Sidney Sheldon - Chasing Tomorrow

Tracy Schmidt is who I am now, Tracy told herself firmly. Tonight was a one-shot deal.

She said it so many times, and with such conviction, that by the time she fell asleep she almost believed it.

BACK IN THE CENTURY City condo, Elizabeth Kennedy’s partner hung up the phone and sat down on the bed, shaking.

Tracy Whitney’s alive?

Was it really possible, after all these years?

Elizabeth seemed quite sure. For all her sloppiness, she was unlikely to make an error about something as important as that. Besides, logic dictated that Elizabeth’s conclusions were correct. Unlike fickle human emotions, logic could be relied upon. Logic was never wrong. It was Tracy who’d stolen the necklace. Tracy who’d outsmarted them somehow, not the dim-witted Brooksteins. Tracy Whitney was brilliant, a virtuoso at her craft. In terms of pulling off the perfect con, she had taught Elizabeth Kennedy’s partner everything he knew. He wouldn’t even be in this business if it weren’t for Tracy. How ironic life could be sometimes!

Elizabeth’s partner no longer cared about the necklace. The necklace didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore except for that one, simple, incredible, intoxicating fact:

Tracy Whitney was back.

CHAPTER 12

SANDRA WHITMORE STOOD ON the corner of Western and Florence in Hollywood, hitching up her skirt and looking hopefully at the traffic.

Things were slow tonight, which was good and bad. Mostly bad. Still, at least she wasn’t desperate for a hit. Not like Monique.

Sandra felt bad for Monique. It was crack that had driven both of them onto the streets. Them and all the other girls who walked these blocks. But while Sandra had kicked the habit, clean for sixteen weeks now, Monique was still deep in her addiction. Sandra looked at her friend’s sunken eyes and protruding bones with a mixture of pity and shame. The shame was for her own past, for what she’d put her son Tyler through.

Not for much longer though.

Sandra was working tonight to pay off the last of her drug debts. Soon she’d be off the streets for good. She felt bad for Monique and the others, but she knew she would never look back.

A beat-up Mitsubishi Shogun slowed as it approached them.

“Can I take this one?” Monique hopped from foot to foot like a toddler needing to pee and ran her tongue back and forth over her gums when she spoke. Her jaw was thrust permanently forward so that her teeth looked bared, like a dog’s. Her whole body vibrated with desperation. “I know it’s your turn . . .”

“Sure. No problem.”

Sandra watched her friend climb up into the car. The man inside was heavyset and rough. He looked mean. Sandra noticed that he didn’t help Monique when she struggled to close the passenger door. Her arms were so frail, she needed both just to move it. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for the guy to reach over and do it for her. But he just sat there as if she were invisible. As if she were nothing.

A shiver of fear ran through Sandra’s body as she watched the car drive off.

I hope she’ll be okay.

A few minutes later, a silver Lincoln sedan drew up.

“Looking for a ride?”

He was clean, attractive even, and wore a suit and a smile. When Sandra nodded he leaned over and opened the door for her. The car smelled of leather and air freshener. This was more like it. Sandra moved a book off her seat so she could sit down. She read the spine. New Interpretations of the Gospel.

“You’re a Christian?”

“Sometimes.” He put a manicured hand on her leg. “I’m working on it.”

Sandra thought, If more johns were like this, I might not retire after all.

She pictured poor Monique, in the truck with the fat asshole, and felt a second stab of guilt. But she pushed it aside.

Maybe there was a reason that girls like Monique always got the short end of the stick?

Good things come to you when you start putting good things out there, Sandra. It starts here, in this fancy car. But it’s gonna end somewhere much, much better.

Sandra Whitmore and her son were headed to a better life.

CHAPTER 13

A CONFERENCE WAS UNDER WAY at 11000 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1700, the FBI’s Los Angeles headquarters. It was taking place in the office of Assistant Director John Marsden, but the man in charge was Agent Milton Buck. Agent Buck was in his early thirties and boyishly handsome. He would have been attractive had it not been for the twin handicaps of his pushy, arrogant personality and his height. At five foot seven, Milton Buck was easily the shortest man in the room.

The other people present were Assistant Director Marsden, FBI agents Susan Greene and Thomas Barton and Inspector Jean Rizzo of Interpol.

Agent Buck said, “There’s no connection. I’m sorry, but there just isn’t.”

Jean Rizzo bit back his irritation. He’d met hundreds of Milton Bucks at Interpol, ambitious, cocky little megalomaniacs with no thought in their empty heads beyond furthering their own careers. Depressingly, they always seemed to rise to the top. Like scum.

“You haven’t even read the file.”

“I don’t need to. With respect, Mr. Rizzo—”

“Inspector Rizzo,” said Jean. Why was it that people always began the most insulting sentences by saying “with respect”?

“My team and I are investigating a string of sophisticated, high-end thefts involving jewelry and fine art worth multiple millions of dollars. What you have is a few dead crack whores.”

“Twelve. Twelve victims. If you’d read the files you’d—”

“I don’t need to read your files to understand that there is no possible connection between our respective cases.”

“You’re wrong.” Jean pulled a sheaf of photographs out of his briefcase and handed one to everyone in the room. “There is a connection. You’re looking at her. Her name is Tracy Whitney.”

“Tracy Whitney?” For the first time, Assistant Director John Marsden’s ears pricked up. Twenty years Milton Buck’s senior, Marsden was a far more impressive character in Jean Rizzo’s view. Measured. Thoughtful. Not a total dick. “Why do I know that name?”

Jean Rizzo opened his mouth to speak but Agent Buck cut him off.

“Cold case, sir. That’s cold as in permafrost. Or cold as in morgue. Whitney’s almost certainly dead. She served time in Louisiana for armed robbery.”

“She never committed that crime,” Jean interjected. “Later evidence showed—”

“She got early release,” Milton Buck talked over him. “After that, her name was linked with a number of international swindles and burglaries. Interpol made a big deal out of her for a while, but nothing was ever proved. Eight or nine years ago she dropped off the radar completely.”

“And you know this how?” Assistant Director Marsden asked.

“We looked into her after the McMenemy Pissarro theft in New York, and again after the Neil Lane diamond heist in Chicago. No connection whatsoever.” Buck looked pointedly at Jean Rizzo. “Tracy Whitney is old news.”

Susan Greene, a plain young woman who was part of Buck’s team, turned to Jean Rizzo.

“You obviously believe there’s a connection between Ms. Whitney and this young woman’s death. What was her name again?”

Agent Greene picked up the picture of the grotesquely mutilated corpse that Rizzo had shown them earlier.

“Her name was Sandra Whitmore.”

“The crack whore,” Milton Buck said nastily.

Jean gave him a look that could have melted stone.

“Sandra had been clean almost four months. She was a single mom with a day job at Costco.”

“And we all know what her night job was.” Buck sneered.