Sidney Sheldon's Reckless

by Sidney Sheldon

  “It was brilliant,” Hunter said, turning to Tracy. “It worked. Of course it was also utterly morally repugnant. Cameron here is an object lesson in shameless greed. Human misery, the innocent suffering of others, means nothing to him. Frankly I wouldn’t wipe the guy off my shoe.”

  The smug smile disappeared from Cameron’s face.

  “Spare me the high-handed lectures,” he snarled at Hunter. “The simple fact is that most countries have no idea how to capitalize on their own natural resources. Either they don’t have the infrastructure to do it, or they don’t have the political will. Fracking is a vote loser. But someone was going to make a fortune out of all that shale gas. That much was certain. All I did was do my best to make sure it was me.”

  “By funding murder and terrorism?” Tracy shot back at him. “By helping sadists and killers take over a peaceful organization like Group 99?”

  Cameron rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t be so naïve, darling. Group 99 were itching to blow somebody’s head off long before I came along. They were always going to turn to violence in the end, with or without my help. Argyros and his cronies are base, bloodthirsty animals. Just look at what they did at Neuilly. They would have started killing people sooner or later.”

  “And all you did was make sure it was sooner,” Tracy observed caustically. Although inside she felt desolate and ashamed.

  I trusted you! I fell in love with you. At least, I thought I did.

  How can this be happening?

  Hunter looked at Cameron quizzically. After his exchange with Tracy, his smug smile was back.

  “You do realize you’re mentally ill?” Hunter said.

  Cameron turned slightly and leveled his gun squarely at Hunter. “Be quiet,” he snapped. “No one’s interested in your opinion. You can see why I had to have him kidnapped,” he said to Tracy. “Here was this self-important nobody, this womanizing gambling addict, planning to destroy not only me but my company, everything I’d worked for.”

  Hunter laughed. His lack of fear seemed designed to antagonize Crewe. It was working. “You’re a psychopath.”

  “I SAID BE QUIET!” The gun shook in Cameron’s hands. “I’m talking to Tracy, not you.

  “I’m not a psychopath,” he told Tracy, looking suddenly vulnerable. “At least, no more than you are. No more than anybody who goes through what we’ve been through and realizes they have nothing left to lose. After Marcus died, everything changed.”

  For a split second Tracy’s heart went out to him and she felt at one with him again. The old connection between them, the spark that had been lit so unexpectedly in Geneva, came back. Cameron had lost Marcus, and Tracy had lost Nicholas, and that had been enough to bring them together, to fuse them emotionally for a time. Because for a time, losing Nicholas had been the only thing in Tracy’s life. The only event, the only emotion, the only thought, the only point to her existence. Cameron had found her in that moment—or had she found him?—and they’d fit together like two pieces of a puzzle.

  But no more.

  It wasn’t only that Cameron had clearly never been the man Tracy thought he was. That he was deranged and dangerous, a killer. Tracy was different too.

  The pain of Nick’s death would never leave her. But it wasn’t the only thing anymore. There was a whole world out there, a world full of other people, other lives, other hopes and dreams. Tracy might not know those people. But they mattered. Humanity mattered. Truth mattered. At least to her.

  Cameron kept talking.

  “Before Marcus’s death, I had a life outside the business. But afterwards, Crewe Oil was all I had left. People talk about morality, about justice, about right and wrong, about God.” He snorted derisively. “It’s all nonsense. Life and death are arbitrary. When Marcus died, I knew there was no God. No justice. No right or wrong. No mercy. Continuing to act as if there were would just have been . . . irrational.”

  He looked at Tracy pleadingly, as if willing her to understand.

  “Tell me about Althea,” Tracy asked him, playing for time. “About Kate Evans. You recruited her?”

  “Yes. We met at a conference in New York. Looking into her eyes was like looking into a mirror.” Cameron sighed nostalgically. “Not like you and me. There was no physical attraction. But I recognized Kate’s despair from the outset. Her need to lash out against a world that had robbed her of the only thing she cared about. This woman didn’t care if she got shot. She didn’t care what happened to her. My purpose was Crewe Oil. Kate’s was destroying the CIA. But we understood each other, Kate and I. She was prepared to follow my directions, at least at first.”

