Twenty knights. Five chessboards. Thirteen lambs. Six hills. One lost.
At the library earlier, she had searched both the books and online for references to “six hills” and “places with six hills.”
The results were not encouraging. There were six hills in Alpharetta, Georgia. The Russian city of Tomsk was integrating its universities into a “six hills” campus. Then there were the tepeta, six syenite hills in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. A famous string of Roman long barrows—ancient burial grounds—in Hertfordshire, England, was known as the six hills. Jerusalem famously had seven hills—seven was six, after “one lost”?
It was hopeless. Jeff could be anywhere from Jerusalem to Georgia. She tried not to think about what might be happening to him, what torture a man like Daniel Cooper might have devised. But panic crept into her body with each passing minute and hour. Jeff needed her! She was his only hope. If Cooper was playing chess with Tracy, he was winning. Hands down.
She read the poem again. The only verse that made no sense at all to her was the third, the one about the shroud and the lambs. Fourteen suffers daily pain. What significance did the number fourteen have? None. All that Tracy could think of was “unlucky thirteen,” and that wasn’t going to get them very far. She’d been sure that chess was the key to this, but her trip to Granby had made her more confused, not less.
Someone would be waiting for the queen—was she the queen?—beneath the stars. Did that mean Cooper’s meeting place was outside, in the open air?
A thought suddenly occurred to her. The line in the last verse: upon the stage of history. A stage could be outside in the open air. Something of historical importance.
Racing into the study, she switched on her computer. Her first idea was London and the Globe Theatre. The meticulously restored stage where Shakespeare’s plays had first been performed was in the open air, beneath the stars. But how did it link to six hills? Or chess?
What about other outdoor theaters? Greek or Roman amphitheaters?
Cooper knew about Jeff’s interest in archaeology. Was that a clue? What about the six hills in England, the Roman long barrows? Was there an amphitheater nearby?
Tracy could feel herself getting closer. But as the hours ticked by—eleven, twelve, one in the morning—the answer still eluded her. She went to bed and had terrible nightmares of torture and death, of Jeff Stevens being ripped from her arms out into a cold, black, endless sea.
TRACY AWOKE WITH A start. The clock beside her bed read 5:06 A.M.
Five chessboards.
Six hills.
And suddenly it was there. Not the answer. But the question.
I know the question Cooper wants me to ask.
I know where I’m going to find Jeff.
JEAN RIZZO PACED HIS Lyon apartment, depressed. He’d picked up his children from school today and taken them to a pizza place for lunch. They’d all talked politely. Jean felt like a stranger.
Sylvie told him, “There are no shortcuts. You need to see them more.”
Jean had snapped at her out of guilt, because he knew she was right. Then he’d gone home feeling even worse. Checking his phone and e-mails, he found no message from Tracy, but two from his boss summoning him to a meeting in his office first thing tomorrow morning.
That could only mean one thing. Henri Marceau was assigning him to another case.
Jean couldn’t blame his boss. Henri had already cut him far more slack than he would have with any other detective, out of respect for their friendship. But Henri had bosses too, and budget cuts to deliver. The Bible Killer case was as cold as ever. Jean’s investigation had been an expensive failure.
Pouring himself a large glass of whiskey, Jean dialed Tracy’s number.
“Any progress?”
“Not really.” Tracy told him about her conversation with the chess player and her research into “six hills” and Roman ruins. Jean couldn’t put his finger on it, but something in her tone made him suspicious. Perhaps it was the fact that she sounded so relaxed. Jeff Stevens, a man she had married and clearly still loved, was in all likelihood being held captive by a known killer. And yet Tracy was talking to Jean about dead ends and false leads as if this were nothing but a game they were playing.
He asked her bluntly, “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing! Why are you so suspicious?”
“I’m a detective. And you’re a con artist.”
“Retired,” Tracy reminded him.
“Semiretired,” Jean reminded her back. “You know where they are, don’t you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why aren’t you telling me? Do you want to go alone, is that it? Because he asked you to? I hope you know that’s out of the question.”
