Mistress of the Game

by Sidney Sheldon

  “She was,” Peter murmured. It couldn’t be denied. “Master of the game. That’s what people used to call her.”

  “Mistress,” Lexi shot back. “Mistress of the game. Which is exactly what I’m going to be, whatever you or Max or any of the other sexist pigs around here think.”

  Peter watched her go, a whirlwind of righteous indignation, slamming his office door behind her.

  She’s so like Kate, he thought.

  His heart was filled with foreboding.

  Outside in the corridor, Lexi forced herself to take deep, calming breaths.

  Real estate? Why not accounting? Why not the goddamn mail room?

  The real-estate division was known to be one of Kruger-Brent’s sleepier businesses. If there was a fiery center to the company, real estate was as far removed from it as it was possible to be.

  Max thinks he can bury me alive in there with August. Out of sight, out of mind.

  We’ll see about that.

  Lexi’s cell vibrated in her pocket. New message, sender unknown. She read the four words on the screen. Suddenly nothing else mattered. Not Max, not Kruger-Brent, not anything.

  She bolted into the ladies’ room, walking straight into a cubicle and locking the door. Only when she knew she was alone did she read the text again, allowing her eyes to linger on the most beautiful sentence she had ever read:

  The pig is dead.

  Lexi’s knees gave way and she slumped onto the toilet seat, tears streaming down her face. For years she’d allowed herself to believe that she’d shaken off the ghosts of her childhood, and the terrible things that had happened to her. Now she saw this for the fantasy it was. The pain would always be there. Always.

  There could be no closure. Not in this lifetime.

  Only vengeance.

  Lexi savored its sweetness for a few precious moments. Then she dried her tears, erased the text from her phone and walked back to her office as if nothing had happened.

  NINETEEN

  CAPE TOWN WAS UTTERLY UNLIKE ANYTHING GABE MCGREGOR had ever seen.

  After a twelve-hour economy-class flight on SAA that was a circus in itself-a family of eleven tried to bring a crate of live chickens on board as hand luggage, and several grown men fell asleep in the aisles-Gabe emerged bleary-eyed into the arrival hall at Cape Town International Airport to begin the new millennium not just on a new continent, but in a new world. People of every different race and creed swarmed the marble concourse like multicolored ants. Men in traditional African robes and women balancing brightly woven blankets or earthenware on their heads mingled with Asian businessmen in bespoke suits. Half-naked street children skipped around the luggage carousel alongside towheaded American kids dressed head to toe in Ralph Lauren, visiting Cape Town with their parents for the glitzy millennium New Year’s parties. Unpleasant, sour smells of sweat and travel were overlaid by the sweet coconut scent of shea butter, expensive aftershave and the delicious, barbecue tang of boerewors, the traditional Cape Dutch sausages sold by vendors outside. Every one of Gabe’s senses was assailed by something new.

  I wonder if this is what it felt like for Jamie McGregor all those years ago. Stepping off his boat, the Walmer Castle, onto a wharf of unfamiliar sights and sounds.

  Like Jamie, Gabe had never been away from home before. Unless you counted three days in St. Tropez, or family holidays on the Isle of Mull in an RV when he was eight (Gabe didn’t). Both men had come to South Africa to make their fortunes, determined to love the country, to make it their home.

  Soon all these sights and sounds and smells will seem normal to me. I have Africa in my blood, after all.

  “I hate sodding Africa. I want to go home.”

  Gabe was slumped on a bar stool in an Irish pub in Camps Bay. Did they have Irish pubs on the moon yet? Probably. At least one McGinty’s. He’d been in Cape Town for a week, during which time he’d been mugged at gunpoint, had his wallet and passport stolen, developed a mysterious stomach bug that had him on his knees over the toilet bowl every night, and failed to find a place to live. Oh, and had every square inch of his white Scottish skin bitten to death by mosquitoes the size of small bats.

  “Why don’t you, then?”

  The girl was American. A brunette with merry green eyes and a full, womanly body that Gabe couldn’t take his eyes off of. After eight years in prison, he’d learned an even deeper appreciation of the female form, and this girl’s form was exquisite.