  “Did you tell her to kill my son?” Tracy glared at Cameron, forcing herself to keep her voice steady.

  “No!” He sounded genuinely horrified. “Absolutely not. I had nothing to do with Nick’s accident, Tracy. You must believe that.”

  Tracy studied his face, looking for any sort of clues. Did she believe it? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything anymore.

  “Think about it,” said Cameron. “Why would I lie?”

  “Because it’s what you do?” Hunter interjected.

  Cameron swung around furiously. For one awful moment Tracy thought he was going to shoot Hunter then and there. But he held back. For the moment at least he was more interested in Tracy.

  “After Bob Daley’s execution, I lost contact with Kate completely,” he went on. “Group 99 had already served their purpose for me. I have no idea why Kate decided to involve you, and I sincerely wish she hadn’t. What we had was real, Tracy. That night in Geneva. Hawaii . . . I developed feelings for you. Real feelings. Feelings I thought I would never have again.”

  Tracy held up a hand. “Please, don’t.”

  “It’s the truth. I tried to keep you close. To control the situation. I still hoped, somehow, to spare you. But when the Brits brought in Jeff Stevens, and the two of you began closing in on Drexel together, I knew there was no hope. Once you found Hunter, he would tell you the truth about me. Between you, you would make sure his story got published. I couldn’t let that happen. But I did love you, Tracy. I did want . . .”

  Before he could finish, Hunter exploded off the couch like a missile. With an earsplitting noise that was half scream, half roar, he launched himself at Cameron. Tracy watched as if in slow motion as Hunter flew through the air, head down, arms outstretched, reaching for Cameron’s gun like a rugby player diving for the ball.

  It was so unexpected, it took Cameron a fraction of a second longer to react than it should have.

  But not long enough.

  Tracy saw Cameron’s expression change from surprise, to anger, to determination. Then a shot rang out like a single clap of thunder.

  The bullet hit Hunter at such close range, he seemed to stop in midair, as if someone had pressed freeze frame on a movie, or an unseen hand had reached down and grabbed him from above. Then, like a sack of rocks, he dropped to the ground.

  Tracy stared down in horror.

  Lying on his back, his arms spread wide, Hunter’s lifeless eyes gazed emptily upwards, at nothing.

  CHAPTER 32

  THERE WAS NO TIME for tears. No time for shock. No time for anything.

  Hunter Drexel was dead, and in a few seconds Tracy would be too.

  Tracy’s gun was still on the coffee table, about twenty feet away. More in desperation than in hope, she made a run for it.

  “Oh no you don’t.”

  Cameron lunged after her, grabbing hold of the back of her leg. Tracy felt herself falling forwards, with the same slow-motion sensation she’d had for the last, agonizing minute, as if she were watching this happen to someone else, yet somehow remained utterly powerless to stop it. Her head smashed painfully into the table. Blood gushed down her forehead into her eyes, partially blinding her. Cameron tightened his grip on her legs as Tracy’s fingers scrambled desperately for the gun. By some miracle she grasped it, gripping the cold black metal for dear life. But there was no chance
to shoot. Cameron was on top of her now, his full body weight pressing Tracy down against the hard wood of the table, crushing her, squeezing the breath from her body like air from an old set of bellows. Blood, warm and thick, oozed from the gash on her forehead.

  “Don’t fight me, Tracy. Don’t make this harder.”

  Tracy could feel Cameron’s breath in her ear and his heartbeat hammering against her back.

  She managed to twist her body slightly to one side, just enough to bring a knee up into Cameron’s groin. It was a move she’d learned years ago from a friend of Gunther’s, Tai Li, a martial arts expert whom Gunther had said she and Jeff ought to meet.

  “Self-defense can be important in your line of work, my dears,” Gunther had told them. “Spend a few hours with Tai. You won’t regret it.”

  That was a long time ago. Tracy still remembered how she and Jeff had dissolved into giggles during Sensei Li’s classes. Tai Li was old and wizened, with a face like a pickled walnut—although, as Jeff used to say, a walnut would have had more of a sense of humor. The old man took Jujitsu very seriously, barking instructions at Tracy and Jeff like a drill sergeant. Tracy remembered almost none of what he’d taught her. But this particular move had stuck with her, and it had come in handy more than once.

