Sidney Sheldon's Chasing Tomorrow (Tracy Whitney) (17 page)

A waitress came over and removed the
vongole
s, untouched. Jean Rizzo ordered coffees and a plate of
cantuccini
. All that wine on an empty stomach was starting to go to his head.

Tracy said, “I’d like to help you, Inspector. I would. I think what happened to these women is horrific and I hope you get the guy who did it. But you came here looking for Tracy Whitney, and the truth is that Tracy Whitney is dead. She died nine years ago.”

“Hmm,” said Jean.

“Even if she were alive, she was never in the business of hurting people.”

“Hmm,” said Jean again.

“What? What does ‘hmm’ mean?”

“I was just thinking that for a dead chick, she pulled off a pretty neat job in L.A. ten days ago. Tracy Whitney must have been quite a lady.”

Tracy laughed. “I believe she was.”

“Those rubies must be worth, what? Two, three million? Maybe more to a private collector.”

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Tracy smiled sweetly. “Ah, lovely. The coffee’s arrived.”

Watching her sip the thick, black liquid, Jean Rizzo could see quite clearly why so many men had become obsessed with Tracy Whitney. She was beautiful, of course, but there was far more to it than that. She was clever and funny, and she clearly took delight in outwitting her adversaries on both sides of the law. He decided to change tack.

“So your son knows nothing. About your past, or about his father.”

Tracy put down her cup slowly and fixed Jean with a steely glare. There was no more banter now. Battle lines had been drawn.

“No, he doesn’t. And he never will.”

“Does Jeff Stevens even know he has a child?”

“Jeff Stevens doesn’t have a child!” Tracy shot back angrily. “At least, not with me. Nicky’s mine. Only mine. I raised him. I’m all he needs.”

Aware that she’d just raised her voice, Tracy shrank back into the shadows of the booth. Jean Rizzo thought about his own children and how desperately he missed them. He felt a stab of pity for Jeff Stevens.

Reading his mind, Tracy said, “You don’t understand, Inspector.”

“Jean.”

“Jean,” Tracy corrected herself. “You don’t know Jeff like I do.”

“I don’t hate him like you do, you mean.”

“Hate him?” Tracy looked genuinely shocked. “I don’t hate Jeff. I just love Nicky. That’s a very different thing. You’re going to have to trust me when I tell you that Jeff would have made a lousy father. Oh, he’s loving and charming and perfectly adorable. But you can’t rely on him. Jeff would have broken Nicky’s heart in the end. Just like he broke mine.”

“What happened between you? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Did she mind? Jean Rizzo was a total stranger. Worse than that, he was a cop. But somehow, Tracy found herself pouring out the whole story. She told him about losing her first baby with Jeff. She told him about her struggles to adjust to married life and domesticity. She told him about walking in on Jeff and Rebecca Mortimer kissing in the bedroom in Eaton Square, about the terrible, searing pain of betrayal. Finally she told him about seeing Rebecca again out of the blue in L.A. last month, having dinner with Sheila Brookstein.

“I went to Los Angeles for a vacation with my son. That’s the truth. I had no intention of”—she searched around for the right word—“coming out of retirement. But as soon as I saw her, I knew she was after that necklace. I had a chance to pay her back in some small way for what she did to me, and I took it.”

“I understand,” said Jean.

Tracy’s eyes narrowed. “You do?”

“Of course. You’ll be pleased to know that your friend ‘Rebecca’ is the FBI’s prime suspect in the Brookstein job. Her real name is Elizabeth Kennedy, by the way.” Jean retrieved the picture Milton Buck had given him from his briefcase and handed it over.

Tracy stared at it intently.

Elizabeth.

It was too nice a name, too innocuous. It didn’t feel right.

Tracy was silent for a long time, lost in thought. Eventually Jean Rizzo said, “They want her for the other two U.S. jobs as well. The Pissarro theft in New York and the Chicago diamonds.”

Tracy took this in.

“What about the other robberies?” she asked. “The ones in Europe and Asia, where the girls were murdered afterward?”

