Wicked Ambition

by Victoria Fox

  ‘Follow him,’ Gordon commanded, slamming the door. They’d pick him up, take him in; to hell with the rules, he had to right a wrong.

  Slink was at the wheel. ‘Forget it, G, y’hear? Forget it—’

  But Gordon still had the weapon in his hands. He raised it. ‘Follow him now, motherfucker, or I’ll put a bullet in your fucking head, I swear to God—’

  ‘Easy, G, nice and easy…’

  ‘Do it!’

  When they emerged the guy was buckled on the street. That was when the screams came. They watched a smaller boy, a little kid, running from the opposite end of the street, so fast but not fast enough, and calling a name that got lost on the wind.

  ‘Move! Move! Drive!’ Principal yelled. ‘Drive!’

  The boy was on his knees, cradling the man’s head.

  The last thing Gordon saw before the street began to fill was the lost look in the boy’s eyes, raised to the sky, searching, before the car screeched off.

  64

  The LAPD received their tip-off in June. Their suspect was Ivy Sewell, female, Caucasian, twenty years old. She was five-foot-seven, a redhead, blue eyes, skinny ass.

  ‘Sure takes balls to murder your own mother,’ commented Detective McEverty, tucking into a donut and glancing through the file. ‘How’d they know she’s here?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ said his colleague Moretti. ‘If she’s hard up for cash she’ll be making money the usual way. I say we cruise the strip, see what we find.’

  ‘Just like any other night, then,’ teased McEverty.

  ‘Aw, so funny.’

  ‘Flight receipts.’ The chief entered the room and slammed down a file. ‘That’s how we know Ivy’s here. It’s been confirmed in London and over here. Wake up, boys.’

  McEverty and Moretti exchanged glances.

  ‘This is Ryder’s twin,’ he said. ‘Take a look at the pictures. Evidence suggests she plans to act fast. Ivy left too many indicators in the UK to feel secure out here. She’s aware she’s gonna get caught and that time’s running out—meaning it’s running out for us, too.’

  ‘What indicators?’ asked Moretti.

  The chief flipped open the file, which was packed with photographs taken inside the London flat. Pictures and clippings of the music icon Robin Ryder covered every wall.

  ‘Looks like a shrine to me,’ commented McEverty.

  ‘Something like it,’ agreed the chief. ‘This place was searched top to bottom. Whatever the broad’s got against her sister, it ain’t pretty.’

  ‘We need to find her.’

  ‘No shit, McEverty.’ Moretti grabbed his jacket. ‘So what are we waiting for?’

  Ivy was creeping closer. With each day that passed and brought her one step nearer to retribution, her surveillance of Robin Ryder adopted a new energy. Everywhere the singer got photographed, every man she was with, every move she made and every word she uttered was diligently noted and remembered. Detail dictated the masterpiece.

  Robin’s tour had ended. On the morning the star arrived back in LA and headed to her villa, Ivy was waiting, a hooded figure obscured in the trees.

  Next stop, the ETV Platinum Awards…and her very last performance.

  Ivy watched for a long time. She watched Robin open the door and go inside. She watched her embrace the German, a souvenir brought back from Vegas. She watched as the bedroom blind was pulled and she watched until it was raised again. She watched as a second car pulled up and a black man climbed out—Leon Sway, the athlete whom Robin had got close to. With his arrival came the first twinge of jeopardy.

  Leon had been hanging around Robin for months and Ivy didn’t like his persistence. Men who came in and out of her sister’s life were one thing; men who clung on were another.

  Did Leon have feelings for her? It wasn’t a concept Ivy could abide.

  Feelings made people…unpredictable.

  Leon was hesitant—perhaps not such a threat, after all?—as he went to the door. He was about to knock, seemed to change his mind and return to the car, then quickly paced back.

  The German answered, bare chested, a towel around his waist. Ivy couldn’t hear the exchange, but it was brief. Leon retreated almost immediately, hands up in a gesture perhaps of having made a mistake, and seconds later was backing out of the drive.

