyally wagging your tail. No wonder Lenny doesn’t respect you.’

‘Lenny d-d-does respect me. It’s you who d-d-doesn’t.’

‘No, and why would I? I want a man, John, not a lapdog. You should demand more equity. Stand up and be counted.’

Andrew Preston glanced across the table at John Merrivale now. Lenny was in the middle of an anecdote, with John hanging on his every word. Andrew thought: He’s brilliant. But he’s weak. There was only room for one king at Quorum. Caroline Merrivale might wish it weren’t so, but she could keep on wishing. They were all hanging off of Lenny Brookstein’s coattails. And they were the lucky ones. Poor old Michael Gray was sitting on Maria’s right, also listening to Lenny’s story. The Grays were like a walking cautionary tale. One minute they were partying up a storm all over Manhattan, living it up in their Greenwich Village brownstone, summering in the South of France and wintering at their newly remodeled chalet in Aspen. The next minute – poof – it was all gone. Word was that every cent Mike Gray owned had been leveraged against Lehman stock. Their kids, Cade and Cooper, were only still in their private schools because Grace Brookstein, Connie Gray’s sister, had insisted on covering the tuition.

Maria whispered in Andrew’s ear: ‘The auction starts in a few minutes, Andy. I’ve got my eye on the vintage Cartier watch. Will you bid for it, or shall I?’

Grace Brookstein smiled and clapped throughout the bidding, but she was secretly relieved when the auction ended and it was time for dancing.

‘I hate these things,’ she whispered in Lenny’s ear as he whisked her around the floor. ‘All those fragile male egos trying to outspend each other. It’s chest beating.’

‘I know.’ Lenny’s hand caressed her lower back. ‘But those chest beaters just raised fifteen million for our foundation. In this economy, that’s pretty good going.’

‘Do you mind if I cut in? I’ve barely spoken to my favorite brother-in-law all night.’

Connie, Grace’s eldest sister, slipped her arm around Lenny’s waist. Lenny and Grace both smiled.

‘Favorite brother-in-law, eh?’ Grace teased. ‘Don’t let Jack hear you say that.’

‘Oh, Jack.’ Connie waved her hand dismissively. ‘He’s been in such a funk all evening. I thought being a senator was supposed to be fun. Anyone would think he was the one who’d just lost his house. And job. And life savings. Come on, Lenny! Cheer a girl up, would you?’

Grace watched as her husband danced with her sister, holding Connie close so he could offer words of comfort. I love them both so much, she thought. And I admire them both so much. The way Connie can make jokes and laugh at herself when she and Mike are going through hell. And Lenny’s incredible, inexhaustible compassion. People were always talking about how ‘lucky’ Grace was to be married to Lenny. Grace agreed. But it wasn’t Lenny’s money that made her blessed. It was his kindness.

Of course, there was a downside to being married to the nicest man in the world. So many people loved Lenny, and relied on him, that Grace almost never got him all to herself. Next week they were flying to Nantucket, Grace’s favorite place in the world, for a two-week vacation. But of course, being the gracious host that he was, Lenny had invited everyone at the table tonight to join them.

‘Promise me we’ll get at least one night alone,’ Grace begged, when they finally crawled into bed that night. The ball had been fun, but exhausting. The thought of even more socializing filled Grace with dread.

‘Don’t worry. They won’t all come. And even if they do, we’ll get more than one night alone, I promise. The house is big enough for us to sneak away.’

Grace thought, That’s true. The house is enormous. Almost as big as your heart, my darling.

Chapter Two

It was the morning after the Quorum Ball, a Saturday. John Merrivale was in bed with his wife.

‘Please, C-C-Caroline. I don’t want to.’

‘I don’t care what you want, you pathetic little worm. Do it!’

John Merrivale closed his eyes and moved down beneath the sheets till he was eye level with his wife’s neatly trimmed black bush.

Caroline taunted him. ‘If you weren’t such a limp dick, I wouldn’t need you to do it. But since you’ve failed to get it up yet again, it’s the least you can do.’

John Merrivale began to do what was asked of him. He hated oral sex. It felt disgusting and wrong. But the days had long passed when he was allowed to follow his own desires. His sex life had become a series of nightly humiliations. Weekends were the worst. Caroline expected a morning performance on Saturdays, and sometimes even a Sunday matinee. It was incredible to John how a woman who so patently despised him could still have such a rampant sex drive. But Caroline seemed to get off on degrading him, bending him to her whim.

Feeling her writhe with pleasure against his tongue, John fought the urge to gag. Sometimes he fantasized about escape. I could go to the office one day and never come home. I could drug her, then strangle her in her sleep. But he knew he would never have the balls to do it. That was the worst part of his miserable marriage. His wife was right about him. He was weak. He was a coward.

In the beginning, when they first met, John had hoped that he might draw strength from Caroline’s dominant personality. That her confidence and ambition would compensate for his shyness. For a few blissful months, they had. But it wasn’t long before his wife’s true nature emerged. Caroline’s ambition was not a positive force, like Lenny Brookstein’s. It was a black hole, an envy-fueled vortex that sucked the life out of any human being who came near it. By the time John Merrivale realized what a monster he’d married, it was too late. If he divorced her, she would expose him to the world as a sexual cripple. That would be more humiliation than even John could bear.

Thankfully it only took a couple of minutes for Caroline to reach orgasm. As soon as she had her pleasure, she got up and marched into the shower, leaving John to strip the bed and put on fresh sheets. There was no need for him to perform such a menial task. The Merrivales had a small army of maids and housekeepers on permanent call at their palatial town home. But Caroline insisted he do it. Once, when she considered his hospital corners to be less than perfect, she’d smashed a glass perfume bottle into his face. John had needed sixteen stitches, and still bore the scar on his left cheek. He told Lenny he’d been mugged, which as he saw it was not far from the truth.

If it hadn’t been for Lenny Brookstein, John Merrivale would have killed himself years ago. Lenny’s friendship, his warm, easy manner, his readiness with a joke, even when business was going badly, was the most important, treasured thing in John Merrivale’s life. He lived for the office and his work at Quorum, not because of the money or the power, but because he wanted to make Lenny proud. Lenny Brookstein was the one and only person who had ever believed in John Merrivale. Awkward and physically unattractive, with red hair and pale, gangly limbs, John had never been popular at school. He had no brothers and sisters growing up with whom to share his troubles, or toast his modest successes. Even his parents were disappointed in him. They never said anything, of course. They didn’t have to. John could feel it just by walking into a room.

At his wedding to Caroline, he overheard his mother talking to one of his aunts. ‘Of course, Fred and I are absolutely delighted. We never thought that John would marry such a bright, attractive girl. To be perfectly honest, we’d rather given up hope of his marrying at all. I mean, let’s face it, he’s a sweet boy but he’s hardly Cary Grant!’

