She's Mine

by Claire S. Lewis

  However, this was also a time for righting past wrongs. The word ‘revenge’ was too crude but Lara believed in the adage ‘vengeance is a dish best served cold.’ She had made sure that even if Gabrielle were to find out what had happened in Venice there could be no chance of her forcing Lara into terminating this pregnancy and starting over with another surrogacy using Gabrielle’s remaining eggs. Gabrielle was so consumed with the obsessive desire to conceive her own genetic offspring that there was no knowing how far she would go – and Lara was not taking any chances. It had been easy enough to sort things with the clinic by impersonating her twin, the way she had done on more than one occasion when they were little girls. It wasn’t only Gabrielle who could pull that trick! True, she had had to perjure herself, forge a couple of signatures and attorneys’ affidavits. In the stroke of a pen, her deceit had extinguished Gabrielle’s last hope of becoming a biological mother. But at the end of the day, she had committed herself to an act of great altruism, and was intending to make the greatest sacrifice that could be asked of a mother – giving away her own baby.

  Surely, a few venal sins along the way could be forgiven?

  31

  Scarlett

  I whack my fists against the door until my fingers are numb with pain. I’ve got to get off this boat and back to England, out of Christina’s life forever.

  And yet? Could it be true that Gabrielle has been using me? Maybe I was indeed unwittingly duped by her, along with everyone else? I think back to my fight with Damien in the grounds of the hotel after he was released on bail. He seemed to know every detail concerning my past employment problems. After that confrontation, I suspected that Damien had had dealings with the New York modelling agency, just like me. I wondered if perhaps he had also been on their books as a model. But now I’m struck with another sneaking suspicion. Was Gabrielle the hidden face of e-Face? Was she, by chance, the extremely helpful woman I spoke to that time on the phone, who went out of her way to find me a placement as a nanny in New York, even though her main business was managing a modelling agency?

  Exhausted, I sink to the floor with my back to the door and my head in my hands. Looking back over the last few months, the pieces start to fall into place. It seems that Gabrielle must have identified, groomed and recruited Damien before she identified and ‘recruited’ me. But why exactly did she select him? Gabrielle could have chosen any one of the models on her books, so how did she conclude that Damien was the perfect candidate to seduce Christina and do her dirty work? Was Damien a good choice because he was Christina’s type? Being her twin, Gabrielle must have had a pretty good idea about Lara’s taste in men! God knows, despite his flaws, he can be exceptionally charming and captivating when he wants to be. But Christina is so cultured and sophisticated, it seems counter-intuitive to assume she would fall for an arrogant hedonist like Damien (even if at the start she knew nothing of his gambling and drug taking habits).

  I sit rocking gently, racking my brains to make sense of all this. Then suddenly I remember the faded photograph in Christina’s old copy of Brideshead Revisited. It’s obvious, of course. Gabrielle picked out Damien precisely because she was struck by his very strong physical likeness with Christina’s first love. His image must have caught her attention for that very reason when she was scrolling through the models on her books looking for a suitable candidate. Gabrielle knew her twin would fall for him, no matter what his flaws. Now I can understand how Christina, who had closed herself off to the world in order to protect Katie, allowed her guard to fall and let this man into her life so easily.

  Having selected her candidate, Gabrielle then needed to find a way to get him under her control so that she could coerce him into doing everything she wanted. Having witnessed her antics on the deck of The Phantasea, I can imagine that she first set out to seduce and entrap him with sex. Once they were in a relationship, she would have discovered his excessive drug and gambling habits and would then have found it easy to exploit these weaknesses in his character to corrupt and manipulate him into carrying out her orders. In addition, as he was trying to make a career for himself in modelling and film, she could trade favours with him by using her network to provide openings and introductions to influential people and interesting opportunities in the media world. Damien would be putty in her hands for such a master of manipulation as Gabrielle.