“I don’t know where they are, okay? I don’t know and that’s the truth.”
“But you suspect?”
Her split-second hesitation confirmed it.
Jean’s voice became urgent, anxious. “For Christ’s sake, Tracy. Do not go to find them alone. It’s madness. If you know something, anything, you must tell me. Cooper will kill you, whatever he wrote in that note. He will kill you both without blinking.”
Tracy said, “I don’t think he’ll kill me.” Jean could hear Nick’s voice in the background. “I have to go.”
“Tracy!”
“If I find out anything concrete, I’ll tell you, I promise.”
“Tracy! Listen to me!”
For the second time in a week, Tracy hung up on him.
“Goddamn it!” Jean said aloud. Tracy Whitney was without a doubt the most infuriating woman he had ever met.
If anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself.
CHAPTER 25
BLAKE CARTER WATCHED TRACY and Nicholas as they rode up the hill toward him. Tracy’s hair had grown out a little and was now almost at her shoulders. It sailed behind her like the tail of a kite as she galloped into the breeze, racing against her boy, her slender figure perfectly meshed with the horse’s rhythm and movements as if they were one creature, not two. Tracy was a natural horsewoman. You couldn’t teach that kind of skill, just as you couldn’t fake the natural beauty that shone out of her like light from the sun.
Blake thought, I’ve loved her for so long, I hardly even notice it anymore.
Then he thought, I don’t want her to go.
Out of nowhere Tracy had announced yesterday that she was flying to Europe tomorrow for a week. Supposedly she was attending some fancy cooking course in Italy. But Blake Carter wasn’t stupid. He could smell something fishy, and it wasn’t bouillabaisse.
Nick wasn’t happy about it either.
“I win!” he panted, pulling his pony up short beneath the oak tree where Blake was waiting for them and grinning at his mother. “That means I get to give you a forfeit. And I say you can’t go to Italy.”
“Sorry.” Tracy laughed. She was panting too. The fast ride in the June sun had exhausted both of them “Doesn’t work like that. Besides, it’s only for a week.”
Tracy smiled at Blake, but he looked back at her sternly.
Nick said, “They have cooking courses in Denver. Why can’t you take one of those?”
“Exactly,” Blake Carter muttered darkly.
“I could,” said Tracy. “But Denver’s hardly the culinary capital of the world. Besides, I want to go to Italy. All this fuss over a little vacation! You two are quite capable of taking care of yourselves for a week.”
Nick rode off toward the lower fields, where Blake had set up some jumps for him to practice on. Left alone with Blake, Tracy shifted uncomfortably beneath his disapproving gaze.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I’m not a fool. I don’t know what you’re playing at, Tracy, but I know this trip is dangerous.”
Tracy opened her mouth to speak but Blake waved her down angrily. “Don’t you dare repeat that cooking school nonsense to me one more time. Don’t you dare!”
Tracy looked at him openmouthed. She didn’t think she’d ever heard Blake raise his voice before, and certainly not to her. Ridiculously, she felt her eyes well up with tears.
“You’ve lied to me for a long time,” Blake went on. “About who you are. About your past. And I let it go because the bottom line is, I don’t care who you are, Tracy. I don’t. I only care that you are. I love you and I love Nick. And I don’t want you to go.”
Tracy leaned out of her saddle and touched his arm. It was as solid and unyielding as the branch of a tree. Like its owner, thought Tracy. I’ve spent my life bending and twisting and compromising. But Blake lives in a world of black and white, right and wrong. Nothing moves for him.
“I have to go,” she said quietly. “Someone once saved my life. Someone I loved dearly. Now I may have a chance to save theirs. I would tell you more if I could, but I can’t.”
“That Canadian Rizzo’s involved in this, isn’t he?” Blake spat out Jean’s name like a mouthful of rotten fruit.
“No. Jean knows nothing about it,” said Tracy, semitruthfully.
