Now, reluctantly, she’d been forced to admit that she wasn’t twenty-three anymore. Stress and exhaustion no longer bounced off her like stones skipped across a river. They hit. And they hurt.
“You look lovely,” Frank said. “Very French.”
Tracy smiled. “It’s the scarf.”
“It suits you.”
For a few minutes they walked on in companionable silence, Tracy leaning into Frank like a sapling bending in the wind. Then Tracy said, “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever properly thanked you.”
“For what?”
Tracy laughed. “For saving my life that day. If you hadn’t showed up . . . if you hadn’t shot Cameron . . .”
“Yes, well,” Frank Dorrien said gruffly. “I should never have allowed things to get that far in the first place. We should never have lost track of you.”
“Jeff should never have lost track of me, you mean,” Tracy said archly.
“No, no,” said Frank. “I can’t have that. I was team leader. The buck stopped with me.”
Tracy thought, He’s so British. So clipped and reserved. Heaven forbid he show any emotion, or take any credit for his own heroism.
They’d reached the top of the hill now. Frank led them to an empty bench so that Tracy could get her breath back.
“I take it you’ve seen this?”
He handed her a copy of today’s Times.
“No!” Tracy took it delightedly. “I mean I’ve read the piece online, obviously. But I haven’t seen a hard copy. All the newsagents I passed on the way here had sold out.”
No one had been more astonished than Tracy to learn that Hunter Drexel was still alive—that he’d survived Cameron’s point-blank bullet that night at the villa. After all, she had watched Hunter go down with her own eyes, seen his empty gaze. Had anybody asked her, Tracy would have sworn on oath that Hunter was dead. But apparently he’d been wearing body armor underneath his clothes during dinner. Ironically to protect himself from her, not Cameron Crewe. But it had saved his life just the same.
Tracy was relieved to learn Drexel was alive. But she still had mixed feelings about him, and about where his loyalties really lay. He’d refused to tell MI6 anything about Kate Evans location, and seemed determined that she should evade justice for the murder of Bob Daley—supposedly his friend—as well as for the other Group 99 cyberattacks she organized. And though he hadn’t been involved in Sally Faiers’s death, or Hélène Faubourg’s, to Tracy’s mind he’d bounced back from both these tragic events in a manner that did not endear him, nor engender trust.
On the other hand, he’d been through hell and risked a lot to bring Crewe Oil to justice and to expose the truth about both the global fracking industry and Group 99.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the whole truth.
Tracy opened the paper eagerly and scanned the first four pages, all of which were devoted to Hunter’s article. It contained a great many bombshells, but the most shocking part for Tracy was what it omitted.
No mention was made of President Havers’s involvement in corrupt practices, still less was there any allusion to the botched Bratislavan rescue attempt. Instead a false story had been concocted about Hunter escaping while in transit from one Group 99 camp to another. Even worse, he claimed to have been working alongside the CIA while on the run from Group 99, helping to lure the group’s leader, Alexis Argyros, aka Apollo, into a trap that resulted in his ultimate death via drone strike. Names and locations had all been withheld as “classified,” making the story conveniently impossible to verify. And meanwhile Greg Walton and his team came out of the whole thing smelling of roses while Hunter was hailed as a hero.
Tracy shook her head. “I still can’t believe he sold out.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that exactly,” said Frank. “The Havers administration was never as bad as Drexel painted them. At the end of the day, all they did was arrange a few off book, handshake deals to promote U.S. interests. We were just as bad.”
“I’m sure you were,” said Tracy. “But someone ought to be saying so!”
“Sally Faiers tried,” Frank reminded her. “Look what happened to her.”
Tracy handed him back the paper. They walked on.
“Do you think the Americans killed Sally?” Tracy asked.
Frank shook his head. “No. We’re pretty sure Crewe ordered the hit in Bruges. And on Hélène. Hunter had confided in both of them, you see.”
“Kate wasn’t mentioned in the article,” said Tracy. “After everything we went through! They don’t even talk about Althea.”
