Mistress-of-the-Game - By Tilly Bagshawe Sidney Sheldon Page 0,1
and approached the security gate. Even before they pulled out their badges, Lexi Templeton knew who they were. It was just like it said in the letter: The police are on their way. You have no way out, Alexandra. Not this time.
Tears stung the back of Lexi's eyes. She could hear her aunt Eve's voice as clearly as if she were still alive, taunting her, laden with spite. Was she right? Was this really it? The end of the game? After all Lexi's struggles? She remembered a Dylan Thomas poem she'd learned at school: "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Damn right I'll rage. I'll not let that old witch beat me without a fight.
The cops were through the gate now. They were almost at the door.
Lexi Templeton took a deep breath and went downstairs to meet them.
Chapter One
DARK HARBOR, MAINE. 1984
DANNY CORRETTI LOOKED DOWN THROUGH THE branches at the swirling mass of people below and felt gripped by a wave of vertigo.
"What the hell are we doing here?"
Closing his eyes, he tightened his grip around the ancient yew tree, making sure both he and his camera remained concealed in the thick green foliage.
"Making money," his companion whispered excitedly. "Look, there she is!"
"Where?"
Following his friend's line of vision, Danny Corretti trained his zoom lens on a figure huddled in the very center of the crowd of mourners. Dressed head to toe in black, with a thick, floor-length lace mantilla covering her immaculately cut Dior suit, it was impossible to make out her face. She could have been anyone. But she wasn't anyone.
"Are you kidding me?" Danny Corretti frowned. Below him the churchyard seemed to lurch ominously, the ancient graves rising and falling like horses on a ghoulish carousel. "I can't see shit. Are you sure it's her? It could be Johnny Carson under all that lace."
His companion grinned. "Not with that ass it couldn't. It's her all right."
From the tree to his left, Danny Corretti heard the low whir, whir, click of a rival camera. Refocusing his zoom, he began to shoot.
Come on, baby. Give Daddy a smile.
A clear shot of Eve Blackwell's face would be worth a cool hundred grand to whichever photographer got there first. Anyone skilled enough to capture her elusive baby bump could expect to earn twice that.
Two hundred grand!
Not a lot of money to the Blackwells perhaps, heirs to multibillion-dollar Kruger-Brent, Ltd., the diamond empire turned vast, multinational conglomerate that had made them the richest family in America; but a fortune to Danny Corretti. It was the Blackwells who had brought Danny and his fellow paparazzi to St. Stephen's churchyard on this chill February morning. They had come to bury their matriarch, Kate Blackwell, dead at last at the grand old age of ninety-two.
Look at them. Like bloated blackflies, swarming around the old lady's corpse. Revolting.
Danny Corretti felt his nausea return, but tried not to think about it, or about the excruciating pain in his back from being stuck up a tree for six straight hours. He longed to stretch out, but didn't dare move a muscle, in case he alerted the Kruger-Brent security guards to his presence. Watching the dour, black-clad figures pace the perimeter of the churchyard, pistols clutched like security blankets to their ex-Marine Corps chests, Danny Corretti felt a stab of fear. He doubted Kate Blackwell had hired any of them for their sense of humor.
You'll be okay. Just get the shot and get out of here. Come on, Eve, baby. Say cheese.
Danny Corretti wasn't really cut out for this sort of covert work. A tall, skinny man with preternaturally long legs and an unexpected shock of white-blond hair above his Italian olive complexion, there weren't too many hiding places in the Maine churchyard that could accommodate his lanky, six-foot-two frame. The yew tree had been his best option, but he'd had to arrive ludicrously early this morning to beat his rivals to such a coveted vantage point. As he clung to the upper branches now, every sinew of his body felt like it was on fire, despite the numbing cold of the day. He gritted his teeth, cursing his long legs to the heavens.
Just think of the money.
Ironically, if it weren't for his long legs, Danny wouldn't have been on this crazy job in the first place.
If it hadn't been for Danny's long legs, his mistress's husband would never have noticed his size-twelve feet sticking out from under the marital bed.