“The feds don’t believe there’s a connection between any of the robberies and the Bible Killer murders,” Jean said bitterly. “Besides, you know how it works. The Bureau doesn’t give a crap about things that happen outside their jurisdiction. They could pass the intel on to us, but they don’t. They don’t even share with the CIA. It’s political and pathetic, and meanwhile these girls are out there getting butchered.” He filled her in on his abortive meeting with Agent Milton Buck in Los Angeles.

“Okay. But now
you
know about ‘Elizabeth,’ ” said Tracy. The name still felt odd to her. “Surely you can get the word out through Interpol? You don’t need the FBI.”

“Hmm,” Jean said again.

Tracy waited patiently for his vocabulary to catch up with his brain. She was used to policemen who shot their mouths off first and thought later. Arrogant, impulsive, sloppy policemen had helped Tracy make her fortune. Jean Rizzo was different.

I like him,
she thought.
I’ll have to watch that.

When Jean finally spoke, it was slowly, as if he were thinking aloud, piecing things together as he went along.

“The problem is, I didn’t believe it
was
Elizabeth. I thought it was you.”

“You thought
I
ran around the world killing prostitutes?”

“No no no. Of course not. Our killer’s a man.”

“Okay, good. Glad we got that straightened out.”

“But I thought you were the link between the robberies and the murders.”

“Because of the nine-year thing?”

“Because of the nine years. Because of London. Because you’re a woman. Because these robberies were so close to your old MO—clever but simple, well planned, geographically spread out, always at a worthwhile price point.”

Tracy smiled. “You’re making me feel quite nostalgic.”

“Because you
did
do the Brookstein job,” he continued, counting the reasons off on his fingers. “Because I don’t believe in coincidences. At least, not twelve in a row. And because there wasn’t another viable suspect.”

“Until now,” said Tracy.

Jean nodded. “Until now. I guess.”

“What do you mean, you guess? Now you have Elizabeth Kennedy. Right?”

“Hmm.”

“Really? We’re back to ‘hmm’?”

Jean looked up at her. “I still think you’re the link.”

Tracy put her head in her hands.

“Think about it,” said Jean. “These jobs are
exactly
like yours.”

“There are some similarities, on the surface,” Tracy conceded. “But I wasn’t
there,
Jean.”

“It’s more than similarities. If you didn’t do the robberies yourself—”

“No ‘if.’ I didn’t. I can prove it.”

“Then whoever did them is mimicking your techniques. That means they know you. Intimately. They know how you worked.”

No one knows how I worked,
Tracy thought.
No one except Jeff. And Gunther. But I hardly think Gunther’s running around the world pulling off jewel heists.

Aloud, she asked Jean, “Do you think someone’s trying to frame me?”

“It’s a possibility. Do you have any enemies that you know of?”

Tracy laughed loudly. “Hundreds!”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I! Let me think. There’s a man named Maximilian Pierpont who probably doesn’t have me at the top of his Christmas-card list. Then there’s Lois Bellamy, Gregory Halston, Alberto Fornati . . .” She listed some of her more prominent former victims. “Quite a number of people at the Prado museum in Madrid . . . Luckily most of them think I’m dead. Just like your friends at the FBI. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like it to stay that way.”

“Of course, we may not be looking for an enemy at all,” said Jean. “There may be other motives in play. Possibly this person admired your work and wants to follow in your footsteps.”

“Like a fan, you mean? Or a tribute band?” Tracy asked mockingly.

“Is that so unlikely?”

“Unlikely? From where I’m sitting, it’s completely ridiculous. Look. Your only viable suspect for these robberies is Elizabeth Kennedy. She’s a woman, she’s active, and she operates at this level. I know for a fact that she’d been working Sheila Brookstein for months. But I can assure you that that woman is no fan of mine. She seduced my husband, Inspector. She destroyed my life. And not for money. For fun.” Tracy’s voice hardened. “I hate her. And I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual.”

“Yes, but don’t you see?” said Jean. “That still makes you the link. Elizabeth Kennedy emerges as a new suspect, totally unknown to Interpol until now . . . and even
she’s
connected to you.”

“Meaning?”

Jean groaned. “I don’t know. I don’t know what it means.”