The fact that his own wife despised him hurt John, but it did not surprise him. People had despised him all his life. It was Lenny Brookstein’s friendship, the huge trust Lenny had placed in John, that was the great surprise of John’s life. He owed Lenny Brookstein everything.

Of course, Caroline didn’t see it that way. Her envy of Lenny and Grace Brookstein had grown over the years to the point where she now struggled to conceal it in public. In private, John had grown used to hearing her refer to Lenny disparagingly as ‘the old man,’ and to Grace as ‘that bitch.’ But recently Caroline had taken to wearing her loathing on her face. For John, this made events like last night’s Quorum Ball a terrifying experience. His love for Lenny Brookstein was immense. But his fear of his wife was even greater. And Caroline Merrivale knew it.

At breakfast, John tried to make small talk.

‘We made a r-r-respectable total last night, I thought, all things considered.’

Caroline sipped her coffee and said nothing.

‘I know L-Lenny was pleased.’

‘Fifteen million?’ Caroline laughed scornfully. ‘That’s nothing to the old man. He might as well just write a check himself and be done with it. But of course, that would mean missing out on all the adulation. All the great and the good telling him what a terrific, philanthropic guy he is. And we couldn’t have his darling Gracie go without getting her picture taken six thousand times, could we? Heaven forbid!’

John spread a thin layer of butter on his toast, avoiding his wife’s eye. He knew from experience that Caroline’s anger could turn on a dime. One wrong move and it would be directed at him. Once again he cursed himself for his cowardice. Why am I so afraid of her?

Hoping to get back into her good graces, he mumbled, ‘Lenny invited us to Nantucket next week, by the way. Don’t worry. I said no.’

‘What the hell did you do that for?’

‘I…well, I…I assumed you…’

‘You assumed?’ Caroline’s eyes bulged with rage. ‘How dare you assume anything!’ For a moment John wondered if she was going to hit him. To his great shame, he heard his coffee cup rattle against its saucer. ‘Who else is invited?’

‘Everybody, I th-th-think. The Prestons. Grace’s s-sisters. I’m not sure.’

‘And you want to let Andrew Preston spend a week sucking up to Lenny, pushing himself ahead of you at Quorum while you sit by and do nothing? Good God, John. How stupid are you?’

John opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again. The business didn’t work like that. Andrew Preston could never hope to usurp John’s position and he wouldn’t try. He wouldn’t dare. But there was no point trying to reason with Caroline.

‘So you want to go, then?’

‘I don’t want to go, John. Frankly I can’t think of anything worse than being cooped up with Lenny Brookstein’s inane child bride on some godforsaken island for seven days. But I will go. And so will you.’ She swept imperiously out of the room.

Once she’d gone, John Merrivale allowed himself a small smile.

I did it. We’re going. We’re actually going!

The reverse psychology had worked like a charm. All it took was a little courage. Perhaps I’ll try it more often?

Chapter Three

Senator Jack Warner woke up on Saturday morning with a crushing hangover. Honor had left early for her yoga class. Downstairs, in the playroom of their idyllic Westchester County farmhouse, Jack Warner could hear his daughters, Bobby and Rose, screaming blue murder at each other.

What the fuck is Ilse doing?

The family’s new Dutch au pair gave an excellent blow job, but her nannying skills left much to be desired. So far Jack had resisted Honor’s requests to be allowed to fire Ilse. But this morning, he changed his mind. An uninterrupted Saturday morning in bed was worth much more than a good blow job. In Senator Jack Warner’s world, good blow jobs were easy to come by. Peace and quiet, on the other hand, were priceless.

Jack Warner first knew he wanted to become president of the United States when he was three years old. It was August 1974. His parents were watching Richard Nixon’s resignation on television.

‘What’s that man doing?’ little Jack asked his mother. It was his father who answered.

‘He’s leaving the best job in the world, son. He’s a liar and a fool.’

Jack thought about this for a minute.

‘If he’s a fool, how did he get the best job in the world?’

His father laughed. ‘That’s a good question!’

‘Who’s going to do his job now?’

‘Why d’you ask, Jacko?’ Jack’s father pulled him up onto his lap and ruffled his hair affectionately. ‘Do you want it?’

Yes, thought Jack. If it’s the best job in the world, I rather think I do.

So far, Jack Warner’s path to the White House had been straight as an arrow. First in his class at Andover? Check. Steady record of volunteer work and public service? Check. Yale undergrad, Harvard Law, partnership in a prestigious New York law firm? Check, check, check. After two brief internships working on senatorial campaigns, Jack Warner ran for Congress, winning the 20th Congressional District seat by a landslide at the astonishingly young age of twenty-nine. Jack Warner never made a friend, took a job, attended a party, or got laid without first thinking, How will this look on my record? On the rare occasions when he slept with a less-than-suitable girl, he made sure that the event took place well away from the prying eyes of any potential voters. But such slip-ups were rare. Jack made it his business to be in the right place at the right time with the right people. He knew that his appeal lay in his all-American good looks, the air of confidence and down-home goodness that he seemed to project so effortlessly.

Like everything else in Jack Warner’s life, his marriage to Honor Knowles had been a carefully choreographed political decision.

Fred Farrell, Jack’s campaign manager, sat him down. ‘Our data shows you’re still perceived as too young to run for the Senate. We need to “mature” your image.’

Jack was frustrated. ‘How? Should I grow a beard? Start wearing vests?’

‘Actually the beard’s not a bad idea. But what you really need to do is get married. A couple of kids wouldn’t hurt either. The single women all love you, but you need to work on the family vote.’

‘Fine. I’ll ask Karen over the weekend.’

Karen Connelly was Jack’s girlfriend of the past ten months and his first really serious love. The only daughter of a respected, political family – Karen’s father, Mitch, had once been White House chief of staff – Karen was also beautiful, intelligent and kind. She adored Jack unconditionally. The two of them had spoken often about starting a family together one day, when Karen finished grad school and Jack’s congressional schedule got less hectic. Evidently ‘one day’ was now.

Fred Farrell frowned. ‘I’m not so sure Karen’s the best choice. She’s a sweet girl and all. But for your wife…’

Jack bristled. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with her. Don’t take it personally, Jack. I’m merely saying that ideally I’d prefer someone with a little more “wow” factor. Not too pretty, of course. That’s a big turnoff for your base.’

‘But prettier than Karen?’

‘Higher profile than Karen. It wouldn’t hurt if she were independently wealthy, too.’

‘Why?’

‘For the future, dear boy.’ Fred Farrell shook his head despairingly. ‘I’m assuming your political ambitions don’t end with the Senate?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Good. Then start thinking practically. Have you any idea how much a presidential run costs these days?’

