Sidney Sheldon's Reckless

by Tilly Bagshawe

Hélène looked at the money. Then she looked at the man’s face. And made a decision.

  What the hell. You only live once.

  CHAPTER 20

  TRACY MIGHT NOT BE a real poker player. But she could certainly do a good poker face.

  Two days after the mysterious shooting incident in Montmartre—despite multiple witnesses, both the would-be assassin and the victim he apparently wounded disappeared without a trace—Tracy paid an official visit to the Neuilly crime scene.

  “Miss Whitney’s a special advisor to the CIA on Group 99,” Greg Walton explained over the phone to Benjamin Liset, his French intelligence counterpart in Paris. “I trust you’ll give her every assistance.”

  Benjamin found he had no trouble assisting Miss Whitney, who turned out to be not only polite, intelligent and attractive, but thin and well dressed, a positive barrage of surprises from an American female.

  The same could not be said of Tracy’s colleague from the FBI, Agent Milton Buck, an arrogant, overbearing boor if ever Benjamin Liset had seen one.

  “Forensics went over the entire campus, I presume?” Buck asked, in a tone that made it quite clear he presumed nothing of the sort.

  “Naturally.” Benjamin’s tone was frosty.

  “Why haven’t we seen a report?”

  “Because this isn’t your investigation, Agent Buck. I hope I don’t need to remind you but you are here as our guests, solely as a courtesy.”

  “Courtesy?” Buck laughed rudely. “I wouldn’t say that’s what you French are known for. I hope I don’t need to remind you that your government has promised the president full disclosure and total cooperation. I mean, let’s face it, Ben, you could use the help, right? What’s it been now, two weeks? And still no leads?”

  Tracy watched in an agony of embarrassment as the Frenchman turned and walked away.

  “It’s jerks like you that give Americans a bad name, Buck.”

  Milton Buck shrugged. “The truth hurts. Just calling it like I see it. Speaking of ‘no leads,’ your latest report on Althea made depressing reading, Tracy. You’re no closer to finding her than when you started, are you?”

  Tracy glared at him. “You asked me to look for links between Althea and what happened on this campus.”

  “Exactly,” said Buck.

  “Well, there are none. I realize you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Agent Buck. But I’m not sure I can simplify that any further, even for you,” Tracy shot back. “How’s the hunt for Hunter going? From what I hear the tumbleweed’s still rolling.”

  It was hard not to blurt out to the odious Milton Buck that she’d already tracked down Hunter Drexel; that she’d come this close to confronting him face-to-face; and that the British had too, leaving him and his tragically arrogant agency in ignominious third place. The only person she’d told about what really happened in Montmartre was Cameron Crewe. And even with him she’d left out the part about seeing Jeff.

  Because you didn’t see him. You couldn’t have. You made a mistake in the heat of the moment.

  “As usual, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Milton Buck said caustically. Leaning in closer, he hissed in Tracy’s ear. “Walton won’t protect you forever, you know. If you don’t come up with something on Althea soon, people are going to start asking questions. Like whether you know more than you’re telling.”

  “Like you with Hunter Drexel, you mean?” Tracy hissed back.

  Buck looked for a moment as if he might hit her. “Do yourself a favor and forget about Drexel. I’m a senior FBI agent, Miss Whitney. You’re an ex–con artist who’s in danger of outliving her usefulness.”

  To Tracy’s relief, a charming Frenchwoman from ballistics interrupted them and led Tracy away for a detailed briefing on exactly what had happened at Neuilly. Getting away from Buck was a joy, but as always after her encounters with him, Tracy felt a dull residue of fear lingering in the pit of her stomach.

  He’s loathsome, but he might end up running the bureau one day.

  If he does he won’t rest till I’m back in jail and they’ve thrown away the key.

  Tracy took copious notes with the ballistics expert, then made her way up to the château that had been the main school building for lunch. She soon lost her appetite, however, when she spotted Major General Frank Dorrien making his way towards her in the buffet line.

  “Miss Whitney.” Frank gave Tracy the same blank, robotic smile she remembered from their last meeting in London. The man was about as sincere as a fortune cookie compliment. “I trust you’ve had an informative morning?”

