Mistress of the Game

Frederick Jansen's nose wrinkled in distaste. Was this man a fool? Had he not read paragraph six, point d, subsection viii?

"The percentage of Mr. McGregor's tax-deductible bequest - "

"Sorry again." Robbie held up his hand, his heart hammering. "I'm not very good with percentages. If you could give me an overall number. You know. Ballpark."

"Ballpark?" Frederick Jansen's jowls quivered with distaste. He couldn't imagine what had possessed his client to leave so much money to this vulgar, American queer. "Mr. Templeton, as is explicit in the document before you, your foundation stands to receive a lump sum in the region, the ballpark, if you will, of twenty-five million U.S. dollars. Now, if we could be allowed to move on with the reading?"

The lawyer repositioned his reading glasses and resumed his monologue, but Robbie was no longer listening. Twenty-five million! It was an astonishingly generous bequest from a man with his own charity to support. If there was a heaven, Gabe McGregor must undoubtedly be in it.

"Excuse me, Mr. Jansen." A nervous, plain-looking mouse of a woman appeared in the doorway. Robbie thought: Poor thing. I wouldn't be this fella's secretary for all the tea in China. "There's a gentleman here to see you."

Frederick Jansen's sour expression soured still further.

"Sarah. I made it perfectly clear I was not to be interrupted under any circumstances."

"Yes, sir. But - "

"Any circumstances! Are you deaf?"

"No, sir. But the thing is, sir..."

She got no further. A man appeared in the doorway. Frederick Jansen's mouth fell open. The papers slipped from his hands and fluttered slowly to the floor, like feathers.

"Hello, Fred." Gabe smiled. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Frederick Jansen knew Gabriel McGregor as a client. The other suits in the room had all dealt with him through their businesses or charities. Only Robbie knew Gabe as a friend. Jumping to his feet, he threw his arms around him.

"You sure know how to make an entrance! I suppose this means I won't get my twenty-five mil?"

Robbie joked in order to break the tension and to hide his own shock. Gabe looked terrible. He'd always been so big, a great, friendly bear of a man. The man standing in front of Robbie now had visibly shrunk. He must have lost fifty pounds. His face looked sunken and aged. But the biggest shock of all was his hair. The thick blond mop of old was gone. Gabe's hair had turned completely white.

"Let's just say you won't get it yet. Listen, Robbie, can you do me a favor?"

"Of course. Anything."

"I'm pretty sure some people in the lobby recognized me when I came in."

Robbie thought, I wouldn't bank on it.

"The press'll be here in a minute. I can't go home. Any chance I could hide out with you and Paolo for a while?"

"Of course. As long as..." Robbie hesitated, not sure how to put it. "You're sure it wouldn't bring back too many painful memories?"

Gabe and Tara had stayed at Robbie's compound last summer with their children. It had been a magical vacation for all of them.

Gabe was touched by Robbie's concern. "It's okay. The memories aren't painful. They're all I have."

"Fine, then. In that case, let's get out of here."

Robbie had a hundred and one questions he wanted to ask Gabe. Me and the rest of the world. But they could wait. The main thing was to get him home and fed, away from the prying eyes of the media.

He's family now. He's one of us. Paolo and I will protect him.

When Robbie walked through the door of the farmhouse arm in arm with Gabe, Lexi fainted. When she came to, tucked up in bed in one of the guest rooms, she had a lump on her head the size of a duck egg.

"Sorry." Her voice was hoarse. "I think I must be more exhausted than I realized. I thought I saw Gabe. It was so real! As if he were standing right next to you. Do you think I need a psychiatrist?"

"Unquestionably." Robbie grinned. "But not because you're seeing things. It turns out our friend Gabriel isn't quite as dead as we all thought he was."

"Hi, Lex."

An old-man version of Gabe appeared at Lexi's bedside.

She promptly passed out again.

It was a full twenty-four hours before it sank in that Gabe was not only alive, but here, at Robbie's house, with her. While Lexi came to terms with reality, Gabe washed, ate and slept for the first time in weeks. By nightfall, the story had leaked into the media that Gabriel McGregor was back from the dead. It took the press about a minute and a half to discover his whereabouts. Luckily, Robbie and Paolo's estate was completely hidden from prying lenses, set back behind a long driveway and surrounded by an impenetrable wall of trees. Paolo persuaded the local police to place a ban on low-flying helicopters. Once they realized there was no picture to be had, the paparazzi reluctantly slunk back to Cape Town, pitching camp instead outside Phoenix's offices. Gabe couldn't hide out with Robbie Templeton forever. Eventually he'd have to surface, and when he did, they'd be waiting.

For the first week, Gabe slept eighteen hours of every twenty-four. At mealtimes he ate well but in silence, exchanging occasional grateful smiles with Robbie and Paolo. He barely looked at Lexi.

A doctor was called. He gave Gabe a clean bill of health. Not wanting to risk any more press leaks, Robbie contacted his godfather in New York, Barney Hunt, and asked him to fly out and examine Gabe.

"I'd say he's in good shape mentally," said Barney, "considering the magnitude of the trauma he's just been through. He's allowing himself to recover."

