Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness

by Tilly Bagshawe

  GETTING HOLD OF A GUN WAS a lot easier than Grace had thought it would be. She’d assumed it would be a complicated, dangerous process, but it turned out you could buy them on the street. Like chestnuts. She’d noticed the man loitering in the alleyway, exchanging money with neighborhood kids in what Grace assumed must be drug deals. Yesterday afternoon she walked right up to him.

  “I need a gun. Do you know anyone who can help me?”

  The guy looked Grace over. With her shaven head and baggy masculine clothes, he put her down as a dyke, probably fresh out of prison. He wasn’t a fan of carpet munchers, as a rule. On the other hand, she certainly wasn’t a cop, and he could use the money.

  “That depends. How much you payin’?”

  They agreed on a price that was twice what the pistol was worth. He instantly regretted not having held out for more.

  As Grace walked away, he called after her: “D’you know how to use that thing?”

  Grace stopped, thought about it, shook her head.

  “Fifty bucks, I’ll give you a private lesson. I’ll even throw in some ammo, how’s that?”

  “Twenty,” Grace was amazed to hear herself saying.

  “Thirty-five. Tha’s my final offer.”

  “Deal.”

  “OH GOD, GRACE, PLEASE! DON’T SHOOT!”

  Davey Buccola was sobbing. Grace felt oddly detached. It was almost distasteful, listening to him beg for his life, rivers of tears and mucus streaming down his contorted, terrified face. As if any words of his could change her decision.

  “Give me the file.”

  “The file?”

  “The information you promised me. The information you were going to give me in Times Square, remember? Before you got greedy and decided to turn me in for two hundred grand.”

  “It wasn’t like that, Grace. I was trying to protect you.”

  Grace moved her index finger over the trigger. “One more lie out of your mouth and I swear to God I will blow your head off.”

  Davey whimpered with fear. She meant it. This was not the Grace Brookstein he’d met at Bedford Hills. This was a totally different person. Cold. Ruthless. Reckless.

  “There is a file, isn’t there, Davey? I hope for your sake you weren’t lying about that as well.”

  “No, no, it’s here. I have it.”

  He’d missed out on the reward, but Davey had still hoped to find a bidder for his gold mine of secrets. So far no magazine editors had taken his call, but he was working on it. He reached under the bed.

  “Stop!” Grace commanded.

  Davey froze.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them. On top of your head.”

  Davey did as he was asked.

  “Good. Now walk into the middle of the room and kneel down.”

  Davey felt his stomach turn to liquid. Oh God. The classic execution pose. She’s going to put a bullet in the back of my neck.

  “Please, Grace…”

  “Be quiet!” Cautiously, keeping the gun trained on Davey, Grace squatted down on her haunches and reached under the bed herself. She pulled out a brown manila folder.

  “Is this it?”

  Davey nodded. “Once you were safe, I was going to take it to a lawyer, I swear to God! I would have helped you launch an appeal.”

  Grace pressed the folder to her chest like a lover. Then she released the safety catch on the gun. “Have you shown this to anyone? The police, or the press?”

  Davey shook his head vehemently. “No one. The only people that know this exists are you and I.”

  It was the right answer. Grace smiled. Davey felt relieved. She’s going to let me live.

  Grace picked up a pillow from the bed. Holding it in front of the gun, she said coolly, “You betrayed me. Do you know what the punishment is for traitors, Davey?”

  Before he could answer, he heard the muffled sound of the shot, followed by a warm, wet sensation in his lower body.

  After that, there was nothing.

  MITCH CONNORS SURVEYED THE SCENE. THE hotel maid who made the call had such poor English, and was so terrified and hysterical, he hadn’t known what to expect. But it definitely wasn’t this.

  Despite himself, Mitch burst out laughing.

  “It’s not funny!”

  Davey Buccola was in the middle of the room, naked and trussed up like a chicken with the cord from the window blinds. Literally like a chicken. After he’d passed out, someone—Grace—had tarred and feathered him. Feathers from the hotel pillows had been stuck to his limbs with hair gel, and the word traitor written across his forehead in permanent marker. The same permanent marker, Mitch presumed, that was sticking out of Davey’s asshole now like a poultry thermometer.

