He wasn’t a bad kid at heart. But the drugs took all the decent sides of his personality-the humor, the warmth, the loyalty-and swallowed them whole. He moved on from coke to heroin. Soon all that was left was a husk, a physical shell. Then even that began to crumble. Gabe lost weight. His teeth began to discolor. Without knowing how he got there, he found himself sleeping in doorways and shoplifting to be able to buy food.

He had always had a vivid, active imagination. Now, as his reality became grimmer and grimmer, he retreated ever more into the fantasy world he created for himself. He was a banker, a lawyer, a success. He was rich and respected. His mother was proud.

The house was a grand Victorian mansion. Walthamstow was a rough area, but good transport links to the City meant that the nicer streets had become gentrified. Quite a few young, professional families were moving there, priced out of West London by the Arabs and the Russians. You got more house for your money, but you also got some unsavory neighbors.

Gabe was staying at a homeless shelter a few blocks away. He had next to no memory of that night. A few images, half-remembered dreams. His hand, bleeding. The sound of the sirens. Everything else he’d heard from the police the morning after.

He broke in at around one A.M., high as Mount Kilimanjaro. The police assumed his intention was burglary, although he may simply have been confused and looking for shelter. In any event, he never got the chance to steal anything. The owner of the house, a father of three in his late thirties, heard a noise downstairs and confronted Gabe, swinging at him with a lamp. Gabe picked up the poker from the fireplace and proceeded to “defend himself,” hitting the guy repeatedly in the head and upper body. He beat him so appallingly that when the wife came downstairs, she thought her husband was dead.

The police arrested Gabe at the scene. He made no attempt to flee, largely because he didn’t know where he was, or what he was supposed to have done.

“Will the defendant please rise.”

Gabe was staring into space, lost in thought. He was in a Plexiglas box in the corner of the courtroom. Michael Wilmott, his lawyer, had told him it was bulletproof. Only defendants who were considered a danger to the magistrates or court officials were placed behind the Plexiglas walls.

They think I’m dangerous. A dangerous criminal.

“Stand up, please, Mr. McGregor.”

Gabe stood up.

“Due to the serious nature of this offense, to which you have wisely pleaded guilty, I am obliged to refer your case to the crown court for sentencing.”

Refer? Gabe looked at his lawyer hopefully. Does that mean they’re letting me out? He hadn’t had a hit in three days and was beginning to feel desperate. The Plexiglas was making him claustrophobic.

“Your request for bail is denied. You will be remanded in custody until the date of your next hearing, provisionally set for October fourth. Presentence reports…”

Gabe wasn’t listening.

You will be remanded in custody.

His gray eyes pleaded with the magistrate. She was a woman after all. But she looked at him impassively, turned and left the room. His lawyer’s hand was on his arm.

“Keep your head down,” Michael Wilmott muttered. “I’ll be in touch.”

Then he, too, was gone. Two armed police escorted Gabe toward the cells. Later, he would be transferred to prison.

Prison! No! I can’t! I have to get out of here!

No one heard the voices. They were all in his head.

TWELVE

“BUT WHY DO WE HAVE TO GO?” MAX WEBSTER SWUNG HIS legs impatiently, kicking the back of the chauffeur’s seat. “We hate the Templetons.”

“Nonsense, Max,” Keith Webster said firmly. “We don’t hate anyone. Especially not family.”

Max was traveling across town with his parents to visit his cousin, Lexi in the hospital. Three weeks after her dramatic rescue, she was finally allowed visitors. Keith Webster had insisted to Eve that they should be the first.

By now the whole of America knew about Lexi’s kidnap ordeal. Miraculously, Agent Edwards had persuaded the media to hold fire on the story while Lexi was missing. Any press coverage might have put her life in jeopardy, and neither Rupert Murdoch nor Ted Turner wanted Blackwell blood on their hands. But after the debacle at the New Jersey mill, it was open season on the juiciest story to hit the headlines in a generation:

EIGHT-YEAR-OLD HEIRESS KIDNAPPED, DEAFENED IN BUNGLED RESCUE

KRUGER-BRENT CHILD MUTE AFTER TRAUMA

FBI HERO FIGHTS FOR LIFE

BLACKWELL KIDNAPPERS STILL AT LARGE

Rumors that Lexi had been abused, or even raped, reverberated around Manhattan high society, adding a delicious frisson of excitement to the summer’s party circuit.

Peter heard none of the whispers and read none of the headlines. He had not left the hospital since Lexi was admitted. At night, he kept a constant vigil at her bedside. During the days, he held her hand through the battery of tests, treatments and therapy sessions that had become the new normality for both of them. His hopes had soared when the doctors told him that cochlear implants might restore Lexi’s hearing. But after a severe allergic reaction to the first device, Peter refused to put her through any more operations. “She’s already been through so much.” He did not ask the doctors when they thought Lexi would be able to come home. The prospect terrified him. He dreaded the day when the comforting routine of Mount Sinai would be snatched away and he would be left to care for Lexi alone.

What if he couldn’t do it? What if he failed her again?

The thought brought tears to his eyes.

In New Orleans, Robbie watched the news reports of his sister’s progress on television. He was staying at the apartment of a man he’d met in a piano bar the night he arrived in the city: Tony. Tony was in his midthirties, a writer, and though he was neither particularly attractive nor wildly dynamic, he was kind and reliable. Tony’s apartment was a run-down two-bedroom perched above a restaurant that sold nothing but Cajun chicken. The smell of grease, salt and chicken fat had seeped into everything, from the curtains to the carpets, couch and sheets.

Dom Dellal had chickened out at the last moment and decided to stay in New York, but Robbie wasn’t sorry. He needed a fresh start. Tony had given him one.

“What are you watching?”

Tony’s voice drifted in from the kitchen, but Robbie didn’t reply. His eyes were glued to the screen and the Asian reporter standing outside Mount Sinai Medical Center.

“Eight-year-old Alexandra Templeton was admitted here in the early hours of this morning, along with an adult male said to be in critical condition.”

They cut to footage of firefighters battling thirty-foot walls of flame in what looked like an old factory.

“The story just breaking is one of the most dramatic, if not the most dramatic, to involve the celebrated Blackwell family. It appears that the child, Alexandra, known as Lexi, was abducted from her home more than two weeks ago by persons unknown, and that a ransom of ten million dollars was demanded. Last night, a top secret rescue operation was launched involving both the FBI and the Marine Corps. All we know right now is that the little girl, Alexandra Templeton, is alive. A number of other individuals involved in last night’s operation are reported to have died in the fire. More on this incredible story as we get it…”

“Rob? What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Tony Terrell sat down on the couch beside the radiant blond boy who had miraculously walked into his life two weeks ago. He knew nothing about the kid except that he was beautiful. So beautiful, it was astonishing he’d even spoken to Tony, never mind come home with him and proceeded to make love with sobbing, passionate desperation for five straight hours. Of course, it couldn’t last. Beautiful boys like Rob didn’t settle down with gentle, neurotic, prematurely balding poets like Tony. But Tony would savor the two weeks they spent together for the rest of his life.