“Drexel insisted on keeping her out of it.” For the first time, Dorrien sounded as outraged as Tracy was. “That was his quid pro quo, for keeping his mouth shut about Bratislava and the president. We know he gave her well over a million dollars in poker winnings, presumably to start a new life somewhere. And at the end of the day it was in everyone’s interests to let her drop, to focus on Argyros. The drone strike on Apollo was a success. Letting Althea slip through the net was a failure. With Crewe and Argyros both dead, Group 99 have been cut off at the knees. Hunter Drexel’s a hero, and so’s the President. Everyone’s a winner.”
“Tell that to Bob Daley’s widow,” Tracy said bitterly. “Or the parents of those poor kids at Camp France.”
“I agree, my dear,” said Frank. “It’s not fair. But then life so rarely is, wouldn’t you agree? Ah, here we are. Chez Patrick. I hope you’re hungry.”
They’d turned a corner into a charming cobbled mews. A few yards in front of them stood an extremely pretty French restaurant, with blue and white canvas awnings hanging over outdoor tables, simple wicker bistro chairs and window boxes overflowing with Sweet William perched above the open door. A glorious smell of garlic and white wine wafted down the mews towards them, making Tracy’s mouth water.
Inside, Chez Patrick was bustling. An elderly Frenchman took Tracy’s coat and scarf. He was reaching for Frank’s heavy tweed coat when Frank’s phone rang.
“Sorry,” he mouthed to Tracy, darting back into the mews. “You go in. I won’t be long.”
Leaving him to his phone call, Tracy followed the maître d’ through the restaurant. Weaving her way through gingham-clothed tables and past chattering diners, she arrived at a table tucked away round a corner, in a little alcove all its own.
Jeff Stevens looked up and smiled.
“Hello, Tracy.”
CHAPTER 34
TRACY TURNED AND BOLTED out of the restaurant.
She looked up and down the mews in search of Frank Dorrien. But Frank had gone.
He set me up. The bastard set me up.
By the time she turned around, Jeff was standing outside. In a dark suit that off set his gray eyes perfectly, with his curly dark hair ruffled by the wind, he looked as handsome as he had the day Tracy first saw him, in a train compartment en route to St. Louis. Tracy remembered that first meeting as if it were yesterday. She had just pulled off her first ever job, stealing Lois Bellamy’s jewels for a crooked New York jeweler named Conrad Morgan. Jeff, posing as FBI Agent Thomas Bowers, had scammed her into handing them over; and Tracy had scammed him right back.
But of course, it wasn’t yesterday. Decades had passed since that train journey. Decades of adventure and excitement, of love and loss, of exquisite joy and unbearable pain. Nicholas’s life, and death, lay between then and now, an unbridgeable Grand Canyon of grief that Tracy could never cross, no matter how much she might want to.
“Please,” Jeff said reproachfully. “Don’t run away. Have lunch with me.”
“I can’t believe Frank did this,” Tracy muttered furiously.
“You mustn’t blame Frank,” Jeff said. “I begged him. I told him I needed to see you.”
“And I told him, very plainly, that I didn’t want to see you,” Tracy said.
Jeff’s wounded expression was like a punch in the stomach.
Softening her tone, Tracy said, “It’s a bad idea. You know it is.”
/>
“It’s only lunch.”
Tracy gave Jeff a knowing look. When it came to the two of them, there was no such thing as “only lunch” and they both knew it.
“We do need to talk,” Jeff pressed her.
Tracy hesitated, just for a second, and Jeff smiled. He knew he had her.
THE FOOD WAS DELICIOUS. Nothing too rich and creamy, the way French food sometimes could be. Tracy had a langoustine salad that positively exploded with flavor, and Jeff had a fortifying steak frites, washed down with a good Burgundy for courage.
He knew he was going to need it.
For the first half an hour they talked about the case. About Hunter and Kate and the drone strike that had killed Alexis Argyros. About the fracking industry and corruption and the duplicitous nature of politicians.
