“Let me out!” He hammered on the windows, to the amused astonishment of passersby. “I’m trapped! For God’s sake, let me out!”
THE THREE POLICEMEN WALKED casually out of the side door of the headquarters building. They walked a few blocks together before shaking hands, parting ways and evaporating into the city.
All three of them were smiling.
CHIEF VALAPERTI WAS STILL in his car outside Roberto Klimt’s Via Veneto apartment when he got the call.
“He’s what?” The color drained from Valaperti’s face. “I don’t understand. In one of our cars? That’s not possible.”
“It was definitely Klimt, sir. He was in there for more than an hour. Right outside headquarters, yes. Hundreds of people saw him, but they assumed he was some madman we’d picked up. By the time it was reported to us, he was delirious with heatstroke. He kept saying something about a bowl . . .”
GUNTHER HARTOG DABBED AWAY tears of laughter with a monogrammed linen handkerchief.
“So you just sauntered off into the street, with Nero’s bowl tucked under your arm? How marvelous.”
“Marco and Antonio were faultless on the day,” said Jeff. He was sitting on the red Knoll sofa at Gunther’s country house, enjoying a well-earned glass of claret.
“I told you they were good.”
“I felt bad for the poor driver, though. What a pro! He knew what was happening right away. Never slowed down for a second when we tried to pull him over. Even when we ran him off the road, he was trying to get Klimt to give him the bowl so he could get it to safety. But the old fool wouldn’t let go of it.”
“I do love that you left him outside the Polizia di Stato building. A wonderful theatrical flourish, if I may say so.”
“Thanks.” Jeff grinned. “I thought so. Tracy would have loved it.”
Her name had come to his lips unbidden. It hung in the air now like a ghost, sucking all the celebration and bonhomie out of the atmosphere in an instant.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything?”
Gunther Hartog shook his head sadly. For a few moments a heavy silence fell.
“Well,” Gunther said at last. “My client, the Hungarian collector, couldn’t be more delighted with his acquisition. I wired our Italian friends their cut last night. And here, my dear boy, is yours.”
He handed Jeff a check. It was from Coutts, the private investment bank, in his name, and it had an obscenely large number written on it.
“No thanks.” Jeff handed it back.
Gunther looked perplexed. “What do you mean ‘no thanks.’ It’s yours. You’ve earned it.”
“I don’t need it,” said Jeff.
“I’m not sure I see what ‘need’ has to do with it.”
“All right, then. I don’t want it.” Jeff sounded more angry than he’d intended to. “Sorry, Gunther. But money doesn’t help me. It doesn’t mean anything. Not anymore.”
Gunther gave a nod of understanding. “You must give it away, then,” he said. “If it can’t help you, I’m sure it can help someone else. But that’s your decision, Jeff. I can’t keep it.”
TWO WEEKS LATER, AN article appeared in Leggo’s Rome edition under the headline TINY CHARITY RECEIVES REMARKABLE GIFT.
Roma Relief, an almost unknown nonprofit organization devoted to helping Gypsy families in some of Rome’s worst slums, received an anonymous donation of more than half a million euros.
The mystery donor asked that the money be used to set up a fund in memory of Nico and Fabio Trattini, two Roma brothers who died in an accidental fall from a condemned building two years ago.
“We’re incredibly grateful,” Nicola Gianotti, Roma Relief’s founder told us in an emotional interview. “Overwhelmed, really. Thank God for the kindness of strangers.”
CHAPTER 7
THREE MONTHS LATER
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, COLORADO
TRACY STOOD ON THE deck of her new home and gazed out at the mountains. She’d chosen the place for its privacy, set back off a private road in the hills above the quaint town of Steamboat Springs, and for the views, which were breathtaking. The snowcapped Rockies loomed like protective giants against a vast sky, cloudless and blue even on this cold October morning. Tracy could smell wood smoke and pine, and hear the distant whinnying of the horses in the fields.