  “Thank you. Yes. You?”

  “It’s been very interesting.”

  The last time Tracy had seen Frank he’d been standing in the street in Montmartre, flapping his arms like a distressed chicken as his quarry, Hunter Drexel, got away, along with his would-be killer. Tracy had decided that the blond with the limp must have been Hunter.

  As she told Cameron later that night, “It was him, I know it. I think he’d been shot in the leg.”

  As usual, Cameron ended up playing Devil’s advocate. “It could have been a bystander, hurt in the crossfire.”

  Tracy wasn’t buying it. “A bystander would lie there and wait for help, especially once the gunman had made a run for it. But this man was as desperate to get away as the shooter. He couldn’t risk being identified.”

  And Hunter Drexel had gotten away, again, leaving Major General Frank Dorrien red-faced and empty-handed. For the second time that day, Tracy found herself resisting the temptation to shame a man she loathed. Not least because, if she had seen him that day, there was at least a chance that Frank had seen her entering Pascal Cauchin’s apartment, but was choosing to keep quiet about it.

  Maybe we’re both keeping secrets?

  From each other and from the CIA?

  “Do you know the most interesting thing I learned today?” Frank asked casually, helping himself to a large slice of Brie and proceeding to slather it over his baguette. “One of the teenagers murdered here was Jack Charlston.”

  Frank gave Tracy a questioning look, but the name meant nothing to her.

  “Jack was Richard Charlston’s son. Only son, as it happened.”

  Richard Charlston. It rang a bell. Tracy dredged her memory, trying to place it.

  “Richard was the MEP who opposed Crewe Oil’s attempts to secure fracking rights across the EU, including right here in France,” Frank Dorrien reminded her. “Vociferously opposed. And successfully.”

  That’s right. Cameron had mentioned the name Richard Charlston to Tracy the very first night they met, in Geneva. He’d been in Switzerland trying to drum up support in the European parliament for an expansion of his European business, and the British MEP was speaking against him.

  “I remember,” Tracy said.

  “Richard Charlston was due to give a speech here, at Camp Paris, on the day of the shooting but pulled out at the last moment. I daresay nobody informed Group 99 of the change of plans. Still”—Frank smiled—“at least they got his son. I daresay that’s better than nothing from your boyfriend’s point of view.”

  Tracy put down her plate. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Merely that Cameron Crewe was an enemy of Richard Charlston. Just as he was an enemy of Henry Cranston. Doesn’t it strike you as curious the way that Group 99 seem to target your boyfriend’s enemies?” Frank helped himself to a large handful of dates and some pâté. “Almost as if they’re doing Crewe Oil’s dirty work.”

  A surge of absolute loathing ran through Tracy’s body.

  “Cameron lost a son,” she told Frank. Her voice was quiet but she was shaking with anger. “Marcus. He was a teenager, just like the children murdered here.”

  “Yes, I . . .”

  “I’m not finished.” Tracy cut the general off furiously. “I lost my son, too. At the same age. So you see, General, we know what it feels like. Cameron and I. We know what the Neuilly massacre parents are going throug
h. In a way that you never will. If you think for one second that Cameron is capable . . . that he would ever be involved in the murder of children, or support that in any way . . . then you’re even more bigoted than you look. You’re deranged.”

  Frank looked at Tracy calmly. “I believe that all human beings are capable of terrible things, Miss Whitney. Just as we are all capable of greatness. Don’t you?”

  Tracy glared at him in silence.

  What a hateful, hateful man, she thought, as the general walked away.

  But the names Jack and Richard Charlston haunted her for the rest of the day.

  Group 99. Fracking. Cameron.

  There was a link there. Not the link that Frank Dorrien was insinuating. But a link. Something connecting Cameron, or at least his industry, with these vile and cowardly acts of terror.

  Did Hunter Drexel know what that link was? Was that why he had run?

  Had Hunter seen whatever it was that Tracy was missing?

  And where did Althea, whoever she was, fit into the puzzle?

  Not for the first time, Tracy was left with the unsettling feeling that nothing and nobody were what they seemed.

