Lightning

by Danielle Steel

  Dr. Greenspan arrived and ordered a shot of Valium for her. “We believe in keeping everyone happy around here,” he smiled, and then looked at Brock with amusement, “would you like one too?”

  “I'd love it.”

  She was already half asleep when they wheeled her toward surgery, and Brock waited nervously in her room, and paced the halls, until five hours later when Dr. Greenspan came and told him she had done well. He was very pleased. It was a complicated procedure but everything had gone smoothly.

  “I think she'll be very happy with the results.” He had put an implant in, and as her original breast had been small, it did not require extensive tissue expansion although of course there had been some to obtain the desired form. There had been other options as well, but Alex preferred the immediacy of the implant, although she understood that it had to be carefully monitored in case of leakage, and she would have to be part of a control group, to provide data on silicone implants. “She'll have to come back in a month or two for some final adjustments.” They had told her that the final nipple reconstruction and tattoos could be done with a local. “But I think she'll do fine,” Greenspan reassured him.

  It was another two hours before she came down from the recovery room, and when she did, she was still very woozy.

  “Hi,” she whispered to him, “how did it go?”

  “It looks great,” he reassured her, although of course he hadn't seen it.

  The next four days in the hospital were uncomfortable for her, more than she'd expected, and she was still in a fair amount of pain when she went back to the office on Monday. But it had none of the implications of her earlier surgery, and none of the dangers.

  The bandage was cumbersome, but she still managed to do a fair amount of work, and a lot of the partners were away on vacation, so no one seemed to be aware of her situation. She stayed in her office, and she was wearing one of Brock's shirts over the bandages. He brought her lunch, and at the end of the day they went back to his apartment. And on Thursday, a week after the surgery, the dressing had come off, and the stitches were removed, before they went back to East Hampton. Annabelle was ecstatic to see them, and Alex moved a little gingerly while she held her.

  “Did you hurt yourself, Mommy?” she asked worriedly, suddenly afraid again. Annabelle had bad memories too, and Alex didn't want to scare her.

  “No, I'm fine,” she reassured her.

  “Are you sick again?” Annabelle's eyes were huge as she looked at her mother, and Alex pulled her even closer, as she felt her little girl shaking.

  “I'm fine,” she said gently, holding her in her arms, but then Alex realized she had to explain it. She told her very simply that when she had hurt her breast, ten months before, they had had to take some of it away, and now they'd put it back. It seemed the simplest explanation, but when her father called that night she told him that Mommy had found her breast and put it back on again, which she considered good news, and startled her father. He assumed that Annabelle had seen Alex's prosthesis. It never occurred to him that she'd had surgery again, and he didn't ask to speak to her since Daphne was standing right near him.

  They were on the yacht by then, and some of Daphne's fancy English friends had joined them. It was a very worldly group with very sophisticated pastimes, and they were spending a lot of time visiting people on other yachts, and in villas along the Riviera. And in a few days they were going to Sardinia.

  And every day, Brock reminded Alex that she had to talk to Sam as soon as he got home from Europe. He was very anxious to get married.

  “I know, I know,” she smiled at him, kissing him gently to reassure him. “Relax. As soon as he gets home, I'll call him.” If they filed by the fall, she and Brock could be married in the spring. It was all he wanted. Sometimes his youthful zeal made her feel ancient, but in other ways, she loved it. Most of the time she didn't feel the difference in their ages, but there were undeniably times when a little bit of maturity was lacking, but she tried to ignore it. Their experiences, and their viewpoints, were occasionally a little different.

  The summer flew by all too quickly for all of them. Daphne hated to come back from Europe, and only her passion for Sam brought her back to New York at all. She admitted to him that she was getting very homesick for London. Life in the States just wasn't the same for her, but he was hoping that she would be distracted by the new apartment. And he promised her that they would travel more, and start spending more time abroad. It wasn't easy for him with his business obligations in New York, but he had a lot of clients abroad too, and he would have done anything to keep her happy. He was spending so much time with her that for months he had seriously neglected his business. She was proving to be a very demanding girl, and she was obviously used to having what she wanted.

  And by the time Sam came home, Alex and Brock were thinking with regret of the end of the summer. They had the house in East Hampton till Labor Day, and the first weekend he was back, Sam took Annabelle to Bridgehampton with him. He was staying there with friends, and after six and a half weeks away, Daphne agreed to let him bring Annabelle with them.

  “Do you suppose they'll do better this time?” Alex asked Brock seriously. Annabelle had been so unhappy the last time she'd seen Daphne. But when Sam brought her back to East Hampton early on Sunday afternoon, it was obvious that something had happened. He was very terse when he dropped her off, and he was alone, and although she knew Brock was anxious for her to talk to him, there was no opportunity before he got in his car and sped off. He had scarcely said two words to Alex.

  She looked down at Annabelle as soon as he had left and questioned her. “What happened?”

  “I don't know. Daddy got a lot of phone calls. He was on the phone all the time, and he shouted a lot at the people who called him. And today he said he had to go. He packed my suitcase and brought me home. Daphne shouted a lot too. She said if he wasn't nice to her, she was going back to England. That would be good. I think she's really mean, and stupid.”

