Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness (15 page)

A
FTER LIGHTS-OUT
, G
RACE LAY AWAKE, HER
mind racing.

Whoever murdered Lenny had to have been on Nantucket the day of the storm. It could have been a stranger. But she knew that was unlikely.
It was someone close to us. It had to be. Someone close to Quorum. To the missing money.

She thought back to the vacation, to their houseguests.

Connie and Michael.

Honor and Jack.

Maria and Andrew.

Caroline and John.

The Quorum family.
Except they weren't family. They weren't friends. All of them had abandoned Grace in her hour of need.

One of them had killed Lenny.

Grace no longer wanted justice. She wanted vengeance. She would
have
vengeance.

That night, Grace Brookstein began planning her escape.

K
AREN
W
ILLIS RUBBED HER EYES
. I
T
was two in the morning and Grace Brookstein was climbing into her bed.

“Grace? What is it? Are you sick?”

Grace shook her head. Beneath the blanket, the two of them huddled together for warmth. Karen felt the softness of Grace's breasts against her back. The smell of her skin, the soft caress of her breath. Instinctively, she slid a hand under Grace's nightdress, reaching for the silky wetness between her thighs.

“I love you.” Karen turned to press her lips to Grace's. For a few glorious seconds, Grace responded, kissing her back. Then she pulled away.

“I'm sorry. I…I can't.”

Grace felt torn. Part of her was tempted to accept the comfort Karen was offering. After all, Lenny was gone. And Grace loved Karen, too, in a way. But she knew it wasn't right. She didn't love Karen in
that
way. Not really. Even if she had, it would have been wrong to raise her hopes. Especially considering what she was about to tell her.

Karen looked anguished. How could she have been so stupid? She'd misread the signals. “Oh God. Are you angry with me?”

“No. Not at all. Why would I be?”

“I would never have made a move if I hadn't thought…I mean, you came into my bed.”

“I know. I'm sorry. Look, it was my fault,” said Grace. “I needed to talk to you. I need your advice.”

“My advice?”

“Uh-huh. I'm going to escape.”

It was the break in the tension Karen needed. She laughed so hard she almost woke Cora.

Grace didn't get it. “What's so funny?”

“Oh, Grace! You can't be serious!”

“I'm deadly serious.”

“Honey, it's impossible. No one's ever escaped from Bedford Hills.”

Grace shrugged. “There's a first time for everything, right?”

“Not for this.” Karen wasn't laughing anymore. “You actually mean it, don't you? You're out of your mind, Grace. Have you looked outside lately? There are nine barbed-wire fences between us and freedom, all of them electrified. There are guards and dogs and cameras and guns.”

“I know all that.”

“Then you're not thinking clearly. Look, even if you found some way to escape—which you won't, because it's impossible—you have one of the most recognizable faces in America. How far do you think you'll get?”

Grace ran a hand over her broken nose. “I'm not so recognizable anymore. I don't look the way I used to. Anyway, I can disguise myself.”

“When they catch you, they'll shoot you. No questions asked.”

“I know that, too. It's a risk I'm prepared to take.”

Karen stroked Grace's cheek in the darkness. This was madness. No one escaped from Bedford Hills. If Grace tried it, she'd be killed for sure. Even if, by some miracle, she were captured alive, it still meant Karen would never see her again. Grace would be transferred to solitary. Sent out of state. Locked up in some secret CIA holding pen never to be heard of again.

“Don't do this, Grace. Please. I don't want to lose you.”

Grace saw Karen's eyes well up. Leaning forward, she kissed her full on the mouth. It was a passionate, lingering kiss. A kiss to be remembered by. A kiss good-bye.

“I have to do it, Karen.”

“No you don't. Why?”

“Because Lenny was murdered, okay?”

Karen sat up. “
Whaaat?
Says who?”

“Davey Buccola. He found evidence, stuff that was suppressed at the inquest.”

So Buccola put her up to this. I'll kill him.

“I have to find out who killed my husband.”

“But, Grace—”

“I'm going to find him. And then I'm going to kill him.”

Grace waited for the outrage, the shock, but it never came. Instead Karen put her arms around her and hugged her tightly. Karen remembered Billy, her sister's boyfriend. How
right
it had felt when that bullet hit him between the eyes. Despite everything that had happened since, she had never regretted what she'd done. She did not want to lose Grace. But she understood.

