Sidney Sheldon’s Chasing Tomorrow (Tracy Whitney)

EDWIN 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.

Tracy called from Colorado. “Maybe she works without a partner. It’s perfectly possible, Jean.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe the murders only happen after bigger, more high-­profile jobs? It could be an adrenaline thing. If so, this con on Mr. Greaves might have been too low-­key.”

“Hmm.”

Tracy had been true to her word and had helped Jean immensely with the investigation. Her insights into the workings of the con artist’s mind had been invaluable. And yet Jean Rizzo couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something, something crushingly obvious.

Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree entirely. Maybe Milton Buck was right after all. Maybe there is no link. Jean had been able to trace Elizabeth Kennedy to some of the cities at the times of the murders, but not to all of them. Was he spinning something out of nothing? Had finding first Tracy and now Elizabeth made him complacent—­a king admiring a fine, golden cloth that no one else could see? A cloth woven from the threads of his own desperation?

“This is Paddington Station. Paddington is the next station stop. Please alight here for trains to Oxford, Didcot, Birmingham New Street and Reading.”

The tinny-­sounding announcement jolted him back to reality. He’d decided to pay a visit to Gunther Hartog, Tracy Whitney’s old mentor and partner in crime. Not really in the hope or expectation of a breakthrough, but because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. According to Tracy, Hartog’s country house was a treasure trove of fine art, albeit mostly stolen or at least dubiously sourced.

“It’s the eighth wonder of the world,” Tracy told Jean. “And Gunther’s unique. You can’t leave London without meeting him.”

GUNTHER HARTOG LAY SPRAWLED out on a chaise longue, a cashmere blanket draped over his frail frame like a shroud. An oxygen tank hung next to him on an ugly metal frame that was utterly out of place in such a beautiful room. Tracy’s hyperbole on that score had turned out to be an understatement. From the second Jean Rizzo’s taxi pulled up outside the seventeenth-­century manor house, he realized he was in for a treat. The gardens were as immaculately manicured as any park. If the exterior was a delight, the interior was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of treasures. Oak-­paneled walls dripped with fine art the way that an old Vegas drag queen might drip with diamonds. Every rug was antique Persian, every glass Venetian, every cornice original, every stick of furniture plundered from one of Europe’s grand estates or Asia’s great palaces. Gunther Hartog was a man of both immense wealth and impeccable taste. In Jean Rizzo’s experience, the two very rarely went hand in hand.

Gunther Hartog was also dying. The gray patina of death hung over his sunken eyes and skeletal frame like an early morning mist. His limbs were like twigs and his skin was as dry and fragile as old parchment. He dismissed his nurse and invited Jean to sit beside him.

“Thank you for seeing me,” said Jean.

“Not at all. I have a conflicted relationship with most members of your profession, Inspector, as I daresay you know. But when you mentioned dear Tracy’s name, well . . . curiosity got the better of me.” Gunther’s voice was faint, but his mind was as sharp as ever. The devilish twinkle in his eye was also undiminished. “Have you seen her?”

“I have.”

“Is she well?”

“She is,” Jean answered cautiously. “She sends you all her love.”

Gunther sighed. “I suppose you can’t tell me where she is or what she’s been doing all this time?”

Jean shook his head.

“Even though I’m dying and would take the secret to my grave?”

“Sorry,” said Jean.

“Oh, don’t apologize,” wheezed Gunther. “I daresay you and she came to some arrangement. And I daresay she has her reasons for staying away. I do miss her, though.”

His pale eyes misted over. Jean could see that he had slipped back into the past, back to the glory days when he, Tracy and Jeff used to outwit the authorities again and again, from one side of the globe to the other. They’d helped to make one another rich, but Jean could see that the bond between them ran far deeper than that.

“So Tracy is helping you with your inquiries, is she?” Gunther asked.

“She is.”

“And what dastardly deed is it that you’re investigating, Inspector?”

“Murder.”

The playful smile on Gunther’s lips disappeared.

“Twelve murders, to be more precise.”

Jean Rizzo filled Gunther Hartog in on the Bible Killer’s victims, and the link he’d discovered between the murders and the string of robberies. He explained how he’d tracked Tracy down, suspecting that she might be the missing link that would lead him to the killer. Tracy had helped him to find Elizabeth Kennedy, but that was where the trail had gone cold.

At the mention of Elizabeth’s name, the old man became quite animated.

“Vile woman. So she’s still working, is she? I suppose I’m not surprised, although I’d rather hoped she might be rotting in a Peruvian jail by now.”

