Sidney Sheldon - Chasing Tomorrow

Blake thought, I’ve loved her for so long, I hardly even notice it anymore.

Then he thought, I don’t want her to go.

Out of nowhere Tracy had announced yesterday that she was flying to Europe tomorrow for a week. Supposedly she was attending some fancy cooking course in Italy. But Blake Carter wasn’t stupid. He could smell something fishy, and it wasn’t bouillabaisse.

Nick wasn’t happy about it either.

“I win!” he panted, pulling his pony up short beneath the oak tree where Blake was waiting for them and grinning at his mother. “That means I get to give you a forfeit. And I say you can’t go to Italy.”

“Sorry.” Tracy laughed. She was panting too. The fast ride in the June sun had exhausted both of them “Doesn’t work like that. Besides, it’s only for a week.”

Tracy smiled at Blake, but he looked back at her sternly.

Nick said, “They have cooking courses in Denver. Why can’t you take one of those?”

“Exactly,” Blake Carter muttered darkly.

“I could,” said Tracy. “But Denver’s hardly the culinary capital of the world. Besides, I want to go to Italy. All this fuss over a little vacation! You two are quite capable of taking care of yourselves for a week.”

Nick rode off toward the lower fields, where Blake had set up some jumps for him to practice on. Left alone with Blake, Tracy shifted uncomfortably beneath his disapproving gaze.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I’m not a fool. I don’t know what you’re playing at, Tracy, but I know this trip is dangerous.”

Tracy opened her mouth to speak but Blake waved her down angrily. “Don’t you dare repeat that cooking school nonsense to me one more time. Don’t you dare!”

Tracy looked at him openmouthed. She didn’t think she’d ever heard Blake raise his voice before, and certainly not to her. Ridiculously, she felt her eyes well up with tears.

“You’ve lied to me for a long time,” Blake went on. “About who you are. About your past. And I let it go because the bottom line is, I don’t care who you are, Tracy. I don’t. I only care that you are. I love you and I love Nick. And I don’t want you to go.”

Tracy leaned out of her saddle and touched his arm. It was as solid and unyielding as the branch of a tree. Like its owner, thought Tracy. I’ve spent my life bending and twisting and compromising. But Blake lives in a world of black and white, right and wrong. Nothing moves for him.

“I have to go,” she said quietly. “Someone once saved my life. Someone I loved dearly. Now I may have a chance to save theirs. I would tell you more if I could, but I can’t.”

“That Canadian Rizzo’s involved in this, isn’t he?” Blake spat out Jean’s name like a mouthful of rotten fruit.

“No. Jean knows nothing about it,” said Tracy, semitruthfully.

“What if something happens to you?” Now it was Blake who was holding back tears. “Is this person you’re flying across the world for more important to you than Nicholas?”

“Of course not. No one’s more important than Nick.”

“Then don’t go. Because if you die, Tracy, that boy has no one.”

“Nonsense. He has you,” Tracy said fiercely, turning her mare around to head back down to the ranch. “And I’m not going to die, Blake. I’ll be back in a week, just like I told you. If you stop being so horrible to me, I may even bring you back a piece of pie. Just as soon as I’ve learned how to make one.”

That was Blake’s cue to smile, to break the tension between them, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead he watched, stony-faced, as Tracy rode back down the hill and out of sight.

DANIEL COOPER PRESSED HIS hands to his temples.

He had a terrible headache.

Jeff Stevens’s screams were starting to get to him.

The path to righteousness is lined with suffering, he reminded himself as he turned up the voltage on the machine that was delivering electric shocks to Stevens’s wrists and ankles. Think of our Lord in Gethsemane. Even He felt abandoned.

Tracy should have been here by now.

Where is she? Didn’t she get my message?

It was hard to keep faith. But Daniel Cooper trusted in the Lord.

BLAKE CARTER HAD JUST put Nick to bed and was about to make himself some supper when the phone rang. Tracy had left for Europe that morning and Blake was home alone.

“Schmidt residence.”

“Blake. How are you?” Jean Rizzo’s voice was the last sound on earth Blake wanted to hear. “It’s Jean Rizzo here. Tracy’s friend.”

“I know who you are.”

“I’m sorry to call so late but I need to speak to Tracy. I’m afraid it’s rather urgent.”

“Well, you can’t speak to her.”

“I’m sorry?”

The old cowboy’s anger crackled down the line. “Why don’t you just crawl on back to wherever it is you came from and leave Tracy the hell alone?”

“You don’t understand . . .”

“No, mister. YOU don’t understand. She’s not here. She flew to Europe this morning. Now, why don’t you tell me what business that lady has in Europe? With her son and her life back here? You put her up to this, Rizzo! If anything happens to that woman I swear to God—”

Jean interrupted him. “Where did she fly to, Blake?”

Carter didn’t answer.

With an effort, Jean controlled his temper. “It’s vitally important that you tell me what you know.”

Blake recognized the note of panic in Jean’s voice. He was doing his best to sound calm, but he was worried. So I was right. Tracy really is in danger. If she hasn’t even confided in Rizzo, it could be serious. “Italy. That’s what she told me. Rome. But I don’t know if she was telling the truth. She’s been lying a lot lately. All I know for sure is that she got in a cab to Denver Airport this morning.”

“Did she say anything else? Anything at all?”

“She said she was trying to help a friend. Someone who’d saved her life once. She said she’d be back in a week. That’s it. Now, are you going to tell me what’s happening?”

“I wish I could,” said Jean, and hung up.

Jean stood in his apartment with the phone in his hand, frozen, for almost a minute. Blake Carter’s words had hit him like a glass of acid in the face. He’d been afraid that Tracy might do this. That she might be crazy enough to try to confront Daniel Cooper on her own, if she believed Jeff Stevens’s life might depend on it. Had something in Cooper’s letter, in the riddle, convinced her that it did? Jean had hoped that some sense of self-preservation, and concern for her son, would kick in at the last minute and pull Tracy back from the brink.

No such luck. Tracy Whitney always had been impulsive. Apparently the leopard hadn’t changed its spots.

Jean had to find her before she found Cooper.

If anything happened to Tracy, Jean thought, Blake Carter wouldn’t need to kill me . Jean Rizzo would never be able to live with the guilt. He’d already failed his sister, and his wife, and his children and all those poor, dead, murdered women. If he lost Tracy too . . .

Think, Jean. Think! Where is she?

He picked up the phone and started to dial.

JEFF DRIFTED IN AND out of consciousness.

It couldn’t be long now. His body would shut down. The pain would end.

It had to. The alternative was unthinkable.

He felt something damp and soft being pressed against his lips.

A sponge?

He sucked weakly, desperate for water, but the liquid wasn’t water. It was bitter. Narcotic. He drank anyway, pushing the horrors of what he knew was to come from his mind.