  Cameron yelped in pain and rolled off her. His gun had dropped to the floor in the melee. Tracy kicked it aside, sending it skidding across the parquet floor like a puck on an ice rink.

  “Bitch!” he hissed. The pain had made him angry.

  It was now or never. Aiming her gun towards Cameron’s leg, Tracy fired. But this time he was too quick for her, knocking her arm upwards, so the gun flew out of her hand and the bullet lodged uselessly in the ceiling. Shards of plaster rained down like snow. The next thing Tracy knew Cameron had grabbed her by the shoulders. He was forcing her down on to the table but this time on her back, so that she was looking up at him. Sweat poured from his forehead and dripped onto Tracy’s skin. His face, the same face she had loved and that had made love to her just weeks earlier, was unrecognizable now, contorted in an ugly combination of anger and pain. His blond hair stuck to his scalp like the wet pelt of a dog.

  He is a dog, Tracy told herself. An animal, wild and deadly and without compassion.

  His hands began to close around Tracy’s neck, the fingers coiling around her windpipe like a boa constrictor. “I’m sorry, Tracy,” he told her, wheezing with the effort of holding her down. “I never wanted this.”

  To her own surprise, Tracy felt panic start to sweep over her like an icy wave.

  She’d told herself countless times since Nick’s death that she no longer feared her own. But now, as Cameron’s grip tightened and she fought and gasped for breath, her body’s survival instinct took over. She felt frightened, and angry.

  Who was this man to rob her of life?

  Who was he, Cameron Crewe, to decide who lived and who died? Whose lives mattered and whose did not? What truths got to be told and what hidden?

  No. Tracy wouldn’t allow it!

  But there was nothing she could do.

  Her legs flailed wildly, uselessly. Her arms, pinned down by Cameron’s knees, twitched and jerked pathetically of their own accord in a grotesque dance of death. Froth was forming at her mouth as she strived vainly to free herself from his choking grip, her energy failing with each oxygen-starved moment. Tracy could feel her eyes bulging, the blood racing around her skull as if her head were about to explode. In the movies strangulation was quick, a few seconds of struggle and then peace. But this wasn’t like that at all. She hadn’t blacked out. Instead she could do nothing but look up and watch as a man she had once thought she loved murdered her, slowly and painfully, the effort of snuffing out her life visible in his flared nostrils and ugly, popping veins.

  Frustrated himself by how long it was taking, Cameron began to shake her violently like a terrier with a rat between its jaws. He’s trying to break my neck, thought Tracy. She visualized her brain bouncing off the walls of her skull, like a soft pupa inside its cocoon. The pain was excruciating. She no longer thought of survival. Only of the agony being over.

  And then, just like that, it was.

  There was no bang. At least none that Tracy heard. Instead the bullet sounded like nothing more than moving air, a gentle whoosh, as if somebody—God?—were blowing her a last merciful kiss.

  Cameron Crewe opened both his eyes wide in surprise. Then he fell on top of Tracy, his arms sliding off her neck and hanging, doll-like, by his side.

  The last thing Tracy remembered was the agonizing sensation of air flooding back into her starved lungs, like swallowing a fistful of razor blades.

  Then she passed out.

  CHAPTER 33

  LONDON, THREE MONTHS LATER . . .

  TRACY STROLLED THROUGH KENSINGTON Gardens, enjoying the autumnal beauty of the park and the surprisingly warm September sun on her back. She was wearing striped pants tucked into riding boots, a navy-blue sweater with a matching blue scarf, printed with an anchor motif, and an open trench coat. Her dark hair was shoulder length now, the longest it had been since before Nick died, and her cheeks shone pink with health as she walked. She was still slim—too slim, according to her doctors—but her figure was starting to soften at the edges. She was no longer the skeletal creature she’d been in June, during the height of her pursuit of Althea and Hunter Drexel.

  It was late morning on a weekday. London children were back at school and their parents back at work after the long summer. But the park was still busy. Locals walked their dogs, trainers warmed up with their clients beneath the beech trees, retired couples wandered hand in hand or read their newspapers on slatted wooden benches. And of course the ubiquitous tourists swarmed in chattering huddles around the palace, hoping for a glimpse of Will and Kate, or at least the chance to take a selfie outside what had once been Princess Diana’s London home.

