Sidney Sheldon - Mistress of the Game

You know how difficult they are at this age, darling. I haven’t been firm enough with him in the past, that’s the problem. But it’s never too late to change.

Alex was agreeing with him. Standing by the window, in the green Halston dress he’d bought her for their tenth anniversary, she nodded encouragement. Where would he be without her? Her love and support meant everything to him. They gave him the strength he needed.

If it were just the trouble at school, I could forgive him. Even the drugs. But there’s Lexi to think about. He’s a terrible influence on her, Alex. He’s trying to take her away from me. I mean, I can’t allow that, can I?

Alex shook her head: Of course you can’t, darling. But let’s not waste all night talking about Robert. Do you like my dress?

I love it. You know I do. You look so beautiful.

For you, Peter. I look beautiful for you.

“Dad?”

Peter looked up. Alex had gone. The room swayed gently, like a ship. Everything was tinted with a sepia haze. It was like being inside an old photograph of the Titanic. Disaster had not yet struck, but it was imminent.

Peter Templeton waited for his son’s twin faces to merge into one before he spoke.

“Where have you been all night?”

Robbie shifted mutely from foot to foot.

“I asked you a question.”

“With a girl.”

It wasn’t a lie. Not technically.

“Which girl? Where?”

There was so much anger in Peter’s voice, Robbie found himself shivering.

“In Yonkers. We took a train,” said Robbie, deftly answering the second question but not the first. It wouldn’t help anyone to drag Maureen Swanson’s name into this. “Listen, Dad, I’m sorry about what happened at school today. Really. I don’t know why I do these things. Sometimes I…”

“Sometimes you what?”

Peter’s rage was growing. He didn’t want to hear apologies or explanations. He wanted Robert to admit his guilt. To acknowledge that he deserved to be punished. Punished for monopolizing Alex’s affection. Punished for turning Lexi against him.

“Sometimes I just can’t handle it.” For the second time that day, Robbie started to cry.

Don’t blubber, for Christ’s sake. Be a man. You’ve brought this on yourself.

Behind a red brocade cushion, out of view, Peter Templeton’s hand tightened around the gun.

When he took the Glock out of the safe a few hours earlier, he’d been fantasizing about killing himself. A bottle and a half of Scotch had robbed him of all rational thought and left him bitter and broken. He had failed. As a man, a husband, a father. The gun felt comforting in his hand. An escape. But then Alex had appeared; dear, sweet Alex. Peter stuffed the pistol under the cushion so as not to scare her.

Now he reached for it again. The cool metal pressed against his palm.

Robert had come home.

Robert needed to be punished.

Peter only half heard what the boy was saying.

“I’m not the same as the other kids. I don’t fit in at St. Bede’s. I don’t fit in anywhere. Maybe it’s because I miss Mom so much. Maybe…”

Robbie let the sentence trail away. Peter had tossed the cushion aside. He had a gun in his hand and was waving it around wildly, like a conductor’s baton.

He said: “Please. Go on. This is interesting.”

Cold fear gripped Robbie by the throat. He held his breath.

“Perhaps when you’re done, you can explain to me why it is that my daughter doesn’t want to know me anymore. Why you thought you had the right to steal Lexi from me.”

Robbie was shaking so violently he didn’t trust himself to speak. He’d seen his father drunk a thousand times, but until today Peter had never been violent. Maybe the slap he’d given Robbie in the office earlier had unleashed some inner monster? Like a shark who gets a taste of blood, then plunges into a feeding frenzy.

Robbie chose his next words carefully.

“Lexi has nothing to do with this.”

It was exactly the wrong thing to say. When Peter responded, his voice was a roar. “Don’t tell me Lexi has nothing to do with this! Don’t you dare ! She has everything to do with this. You’re stealing her away from me, just like you stole your mother.”

He fired a single shot at the ceiling above Robbie’s head. Bits of plaster rained down onto the boy’s shoulders.

Adrenaline pumped through Robbie’s veins like rock music.

He’s not just drunk. He’s deranged. He’s going to shoot me.

Killing himself was one thing. Being killed, especially by his own father, was quite another. Robbie realized in that instant with searing clarity that he did not really want to die. He was fifteen years old. He wanted to live. All he had to do now was figure out how.

The window to the street was behind him. If he turned and ran, his father could put a bullet in his back. There was no escape. His only hope was to try to reason with him.

“Dad, I never stole Mom from you. She loved you. She loved us both.”

“Don’t you tell me how your mother felt about me! You know nothing.” Peter pointed the gun directly at Robbie’s chest. “Alex and I were fine until you came along.”

“Dad, please…”

The low whistle in Peter’s head was growing louder and louder, like a boiling kettle. He clutched his temples. The room swayed again.

I’m drunk. What the hell am I doing?

He glanced at the window, willing Alex to be there. He needed her advice, now more than ever. But she was gone.

“Daddy, stop it! Stop shouting!”

Lexi appeared in the doorway clutching her favorite soft toy, a stuffed white rabbit.

The noise in Peter’s head was unbearable.

He said: “It’s all right, sweetheart. Come here.”

Robbie watched his little sister take a trusting step toward the couch. Without thinking, Peter turned around to face Lexi. The gun was now pointing in her direction.

Robbie had to save Lexi. Instinct took over. He let out a primal, savage scream, running at his father like a maddened bull.

Peter glanced up. The expression on Robbie’s face was curiously frozen, like a videotape on pause. The fear was gone. It had been replaced by something else. Determination perhaps? Or hatred? Peter wasn’t sure.

He heard the housekeeper’s voice.

“No!”

Mrs. Carter had had a terrible night. She hadn’t slept a wink, lying awake next to her husband, Mike, tossing and turning with guilt. She should never have left Mr. Templeton alone with those kids. He was in no fit state to take care of them. By five o’clock, she could take it no longer. Leaving a snoring Mike in bed, she pulled on yesterday’s clothes without even taking a shower and hurried across town. As she slipped her key into the front door, she heard a loud bang. Heart pounding, she followed the raised voices in the direction of the study. She burst in just in time to see her employer aiming a shiny black pistol directly at his four-year-old daughter’s head.

Peter needed to think, but he couldn’t. The whistling in his head was so loud he wanted to cry. Suddenly he was crying. He opened his eyes and looked at Lexi’s face.

She’s so like Alex.

A second shot rang out.

The whistling stopped.

MAX WEBSTER TOOK THE SHINY RED PACKAGE FROM HIS mother and turned it over excitedly in his hands.

It was heavy. Something solid. He decided it was probably not a toy, despite the childish wrapping paper and jauntily scribbled HAPPY BIRTHDAY in gold glitter across the top.

“What is it?”

Eve Blackwell smiled at her son, her eyes dancing with anticipation.

“Open it and find out.”

It was Max’s eighth birthday. A striking child, with a predatory, aquiline nose, ink-black eyes to match his hair, and cheekbones most fashion models would have killed for, there was something both feminine and adult about him. Max had none of the fat-cheeked innocence of his friends. Max was knowing. He was lean. He was wild. If other little boys were puppies, Max Webster was a cougar in their midst, as dangerous as he was beautiful.