Jack had a pretty good idea. Many a wealthy man had lost everything pursuing his White House fantasies. Even so, marrying for money seemed distasteful.

‘Look, I have a girl in mind. Meet her, see what you think. No pressure.’

Three months later, Congressman Jack Warner got over his distaste and married society heiress Honor Knowles in a blaze of publicity. The day they left for their honeymoon, Karen Connelly committed suicide, slitting her wrists in the bathtub. Out of respect for Karen’s father, the press never ran the story.

For Honor Knowles, her whirlwind romance with the most eligible, dashing congressman in the country was easily the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. Ever since she was a little girl, Honor had felt overlooked. Her elder sister, Constance, was the brains of the family and their mother’s clear favorite. Grace, Honor’s younger sister, was drop-dead beautiful and had been the apple of their father’s eye when he was alive. All of which left Honor pretty much nowhere. The fact that she was bright and attractive in her own right didn’t seem to matter to anyone. I’m the fifth wheel. The backup singer no one ever notices. I’m only popular by association.

For a handsome man to single her out (and not just any handsome man but Jack Warner, a possible future president!) was so thrilling, so deliciously unexpected, that it never occurred to Honor to question Jack’s motives. Or the speed with which he hustled her down the aisle. Jack, she soon learned, did everything at speed. No sooner had he asked her out on a date than he proposed. No sooner had she accepted than he’d booked the church. No sooner had they gotten back from honeymoon than he was on her case about getting pregnant.

‘What’s the rush?’ Honor laughed, stroking his sleek blond head in bed one night. She still had to pinch herself sometimes when she woke up next to Jack. He was so perfect. Not just perfect-looking but perfect on the inside, too. Noble, courageous, visionary. He wanted so many good things for America. ‘We’ve only been married five minutes. Can’t we just enjoy being together for a little while, first?’

But Jack was insistent. He wanted a family and he wanted it now. On their honeymoon in Tahiti, Honor had been worried. Jack got a phone call from home on their first morning at the resort that had clearly upset him. He canceled their snorkeling trip (‘You go. I have to work’) and barely spoke to Honor for the remainder of the day. That night, he kept calling out ‘Karen!’ in his sleep. When Honor questioned him the next day, he was defensive. ‘Jesus, Honor. You’re cross-examining my dreams now?’

After that, he was withdrawn and morose the entire week, refusing to talk about what was troubling him and avoiding all of Honor’s attempts at closeness. He didn’t even want to make love. But when they got back to New York, to Honor’s immense relief, the black mood lifted. Suddenly he was all over her again.

He wouldn’t want to start a family if he didn’t love me, she reasoned. This is his way of saying sorry for Tahiti. And really, why should we wait? What could be sweeter than having a mini-Jack running around?

Their first daughter, Roberta, was born nine months later, followed within a year by her sister, Rose. Because the pregnancies were so close together, Honor was still carrying weight from Roberta when she conceived Rose. As a result, when Jack took her out for dinner to celebrate their second anniversary, Honor was almost fifty pounds heavier than she had been on her wedding day.

‘Why don’t you start running again?’ Jack suggested bluntly over the pan-fried scallops. ‘You could go with your sister and her trainer. Grace is looking fantastic at the moment. That guy must be doing something right.’

It was as if he’d stuck a pin in Honor’s eyeball. Grace. Why did everything always have to come back to Grace?

When Honor married Jack Warner, she felt like the star of the show for the first time in her life. Growing up, Grace had always stolen her thunder. The worst part was, she’d done it without even trying. Just by walking into a room, Grace owned it, shining with a light so blinding it obliterated Honor’s presence altogether. Honor tried hard to stamp down her feelings of jealousy and resentment. She knew Grace loved her, that she thought of Honor as her best friend. And yet there were times when Honor Knowles fantasized about her sister having an ‘accident.’ She pictured Grace falling from the high bars, her perfect little doll’s body contorted and broken on the gym floor. Or a car accident in which Grace’s exquisite, model features were ravaged by flames. The flames of my hatred. The fantasies were shameful, but they felt good.

When Honor married Jack, she thought, All that’s behind me now. Now that I’m happy and famous, now that someone wonderful loves me, I can be the big sister Grace always wanted me to be.

It didn’t work out that way. Ironically, it was Honor who had introduced Grace to Lenny Brookstein, at one of Jack’s fund-raisers. Two weeks later, Grace announced they were in love.

At first, Honor thought she was kidding. When she realized her mistake, she felt sick to her stomach. ‘But, Gracie, you’re eighteen years old. He’s old enough to be your grandfather.’

‘I know. It’s crazy!’ Grace laughed, that sweet, tinkling laugh that made all men melt like butter on a stove. ‘I never thought I could feel this way about someone like Lenny but…I’m so happy, Honor. Truly. And so’s Lenny. Can’t you be happy for us?’

‘Darling, I am happy. If it’s what you really want.’

But Honor wasn’t happy. She was furious.

It wasn’t enough for Grace to settle down with some normal, rich investment banker, like Connie had done. Oh no. Madam has to go and ensnare the biggest billionaire in New York. Honor Knowles’s brief moment in the sun was already fading. While she was stuck at home, fat and exhausted like a mother hen, Grace was once more the talk of the town. And now here was Jack, her own beloved husband, comparing her unfavorably to her little sister because she’d gained a few pounds giving birth to his children! It was not to be borne.

And yet Honor did bear it, stoically and in silence. The same way she bore Jack’s neglect of her and the children, his selfishness, his rampant ambition, and most recently, his infidelities. She lost the weight, every last pound of it. As far as the public was concerned, Senator Warner and his wife had a fairy-tale marriage. Honor was not about to disillusion them. The pretense was all she had left, and she kept it up, smiling at Jack loyally during his speeches, giving magazine interviews about her homemaking tips and Jack’s brilliance as a ‘hands-on’ father. Of course, Honor knew full well that the only thing Jack had had his hands on lately were the au pair’s breasts, but she would have died rather than admit it.

The same went for her loathing of her sister. On the surface, Honor Warner remained close to both her sisters, but particularly to Grace. The two women ate lunch together twice a week, in addition to their regular shopping trips and vacations en famille. But beneath the loving, sisterly façade, Honor’s resentment bubbled like scalding magma.

Jack encouraged his wife to strengthen her ties to the Brooksteins. ‘It’s win-win, darling. You get to spend time with Grace. I know how much you love her. And I get some face time with Lenny. If Lenny Brookstein endorses my run for the White House in four years’ time, I’ll be unstoppable.’

Honor thought about it. If Jack runs for president, he’ll have to stop chasing tail. It’s too risky. Plus, if he becomes president, with Lenny Brookstein’s money, I’ll be first lady. Not even Grace can trump that.

