Sidney Sheldon's Chasing Tomorrow (Tracy Whitney) (13 page)

Jeff’s palms began to sweat.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a statue,” said Jeff. “A gift for a friend of mine.”

“Really?” The guard made a gesture. Three of his colleagues approached. In addition to their handguns, each one had a vicious Alsatian dog straining at the end of a leather leash. The dogs went nuts as they approached Jeff, barking wildly and baring their teeth.

“Passport!” the first officer barked.

Jeff handed it over.
What the hell was happening?

“Are you familiar with the drug laws in this country, Mr. Bowers?”

“Of course I am,” said Jeff. He could barely hear himself over the dogs. He’d heard the stories of innocent travelers having bags of heroin planted on them, of course, but he’d been so careful. For obvious reasons, his bag had never left his sight for a second. Unless someone at security . . .

The policeman tore off the Bubble Wrap and held the statue of Entemena high above his head. “Maybe the gift for your friend is
inside,
hmm?”

Jeff’s heart stopped.
He’s going to smash it! He’s going to shatter two thousand years of history.
“NO!”

Without thinking, he lunged for the statue.

Three pistols were instantly raised and pointed at his head. Jeff closed his eyes and waited for the sound of shattering stone. Instead he heard a man shriek in agony. Opening his eyes, he saw that one of the dogs had leaped onto the man standing next to him and sunk its formidable jaws into the poor guy’s crotch. A melee ensued, with much barking and screaming and waving of firearms. Eventually a plastic bag containing a small amount of white powder was produced from somewhere inside the man’s pants.

The first policeman calmly handed the statue back to Jeff.

“Sorry, sir. Our mistake. We hope you enjoyed your stay in Thailand.”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, JEFF
finally exhaled as the Airbus A380 soared and juddered its way into the sky.

Reaching down, he stuck his hand into the bag at his feet and touched the statue lovingly.

That was close. Too close.

He thought about Francine, the Frenchwoman on the E&O. It was she who’d tried to steal the Entemena while both Jeff and the general were at the Kwai. Jeff recognized her from a job he and Tracy had tried to pull years ago in Paris. He was sure she was on the train with the same intention as he had. She’d beaten them to the punch in France—a lovely Dutch still life, if Jeff remembered rightly. But not this time. Once the general was distracted by dear, sweet little Minami on the Japanese raft, his outrage had gotten the better of him. It had been preposterously easy to switch his backpack for the one Jeff had brought with him, packed with a worthless fake statue, as sold in museum gift shops all over Europe.

He thought about Tiffany Joy and wondered whether she’d taken his advice. He did hope so. Chao-tak was not in the habit of leaving loose ends, and Miss Joy didn’t deserve the fate of her heartless lover.

He thought about General Alan McPhee, and about Aahil Hafeez, and about the collector in Switzerland who was eagerly awaiting the arrival of his treasure.

He thought about Tracy, and how nothing was quite as much fun without her.

Then he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 11

O
H MY GOD! THAT’S
Zayn Malik!”

Nicholas’s eyes were on stalks. He’d never been to Los Angeles before, or to any big city other than Denver, and that was only for a day-trip. His mother had brought him to Cecconi’s on Melrose for lunch, a celebrity watcher’s heaven.

“Who’s Zayn Malik?” Tracy asked.

“Zayn Malik? One Direction?”

Tracy looked blank. Nicholas gave her a look that was half pity, half disdain.

“Oh, never mind. Can I have another sundae?”

It was July and ninety degrees outside. While the Angelenos wisely headed to the beach, or locked themselves inside their air-conditioned cars and offices, Tracy and Nicholas had spent the morning pounding the streets, rushing from one tourist attraction to the next. In prior years, Tracy had sent her son to a local summer camp in Colorado called Beaver Creek. Nick spent his vacations swimming and fishing and kayaking and camping, and always had a great time. But this year she decided it was time he saw a bit more of the world.

Blake Carter was against the idea.

