Sidney Sheldon - Chasing Tomorrow

With law enforcement closed to him, Daniel Cooper worked first as a private investigator and later as an employee of an insurance company, tracking down defrauders. It was in this latter capacity that he first crossed paths with Tracy Whitney.

Daniel Cooper believed he could save Tracy Whitney. God had told him so in dream after dream, even as the devil tempted him with unclean thoughts about Tracy’s body. Daniel made it his personal mission to catch Tracy and bring her to justice. But throughout her long career as a con artist, she had eluded him time and time again. First by herself, and later with the appalling Jeff Stevens, she mocked all her would-be captors. In their arrogance, police forces across the globe underestimated Tracy Whitney. Daniel Cooper tried to warn them—in Madrid, in London, in New York, in Amsterdam. But like the Pharisees, they remained blinded with pride. And so the evildoers triumphed.

It was Amsterdam that changed everything.

Tracy and Jeff had stolen the Lucullan Diamond, smuggling it out of the city by homing pigeon. Weeks of surveillance and planning by Daniel Cooper had been for naught. This time it was the moronic Inspector van Duren who had let Whitney slip through Cooper’s net. Daniel would never forget the way Tracy stopped at the boarding gate at Schiphol Airport, turned to him and waved. Waved. Tracy Whitney had looked right into his eyes and seen his secrets. It was in that moment that the bond between them had been cemented.

What God has joined together, let no man cast asunder.

Daniel Cooper had looked back at Tracy Whitney on that fateful day and seen something in her eyes that he could neither forgive, nor forget: pity. Tracy Whitney—thief, goddess, whore—had dared to feel sorry for him.

It was not to be borne.

God was sending him a message that day. Clearly, he had not atoned sufficiently for his sins. He had not paid a high enough price. Tracy was to be his salvation and he hers, but he did not yet deserve her. There was more work to be done.

Daniel Cooper resigned from the insurance company the next day. He would begin by humiliating the police and authorities who had allowed Tracy to escape so many times through their arrogance and pride. And lo, the proud will be made humble and the humble raised high. From his years spent chasing Tracy across Europe, Daniel Cooper knew better than anyone just how easy it was to outwit dummy local law enforcement. As for Interpol, the entire organization was a joke! Just like the Federal Bureau of Ineptitude. Daniel would enjoy outsmarting them, just as Tracy had done. Only Daniel’s heists would be even bigger, even grander, even better executed than Tracy’s.

Tracy Whitney and Jeff Stevens had taught him how useful a woman could be as a lure in scams, disabling weak, carnally corrupted men. Preferring to work in the shadows himself, Daniel Cooper began scouting around for a suitable female partner.

He found Elizabeth Kennedy by chance, through a contact in London. She was very young, perhaps nineteen, sexually alluring and utterly amoral. Perfect, on paper. When Daniel Cooper met her in person, in a café in Shoreditch, he found her devoid of human emotion or at least of feminine frailty. Fresh out of Youth Custody, where she’d been sent for credit-card fraud—rather an ingenious case in Daniel Cooper’s opinion, in which she’d been unlucky to get caught—Elizabeth was mature, intelligent and focused. Of equal importance, she was willing to accept Daniel Cooper’s authority in exchange for a steady stream of work and a fifty-fifty share of the profits.

For the first couple of years, the partnership worked flawlessly. Daniel and Elizabeth planned and executed a string of jewel and art thefts around the globe, closely following the successful Whitney-Stevens model. But they were better than Tracy and Jeff. They worked harder, aimed higher and made more money. It was astonishing how quickly they became rich.

Elizabeth bought herself diamonds and cars and vacations and invested in real estate. Daniel Cooper saved every penny in a string of safe, untraceable Swiss bank accounts. He had no need for material comforts, nor, he felt, did he deserve them, preferring to live simply. Besides, the money was for him and Tracy. One day, once the other part of the Lord’s work had been completed and Daniel’s soul had been washed clean of his mother’s blood, he and Tracy would be married. Daniel Cooper would treat Tracy Whitney like a queen and she would worship and adore him, and live to please him, and tell him every day how much better a lover he was than that vacuous popinjay Jeff Stevens.

It was Daniel Cooper’s hatred of Jeff Stevens that led him to make his first mistake: using Elizabeth as a “honey trap” to break up Jeff and Tracy’s marriage. The plan had worked. All Daniel Cooper’s plans worked. He was a genius. But success came at a cost. The first, tragic consequence was that Tracy Whitney went to ground, disappearing so effectively that not even Daniel Cooper could find her. For nine long years Daniel had believed she was dead. Just thinking about that time made him shiver.

The second consequence was the effect of the job on Elizabeth. Much to Daniel Cooper’s surprise, it turned out that the aloof Miss Kennedy did have feelings after all. She had begun to care for Stevens and to fall under his spell, just as Tracy had done before her. Daniel and Elizabeth continued to pull off spectacular heists together across the globe. But after the honey-trap episode, and Tracy’s disappearance, the dynamic between the two of them was never quite the same. Elizabeth began to grow restless, and to tire of her partner’s demands. Inevitably, her standards began to slip.

Things came to a head last summer in L.A. when Elizabeth screwed up the Brookstein job. But, as Daniel now knew, it had all been part of God’s plan. For it was in Los Angeles, miraculously, that the Lord had brought Tracy Whitney back to him. Back from the dead.

Once again, God had sent Daniel a message, and he had used Tracy Whitney as the messenger.

I am pleased with you, My son, God was saying. Through your sacrifices, you have appeased My wrath and atoned for your sins. Now you shall win your bride, and achieve eternal redemption.

Elizabeth Kennedy’s arrest in New York had been a surprise to Daniel Cooper, but not a problem. Elizabeth had outlived her usefulness anyway. She was no longer Daniel Cooper’s concern. God’s plan for him had moved into a new, and a final, phase.

It was all about Tracy now.

Beneath the blanket, Daniel Cooper was about to reach climax. Reaching lower, he grabbed his scrotum and dug his fingernails into his own flesh so hard he drew blood. Tears of agony streamed down his face. He bit his tongue to stop himself from screaming as his erection collapsed in his hand.

“I’m sorry, Lord,” he whimpered. “I’m so sorry!”

The plane soared upward into the night.

THE RESTAURANT WAS OFF Bleecker, and quaint and European in feel. There were gingham tablecloths and old wicker chairs with floral cushions and mismatched china. Christmas carols were playing on low in the background. Under different circumstances, it would have been romantic. As it was, Tracy and Jean Rizzo were both exhausted.

It had been three days since Elizabeth Kennedy’s arrest and the breakthrough in Jean’s case. Three days of relentless debriefing about Daniel Cooper, overshadowed by gnawing anxiety: the Bible Killer had not struck again, at least not in the expected time frame. If it was Cooper, he was changing his MO, perhaps in response to Elizabeth’s arrest. Or perhaps, as Milton Buck repeatedly and smugly reminded both Jean and Tracy, Daniel Cooper had better things to do than waste his time bumping off hookers. Perhaps Jean Rizzo’s theory of a connection between the murders and the thefts was no more than a fantasy, a castle in the sky.