  Tracy felt at home here too. In this park. In this city.

  She had always loved London. Nicholas was conceived here, and although she had fled the city soon afterwards, haunted by her broken marriage to Jeff, she knew now she had left a part of her heart behind. Colorado had been a new start, a new life for her and Nick. Thanks to Blake Carter, that too had been a joyous time in Tracy’s life. But with Nick gone and her work with the CIA now at an end, it was time for a new chapter to begin.

  Tracy had flirted with the idea of returning to New Orleans, where she grew up. Or Philadelphia, where she’d been happy for a short time as a young woman. Before her mother’s suicide. Before prison, and Jeff and Nicholas. Before her real life began. But it was London that spoke to her most strongly, London that seemed to be calling her home.

  Climbing up the hill from Kensington High Street, Tracy skirted the palace, making a left along the path that led towards the Princess Diana Memorial playground and Notting Hill beyond. A man in an old-fashioned tweed coat stood up from one of the benches and waved as she approached. Tracy waved back, quickening her pace towards him.

  “It’s sweet of you to do this.” She greeted him warmly with a smile and a hug. “I’m sure you’ve got many more important things to be doing today than having lunch with me.”

  “More important than lunch with Tracy Whitney?” Major General Frank Dorrien raised a bushy eyebrow. “I don’t think so. At any rate, I can’t think of anything more fun. Shall we?”

  He crooked his elbow, offering Tracy his arm. It was an old-fashioned gesture, chivalrous, and, Tracy now knew, typical of Frank. She was embarrassed to think how completely wrong she’d been about him.

  He’d had nothing to do with Prince Achileas’s death, although he admitted to disliking the boy.

  “It had nothing to do with his being gay. I couldn’t give two hoots about that. It was his support for Group 99 I couldn’t forgive, especially coming from his background. Even before they turned violent I despised what 99 stood for. Envy and bitterness, dressed up as social justice. But it was after they kidnapped
Bob Daley that the gloves really came off, at least as far as I was concerned. Bob was a wonderful man and he’d been a friend to Achileas. How he could continue to flirt with them after that . . .” Frank shook his head angrily.

  It was Frank who’d saved Tracy’s life at Villa Michele. Frank who’d shot Cameron Crewe and put an end to his reign of terror. Later, he explained to Tracy how he and his bosses at MI6, right up to the prime minister, had come to suspect both the U.S. government and Cameron Crewe of playing a double game when it came to Group 99. He also filled in some of the blanks left by Hunter Drexel, about Kate Evans’s motivations for involving Tracy in the first place.

  “As you know, Kate was part of the American team charged with tracking you down, back when you and Jeff were still top on everybody’s wanted list. She’d always admired your ingenuity, your ability to stay one step ahead of the agency. I think she came to see you as emblematic. Someone who had played the CIA at their own game and won. A sort of antihero, if you like. She admired you.”

  “She had a funny way of showing it,” Tracy said.

  Frank Dorrien shrugged. “She wasn’t mentally well. You mustn’t forget that.”

  In one way, all this had been good to know. It finally closed a circle. But in another way it left Tracy bereft. Now she might never know who was responsible for Nick’s death. Frank Dorrien was quite certain that Kate had done nothing to hurt him.

  “There’s not a shred of evidence linking her to that accident,” Frank told Tracy. “Indeed we’re as sure as we can be that she was in Europe at the time. Greg Walton fabricated all of that nonsense to give you a motive to help him.”

  “So if not Kate, then who?” Tracy asked.

  Frank took her hands kindly. “Maybe nobody. Maybe it truly was an accident, Tracy.”

  That was the hardest part for Tracy now. Living with the maybes.

  Today though, life felt bright and the future possible. Tracy and Frank walked on through the park together, slowly. Tracy was officially fully recovered from her ordeal on Lake Maggiore. But her doctors had warned her to take it easy, and for once she was heeding their advice. The strain of the last six months had taken a toll that Tracy hadn’t been aware of until it was over.