“I assume you have a plan?”

“Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about…”

 

S
ISTER
A
GNES WATCHED
G
RACE
B
ROOKSTEIN CLEARING
away a jigsaw puzzle and offered up a silent prayer to the Lord:

Thank You for bringing me this lost soul, Jesus. Thank You for allowing me to be the vessel of Your redeeming grace.

Sister Agnes had only been Sister Agnes for five years. Before that, she was Tracey Grainger, a lonely, unpopular teenage girl from Frenchtown, New Jersey. Tracey Grainger had fallen in love with a local boy named Gordon Hicks. Gordon had told her he loved her and Tracey had believed him. When Gordon got her pregnant, then promptly abandoned her, Tracey went home and swallowed as many pills as she could find. The baby did not survive.

Neither did Tracey Grainger.

The girl who woke up from that overdose in a grimly sterile hospital bed, clutching her stomach and weeping with guilt, was not the same girl whom Gordon Hicks had so peremptorily dumped. She was not the same straight-C student who had disappointed her parents since the day she was born. She was not the same socially awkward, unlovable tenth grader whom no one invited to prom. This girl was an entirely new person. A
person loved by God. A person of value. A person whose sins had been forgiven, who would one day become one with Jesus at the right hand of the Father. If anyone believed in the power of redemption, it was Sister Agnes. God had redeemed her. He had saved her life. Now, in His infinite love and mercy, He had redeemed Grace Brookstein, too. And He had allowed
her,
Sister Agnes, to play a small part in the miracle.

Only this morning, Grace told her, “I feel so fulfilled here, Sister. Working with these children. With you. It's like I've been given a second chance at life.”

What a warm glow of satisfaction those words had given her! Sister Agnes hoped she was not guilty of the mortal sin of pride. She must remember that it was God who had transformed Grace, not her. And yet Sister Agnes couldn't help but feel that her friendship
had
contributed to some of the changes in Grace.

Grace had changed Sister Agnes, too. A nun's life could be lonely. Most of the other Sisters of Mercy were old enough to be Sister Agnes's mother, if not her grandmother. Over the last few months she had come to cherish the easy friendship she seemed to have developed with Grace Brookstein. The shared glances. The smiles. The trust.

Grace put the puzzle pieces back into their box then stacked it neatly on the shelf. Sister Agnes smiled warmly.

“Thank you, Grace. I can finish up here. I know you want to get to the library.”

“That's all right,” said Grace cheerfully. “I'm happy to help. Oh, by the way, that modeling clay that we ordered last week? We need to return it.”

“Do we? Why?”

“I opened seven or eight of the crates this morning, and the stuff inside had completely dried out. I tried soaking it in water but it just ended up all slimy. It'll have to go back.”

What a pain,
thought Sister Agnes. It had taken her the better part of a day to stack those crates in the children's center storeroom with Sister Theresa. Now she'd have to lug the stupid things back out again.

“I e-mailed the delivery company,” said Grace. “They're coming to pick them up on Tuesday at four o'clock.”

“Tuesday?” Sister Agnes looked pained. “Oh, Grace, it was kind of
you to arrange it. But I can't supervise a pickup on Tuesday, I'm afraid. A delegation from the department of corrections will be here for a tour. Sister Theresa and I have our quarterly budget meeting with them afterward. We'll be out all afternoon.”

“Oh.” Grace looked disappointed. Then she suddenly brightened. “Perhaps I could do it?”

Sister Agnes frowned. “I don't know about that, Grace.”

Inmates in A Wing were not supposed to help with pickups or deliveries. The warden considered it a potential security risk. But Grace had come so far in her rehabilitation. Sister Agnes would hate to give her the impression that she wasn't trusted.

Grace said, “The children have already waited weeks. It seems a shame to delay things even further.”

“Those crates are heavy, Grace,” Sister Agnes said awkwardly. “It's a two-person job.”

“Cora can help me.”

“Cora Budds?” This idea was going from bad to worse.

“She has kitchen duty on Tuesdays but she's usually finished by three.”