  She introduced herself as Ruby.

  “Why don’t you go home?”

  “I can’t.” Gabe hoped he wasn’t blushing. Christ, she was gorgeous. “I only just got here. I can’t go home till I’m rich enough to pay everybody back.”

  “You’re not rich, then?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why d’you hate Africa?”

  “How long have you got?” Gabe locked his gray eyes onto Ruby’s green ones and decided he hated Africa a lot less than he did two minutes ago. “Let me buy you a drink and I’ll tell you about it.”

  They chatted for more than hour. Ruby was from Wisconsin. She’d come to Cape Town ten years ago to model.

  “Ten years ago? How old were you then? Six?”

  Ruby smiled. “I was thirteen. I quit the business at seventeen.”

  “Why?”

  “Too old.”

  Gabe roared with laughter.

  “And too short. At seventeen, your growing days are over.”

  Gabe glanced down at her endless legs.

  “You realize there are NBA pros shorter than you? Hell, there are probably apartment buildings shorter than you.”

  Ruby laughed, a low throaty chuckle that made Gabe want to rip her clothes off there and then. He told her his own story, leaving out the part about living with a string of older women. No need to completely shoot himself in the foot. But everything else was the truth: his addiction, prison, Marshall Gresham, his family connections to South Africa.

  “You’re related to the Jamie McGregor? Kruger-Brent? You’re not putting me on?”

  “I swear on my mother’s life. Don’t get the wrong idea, though. I’m not from the Blackwell side of the family. My lot got nothing. That’s why I’m here-to make my own fortune.”

  Gabe told Ruby about his ambitions for a career in real estate.

  “I might be able to help you there. A friend of mine, a guy named Lister, is a developer out in Franschloek. He’s still relatively small-scale, but I know he’s on the lookout for a partner.”

  Gabe’s eyes danced with excitement. At last! A contact. A start.

  Ruby’s hand was on his leg. Her eyes were on the bulge in his jeans.

  Gabe blushed. “Sorry. It’s been a long time.”

  Ruby grinned. He was even better-looking when he got flustered. “No need to apologize on my account.” She downed the last of her drink. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Gabe lived with Ruby for six months, the happiest six months of his life. Ruby introduced him to her friend Damian Lister, a local architect-turned-developer, and the two men hit it off instantly. Damian was tall and rake thin with a prominent nose and Adam’s apple. He reminded Gabe of a Dr. Seuss drawing come to life. Luckily for Gabe, Damian was a soccer fan, which helped break the ice. They talked about Celtic’s lackluster performance this season, and whether Ashley Cole deserved his place on the Arsenal squad, and suddenly they were old friends. Damian’s own brother, Paul, had spent five years inside for embezzlement, so Damian was relaxed about Gabe’s criminal record.

  “We all make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them. You’ve clearly learned from yours.”

  Damian Lister was developing a new residential estate in Franschloek, a popular wine-route town and tourist destination about an hour outside Cape Town. He’d done well on similar investments in Stellen-bosch and Bellville, both local commuter towns.

  “My problem is the bloody banks, you know? The rand’s on the upswing, but they’re still so cautious about lending, even to so
meone with a track record like mine.”

  “Why not borrow from a foreign bank?” Gabe asked. “I’m sure the Americans would finance you.”

  “I could,” Damian agreed. “But I prefer to have a partner. Someone who I know and trust. Someone who won’t pull the rug out from under me as soon as the blacks start kicking off again, making our economy look unstable.”

  The one negative thing about Damian was his racist way of talking. Gabe put it down to his culture and upbringing. You couldn’t wipe out centuries of prejudice overnight.

  Besides, it’s a terrific stroke of luck for me that he wants a partner. With his local knowledge and contacts, I’ll get a far bigger return on Marshall’s money than I would on my own.

  Gabe spent his days on-site at Franschloek, overseeing the construction, while Damian stayed in his Cape Town office, managing the finances. Gabe loved watching the development take shape, running his hands lovingly over the bricks and mortar that were going to make his fortune. Marshall had taught him so much, but it had all been book learning. This was the real deal. It filled Gabe with an exhilaration almost as strong as a heroin rush.