"But he barely speaks," Robbie protested. "He won't say where he's been all this time. He hasn't mentioned Tara or his children once. If I get one 'pass the pepper, please,' that's a good day."

"He'll talk when he's ready. How about Lexi? How's she doing?"

It seemed like an odd non sequitur. "Lexi? She's okay, I guess. Mad as a box of frogs, obsessing about Kruger-Brent as always, but what's new. She came out here to relax, which I took as a good sign."

"And is she? Relaxing?"

"Gabe showing up kind of threw her. I don't know. She's been out of the house a lot. Riding. Do you think I should be worried?"

"No, no." Barney Hunt smiled reassuringly. "I'm fond of your sister, that's all. I care about you both. As does your father."

Robbie stiffened. It had been years since he'd seen Peter. Their estrangement now was as wide and deep as it had ever been.

"I've got enough on my plate right now with Gabe and Lexi," he said defensively.

"I understand," said Barney. "Just remember, your father is not going to live forever. Gabe has years to work through what he's feeling. So does Lexi. But you and Peter..."

"Thanks, Barney. I'm okay. We're okay."

The conversation was closed.

Lexi lay in bed, unable to sleep. In two days' time, she would head back to New York. Back to reality. The vacation with Robbie was supposed to have cleared her head. But she felt more confused than ever.

Gabe was alive. That was a good thing. Obviously. So why did his presence in the house make her feel so...so what? There was no word for it. Lexi and Gabe moved past each other like ghost ships on a hopeless sea. Sometimes Lexi felt him watching her. Almost as if he were waiting for her to say something. But say what?

Sorry I don't know how to talk to you? Sorry your wife and kids got their throats cut? I'm glad you're alive, but I wish you'd get the hell out of my brother's house?

At other times, she sensed hostility in his gaze. He felt something for me on that safari years ago, and we both know it. Does he blame me for that? Do I make him feel guilty?

Lexi didn't understand Gabe's passivity. If she were in his shoes, she would be filled with bloodlust. She would think of nothing but wreaking terrible, righteous revenge on those who had slain her family. But Gabe showed no anger. No hatred. Lexi couldn't understand it.

She looked at her bedside clock. Four A.M. Her mind was racing. There was no hope of sleep. Hauling herself wearily out of bed, she pulled a bathrobe over the old pair of Robbie's pajamas she was wearing and tiptoed downstairs. Maybe a cup of warm milk would help.

"What are you doing here?"

Lexi jumped a mile.

"Jesus, Gabe. You scared me."

Gabe was lurking in the half shadow, his face eerily illuminated by the first pale rays of dawn sunlight.

"I couldn't sleep."

"Welcome to my world. You know, when Collette was born, we got no sleep for a year. Tara and I would fantasize about how great it would be to wake up late on Sunday mornings. Now I can wake up as late as I like. But I never make it past dawn. Never."

"I'm sorry."

God, it was so inadequate. What a small, useless little word. Like firing a water pistol into a volcano.

"I was going to do it, you know. I was going to kill myself."

"Gabe, really. You don't have to tell me this."

"But then I thought, Why should I be allowed to rest in peace, after what I did? I should have to wake up every day, every day, and see their faces. Hear their screams."

Gabe started to cry. Lexi stood rooted to the spot, unsure what to do. Then instinct took over. She wrapped her arms around him.

"It wasn't your fault."

"It was!" he sobbed. "It was my fault. I should have been there. If I hadn't been late. If I hadn't stopped to change that stupid tire! Oh God, Lexi. I loved them so much!"

He clutched at her like a drowning man clinging to a buoy. Then suddenly he was kissing her, they were kissing each other. Lexi could taste the hot salt of his tears in her mouth, his face pressed against her cheek, her neck, her breasts. There was a terrible desperation to the way he ripped her clothes off, pulling her down onto the cold flagstone floor. As if by making love to her he could somehow bring himself back to life.

He entered her with an anguished cry, like an animal in its death throes. Lexi gripped him tightly to her. Closing her eyes, she could feel the pain flowing from his body to hers. It's all right, Gabe. It's all right, my love.

In the beginning, Max used to make love to her the same way. Desperately. As if Lexi could save him. But that was another lifetime. Gabe was not Max. Gabe was good and decent and kind. Gabe was suffering because he had loved. Max suffered because he could not love. Because he was broken.

Like me.

Maybe Gabe and I can save each other?

When Robbie came downstairs later that morning, he found his friend and his sister fast asleep on the couch, entwined in each other's arms. He smiled.

Paolo put on some coffee. "I wouldn't look so happy if I were you." He nodded at the sleeping lovers. "That's trouble."

"Why? You said yourself that Gabe should find somebody. That he needs love to live again."

"Yes, but Lexi?"

Robbie bridled. "Why not Lexi? God knows she could use someone normal in her life. Someone to break her of this obsession with Kruger-Brent."

"I love your sister, Robbie. You know that. But lovers can't 'fix' each other."

Robbie thought: You're wrong. What about us? We fixed each other.

"Give it a chance. She loves him, you know. I'm convinced of it. When he went missing, she pined like a lost puppy. Lexi acts tough on the outside, but she feels things deeply."

Paolo said nothing.

He hoped he was wrong, for all their sakes.