Table Of ContentSidney Sheldon’s
After the Darkness
Tilly Bagshawe
For Kerstin and Louis Sparr.
With love.
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the
essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, for
knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind.
—GORDON GEKKO, IN WALL STREET, 1987
Contents
Epigraph
Prologue
THE DAY OF RECKONING HAD ARRIVED.
Book 1
One
WHAT DO YOU THINK, GRACIE? THE black or the blue?”
Two
IT WAS THE MORNING AFTER THE Quorum Ball, a Saturday.
Three
SENATOR JACK WARNER WOKE UP ON Saturday morning with a…
Four
CONNIE GRAY STOOD IN THE PLAYGROUND, watching her sons on…
Five
LENNY AND GRACE BROOKSTEIN’S NANTUCKET ESTATE was an
idyllic, sprawling,…
Six
JOHN MERRIVALE TIGHTENED HIS SEAT BELT and closed his eyes…
Seven
LATER, THE PERIOD AFTER LENNY’S DISAPPEARANCE blurred in
Grace’s memory…
Eight
DONNA SANCHEZ ENJOYED HER WORK AT the city morgue. Her…
Nine
GRACE BROOKSTEIN PLAYED WITH THE BUTTONS on her Chanel
bouclé…
Ten
GRACE BROOKSTEIN’S CONVICTION AND LIFE SENTENCE—the
cumulative punishment for all…
Eleven
SHE WAS SURROUNDED BY BRILLIANT WHITE LIGHT. Not the
peaceful…
Twelve
GRACE’S FIRST YEAR AT BEDFORD HILLS passed quickly.
Thirteen
KAREN WILLIS RUBBED HER EYES. IT was two in the…
Fourteen
WARDEN MCINTOSH STORMED INTO THE CHILDREN’S CENTER. All
the kids…
Book 2
Fifteen
DETECTIVE MITCH CONNORS RETURNED TO HIS desk in a pensive…
Sixteen
AS SHE CLIMBED INTO THE VAN, the warm air hit…
Seventeen
MARIA PRESTON FLOATED INTO THE SIXTH-FLOOR Caprice restaurant
in Hong…
Eighteen
BEING IN NEW YORK AGAIN, EXPERIENCING the sights and smells,…
Nineteen
MITCH BURST INTO THE INTENSIVE-CARE UNIT.
Twenty
DAVEY BUCCOLA PACED HIS HOTEL ROOM like a caged tiger.
Twenty-One
FOR THREE DAYS, GRACE LAY LOW. She found a new…
Twenty-Two
ANDREW PRESTON WALKED DOWN WALL STREET with a familiar
feeling…
Twenty-Three
JASMINE DELEVIGNE ADMIRED HER NAKED BODY in the mirror. She…
Twenty-Four
POLICE! OPEN THE DOOR, MS. DELEVIGNE.”
Twenty-Five
AS SOON AS HE REALIZED GRACE had given him the…
Twenty-Six
THE NAUSEA CAME IN WAVES.
Twenty-Seven
SHE HEARD VOICES.
Book 3
Twenty-Eight
MITCH PUT A HAND OVER HIS MOUTH. There was an…
Twenty-Nine
MARIA PRESTON TOSSED BACK HER LONG mane of chestnut hair…
Thirty
UPSTAIRS, PARAMEDICS LEANED OVER ANDREW PRESTON’S body,
pumping the chest.
Thirty-One
MITCH COULDN’T UNDERSTAND IT.
Thirty-Two
CAROLINE MERRIVALE SAT DOWN AT HER dressing table, pulled back…
Thirty-Three
JOHN MERRIVALE DID NOT LIKE FLYING. Pulling down the window…
Thirty-Four
GRACE CLUNG TO THE RAIL of the fishing boat, wondering…
Thirty-Five
HARRY BAIN TURNED TO MITCH CONNORS. “I hate this shithole.”
Thirty-Six
THE STREETS WERE DESERTED. ANTANANARIVO SLEPT. In a week’s
time,…
Thirty-Seven
GRACE WATCHED HER LIFE FLASH BEFORE her eyes. Was this…
Thirty-Eight
WHAT YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER, GRACE, is how long ago…
Thirty-Nine
THE WOMAN IN THE HOSPITAL WAITING room whispered to her…
Forty
LENNY BROOKSTEIN LOOKED AT THE STRAPS on the bed and…
Epilogue
GRACE WALKED OUT OF THE HOSPITAL and down the street.
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Other Books by Sidney Sheldon
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 15, 2009
T
HE DAY OF RECKONING HAD ARRIVED.
The gods had demanded a sacrifice. A human sacrifice. In ancient Roman
times, when the city was at war, captured enemy leaders would have been
ritually strangled on the battlefield in front of a statue of Mars, the war god.
Crowds of soldiers would have cheered, screaming not for justice but for
vengeance. For blood.
This was not ancient Rome. It was modern-day New York, the beating heart
of civilized America. But New York was also a city at war. It was a city full of
suffering, angry people who needed somebody to blame for their pain. Today’s
human sacrifice would be offered up in the clinical, ordered surroundings of the
Manhattan Criminal Courts Building. But it would be none the less bloody for
that.
Normally, the TV crews and hordes of ghoulish spectators showed up only
for murder trials. Today’s defendant, Grace Brookstein, had not murdered
anybody. Not directly anyway. Yet there were plenty of New Yorkers who
would have rejoiced to see Grace Brookstein sent to the electric chair. Her son-
of-a-bitch husband had cheated them. Worse, he had cheated justice. Lenny
Brookstein—may he rot in hell—had laughed in the face of the gods. Well, now
the gods must be appeased.
The man responsible for appeasing them—District Attorney Angelo
Michele, representative of the people—looked across the courtroom at his
intended victim. The woman sitting at the defendant’s table, hands clasped
calmly in front of her, did not look like a criminal. A slight, attractive blonde in
her early twenties, Grace Brookstein had the sweet, angelic features of a child. A
competitive gymnast in her teens, she still carried herself with a dancer’s poise,
