Wicked Ambition. Victoria Fox

and Emaline’s arms safe and warm as she pulled the child close to kiss the top of her head. They would watch black-and-white movies together, get lost in worlds of romance and betrayal, lovers and wars, glamour and fantasy. Emaline would whisper stories about when she was a girl, and how one summer she had run away from home and spent long hot weeks acting for a theatre until her father had found her and brought her home. Grace’s imagination had been filled with the glittering characters Emaline had played, the handsome leading men she had known, and how Emaline had dreamed of some day becoming a Hollywood actress. ‘Do you know what I believe?’ Emaline whispered into Grace’s hair one sunset. ‘I believe that’s going to be you one day. My little star.’

      Soon after her eighth birthday Grace was sent to live with her uncle on a farm in Pennsylvania. Ivan Garrick hadn’t seen her mother in years but it turned out he was her only living relative. Grace didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave her friends or Emaline. She didn’t want to live with someone she had never met. But that was the law and she could do nothing to dispute it. When she turned up on Ivan’s doorstep she was frightened.

      But Ivan was a kind man. He was fifty or thereabouts and admitted to having had a dispute with her mother, after which he had been cut out of her life. He had always longed to meet Grace and had petitioned long and hard for her custody. Like her he had no surviving family and so they had to stick together, he said. Blood was blood, he promised. Lots of things happened in life but that could never be changed.

      If her parents had been devout then Ivan was in another league. Every day he spent hours at church, talking with the pastor and praying for his sins. Grace couldn’t understand. Ivan was a gentle, lonely man and she couldn’t imagine him sinning any more than she could Emaline refusing her a kind word. Bad people existed but Ivan wasn’t bad.

      A short time later, they received word that Emaline had passed. Grace travelled alone to her funeral and cried as she had never cried before. Ivan organised her return ticket and was waiting at the station to meet her when she arrived. ‘You’re home now,’ he said.

      Sometimes Ivan disappeared at night. She would wake to find the big house empty and pad through its dark chambers, calling his name. The next morning he’d stay asleep until the afternoon, and would emerge looking tired and haunted. Those days he prayed the most.

      Grace settled into her new life and concentrated on her music. At ten years old she learned to read compositions; at twelve she was strumming on the guitar Emaline had given her and at fourteen she realised she had a voice to go with it. Ivan would ask her to sing and would sit and watch her, telling her how beautiful she sounded and what a lovely young woman she was becoming. Grace liked it when he said that. Not a girl any more but a woman. It made her feel grown-up, ready to embrace the exciting life ahead of her.

      Soon after, she became a grown-up for real. Playing outside one day, she felt wetness in her skirt and when she went to the bathroom she found blood. Her first thought was that a monster had crawled inside her; the monsters Ivan talked about that he promised the Lord would protect them from. She shook in his arms, and Ivan had to explain as best he could that this wasn’t a disease but a natural progression—one he had, in fact, been counting on.

      We’ve been waiting, he told her. Fear nothing, my angel. You’ve arrived.

      It was six months before his meaning became clear. The last six months of innocence.

      It happened on a Tuesday night. She would always remember the moon, crisp and white like a marble in the sky. Ivan crept to her bedroom and told her to come outside, there was something she needed to see; it was a present he’d bought for her. He was sweating and his fingers trembled, waxy in the dark, but she’d thought it was the puppy she’d longed for and so in her nightgown had descended the stairs and pushed open the door to the yard.

      Outside was a circle of people, dressed in black robes and hoods that covered their faces. They were chanting. At the centre a fire sparked and burned, hot and red and orange, an angry fire that told her this was wrong. Something was wrong. They wanted to hurt her.

      No, she wept, I don’t want to.

      I don’t want to. It became her mantra for the years ahead. But nobody listened.

       And they didn’t listen then. Grace struggled to break free but they pinned her down, tying her wrists above her head and looming like giants, the chant building and gathering pace, becoming frenzied and wild. Through the vestments she recognised the pastor’s eyes, flashing grey and watery with lust as he knelt between her legs…

      Her agony shattered the night.

      The next day, she ran. In a sense the ordeal was the anaesthetic she needed. All Grace could focus on was escape, numb to everything but the terror she had endured and the lone goal of freedom. Ivan was sloppy, a careless, cowardly man. He’d underestimated her spirit. She packed a small bag and left the next afternoon, walking the road out of town, walking and walking until she didn’t care any more if her legs gave in and she lay down and died. She thought of Emaline. It made her cry but it also made her strong. Emaline’s voice told her to keep going and not to give up. Songs she loved played in her head, all the women she’d grown up with walking alongside her, holding her upright and pushing her on.

       Some time before dawn a car picked her up. ‘Hey, baby, you wanna ride?’

      The guy in the driver’s seat was young. He had a nice smile.

      Grace Turquoise pulled open the door. Sleep rushed at her like a tidal wave and she embraced it, secure in the knowledge that now she was saved. Now it was over.

      But she was wrong. It was only just beginning.

       7

      Robin was wired when she came offstage. She had performed her breakout single ‘Lesson Learned’ at the annual Palace Variety to rapturous reception.

      ‘They’re loving you, babe,’ encouraged her manager Barney when she stepped into the wings. ‘Twitter’s going off the wall.’

      ‘One more time for Robin Ryder!’ The host’s voice boomed through the studio.

      ‘Wanna go out?’ Robin headed to her dressing room, Barney in close pursuit. ‘I’ve got an invite to Level 7, the new place off Poland Street. It’s worth checking out.’

      ‘Are we celebrating?’

      ‘We’re always celebrating.’

      ‘We will be when you hear who I’ve been talking to.’

      She turned. ‘Who?’

      ‘I’ve just taken a call from Arcadia,’ announced Barney triumphantly. Arcadia was Puff City’s management. ‘They’re interested in a partnership, Robin. Slink Bullion likes what he sees. Your profile’s rocketed and they want a piece of it.’

      She was elated. ‘That’s the best news I’ve had all week. Get us a meeting?’

      ‘You bet I will.’

      Robin pushed open the door with her name on it. The first thing she noticed was the enormous bouquet of peonies and roses on her make-up table, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a purple ribbon. There was a card sticking out of the top.

      ‘What’s this?’

      ‘They got delivered to the office,’ said Barney. ‘I had a runner bring them down.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Some kid dropped them by. He said to make sure you received them, or the guy he worked for wouldn’t be happy.’

      She turned the card over. It read:

       But I want to be friends with you

      Robin frowned. She pretended not to know who it was, but she knew straight away.

      ‘Who’re