Sidney Sheldon - Mistress of the Game

“I love you, too, Gabe. I’m sorry. You’ll get your money.”

Gabe stood in the doorway, watching her car drive away.

Good-bye, Lexi.

On Monday morning, when the markets opened, Kruger-Brent stock was down by almost 90 percent.

On Wall Street, rumors were rife. Someone had inside information about Kruger-Brent, and it was bad:

The default on the Singapore bank loan was the tip of a bad-debt iceberg.

A massive accounting fraud was about to be uncovered.

One of the “wonder drugs” of the firm’s pharmaceutical division was going to be exposed as a lethal killer.

Not since the banking crisis of 2009 had the markets seen such a huge company brought to its knees overnight. A couple of traders emerged from the woodwork, admitting that they’d taken huge bets on the company’s demise. Carl Kolepp, owner of the legendarily aggressive hedge fund CKI, was one. The Wall Street Journal estimated that over the weekend, Kolepp had personally made $620 million out of Kruger-Brent’s misery.

Lexi Templeton, like the rest of her famous family, had lost everything.

Max Webster made a statement on CNBC, appealing for shareholders to stay calm, echoing Roosevelt’s famous line that there was “nothing to fear but fear itself.” Like millions of others, Lexi watched Max’s broadcast live. She was shocked by how ill he looked, how frail and gaunt. The world was on fire, and Max was burning.

Think of it as preparation for the flames of hell. Bastard.

Max’s statement calmed no one. By Tuesday, it was all over. Hundreds of thousands of Kruger-Brent employees all around the world woke up to find themselves out of a job. Tens of thousands of shareholders saw their money go up in smoke. Across America, the headlines screamed:

KRUGER-BRENT BANKRUPT!

U.S. GIANT COLLAPSES!

In the midst of all the commotion, few people noticed the short press release from Templeton Estates, announcing that the firm had ceased trading.

By Thursday, the press stopped hounding Lexi for interviews. She had given a statement, expressing her profound sorrow at Kruger-Brent’s passing and making it clear that she had nothing more to say.

The entire extended Blackwell family was door-stepped by photographers, gleefully cataloging their spectacular fall from grace. Talk about the mighty fallen! The media gorged itself on schadenfreude like a blood-drunk mosquito. Footage of Peter Templeton looking old and frail outside Cedar Hill House was aired on all the major news channels, who were running back-to-back retrospectives of Kruger-Brent’s illustrious history. Interviews with Kate Blackwell from the 1960s were dusted off and replayed, pulling in enormous ratings for the TV networks. America had grown up with the Blackwells and Kruger-Brent. It was, as Robbie Templeton told reporters outside the Royal Albert Hall in London, the end of an era.

Eve Blackwell, as ever, remained barricaded in her self-imposed prison on Park Avenue.

Max Webster’s whereabouts were unknown.

Two weeks later, the furor began to die down. Lexi Templeton slipped quietly out of her apartment one night at about six o’clock. Taking a series of taxis, making sure she wasn’t followed, she arrived at a nondescript Italian diner in Queens around seven.

He was at the table, waiting for her.

Lexi sat down. “Have all the transfers been made?”

“As agreed. Seventy percent for you, thirty for me. A bit harsh really, considering I did all the work,” he joked.

Lexi laughed. “Yeah, and I took all the risk. I staked every penny I have on borrowing the additional stock we needed. I broke my own company-begged, borrowed and stole.” She pushed the thought of Gabe from her mind. “If the market hadn’t panicked, I’d have been wiped out.”

“But they did, though, didn’t they?” Carl Kolepp grinned. “How do you feel?”

Lexi grinned back. “Rich.”

“Good. The spaghetti’s on you.”

They ate and celebrated. What they’d done was completely illegal. Short selling was one thing. But manipulating a company’s stock price through an orchestrated campaign of misinformation? That was something else. Lexi had used her inside knowledge to defraud shareholders. If she and Carl were caught, they were both looking at a long stretch of prison time.

But we won’t be caught.

This time Lexi had covered her tracks completely. All threads linking her to Carl Kolepp had been meticulously destroyed. Unless one or the other of them confessed, they were home free.

Carl asked Lexi: “So what’ll you do now? Buy yourself an island somewhere peaceful? Fill your swimming pool with Cristal?”

The suggestion seemed to amuse her.

“Of course not. This is where the real work begins.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to rebuild the company, of course. Buy back all the decent businesses. Get rid of all the dross Max acquired in the last ten years. I’ve halved my own score. Now I’m going to double my opponents’.”

“Excuse me?”

Lexi laughed. “Forget about it. Private joke.”

“Let me get this straight.” Carl Kolepp looked puzzled. “You bankrupted your own company just so you could rebuild it?”

“Uh-huh. I lost so I could win.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a little bit nuts?”

Lexi smiled. “A few people. Apparently it runs in my family.”

FELICITY TENNANT WAS DEPRESSED. SHUFFLING OUT TO the mailbox in her pajamas, she did not return her neighbors’ cheery waves on this glorious, sunny September morning. Behind Felicity stood the idyllic white clapboard house where she and her husband, David, had lived happily and harmoniously throughout twenty years of marriage. Until last month.

First rule of a happy marriage: Get Your Husband Out of the House.

Ever since David quit his job at Templeton, he’d been moping around at home like a bear with a sore head, getting under Felicity’s feet. For reasons Felicity did not understand, they had apparently lost a lot of money. David was even talking about selling the house and moving somewhere more modest. Perhaps even leaving Westchester County.

Over my dead body.

The morning mail did not lift Felicity’s spirits. Bills, bills and more bills. There was only one white envelope among the brown and red. (Red bills! The shame of it!) Felicity would have liked to open it, but David got terribly prickly when she opened his mail. Then again, David got terribly prickly about everything at the moment.

“Here.” Back in the kitchen, she handed him the letter, along with the bills. “For you.”

David Tennant opened the envelope without interest. Since Templeton folded, it was as if a black cloud had descended over his life. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Inside the envelope was a note and a check. David Tennant read both. Twice. Felicity noticed that his hands had started to shake.

“What? What is it?”

He handed her the note.

Dear David, I am sorry this has taken so long. And I’m sorry I was not able to be more open with you. I hope this check will go some way toward restoring your faith in me. Your friend, Lexi

“Humph.” Felicity Tennant was unimpressed. “Guilty conscience got the better of her, has it? It’s about time. Your friend, indeed! After the way Her Ladyship has treated us.”

Silently, David Tennant passed his wife the check.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Felicity Tennant clutched the kitchen table for support.

The check was for $15 million.

It was going to be a good day after all.

Yasmin Ross smiled at her boss when he walked into the office.

“Morning Mr. M. The mail’s on your desk, next to the latte and skinny blueberry muffin. I moved the morning meeting to a quarter after so you’d have time to eat something.”