His second was panic.
“Police!” Robbie felt a rough, male hand on his arm. “Party’s over, kids. Get up, stand against that wall, and put your hands on your heads. Now!”
Robbie’s mind was racing. Years of Sunday nights religiously spent watching T.J. Hooker on TV told him that this must be a drug bust. His pants were in a heap at the foot of the bed, with three ecstasy pills tucked into the back pocket-Gianni Sperotto’s version of a party favor.
Bright side: I’m a minor. The worst they can give me is juvenile detention.
Not-so-bright side: They can give me juvenile detention!
For all his bravado in his dad’s office, Robbie Templeton was terrified of the thought of prison. To him it seemed far worse than suicide. Death meant peace. It meant being with his mother. But prison, even juvie, for a pretty boy like him? They’d eat him alive. And that was before they found out he was a Blackwell and one of the richest kids in the country.
Spread-eagled half naked against the wall, he tried to concentrate. It wasn’t easy with Maureen Swanson screaming and cursing next to him like a banshee.
“You assholes lay one finger on me, and I swear to God my dad will personally slice off your balls!”
The police officer laughed. “I’d advise you not to threaten us, sweetheart.”
“Great ass,” added his partner. “How about you spread those legs a little wider?”
Robbie racked his brains. Did he have any ID in his jeans? Anything they could use to prove who he was? Man, it was hard to think when you were high.
Without warning, Maureen Swanson spun around and smashed her fist into the police officer’s face. The cheap cocktail ring she was wearing sliced into his eyeball like a knife through butter.
“Jesus Christ, you little bitch! You blinded me!”
In the pandemonium that followed, Robbie seized his chance. Making a run for the open window, he dived through it headfirst.
A blast of cold night air hit his lower body. That’s when he remembered that he was naked from the waist down. When he opened his eyes, he remembered something else:
Gianni Sperotto’s bedroom was on the sixth floor.
The fall seemed to take forever. Time stretched out in serene slow motion. Robbie knew he was going to die. The thought made him smile. He’d imagined this moment countless times, wondered if he would feel fear when the time came. But now that it was actually happening, he felt suffused with a deep, rich contentment. Almost joy.
The ground rose slowly to greet him, green and gray in the moonlight.
Then everything went black.
“Dude?”
“Hey, dude? Can you hear me?”
Robbie was by a river, lying in the long grass. He was in South Africa, in the wilderness near Burgersdorp, the little Transvaal town where his mom used to take him as a small child. Once known as Klipdrift, this was the place where Jamie McGregor had made his fortune. The birthplace of Kruger-Brent, the spot where it all began. The wind was blowing softly through the acacia trees. Above him, Robbie could see his mother’s face, the loveliest sight in the world. Her lips were moving. She was trying to talk to him. But her voice sounded strange. Unfamiliar.
“You are one lucky son of a bitch, man. You coulda killed yo’self.”
His mother’s face was fading.
Mom! Come back!
But it was too late. Alex was gone, her loving gaze replaced by the curious stares of three black strangers, kids not much older than Robbie.
He was lying on his back, sprawled across some rhododendron bushes. Their springy branches must have broken his fall. When he tried to move, the pain in his left leg was agonizing. With some help he found he was able to stand.
“You must be seriously high, bro.” The oldest boy shook his head admiringly. “What’d you think, you was Superman or somethin’?”
His friends laughed loudly.
“You do realize you’re buck naked? Or maybe I’m Superman? Maybe I got some of that Kryptonite shit, X-ray vision goin’ on.”
More laughter.
“P-please,” Robbie stammered. “Help me. The cops…they’ll be down here any second. One of you give me your pants.”
The boys looked at one another.
“Say what? We ain’t giving you our goddamn pants.”
Robbie thought for a moment, then started pulling at the little finger of his left hand.
“Here. Take this.” He pressed a solid-gold signet ring into the oldest boy’s hand. It had once belonged to Robbie’s great-great-grandfather, Jamie McGregor, and it bore the symbol of two fighting rams: Kruger-Brent’s crest. “It’s gold. It’s worth five hundred bucks at least.”
The boy looked at the ring.
“Jackson, give Clark Kent here your pants.”
Jackson looked outraged. “Screw you! I ain’t giving him my goddamn pants.”
“I said take ’em off! Now! Here come the cops, man.”
A pair of uniformed police were rushing out of Gianni’s building with flashlights. Robbie thought: They’re looking for a body.
The black kid slipped out of his jeans like a snake shedding its skin.
Robbie watched him sprint into the darkness, the Carl Lewis of Westchester County. Seeing three black figures disappearing across the scrubland, the cops gave chase. It gave Robbie a few valuable seconds in which to make his move.
He pulled on the pants. They were huge. Yanking the belt onto its tightest notch, he could just about keep them up. Slowly, he began to walk. The pain in his leg was getting worse. Shutting out everything else, he focused his mind on Lexi and his mother. He couldn’t go to prison. He had to get away. Humming softly to the sound track playing in his head-Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor-he limped on into the darkness.