  It was obvious that something had gone wrong, but it was impossible to decipher it from Annabelle's description.

  It was only the next morning, as she and Brock rode into town on the train, that Alex gave a start and stared at the front page of the papers. There were photographs of Sam and Larry and Tom. They were being indicted by the grand jury for fraudulent investments, and a variety of very impressive charges, including embezzlement.

  “Holy shit,” she said, handing the paper to Brock. It was incredible. Sam had always been meticulously honest.

  “Wow!” He whistled as he read it. The charges were very serious, and Simon was being implicated too, although he had not yet been indicted. It was the three original partners who were being accused of at least a dozen counts of fraud, and embezzlement. “He's in big trouble, no wonder he was upset yesterday.” Brock looked over at her, and Alex was stunned. What had he done with his life in the past months? What stupidity had he gotten himself into? He could wind up in jail for twenty or thirty years on the charges they were bringing against him. What in hell had happened?

  “I'll call him when we get to the office,” she said pensively. She still couldn't believe what she'd been reading.

  But when she got to the office, there were already two calls from him. She walked into her office and closed the door, and dialed his office. He came on the line in an instant.

  “Thanks for returning my call.” He sounded extremely nervous.

  “What's happening?” she asked him, still stunned. She had thought she had known him.

  “I'm not sure yet. I know some of it. But not all. I'm not sure I'll ever know everything. But I know enough. I'm up the creek, Alex. I need help. I need a lawyer.” He had a very good lawyer, but he wasn't a criminal attorney.

  “I don't do criminal, Sam,” she said softly, sorry for him, sorry that he had let his life get away from him so completely, or had gone so far astray he couldn't see what he was doing. She wondered if the girl had anything to do
with it, she felt sure Simon did, although he hadn't yet been indicted.

  “You're a litigator. You can at least advise me about what I should do now. Can I talk to you? Can I come and see you, Alex? Please?” He was begging her, and after seventeen years, she felt she owed it to him at least to listen. Besides, despite everything that had happened to them, in a way, she still loved him.

  “I'll see what I can do. But I'm going to refer you to a criminal attorney eventually, Sam. I'm not dumb enough to try to help you, and hurt you as a result of my ignorance. But I'll do the best I can if you want to tell me what happened. When do you want to come in?”

  “Now?” He couldn't stand the tension a moment longer.

  It was ten o'clock and she had an appointment at one-thirty, but she was free until then. “Okay. Come on in.” Her paperwork could wait, and she went to tell Brock what she was doing.

  “Shouldn't you turn him over to one of the criminal guys right now?”

  “I want to talk to him first. Will you sit in with me?” It was an odd request, but this was a professional meeting, and she respected Brock's opinion.

  “If you want me to. Can I punch him in the nose when he's finished?” he said with a grin. He couldn't think of a more fitting end to a bastard like Sam Parker than twenty years in jail. The only reason he was willing to listen was for Alex, but he was not particularly inclined to help him.

  “You can't hit him till he pays his bill,” she smiled back at him. Her life was with Brock now, not with Sam, whatever his problems.

  “Well, don't forget to ask him the million-dollar question.” He was reminding her about the divorce, but this was hardly the moment.

  “Relax. This is business.”

  Sam was there twenty minutes later, looking pale under his suntan. There were dark circles under his eyes, and when he sat across the conference table from Alex and Brock, his hands were visibly shaking. The man was in shock. His reputation was down the drain, and his entire life had fallen apart, seemingly all in six weeks, while he was in Europe with Daphne.

  Alex had asked him if he minded having Brock in on the meeting with them, and though he wasn't enthusiastic about it, he agreed, if she thought it would be useful. He wanted all the help he could get, and he was very grateful to Alex. He told her she was the best attorney he knew, and he valued her opinion. He did not say more than that but the look that passed between them was old and familiar. They had known and loved each other for a long time, it was hard to forget that.

  The story he told was not a pretty one, and as he had told her, he didn't yet have all the answers. What appeared to have happened, as far as he could discern, was that Simon had been slowly and steadily introducing unscrupulous clients into their business, and falsifying their histories and reports from various banks in Europe. And then, in ways Sam had not yet completely figured out, Simon had begun juggling money. He had embezzled from them, and stolen money from the legitimate clients, and he had begun laundering huge amounts from disreputable sources in Europe. It had apparently gone on for months, and Sam admitted, without accusing her, that during the time of her illness and the stress between them, he had stopped paying as close attention as he should to his business. He didn't want to tell her, unless he had to, that he had also been distracted by his affair with Daphne.

  He did explain though that he was not yet sure if she had been introduced into the business by Simon, as a decoy. But her arrival had been very timely, along with the distraction she provided.

  Sam admitted to her then, that by the spring he had begun to suspect something was wrong in Simon's dealings with one of their clients, and certain funds seemed to have been mishandled. But when he had confronted his partners about it, they had reassured him and insisted that it was not as it appeared, and he had decided that he was worried about nothing. He realized now that he had wanted to believe their story. And oddly enough, he confessed, it was at precisely that time that Alex had reminded him of her own suspicions about Simon again, and he had vehemently denied them.

