“If it’s true,” Tracy finished, twisting her napkin round and round in her hands, “if she really did murder Nicholas, then it happened because of me. It’s my fault he died.”
Jeff gripped Tracy by the shoulders. “No it is not. It is not your fault, Tracy. Look at me. You can’t think like that.”
“But she knew me! She knows me! She wanted me to be a part of this, and when I refused to do it, Nick died.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Not on its own. You’re putting two and two together and making twenty.”
“Do you have any idea who she could be, Jeff?” Tracy asked him desperately. “Any idea how she knows me? What she wants with me?”
“No,” Jeff said. “I don’t. But I’d lay good money that Hunter Drexel does. And when we find him that’ll be the first question we ask. OK?”
Tracy nodded, grateful. “OK.”
“He’s already left Paris,” Jeff said.
“How do you know?”
Tracy suspected as much, but she was surprised to hear Jeff confirm it.
For the last five days Tracy had been unable to get any answer from Sally Faiers. Sally’s phone was off and she’d stopped opening her emails, which was very unusual. Sally had mentioned to Tracy a month ago that she was working on something—a story—but she’d been very cagey about what it was. Could her silence be connected with that?
Tracy suspected not. That Hunter Drexel had made a move, and that Sally Faiers might be swept up in it, keeping his secrets once again. But she had no hard evidence.
Did Jeff?
“Here.”
Scrolling through pictures on his iPhone, Jeff showed Tracy a string of grainy images. They showed a slim, blond man at a gas station, getting into a beat-up Renault Clio with a pretty young girl. A young girl who was definitely not Sally Faiers.
“That’s him?” Tracy squinted at the man in the picture. The resolution was terrible.
“We think so.”
“And the girl?”
“The car’s registered to an Hélène Faubourg. Twenty-three years old, art student from Paris. No known links to Group 99. None of her friends have seen her since the Montmartre shooting. Car was dumped a few miles from the Belgian border. No leads since.”
“OK,” said Tracy, waving to the waiter for the bill and smiling at Jeff for the first time. “So I guess we’re going to Belgium.”
“Not we. You.”
“But I thought you said . . .”
“We can’t make it too obvious we’re collaborating,” Jeff said. “Not unless we want the spooks getting suspicious. Say what you like about Frank Dorrien, but he’s not stupid.”
No, Tracy thought, he’s not.
“I’ll join you in a week. Or as soon as either of us finds something.”
THEY SAID THEIR GOODBYES and agreed to meet the next day at noon. In the intervening hours, Tracy would come up with a suitable cover story to tell her bosses at the CIA, and Jeff would do the same with his British paymasters.
Jeff waited until Tracy was completely out of sight before jumping into a cab and heading to a different, equally nondescript bistro in another quarter of the city.
Frank Dorrien greeted him warmly.
“Well done. You did it.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said without enthusiasm. Reaching under his shirt he ripped off the tiny recording device stuck to his chest and handed it back to the general. “I did it.”
“You strayed from the script once or twice,” Frank said, still smiling. “I’m not sure there was any need for all that ‘Julia Cabot doesn’t trust the president’ business.”
“It’s the truth,” said Jeff.
“I daresay. But Tracy Whitney didn’t need to know it. However, I’m not complaining. You got the job done. She trusts you.”
Yes, Jeff thought. She trusts me. And I just betrayed her.
Reading his thoughts, Frank said firmly, “You’re doing this for her, Jeff. Don’t forget that. You’re saving her from a very dangerous situation. She thinks she can handle this but she can’t. We’ll protect her. ”
“Will you?”
“Of course.” Frank sounded almost impatient. “You have my word.”
Your word.
The two men looked at each other. Tracy’s words echoed in Jeff’s head: Dorrien’s using you, Jeff. He’s in this up to his neck.
“I have to go.” Jeff pushed back his chair. He was feeling more like Judas Iscariot by the minute.
“Why did you tell Tracy to go to Belgium alone?” Frank asked suddenly. “You said you’d follow her later.”
“That’s right. I need a break.”