  UPSTATE NEW YORK WAS beautiful at this time of year. From her bedroom window at the rehab facility, Kate Evans enjoyed glorious views across rolling countryside. Bright green fields and wildflower meadows stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted with cows, picket fences, oak trees and the occasional white clapboard farmhouse. There was nothing ugly out here. Nothing noisy or unpleasant, no poverty or disease or filth or pain. Not a blade of grass out of place, in fact. Just the sort of sanitized, unthreatening, almost manicured beauty that occurred when human beings took nature in hand and bent it to their will. All was order and peace. It was the perfect place to rest, and Kate had rested. But now it was time to go.

  “I wish you’d reconsider.”

  Bill Winter, Kate’s psychiatrist, tried again to change her mind. Tall and thin, with a craggy face like a dried-up riverbed and intense, thoughtful brown eyes, Dr. Winter reminded Kate of her father. Owen Evans had died during Kate’s first year of high school—a massive heart attack had felled him instantly, like a lightning-struck tree. That was the first time Kate’s heart had broken. It hadn’t healed, not fully anyway, till she met Daniel.

  “I know you do.” She smiled at Dr. Winter. “But I really can’t stay any longer. There’s someone I need to see. And I really do feel so much better.”

  That last part was truthful. But most of what Kate had revealed to her doctors and therapists here at Westchester Meadows had been a web of half-truths, interwoven with outright lies. That was one of the benefits of a life spent working in intelligence. Once you knew what it meant to go into deep cover—to become somebody else, for your own safety and the safety of others—you learned how to hold on to that other self with an iron grip. Even under hypnosis, Kate could be whoever she needed to be. And yet when the time came to break cover, she could walk away without a backward glance.

  Daniel used to say it was like a snake shedding its skin.

  Althea had been a necessary cover, a role she had needed to play. But it was time to let her go.

  Hunter Drexel’s phone call had started the process. Here, at Westchester Meadows, Kate had finished it. The drugs had helped. So had the therapy. And the sleep. But the biggest factor had been Daniel, coming to her in her dreams.

  You must forgive yourself, Kate.

  Everything you did you did for me. For us.

  But you can let go now. Move on.

  Darling Daniel! She still missed him so much sometimes, it was hard to breathe.

  She could let go of Althea and what Althea had done. But she couldn’t move on. Not yet. Not until she’d seen Hunter Drexel face-to-face. Not until she’d closed the circle.

  “Where will you go?” Bill Winter asked. “As long as you’re in New York I’d still like you to see me at least once a week. And you should start going back to Lucy Grey regularly as well. Don’t let things unravel again. It’s easier than you think.”

  “I won’t.” Kate hugged him, zipping up her bag. “And I promise to come and see both of you as soon as I get back.”

  “Back?” Dr. Winter frowned. “Where are you going?”

  Kate smiled. “To Europe. Like I said. There’s someone I need to see there. He’s been waiting a long time.”

  SALLY FAIERS HUDDLED UNDER her umbrella and lit another cigarette.

  It was raining, and she wasn’t even in bloody England. The bad weather, clearly, was following her. Just like bad luck seemed to follow her. Or perhaps it was bad choices?

  Bad pennies.

  Bad men.

  She knew she shouldn’t have come here. Standing outside Chimay Castle, a lone tourist in this historic but obscure Belgian town, just a few miles from the French border, she felt the full, humiliating stupidity of her decision.

  What if Hunter didn’t show up?

  Or what if he did show up, dragged her into a world of trouble—and not just editor trouble, but the deep, real-world, kidnap and torture and murder trouble he seemed to have got himself into lately—and then left her? For another woman? Another story?

  Of course, Sally had her own story now. Tired of waiting for Hunter to let her in on his scoop, she’d spent the last couple of months doing her own digging into the murky world of global fracking. It would be the first thing she published on her own, assuming the Times sacked her for this latest extended period AWOL. Ironically, it was the best piece of work she’d produced in years. But Sally knew herself well enough to know that that wasn’t why she was here.

  As usual it was not her head that had pulled her back to Hunter Drexel, but her heart.