  Once Damien had won over Christina’s affections, Gabrielle would have looked for a suitable candidate among the many models registered on her e-Face database to install as a nanny in Christina’s home. And that’s where I came in. Gabrielle could have selected any number of girls on her modelling agency books to offer them an attractive position as a nanny. But I guess she chose me because she imagined that I was easily corruptible and vulnerable to manipulation given that I was virtually unemployable due to my previous drugs conviction. Seeing that my past employment history also included working as a waitress in a pole dancing club and a croupier in a casino, she would have assumed (not unreasonably) that my morals were none too strict. My damaged employment credentials must have caught her attention when I sent in my application.

  ‘God, I think you could be right,’ I say, recalling Christina’s last words to me. ‘I came to you through an agency. I was looking for modelling jobs and started out doing some boudoir photography but the woman at e-Face said she would be able to place me as a nanny with you. I remember at the time thinking it was a bit odd but I was just happy to be offered the position.’ I spin round to face Christina. ‘How much of a schemer is she? Is it beyond the realms of possibility that Gabrielle could have set up a fake nanny placement agency for the sole purpose of marketing her services to you and then picked me out as the ideal candidate to install as your nanny because of my damaged past?’

  ‘Knowing the way her mind works, that’s sounds exactly the kind of thing Gabrielle would do,’ says Christina. ‘There’s nothing she enjoys more than scheming and manipulating people.’ She sits biting her nails, then her eyes light up. ‘Now I remember, it was Damien who told me about the nanny agency. He gave me a card with the name of the agency and the website –Nanny Angels, I think it was called. I looked up the website. The sales pitch sounded very professional – London-based nanny agency that places exceptional residential Nannies in New York and throughout the United States – something along those lines. He told me that his female “boss” used the agency for her own little girls and had passed him the details when he’d told her I’d had to fire my nanny. Damien’s fictional boss even provided a fictional reference – faked by Gabrielle, I suppose! That man had turned my head. I was in such a spin that I was grateful for his help and didn’t bother to check anything out.’

  ‘Well, that figures,’ I say. ‘The modelling agency doesn’t exist any more. There’s no trace of it online. I tried to look it up a few days ago and there’s nothing – e-Face has effaced itself. As for the nanny agency, I guess that never really existed except in Gabrielle’s virtual reality universe.’

  It looks like without me knowing it Gabrielle’s been in the shadows pulling the strings for months leading up to this plan for the abduction of Katie. Now I understand why Christina always insisted on an absolute ban on posting photographs of Katie or anything about her on social media or anywhere online. And I understand why Christina told me she had sacked her former nanny, Hayley, when (thanks to Damien’s ratting) she found out that the nanny had done just that, posting a photograph of ‘Katie Kenedey’ proudly holding up her Bright Star of the Week certificate Awarded by the Manhattan Bright Star Kindergarten.

  We sit there, mulling over the last few months in New York. Christina tells me that she met Damien just a few weeks before I went to work for her. There had been a big row the first time Damien came to the apartment after Hayley accused him of trying to make a pass at her while Christina was in the shower.

  ‘He was probably acting under Gabrielle’s orders – to get her sacked,’ I say.

  Hayley’s accusations (
vigorously denied by Damien) didn’t please Christina who was fiercely jealous. When Damien showed Christina the photograph of Katie that Hayley had posted on her Facebook page, it gave Christina the perfect reason to get rid of her. Hayley left – under a cloud.

  I also recall one of my outings to Central Park with Katie, when Damien insisted on tagging along and spent the afternoon flirting with me. I was taking photographs of Katie under the trees, some arty shots that I was planning to make into a traditional (strictly offline) collage for Christina’s birthday. He was winding me up, horsing around and photo-bombing the shots. When I yelled at him, he started boasting that I should be paying him – that he’d worked as a male model and ladies’ escort and I should be grateful to be getting his services for free. When I quizzed him about it – ‘I thought you were a big-swinging-dick in the city’– he started back-pedalling madly and made out it was all a big joke. Now I think of it, he was probably telling the truth for once in his life.

  ‘He took us all in. He’s a class act,’ says Christina bitterly.