Recently, however, Jack’s fervor for his billionaire in-laws had inexplicably cooled. It started with bitchy comments about Grace’s clothes and Lenny’s ever-growing paunch. In the days leading up to the Quorum Ball, it spilled over into something more overt. Jack was drinking heavily. At home, when drunk, he would rant at Honor about Lenny Brookstein’s ‘disloyalty,’ his ‘arrogance.’

‘Fucking prick, who does he think he’s talking to? One of his employees?’ he rambled. ‘If Lenny wants his dick sucked, he should ask John Merrivale or that ass-kisser Preston. I’m a fucking United States senator!’

Honor had no idea what Jack was talking about. She longed to ask, but she was too afraid. Despite everything, Honor Warner still loved her husband. Deep down she was convinced that if she helped Jack’s career – said the right things, wore the right dress, threw the right parties – he would eventually fall in love with her again.

She could not know that Jack Warner had never been in love with her in the first place.

Jack came downstairs in his bathrobe, hunting for some Alka-Seltzer. Roberta, known to her parents as Bobby, flew into his arms like a whirlwind.

‘Daddy!’ Blond and chubby, like a Renaissance cherub, Bobby had always been a very affectionate child. ‘Ilse says if we’re not good, we won’t go to In-tuck-it. That’s not right, is it?’

Jack set his daughter back down on the floor.

‘Don’t pester your father, Roberta,’ said Ilse.

‘But we like In-tuck-it. Even Rose does, don’t you, Rosie?’

Four-year-old Rose was pulling Dior lipsticks out of Mommy’s makeup bag and snapping them in half, rubbing waxy pink mess all over the hardwood floor. Ilse was too busy making eyes at her boss to notice.

‘Can I help you with anything, Senator Warner?’

‘No,’ Jack snapped. Nantucket. I forgot about that. That bastard Brookstein invited us all to his estate last night. Like we’re all such good buddies.

It had cost Jack Warner’s pride dearly for him to go to Lenny Brookstein for help. He’d never have done it if he hadn’t been desperate. But he was desperate, and Lenny knew it. It had started as a sort of stress relief. A few innocent bets here and there, on the horses or the blackjack tables. But as his losses crept up, so did the size of Jack’s positions. Gambling had unleashed a reckless side to Jack Warner that he had never before been aware of. It was exciting, exhilarating and addictive. Recently, his addiction had started to cost him dearly in financial terms. But the real risk was political. Jack had built his entire career on his reputation as an upstanding, Christian conservative. Compulsive gambling might not be illegal, but it would lose him the family values vote in a heartbeat.

Fred Farrell gave it to him straight. ‘You have to stop this, Jack. Right now. Pay off your debts and wipe the slate clean.’

As if it were that easy! Pay off my debts? With what? Honor’s inheritance had all been blown on the house and the children’s education. As a senator, Jack earned $140,000 a year, a fraction of what he used to make as an attorney, and an even smaller fraction of what he now owed – in some cases, to some deeply unsavory characters.

There was no way around it. He would have to tap his brother-in-law. It would be embarrassing, sure. But once he explained the situation, Lenny would help him out. Lenny’s a long-term thinker. When they make me president, I’ll pay him back a thousandfold. He knows that.

It turned out Lenny Brookstein did not know it. Instead of writing a check, he’d given Jack a lecture.

‘I’m sorry for you, Jack, truly I am. But I can’t help. My father was a gambler. Put my poor mother through hell. If it hadn’t been for the enablers, the friends who bailed him out time after time, the nightmare might have ended a lot sooner. As it was, he lost the money that could have paid for Ma’s medical treatment.’

Jack tried to keep his cool. ‘With all due respect, Lenny, I don’t think I have much in common with your father. I’m a United States senator. I’m good for this money, you know that. It’s just a small cash-flow problem.’

Lenny smiled amiably. ‘In which case I’m sure you’ll solve it on your own. Now, was there anything else?’

Patronizing bastard! It wasn’t just a refusal. It was a dismissal. Jack Warner would not forget the slight as long as he lived. His first thought last night had been to tell Lenny Brookstein to stick his invitation to Nantucket where the ‘moon don’t shine.’ But on reflection, perhaps that was a mistake. The truth was, he was still in urgent need of a significant injection of cash. Honor and Grace were close. Maybe if Honor worked on her little sister, Grace could make her besotted husband see sense? Of course, such a policy would mean Jack coming clean to Honor about his gambling debts. Not an appealing prospect. But at the end of the day, what was she going to do? Leave me? I don’t think so.

Turning to Ilse, he said, ‘We’ll leave for Nantucket first thing Monday morning. Please make sure the girls are packed and ready.’

Bobby shot her au pair a look of purest triumph. ‘See. I told you we were going.’

‘Yes, sir. Is there anything…special…you’d like me to pack?’

Ilse gave him a lascivious wink. Her meaning could not have been clearer.

Neither could Jack’s.

‘No. You won’t be coming with us. As of Monday, you’re fired.’

Grabbing the Alka-Seltzer from the kitchen cupboard, he went back upstairs to bed.

Chapter Four

Connie Gray stood in the playground, watching her sons on the monkey bars.

Look at them. So innocent. They have no idea their world is crumbling around them.

Cade was six and the spitting image of his father, Michael. Dark-haired and olive-skinned, he had the same open, happy, guileless face as Mike. Cooper had more of Connie in him. His coloring was fairer, his features more feminine. And he was altogether a more complex child. Sensitive. Anxious. Both the boys were highly intelligent. With parents like Connie and Michael, how could they not be? But four-year-old Cooper was the deeper thinker.

I wonder what he’d think if he knew what his mommy has been up to? Perhaps one day, when he’s older, he’ll understand? How desperate times called for desperate measures?

The eldest of the Knowles sisters, Connie had been a straight-A student since first grade. Her mother’s pride and joy, Connie had had to make do with her father’s respect and affection. Cooper Knowles’s heart was already spoken for. It belonged to his youngest daughter, Grace.

Like Honor, Connie recognized early on that the baby of the family was ‘special,’ a uniquely compelling, lovely child. Unlike Honor, however, Connie had no intention of taking a backseat to little Grace, or of giving up the limelight. She played her role as the brains of the family brilliantly, graduating top of her class in high school and getting accepted into all the premier Ivy League colleges. Though she feigned a lack of interest in beauty and fashion, Connie knew she was attractive, albeit in a strong-featured, masculine sort of way. She did all she could to maintain her flawless alabaster complexion and the trim, long-legged figure that men so admired. She might not be able to compete with Grace in terms of looks, but at eight years older, she didn’t have to.

By the time Grace is old enough to come out in society, I’ll be happily married. She’ll be Honor’s problem then.