“I don’t see what Los Angeles has to offer that Steamboat doesn’t.”

Tracy raised an eyebrow. “Variety?”

“Them freaks on Venice Beach, you mean?”

“Come on, Blake. I know you’re not a city person. But there’s Hollywood, all that movie history. There’s museums and theme parks. I’ll take him to Universal Studios and maybe a Lakers game. He’s so sheltered here.”

“Kids are supposed to be sheltered,” grumbled Blake. “Maybe if he were a teenager. But he’s too young, Tracy. You mark my words. He won’t enjoy it.”

Nicholas loved it.

Everything about L.A. excited him, from the food and the blazing heat to the streets full of Lamborghinis and Ferraris and Bugattis and Teslas and the Venice Beach freaks that Blake Carter so despised: silver-sprayed mimes and snake charmers and transvestite stilt walkers and fortune-tellers with their faces covered in exotic tattoos.

“This place is awesome!” he told Tracy, night after night in their suite at the Hotel Bel-Air. “Can we move here, Mom? Please?”

A sundae arrived, Nicholas’s second. He attacked the mountain of whipped cream and fudge with the same enthusiasm he’d shown its predecessor. Tracy was sipping her coffee, content simply to watch him, when a party walked in and caught her attention.

The first thing Tracy saw was the necklace.
Once a jewel thief, always a jewel thief.
Although in all honesty, this one was hard to miss: a string of rubies, each one the size of a baby’s fist, hung around the scrawny neck of an otherwise unattractive, middle-aged woman. It was the most dazzling, over-the-top piece of jewelry that Tracy had ever seen. And she’d seen quite a few.

The woman was with her husband, a squat, toad of a man with bulging eyes whom Tracy was sure she recognized but couldn’t quite place. Another, younger woman completed the group. From behind, Tracy could see that this second woman was tall, slender and elegant. Then she turned around.

Tracy choked, scalding jets of coffee burning the back of her throat and making her eyes water.

“Are you okay, Mom?”

“I’m fine, honey.” Tracy dabbed her eyes with the napkin, simultaneously using it to hide her face. “Finish your dessert.”

It couldn’t be.

It
couldn’t be.

But it was.

Rebecca Mortimer!
The girl from the British Museum. The girl Tracy had caught in her bedroom with Jeff, all those years ago. The girl who’d singlehandedly destroyed Tracy’s married life was here, not only in Los Angeles but in this very restaurant, sitting less than ten feet away from her!

Of course, she looked different. It had been almost a decade, after all. Her long red hair was now platinum blond and short, almost boyish. But there was nothing remotely masculine about her figure, especially when it was shrink-wrapped in an Hervé Léger minidress as it was today. Or in the coquettish toss of her head as she laughed at the fat man’s jokes.

I know who he is now,
Tracy thought.
Of course. That’s Alan Brookstein, the director. Which means those must be the famous Iranian rubies.

She couldn’t remember the whole story. But it involved a mistress of the former shah of Iran being tortured and strangled for her necklace, or something equally awful.
Vanity Fair
did a piece on it, and nobody came out well. Liz Taylor had tried and failed to buy the necklace before her death, after which it went underground again. Brookstein had bought it for his wife last year in a secret, possibly illegal deal, for an undisclosed sum. And here it was in the flesh, swinging around the woman’s neck at a casual lunch, like a mayoral chain!

Tracy summoned the maître d’.

“That’s Alan Brookstein and his wife, isn’t it?” she asked discreetly.

“Yes, ma’am. They’re regulars here.”

“I wonder, do you know the young woman dining with them?”

The maître d’ didn’t usually stoop to gossip with patrons. But the very beautiful Mrs. Schmidt was clearly far from one’s average tourist. She positively radiated class.

“I believe her name is Liza Cunningham
.
I’ve seen her in here before with Sheila . . . Mrs. Brookstein. She’s British. An actress.”

That’s about right,
thought Tracy bitterly.
A damn good actress.

