Sidney Sheldon's Reckless

by Tilly Bagshawe

“Hold on,” said Jeff. “How did you know? Was someone watching the bungalow? I thought you said I was alone here.”

  “Never mind that,” Frank said dismissively. “Are they still in the bar?”

  “Yes. I . . . shit. They’re coming out.”

  Wordlessly, Jeff slipped the phone into his pocket without hanging up and stepped back into the shadow of the Basilica.

  “Stay away from me!” The woman was crying. “You’re a liar!”

  “No, I’m not. I know what happened to Daniel. I know, Kate.”

  “I mean it. Stay away!”

  With a sob, she physically pushed Hunter backwards, so hard that he slammed against the wall just feet from where Jeff was standing, frozen like a statue. Then she took off into the night like a gazelle, her long hair flying behind her

  “Kate!” Hunter yelled after her, giving chase. “Come back! Kate!”

  Jeff pulled out his phone the instant Hunter took off.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked Frank Dorrien.

  “Every word.”

  “What should I do?”

  Frank hesitated for a second. Then he said “Forget Drexel. Follow the girl.”

  CHAPTER 25

  ARE YOU SURE YOU won’t ride with me to the airport?”

  Cameron was standing by his chauffeur-driven Mercedes in the driveway of his French château. Tracy had come outside to see him off.

  “Or better yet, come to New York?”

  “Soon, I promise.” She kissed him. “I have a few loose ends to tie up here first.”

  After five days spent recuperating in Cameron’s mansion outside Paris, sleeping, reading and generally being waited on hand and foot, Tracy felt better. Better, and bored, and itching to get back to the job of finding Althea and Hunter before Jeff stole too much of a march on her.

  Greg Walton had visited her in person yesterday. Cameron had been persuaded, reluctantly, to let him in. What he had to say was disturbing, to say the least.

  “We now know for a fact that Hunter Drexel visited Camp Paris on no less than four occasions in the days leading up to the shooting. Multiple witnesses place him there. He was posing as a theater producer by the name of Lex Brightman, and had offered jobs to some of the students. Including Jack Charlston.”

  “Richard Charlston’s son.”

  “Exactly. Heir to Brecon Natural Resources and the first victim to be shot, after the poor teacher in the parking lot. There’s no good reason for Drexel to be there, Tracy,” Greg said grimly. “None that I can think of anyway.”

  “No,” Tracy murmured. “Me neither.”

  “Tell me about Montmartre,” said Greg. It was such a non sequitur, it caught Tracy completely by surprise. Which presumably had been his intention. “You were there, weren’t you? When the shots went off.”

  “I’m guessing you know I was,” said Tracy.

  “Did Hunter show up at the poker game?”

  “No. But he was expected. And he was still using the Lex Brightman persona. Obviously I wasn’t the only person who knew that. Whoever was on that motorbike was there for him.”

  “Who told you that?” the CIA chief asked archly. “Jeff Stevens?”

  Tracy sighed. There didn’t seem much point in denying it now.

  “How about we’re honest with each other, Tracy. I know I can’t trust the British. But I need to trust you.”

  “Fine,” Tracy replied. “As long as it works both ways.”

  Greg grinned, and Tracy remembered what it was she’d liked about him in the first place. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  So Tracy filled Greg in on her conversation with Jeff, minus his unfounded suspicions about Cameron, and their private words about their son.

  “MI6 have pictures of Hunter with a young French student. He may have been shot in the leg and this girl was helping him. They think he was heading for Belgium. That was the last I heard before . . .” She touched her head where her hair covered the stitches.

  “Well, let me update you,” Greg said. He wasn’t grinning any-more. “The girl, Hélène Faubourg, is dead.”

  Tracy looked aghast. “How?”

  “Poisoned, apparently. Her sister found the body, still slumped over a bowl of ramen noodles. She’d ingested enough polonium to kill an ox.”

  “Do we know who . . . ?”

  “We never know who,” Walton said darkly. “All we know is, you meet Hunter Drexel, you die. He did go to Belgium, by the way. Sally Faiers met him there. Drove him to Bruges.”

  “How is Sally?” Tracy brightened. “Is she talking to you directly now?”

