Sidney Sheldon - If Tomorrow Comes

Tracy and Jeff arrived at Segovia in time for lunch and dined at a charming restaurant in the main square under the shadow of the two-thousand-year-old aqueduct built by the Romans. After lunch they wandered around the medieval city and visited the old Cathedral of Santa Maria and the Renaissance town hall, and then drove up to the Alcбzar, the old Roman fortress perched on a rocky spur high over the city. The view was breathtaking.

“I'll bet if we stayed here long enough, we'd see Don Quixote and Sancho Panza riding along the plains below,” Jeff said.

She studied him. “You enjoy tilting at windmills, don't you?”

“Depends on the shape of the windmill,” he said softly. He moved closer to her.

Tracy stepped away from the edge of the cliff. “Tell me more about Segovia.”

And the spell was broken.

Jeff was an enthusiastic guide, knowledgeable about history, archaeology, and architecture, and Tracy had to keep reminding herself that he was also a con artist. It was the most pleasant day Tracy could remember.

One of the Spanish detectives, Josй Pereira, grumbled to Cooper, “The only thing they're stealing is our time. They're just two people in love, can't you see that? Are you sure she's planning something?”

“I'm sure,” Cooper snarled. He was puzzled by his own reactions. All he wanted was to catch Tracy Whitney, to punish her, as she deserved. She was just another criminal, an assignment. Yet, every time Tracy's companion took her arm, Cooper found himself stung with fury.

When Tracy and Jeff arrived back in Madrid, Jeff said, “If you're not too exhausted, I know a special place for dinner.”

“Lovely.” Tracy did not want the day to end. I'll give myself this day, this one day to be like other women.

Madrileсos dine late, and few restaurants open for dinner before 9:00 P.M. Jeff made a reservation for 10:00 at the Zalacaнn, an elegant restaurant where the food was superb and perfectly served. Tracy ordered no dessert, but the captain brought a delicate flaky pastry that was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. She sat back in her chair, sated and happy.

“It was a wonderful dinner. Thank you.”

“I'm glad you enjoyed it. This is the place to bnng people if you want to impress them.”

She studied him. “Are you trying to impress me, Jeff?”

He grinned. “You bet I am. Wait until you see what's next.”

What was next was an unprepossessing bodega, a smoky cafй filled with leather jacketed Spanish workmen drinking at the bar and at the dozen tables in the room. At one end was a tablado, a slightly elevated platform, where two men strummed guitars. Tracy and Jeff were seated at a small table near the platform.

“Do you know anything about flamenco?” Jeff asked. He had to raise his voice over the noise level in the bar.

“Only that it's a Spanish dance.”

“Gypsy, originally. You can go to fancy nightclubs in Madrid and see imitations of flamenco, but tonight you'll see the real thing.”

Tracy smiled at the enthusiasm in Jeff's voice.

“You're going to see a classic cuadro flamenco. That's a group of singers, dancers, and guitarists. First they perform together, then each one takes his turn.”

Watching Tracy and Jeff from a table in the corner near the kitchen, Daniel Cooper wondered what they were discussing intently.

“The dance is very subtle, because everything has to work together — movements, music, costumes, the building of the rhythm….”

“How do you know so much about it?” Tracy asked.

“I used to know a flamenco dancer.”

Naturally, Tracy thought.

The lights in the bodega dimmed, and the small stage was lit by spotlights. Then the magic began. It started slowly. A group of performers casually ascended to the platform. The women wore colorful skirts and blouses, and high combs with flowers banked on their beautiful Andalusian coiffures. The male dancers were dressed in the traditional tight trousers and vests and wore gleaming cordovan-leather half boots. The guitarists strummed a wistful melody, while one of the seated women sang in Spanish.

Yo querнa dejar

A mi amante,

Pero antes de que pudiera,

Hacerlo ella me abandonу

Y destrozу mi corazуn.

“Do you understand what she's saying?” Tracy whispered.

“Yes. 'I wanted to leave my lover, but before I could, he left me and he broke my heart.' ”

A dancer moved to the center of the stage. She started with a simple zapateado, a beginning stamping step, gradually pushed faster and faster by the pulsating guitars. The rhythm grew, and the dancing became a form of sensual violence, variations on steps that had been born in gypsy caves a hundred years earlier. As the music mounted in intensity and excitement, moving through the classic figures of the dance, from alegrнa to fandanguillo to zambra to seguiriya, and as the frantic pace increased, there were shouts of encouragement from the performers at the side of the stage.

Cries of “Olй tu madre,” and “Olй tus santos,” and “Ands, anda,” the traditional jaleos and piropos, or shouts of encouragement, goaded the dancers on to wilder, more frantic rhythms.

When the music and dancing ended abruptly, a silence roared through the bar, and then there was a loud burst of applause.

“She's marvelous!” Tracy exclaimed.

“Wait,” Jeff told her.

A second woman stepped to the center of the stage. She had a dark, classical Castilian beauty and seemed deeply aloof, completely unaware of the audience. The guitars began to play a bolero, plaintive and low key, an Oriental-sounding canto. A male dancer joined her, and the castanets began to click in a steady, driving beat.

The seated performers joined in with the jaleo, and the handclaps that accompany the flamenco dance, and the rhythmic beat of the palms enhanced the music and dancing, lifting it, building it, until the room began to rock with the echo of the zapateado, the hypnotic beat of the half toe, the heel, and the full sole clacking out an endless variation of tone and rhythmic sensations.

Their bodies moved apart and came together in a growing frenzy of desire, until they were making mad, violent, animal love without ever touching, moving to a wild, passionate climax that had the audience screaming. As the lights blacked out and came on again, the crowd roared, and Tracy found herself screaming with the others. To her embarrassment, she was sexually aroused. She was afraid to meet Jeff's eyes. The air between them vibrated with tension. Tracy looked down at the table, at his strong, tanned hands, and she could feel them caressing her body, slowly, swiftly, urgently, and she quickly put her hands in her lap to hide their trembling.

They said very little during the ride back to the hotel. At the door to Tracy's room, she turned and said, “It's been —”

Jeff's lips were on hers, and her arms went around him, and she held him tightly to her.

“Tracy-?”

The word on her lips was yes, and it took the last ounce of her willpower to say, “It's been a long day, Jeff. I'm a sleepy lady.”

“Oh.”

“I think I'll just stay in my room tomorrow and rest.”

His voice was level when he answered. “Good idea. I'll probably do the same.”

Neither of them believed the other.

At 10:40 the following morning Tracy was standing in the long line at the entrance to the Prado Museum. As the doors opened, a uniformed guard operated a turnstile that admitted one visitor at a time.

Tracy purchased a ticket and moved with the crowd going into the large rotunda. Daniel Cooper and Detective Pereira stayed well behind her, and Cooper began to feel a growing excitement. He was certain that Tracy Whitney was not there as a visitor. Whatever her plan was, it was beginning.