It’s a far cry from my childhood in New Orleans, she thought, stroking her swollen belly protectively. Tracy’s father had been a mechanic and her mother a housewife, and although Tracy had been very happy, the Whitneys had never had much money. As a little girl growing up in the city, Tracy had always dreamed of wide-open spaces and ponies. Or somewhere just like Steamboat Springs. You’re a lucky girl, Amy. You’re going to grow up here and it’s going to be perfect.
It had not been an easy decision, returning to the States. Tracy hadn’t been back since the day she set sail on the QE2 from New York, to start a new life in Europe. Released from prison early, having spent years in the Southern Louisiana Penitentiary for Women for a crime she didn’t commit, Tracy had tried hard to go straight. But she quickly learned that very few people were prepared to give an ex-con a second chance. Her old employer, the Philadelphia Trust and Fidelity Bank, had laughed in her face when she attempted to get her old job back. Tracy was a brilliant computer expert with a first-class education. But she found even menial cleaning jobs hard to come by, and even harder to keep. As soon as anything was stolen or damaged, Tracy would get the blame and find herself fired. Without a means to support herself, she grew bitter and desperate. It was desperation that drove her to her first job as a jewel thief, robbing a thoroughly unpleasant woman by the name of Lois Bellamy.
That was the job during which she had first met Jeff Stevens. He conned her out of Lois Bellamy’s stolen jewels. Furious, Tracy had stolen them back. So began a rivalry that became an attraction that became love. The love of my life. Jeff Stevens had made Tracy Whitney’s life an adventure, a wild roller-coaster ride of adrenaline, excitement and fun.
But all rides must come to an end. Tracy had trusted Jeff utterly, but he had betrayed her utterly, shattering that trust and, with it, Tracy’s heart. The image of Jeff in the bedroom with Rebecca was seared permanently in Tracy’s brain, like a cattle brand.
She still loved him. She would always love him. But she knew she could never go back. Not to Jeff, not to London, not to any of it. From now on it would just be her and the baby. My baby. My Amy.
Right on cue, Tracy’s daughter gave a whopping kick. Tracy laughed out loud. You’re trying to break out of prison, aren’t you, my darling? Just like Mommy did.
Tracy had learned at her twenty-week scan that her unborn child was a girl, and she amazed herself by bursting into sobs of relief. A boy would have reminded her too much of Jeff. She decided at once to name her daughter Amy, after Amy Brannigan, the warden’s daughter at the penitentiary whom Tracy had come to love like her own.
Amy Doris Schmidt.
It was a good name, a fitting blend of the past and the future. Doris was the name of Tracy’s beloved mother. Doris Whitney would never know her granddaughter, but her memory would live on in Amy. Schmidt was the family name Tracy had chosen for her new identity, a tribute to dear old Otto Schmidt, her father’s business partner back in New Orleans. Tracy had adopted countless alter egos over the last ten years, but this one was different. The name she chose now would be hers and Amy’s for life. Tracy Whitney no longer existed. Nor did Tracy Stevens.
My name is Tracy Schmidt. My husband, Karl, a wealthy German industrialist, was killed in a freak skiing accident in February, shortly after Amy was conceived. I came to America to start a new life with our daughter. Karl always loved the mountains. I just know he would have adored Steamboat.
With Tracy’s computer background and long experience as a con artist, forging a new identity had been easy. Passports, credi
t history, medical records and Social Security cards—all could be created and altered at the click of a mouse. Telling Amy the truth, as she would have to one day—that would be the hard part. But Tracy would simply have to cross that bridge when she came to it. For now, Mrs. Tracy Schmidt had enough on her plate, decorating the nursery—Tracy had gone for a whimsical, Flower Fairies theme—and attending pregnancy yoga classes and doctor’s appointments down in town. Between that and managing the ranch—Tracy’s luxurious log-cabin home came with over a hundred acres of private land—she had little time to dwell on the future. Or the past.
“Knock knock. Don’t suppose you’ve got any coffee perkin’, ma’am?”