He’d lost the thread, if he ever even had one in the first place. He was hungry and exhausted. Trying to hold on to a thought felt like swimming through molasses.

“Forget me for the moment,” said Tracy. “Let’s assume there is a link between the robberies and the murders. Let’s also assume that Elizabeth
was
involved in all the robberies. Given that we know I wasn’t.”

Jean nodded. “Okay.”

“Shouldn’t your next move be to find Elizabeth? Whatever your doubts, Jean, the way I see it, she’s all you’ve got.”

“You could be right. But finding Elizabeth Kennedy may be easier said than done. The young lady’s a pro. She’s given the FBI the slip on at least three occasions that I know of. She evaporated out of L.A. after the Brookstein job even faster than you did.”

“And more successfully, evidently,” Tracy added ruefully. “So what
do
you know about her?”

“Not much.” Jean gave her the bare bones of Elizabeth’s history as provided by the FBI. Her upbringing in England, her juvenile record, the string of crimes in which she’d been identified as a “person of interest” and some of her known aliases. “The feds are convinced she works with a partner. A man. Just like you did with Jeff Stevens.”

“I doubt that.”

Jean looked surprised. “Why?”

“Why split the money if you don’t have to? Jeff and I were different. A one-shot deal, if you like. Only a man would assume that a woman like Elizabeth needs a man behind her, pulling the strings.”

Jean signaled for the check.

“Thanks for coming out tonight, Tracy.”

“I didn’t have much choice, did I?” she said.

“Look. I like you,” said Jean. “I do. I can see you’ve built a good life here. I don’t want to cause trouble for you and your son.”

“Then don’t.” Despite herself, Tracy’s eyes began to well up. “I’ve told you as much as I know. Truly. Please leave us alone now.”

“I can’t,” said Jean. “Not yet.”

“What do you mean, you can’t? Of course you can!”

Jean shook his head. “I have a job to do, Tracy. I have to catch this bastard before he kills again. If the FBI catches up with Elizabeth Kennedy before I do, they’ll charge her with the thefts and send her to jail and we’ll lose our only link to this psycho, whoever he is. What you said just now was right. We need to find Elizabeth.”

“I didn’t say ‘we.’ I said ‘you,’ ” Tracy shot back angrily. “
You
need to find her, Jean.”

“We need to find her and follow her until we find
him.
”

“If there
is
a him.”

“I need your help, Tracy.”

“For God’s sake, I don’t
know
Elizabeth,” Tracy pleaded. “How can I possibly help you? I told you, I ran into her in L.A. by chance. Before that I hadn’t seen her in years. Almost a decade! I didn’t even know her real name till tonight.”

“The point is, she knows
you,
” said Jean. “She thinks like you. She operates like you. You’re inside her head, Tracy, whether you want to be or not. You have to help me find her before Milton Buck does.”

“And if I refuse?” Tracy’s eyes flashed defiantly.

“I’ll expose you. I’ll tell your son the truth. I’m sorry, Tracy”—Jean sighed—“but I don’t have a choice.”

There were a few moments of silence. Then Tracy said, “Once we find her, do you swear you will leave me alone? You will never, ever try to contact me again?”

“You have my word.”

Jean offered her his hand. Tracy shook it. He had a firm handshake, and his palm was warm and dry against her own.

Tracy thought,
I trust him.

God help me.

Jean signed the check and they walked outside. The crisp night air felt reviving to both of them as they walked to Jean’s car.

“So,” said Jean. “You’re Elizabeth Kennedy. You’ve spent the last six months planning to steal the Brookstein rubies only to have your archrival beat you to the punch at the very last moment. What’s your next move?”

Tracy thought for a moment.

“Regroup. When a job goes wrong, you need some time to recover. You analyze it, try to learn from your mistakes.”

“Okay. Where? If it were you, where would you go to do that?”

“If it were me?” Tracy paused, then smiled. “Home. If it were me, I’d go home.”

CHAPTER 15

LONDON

THREE MONTHS LATER . . .

E
DWIN GREAVES WATCHED THE
rain stream down his kitchen windowpane and wondered,
What did I come in here for again?
Edwin Greaves’s large, comfortable flat looked over Cadogan Gardens. The communal tennis courts were drenched and deserted, overhung by trees stripped bare of their leaves by the driving rain and bitter autumn winds.

