Winner Take All (5 page)

She whispered, “Yes, Deacon.”

“Marcus and me, now, we’ve put ourselves on the line for you. So this is how it’s gonna be. If you don’t want to live by our rules, we’ll love you just the same, and we’ll pray for you with our last dying breath. But we’re also gonna get those babies taken away from you, and we won’t be having you around us no more. You’ll just be left to suffer the consequences. Those are your choices, daughter. Now go say hello to your aunt.”

It wasn’t until the young mother was enfolded into her aunt’s arms that she began to weep. The great heaving sobs only made her look more fragile than before. The older woman gave Deacon a long look over her niece’s head, but did not say a word.

As the young woman fought to regain control, Marcus helped Deacon unload her belongings from the trunk. Overhead the clouds were massing for a serious summer downpour. The air was thick with humidity and dread.

When Marcus returned from the house, Yolanda was waiting for him by the car. She spoke so softly her lips scarcely moved. “That white man back there, the one Deacon lit into.”

“You mean your former landlord’s attorney, Hamper Caisse?”

“He was one of them always coming round. Messing with a lot of the girls. Scaring them bad with what he’d do if they talked ’bout what was going down.”

“If you’d be willing to testify to that under oath, I could try to have him disbarred.”

She hefted a bundle larger than she was and headed for the house. “I don’t want to be
thinking
’bout that stuff no more.”

T
HE AIR SMELLED OF
superheated asphalt and coming rain. Marcus was pursued the entire way home by the rumble of gunfire over the horizon. He pulled into his drive just as the first drops started falling, big pelting bullets that pursued him across the lawn. The Victorian home had borne a striking resemblance to its owner when Marcus Glenwood had returned to Rocky Mount soon after the accident. The place that now served as both his office and home had stood derelict and empty with treelimbs lancing the walls. Windows had cupped shards of old glass like segments of teeth in an unearthed skull. Marcus had done much of the rebuilding himself. Eighteen months of hard labor had proved a sweaty therapy against the ghosts that had chased him from Raleigh and the high-wire act of big-time law.

Kirsten stood waiting for him on the wraparound veranda. Today his research aide and would-be fiancée was sheathed in gray silk, elegant in design and European in cut. Eyes the color of crushed lilacs watched his approach, giving nothing away. In the day’s dim light her white-blond hair shimmered with a glow of internal fires, the enigmatic beacon of a future he had mistakenly thought was theirs to claim. Of all the uncertainties in his life, the worst by far was not knowing if Kirsten would show up again. Or even call to say she was gone.

He took the front steps in two bounds, slapped the rain off his briefcase, set it aside, and stepped behind her. Marcus wrapped both arms around this living mystery and lowered his head so that it rested upon her shoulder. Kirsten was a quiet woman by nature, a trait some
counted as weakness in a society that prized noise and empty opinions. He could spend an evening in her company, count the number of words they spoke on both hands, and feel replete. If only he could find the proper words to make her stay.

“You need to put on a clean shirt. You smell of the courthouse.”

“How does the courthouse smell?”

“Fear and ashes and burnt sulfur.” Her voice was scarcely louder than the water streaming off the veranda roof. “Hurry now. He should be here any minute.”

“Do I want to know who?”

“No, but I need to tell you.” She stepped out of his embrace. “The chairman of New Horizons.”

A pair of crows mocked him from the nearest tulip poplar. “The new guy, what’s his name?”

Netty, his secretary, called through the screen door, “Dale Steadman. The man called just after you left this morning. Personally.”

“You should have phoned and told me.”

“We know what kind of morning you’ve had. You didn’t need to be adding another worry like this one.”

Thunder rumbled from the far south. Closer to hand a car pierced the slate veil and angled into the drive. Kirsten turned him toward the door. “Go, now. You’re wearing sweat stains I can see through your jacket.”

Two years ago he had waged courtroom combat against New Horizons, the world’s largest producer of sports apparel. The press had called it a victory, and for a match-flare of an instant Marcus had stood illuminated upon the stage of public attention. But the young woman who had uncovered how a New Horizons factory used slave labor had come home in a casket. Her parents still had moments when their features would slacken and the loss of their only daughter would drill a hole through the center of their gazes. The case still wound its way through the appellate system, an endless maze created by frantic teams of New Horizons attorneys. Lawyers could spend lifetimes keeping their clients from ever shelling out a single dime, and be proud of their manufactured futility.

As he reknotted his tie, Marcus recalled the little he knew of his visitor. Dale Steadman was a newcomer to the scene, appointed
chairman after New Horizons became the whipping boy of both the press and the human rights campaigners. Marcus’ case had breached the company’s armor. Their factories became the center of protests right around the globe. As a result their stock had nosedived. Dale Steadman was the former owner of a high-end sports apparel company that had been acquired by New Horizons just prior to the case. He had been foisted upon the company by panic-stricken stockholders as the new chairman. His initial steps toward cleaning up the corporate act had been viciously opposed within the company.

Marcus knew the house so intimately he could sense the change downstairs, as though the newcomers tramped across his own bones and not the conference room floor. He dreaded what was about to unfold. The air of his conference room would be as highly charged as a thunderstorm’s ground zero, when invisible particles lifted hair like tentacles seeking the oblivion of a direct hit. The chairman of New Horizons would sit flanked by his senior legal team. They would deliver whatever news they carried with the precision of laser-guided bombs, study his reaction, then depart to measure and prepare the next skirmish. Maximum damage with minimum exposure. Appellate court cases were the modern-day equivalent of the Hundred Years’ War.