  “No. She’s dead too.”

  Tracy listened horrified as Greg gave her the details.

  “Someone went in before the police could get there. Cleaned the place up so there were no prints, no nothing. Except Faiers’s corpse.”

  “Don’t.” Tracy winced. Somehow Sally’s death made this whole nightmare much more personal. “What about Hunter?”

  “Evaporated,” Greg said. “We had a team on him. But the guy’s slipperier than an eel in a vat of oil. We think he’s left Belgium. At any rate he never went back to the bungalow again, where he and Faiers were staying.”

  Tracy processed all this in silence.

  “Why was Agent Buck so anxious to keep me out of the hunt for Drexel?” she asked Greg Walton directly. “Every time I asked him anything, he shut me down.”

  “Because it was dangerous,” Greg said simply. “When I brought you into this the idea was for you to track Althea via her computer trail. I wanted you safe on the other side of a screen. Not out in the field in harm’s way.”

  “You sent me to Geneva, Greg,” Tracy reminded him.

  “I know. And maybe I shouldn’t have. But this is different. Hunter Drexel is a dangerous man, Tracy,” Walton said. “He’s not who he seems to be. We think he’s been part of Group 99 from the beginning.”

  “It’s possible,” Tracy admitted.

  “More than possible. We believe he faked his own kidnapping to get Group 99 national attention. In our view he was complicit in Bob Daley’s death—maybe he and Althea planned it together? We can’t tie him to the Geneva bombing yet, but we will. We know he was at Neuilly. In all probability one of his 99 buddies killed Hélène Faubourg, a totally innocent student whose only crime was to try to help him. We think another executed Sally Faiers.”

  “Why?”

  “My guess is that both those women knew too much. Saw through him, maybe, in the end.”

  Tracy rubbed her temples. She felt terribly tired all of a sudden.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Number one, honesty. Whatever you learn from Stevens about Drexel, or anyone else, you share that intel with me or Agent Buck.”

  “Jeff hasn’t contacted me since that night,” Tracy said, unable to keep a note of disappointment out of her voice. Jeff must have known she’d been attacked. The British would have told him. Yet he’d made no attempt to visit her at the hospital, or afterwards. That hurt.

  “He will,” Greg said. “In the meantime, go back to Neuilly and any other contacts you have here in Paris who might be able to help us. Once the hysteria about the shootings dies down and the media moves on to the next story, my guess is Drexel will be back. I don’t think he’s done here.”

  It was a sobering thought.

  Now that Cameron was leaving, Tracy could devote herself full-time to the hunt for Hunter Drexel. It wasn’t only about Nick anymore, and what Hunter might be able to tell her about Althea. It was about Sally Faiers too. And Hélène Faubourg, and all the other people who’d lost their lives because they’d somehow gotten in Hunter Drexel’s way.

  Poor Sally. She loved Hunter the same way I loved Jeff.

  The difference was, she trusted him.

  Tracy wasn’t about to make the same mistake.

  “Promise me you’ll get some rest. You won’t push yourself too hard,” Cameron said, closing the door of the car an
d leaning out of the window to say his goodbyes.

  “I promise,” said Tracy.

  Uncrossing her fingers, she walked back into the house and began making calls.

  Who do I know in Paris who might have seen Lex Brightman?

  Where would a rich, gay, poker-playing New York theater producer hang out?

  A FEW HOURS LATER, Tracy stopped by an old friend’s jewelry boutique on the Left Bank.

  Not that she thought Hunter would have been one of Guy de Lafayette’s customers. But because Guy was the epicenter of Paris theater—land gossip, and the comings and goings of the left bank’s rich and famous residents.

  Tracy described Hunter to Guy.

  “He may be going by the name Lex Brightman. Or Harry Graham, or any number of other pseudonyms. It’s vital that I find him.”

  Guy said, “That’s funny.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “Jeff said exactly the same thing to me a few days ago.”

  “Jeff?”

  “Yes. He told me the pair of you are working together again. Something ‘top secret.’ ” The old man gave a conspiratorial wink.

  “Did he now?” said Tracy. The sneaky little so-and-so. Back in Paris already and not so much as a call.