  “From where I’m standing, buddy, it is a little funny.” Mitch was starting to like Grace more and more.

  A single bullet was lodged in the wall next to the window. Below it, in a pile on the floor, lay Davey’s soiled clothes. Buccola must have been so terrified when Grace fired the shot into the pillow, he’d lost control of his bowels.

  “She’s psychotic!” Davey sobbed. “She could have killed me! I want police protection.”

  “Yeah, and I want Gisele Bündchen to lick whipped cream off my balls but it ain’t gonna happen,” said Mitch wryly. “Untie him, somebody, would you? If I have to look at that ass crack for one more second, I’m gonna need some serious therapy. I may never eat chicken again.”

  “Shouldn’t we take some pictures first, boss? Document the crime scene?”

  “Who for?” Mitch laughed even harder. “Colonel Sanders?”

  “You’re not taking this seriously!” Davey Buccola did his best to sound indignant, not an easy thing to do with a Sharpie stuck up your ass. “Grace Brookstein threatened me at gunpoint. That’s armed robbery! Don’t you care?”

  “About you, Buccola? No, I don’t care. And what do you mean ‘armed robbery’? Robbery of what? What did she steal?”

  Davey hesitated.

  “Either you tell me, or I’m gonna leave you here like this.”

  “If I tell you, will you give me police protection?”

  Mitch walked toward the door.

  “Wait!” Davey yelped. “Okay, okay. There was a file. Information about her husband’s death. We think…we believe that Lenny Brookstein was murdered.”

  “What?”

  “I was working with Grace. Investigating the case. That’s why she broke out of Bedford. She doesn’t care about the money. All she wants is to find who killed her husband. Who set her up. She wants vengeance.”

  Mitch could understand about wanting vengeance. He thought back to the day Grace had called him. “I didn’t steal any money, Detective. I was framed and so was my husband.” Was it possible?

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this earlier?” he shouted. But as soon as he’d said the words, he knew the answer: “You were going to sell the information, weren’t you? You greedy little shit.”

  Davey Buccola was silent.

  “So you gave her this file?”

  “I had to! She had a gun…”

  “You have a copy, right? Tell me you have a copy.”

  LESS THAN THREE MILES AWAY, GRACE lay in a bathtub, rereading Davey’s information for the hundredth time.

  Suddenly she sat bolt upright. There it was, in black and white.

  I know who killed Lenny.

  At last, the hunt was on.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ANDREW PRESTON WALKED DOWN WALL STREET with a familiar feeling of tightness in his chest. Maria was in the throes of a new affair. He knew the signs by now. The bedside drawer stuffed with receipts from La Perla. The Brazilian bikini wax she booked after their Hong Kong trip, not before. This morning, he’d even walked in on her singing La Traviata in the shower.

  If only I didn’t love her so much. None of this would have happened.

  It was five thirty, and the street was already crowded with traders and secretarial staff on their way home. Since he’d sta
rted his new job in the M&A division at Lazard, Andrew often worked till nine or ten at night. But this was a Thursday: gym night. Andrew’s doctor had emphasized how vital it was for him to exercise regularly. “Nothing combats stress like a good game of racquetball. No point being a big swinging dick on Wall Street if your heart gives out at forty-five, you know what I’m saying?”

  Andrew knew what his doctor was saying. Although he couldn’t help but question the judgment of anyone who perceived him, Andrew Preston, as a “big swinging dick.” Maria certainly didn’t. Whatever he achieved, however much money he made, it was never enough. Andrew’s vintage Aston Martin DB5 was parked in an underground garage, four buildings down from his office. The rates were extortionate, but driving to work was one of the few small luxuries he allowed himself. Mindful of his heart, he took the stairs to P4 instead of the elevator, pressed the unlock button on his remote and jumped into the driver’s seat.

  “Hello, Andrew.”

  He was so shocked he almost screamed. Grace Brookstein was crouched low in the backseat. She was holding a gun and smiling.

  “Long time no see.”

  MITCH CONNORS COULDN’T BELIEVE HIS EARS.