Tracy spun around. Blake Carter, her ranch manager, was in his early fifties but looked older, thanks to countless hard winters and hot summers spent outdoors in the mountains. Blake was a widower and handsome in a craggy, rugged sort of way. He was also shy, hardworking and relentlessly old school. Tracy had been trying for months, but nothing would stop Blake from addressing her as “ma’am.’ ”
“Morning, Blake.” She smiled. Tracy liked Blake Carter. He was quiet and strong and he reminded her of her father. She knew she could trust him not to ask questions about her background, or to gossip about her in the village. She knew she could trust him, period. “There’s plenty in the pot. Help yourself.”
She walked back into the kitchen. “Waddled” might be a more accurate word. At over eight months pregnant, Tracy’s belly was enormous and in the last two weeks her ankles had started to swell terribly. Come to think of it, everything had started to swell. Her fingers looked like five sausages sewn together and her face was as puffy and round as a Dutch cheese. The effect was made worse by the ultrashort haircut she’d adopted for her new persona as Mrs. Schmidt. Tracy had thought it looked so chic in the salon, when she was still slim and barely showing. Now it made her feel like a lesbian prison warden.
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
Blake Carter watched anxiously as Tracy slowed down, grabbing her belly.
“Yes, I think so. Amy’s been trying to break out of there all morning. She’s got quite a kick on her now. I . . . ow!”
Doubling over, Tracy grabbed the kitchen counter. Moments later, to her intense embarrassment, her water broke all over the newly tiled floor.
“Oh my God!”
“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” said Blake. He had no children of his own but had delivered countless calves, and unlike Tracy, he wasn’t remotely embarrassed.
“No, no,” said Tracy. “I’m having a home birth. If you wouldn’t mind just calling my doula and asking her to get up here? Her number’s on the refrigerator.”
Blake Carter frowned disapprovingly. “With all due respect, ma’am, your water just broke. You should be in a hospital. With a doctor, not a Dolittle.”
“Dou-la.” Tracy grinned.
She was determined to have a drug-free birth and to do it herself. Being a mother was the one role she had waited for her whole life. She needed to be good at it. Capable. In control. She needed to prove to herself that she could manage alone.
“I’d really feel better taking you to the hospital, ma’am. As your husband . . . you know . . . ain’t with you.”
“It’s all right, Blake, truly.” Tracy was touched by his concern and grateful for his calm, strong presence. But she’d planned for this. She was ready. “Just call Mary. She’ll know what to do.”
THE SCREAMS WERE GETTING LOUDER.
Blake Carter stood outside Tracy’s bedroom feeling increasingly alarmed. He knew a woman’s first delivery could take awhile. But he also knew that once the water has gone, the baby needs to get on out. Mrs. Schmidt had been in there for hours. And the noises she was making weren’t normal. Blake Carter had only known Tracy Schmidt a short while, but it was long enough to see that she was a tough cookie, physically and emotionally. It simply wasn’t like her to holler like that.
As for the do-lally, Mary, the girl looked like she was barely out of high school.
Another scream. This time there was fear in it. Enough’s enough.
Blake Carter burst into the room. Tracy was lying on the bed. The entire sheet and mattress were soaked with blood. The girl, Mary, hovered beside her, white-faced and panicked.
“Jesus Christ,” said Blake.
“I’m sorry!” The doula had tears in her eyes. “I . . . I didn’t know what to do. I know some bleeding can be normal but I . . .”
Blake Carter pushed the girl aside. Scooping Tracy up into his arms, he staggered toward the door. “If she dies, or the baby dies, it’s on your head.”
TRACY WAS LYING ON the floor of the plane. It was a 747 from the Air France fleet headed for Amsterdam and it was bumping around like crazy. Must be a storm. She was supposed to do something. Steal some diamonds? Tape up a pallet? She couldn’t remember. Sweat was pouring off her. Then the pain came again. Not pain, agony, like somebody cutting out her internal organs with a serrated kitchen knife. She screamed wildly.
In the front seat of the truck, Blake Carter fought back tears.
“It’s all right honey,” he told her. “We’re almost there.”
TRACY WAS IN A white room. She heard voices.
The prison doctor in Louisiana. “The cuts and bruises are bad but they’ll heal . . . she’s lost the baby.”