“If only more people were as honest as us, eh, darling?” Jeff quipped.
Tracy loved his sense of humor and she envied it. She wished she could still laugh at the world the way Jeff could. She used to laugh a lot.
“I love you, Tracy.”
Tracy’s head whipped back as if she’d been stung. This was so out of left field, so unexpected. She looked at Jeff almost angrily.
“Stop.”
Jeff’s eyes were locked on Tracy’s. “Why?”
“You know why. It would never work.”
“Why wouldn’t it work?”
“Because we’re completely incompatible!”
“That’s horseshit. We’re totally compatible.”
“We drive each other crazy,” said Tracy.
“I know.” Jeff grinned. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Tracy couldn’t help but smile at that. But the light mood didn’t last long. Reaching across the table, Jeff took both Tracy’s hands in his.
“Tell me about Nicholas.”
Tracy frowned. “What do you mean? Tell you what?”
“Everything. What he looked like when he was born. What his favorite breakfast cereal was. What position he slept in.”
“STOP!” Tracy shook her head violently. She tried to snatch her hands away but Jeff tightened his grip. Other diners turned to look at them. It was painful to watch Tracy, twisting and writhing to get away from him, like an insect with its wings on fire.
“I can’t talk about him,” she pleaded. “Not with you. Not like that.”
“Like what?”
Tracy swallowed hard. “As if he were still alive.”
She gazed down at the tablecloth, avoiding Jeff’s eyes. He gave her a few minutes, then reached for her hand again.
“You can talk about him, Tracy. You have to talk about him,” Jeff said gently. “If you don’t let the grief out, it will kill you in the end. It will poison you from the inside out like battery acid. Just like it did to Cameron Crewe.”
Tracy looked up sharply. “Maybe that’s what I want. Maybe I want it to kill me.”
Jeff said, “I don’t believe that. You know that’s not what Nick would have wanted.”
Angrily, Tracy brushed away tears. “You don’t understand, Jeff. If I let the grief out, if I let it go, I’m scared I’ll be letting him go.”
“You’ll never let him go,” Jeff said. “Neither of us will.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“This isn’t just about you, Tracy!” Jeff cut her off, not angry exactly, but exasperated. Desperate. “I need to talk about him. To learn about him, about his life. I missed it. I missed all of it, and I can never get those years back. If you don’t talk to me about him, what am I left with? How can I grieve?”
Tracy felt terrible. The pain etched on Jeff’s face was every bit as real as her own. How had she not noticed it before? In Paris, or Megève, when they’d spent time together? It must have been there. Was it because Jeff’s face had reminded her so much of Nicholas, she’d stopped seeing him as a person in his own right?
Yes. That was it.
But she saw him now. Jeff, her Jeff. Reaching up, she stroked his cheek.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Jeff kissed her hand. “Don’t be sorry. Just talk to me. Please. Talk to me about our son.”
And so, falteringly at first, Tracy talked. She talked until they’d finished their meal. She talked when Jeff paid the bill. She talked as their coffees turned cold, and the restaurant emptied, and at last the manager came over and politely informed them that they were closing now, to prepare for the evening’s dinner service.
Outside, the sun glowed low and red over the mews. Crisp, golden leaves swirled around Tracy and Jeff’s legs and crunched beneath their feet as they walked hand in hand back up towards Notting Hill Gate.
“Will you stay in London for a while?” Jeff asked.
She nodded. “For a while, yes. Maybe for good. I’m still thinking. How about you?”
“I’m still thinking too.”
The love hung in the air between them like a living thing, a ghost.
Tracy looked up into Jeff’s eyes and said what they were both thinking.
“I don’t know if we can go back. I love you, but . . .”
He stopped her with a kiss.
“We can’t go back. We can only go forward. But we don’t have to do it alone.”
For a moment, Tracy let herself hope that he might be right. “I should go.”
Jeff stuck out his hand for a cab and helped Tracy inside.
“Don’t disappear on me now.”
“I won’t.” Tracy smiled. “I promise.”