  “Sir, with all due respect, this is bullshit. We have to reopen the investigation into Leonard Brookstein’s death. If we don’t, and it came out later that we’d suppressed this evidence…”

  When Mitch finally untrussed Davey Buccola, the red-faced PI had handed him a USB chip. The information it contained was so explosive, Mitch had printed it out and taken it straight to his boss.

  “No one’s suppressing anything.” Lieutenant Dubray snapped the file shut. “Frankly, Mitch, I don’t understand why you’re so hot to start a new investigation when you’re making such a mess of the one you’re on now. Grace Brookstein’s made a fool of you. She’s made a fool of this entire department.”

  “I know, sir. But if her husband was murdered, and the inquest criminally mishandled, there’s been a major miscarriage of justice.”

  Dubray scoffed. “Justice? Give me a break. Lenny Brookstein was an asshole, Mitch, okay? A rich, greedy asshole who took this city for a ride. If someone did whack the old man, they did the world a favor. Nobody cares, least of all me.”

  Mitch was silent. Was Dubray for real? The whole investigation into Lenny Brookstein’s death had been a sham. The coroner ruled suicide, because America had already passed judgment on its once beloved son. Lenny Brookstein was a thief, a greedy liar who’d raped the poor and stolen from his own fund.

  But what if America was wrong? About Lenny and Grace.

  From the very beginning of the investigation, Mitch had had conflicting feelings about Grace Brookstein. The initial, knee-jerk hatred he shared with the rest of America had rapidly been replaced by a combination of pity and, he might as well admit it, respect. Grace was brave, determined and resourceful, qualities that Mitch had always viewed as predominantly male. Yet when he’d finally seen Grace Brookstein in the flesh, fleetingly, the day her subway train pulled away at Times Square, the face staring back at him was all woman: vulnerable, compassionate, kind. In other circumstances, another life, Mitch could picture himself falling for her. I could save her. We could save each other. He dragged himself back to reality.

  “Suppose Leonard Brookstein was innocent.”

  Dubray’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  “I said suppose he was innocent. Suppose someone else took that money.”

  “Like who? The tooth fairy?”

  “How about Andrew Preston? No disrespect, sir, but have you read Buccola’s file? Preston had been embezzling funds for years.”

  Dubray waved a hand dismissively. “Petty cash. Besides, all the Quorum guys were interviewed up the wazoo at the time. I know the feds aren’t always the sharpest knives in the drawer, but do you really think Harry Bain wouldn’t have caught on by now if one of them had that cash? Your PI’s barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Maybe,” Mitch conceded. “But shouldn’t we at least check out Buccola’s leads? The more I look at the Quorum case, the more it stinks.”

  “So stop looking at it. Do your job. Find Grace Brookstein and get her back in jail where she belongs.”

  Back in his office, Mitch turned off his phone and closed the doors. Did Grace Brookstein belong in jail? He wasn’t so sure anymore. He tried to push the thought down, to strangle it. But it wouldn’t stop growing, forcing its way up into the sunlight of his consciousness like a weed.

  It’s a put-up job. The inquest, the trial, the whole thing. It’s all been staged, like a scripted reality show.

  Dubray wasn’t interested in the truth. Neither were the Massachusetts cops who’d investigated Lenny Brookstein’s death, or the coroner, or the media, or even the FBI. The Quorum fraud was a movie and America had already cast its villains: Grace and Lenny Brookstein. No one wanted an alternative ending. Not when they’d paid so dearly for their seats and were already halfway through their popcorn.

  Dubray had told him to forget Buccola’s information: “Delete it, shred it, burn it, I don’t care. Lenny Brookstein’s dead and buried.” But Mitch knew he couldn’t do that.

  That information would lead him to the truth.

  With a little luck, it would also lead him to Grace Brookstein.

  ANDREW PRESTON GRITTED HIS TEETH. IF he was going to die, he would try to do it with courage. “Everything I did, I did for Maria. You must believe that, Grace.”

  Grace tightened the cord around his wrists. They’d driven out to New Jersey, to an abandoned barn off the 287 Freeway. Outside it was dark and starting to rain. A cold drizzle dripped through the holes in the barn’s roof, soaking Andrew’s shirt. The post he was tied to pressed painfully into his back.