Grace looked so hopeful, so eager to please. Sister Agnes wavered.
What harm can it do? Just this once.

“Well, I suppose…if you're sure you and Cora can handle it…”

Grace smiled. “Loading a delivery truck? Yes, Sister. I think we can manage that.”

Her heart was pounding so loudly she was surprised Sister Agnes couldn't hear it. She was a sweet, kind woman and Grace felt bad deceiving her. But it couldn't be helped.

It was starting.

 

G
RACE
B
ROOKSTEIN'S PLANNED ESCAPE ATTEMPT RAPIDLY
became the worst-kept secret at Bedford Hills. The idea was simple: The delivery truck would arrive at the children's center. Grace and Cora Budds would begin loading up the crates of clay. While Cora distracted the driver, Grace would go back into the storeroom, empty one of the crates and hide herself inside it. Cora would complete the loading
on her own, making sure that the lid of Grace's crate was not fully sealed, to allow her some air, and that it was hidden well back among the others.

It was the next part of the plan that was the wild card. Everything rested on the security check. Trucks came in and out of Bedford Hills every day, delivering everything from toilet paper to detergent to food. The prison was equipped with state-of-the-art security systems. As well as manual searches, the guards used sniffer dogs and even infrared scanners to spot-check vehicles, in addition to the CCTV cameras that were everywhere at Bedford. Typically, the more thorough searches took place on the way
in
to the prison. There was less emphasis on what might be going out. But
all
searches were at the guards' discretion. If they didn't like the look of a driver, or a vehicle, or if they just felt like it for whatever reason, they could hold people up for hours, X-raying every square inch of their car or person. Grace hoped that on a cold January night, the guards' appetite for hauling out crate after crate of children's modeling clay would be low. But she wouldn't know until they got to the checkpoint.

Once the truck was waved through, if it was waved through, and they drove clear of Bedford, Grace would climb out of the crate and make her way to the rear doors. As soon as the driver stopped at a junction, she would open the door of the truck and jump to freedom.

Easy.

 

“I
T'S NOT GOING TO WORK
.”

Karen leaned across the table and helped herself to Grace's watery mashed potatoes. They were at lunch, a few days before the breakout was supposed to take place.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Have you thought about what you're gonna do if you
do
make it out of here?”

Grace had thought of little else. When she fantasized about her escape, she pictured herself as the hunter, unmasking Lenny's killer, wreaking her revenge. But the reality was that
she
would also be hunted down. If she were going to survive, she'd need food, shelter, money and a disguise. She had no idea how she was going to obtain any of them.

“What about friends on the outside. Is there anybody you can trust? Anyone who'll cover for you?”

Grace shook her head. “No. No one.”

There was one person she trusted. Davey Buccola. Davey was working on new information, checking out the alibis for everyone who'd stayed with Grace and Lenny on Nantucket the day Lenny died. If Grace turned to anyone on the outside, it would be him. But she wasn't about to tell Karen that.

“In that case, we need to fix you up with a survival pack from here.”

“A survival pack?”

“Sure. You'll need a new identity. A few new identities, so you can keep moving. Driver's licenses, credit cards, some cash. You won't get very far as Grace Brookstein.”

“Where am I going to get a driver's license from, Karen? Or a credit card. It's impossible.”

“Said the woman who figures she's going to escape from Bedford Hills! Don't sweat the small stuff, Grace. Leave that to me.”

Karen had warned Grace that she would need to let “a few of the girls” in on the escape plan in order to get what they needed in such a short space of time. To Grace's horror, “a few of the girls” turned out to be almost every inmate at Bedford. Forging a credit card and a driver's license was no mean feat. Karen was forced to corral help from all over the prison. Inmates in the warden's office, the library and the computer room typed, Photoshopped and laminated for days, all of them risking their own paroles and futures for a chance to help Grace and be part of the Great Escape. The only people who
didn't
know about the plan were the guards and Lisa Halliday.

It was debatable whether Lisa would have snitched on Grace—powerful inmates could attack their rivals with impunity but selling out another prisoner was still considered taboo. Still Karen wasn't prepared to risk it.

Grace was grateful for everyone's help, but she was nervous.

“Too many people know.”

“They're not ‘ people,'” Karen told her. “They're your friends. You can trust them.”