  On instinct Ivy returned to her own car and followed. Reflex made her believe that Leon Sway was trouble. She couldn’t risk him compromising her campaign.

  She was willing to remove any obstacle that could stand in her way.

  Any protector of Robin would perish himself.

  PART 4

  65

  For the first time in pop music memory, a major awards ceremony was happening and Fraternity hadn’t received a single nomination.

  ‘That’s it for us,’ declared Joey Lombardi. ‘After the promo’s wrapped for Seven Days, the band’s over. We’re finished.’

  Kristin ran into him at a signing in NYC: the boys still had an album to promote and were going ahead without Scotty, who was allegedly off recording solo material.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said once they were done. ‘That sucks big time.’ Brett and Doug were loping about outside, miserable and chain-smoking while they waited for their pickup; the cute, apologetic smiles having vanished the instant their sparse gathering of disconcerted fans had scattered. Diehard devotees of the remaining four were trying their best to stay supportive but especially for the younger ones the whole affair was deeply upsetting. The guys were tinged irreparably by Scotty’s transgressions and everyone knew it.

  Joey ran a hand through his hair. It had gotten longer since Kristin had last seen him.

  ‘Does it?’ he countered. ‘I don’t know, I’m kinda relieved.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘It had to end someday.’ Joey smiled drily. ‘We couldn’t keep on going for ever. And it was starting to get weird, you know, singing all the corny stuff we did, having ten-year-old fans when we were twenty-three…’

  Kristin thought of Bunny and swallowed her regret. Italy—Alessandro, mainly—had done her a world of good, but she was still finding her feet back in LA and having to get used to a city without her sister in it. The Platinum Awards were two weeks away and would spell her first big performance since her new record had launched.

  ‘What next?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Search me…’ He attempted humour. ‘You got any suggestions? C’mon,’ he teased, ‘you’re the queen of reinvention. HQ says that’s the only way forward but I’m not convinced. If we’re not Fraternity, I don’t know what we are. I don’t know what I am.’

  ‘You’re one part of Fraternity. That doesn’t change.’

  ‘But that’s just it. We’re all one part and so when one of us goes it doesn’t work any more. We can’t carry on as a foursome; it wouldn’t be right.’

  ‘So where do you go from here?’

  Joey shrugged. ‘It’s good not having a clue. No more management monitoring our every move, no more being told what we can and can’t wear, what our hair should be like, if we’re allowed girlfriends…’

  ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

  He blushed. ‘No!’

  ‘Yeah, right…’ Come to think of it Joey had never confessed to having a girlfriend.

  ‘There is this one girl.’ His glance swept across her. ‘It’s nothing, though…’

  ‘What do you mean, it’s nothing?’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t feel the same.’

  ‘Have you asked her?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Kristin felt a ripple of jealousy. It took her by surprise. She changed the subject.

  ‘Did you hear Scotty’s presenting an award at the Platinums?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s sure come out of this better than Fenton, hey?’

  Kristin agreed. Scotty’s PR had been clever. Although a performance at the biggest event in the industry calendar was out of the question, the planned appearance—in a position of servil
ity, no less—would remind the public that Scott Valentine might be humble but he was still a player, and one who refused to endure humiliation in the shadows.

  ‘I’ll see you there?’ she asked, really hoping that she would.

  ‘Yeah.’ He touched her arm before the others called for him to go. ‘Expect so.’

  Scotty almost didn’t recognise his former lover. In the visitors’ room, a sterile, depressing space flanked by blank-faced, emotionless police officers and divided by a bank of seats on either side of a pane of glass, he tentatively took a booth and picked up the phone.

  Fenton looked haggard and thin. Half the man he used to be—literally.

  ‘Prison food no good?’

  Scotty’s joke fell flat: perhaps targeting Fenton’s sensitive weight issues within seconds of arriving had been a bad idea. His already weak smile toppled off his chin.