“What if something happens to you?” Now it was Blake who was holding back tears. “Is this person you’re flying across the world for more important to you than Nicholas?”
“Of course not. No one’s more important than Nick.”
“Then don’t go. Because if you die, Tracy, that boy has no one.”
“Nonsense. He has you,” Tracy said fiercely, turning her mare around to head back down to the ranch. “And I’m not going to die, Blake. I’ll be back in a week, just like I told you. If you stop being so horrible to me, I may even bring you back a piece of pie. Just as soon as I’ve learned how to make one.”
That was Blake’s cue to smile, to break the tension between them, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead he watched, stony-faced, as Tracy rode back down the hill and out of sight.
DANIEL COOPER PRESSED HIS hands to his temples.
He had a terrible headache.
Jeff Stevens’s screams were starting to get to him.
The path to righteousness is lined with suffering, he reminded himself as he turned up the voltage on the machine that was delivering electric shocks to Stevens’s wrists and ankles. Think of our Lord in Gethsemane. Even He felt abandoned.
Tracy should have been here by now.
Where is she? Didn’t she get my message?
It was hard to keep faith. But Daniel Cooper trusted in the Lord.
BLAKE CARTER HAD JUST put Nick to bed and was about to make himself some supper when the phone rang. Tracy had left for Europe that morning and Blake was home alone.
“Schmidt residence.”
“Blake. How are you?” Jean Rizzo’s voice was the last sound on earth Blake wanted to hear. “It’s Jean Rizzo here. Tracy’s friend.”
“I know who you are.”
“I’m sorry to call so late but I need to speak to Tracy. I’m afraid it’s rather urgent.”
“Well, you can’t speak to her.”
“I’m sorry?”
The old cowboy’s anger crackled down the line. “Why don’t you just crawl on back to wherever it is you came from and leave Tracy the hell alone?”
“You don’t understand . . .”
“No, mister. YOU don’t understand. She’s not here. She flew to Europe this morning. Now, why don’t you tell me what business that lady has in Europe? With her son and her life back here? You put her up to this, Rizzo! If anything happens to that woman I swear to God—”
Jean interrupted him. “Where did she fly to, Blake?”
Carter didn’t answer.
With an effort, Jean controlled his temper. “It’s vitally important that you tell me what you know.”
Blake recognized the note of panic in Jean’s voice. He was doing his best to sound calm, but he was worried. So I was right. Tracy really is in danger. If she hasn’t even confided in Rizzo, it could be serious. “Italy. That’s what she told me. Rome. But I don’t know if she was telling the truth. She’s been lying a lot lately. All I know for sure is that she got in a cab to Denver Airport this morning.”
“Did she say anything else? Anything at all?”
“She said she was trying to help a friend. Someone who’d saved her life once. She said she’d be back in a week. That’s it. Now, are you going to tell me what’s happening?”
“I wish I could,” said Jean, and hung up.
Jean stood in his apartment with the phone in his hand, frozen, for almost a minute. Blake Carter’s words had hit him like a glass of acid in the face. He’d been afraid that Tracy might do this. That she might be crazy enough to try to confront Daniel Cooper on her own, if she believed Jeff Stevens’s life might depend on it. Had something in Cooper’s letter, in the riddle, convinced her that it did? Jean had hoped that some sense of self-preservation, and concern for her son, would kick in at the last minute and pull Tracy back from the brink.
No such luck. Tracy Whitney always had been impulsive. Apparently the leopard hadn’t changed its spots.
Jean had to find her before she found Cooper.
If anything happened to Tracy, Jean thought, Blake Carter wouldn’t need to kill me. Jean Rizzo would never be able to live with the guilt. He’d already failed his sister, and his wife, and his children and all those poor, dead, murdered women. If he lost Tracy too . . .
Think, Jean. Think! Where is she?
He picked up the phone and started to dial.
JEFF DRIFTED IN AND out of consciousness.
It couldn’t be long now. His body would shut down. The pain would end.
