Sidney Sheldon - Chasing Tomorrow

“How about Thursday? I thought we could all have dinner.”

Dinner was even worse than Jean imagined. Claude, the bastard, turned out to be one of the nicest people he had ever met: cultured, unassuming, kind and obviously besotted with Sylvie. As well he might be.

And I opened the door, Jean thought miserably. I let him in. If I hadn’t neglected her, if I hadn’t been so obsessed with work, we’d still be together.

Perhaps if he had something to show for his work obsession, he’d have felt better. If Lori Hansen were still alive. Or Alissa Armand, or Sandra Whitmore, or any of Daniel Cooper’s victims. But they weren’t. And Cooper was still out there. Jean was failing at his job, just like he’d failed at his marriage.

He longed to unburden himself to Tracy Whitney. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he felt Tracy Whitney would have understood. She too had made sacrifices in the name of her profession. She had lost in love, seen her family disintegrate around her not once but twice. But unlike Jean, Tracy kept moving, kept looking forward, not back.

Unfortunately, Tracy had stopped returning his calls the day she left New York. Her silence wasn’t hostile but its message was clear: I’ve done all I can, told you all I know. I kept my side of the bargain. Now keep yours and leave me be.

As much as it frustrated him, Jean admired Tracy for returning to her new life in the mountains, and for clinging to her new identity as Tracy Schmidt, philanthropist and mother, quiet private citizen. Was she bored? Probably, sometimes. But boredom was a small price to pay for peace of mind.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Jean walked out of the airport and hopped into a cab.

“Avenida Emilio Lemos, por favor.”

“¿Comisaría?”

“Sí.”

Jean didn’t even have time to go to his hotel and change before today’s meeting, but that was okay. If he wound up finding Daniel Cooper here—if Señora Prieto was right—it would all have been worth it.

“YOU WILL NOT FIND Daniel Cooper in Seville, Inspector.”

Comisario Alessandro Dmitri was angry. Jean Rizzo recognized the expression on the Spanish policeman’s face all too well. It was a combination of anger, resentment and arrogance. Interpol agents got it a lot, especially from disgruntled regional police chiefs.

“Señora Prieto seemed convinced that—”

“Señora Prieto is misinformed. She had no business contacting your agency directly. I’m afraid she has brought you here on a . . . what is the English expression? You are chasing wild geese.”

Jean Rizzo walked over to the window. Seville’s new police headquarters boasted spectacular views of the city, but today everything was dreary and gray. Traffic crawled sluggishly around the roundabout immediately below them. Like me, thought Jean. Going in circles.

“Señora Prieto mentioned the letter she found inside the case protecting the Holy Shroud. You knew about that?”

Dmitri bristled. “Of course.”

“She said she received a phone call two days prior—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Dmitri interrupted rudely, waving Jean away like a pesky fly. “I got a call myself, as it happens, from the same man. American, spouting all sorts of wild theories about the Santa Sábana being stolen.”

“You never reported this call?”

“Reported it to whom?” Dmitri grew even angrier. “ I am the chief of police in Seville. I dismissed the call as nonsense and I was proven right. No attempt has been made to steal the Shroud. I’m afraid Señora Prieto has rather a feminine sensibility, prone to drama and conspiracy theories. I prefer to stick to facts.”

“So do I,” said Jean. “Let me tell you a few facts about Daniel Cooper.”

He filled Dmitri in on the bare bones. Cooper’s history as an insurance investigator, his obsession with the con artists Tracy Whitney and Jeff Stevens and his subsequent involvement in a string of art and jewelry thefts worldwide. Finally Jean told Dmitri about the Bible Killer murders. “Daniel Cooper is our prime suspect. At this point he’s our only suspect. I can’t stress strongly enough how important it is that we find him. Cooper is brilliant, deeply disturbed and dangerous.”

Comisario Dmitri yawned. “I daresay, Inspector, and I wish you luck. However, the fact remains, he is not in Seville.”

“How do you know?”

Dmitri smiled smugly. “Because if he were here, my men would have found him.”

JEAN’S MEETING AT THE Antiquarium was more productive. He found Magdalena Prieto to be reasonable, intelligent and polite, a welcome change from the obnoxious Dmitri.

“Is he always that much of a jerk?” Jean asked. He was seated in Magdalena’s office, sipping a much-needed double espresso that her secretary had kindly brought him.

“Always.” Magdalena Prieto sighed. “He’s furious with me for calling Interpol. Thinks it undermines his authority, which I suppose it does in a way. But I felt it was my duty to do everything I could to protect the Shroud. I can’t tell you how shaken I was, finding that letter.”

“I’m sure.”

“Whoever was in that case could have damaged the Sábana, or even destroyed it. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“But they didn’t,” Jean observed.

“No.”

“They didn’t try to steal it either. Or to extort money.”

“Exactly. I truly believe that the person who left the letter and telephoned me was trying to warn me. I think he was sincere. More than that, he was well informed. My staff confirmed that they’d seen the other man he told me about, the one posing as a policeman. You’ve seen the CCTV footage?”

Jean nodded. The hunched, dark-haired man in the parka was not familiar to him. If this was Daniel Cooper’s new accomplice, he was certainly very far removed from Elizabeth Kennedy, his former partner in crime.

“The way this guy broke in . . .” Señora Prieto continued admiringly. “It wasn’t just that he bypassed our alarms and cameras. That glass is bulletproof and the key codes supposedly impenetrable. He knew exactly what he was doing. He even ensured that the atmospheric balance of argon and oxygen was left intact. Who does that?”

“So he understood about the need to preserve the Shroud?”

“Yes. And how to preserve it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he must be a curator himself. Or an archaeologist.”

Jean Rizzo smiled. An American expert on antiquities who can crack codes and bypass alarms, with a flair for the dramatic . . .

Magdalena Prieto looked at him curiously. “Am I missing something?”

“The man who left you that note is called Jeff Stevens. And no, Ms. Prieto, you’re not missing something. Although I think I might be. And Comisario Dmitri certainly is.”

Magdalena waited for him to elaborate.

“If Jeff Stevens thinks Daniel Cooper’s in Seville to steal the Shroud, then Daniel Cooper is in Seville to steal the Shroud. Under no circumstances should you reduce your security.”

Magdalena blanched. “All right. We won’t.”

“And e-mail me the footage of the second man.”

“I’ll do it this afternoon. Do you think you’ll find him, Inspector? Because in all honesty, I don’t think Comisario Dmitri’s even trying.”

“I’ll find him,” Jean Rizzo said grimly. “I have to. Your Sábana Santa’s not the only thing at stake.”

JEAN RIZZO WALKED BACK to his hotel through Maria Luisa Park. The shrubbery glowed lush and green after the rain. Vivid pink laurel blossoms dazzled in the spring sunshine, in contrast to Jean’s gray, dour mood.

He thought about Jeff Stevens. About the showmanship and panache of his latest stunt, followed by the letter to Magdalena Prieto. A man would have to have serious glamour and charisma to attract a woman like Tracy Whitney, and clearly Jeff Stevens had it in spades. Equally clearly, behind the one-liners and the suave, James Bond exterior lurked an almost palpable loneliness. Like Jean, Jeff had loved deeply once and had lost the only woman he’d ever truly loved. Jeff blocked out the pain with hookers. Jean had never had it in him to do that. In a way, he wished he did. But both men had thrown themselves into work, into their respective passions, as a way to survive loss.