  Fenton stared back at him, hollow-eyed. It was worse than any rebuke or aggression. If Fenton had shouted and screamed and accused Scotty of having left him here to perish as the villain while he, Scotty, went on The State Show and had a PR machine pouring every hour into steering his train-wreck of a career back on track that would at least have been something. As it was, his ex-manager’s silence was chilling to the core.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked lamely.

  Another inane question. But Scotty didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘How am I doing?’ Fenton repeated flatly. He was unshaven, his eyes sunken and his skin grey. ‘How am I doing?’ He leaned in. ‘I haven’t seen my family in weeks, Scott. I’ve been locked in a cell. My career and my life are over. I’m eating crap. I’m sleeping on a single wooden bunk for three hours a night, too afraid to close my eyes in case any of the perverts in here decide to tear me a new asshole. I need to ask permission to take a freaking dump. I’m lonely. I’m scared. I’m furious. I’m wretched. How do you think I’m doing?’

  Scotty bowed his head.

  ‘Why did you come?’ Fenton asked bitterly. ‘You’re no good to me.’

  He didn’t look up. He couldn’t. Ever since the men had known each other, Scotty had been reflected in his manager’s eyes through a golden glow. To be regarded so hatefully made him see how much he’d relied on that refuge. It shocked him how bad it made him feel.

  ‘I—I had to see you,’ he stammered. ‘They told me I couldn’t, I’m not supposed to—’

  ‘Cut the crap, Scott. Get to the point. It might look like I have all the time I want in here but I’d rather not spend it listening to you.’

  Scotty steeled himself. ‘I’m going against them.’ He met Fenton’s gaze. ‘It’s not right you being held when they don’t know the facts—’

  ‘No shit,’ Fenton cut in. ‘What’s this, an attack of conscience? You sure took your sweet time getting there.’

  ‘I’m going against the label and telling the truth,’ Scotty pushed. ‘I’m telling the cops. I’m telling them and everyone else that what happened between us was mutual.’

  Fenton didn’t speak, just kept watching Scotty through the glass.

  ‘I could sit it out and let you take the rap,’ Scotty continued, hitting his stride. ‘I could play the victim, that’s what they want—and I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t be easier. But I won’t. It’s not right you being in here. It’s not OK. And I know that whatever I say now isn’t going to come close to making up for what a coward I’ve been but I have to try, don’t I?’

  The other man gave nothing away. ‘Why now?’ he insisted. ‘Why not before?’

  ‘I was scared.’

  ‘You were scared? You? Don’t make me laugh.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Do you have a clue what this ordeal has been like for me? The charges I’ve faced? The names they’ve been shouting? What I’ve been accused of? You could have put a stop to it with one phone call, but did the call come? No.’

  ‘They wouldn’t let me…’

  ‘Don’t be pathetic,’ Fenton snapped. ‘You could have broken out; you could have grown some balls. Your management isn’t the law.’ Grimly he gestured about him. ‘This, however, is. And I’ve been at the receiving end of it. You won’t know the half of what I’ve gone through in the lonely hours of the night, the moment of my arrest, the heckles and the taunts and the shameful interrogations, and now you’re telling me that you were scared? I thought I’d heard it all but that’s got to take it. You always were a pitiful creature, Scotty.’

  The tantrum child in Scotty wanted to bang down the phone and storm out without so much as a backward glance, but the quiver in Fenton’s voice, just that slight admission of vulnerability, stopped him. Besides, every word he said was true. It was time to grow up and face his responsibilities—and if he was honest, the time for that had been and gone many months ago. Was it too late?

  ‘I can’t make up for what’s happened,’ he replied, ‘but I can tell you I’m sorry and I can correct those mistakes now.’

  Fenton’s breath was coming in shallow rasps, overcome with the emotion of his imminent acquittal. Scotty went to hang up.

  ‘Scott?’ he said quickly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s it like out there? What’s it like outside, in the real world?’

  Scotty tried to think of the right words. ‘Tough,’ he admitted. ‘Frightening. Exhausting. Surprising. Amazing. Bizarre. But I should have done it a long time ago.’

  ‘So should I.’

