Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness (10 page)

G
RACE
B
ROOKSTEIN'S CONVICTION AND LIFE SENTENCE—
the cumulative punishment for all five charges was over one hundred years in jail—was the lead item on news reports around the globe. Grace was no longer a woman, an individual with thoughts and hopes and regrets. She was an emblem, a symbol of all that was greedy and corrupt and rotten in America, of the forces of evil that had brought the country to the brink of economic collapse and caused so much suffering and anguish. When Grace was taken from the courtroom to await transfer to the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, she was jostled and jeered by a bloodthirsty mob. One woman managed to scratch her face, her talonlike acrylic nail slicing into Grace's flesh. Images of Grace Brookstein clutching her bleeding cheek as she was bundled into a police van were beamed across America. The mighty had truly fallen.

After a terrifying night alone in a cell, Grace was allowed to make a phone call at five
A.M.
On instinct, she reached for her family.

“Gracie?” Honor's voice sounded groggy with sleep. “Is that you?”

Thank God. She's home.
Grace could have wept with relief.

“Yes, it's me. Oh, Honor, it's terrible. I don't know what happened. My attorney told me it would all be okay, but—”

“Where are you now?”

“I'm in jail. I'm still in New York, I…I don't know where exactly. It's awful. They're transferring me tomorrow. Somewhere near you. Bedford, I think? That might be better. But, Honor, you have to help me.”

There was a long silence. Eventually, Honor said, “I don't see how I can, Gracie. You've been found guilty in a court of law.”

“I know, but—”

“And you didn't exactly help yourself during the trial. Your
clothes
. What were you thinking?”

“Frank Hammond told me to wear them!”

“You see, there you go again. Connie was right.”

“What do you mean?” Grace was close to tears. “Connie was right about what?”

“About you. Listen to yourself, Grace: ‘
Lenny
told me.
My attorney
told me.
John
told me.' When are you going to start taking responsibility for your own actions? Your own life? You're not Daddy's little princess anymore, Gracie. You can't keep expecting me and Connie to fix everything for you.”

Grace bit her lip till it bled. She'd needed her sister's support so desperately but all Honor wanted to do was lecture her. Clearly, Connie felt the same way.

“Please, Honor! I don't know where to turn. Can't you ask Jack? He's a senator, he must have some influence. This is all a terrible mistake. I didn't steal any money. And Lenny would never—”

“I'm sorry, Grace. Jack can't possibly get involved. This sort of scandal could ruin us.”

“Ruin
you
? Honor, they're locking me up! Lenny's dead, accused of a crime you
know
he didn't commit.”

“I don't know that, Grace. For God's sake, wake up! That money didn't just vanish. Of course Lenny took it. He took it, and he left you holding the bag.”

The words were like a knife in Grace's heart. It was bad enough that strangers thought Lenny was a thief. But Honor knew him. She
knew
him. How could she possibly believe it?

Honor spoke her next words with chilling finality. “You made your own bed, Gracie. I'm sorry.” The connection was broken.

You're sorry?

So am I.

Good-bye, Honor.

 

T
HE RIDE ON THE PRISON VAN
to Bedford Hills was long and uncomfortable. The van was freezing and smelly, and the women inside huddled together for warmth. Grace looked at their faces. These women had nothing in common with her. Some were frightened. Some defiant. Some despairing. But all wore the haggard lines of poverty and exhaustion on their faces. They looked at Grace with naked, murderous hatred.

Grace closed her eyes. She was nine years old, in East Hampton with her father. It was Christmas Eve and Cooper Knowles was lifting her up on his shoulders to put the star on the top of the tree.

“You can do it, Grace. Just stretch a little farther!”

She was on the podium, aged fifteen, surrounded by her gymnast friends. The judges were placing a gold medal around her neck. Grace scanned the crowd for her mother's face, but she wasn't there. Her coach told her, “Forget it, Grace. If you want to be a winner, you have to win for yourself, not for others.”