  At night, Gabe went home to Ruby. She would cook them something simple, steak and salad or oven-baked fish with rosemary roast potatoes, and they would eat on the terrace of her light-filled apartment overlooking the ocean. After a glass or two of Cape wine, usually Stel-lenbosch, they would talk for hours about their lives, hopes and dreams. Ruby said little about her past. She talked only vaguely of her family, in broad brushstrokes. After a few weeks, Gabe realized that, despite all their talks, he knew almost nothing about the minutiae of Ruby’s daily life when he wasn’t with her. She was an art dealer and spoke about wanting to open a gallery in Spain one day. But Gabe never saw any paintings or heard her take a business call.

  When he pressed her for more details, Ruby laughed and asked him: “Does it matter? I live in the moment. The now. When I’m with you, you and I are all that matters. It’s the key to happiness.”

  Making love to her on the beach under the stars, Gabe began to believe it. So what if he didn’t know what galleries she represented or the name of her first dog? Ruby was the most loving, sensual, incredible woman he had ever met. She had transformed South Africa from a nightmare into a dream. He should be grateful, not pestering her with questions.

  The one-hour drive from Cape Town to Franschloek in the morning was the best part of Gabe’s day. Rattling through the mountains and vineyards in his ancient Fiat Punto-determined not to waste a penny of Marshall’s money, Gabe had bought himself the cheapest car he could find-he never failed to be moved by the breathtaking scenery. Franschloek means “French corner,” named after the persecuted French Huguenots who first settled its steep slopes over three hundred years ago. They brought with them a culture and cuisine for which the town was still famous. Being a Scot, Gabe knew little of either culture or cuisine, but he still felt an affinity with the Huguenots. Like him, they were outcasts, come to this strange, distant place to make a fresh start. Most lunchtimes Gabe sat and ate his sandwich by the Huguenot monument at the top of the village. Main Street was packed with enticing coffee shops and restaurants offering some of the best food in the country, but Gabe always packed his own lunch. Until he had paid everyone back-Marshall, Claire, Angus Frazer-he had no right to indulge in luxuries.

  This morning, Gabe parked the Punto as usual at the top of main street and walked the six blocks to his and Damian’s development. They were building eight “executive homes,” comfortable, ranch-style houses with pools and grassy backyards. The kind of house I wish I’d grown up in. Gabe knew it was foolish to feel an emotional attachment to a business venture. But now that they were starting to take shape, he was proud of the homes he and Lister were creating. He could picture the families who would live there, protected by the magnificent mountains on either side of them, secure within the strong, solid walls that Gabe had built.

  I hope they’re happy.

  Turning the corner into the construction site, Gabe stopped. For a moment he just stood there, blinking, as if his eyes were deceiving him. The place was deserted. What should have been a hive of activity-men, drills, cement mixers, trucks full of gravel spinning their wheels in the summer mud-had been transformed into a desolate wasteland. It wasn’t simply that no one was working. All the equipment was gone. The piles of sand and bricks. Even the foreman’s office had been dismantled. All that was left were eight half-finished shells of buildings, their skeletal beams stretching up hopelessly toward the blue African sky.

  Gabe’s first thought was: We’ve been robbed.

  He pulled out his cell phone, then remembered he hadn’t charged it. He had to call Damian. And the police. Sprinting to the nearest house, Gabe knocked on the door, breathless, his heart pounding. A woman answered in a bathrobe.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you so early. But could I possibly use your phone? It’s an emergency.”

  The woman was middle-aged with short-cropped, bleached hair and a once-pretty face grown tired with the drudgery of motherhood. She looked at the Adonis-in-distress on her front porch and cursed the fact that she had not yet had time to put on her makeup. Straightening her hair and sucking in her belly, she gestured for Gabe to come in.

  “I know you, don’t I? I mean I’ve seen you around. You’re the site manager of those Lister Homes.”