“You’re not a fan?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, Inspector. She’s a class act, very good at what she does. But she’s typical of the younger generation.”

“In what way?”

“She’s heartless and greedy. Utterly devoid of principles, never mind romance.”

“Romance?” Jean frowned.

“Oh yes!” Gunther cried. “There was terrific romance to our business in the old days, Inspector. Tracy and Jeff weren’t thieves, they were artists. Each job was a performance, a perfectly choreographed ballet, if you will.”

Jean thought, It’s a game to him. To all of them. But no one told Sandra Whitmore or Alissa Armand or any of the other girls the rules. Somehow they got caught up in the dance and paid for it with their lives. There was no romance in their lives, or their deaths, God help them.

Gunther was still talking. “Tracy and Jeff only ever took from the undeserving. They weren’t in the business of mugging old ladies. Not like Miss Kennedy. Money’s the only thing that motivates her and she’ll stop at nothing to acquire it. She destroyed Jeff and Tracy’s marriage, you know. From what I could learn at the time, she was paid to do it. Someone with a grudge against one or both of them hired Elizabeth to wreck things. Can you imagine such a thing? In my day such behavior was considered beyond the pale.”

He slumped back on the chaise longue, exhausted by the effort of such a long diatribe.

Once Gunther had caught his breath, Jean asked, “Did you ever hear about Elizabeth working with a partner? A man?”

“Years ago, yes. But I haven’t exactly followed the young lady’s career. Why?”

Jean shrugged. “The Bible Killer’s male. I’m looking for a man connected to Elizabeth Kennedy or Tracy Whitney. Or both. Of course, there is one person who fits that description perfectly.”

Gunther frowned.

“You don’t mean Jeff?”

“Jeff Stevens was intimate with both women. He’s also still active, traveling all over the world looting antiquities.”

“Whatever else Jeff’s doing, it isn’t looting,” Gunther protested.

“The point is he’s out there, using a string of aliases. He could have been in any of the cities in question at the right time.”

Gunther shook his head. “Jeff had nothing to do with this. I’d bet my life on it.”

“According to his FBI file, he regularly uses prostitutes. Did you know that?”

“No,” Gunther said truthfully. “I didn’t. What I do know is that Jeff wouldn’t hurt a fly, still less a woman.”

­“People change,” said Jean. “Maybe the split with Tracy pushed him over the edge. He could have had some sort of psychotic break. It happens.” He added, seeing Gunther’s skeptical expression, “When did you last see Jeff Stevens?”

“Some time ago,” Gunther said carefully. “I don’t remember exactly.”

“Months? Years?” Jean prompted.

“Years. Unfortunately.”

“Do you have any idea where he is now?”

“No,” said Gunther. “Although if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”

He rang an old-­fashioned brass bell to summon his nurse. His attitude toward Jean had clearly shifted for the worse.

“Is that why you came to see me, Inspector? To try to get me to betray one of my oldest friends?”

“Not at all. I came to see you because Tracy told me you’re the best-­connected man in England. And that if there were any rumors flying around, about Elizabeth Kennedy or her partner or anything else that might help me solve this case, you would have heard them.”

“Hmm.” Gunther was flattered but not mollified. “Does Tracy know you suspect Jeff of these murders?”

“I don’t suspect him,” said Jean. “I don’t suspect anyone, yet. Mostly because I have no damn evidence. But I can’t rule Jeff Stevens out to spare Tracy’s feelings, or yours. He may know nothing about this or he may know something. I don’t know. What I do know is that I would like to speak to him. My only obligation is to the women who were killed, and to those who may still be in danger. I have to catch this man, Mr. Hartog. That’s all I care about.”

The nurse came back in. A diminutive Filipina with limited English, she made up for what she lacked in stature with a fiercely protective manner. Immediately sensing her patient’s hostility toward his visitor, she positioned herself between the two of them like a bulldog, folding her arms and glaring at Jean.

“Mister very tired now,” she announced. “You leaving.”

Jean looked at her, then at Gunther Hartog.

“If you know anything, anything, and you don’t tell me . . . and another girl dies . . . it’s on your head. This isn’t a game anymore, Mr. Hartog.”

He walked away. As he reached the door Gunther called out to him.

“I’m hearing a lot of buzz about New York. Wonderful city for thieves, New York. Fine art, fine jewelry, fine museums and galleries to inspire one. Especially at Christmas.” He sighed. “Just thinking about it almost makes me feel young again.”

“New York?” said Jean.

“New York. The Winter Ball at the Botanical Garden is supposed to be particularly magical, I believe. Everyone who’s anyone will be there.

“You can see yourself out, Inspector.”