It was her wedding night. Lenny was making love to her, softly, tenderly. “I'm going to take care of you, Grace. You'll never have to worry about anything ever again.” And Grace replied, “I love you, Lenny. I'm so happy.”

“Get out!”

The female guard grabbed Grace roughly by the arm. Grace hadn't even noticed that the van had stopped. Moments later she was shivering in a desolate courtyard with the other women prisoners. It was late afternoon, already dark, and there was snow on the ground. In front of Grace was a depressing gray stone building. Behind her, and to the left and right, were row after row of barbed-wire fences, jutting violently into the purple night sky. Grace was ashamed to find herself crying.

“Welcome to Bedford Hills, ladies. Enjoy your stay.”

 

I
T WAS THREE HOURS BEFORE
G
RACE
reached the cell she was to share with two other women. By that time, she knew she would not survive a week at Bedford Hills, never mind the rest of her life.

I have to get out of here! I have to reach John Merrivale. John will get me out.

The physical examination was the worst part. A brutal, degrading experience, it was designed to strip prisoners of all human dignity. It worked. Grace was forced to strip naked in a room full of people. A prison doctor inserted a speculum into her vagina and took a Pap smear. Next Grace was made to bend over while a latex-gloved finger probed her anus, presumably for hidden drugs. Her pubic hairs were pulled painfully in search of lice. Throughout the procedure prison guards of both sexes laughed and made disgusting, lewd comments. Grace felt as if she'd been raped.

After that, she was herded like an animal into a tepid shower and told to wash with antiseptic soap that burned her skin. Next, still naked, she stood in line to have her long hair cropped boy-short. The haircut took all of fifteen seconds but it was a harrowing procedure, robbing Grace of her femininity, her entire identity as a woman. Grace never saw her own clothes again. They were gone, along with every other vestige of the person she had been on the outside. They even took her wedding ring, wrenching it painfully off her finger. In place of her old clothes, Grace was given three pairs of underwear, a bra that didn't fit and a scratchy orange prison uniform two sizes too big for her.

“In here.”

A stocky, female prison guard opened the door of a cell and pushed Grace inside. Two Latina women lay on bunks in the grim, twelve-by-nine-foot box. They muttered something to each other in Spanish as Grace staggered in, but otherwise ignored her.

Screwing up her courage, Grace turned to the guard. “There's been a mistake. I'd like to see the warden, please. I believe I've been transferred to the wrong facility.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. This is a maximum-security prison. I was convicted of fraud, not murder. I don't belong here.”

The Latina women's eyes widened. But if the guard was shocked, she didn't show it. “You can see the warden in the morning. Now you sleep.” The cell door closed.

Grace lay back on her bunk. She couldn't sleep. Her mind was racing.

In the morning I'll see the warden. I'll be transferred to a better prison. That's the first step. Then I can call John Merrivale and start my appeal.

She should have called John in the first place. She didn't know what stupid, childish impulse had made her turn to Honor instead. It was a hard thing to admit that she couldn't trust her own family, but that was the reality. Grace had to face it.

Lenny looked on John as a brother. John's my family now. He's all I've got.

Clearly, hiring Frank Hammond had been a titanic mistake. But Grace couldn't blame John for that. The point now was to move forward.

Tomorrow. Things will be better tomorrow.

 

F
RANK
H
AMMOND SAT ALONE IN HIS
car in a deserted parking lot. He watched the familiar figure of his client making his way toward him through the shadows. Every few seconds the man glanced over his shoulder nervously, afraid he was being watched.

Big Frank thought,
He looks so pathetic. So weak. Like a deer caught in the headlights. No one would suspect a man like that of doing something this audacious
.
I suppose that's how he got away with it.

The man got into the car and thrust a piece of paper into Frank Hammond's hands.

“What's this?”

“It's a receipt. The wire transfer went through an hour ago.”

“To my offshore account?”

“Of course. Just as we agreed.”

“Thank you.”

