Sidney Sheldon - Mistress of the Game

Silence.

“I knew they were risky deals, so I stripped them out of our balance sheet.”

More silence. Lexi plowed on.

“If it looks as if there’s no rhyme or reason to the portfolio, that’s because there isn’t. I set up Cedar years and years ago to buy up any wacky, failing business I thought looked interesting. It’s been around almost as long as Templeton.”

“I know. You registered it in the Caymans in 2010.”

“Right.” How the hell did he know that?

Lexi ensured she left a trail so complex and convoluted, no one should have been able to trace the company to her, still less link it with Templeton Estates.

I must have gotten careless. That can’t happen again.

“I also noticed that two of the companies, the mine and the coffee plant, belonged to Kruger-Brent.”

Actually, they all belonged to Kruger-Brent…once. With the others, I bought shares in the acquirers, then sold them on to my shell companies after a suitably discreet interval. I guess you didn’t get that far, Sherlock Holmes.

Lexi kept her voice casual. “Yes. Purely coincidence.”

David Tennant looked skeptical. Lexi had been becoming more and more secretive and reclusive recently. She’d been furious when a recent Vanity Fair article drew comparisons between her and Eve Blackwell, her agoraphobic aunt. Maybe the truth hurt?

“I should have told you, David. I’m sorry.”

He softened slightly.

“As you say, Lexi, this is your company. Just don’t bleed us completely dry, eh? Too many transfers of the size you’ve been making recently and our cash flow…well, I don’t need to tell you of the risks.”

After he’d gone, Lexi sat at her desk for a long time, thinking.

Her Jenga strategy wasn’t working. She’d thought she could chip away at Kruger-Brent discreetly, making strategic acquisitions here and there without anyone connecting them to her. But David Tennant had already made the connection. More important, Kruger-Brent was showing no signs of imminent collapse.

I need a new strategy. Something bigger, bolder. I need to think.

It was time to face facts. Gabe’s disappearance had shaken her deeply. She wasn’t sleeping. She often found herself crying for no reason. Worse still, it was starting to affect her judgment at work. She had appeased David Tennant, for now. But she knew David. The man was a rottweiler. He never let go. Next time…

No. There mustn’t be a next time.

She wrote an e-mail to her brother:

I’ve changed my mind. If it’s still open, I’d like to take you up on your offer. I’ve been working too hard recently. I need a break.

Three weeks at Robbie and Paolo’s farmhouse in the South African wine country might be just what the doctor ordered.

The week Lexi arrived in South Africa, Gabe McGregor was officially pronounced dead.

“It’s a legal formality,” Robbie told her. “No one knows for sure what happened. But given his state of mind and the length of time he’s been missing…he hasn’t touched his bank accounts. He left his passport in the office.”

Lexi nodded. She had accepted weeks ago that Gabe was gone. Even so, having his death confirmed in the newspapers felt strange and sad.

I never got to say sorry. I wish he’d known how much he meant to me.

Robbie Templeton opened the lawyer’s letter at breakfast.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” Paolo teased. “Been harassing the busty sopranos again, have you? Bad boy.”

“It’s from Gabe McGregor’s law firm. I’ve been asked to come to the reading of his will. According to this, I’m a beneficiary.”

Lexi asked to see the letter.

“I didn’t know you and Gabe were that close.” She felt unaccountably jealous.

“We were friends. But I never would have expected anything like this. To be blunt, it’s not as if I need the money. Gabe knew that.”

“One always needs the money, Robert,” said Paolo firmly. “I intend to become shamefully extravagant in my old age. Don’t force me to leave you for someone younger and richer, chéri.”

Robbie laughed. Lexi couldn’t.

I’ve been asked to come to the reading of his will.

His will.

He really is dead.

Robbie hated lawyers’ offices. They reminded him of sitting opposite Lionel Neuman as a teenager, the old man’s rabbit face twitching as Robbie renounced his inheritance. What dark days those had been. And how happy he was now. Walking away from Kruger-Brent was the best decision he’d ever made. Even so, attorneys still scared him, and Frederick Jansen was no exception. One look at Jansen’s severe, dark suit and craggy face crisscrossed with lines, like a clay bust left too long in the sun, and Robbie felt like a naughty kid again. It didn’t help that the five other men in the room had all worn suits. Robbie, in jeans and an L.A. Philharmonic T-shirt, felt like a fool.

“The bulk of Mr. McGregor’s assets were held in a family trust.” Jansen droned on. The legalese washed over Robbie: “intestate…tax efficient structures…trustees making provision…distinguishing between bequests and wishes…” A few words took root in his brain, among them charitable endowments. When Gabe wrote his will, he’d expected to be survived by his children. In the event that he was not, his wealth was to be divided among a select group of charities, including the Templeton/ Cozmici AIDS Foundation.

“Sorry. If I could just interrupt you for a moment.”

The lawyer looked at Robbie as if he were asking permission to deflower his daughter.

“How much, er…how much exactly would our foundation be in line for?”

Frederick Jansen’s nose wrinkled in distaste. Was this man a fool? Had he not read paragraph six, point d, subsection viii?

“The percentage of Mr. McGregor’s tax-deductible bequest-”

“Sorry again.” Robbie held up his hand, his heart hammering. “I’m not very good with percentages. If you could give me an overall number. You know. Ballpark.”

“Ballpark?” Frederick Jansen’s jowls quivered with distaste. He couldn’t imagine what had possessed his client to leave so much money to this vulgar, American queer. “Mr. Templeton, as is explicit in the document before you, your foundation stands to receive a lump sum in the region, the ballpark, if you will, of twenty-five million U.S. dollars. Now, if we could be allowed to move on with the reading?”

The lawyer repositioned his reading glasses and resumed his monologue, but Robbie was no longer listening. Twenty-five million! It was an astonishingly generous bequest from a man with his own charity to support. If there was a heaven, Gabe McGregor must undoubtedly be in it.

“Excuse me, Mr. Jansen.” A nervous, plain-looking mouse of a woman appeared in the doorway. Robbie thought: Poor thing. I wouldn’t be this fella’s secretary for all the tea in China. “There’s a gentleman here to see you.”

Frederick Jansen’s sour expression soured still further.

“Sarah. I made it perfectly clear I was not to be interrupted under any circumstances.”

“Yes, sir. But-”

“ Any circumstances! Are you deaf?”

“No, sir. But the thing is, sir…”

She got no further. A man appeared in the doorway. Frederick Jansen’s mouth fell open. The papers slipped from his hands and fluttered slowly to the floor, like feathers.

“Hello, Fred.” Gabe smiled. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Frederick Jansen knew Gabriel McGregor as a client. The other suits in the room had all dealt with him through their businesses or charities. Only Robbie knew Gabe as a friend. Jumping to his feet, he threw his arms around him.

“You sure know how to make an entrance! I suppose this means I won’t get my twenty-five mil?”