I used to play tennis. Charlie could always beat me, though. Even as a little boy.

Where is Charlie?

Charlie Greaves, Edwin’s son, usually came on a Tuesday, to help Edwin with his mail and his grocery shopping at Harrods. Edwin Greaves always shopped at Harrods. One must maintain some standards after all, even in one’s nineties.

Why wasn’t Charlie here yet? Perhaps it wasn’t Tuesday? Although Edwin could have sworn it was.

“Can I help you with the tea, Mr. Greaves?”

A young woman’s voice drifted through from the drawing room.

Ah, that was it. Tea. I’m making tea for me and the nice young lady from Bonhams auction house.

“No, no, my dear. You make yourself comfortable. I’ll be through in a moment.”

The young woman smiled warmly when the old man finally shuffled back into the room. Setting down the tray with a rattle, he handed her a cup of tea in an antique Doulton china mug. It was stone cold.

“Thank you.” She sipped it anyway, pretending not to notice. “I’ve signed the paperwork here and attached the check. But perhaps we should wait for your son?”

“Why? It’s not his painting.”

“Well, no. But . . .”

“I’m not dead yet, you know.” Edwin Greaves laughed. His lungs made a ghastly, wheezing sound, like a broken accordion. “Although to hear Charlie’s wife talk, you’d think everything I owned was already theirs. Bloody vultures.” The old man’s face darkened suddenly. The young woman dealt with a lot of rich, elderly people. She knew well how their moods could shift at the drop of a hat, like clouds in a stormy sky.

“Besides,” Edwin went on, “it’s not as if it’s a genuine Turner. Everyone knows it’s a fake.”

“That’s true,” the young woman said amiably. “But it’s still valuable. Gresham Knight was one of the most brilliant forgers of his generation. That’s why my client is prepared to make such a generous offer.”

“May I?” Edwin Greaves’s gnarled fingers reached for the check. He held it up close to his face, scanning and rescanning the number with his rheumy old eyes. “Fifty thousand pounds?” He looked at the woman from Bonhams in astonishment. “That’s far too much money! Good gracious, my dear, I can’t possibly accept that.”

She laughed. “Like I say, it’s not a Turner, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. My advice is that you make the sale. But of course, if you prefer to wait for your son . . .”

“No, no, no,” Edwin Greaves said tetchily. “Charlie’s coming on Tuesday. It’s not his painting anyway. We’re going to go through my mail.”

The young woman passed him a pen. Edwin Greaves signed the papers.

“We were going to play tennis, but then this beastly rain set in.”

“That’s a shame. May I take the painting now?”

“Charlie comes on Tuesdays.”

She slipped the painting into the padded canvas bag she’d brought along for the purpose.

“There’s the check, Mr. Greaves, on the coffee table. Would you like me to put it somewhere safe for you?”

“This dratted tea’s gone cold.” Edwin Greaves frowned down at his cup in confusion. “He’s terribly good at tennis, Charlie. He always beats me.”

The old man was still muttering as the young woman took her leave, closing the front door of the flat behind her.

ELIZABETH KENNEDY LAUGHED TO
herself as the black cab splashed along the Embankment toward the City.

Stupid old fool.

Unzipping the canvas bag, Elizabeth looked lovingly at the painting, an exquisitely executed oil of a classic, Turneresque pastoral scene. Everything she’d told Edwin Greaves was true. The painting wasn’t a Turner. It was a forgery, one of Gresham Knight’s best. And it was valuable. At least ten times more valuable than the £50,000 Elizabeth had just paid for it. The check she’d given Edwin was real enough, although the account was untraceable to her. Greaves would get something for his stupidity, which was more than he deserved. Perhaps he could buy his grasping, inheritance-hungry son a new tennis racket?

London looked gray and dreary in the rain. The Thames snaked beside the road, swollen and sluggish. Commuters scurried into the tube stations like rats down a drain, stooped and shivering beneath their umbrellas and mackintosh raincoats. But Elizabeth was pleased to be home. Warm and safe in the back of the cab, with her latest acquisition nestled triumphantly in her lap, she felt her confidence slowly returning.

