Mistress of the Game

What if he couldn’t do it? What if he failed her again?

The thought brought tears to his eyes.

In New Orleans, Robbie watched the news reports of his sister’s progress on television. He was staying at the apartment of a man he’d met in a piano bar the night he arrived in the city: Tony. Tony was in his midthirties, a writer, and though he was neither particularly attractive nor wildly dynamic, he was kind and reliable. Tony’s apartment was a run-down two-bedroom perched above a restaurant that sold nothing but Cajun chicken. The smell of grease, salt and chicken fat had seeped into everything, from the curtains to the carpets, couch and sheets.

Dom Dellal had chickened out at the last moment and decided to stay in New York, but Robbie wasn’t sorry. He needed a fresh start. Tony had given him one.

“What are you watching?”

Tony’s voice drifted in from the kitchen, but Robbie didn’t reply. His eyes were glued to the screen and the Asian reporter standing outside Mount Sinai Medical Center.

“Eight-year-old Alexandra Templeton was admitted here in the early hours of this morning, along with an adult male said to be in critical condition.”

They cut to footage of firefighters battling thirty-foot walls of flame in what looked like an old factory.

“The story just breaking is one of the most dramatic, if not the most dramatic, to involve the celebrated Blackwell family. It appears that the child, Alexandra, known as Lexi, was abducted from her home more than two weeks ago by persons unknown, and that a ransom of ten million dollars was demanded. Last night, a top secret rescue operation was launched involving both the FBI and the Marine Corps. All we know right now is that the little girl, Alexandra Templeton, is alive. A number of other individuals involved in last night’s operation are reported to have died in the fire. More on this incredible story as we get it…”

“Rob? What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Tony Terrell sat down on the couch beside the radiant blond boy who had miraculously walked into his life two weeks ago. He knew nothing about the kid except that he was beautiful. So beautiful, it was astonishing he’d even spoken to Tony, never mind come home with him and proceeded to make love with sobbing, passionate desperation for five straight hours. Of course, it couldn’t last. Beautiful boys like Rob didn’t settle down with gentle, neurotic, prematurely balding poets like Tony. But Tony would savor the two weeks they spent together for the rest of his life.

“It’s my sister.” Robbie was still staring at the TV.

Tony laughed. “Yeah, right. In your dreams, buddy. That little girl’s a Blackwell.” Then he noticed Robbie’s ashen face. “Oh my God. You’re serious. She really is your sister.”

“I have to go home.”

Eve stared out of the tinted glass window of the limousine. It was more than a year since she’d set foot outside the apartment. The streets of New York were so intensely alive, they made her eyes hurt. Ice-cream and hot-dog vendors on every corner, two old men fighting loudly over a cab, Wall Street businessmen in smart suits eyeing pretty girl joggers as they passed.

I miss life. I miss the world. This is what Keith stole from me.

She glanced at her son, gazing sullenly out the other window. Max didn’t want to be here any more than she did. Eve had taught him to hate his Templeton cousins, fed him on an intravenous drip of loathing since before he could crawl.

We don’t hate anyone, Max. Especially not family.

Beneath her veil, a smile danced across Eve’s lips.

Lexi was giggling. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with Peter and Rachel, her interpreter, she was playing a game of pick-up sticks.

She signed to Rachel. “I’m winning.”

The interpreter, a pretty redhead not more than twenty or twenty-one, grinned and signed back: “I know.”

Lexi’s progress had been astonishing. Within a week, she had picked up the rudiments of sign language and her lip-reading was quick and accurate. When her body rejected the cochlear implant, Peter had broken down in tears. But Lexi herself was as confident and unfazed as only an eight-year-old could be, taking her deafness in stride. Apart from the lone screaming episode on the first day, she’d displayed no signs of trauma or distress whatsoever.

“It’s not uncommon for children to have a delayed reaction to these things,” the chief psychotherapist explained to Peter. Using dolls and pictures, Lexi had shown the police and the doctors exactly what had happened to her-the sexual and physical abuse-but she had done so with a cheerfulness that was almost disturbing. “What you’re seeing now is a self-defense strategy. But she won’t be able to block this stuff out forever.”

As part of Lexi’s rehabilitation, she was taken to the burn unit to visit Agent Edwards, the man who’d risked his life to save her. Against all the odds, he had survived, but the burns to his torso and face had left him permanently disfigured.

“She may well break down,” the psychologists warned Peter. But Lexi did not break down. She walked calmly to Agent Edwards’s bedside, took his hand, and smiled.

Afterward, Agent Edwards said to Peter: “That’s quite a kid you’ve got there.”

“I know. And she’s only alive thanks to you.”

That afternoon, Peter deposited $3 million into Agent Edwards’s bank account. He couldn’t give the poor man back his face. But he could ensure that he lived the rest of his life in luxury. It was the least he could do.

A nurse knocked on the door.

“You have a visitor.”