“A break?” Frank’s face darkened.
“Yes. I need some time off. Alone. A week should do it.”
Frank looked at him incredulous. “A week? Have you gone mad? This is no time to take a holiday, Stevens. We are this close to getting Drexel. We need to stay on Whitney now more than ever.”
“Stay on her, then.” Now it was Jeff’s turn to get angry. “That’s your job, isn’t it?”
“I’m serious. You can’t leave.”
“So am I,” said Jeff. He didn’t like that “can’t.” “I’m taking a week, Frank.”
“And just what, exactly, do you need this week for?”
“It’s personal.”
“That’s not good enough! This is a matter of national security. A matter of duty.”
Jeff shrugged, as if to say not my problem.
“There’s something I need to do, that’s all. I’ll be in touch.”
Frank Dorrien watched Jeff Stevens leave the café. Beneath the table, his fists were clenched so tightly that the muscles in his fingers began to spasm.
That’s not how it works, Stevens, he thought furiously. You and Whitney don’t get to call the shots.
Frank had warned Jamie MacIntosh that this would happen. That bringing in amateurs was the thin end of the wedge. But of course, no one had listened to him.
Frank paid the bill and slipped out into the night.
Regrettably, it was time to take matters into his own hands.
TRACY’S MIND WAS RACING too fast after dinner with Jeff for her to go back to her hotel and sleep. She decided to take a walk along the river.
Before she got a hundred yards from the bistro, her cellphone buzzed with a text.
It was from Cameron.
I miss you.
Tracy texted back. I miss you too. Then she felt guilty because it wasn’t true. Not in that exact moment anyway. Or perhaps the guilt was because she’d just seen Jeff—not only seen but agreed to work with him again—information she already knew she wasn’t going to share with Cameron.
Why not? she asked herself now. Is there something about Jeff Stevens that brings out the liar in me? The con artist?
When Jeff was around life always got more exciting. But it also got more complicated. More gray.
Or perhaps Tracy was blaming Jeff for her own uncertainty? Right now she had no idea how she felt about Cameron, or Jeff, or anything. I barely know who I am anymore. She still hoped that when she solved the mystery of Althea there would be some sort of closure on Nick’s death, and that she could move on. But move on to what?
Without Nick, who was she?
Who did she want to be?
Cameron Crewe loved her. He hadn’t said it in so many words yet. But since their trip to Hawaii, Tracy knew.
The question was, did she love him back?
Unfortunately, Tracy didn’t have an answer. She was happy when she was with him and sad when she left him behind. Was that love?
She felt calm around him. Was that love?
Her darling dad always used to tell her that if you had to ask whether you loved someone, you didn’t. Tracy had never had to ask with Jeff. Then again, loving Jeff had brought her more pain than anything else in her life—apart from losing Nicholas, obviously. Perhaps loving Cameron Crewe would be different? Calm and easy and painless.
Could
love be like that?
Perhaps having dinner with Jeff tonight had been a mistake? It had stirred everything up again, filled Tracy with doubts and fears and emotions that, up till now, she’d convinced herself she had under control. The fact that Jeff was so obviously jealous of Cameron only made things worse.
On the other hand, the idea of working with Jeff again was exciting. If anyone could outsmart Hunter Drexel and help Tracy find Althea, it was Jeff. Together, Tracy and Jeff could do anything.
Except stay together, Tracy chuckled to herself. For some reason that’s always been the hard part.
Gazing across the still waters of the Seine, shimmering like molten silver beneath a full moon, Tracy realized she’d walked farther than she’d intended. Across the water she could make out the gardens of the Sorbonne. It was a good hour walk back to the Georges V from here, and the evening breeze had turned from cool to distinctly chilly.
Pulling her scarf more tightly around her shoulders, she turned to retrace her steps when she felt the first blow. Something hard and heavy, like a metal bar, slammed painfully into her back, sending her flying forwards in the darkness. Before Tracy could see where it had come from she heard a scream. Someone behind her must have seen Tracy’s attacker.