Tracy watched the way “Liza” divided her attention between the director and his wife, expertly flattering them both. In her prior incarnation as “Rebecca,” an innocent archaeology student, she’d played the doe-eyed, butter-wouldn’t-melt role equally well.

That’s when it hit Tracy like a thunderbolt between the eyes.

She’s not an actress, or a student. She’s a con artist, like Jeff and me!

She’s one of us.

It was so obvious now, Tracy couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t realized it before. Back in London. Back when it mattered.

She’s a con artist and she’s here to steal that ruby necklace.

“Mom? You look weird. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m fine, honey.” Tracy had almost forgotten Nicholas was there. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glazed and her heart rate had started to rise, beating to a familiar but long-neglected beat.

I’m going to play her at her own game.

And this time I’m going to win.

By the time Tracy paid the check, the decision had already been made.

Tracy was going to steal Sheila Brookstein’s rubies.

IT WAS HARD TO
say who enjoyed the next week more—Tracy or Nicholas. In between playing mommy and taking her son to all the L.A. sights, Tracy prepared for the job. Stealing the most famous ruby necklace in the world from a powerful Hollywood director’s wife was not exactly “easing oneself back in gently.” Long days running around town with her son were followed by equally long nights researching everything there was to know about Alan and Sheila Brookstein and the fabled Iranian rubies.

In two days she had a plan.

It was difficult, audacious and wildly risky. Worse, she had only ten days to pull it together.

TRACY AND NICHOLAS WERE
at the Hollywood sign. Tracy’s phone rang.

“Hello?”

“So it really is you!” The man on the other end of the line gave a raspy chuckle. “I’ll be damned. I thought you were dead.”

“Thanks, Billy. Good to know.” Tracy grinned. “Are you still in the jewelry business?”

“Are priests still screwing little boys? Whaddaya got for me, sweetheart?”

“Nothing, yet. Can you meet me at the Bel-Air later?”

TRACY HATED ROLLER COASTERS.
Somehow Nicholas had badgered her into taking the Apocalypse Ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain. They had just strapped themselves in and Tracy was focusing on keeping her lunch down when an e-mail popped up on her iPhone.

Is this who I think it is?

Tracy typed back,
Absolutely not.

Shame. The person I was thinking of used to have amazing breasts. I wonder if she still does?

I need a contact at a Beverly Hills insurance agency. Do you have one?

Possibly. Do you have a recent photograph of your breasts you can send me?

Tracy laughed loudly.

“See?” Nicholas grinned over his shoulder as they lurched forward. “I
told
you. The Apocalypse is fun.”

ALAN AND SHEILA BROOKSTEIN
lived in a very large, very ugly home set behind very large, very ugly gates, just north of Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. The mock-Tudor manor was surrounded by garish flowers in a variety of clashing colors, and the driveway was lined with hundreds of truly hideous ceramic gnomes.

“You liked the gnomes, huh? My wife collects them. Has ’em shipped in from all over the world. Japan, France, Russia, even Iraq. You’d never guess the Iraqis were into garden statuary, would you? But I tell you, Miss Lane—”

“Please, call me Theresa.”

“Theresa.” Alan Brookstein smiled broadly. “It’s a funny old world we live in.”

The gorgeous young insurance agent smiled and nodded in agreement. Alan Brookstein rarely took meetings like this in person. “Home Insurance” fell squarely under the job description of his PA, Helen. But he’d happened to run into the beautiful Miss Theresa Lane yesterday, the first time she’d come around. One look at that slim figure, topped by the pretty, intelligent face and the cascade of chestnut hair, offset by those exquisite, dancing green eyes, and Alan Brookstein’s schedule opened up faster than a Kardashian’s legs in an NBA player’s hotel room.

“Your wife has great taste. That necklace is the most stunning piece I’ve ever seen.”

“Ah, well, that was
my
taste,” Alan Brookstein boasted. “I’m the one who picked it for her. You wanna see the safe?”