And of course, she was. Like all the Knowles sisters, Connie married for love. Michael Gray was a knockout in those days. He was still pretty gorgeous, but back then he still had his football player’s physique, as well as the chiseled, Armani-model features that made all the secretaries at Lehman Brothers swoon.

Connie kept working as a lawyer until Cade was born. After that, there didn’t seem much point. Michael was a partner at Lehman, earning millions of dollars a year in bonuses. Of course, most of that came in the form of stock options. But back then, who cared about that? Bank stocks were only moving one way – up. If the Grays spent multiples of Mike’s basic salary every year, they were only doing what everybody else was doing. If you wanted something expensive, like a Hamptons beach house or a Bentley or a $100,000 necklace for your wife on her anniversary, you borrowed against your stock. It was a simple, tax-efficient system and one that no one questioned.

Then Bear Stearns collapsed.

In hindsight, the failure of that venerable old New York institution in March 2008 was the beginning of the end for Michael and Connie Gray, and for thousands like them. But of course, hindsight is 20/20. At the time, Connie remembered, it still felt as if something seismic and awful and unimaginable was happening to someone else. Those were the best kind of tragedies. The kinds that were close enough to give you a frisson of terror and excitement, without actually affecting your life.

It was nine months now since the awful September day when Connie’s own world had collapsed. She still woke up some mornings feeling happy and content for a few blissful seconds…until she remembered.

Lehman Brothers went bankrupt on September 16, 2008. Overnight, the Grays saw their net worth drop from somewhere around $20 million to about $1 million – the equity in their heavily mortgaged New York town house. Then the housing market dropped through the floor, and that million dollars fell to $500,000. By Christmas they’d sold everything but Connie’s jewelry and pulled the kids out of school. But the real problem was not so much the financial catastrophe itself, but Connie and Michael’s polar opposite responses to their predicament.

Michael Gray was a good man. A trouper. And you couldn’t keep a good man down. ‘Just think how many millions of people are worse off than we are,’ he would tell Connie constantly. ‘We’re lucky. We have each other, two terrific little boys, good friends, and some savings. Plus we’re both young enough to get out there and start earning again.’

Connie said, ‘Of course we are darling,’ and kissed him.

Inside, she thought, Lucky? Are you out of your mind?

Connie Gray didn’t want to ‘get out there and start earning.’ She didn’t want to dust herself off and try again. She didn’t want to pack up her troubles in her old kit bag and smile, smile, smile, and if Michael spouted one more inane fucking platitude, so help her she would strangle him with his one remaining silk Hermès necktie.

Connie had no interest in becoming one of the credit crunch’s stoic, plucky survivors. The American Dream wasn’t about surviving. It was about winning. Connie Gray wanted to be a winner. She had married a winner, and he had let her down. Now she must find a new protector, someone who could provide a decent life for her and her children.

The affair with Lenny Brookstein had not been planned.

Affair! Who am I kidding? It was a two-night stand. Lenny made that very clear last night.

Connie had always gotten along well with Grace’s illustrious husband. In happier times, she and Mike would have dinner with the Brooksteins regularly. Inevitably, it was Connie and Lenny who ended up screaming with laughter at some private joke. Grace used to tell Connie all the time, ‘You know, it’s funny. You and Lenny are so similar. You’re like two peas in a pod. Whenever he talks to me about Quorum and business, I have no idea what he’s going on about. But you? You know everything! It’s like you’re really interested.’

And Connie would always wonder, How on earth did those two get married?

Lenny Brookstein was brilliant and engaging, tough and ambitious and alive, the most alive person Connie had ever met. Grace was…sweet. It made no sense to Connie. But she didn’t dwell on it too much. Back then she and Michael were happy and rich, albeit in a modest way.

Back then…

The first time it happened was in Lenny’s office, late at night. Connie had gone to see her brother-in-law privately, to talk to him about a bridge loan, and the possibility of his helping Michael find another position. The Lehman MDs had become Wall Street’s lepers, tainted by failure, untouchable. Michael was a good banker, but no one was prepared to give him a second chance.

Connie had started to cry. Lenny put his arm around her. Before they knew it, they were on the floor, tangled in each other’s arms, and Lenny was making passionate love to her.

Afterward, Connie whispered, ‘We’re so alike, you and I. We both have the hunger. Michael and Grace aren’t like that.’

‘I know,’ said Lenny. ‘That’s why we have to protect them. You and I can protect ourselves.’

It was not the response Connie had hoped for. But she did not leave Quorum’s offices that night disheartened. On the contrary, a new and interesting door had just been opened. Slipping into bed beside Michael an hour later, she wondered excitedly where it might lead.

It led nowhere.

Two weeks later, Connie slept with Lenny again, this time at a cheap hotel in New Jersey. Lenny was crippled with guilt.

‘I can’t believe we’ve done this. I’ve done this,’ he corrected himself. ‘It’s not your fault, Connie. You and Michael are under terrible stress. But I have no excuse.’

Connie whispered huskily, ‘You don’t need an excuse, Lenny. You’re not happy with Grace. I understand that. She was never right for you.’

Lenny’s eyes widened. He looked at Connie with genuine incredulity.

‘Not right for me? Grace? My God. She’s everything to me. I love her so much, I…’ The sentence tailed off. He was too choked to finish it. Eventually he said, ‘She must never know about this. Never. And it must never happen again. Let’s put it down to a moment of madness and move on, okay?’

‘Sure,’ said Connie. ‘If that’s what you want.’

Driving home to Michael, she could barely contain her rage. Move on? MOVE ON? To what? What have I got to move on to? A life of middle-aged penury with my formerly successful husband, living off scraps from my little sister’s table? Fuck you, Lenny Brookstein. You owe me. And now you can pay me. You think I’m going to let you walk back into Grace’s arms scot-free?

‘Mommy, watch me!’

Cade was on the swing. He rocked his skinny legs back and forth to gain momentum, then leaped into the air, landing with a satisfied thud on the sand.

‘Did you see how high I went? Did you see?’

‘I saw, honey. That was awesome.’ Connie drew her finely woven summer shawl more tightly around her shoulders. Cashmere, from Scotland, it had been a birthday present from Grace. Soon everything we own will be a present from Grace. The food on our table, the shirts on our backs.

The thought of spending next week with Lenny and Grace at their magnificent beachfront estate was enough to make Connie feel nauseous. Especially after her little tête-à-tête with Lenny on the dance floor at the Quorum Ball last night. The bastard had actually had the temerity to get angry with her. With her! As if she were the one who’d pursued him. Lenny had led her on, then dropped her like a piece of trash, scuttling back to her baby sister and their oh-so-perfect life together. And now Connie was supposed to be grateful to have her airfare paid so she could sit in their $60-million home and watch the two of them canoodling?

It was Michael who forced the issue.

‘I’d like to go. It was generous of Lenny to invite us, and I could use a break from New York. Some sailing, some sea air.’