Then the second blow slammed into the side of her head. The last thing Tracy remembered was the sickening crunching sound of her own skull cracking.
Then nothing.
CHAPTER 22
JEFF STEVENS PARKED HIS car outside the Mountain Mall in downtown Steamboat Springs and walked into Jumping Beans coffee shop.
The place was busy. Young moms with toddlers in strollers competed for space with high school kids, glued to their phones, and a healthy smattering of cowboys, their hats cluttering up the tables as they waited in line for their morning brew. Jumping Beans was a classic small town joint. Everybody seemed to know everybody. Jeff found himself wondering whether Nick used to come here, and if any of the kids had been friends of his, when he saw her.
Karen Young, a nurse at the Yampa Valley Medical Center, was sitting at a table in the corner, hiding nervously behind her copy of the Steamboat Herald. She smiled at Jeff and he came over to join her.
“I didn’t know if you’d come,” Karen said, lowering her voice almost to a whisper.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Jeff smiled broadly. “I have a story to write after all. I said I’d be here, and here I am.”
Posing as an award-winning investigative journalist from New York City, Jeff had spent the last four days in Steamboat, researching a book on cowboy culture. He’d been asking a lot of questions around town about the late Blake Carter.
“The Carters were one of the oldest cowboy families in this part of the state, as I’m sure y’all are aware. Blake was the last of the line. The more y’all can tell me about him, the better.”
At first, Blake’s fellow hands up at the ranch had been happy to talk, as had his fishing buddies and the local Baptist minister. But as soon as Jeff’s questions began to focus on the accident—how thorough or otherwise the police report had been; whether a strange woman had been seen around town or up at Tracy Schmidt’s ranch in the days leading to the crash; which doctors had attended the scene—suspicions were raised. Doors began closing and locals stopped talking.
Which was why Nurse Young was so important. In a tight-knit community like this one, run on gossip but big on loyalty, Jeff knew it would be tough to find someone willing to help him. By now just about everybody at the Yampa Valley Medical Center knew better than to talk to the New York Times writer. So when Jeff caught Karen Young’s eye at Ruby’s, a local dive bar, last night, and learned she was a nurse, he’d turned up the charm to full throttle.
“I appreciate your trust in me, Karen.” Reaching under the table, Jeff squeezed her hand. “You know the very last thing on my mind is disrespecting Blake Carter’s memory. Or hurtin’ this community.”
“I know that.” Karen squeezed back.
For an older man, he really is terribly handsome, she thought.
Karen had been off older men ever since Neil—Dr. Sherridan—had broken off their affair and gone crawling back to his wife, like the snake that he was. But Jeff Stevens seemed different.
Honorable.
Interested only in the truth.
The fact that Neil might wind up in a whole heap of trouble, if it turned out Blake Carter or the boy could have been saved after all, and Jeff wrote an article about his negligence in the New York Times, shredding his reputation and destroying his career, would merely be an unavoidable by-product of the truth telling.
Karen Young was all about telling the truth.
“I’ll help you in any way I can, Jeff.” She fluttered her sky-blue eyes at Jeff. “We just have to be discreet is all.”
“Discretion is my middle name,” said Jeff, pressing his leg against Karen’s, and wondering why on earth she’d chosen to meet in a crowded coffee shop if she didn’t want people to see them together. The young lady clearly had the IQ of a bird dropping. “Of course, what would really help me . . .” He looked away suddenly, drawing back his leg and releasing her hand. “No. It’s too dangerous.”
“What?” Karen looked crestfallen. “What’s too dangerous?”
“No, no. Forget it. I couldn’t possibly ask you.”
Jeff took a big swig of his coffee and pushed his chair back, as if preparing to leave.
“Please. Just tell me!”
Jeff shook his head. “You could lose your job.”
“There are more important things than jobs,” Karen said earnestly, leaning forward to give Jeff an enhanced view of her ample cleavage. “If something bad happened to Mr. Carter or that poor boy and I stood by and did nothing, I’d never forgive myself.”
Jeff took her hands again and looked deep into her eyes.