L.A. had been a disaster. Months of work “grooming” the Brooksteins had ended in failure and humiliation at the hands of none other than Tracy bloody Whitney. Elizabeth loathed Tracy. Partly because people in the business still spoke of her in hushed tones, as if she were some sort of goddess whose record as a con artist could never be broken. By Elizabeth’s count, she had already outperformed Tracy Whitney on every measurable scale. She’d pulled off more jobs, for more money than Whitney had ever earned, even in her heyday. But the root of Elizabeth’s dislike was not professional envy, but sexual jealousy.

Jeff Stevens loved Tracy Whitney.

Elizabeth could not forgive Tracy for that.

Nor could she understand it.

I’m better looking than that bitch, and I’m infinitely better in bed. Why would Jeff choose her when he could have had me?

Elizabeth hadn’t intended to fall for Jeff. Indeed, of all her countless scores of male conquests, Jeff Stevens was the
only
man with whom she’d ever felt something more than a straightforward desire to have sex. Perhaps it was the fact that she’d never had him sexually, apart from that one kiss. And yet there
had been
intimacy there, emotionally. Jeff brought out something deeper in Elizabeth, something no other man had, before or since.

He’s like my mirror. My twin.
He’s part of me.

Over the years, Elizabeth had researched Jeff’s life and background extensively. The more she discovered, the more similarities she found between his life and her own. They had both been abandoned by their parents when young, both effectively “adopted.” They’d learned to live by their wits from their midteens, and to use their good looks and street smarts to outwit the greedy and make their way in the world. They both did what they did for the thrill as much as for the money. And because they were the best at it. The best of the best. Add to that their powerful sexual chemistry and it was clear to Elizabeth that she and Jeff Stevens were destined to be together.

There was only one fly in the ointment. Jeff Stevens hated Elizabeth Kennedy with a passion bordering on the psychotic. Their paths had crossed once or twice over the past decade—they were in the same business after all. Jeff never failed to cut her dead.

Jeff’s last words to Elizabeth had been said in Hong Kong three years ago. Elizabeth was on a job at the time, a rather daring diamond heist at the airport—a high point of her career, as it turned out. Jeff was after some ancient Chinese stone tablets for a collector in Peru. He’d returned to his hotel room one night to find Elizabeth naked and waiting for him in his bed.

“Admit it,” she purred, spreading her smooth, caramel-brown legs and arching her perfect dancer’s back. “You want me. You want me as much as I want you. You always have.”

The bulge in Jeff’s pants seemed to confirm her suspicions. But the look of revulsion on his face spoke otherwise.

“I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last woman on earth.”

“Sure you would,” said Elizabeth. “Remember how badly you wanted to in London? Before your wife walked in and ruined it all.”

“Get out.”

He picked up Elizabeth’s clothes, threw them at her and opened the door.

“I lost the only woman I ever loved because of you.”

The humiliation of Jeff’s sexual rejection had faded, but the memory of his words still stung.
The only woman I ever loved . . .

Tracy Whitney wasn’t Jeff Stevens’s soul mate.

Elizabeth Kennedy was.

Someday, somehow, she would force him to open his eyes.

“Here we are, love.”

The cab had stopped. They’d reached Canary Wharf already. Elizabeth paid the fare and hurried into her building, a glass-and-steel monolith with panoramic views across London. Her apartment was stunning, a five-thousand-square-foot penthouse stuffed full of fine art and exquisite modern furniture. Having grown up in a poky, cramped council house in Wolverhampton, Elizabeth craved space and simplicity. Much of her decor had an Asian theme and the entire space was high-ceilinged and open plan. A bamboo screen separated Elizabeth’s enormous, bespoke bed with its red silk sheets from a living room that looked more like an art gallery than a private home. Kicking off her shoes and setting the Gresham Knight oil painting gently down on the red lacquer dining table, she poured herself a glass of perfectly chilled Château d’Yquem and sank down onto the sofa.

Too pumped to watch television, she tapped a manicured finger on her iPad and closed her eyes, allowing the calming sounds of Verdi to flood her senses. As they did so often, her thoughts turned to Jeff Stevens.