  At the station, Scotty kept his eyes locked ahead as an officer escorted him through a set of double doors and down a walkway. The linoleum floor squeaked beneath his sneakers. Through another entrance they were straight to the heart of the action, a foyer milling with uniforms, the riffle of paperwork and the buzz of the chase.

  A woman came up to him, efficient and friendly, and shook his hand.

  ‘This way, Mr Valentine.’

  She led him towards a room boasting a neat brass sign, reading: INTERVIEW.

  Before he was sealed on the point of his confession and the truth that would set Fenton free, Scotty caught a snapshot of a case working opposite. The detective was emerging into the hall, opening and closing the door and in doing so awarding a flash of their perpetrator. The board was covered in her image, a red-haired female, a bit younger than him, hate and violence emanating from every pore and a glint of pure evil in her eyes.

  The face reminded him faintly of someone, but the glimpse was too brief to tell who.

  The door to Scotty’s room shut. His interviewer sat down.

  All these people they were chasing, the criminals who had done terrible things, committed heinous crimes…

  Fenton wasn’t one of them. He was one of the good guys. ‘So, I understand you have something to tell us?’ Scotty took a breath and began.

  66

  The US track team flew to Europe at the start of July. It was hard to believe that a year had passed since their last major tournament, yet each race remained as vital and as necessary as the first. For Leon, none more so than this: his chance to claim the title that belonged to his rival, an opportunity to set the record straight and to heal the wound.

  Until he confronted Puff City with the facts, he could never heal the wound.

  On the plane over he assured himself that they would still be waiting when he returned to LA—they had waited over a decade, after all. It had taken all his power of will to desist, but spilling too soon would throw his race into jeopardy. He would not give them the opportunity to take this from him.

  How he longed to wring the life from that man’s body—that liar, that criminal, that hateful, despicable murderer…

  The race came first. He had to be patient. Thirteen years he had bided his time…what was another thirteen days? The rest would follow. He would make sure of it.

  The Championships were a week-long event. The anticipation was always the hard part—for some, their event couldn’t come around soon enough, it was a chance to realise the pay-off; for others, there
would never be enough training or prep they could do; they’d never be ready.

  Leon was ready. He wanted results and he wanted them now. This was his arrival. The guys were already thinking about Rio: a win here would signal just the beginning.

  He sailed through the heats, a shiver behind Jax each time (inflamed by the suggestion that Jax wasn’t really trying yet; he was conserving his energy for the main event), and opted out of interaction with the others, instead returning each night, concerned solely with his training, his diet, his sleep, his tests, and the sole, shining beacon of the hundred-metre final.

  This was his time. He had to take it, or else what had he been doing with half of his life? After Marlon died he had seized the baton—he had to win for his brother, because of his brother, in spite of his brother…

  It all came down to one thing.

  Nine seconds.

  There were two ways of looking at it. Was it a selfish pursuit, chasing down glory and expecting everyone else to fall into line? Or was it that he had made sacrifices, putting his life on hold while he became obsessed with nine seconds of time, the be all and end all?

  The night before his final, Leon met with his coach, went through his paces and retired early. Some athletes wouldn’t sleep at all. For those whose first competition it was, there was scarce pressure and thus a shot at enjoyment. For those with medal expectations, every minute they weren’t on the track was agony. Over the years Leon had learned to discipline his nerves, reining them in on the promise of imminent release: the second he took to the starting blocks they could fly free, and then, only then, they would combine with the adrenalin that fired his run. The result had to be potent. That was the time for nerves. Like a melting pot into which every diversion was tossed, it all formed part of the explosion.

  Even so, when Leon tuned into a local radio station and caught a report on the event, it burned. He lay back on his bunk with his arm behind his head.

  ‘Here you will see the strongest, the fastest, the most powerful men and women on Earth, the sweat and the tears, the blood, the heartache, the suffering and the joy. You will see what it means to leap into the unknown; to have worked for years and have it all come down to now. The athletes you’ll witness will be broken and mended; some will be taken apart and never put back together again. We will be making the heroes of tomorrow…’