  ‘Did you ever meet any of Damien’s work colleagues?’ I ask Christina. Did you ever go to his office?’

  ‘We always met in the downstairs lobby of “his bank.” It was a big anonymous place, with hundreds of people streaming in and out. We sometimes went for a drink at a nearby bar, popular with the Wall Street crowd. He seemed to know them all, paying for drinks and exchanging banter with the best of them. But then, networking was always the skillset at which he excelled. People come and go in the financial world. Of course, now I know he succeeded in passing himself off as one of the crowd, even though he didn’t work for that bank or for any of the banks. Why would anyone bother to check his credentials? Look at me! What a damned fool I’ve been! He was no more a Wall Street banker than you are!’

  ‘He’s such a con artist,’ I say, ‘Did you ever see Catch Me if You Can? He’d give DiCaprio a good run for his money!’

  Christina manages a wry smile.

  ‘You’re right,’ she says, ‘Except that he’s such a lousy poker player!’

  *

  As we talk through the night it becomes abundantly clear that Gabrielle’s been planning this for months, if not years, like a poisonous spider spinning her web. She must have done her research meticulously. She discovered Christina’s new identity, her new employer, the name of her little girl’s day-care nursery and her new address – then it was simply a matter of installing her stooge (that was Damien) and her innocent operator (that was me) and watching and waiting until the opportunity arose to go in for the kill.

  ‘If I’ve understood this, Christina,’ I say ‘It’s not only Katie who is in grave danger but also you. Gabrielle’s used Damien, and yes, she’s even used me. Damien was vulnerable to blackmail because of his gambling debts and because he’s obsessed with sex and has an ego the size of an elephant. And I was in desperate need of a job and struggling to get one because of my drugs conviction. She’s played us all.

  ‘She left all those clues that we thought were leading to Katie deliberately to entrap us. Like you, I was convinced Katie was hidden here on The Phantasea after I saw a photo of the catamaran on Costa’s file.’

  ‘She sent a photograph of the catamaran to me at the hotel too,’ says Christina, ‘in one of her trademark purple envelopes. It was delivered in person to my room by that loathsome hotel manager. I recognised the yacht, and I recognised the harbour. We used to dock at Clearwater Marina when we came on sailing holidays to the Caribbean as children. I knew it was a trick. I knew she was using Katie as bait and I was her prey. But I wanted to get onboard before the police – in case they botched the rescue and Gabrielle did something desperate. That’s why I wouldn’t listen when you warned me not to go to Clamities seafood restaurant with Damien. So of course, Damien drove me there for a candlelit dinner and at the end of the meal I suggested a walk to look at the yachts down in the marina. I made it so easy for him. But as we reached the bars, a guy called him over and started yelling about his winnings, something about a debt in a game of poker. Damien bluffed it, said the money was on its way but in the meantime he’d stand him a drink. I gave him the slip and walked on down to the waterfront. I found The Phantasea moored on the quayside. No one was around on deck but the deckhand on the adjoining yacht greeted me casually and wanted to chat. “What did you think of Clamities? I’ve heard the fried clams are to die for”.’

  ‘So I boarded the yacht – I knew I was walking into a trap but I had to find out if Katie was onboard.

  ‘I searched everywhere. But she was nowhere to be seen. Of course, I waited. I waited and eventually Damien and Gabrielle came onboard together, drunk and in high spirits. Damien didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. I started screaming and shouting at them, “Where’s my baby? Where’s my little girl?”

  ‘I wanted to throttle Gabrielle.

  ‘She just laughed, and said…

  ‘“Have you checked under the beds?”

  ‘That was her favourite gag when we shared a room as little girls – hiding under my bed and grabbing my ankle. So I got into the habit of always checking under the beds when I came into the room. Anyway, I raced back down to the cabins thinking that they’d done something dreadful to Katie. And while I was down here checking under the bed, Gabrielle followed me in and bolted the door. I’ve been trapped here ever since. So now she’s got me. You could say I just gave myself up – my life for Katie’s.’

  ‘My God, the woman’s completely mad,’ I say.