Darling Jeff. Where are you now, I wonder?

Elizabeth had heard through the grapevine that Jeff was planning a big job in New York over Christmas. She didn’t know what it was yet, although Jeff being Jeff, it was sure to involve some obscure medieval manuscript or piece of Etruscan pottery. Elizabeth did not share his fascination with old and dusty relics of civilizations past. Why limit your resale market if you didn’t have to? Elizabeth almost never took jobs on commission, preferring to auction off her spoils on the black market to the highest bidder.

Running her fingers through her hair—she was growing out the severe cut she’d had in L.A., and now sported a midlength auburn bob—Elizabeth pondered a return to the States. She hadn’t given up on Jeff Stevens. New York would be her best opportunity to seduce him since Hong Kong. This time, she would try a less direct approach. She would attempt to impress him professionally before turning on the big guns. If she pulled off something spectacular and ingenious, she might at least win his respect. That would be a start.

Various possibilities presented themselves. The rich and stupid flocked to New York at Christmastime. It was really just a question of picking off that one juicy, stray gazelle. That and convincing her business partner to let her go in the first place.

“It’s far too soon,” he snapped when Elizabeth suggested it over the phone. “We do nothing more in America for a year at least.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

The debacle over the Iranian rubies had dented Elizabeth’s confidence, but it seemed to have shattered her partner’s equilibrium completely. Ever since the failed Brookstein job, he’d been jumpy and neurotic, perpetually looking over both their shoulders.

“The FBI is all over us.”

“All over me, you mean,” Elizabeth corrected. “Anyway, so what? Since when do we run scared from the federal bunch of idiots? I want to do New York.”

“No.”

“There’s a charity gala on the—”

“I said no.”

The line went dead.

Elizabeth Kennedy was beginning to grow increasingly weary of her partner. The longer they worked together, the more weird and controlling he became. In the beginning she’d been happy to play second fiddle, the young rookie to his seasoned mentor. Especially as he was prepared to split profits fifty-fifty. But now, with each succeeding job, she questioned whether or not she really needed him. They’d been a great team and made a phenomenal amount of money together. But all great partnerships came to an end eventually.

Who knows, perhaps when Jeff finally sees the light, he and I could start working together. New York could be the start of a new chapter.

Elizabeth Kennedy sipped her wine and allowed herself to dream.

JEAN RIZZO YAWNED AS
the tube train rattled toward Paddington Station. He’d barely slept the previous night, and was dead on his feet, but there was no chance of getting a seat. The car was overcrowded and dirty. A horrible stench of bad breath and body odor mixed with commuters’ competing perfumes and aftershaves made his stomach churn.

This time tomorrow I’ll be on the Eurostar on my way home.

It couldn’t come soon enough for Jean Rizzo. He missed his children, his apartment, his life. But he felt deflated. He’d arrived in London two weeks ago full of hope and excitement. Tracy’s hunch about Elizabeth Kennedy had been the right one. Elizabeth
had
returned to London after her failed L.A. job, to regroup and plan her next move. After a lot of good old-fashioned detective work, Jean had tracked her down and begun a grueling, week-long surveillance. He’d watched Elizabeth set up to swindle Edwin Greaves, the multimillionaire philanthropist and art collector. Brilliant in his day, Greaves had been cruelly ravaged by Alzheimer’s in old age, making him a vulnerable target. Like a shark smelling blood, Elizabeth Kennedy had exploited the old man’s weakness, making off with a painting worth millions.

Jean Rizzo thought,
She has no scruples. She’d sell her own child if the price was right.

But he wasn’t here to catch Ms. Kennedy out in a con, or to recover stolen art. He was here to catch a killer. There had been no more murders since Sandra Whitmore, back in the summer. Since Elizabeth walked out of Cadogan Gardens with the oil painting, Jean Rizzo hadn’t let her out of his sight. But she’d met with no accomplices, made no sudden or unusual moves of any kind. More importantly, no murder had followed the art theft. Four days had passed now. The Bible Killer always struck within two days. The trail was as cold as Jean’s toes in his sodden, rain-drenched socks.