  “Don’t tell me what I must believe. Just answer my questions. How much did you steal from Lenny?”

  “I didn’t steal from Lenny.”

  The hard metal butt of the gun slammed into the bridge of Andrew’s nose. He screamed in pain.

  “Don’t lie to me! I have proof. One more lie and I will shoot you in the head. Do you believe me?”

  Andrew Preston nodded. He believed her. If this had been the old Grace, he would have appealed to her compassion. But the old Grace was clearly dead and gone. Andrew Preston had no doubt that the woman in front of him would put a bullet through his brain without hesitation.

  “How much?”

  “About three million altogether. Over a number of years. But I wasn’t lying. I didn’t steal from Lenny. I took the money from Quorum. It was always my intention to pay it back eventually.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. I couldn’t. Maria’s debts…” He started to cry. “She spent so much she started going to loan sharks. It’s an illness with her, Grace. An addiction. She can’t help herself. I had no idea how bad things had gotten. Then one day some people came to the house. Violent people. Killers. I wouldn’t have cared for myself, but they were threatening to hurt Maria. They showed me pictures.” He shuddered. “I won’t forget those images as long as I live.”

  Grace thought of Lenny’s bloated, headless corpse lying on a slab in the morgue.

  “So you stole from the fund and Lenny found out?”

  Andrew hung his head. “Yes. I thought I’d covered my tracks. The SEC was investigating us but they never caught on. I guess Lenny was smarter than all of them.”

  “And that’s why you killed him? So you could keep stealing, keep paying off these gangsters?”

  Andrew looked at her with genuine surprise. “Killed him? I didn’t kill him, Grace. I stole from Quorum and that was wrong. But I would never have hurt Lenny. He was a good friend to me.”

  “Please!” Grace laughed bitterly. “Lenny knew what you’d done. He and John were discussing it in Nantucket. You were scared he was going to fire you, or turn you over to the authorities, so you killed him.” She released the safety catch on the gun. Her hand was shaking. “I don’t believe you only took three mill
ion. You took all of it. You stole all those billions and made it look like it was Lenny.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You killed him! I know it was you!” Grace was hysterical.

  Andrew Preston closed his eyes. At least it would be a quick death.

  I wonder if Maria will miss me?

  MITCH CONNORS LAY ON HIS BED, reading. Davey Buccola was a bottom-feeder, but he was a meticulous bottom-feeder. His report was diligently researched. Of course, a lot of the information was hearsay, based on unofficial interviews with staff at the coroner’s office or the Nantucket coast guard. Less than half of it would stand up in court. But the overall picture it painted, of a wealthy man surrounded by false friends, parasites and hangers-on, rang horribly true.

  Mitch imagined Grace reading it. If it made him sick, how would she feel, wading through the sticky web of half-truths, greed and deception spun by her nearest and dearest? No wonder she hadn’t turned to any of them when she broke out of Bedford. With friends like the Brooksteins had, who needed enemies?

  The only problem with the information was that there was so much of it. Too many people had had the motive and the opportunity to do away with Lenny Brookstein. Mitch thought, Grace is following these leads, just like I am. Where would she go first?

  ANDREW PRESTON OPENED HIS EYES. HE’D been waiting for Grace to shoot him, but so far the expected bullet hadn’t come. He was surprised to see her cheeks were wet with tears.

  “I want you to admit it,” she sobbed. “I want you to say you’re sorry.”

  “Grace. I am sorry for what I did. But I didn’t kill Lenny and that’s the honest truth. I was in New York the day he died. Remember?”

  “I know you were. And I know what you were doing there. You were paying off a hit man.” Grace reached into a rucksack and pulled out a photograph. “Donald Anthony Le Bron. I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t recognize him?”

  Andrew’s face drained of color.

  “No. I recognize him. And you’re right, he is a hit man. He works for a Dominican gang known as the DDP. It stands for Dominicans Don’t Play, which is something of an understatement, as it turns out.” He laughed nervously. “And yes, I did hire Le Bron. But not to kill Lenny.”