  Her stupid, weak, womanly heart.

  I hate myself.

  The worst part of it was, Hunter hadn’t even called Sally himself to ask for help. He’d had some girl do it—Hélène—no doubt the latest naive, trusting young floozy he was screwing.

  “A friend of yours is very sick,” the girl had told Sally, in broken English.

  “A friend?”

  “Yes. You know who. He won’t go to hospital. He wants you to meet him in Belgium.”

  Sally had established that this girl, Hélène, had picked up Hunter on the street in Paris—evidently he’d been shot in Montmartre—and he’d convinced her to get him out of France. Money may have changed hands. In any event, since then the girl had clearly thought better of the whole thing. Something had gone wrong between them. Now Hunter’s wound was infected, and she was panicking.

  “He scares me. He says . . . crazy things. I have to go back to Paris but if I leave him alone he will die.”

  Stupidly, moronically, Sally had found herself agreeing to a meeting in the grounds of Chimay Castle early on Monday morning. And now, of course, she was here. And Hunter, god damn him, was not.

  To pass the time, she started playing the “if” game.

  If he doesn’t show up in the next ten minutes, I’m leaving.

  If he wants my help, he’ll have to credit me on his story. But I’ll make sure mine runs first.

  If he wants to get back together, I’ll shut him down immediately. There is no way we can ever . . .

  She heard the little blue car before she saw it, straining up the hill like an asthmatic mule, its engine wheezing and spluttering in the rain. Sally was standing outside the castle walls, a few meters from the empty carpark where her own rental car kept a lonely vigil. The carpark was at the top of a long winding driveway. But instead of continuing its labored journey to the top, the blue car pulled into a lay-by halfway up. Sally watched as a skinny blonde in jeans and a trilby hat hopped out of the driver’s seat, pulled a small duffel bag from the boot, and threw it unceremoniously on the side of the road. Every movement, every gesture, was rushed. Frantic.

  That must be Hélène.

  Next she yanked open the passenger door. Sally watched in confusion as a man stepped out, slowly and gingerly, onto the road
. The girl waited anxiously for him to step away from the vehicle. Then, slamming the door closed behind him, she ran back around to the driver’s side, got in and turned the car around, speeding off into the distance in a thick smog of exhaust fumes and desperation, back towards France.

  Skinny and frail, with ragged clothes and white-blond hair, her poor abandoned passenger looked utterly bereft and bewildered, standing next to his suitcase as the rain poured down.

  Sally’s first thought was. There’s been a mistake.

  The man looked nothing like Hunter.

  Before she had time for a second thought, she watched in horror as he sank to his knees and then collapsed completely, facedown and apparently lifeless on the ground.

  Shit! Sally looked around her.

  There was nobody else there. Just the two of them.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  Closing her umbrella, she started to run.

  TRACY’S PREMIER SUITE AT the Georges V in Paris was like something out of a storybook. More like a Marais apartment than a hotel room, it boasted a luxurious king-size bed draped with the finest silk and linen bedclothes, a deep marble bath, an antique walnut writing desk and salon area hung with refined artwork and spectacular views across the city. At almost six thousand euros a night, it was outrageously expensive. But it wasn’t as if Tracy had anything else to spend her money on. Besides, after the day she’d had today, not only walking through the horrors of Neuilly but having to contend with two of her least favorite people, Milton Buck and Frank Dorrien, she deserved a little luxury. Sleeping at the Georges V was like laying one’s head on a bed of clouds. For once Tracy could hardly wait to drift away.

  Throwing her Dior purse, phone and laptop down on the bed, she lit a Diptyque candle, filling the room with the scent of fig flowers, and smiled at the picture of Nicholas she had propped up on the nightstand. He was nine years old in the photograph, standing on the banks of the Colorado River with Blake Carter, holding an enormous salmon and grinning from ear to ear. Tracy adored the picture, because it showed Nick’s cheeky character as well as his love for Blake. And because, when he smiled, he looked exactly like Jeff. That was the Jeff Tracy wanted to remember. The Jeff she had loved so passionately. Before life got complicated and pulled them apart with a current too strong for either of them to resist.