Michael had always liked Lenny. But that was Michael. He liked everyone. When Lenny extended the invitation last night, Mike practically bit his hand off.

If he knew where Lenny Brookstein’s hands have been – on my breasts, my ass, between my thighs – he might not be so quick to bite.

But Michael Gray did not know.

As long as Lenny Brookstein did the decent thing and gave Connie what was coming to her, he would never have to.

Chapter Five

Lenny and Grace Brookstein’s Nantucket estate was an idyllic, sprawling, gray-shingled mansion set just off Cliff Road on the north side of the island. The main house boasted ten bedroom suites, an indoor swimming pool and spa, a state-of-the-art movie theater, a chef’s kitchen and an enormous, gabled roof terrace (known on Nantucket as a ‘widow’s walk,’ because in the olden days, sailors’ wives used to climb up to their rooftops and gaze out to sea, hoping to spot their husbands’ long-lost ships returning). Formal gardens, planted with lavender, roses, and box hedges in the European style, cascaded down the hillside to Steps Beach, one of the quietest and most prestigious beaches on the island. At the bottom of the garden were four guest cottages, charming, wisteria-clad dollhouses in white wood, each with its own miniature front yard and white picket fence. Anywhere else the cottages would have looked impossibly twee. But here, on this magical island frozen for all time in some simpler, bygone era, they worked.

At least Grace Brookstein thought so. It was she who had built and designed them, down to the very last Ralph Lauren pillowcase and antique Victorian claw-foot tub.

Grace adored Nantucket. It was where she and Lenny got married, without question the happiest day of Grace’s life. But it was more than that. There was a simplicity to the island that did not exist anywhere else. Of course, there was money on Nantucket. Serious money. Tiny, three-room fishermen’s cottages in Siasconset changed hand for upward of $2 million. During the summer, Michelin-starred restaurants like 21 Federal and the Summerhouse charged more for their lobster thermidor than Georges V in Paris. Upscale boutiques on Union and Orange streets in town showcased thousand-dollar cardigans in their windows. Galleries representing local artists regularly sold pieces for six figures, sometimes even seven, to the island’s wealthier residents. And yet, somehow, Nantucket remained determinedly low-key. In all the years she’d been coming to the island, Grace had never seen a sports car. Billionaires and their wives strolled around town in khaki shorts and white cotton shirts from the Gap. Even the yachts in the harbor were conservative, far less flashy than the ones at East Hampton or Saint-Tropez or Palm Beach. Lenny never moored anything but a modest, forty-seven-foot bareboat in Nantucket. He would have died of shame before he showed up in the three-hundred-foot Quorum Queen, even though in Sardinia, Grace could hardly get him off the thing.

Nantucket was a place where rich people pretended to be poor. Or at least poorer. It made Grace nostalgic for her childhood, for a simpler time in her life, a time of innocent pleasures. It thrilled her that Lenny loved the island just as much as she did. Other than Le Cocon, their bastide-style retreat in Madagascar, there was nowhere else on earth where Grace felt so totally relaxed. The Brooksteins were happy everywhere, but they were happiest of all here, in this house.

Grace and Lenny arrived three days before their guests. Lenny still had some work to catch up on (didn’t he always?) and Grace needed time to talk to the staff and make sure that everything was perfect for her visitors.

‘Give Honor and Connie the larger two cottages because they’ve got kids. Andrew and Maria can have the one right on the sand, and the Merrivales can go in the smallest one. Caroline’s been here before, so I’m sure she won’t mind.’

There was so much to do! Planning menus, ordering flowers, making sure the bikes and fishing rods were ready for her nephews and nieces. Grace felt like she’d barely seen Lenny.

The night before the hordes descended, the two of them had a romantic dinner at the Chanticleer, a pretty, intimate restaurant in the fishing village of Siasconset. At least it would have been romantic if Lenny hadn’t spent the entire evening glued to his BlackBerry.

‘Is everything all right, darling? You seem so stressed.’

Grace reached across the table and squeezed his hand.

‘Sorry, honey. Everything’s fine. I’m just a little…there’s a lot going on at the moment. Nothing for you to worry about, my angel.’

Grace tried not to worry, but it was hard. Lenny never brought his work problems home with him. Never. This morning a perfectly harmless homeless man on the wharf had asked Lenny for change, and Lenny had flown at him, lecturing him on alcoholism and taking responsibility for ten straight minutes. Later, Grace had been picking raspberries in the garden when she overheard Lenny shouting out of their bedroom window. He was on the phone with John Merrivale. Grace didn’t catch everything he said, but one phrase had stuck in her mind:

‘They all want a piece of me, John. The bastards are bleeding me dry. If you’re right about Preston, after everything I’ve done for him…I’ll cut his fucking hand off.’

What did he mean, ‘bleeding him dry’? And who were the bastards? Surely not Andrew Preston? Andrew had worked for Lenny since year one. He and Maria were practically family, like the Merrivales.

Grace’s only comfort was that at least Lenny was talking to John. She knew he trusted him and relied on him like a brother. Whatever the problem was, Grace felt sure that John would know what to do. He’d be here tomorrow. Then, hopefully, Lenny would feel a little more relaxed.

The vacation got off to a smooth start. Once the houseguests arrived, Lenny was more relaxed, quite his old self again in fact. With the exception of Jack Warner, who still seemed out of sorts, everyone appeared happy to be there and determined to have a good time.

Michael Gray appointed himself Pied Piper to all four of the children, taking his nieces, Bobby and Rose, fishing for crabs with their cousins, and treating them all to ice creams at Jetties Beach. Grace was delighted. Poor Mike and Connie had been through so much this past year. You could see the vacation doing Mike good. As for Cade and little Cooper, they were in seventh heaven, outdoors all day on their bikes or up to their necks in sand.

During the days the other four men – John, Andrew, Jack and Lenny – sailed or played golf while their wives indulged in some serious retail therapy. Grace loved treating her sisters to little gifts. Nothing gave her more pleasure than spending her good fortune on others, especially Connie and Honor. She would happily have splurged on Caroline and Maria, too, but neither of them would let her.

It probably feels weird for them, because I’m so much younger. They think of me like a daughter. Still, Caroline especially had always been so kind. Grace was determined to find some way to show her appreciation.

‘I was thinking of having a special dinner tomorrow night at home.’ Grace accosted Lenny in his study. She was bursting with excitement. ‘I’m going to ask John all of Caroline’s favorite dishes and I’ll have Felicia make them. What do you think?’

Lenny looked at her fondly. ‘I think it’s a great idea, Gracie.’

Grace started to walk away but he reached out and grabbed her hand. ‘I love you. You do know that, don’t you?’

She laughed and threw her arms around him.