Her mother, on the telephone, the night that she died. “I love you very, very much, Tracy.”
Jeff, in the safe house in Amsterdam, screaming at her. “For Christ’s sake, Tracy, open your eyes! How long have you been like this?”
“HOW LONG HAS SHE been like this?” the young doctor barked at Blake Carter.
“Waters broke about four hours ago.”
“Four hours?” For a moment Blake thought the doctor was about to hit him. “Why the hell did you wait so long?”
“I didn’t realize what was happening. I wasn’t . . .” The words caught in the old cowboy’s throat. Tracy was already being wheeled into the operating room. She was still screaming and delirious. She kept calling for someone named Jeff. “Will she be okay?”
The doctor looked him square in the eye. “I don’t know. She’s lost a huge amount of blood. There are some signs of eclampsia.”
Blake Carter’s eyes widened. “But, she’ll live, right? And the baby . . . ?”
“The baby should live,” said the doctor. “Excuse me.”
THE PAIN WAS THERE, and then it was gone.
Tracy wasn’t afraid. She was ready to die, ready to see her mother again. She felt suffused with an immense sense of peace.
She had heard the doctor. Her baby would live.
That was all that mattered in the end.
Amy.
Tracy’s last thought was of Jeff Stevens and how much she loved him. Would he find out about his daughter eventually? Would he come looking for her?
It’s out of my hands now.
Time to let go.
BLAKE CARTER COLLAPSED IN sobs in the young doctor’s arms.
“I shouldn’t have been so rough on you earlier,” the doctor said. “This wasn’t your fault.”
“It was my fault. I should have insisted. I should have driven her here right away.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Mr. Carter. The point is, you brought her here. You saved her life.”
Blake Carter turned to look at Tracy. Heavily sedated after her emergency cesarean—she’d needed a blood transfusion while they stitched her back together—she was only now starting to come around. Her baby had been taken to the ICU for tests, but the doctor had assured Blake that everything looked good.
“My baby . . . ,” Tracy called out weakly, her eyes still closed.
“Your baby’s just fine, Mrs. Schmidt,” said the doctor. “Try to rest a little longer.”
“Where is she?” Trac
y insisted. “I want to see my daughter.”
The doctor smiled at Blake Carter. “Will you tell her or should I?”
“Tell me what?” Tracy sat up, wide-awake now and panicked. “What’s happened? Is she okay? Where’s Amy?”
“You might want to rethink that name.” Blake Carter chuckled softly.
Just then a nurse walked in, holding the swaddled infant in her arms. Beaming, she handed the bundle to Tracy.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Schmidt. It’s a boy!”
PART TWO
CHAPTER 8
PARIS
NINE YEARS LATER . . .
INSPECTOR JEAN RIZZO OF Interpol stared down at the dead girl’s face.
It was black and bloated, from the strangulation and from the drugs. Heroin. A huge amount of it. Track marks ran up both her arms, an advancing army of red pinpricks, harbingers of death. Her skirt was pushed up around her hips, her underwear had been removed, and her legs were splayed grotesquely.
“He positioned her after death?”
It wasn’t really a question. Inspector Jean Rizzo knew how this killer operated. But the pathologist nodded anyway.
“Raped?”
“Hard to say. Plenty of vaginal lesions, but in her line of work . . .”
The girl was a prostitute, like all the others. I must stop calling her “the girl.” Jean Rizzo chided himself. He checked his notes. Alissa. Her name was Alissa.
“No semen traces?”
The pathologist shook her head. “No, nothing. No prints, no saliva, no hair. Her nails have been cut. We’ll keep looking, but . . .”
But we won’t find anything. I know.
This was another of the killer’s signatures. He cut the girls’ nails after death, presumably to remove any traces of his DNA if they’d fought back. But there was more to it than that. The guy was a neat freak. He arranged his victims in degrading sexual positions, but he always brushed their hair, cut their nails, and left the crime scenes spotless. He’d been known to make beds and bag up trash. And he always left a Bible next to the corpse.
Sidney Sheldon's Chasing Tomorrow (Tracy Whitney) Page 9