Twenty-five million dollars.
It was a lot of money. But was it enough? After he'd publicly screwed up Grace Brookstein's defense, Frank Hammond's reputation was in tatters. He might never get hired again. Still, it was too late for regrets.

“I trust you were happy with the job?”

His client smiled. “Very happy. She trusted you completely.”

“Then our business is concluded.”

Frank Hammond started the engine. His client put a hand on his arm.

“There are no grounds for appeal, are there?”

“None whatsoever. Unless, of course, the FBI happens to find that missing money. But that's not going to happen, is it, John?”

“No. It isn't. N-not in this lifetime.”

John Merrivale allowed himself a small smile. Then he got out of the car and quietly disappeared back into the shadows.

 

W
ARDEN
J
AMES
M
C
I
NTOSH WAS INTRIGUED
. L
IKE
everybody else in the country, he knew who Grace Brookstein was. She was the woman who'd helped her husband embezzle billions of dollars, then inexplicably shown up for her trial channeling Marie Antoinette, alienating the vengeance-crazed American public even further.

Warden McIntosh was a tired, disillusioned man in his early fifties with balding gray hair and a matching thin mustache. He was intelligent and not without compassion, although Grace Brookstein did little to inspire it. Most of the women who wound up at Bedford Hills had had lives straight out of a Dickens novel. Raped by their fathers, beaten by their husbands, forced into prostitution and drugs while still in their teens, many of them never stood a chance at living normal, civilized lives.

Grace Brookstein was different. Grace Brookstein had had it all, but she'd still wanted more. Warden McIntosh had no time for that sort of naked greed.

James Ian McIntosh joined the prison service because he genuinely believed that he could do good. That he could make a difference.
What a joke!
After eight years at Bedford Hills, his aims had grown more modest: to make it to retirement with his sanity and his pension intact.

James McIntosh did not want Grace Brookstein at Bedford Hills. He'd argued with his superiors about it.

“C'mon, Bill, give me a break. She's white collar. Plus she's a walking incitement to riot. Half of my prisoners have family members who lost their jobs after Quorum collapsed. And the other half hate her for being rich and white and wearing that goddamn mink coat to trial.”

But it was no use. It was
because
Grace was so hated that she was being sent to Bedford Hills. Nowhere else would she be protected.

Now, less than one full day into her sentence, she was already stirring up trouble, demanding to see him as if this were some sort of hotel and
he were the manager.
What's the problem, Mrs. Brookstein? Sheets not soft enough for you? Complimentary champagne not quite chilled?

He gestured for Grace to sit down.

“You asked to see me?”

“Yes.” Grace exhaled, forcing the stress out of her body. It was nice to be sitting in an office, talking to an educated, civilized man. The warden had family photographs on his desk. It felt like a tiny, much-needed dose of reality. “Thank you for seeing me, Warden McIntosh. There seems to have been a mistake.”

The warden raised an eyebrow.

“Does there?”

“Well…yes. You see, this is a maximum-security facility.”

“Is it? I hadn't noticed.”

Grace swallowed. She felt nervous all of a sudden. Was he laughing with her, or at her?

This is my chance to explain. I mustn't screw it up.

“My crime…the crime that I was convicted of…it wasn't violent,” she began. “I mean, I'm innocent, Warden. I didn't actually do what they
said
I did. But that's not why I'm here.”

Warden McIntosh thought,
Thank heaven for small mercies.
If he had a dollar for every inmate who'd sat in front of him protesting her innocence, he'd have retired to Malibu Beach years ago. Grace was still talking.

“The thing is, even if I had done it, I don't think…what I'm trying to say is, I don't belong here.”

“I couldn't agree more.”

Grace's heart soared.
Thank God! He's a reasonable man. He'll sort this mess out, move me out of this cattle farm.

“Unfortunately my superiors feel differently. You see, they feel that it's the state's responsibility to see to it that you aren't lynched. They're concerned your fellow inmates might want to, oh, I don't know…beat you to death with a crowbar. Or strangle you with bedsheets. Pour acid on your face while you sleep, perhaps? Something of that nature.”