“Karen?”
“Yes, Jeff?”
“I don’t suppose you happen to know anyone who has access to the hospital’s CCTV archives?”
The girl’s face fell. “Gosh, I . . . I don’t. I’m real sorry but I don’t know anything about security. Is there anything else you need?”
THE REST OF THE day crawled by.
Frank Dorrien and Jamie MacIntosh had left him so many messages since he got to the States that in the end Jeff had disabled his phone and bought a disposable, pay-as-you-go handset. That, by contrast, never rang. Suddenly, it seemed, nobody at the ranch or the local garage remembered seeing a woman, unusual or otherwise. No one at the cop shop had access to the police report. All the staff at Yampa had been exemplary and none of Nicholas’s school friends or teachers could remember anything unusual in the days leading up to the crash. Or, indeed, any other days. If Jeff Stevens the New York journalist was looking for scandal, he could look elsewhere. Steamboat Springs had closed ranks like a threatened clam snapping shut its shell.
After his dinner with Tracy in Paris, Jeff knew he had to come here. He had to find out for himself what had really happened to his son. After all, it was Nicholas’s death that had dragged Tracy into all this in the first place. Group 99, Althea, Hunter Drexel, Cameron Crewe. None of those names would have touched Tracy if Blake Carter’s truck hadn’t plunged off the road that night, right here in Steamboat Springs.
And now Jeff, too, had been drawn in. This wasn’t their world, his or Tracy’s. They weren’t spies or counterterrorism experts, for God’s sake. And yet here they were, running around Europe fighting other people’s battles, solving other people’s riddles, like pawns in some giant game of chess. A game in which, increasingly, Jeff doubted there would ever be a real winner.
Meanwhile Tracy, his Tracy, was blaming herself. Tracy thought Althea had killed Nick. That Nick, and Blake, were dead because of her. And she was turning to another man to assuage her of that guilt, to comfort her in her grief.
But what was the truth, really? What had happened here?
Perhaps, Jeff thought, if I could answer that one question, I could stop the
madness. I could save Tracy, spare her the torment.
I could save myself.
The problem was, he couldn’t answer it. Rumors swirled around him, taunting him like blowing leaves he could never quite catch. But he had no actual evidence of anything. As far as Jeff could tell, there was a woman at the diner that night, who may or may not have taken the same road Blake Carter did. But that was it. Maybe the police could have dug a little harder, or the ambulance crew driven a little faster, or the surgeons operated on Nick’s brain an hour earlier. But every accident had its “maybes,” every tragedy its “what ifs.” Jeff had seen nothing in Colorado to make him believe that Tracy’s crazy conspiracy theory about Althea was true. The whole thing was smoke and mirrors.
I’ll fly back to Europe tomorrow, Jeff thought. Nurse Karen Young had been his last hope, but even she had always been a long shot. Chances were there was nothing worth seeing on the CCTV footage anyway.
Jeff’s hotel was in town, a simple but cozy Victorian with a wraparound porch and a fire permanently lit in the parlor. Ski season was over and the tourists had poured out of Steamboat like water through a sieve, so there were plenty of parking spaces out front. Dusk was starting to fall when Jeff got back, tired and defeated. He’d spent most of the day roaming uselessly around Blake Carter’s old haunts, getting the cold shoulder from wary locals. But despite his bad mood, he took a moment to look up and appreciate the beauty of his surroundings. Mountains rose like giants from behind the hotel, their snowy tips blushing pink in the sunset. A rainbow of colors oozed into the blue sky like spilled paint, every shade of orange, red, purple and peach, shot through with flashes of turquoise.
No wonder Tracy was drawn to this place.
What a magical corner of the world for Nick to grow up in.
Walking up the porch steps, Jeff felt a stab of loss and longing, a visceral wrench of pain for all the years he’d missed. With Tracy. With their son. It struck him forcibly then that the whole idea of closure was ridiculous. Knowing what happened wouldn’t change anything. He couldn’t save Tracy from the agony of Nick’s death, any more than he could save himself.
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