‘Of course I know it. Honestly, Lenny! What a funny thing to say.’

‘I’m not sitting next to her. Or Lenny. And don’t expect me to clap my fins together like a performing seal and bark in gratitude either. I’ll leave the groveling up to you, John.’

Caroline Merrivale was in a foul mood. Despite the fact that it was she who insisted they accept Lenny’s invitation to Nantucket, she now blamed John for everything. The dull excursions, the dreary company, the fact that they’d been relegated to the meanest and shabbiest of the dreadful little guesthouses. She refused to see Grace’s ‘special dinner’ as anything other than yet another patronizing slight.

‘Just d-d-don’t make a scene, Caro, all right? That’s all I’m asking.’

‘All you’re asking? And what do you think gives you the right to ask anything? Have you spoken to Lenny? About the raise?’

John looked pained. ‘Not yet. It’s not as s-s-simple as you seem to think it is.’

‘On the contrary, John. It’s very simple. Either you talk to him or I will.’

‘No! You c-can’t! Please, you must leave L-Lenny to me.’

‘Fine. But you’d better grow some balls and talk to him before the end of this vacation. If I have to listen to his vacuous wifelette gush one more time about how grateful she is for my incredible friendship, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.’

John Merrivale thought sadly, Grace is grateful for your friendship. Poor, misguided girl.

Lenny was a lucky man. Wives like Grace were one in a million.

‘Please, don’t stand on ceremony everyone. Dig in!’

Grace felt unaccountably nervous. The dinner itself looked fabulous. Felicia had excelled herself as usual. The lobster bisque smelled exquisite and was the perfect shade of pale pink, the roast lamb looked mouthwateringly succulent on its bed of organic greens and the raspberry Pavlova was as much a sculpture as a dessert, a towering triumph of snow-white meringue and bloodred berries. Caroline couldn’t fail to be delighted.

And yet Grace could not enjoy her triumph. Earlier that day she’d seen Connie talking heatedly with Lenny on the beach, then storming off close to tears. When Grace caught up with her sister and asked her what was wrong, Connie had shrugged her away angrily.

‘It’s Michael,’ Lenny explained. ‘He’s depressed. They’re going through so much stress right now, honey, you mustn’t take it personally.’

But Grace did take it personally. Not four hours earlier, Honor had bitten her head off, too. All Grace did was ask if she wanted to come to the spa.

‘Not everything in this life can be fixed by a fucking massage, Gracie, okay? Christ, is that your answer to everything? To spend more money pampering yourself?’

Grace was deeply hurt. She wasn’t a materialistic person. Honor, of all people, should know that. In fairness, Honor had apologized afterward. ‘It’s Jack. He’s got so much on his mind lately, I think some of the stress is rubbing off on me.’ Grace forgave her and they made up. But still, a lingering anxiety remained. Perhaps she was imagining it, but it seemed to Grace that there was an almost palpable tension around the dinner table tonight.

They’re all unhappy. Even Lenny. I want to make them happy, but I can’t.

‘The soup’s ambrosial, Grace. Nice job.’ Mike Gray grinned at his sister-in-law.

‘Thanks.’ She smiled back. He doesn’t look depressed to me.

Maria Preston said snidely, ‘Indeed, your chef is to be congratulated. He must have worked like a slave all day to produce this feast.’

Andrew Preston blushed. Not even Grace Brookstein was stupid enough to miss a blatant dig like that. He wished Maria would get a grip on herself, but after a few glasses of wine she was lethal. It was bad enough that she’d insisted on coming to dinner in a lavish Roberto Cavalli evening gown, slashed to the thigh and wildly inappropriate for the occasion.

‘Maria, cara. Everyone else will be in jeans or simple sundresses. You look stunning, my angel, as always. But couldn’t you…’

‘No, Andy. I couldn’t. I am not “everyone else.” ’Aven’t you learned this by now?’

Grace was too polite to rise to Maria’s bait. Lenny had no such qualms.

‘Our chef is a “she” actually, Felicia.’ His tone was measured. ‘And she does work hard, though I’d hardly call her a slave. Last year I paid her considerably more than I paid your husband, Maria.’

Andrew’s blush deepened. Maria glared at him in silent fury.

Grace wished the ground would open up and swallow her. She hated confrontation. Lenny, on the other hand, had grown tired of walking on eggshells.

‘Senator Warner,’ he said brightly. ‘You’re awfully quiet this evening. What’s the problem, Jack? Not in the party spirit?’

If looks could kill, Lenny Brookstein would have dropped dead at the table.

‘Not really, Lenny, no. Unemployment rates in my constituency are about to reach ten percent. While we’re sitting around your table, enjoying this fine food and wine, the people who voted for me are having their homes repossessed. They’re losing their jobs, their health insurance, their hope. And they’re relying on me to try to fix things for them. So, no, I’m not really in a party mood. If you’ll excuse me.’

Honor watched in horror as Jack got up from the table and left the room. He’d finally come clean about his gambling debts last night. As a result, Honor hadn’t slept a wink. It was exhaustion that had made her lose her temper with Grace earlier, something she’d been kicking herself about all day. Not because she gave a damn about Grace’s feelings. But because the entire purpose of this trip was to try to get closer to Grace so she could use her influence with Lenny to get him to clear up Jack’s debts.

Last night Jack had yelled at her. ‘I need Lenny Brookstein! Without that money, I’m finished, do you understand? We’re finished.’

Honor did understand. But now here was Jack, storming off like a spoiled child, embarrassing them both in front of everyone.

‘I’d better go after him,’ she said meekly. ‘Sorry, Grace. Lenny.’

The dinner party limped on. After the Warners’ departure, everyone made an effort to be upbeat, but Jack and Honor’s empty chairs were like two ghosts at the feast. John Merrivale made a toast, thanking Grace for the meal, but his stammer got so bad halfway through that Caroline had to finish it for him. Connie left before dessert, citing a headache. By the time the maid brought the coffee, the forced smiles of the remaining guests were beginning to look like lockjaw.

In bed with Lenny afterward, Grace broke down in tears.

‘It was a disaster, wasn’t it? Why does everything come back to the stupid economy? Connie and Michael losing their house, Jack stressed out about unemployment.’

‘I don’t think that’s all he’s stressed about, sweetheart.’

‘Even Caroline and Maria were moaning at the hairdressers about how much less John and Andrew are making this year. I hate it.’

Lenny was furious. ‘Maria and Caroline were bitching to you? Are you kidding me? They’re lucky their husbands still have jobs. The SEC is all over us like lice.’

Grace gasped. ‘You’re under investigation?’

‘Don’t worry, honey, it’s nothing. A shit storm in a teacup. They’re looking at all the big hedge funds right now. The point is, these are tough times, and Quorum’s survived them because of me. Which means those ungrateful bitches’ husbands have survived it because of me.’