But when he entered the conference room, he was confronted by the astonishing sight of a single man.

Dale Steadman sat so that he could stare out the open window, where the diminishing rain chimed and rustled. Kirsten sat beside him, angled so that she could observe both the guest and the day. Marcus’ tread sounded loud as drumbeats as he approached his new adversary. “Mr. Steadman?”

“That’s right.” Dale Steadman rose and shook Marcus’ hand, revealing a fighter’s bulk beneath his tailored navy suit. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“As we have repeatedly informed your attorneys, I have turned over the New Horizons case to the firm of Drews and Howe. What you see here is my entire practice. We’re not equipped to manage an appellate battle.”

His guest turned back to the open window, as though the reason for his visit was to be found in birdsong and rain-lashed wind. “I don’t recognize these trees you’re putting in here.”

“Crepe myrtle.” Marcus slid into his seat. “They replace a giant elm your lackeys destroyed when they tried to burn down my house.”

Kirsten leaned forward and said, “Repeat for Mr. Glenwood what you just told me.”

Marcus studied Kirsten’s face. Her sympathetic tone was jarring. New Horizons had kidnapped and murdered her best friend. If asked, Marcus would have said their new CEO would never draw anything from her save loathing.

“My ex-wife has stolen my baby girl. We’ve been divorced seven months.”

Netty entered and began pouring coffee. When Marcus remained silent, Kirsten asked, “Your ex-wife has abducted your child?”

“Three weeks ago.”

“You have custody?”

“That’s right.”

“And your ex-wife?”

“She never showed any interest in Celeste until the publicity started.”

Marcus continued to watch his fiancée, wondering how she could be so captivated by a tale that to him made no sense whatsoever. Kirsten asked, “What publicity?”

“My ex-wife is Erin Brandt.”

“I’ve heard that name.”

“She’s an internationally famous opera star. A soprano. Sings all over the world.” Dale Steadman uttered the words with the steady toll of a funeral bell. “Erin tried to keep our divorce a secret. But the European press found out somehow. There was a spate of articles.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Five months.”

“What does Ms. Brandt have to say about these allegations?”

“I haven’t had contact with Erin since she stole Celeste. I kept hoping all this would work itself out. It’s insane, I know. I’ve known it all along.”

Kirsten glanced at Marcus, offering him the chance to take over. When he remained silent, she continued, “You haven’t contacted the authorities up to now?”

“Three days after the fire, I heard from her lawyer. A spiteful Raleigh man by the name of Hamper Caisse. The lawyer said that if I made any move at all, they would convene a court hearing to reveal
how drunk I was the night of the fire.” The man spoke with the disjointed precision of addressing internal ghosts. “They’ll call witnesses from the fire department and the police. They will have people from my community reveal how my drinking has been a matter of concern. They will question how such a man could possibly be left with responsibility for a baby. He said if I’m willing to work things out amicably, then I need to show some patience.”

“But you think this offer is a lie?”

“Totally.”

“You are saying your former wife has abducted your child and now seeks to mask the fact through false representation?”

“That’s it exactly.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said she didn’t care for the child or contest your receiving full custody.”

“That’s right.”

“So what has changed?”

“I have no idea.”

“Before the events of that evening, when did you last speak directly with your former wife?”

“Almost a year ago. She left to sing in Paris and never returned. Finally I filed for divorce on the grounds of abandonment.” Dale Steadman scooted a manila file across the table and addressed Marcus directly for the very first time. “I hear you’re the patron saint of lost causes, Mr. Glenwood. I need just such a fighter in my corner.”

T
HE CHILD
’
S MOTHER
and her mother’s mother have never gotten along. Somehow just being around the older woman is enough to fracture her mother’s immovable façade. When they are together, the old woman usually goes out of her way to say nothing. But a single smile toward the child, a word of quiet praise, and her mother begins a screeching tirade about meddling where she is not welcome. The child has only seen her grandmother twice in the previous four years
.

But the child hears from her. Every birthday and Christmas, a card arrives with three tickets for some Broadway show. What happens to the tickets, the child has no idea. The child’s dreams of escape often center around the absent old woman
.

Over the eight months leading to her thirteenth birthday, the child observes a change in her school friends. One by one they enter a different realm, a place that beckons with an allure as powerful as fury. They smirk together in the halls around school, giving little hand signs and one-word beacons that mean nothing to the child, except to show she is an outsider here as well. Until she is invited to join
.

Four months before her thirteenth birthday, they invite the child to a sleepover. Her mother lets her go because the family is one of the most powerful in the city. Even her father, who pays almost no attention whatsoever to her activities, is impressed to hear where the child is spending the night. He starts in on his desire to have the man as a client. Her mother shuts him up with a single scathing remark
.

After her mother drops her off, it takes the child almost half an hour to realize there are no adults home
.

The child finds another couple of girls her age who look as lost and frightened as she feels. Together they move into a small corner of the living room, over by the blaring sound system. A movie is on the wall-sized television, but the picture is just meant for background lighting. There are almost three dozen girls tightly segregated into two groups—the majority are friends of the older sister, who is sixteen. The younger girls are barely tolerated. Especially after the boys arrive
.

As the child watches, drugs and drinks spread around the room. Hash, pot, coke, speed, a new designer pill called ecstasy, wine, a couple of the older boys even bring champagne. This is a rich and generous crowd. Several times the boys come over to where the children crouch and urge them to have a toke, a sip, a dance. The older girls find this bitterly hilarious
.