  “I was a damn fool all the way around,” he admitted now. “Simon is as rotten as they come. You were right. And now I find out that Larry and Tom were in on it with him. Not at first, but in February they apparently caught on to something he'd done, and he bought them off. He paid them to keep quiet, and convinced them no one would ever know. He bought them off for a million bucks each, in a numbered account in Switzerland. So for the past six months, they've been in partnership with him, embezzling, stealing, making fraudulent deals. I can't believe how stupid and blind I was, or wanted to be. Simon even arranged to keep me out of the way in Europe for the last two months, when they made some of their worst deals. He found the yacht for me, and I walked right into it like a total fool,” with the help of Daphne. “And while I was gone, someone at the bank got suspicious and reported us to the SEC and the FBI, and they brought in the Department of Justice, and the whole damn house of cards came down around us. And idiot that I was, they took me right down with them. When I got to London, something struck me wrong, when I talked to one of Simon's previous partners. I think he assumed I knew more than I did, which I didn't. But when I called Larry and Tom to ask what was going on, they covered for him, they were too scared not to. And while I was away they made twenty million dollars' worth of bad deals in my name. I'm up to my neck in the swamp with them.” He looked devastated, and terrified. Everything he had built had been destroyed, and his reputation with it. His life was on the line now.

  “But you weren't even here while they made those deals,” Alex said sensibly, “will that help at all?”

  “Those deals are only the tip of the iceberg. It's much worse than that, and I called in almost every day. They couriered things to me, I signed deal memos for them. They made them look quite respectable. And now I'm as responsible as they are. I wanted it all to be okay. I wanted my suspicions not to be true. I just didn't want to face what they were doing. But when I got home last week, and started asking questions, I got scared, and then I started to scratch the surface. You have no idea how much has gone on in the last year. I can't believe what a fool I was, or how much damage has been done, not just to my reputation, but to my business. It's all over, Alex.” He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. He hadn't cried for her, but he was crying for himself now. “Everything I built is gone. Those two fools sold me out for a million dollars each, and now we're all going to wind up in jail thanks to Simon.” He closed his eyes, and tried to regain his composure again. She felt sorry for him, but not as sorry as she should be. In some ways, he had deserved this. He had trusted Simon when he shouldn't have, when his own instincts had warned him right from the beginning. And he had kept his eyes closed while Simon destroyed not only his business, but his life and his future. He opened his eyes wide and looked at her then, scared to death, and unafraid to show it. “How bad is it?” He looked directly at her, and she hesitated, but only for a moment.

  “Pretty bad, Sam. I made notes, and I want to call in one of our partners. But I don't think you're going to be able to just talk your way out of it. You've got too much implied responsibility here. It's going to be very hard to convince the grand jury, or anyone for that matter, that you didn't know what was going on, even if you didn't.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “To a point,” she said honestly. “I think you didn't want to know what was going on, and you let it happen without you.” Brock silently agreed with her completely.

  “What do I do now?” He looked terrified, with good reason.

  “Tell the truth. A lot of it. Particularly to your attorneys. Tell them everything you know, Sam. It'll be your only salvation. What about Simon?”

  “They're indicting him this afternoon.”

  “And the girl? His cousin? What part did she play in all this?” Other than destroying their marriage. He had really been set up by pros, and he'd been a complete fool, and he knew it.

  “I don't know about her yet.” He looked away
from Alex. “She says she's not responsible, that she didn't know. I still think she knew when she came in, and then chose to stay out of it once she got here. Or maybe she didn't. Maybe she knew it all,” he said, running his hands through his hair as she watched him. He had paid a high price for his affair. He had paid with his business, his reputation, his money, possibly his life, if he wound up in prison. But she still wanted to help him. He was still her husband.

  She went to the phone then, and called Phillip Smith, one of their senior partners. He specialized in tax fraud and SEC violations. It was similar enough. This was right up his alley, and he promised to be down in five minutes.

  “What about you? Will you stay on it too?” Sam asked pathetically, and Brock wanted to hit him. She wasn't his any longer. He had done enough to her for one lifetime, but in spite of everything Alex still felt loyalties to him, if only because of their daughter.

  “I wouldn't be any good to you,” Alex told Sam honestly, “this isn't my area of expertise.” And in spite of feeling sorry for him, she didn't want to get too directly involved with him.

  “Will you consult on it? Be an associate? Alex …please …” Brock turned away. He didn't want to see this. Sam was doing a number on her, and she felt obligated to help him.

  “I'll see what I can do. But you don't need me, Sam. I'll see what Phillip Smith says after you talk to him.” She spoke to him very gently. And Brock was annoyed to see that, no matter what she said, and what Sam had done to her, there was still a bond between them.

  “I do need you,” Sam said urgently in an undertone, as the senior partner arrived and Brock got called away for a few minutes.

  She made the introductions and shared her notes with Phillip Smith. He nodded and frowned, and then sat down next to Alex, across the table from Sam.