It had to. The alternative was unthinkable.
He felt something damp and soft being pressed against his lips.
A sponge?
He sucked weakly, desperate for water, but the liquid wasn’t water. It was bitter. Narcotic. He drank anyway, pushing the horrors of what he knew was to come from his mind.
The lamb.
Death on a cross.
The pain had stopped for now. Idly Jeff wondered whether anyone would come to his rescue. Was anybody even looking for him? The police? Interpol? The FBI? Cooper was obsessed with Tracy. But Tracy wouldn’t come. How could she? Tracy knew nothing about any of this.
Besides, Tracy didn’t love him anymore.
Tracy hadn’t loved him for a long time.
The bitter liquid worked its magic.
Jeff slept.
JEAN RIZZO WAS READY to cry with frustration.
“There must be something. Have we checked passenger lists for every airline?”
His colleague sighed. “Out of Denver yesterday? Yeah. We have. No Tracy Schmidt. No Tracy Whitney.”
“How about domestic flights? Maybe she had a stopover in another city.”
“If she did, she used a different ID. She’s a con artist, right?”
Retired, thought Jean.
“She probably has a lot of passports. You released her picture?”
Jean grunted. He had given the photograph of Tracy that Interpol had on file to the staff at Denver Airport and had it mass–e-mailed to law enforcement agencies across the United States and in a string of major European cities, along with Jeff Stevens’s image. The problem, in both cases, was that the pictures were about fifteen years old. Why the hell didn’t I take Tracy’s picture when we were together in New York? I had all that time. He could have asked Blake Carter for a more up-to-date image, but he knew such a request would only cause the old man to panic. The last thing Jean needed was for Tracy’s disappearance to go public.
“Call me as soon as you hear anything.”
While he waited in vain for the
telephone to ring, Jean turned his attention back to Daniel Cooper’s riddle. He suspected strongly that Jeff Stevens was already dead. With the other victims, the women, Cooper had never hung around but had dispatched them swiftly and mercilessly. But Tracy was a different story. Wherever Tracy had gone, she’d been following the clues Cooper laid out for her. Jean Rizzo had no doubt that Tracy would be walking right into Cooper’s trap. But if she could decode Cooper’s message, so could he. And if Stevens was alive, the trail would lead to him too.
Jean’s first stop was at his friend Wiliam Barrow’s apartment. Barrow was a foreign transplant in Lyon, just like Jean. A Londoner by birth, Thomas Barrow taught international relations at the university. He and Jean Rizzo had become friends years ago, when Thomas consulted on a case Jean was working on. He’d done a lot of work with Interpol since and the two men remained close.
“I don’t see how I can help.” Thomas poured Jean a cup of coffee so thick it was technically a solid, and he turned down the Wagner that was playing on his sound system. Jean had given Thomas a brief history of the Bible killings and Daniel Cooper. He explained that Cooper was holding a man hostage and that the man’s life, among others, depended on his, Jean’s, deciphering Cooper’s letter to Tracy.
“You’re a crossword nut,” said Jean.
“This isn’t a crossword.”
“It’s a puzzle. Crosswords are puzzles.”
“Well, yesss . . .” Thomas answered hesitantly.
“Just read it as if it were a crossword and tell me if anything comes to mind. I need a time and a place.”
Jean watched as his friend read in silence. After about a minute Thomas announced cheerfully, “I’ve got a few ideas.”
“Great!”
“They’re just ideas. I’m not a psychiatrist. I don’t know how your average mass murderer thinks.”
“Understood. Go on.”
“All right. So starting at the beginning. If this were a crossword—which let’s not forget, it isn’t—then ‘twenty knights’ might really mean ‘twenty nights.’ Puzzle writers use that sort of ‘homophonic’ wordplay a lot. ‘Three times three’ is nine. So your bloke might be waiting for somebody, the queen, for twenty nights, at nine o’clock.”
Sidney Sheldon's Chasing Tomorrow (Tracy Whitney) Page 29