  Gabe nodded distractedly, looking for the phone. “I’m afraid we’ve been robbed. The site has been stripped bare.”

  The woman looked at him curiously. “But that was your guys,” she said. “I thought it was strange, them showing up for work on a Sunday.”

  “My guys were here yesterday?”

  “Yah, crack of dawn, with a load of trucks. My husband went out to complain, about the noise, you know? The foreman told him you and your partner had gone bankrupt and skipped town. They had six weeks of wages owing, so they took what they could carry and left.” She pronounced it “lift.”

  Gabe felt weak at the knees. He sank down into an armchair and tried to think.

  Why would they think we’d gone bankrupt? And why didn’t Jonas, the foreman, call me?

  Then he remembered his dead phone. He’d been unreachable all weekend. Ruby had persuaded him to accompany her on a boat trip and to leave his phone behind. It would just be the two of them, living in the moment. “The now,” as Ruby liked to call it in that cute New Age American way of hers. They swam and fished and made love. It was a magical weekend.

  Gabe dialed Damian’s office number. There had obviously been some terrible misunderstanding.

  After six rings, an automated voice announced dully: “The number you have called has been disconnected.”

  Panic rising in his chest, Gabe called Damian’s cell. A single, long, no-such-number beep rang in his ears. He called the apartment, hoping to catch Ruby, but she wasn’t home. He pictured their white cordless phone on the coffee table, ringing forlornly in the empty living room, and suddenly felt ineffably sad. Ruby’s cell was switched off, too. Not knowing what else to do, Gabe finally contacted the police.

  “And this is Gabriel McGregor I’m speaking to, is it?” The desk sergeant sounded excited, almost disbelieving, as if Gabe were some sort of celebrity.

  “Yes, I’ve told you. I’m calling from a house across the street. My properties have been robbed, my partner seems to have gone missing-”

  “Just stay where you are, Mr. McGregor. Someone will be with you very shortly, I promise.”

  While Gabe was on the phone, the lady of the house put on some lipstick and changed into a pair of frayed denim shorts and a pink Lab-att’s Beer T-shirt that showed her nipples. Gabe didn’t even register the changes. She made him a cup of hot, sweet tea, which he drank, his mind racing. After what seemed like an age, the doorbell rang.

  “That’ll be the police,” said the woman.

  “Thank God.” Gabe got to his feet. Four uniformed officers walked into the living room. He extended his
hand in greeting. “Boy, am I happy to see you.”

  “The feeling’s mutual, mate,” said the senior officer.

  He slapped a pair of handcuffs onto Gabe’s wrists.

  Only a series of miracles kept Gabe out of prison for a second time.

  Detective Inspector Hunter Richards, the officer in charge of the case, saw something in Gabriel McGregor’s sad gray eyes that he trusted. The lad had been a fool. He’d lost millions of rand, played straight into Damian Lister’s hands. But DI Richards did not believe he had intended to defraud anyone, even if he was an ex-con. The Franschloek locals spoke glowingly of Gabe’s character. As the investigation continued, and more and more victims of con artists Ruby Frayne and Damian Lister came to light, the case against Gabe gradually began to unravel.

  Ruby and Damian had been lovers and partners for over a decade. There was no art dealership, no imprisoned brother, no wholesome, small-town family back in Wisconsin. Every ounce of Gabe’s happiness during the last six months had been built on lies. It was his first taste of the betrayal his London girlfriends must have felt when they discovered he was using them for their money. The irony was not lost on Gabe.

  Not everyone was convinced of Gabe’s innocence. For a terrifying few months, he lived with the threat of prosecution hanging over him. But any court case was going to be lengthy and expensive. In the end, the police decided it would be more cost-effective to focus on Lister and Frayne. At the end of the day, they were the ones with the money. Gabe had nothing.

  The day the case against Gabe was formally dropped, he went back to the bar where he’d first met Ruby and drank himself unconscious. Even after everything that had happened, he still missed her. He couldn’t help it. When he woke the next morning, he was lying in the street, laid out next to the trash cans like a lump of human refuse. Someone had stolen his shoes. There was nothing else to take.