  “Oh, Tracy, darling, do tell me the two of you are back together again,” Guy gushed. “I could die happy if that were the case, I really could.”

  Clasping his hands together, the diminutive jeweler hopped up and down like a small child in need of the bathroom and looked pleadingly at Tracy with his twinkling, impish eyes.

  Tracy did not share his enthusiasm. “When was Jeff here?”

  “He came to see me a few days ago, bless him. And my goodness he did look handsome! The man is ageless. You both are.”

  Tracy looked murderous.

  Let’s work together. It’ll be just like the old days. So much for that baloney! Jeff was doing this on his own. Or worse, he was still acting as Frank Dorrien’s lapdog. Well, two could play at that game.

  Tracy felt a rush of righteous anger, conveniently forgetting that she, too, had sought out Guy on her own and had just agreed to report everything she learned back to the CIA.

  The problem with using her old contacts to help Greg Walton was that they were Jeff’s contacts too.

  “So Jeff asked you for leads on the same man?”

  “He did.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I sent him to Madame Dubonnet, of course.” Guy smiled. “I understand your quarry is a gambler?”

  “Among other things,” Tracy said.

  “Any serious poker players in Paris end up at Dubonnet’s. Didn’t Jeff mention it?”

  Tracy said through gritted teeth, “It must have slipped his mind.”

  MADAME DUBONNET WAS A toothless old hag who wore too much rouge, smelled of eau de violettes and Gitanes, and wore her blouse unbuttoned low enough to reveal a large expanse of crêpey cleavage. She had a deep, gravelly voice and a raucous laugh, and her gnarled, veiny hands were encrusted with diamonds as big as barnacles.

  Despite her advanced years, however, she clearly considered herself to be sexually alluring. Tracy could instantly picture her being charmed by Jeff. And, no doubt, by the handsome Hunter Drexel, if Guy was right and he really had shown up here.

  “Your friend told me you’d be coming.” Madame Dubonnet talked down her long nose at Tracy. She was clearly not fond of the company of younger, more attractive women.

  “My friend? You mean Guy?”

  “Guy? Who is Guy? No! The American. Monsieur Bowers.”

  Mr. Bowers. Tracy smiled to herself. Jeff hadn’t used that one in a long time.

  “Lovely man.” Madame Dubonnet’s eyes positively glowed.

  “When did Mr. Bowers stop by here, out of interest?” Tracy asked.

  “None of your business,” the old woman said tersely. “The point is that he warned me. ‘She will come here asking questions about her lover,’ he told me. And now you ’ave.”

  Tracy frowned. “My lover?”

  “Bah, oui! Of course, your lover! Monsieur Graham. Not that you are ’is only girlfriend, of course. Any man rich enough to play at Albert Dumas’s table keeps women like a beekeeper keeps bees. Buzz buzz buzz.”

  Madame Dubonnet’s wrinkled mouth puckered up grotesquely as she made the buzzing bee sound.

  “Naturally I make no judgment,” she added, looking at Tracy as a chef might look at a rat that had wandered into his kitchen. “But there are conventions here in Paris, even for the mistresses.”

  Tracy pieced things together. Jeff had guessed Tracy would go to Guy, and that eventually she would follow him here. So he’d pumped Madame Dubonnet for information on Hunter, then convinced the old hag that Tracy was some sort of bunny-boiling bit on the side, here to cause Harry Graham trouble.

  “Madame,” Tracy said firmly. “My friend Monsieur Bowers is mistaken. I am not Monsieur Graham’s mistress. Or anyone else’s mistress for that matter.”

  Ignoring Tracy’s protests, Madame Dubonnet wagged an arthritic finger in her face, almost blinding Tracy with a five-carat sparkler.

  “You know, Cherie, it is not a nice thing to try to entrapper a gentleman by threatening to go to his wife.” Madame Dubonnet made a clucking sound with her tongue and shook her head from side to side, before pronouncing, “This, I do not approve of.”

  Tracy’s eyes widened. Boy, Jeff must have laid it on thick.