  ‘She’s a psychopath,’ says Christina simply. ‘I mean that quite literally. When I was at university I was going out with a medical student, and sometimes when Gabrielle came to visit, we used to entertain ourselves doing those psychological diagnostic tests down at the pub after a few drinks – she always scored well into the psychopathic personality range, she took pride in it.’ Christina turns towards me. ‘She’s been taking anti-psychotic medications for years.’

  So that explains the shelf-full of bottles I saw in the bathroom cabinet at La Revanche!

  ‘But why’s she got it in for Katie?’ I ask. ‘That’s just plain evil.’

  ‘Because she believes Katie belongs to her,’ says Christina, ‘and the only way she can keep believing it and get everyone else to believe it is to kidnap her and get rid of me.’

  Christina looks at me with something like compassion in her eyes.

  ‘She wants Katie come hell or high water. I pray that she hasn’t hurt her and is keeping her somewhere safe. I’m the one she wants to dispose of. But she won’t let any person stand in her way.’

  She takes my bruised hands gently in hers.

  ‘You fell into her traps. You know too much. She won’t let you go.’

  She sits up and looks out at the looming dark mass of Marooner’s Rock catching the moonlight.

  ‘Once I was her hostage, she stole my phone and she sent you the lines from Peter Pan, knowing that you were smart enough to work out where The Phantasea was headed and to come in search of me and Katie. From Clearwater Marina we sailed all through the night and the next day to avoid a police boat that was patrolling the waters. I completely lost my bearings, as we went from one heading to another, round the islands, until we came here to the place the locals call the Mermaids’ Lagoon. We moored here many times when we were kids on my father’s yacht, The Neverland. The lagoon is so sheltered and secluded.’ Christina points at the rock whose dark outline is just visible through the porthole. Her eyes go dreamy. ‘Gabrielle almost drowned me there once in a game of make-believe where I was Wendy and she was Tinker Bell. That’s why I never swim. I’m terrified of going under.’ She gives a weary smile. ‘If ever there was a psychotic fairy in children’s literature, it’s Tinker Bell!’ Then she looks at me sadly. ‘But, of course, Katie’s not here. Gabrielle was too clever for that! She’s arranged a hiding place for her somewhere else. When she’s dealt with both of us, she can do what she likes with Katie. Finally, Katie w
ill belong to her.’

  ‘She must hate you so much to have behaved in this way,’ I say.

  ‘Oh yes, she hates me all right,’ says Christina ‘She thinks I stole her baby. And she wants me dead.’

  32

  Photograph Eleven

  15 December 2010: Pink Sands Bay

  What a shame this is such a clichéd photograph! – me and James on a picture-postcard beach with palm trees and sand the colour of a Caribbean sunset, sipping a cocktail through straws from a shared coconut. We’ve positioned ourselves beautifully on a driftwood log so that the space between our bodies makes a sea-blue, heart shape in the background.

  We could be honeymooners.

  Even though the composition makes me cringe, I think perhaps we were truly happy that day, for the last time.

  *

  Gabrielle and James were spending Christmas in Stratford-Upon-Avon at the old family home. As the vicar in a local parish, it was the busiest time of year for Gabrielle’s father, and impossible for him to get away. Lara had been persuaded to come over from New York to join them at the vicarage – a surprise visit. It was to be a family reunion, a time of good cheer and reconciliation. A time to break the joyful news to the parents - they were very soon to become grandparents.

  Lara’s pregnancy and the surrogacy arrangement had been kept a secret until now. Having deliberately cut herself off from family life and made her new life in New York, Lara had virtually no contact with her family back in England and had insisted that Gabrielle should say nothing until nearer the time of the birth. She didn’t want them prying into her affairs. Gabrielle knew that her father would disapprove of the surrogacy on theological grounds and her mother (who seemed incapable of thinking for herself) would take the same line, so she had gone along with her sister’s wishes. There was no point having them ranting on about it for the duration of the pregnancy. But they couldn’t keep it a secret for much longer – the baby was due in six weeks’ time.