Tracy smiled warmly. “That’s why I’m here.”

Nicholas was in surf camp for the day out in Malibu. Tracy didn’t have to pick him up for hours, but she was still eager to get this done and get out of here sooner rather than later. She had nightmares of a genuine agent from Christie’s bespoke insurers telephoning or stopping by out of the blue and spectacularly blowing her cover.
It’s not going to happen,
Tracy told herself firmly. But her adrenal glands didn’t seem to be listening. The stakes were very high.

“This way, Theresa. Watch your step, now.”

Alan Brookstein led her through a baffling series of hallways, each one smothered in thick, beige carpet like marzipan frosting. Saccharine impressionist paintings in a riot of pinks and blues and greens hung on walls papered with busy floral prints that would have made Liberace wince. Two maids in full uniform flattened themselves against the wall as Tracy and the director passed. Tracy clocked the fear in their faces. Evidently the rumors she’d heard of both the Brooksteins’ bullying and unpleasantness toward their staff were true.

The safe—or rather safes—were in the master suite, behind a panel in Sheila’s dressing room.

“You have three?”

“Four.” Alan Brookstein’s chest puffed out with pride, making him look more like a toad than ever. “These three are all decoys. I put a few, less valuable pieces in each one, just enough to make a thief think he’s hit pay dirt. The third one has a perfect replica of the Iran piece. Real rubies, artificially produced. You can’t tell the difference with the naked eye. Wanna see?”

Unlocking the safe, he pulled out the necklace Tracy had seen at Cecconi’s and draped it over her hands. The stones were heavy and glowed like coal embers between her fingers.

“This is a fake?”

“That’s a fake.”

“Impressive.”

“Thank you, Theresa.” Alan Brookstein’s eyes seemed to have developed a magnetic attraction to Tracy’s nipples.

“Does your wife wear this out?”

“Sometimes.” Brookstein replaced the necklace. “She wears both. The fake and the real one. If it’s something really big, like the gala at LACMA on Saturday night, she’ll wear the real deal. I’m being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award,” he couldn’t resist adding.

“Congratulations! Your wife must be thrilled for you.”

Alan Brookstein frowned. “I don’t know. She’s thrilled to have a chance to flash those rubies, make all her girlfriends feel like crap, you know what I mean?” He laughed mirthlessly. “The truth is, Sheila can’t tell the difference any more than the rest of ’em. If it’s big and red and sparkly, she likes it. Kind of like the gnomes.”

Tracy followed the director through to his dressing room. A false panel at the back of a closet pulled aside to reveal a fourth safe.

“The code is changed every day.”

“For all the safes, or just this one?”

“For all of them.”

“Who changes the codes?”

“Me. Only me. Nobody knows what I come up with each day, not even Sheila. I appreciate your company’s concern, Theresa, but between this and our guards and the alarm system, I truly don’t think we could be better protected.”

Tracy nodded. “Mind if I look around a little?”

“Be my guest.”

Removing her shoes, Tracy flitted from room to room. She stepped inside closets and began climbing shelves, rifling through the Brooksteins’ suits and shirts and dresses and shoes. From her capacious Prada purse, she pulled out a variety of equipment, much of which looked like electronic monitors of some sort, which made an ominous, static-y, crackling sound when run along the edges of mirrors.

“Okay.” From her position at the top of a wooden stepladder, where she’d been examining the safety of a ceiling panel, Tracy suddenly spun around.

Standing at the foot of the ladder, Alan Brookstein, who’d been within inches of getting a clear view of her underwear, jumped a mile.

“What? Is there a problem?”

“Happily, no.” Tracy smiled. “No cameras or devices of any kind. I agree, you’re sufficiently protected. Although I
would
be careful which staff members you allow access to this room. We have had cases of maids installing pinhole cameras close to known safes, capturing the lock and unlock codes, and passing them on to boyfriends who then raid the houses in question.”