‘Please, darling,’ Grace sobbed. ‘Don’t get angry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I can’t take any more fighting tonight. Really, I can’t take it.’

Lenny took her in his arms.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve been a bit of a Grinch on this trip, haven’t I?’

Grace nestled closer to his body. She always felt safe and happy pressed against him.

‘I tell you what. Tomorrow morning, I’ll get up early and take the boat out by myself. Sailing always clears my head. By the time I come home, I’ll be so relaxed, you won’t recognize me.’

‘Sounds good.’ Grace began drifting off to sleep.

Later, she would try to remember the exact words that Lenny had said next. It was so hard to untangle dream from reality. What she thought she heard was, ‘Whatever happens, Gracie, I love you.’ But maybe she dreamed it. All she knew for sure was that she’d fallen asleep that night happy.

For the last time.

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.’

No it won’t. Not without Lenny. Nothing will ever be okay again.

It was the next morning that the storm erupted. Angry investors marched on Quorum’s offices, demanding their money back. CNN showed images of a near riot, with mounted police forcing back the mob. Within hours, the likely scale of what was now being called the Quorum Fraud was making headline news around the world.

Grace watched the television in shock. ‘Leonard Brookstein, once one of New York’s best-loved philanthropists and an American icon, was today being exposed as perhaps the greatest thief in U.S. history. Furious investors in Brookstein’s Quorum Hedge Fund burned effigies of the fifty-eight-year-old, presumed dead after a freak sailing accident last month, outside his former offices.’

The phone rang. It was John. Grace broke down.

‘Oh, John! Have you seen what they’re saying about Lenny? The news…I can’t watch.’

‘Grace, l-listen to me. You’re not safe. I’m c-coming to pick you up.’

‘But that’s crazy. Why would anyone want to hurt me?’

‘People are angry, Grace. Lenny’s n-not here. You’re the next best thing.’

‘But, John…’

‘No b-buts. You must stay with us. Pack a bag. I’ll be there in t-ten minutes.’

Ten minutes later, Grace was in the back of an armored Town Car. As she left her building, a small group of hecklers was already gathered outside. They jeered at her.

‘Where’s the money, Grace?’

‘Where’d Lenny hide it?’

‘Is that seventy billion in your suitcase, baby, or are you just glad to see us?’

By the time John bundled her into the car, she was hyperventilating.

She never set foot in her apartment again.

‘No. I won’t sell it. I can’t.’

Grace was in the boardroom of the law firm Carter Hochstein. Around the table were six forbidding-looking men in dark suits. John Merrivale introduced them as Lenny’s trustees, the men responsible for overseeing his estate.

‘I’m afraid you have no choice. Put simply, Mrs Brookstein, you do not have the money to continue paying the mortgage on the apartment. We’re going to have to put all your assets on the market. Historically, your husband funded his lifestyle by borrowing large sums of money against the value of his stake in Quorum. Those loans have now been called in, and you have no immediate means of paying them.’

Grace turned to John Merrivale in bewilderment.

‘But how can that be? Can’t I, I don’t know, sell some shares or something?’

John looked pained. ‘The thing is, Grace, until this mess is sorted out at Quorum, you d-don’t have any shares to sell.’

‘Mrs Brookstein.’ Kenneth Greville, the most senior partner, spelled it out in black and white. ‘You must understand. Vast sums of money remain unaccounted for at Quorum. Hundreds of thousands of your husband’s investors have been financially ruined. They’ve lost everything.’

Grace thought, And I haven’t?

‘Until your husband is determined to be legally dead and the criminal investigation is completed, we can’t draw any firm conclusions. But it does look increasingly likely that Mr Brookstein was involved, to some degree at least, in fraudulent activity of a most serious nature. The amounts that were stolen – ’

‘No.’ Grace stood up. ‘I’m sorry, but I won’t sit here and listen to this. My husband never stole anything. Lenny is not a thief! He’s a good man and he built Quorum up from nothing. Tell them, John.’

Kenneth Greville thought, She still refers to him in the present tense. The poor child’s delusional.

‘Your loyalty is admirable, Mrs Brookstein. But it is my unpleasant duty to inform you of the facts with regard to your current, and probably future, financial circumstances. You will not be able to continue living at the Park Avenue apartment. I’m sorry.’

Tears rolled down Grace’s cheeks. She felt as if she were manacled to a runaway train. Her life was collapsing around her, and she had absolutely no power to stop it.

That evening at dinner, Caroline Merrivale watched Grace staring listlessly at the dining-room wall. She’d barely touched her soup and looked thin and drawn.

‘Eat up, Grace. In this house we make it a rule never to let good food go to waste. Don’t we, John?’

John saw the triumphant flash of cruelty in his wife’s eyes. She’s loving every second of this. Turning the tables on Grace at last. She’s like a cat with a mouse, playing with it before the kill.

‘Caroline’s right, Grace. You must try to k-keep your strength up.’

Grace brought a spoonful of soup to her lips. It was cold. She fought down the urge to gag. ‘I’m sorry. I really don’t feel very well. If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to go to bed.’

The sooner today was over, the better. After the meeting with the lawyers, she’d felt lower than she had since the day the coast guard told her the awful news. The whole world was talking about this stupid money. As if I care about the money! All I want is for Lenny to walk back through the door.

A maid appeared in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Mrs Merrivale. But there’s a policeman at the door. He says he has urgent business with Mrs Brookstein.’

Instinctively Grace panicked. ‘No! Tell him to go away. It’s late. Tell him to come back in the morning.’

Caroline laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, Grace. It’s the police, not a social call. You must go out and meet him.’

‘No, please, Caroline. I can’t.’

Caroline was unmoved. ‘Melissa, show the officer in. Tell him Mrs Brookstein will be with him momentarily.’

A few minutes later, Grace walked nervously into the entryway. She expected to find an aggressive FBI agent there to interrogate her. Instead, she was greeted by a shy young man in uniform. As soon as he saw Grace, he took off his cap politely. Grace felt the tension in her shoulders begin to ease.

‘Good evening, Officer. You wanted to see me?’

‘Yes, Mrs Brookstein. I, er…I have some news for you. It’s about your husband. Perhaps you’d like to sit down?’

Irrationally, Grace’s heart soared.

He’s alive! Lenny’s alive! They’ve found him! Oh, thank God. Lenny will come back and everything will go back to the way it used to be. We’ll have our homes again and our money, no one will hate us anymore…

‘Mrs Brookstein?’

‘Oh, I’m fine, thank you. I’ve been sitting all day. You say you have some news for me?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ The young man looked at his shoes. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this. But this afternoon the Massachusetts coast guard recovered a body. We believe the remains to be those of your husband, Leonard Brookstein.’

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