“Tomorrow’s the great adventure, Tracy,” Jeff said, tapping the door as the driver pulled away. “And it’s coming whether we want it or not.”
He watched as Tracy’s taxi eased into the London traffic and drove out of sight.
EPILOGUE
JEFF WAITED IN THE darkness.
It was very late, almost two A.M., and the parking structure was deserted.
He started to panic that he wasn’t coming. That this would be the one Saturday night when the bastard didn’t come here, to this rundown out of town mall, to meet his informant. But just as Jeff was giving up hope, he appeared, perfectly dressed as always in an expensive suit and tie. He waited until his “source” crawled in, ragged and dirty and desperate for the drug money he was about to earn for betraying some underworld figure or other. Then he glanced around briefly and made his approach.
The two men spoke for five minutes. Then the suit handed over a crisp white envelope, just as he always did, and the addict scuttled away.
He was almost at his car when he felt the cold metal of Jeff’s gun pressed against the back of his ear.
“Who are you?”
He was trying to sound calm, but Jeff could hear the fear in his voice and smell it on his skin.
“What do you want?”
“The truth,” Jeff said. Reaching into the man’s pocket, he extracted his gun. “Turn around.”
Milton Buck did as he was asked.
“Back up against the wall.”
Buck took two steps back, glaring at Jeff defiantly. The FBI agent had always loathed Jeff Stevens. The man clearly viewed himself as some sort of a Robin Hood, when in fact he was nothing more than a common thief. “What’s this about Stevens?”
“I saw you. On the hospital CCTV feed. You were there the night Nicholas died.”
Milton Buck shrugged. “So?”
“So it was you. I went to Steamboat Springs. I did my research. You were the one who sabotaged that truck. You expected Nick to die, but when he didn’t, you went to the hospital and tampered with his anesthetic. You killed a decent man and an innocent child. You murdered my son.”
Milton Buck hesitated for a moment. He contemplated denying it, but there was clearly no point.
“Does Tracy know?”
“No. She thinks it was an accident. The truth would kill her.”
Milton Buck glared at Jeff defiantly. “What do you want? An apology? Well you won’t get one. Not from me. My job is to defend America, Stevens. To prot
ect our national interests. My mission was to neutralize the threat of Group 99, at the time a global treat to economic stability. We believed Tracy was a direct link to Althea. We needed her to do her duty. But she refused. Repeatedly. So I did my duty. Sometimes that means making tough decisions. And yes, sometimes it means people have to die.”
Jeff paused for a long time. Then he nodded, lowering his gun. “You’re right.”
Milton Buck frowned. This was not at all what he’d expected. “What?”
“I said you’re right.” Jeff smiled. “Sometimes people do have to die.”
Raising his arm, Jeff fired two bullets between Milton Buck’s eyes.
Then he turned and walked away.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My sincere thanks go to all the Sheldon family for putting their trust in me once again, and especially to Mary—thank you for your support and kindness over these last few years—and Alexandra, whose input to Reckless in particular has been invaluable. Thanks also to Luke Janklow, who puts the “gent” in agent, Mort Janklow, and everyone at Janklow and Nesbit, especially Hellie Ogden in London and the lovely and astute Claire Dippel in New York. Huge thanks to all at HarperCollins, especially my editors, May Chen in New York and Kim Young in London for all your insights, hard work and oh, the time you all spent helping me to get this book right. It is the literal truth to say that I could not have finished Reckless without you. I am truly grateful. Finally, thanks to my family, for their endless love, especially my husband, Robin. I adore you.
This book is dedicated to Belen Hormaeche, one of my oldest and dearest friends. Bels, you are like a sister to me. Thank you for always being there. T xx
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The late novelist and screenwriter SIDNEY SHELDON remains one of the world’s top bestselling authors, having sold more than 300 million copies of his books. He is also the only writer to have won an Oscar, a Tony, and an Edgar. The Guinness Book of World Records heralds him as the most translated author in the world.
Sidney Sheldon's Reckless Page 33