  “Madame. I assure you, you are mistaken. For one thing Monsieur Graham, as he calls himself, is no gentleman. For another, he has no wife. Although you may be right about the bee thing,” she conceded, thinking back to what Sally Faiers had told her about Hunter’s endless string of lovers. “In any case I am not his lover, as my ‘friend’ Mr. Bowers knows all too well. The truth is”—Tracy lowered her voice—“I’m working for American intelligence.”

  Madame Dubonnet smiled patronizingly. “Vraiment? Le CIA?”

  “That’s right,” said Tracy, relieved to have cleared up the misunderstanding. “I work for the CIA.”

  “And I am working for NASA, mademoiselle.” The old lady cackled at her own joke. Then the lips pursed again for the last time. “As I said before, I do not discuss the private lives of my patrons. Marianne will see you out.”

  JEFF CALLED TRACY JUST as she stepped out of Madame Dubonnet’s apartment building onto the street.

  “Darling! How’s your head?”

  Tracy exploded. “Don’t ‘darling’ me. You told that old witch I was sleeping with Hunter Drexel!”

  Jeff chuckled. “Ah, dear Madame Dubonnet. You’ve been to see her then?”

  “Of course I have. You knew I would.”

  “Now don’t be mad, angel. I didn’t say you were sleeping with him. Not exactly.”

  “Well, whatever you said ‘exactly’ it was enough to get me kicked out of there. So what ‘exactly’ did she tell you? That you were so eager to hide from me?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Pull the other one, Jeff. I’m serious. She obviously knew Hunter. She’d met him. What do you know? When was he last there?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Tracy darling, what is the point of this conversation? If you refuse to believe a word I say?”

  “Good point,” Tracy said furiously, and hung up.

  JEFF RANG BACK IMMEDIATELY.

  “I see you’re fully recovered then?”

  Tracy bit her lip. The urge to hang up on him again was almost overpowering, but she wanted to know what he knew.

  “Yes, thanks. Nice of you to come visit me,” she added caustically.

  “I wanted to.” Jeff sounded genuinely hurt.

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “Something came up.”

  “Something always does,” said Tracy bitterly.

  “Hey, hold on,” Jeff protested. “It doesn’t help when your boyfriend guards the hospital like a Ro
ttweiler and then spirits you off to his tower in the woods like bloody Rapunzel!”

  Tracy took a deep breath and counted to three. “Where are you?”

  Jeff told her.

  “Meet me at l’Église Saint-Louis-des-Invalides in twenty minutes.”

  “l’Église les what now?” said Jeff.

  “Just be there.”

  LITTLE KNOWN TO TOURISTS, the church of Saint Louis nestled deep within the complex of Les Invalides, beneath its magnificent golden dome. Designed by architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the chapel was commissioned in the seventeenth century by Louis XIV as a sanctuary specifically for soldiers. Every stone, from its banner-hung walls to its crypt filled with the tombs of French generals, was steeped in military history. But this afternoon, like most afternoons, the church was almost deserted, with only a few quiet worshippers kneeling discretely in its pews or lighting candles of remembrance.

  Jeff saw Tracy as soon as he arrived, kneeling alone in a side chapel. Making a sign of the cross he knelt down beside her and whispered in her ear.

  “What are you praying for?”

  “Strength,” Tracy whispered back. “I tend to need it whenever you’re around.”

  “How are you?” Jeff asked, ignoring the jibe.

  “Fine.”

  “They told me you’d been in a coma.”

  Tracy thought, And still you didn’t come. Out loud she said, “I’m fine, Jeff. We aren’t here to talk about me. Where have you been?”

  “Bruges.”

  Jeff had agreed to follow Frank Dorrien’s advice and not tell Tracy about his trip to Steamboat. There would be time enough for that later.

  “You saw Drexel?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know about Sally Faiers?”

  Jeff shook his head grimly. “Yes.”

  A verger, busy polishing the tabernacle and the altar candle sticks, shot Jeff and Tracy a reproachful look. Jeff lowered his voice.

  “Awful business.”

  “Any ideas who did it?”

  “Well, it wasn’t Hunter,” Jeff whispered. “I was watching him when it happened. He won big at a poker game in the Old Town, then met up with a woman. Tracy, I’m pretty sure it was Althea.”

  Tracy’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”