Sidney Sheldon's Chasing Tomorrow (Tracy Whitney) (14 page)

“Not our maids,” Alan Brookstein joked. “Trust me, those cholas don’t have a whole brain cell between them. You’d get more ingenuity out of an ape.”

Still,
he thought,
it was a good observation. The last schmuck from the insurance agency never gave me any practical advice like that.

“You’re a smart girl, Theresa. Thorough, too. I like that. You got any other tips for me?”

Tracy paused for a beat, then smiled slowly.

“As a matter of fact, Alan, I do.”

ELIZABETH KENNEDY HAD NO
time for stupid, rich women. Unfortunately, in her line of work, she dealt with a great many of them. Although few were quite
as
stupid as Sheila Brookstein.

“I honestly don’t think I can stand it much longer,” Elizabeth told her partner. “The woman’s a card-carrying moron.”

“Focus on the money,” Elizabeth’s partner reminded her curtly.

“I’m trying.”

Elizabeth Kennedy usually had no problem keeping her mind on the silver lining—or in this case, ruby lining—of being forced to spend so much time with rich, stupid women like Sheila Brookstein. Elizabeth had grown up poor and had no intention of ever, ever going back there. But playing the role of British actress Liza Cunningham, Sheila’s new best friend, was really beginning to grate. It was like making small talk to a lobotomized cabbage. On a really off day.

“WHICH ONE, LIZA? THE
Alaïa or the Balenciaga?”

“Liza” was in Sheila Brookstein’s dressing room, helping her friend get dressed for tonight’s ceremony at LACMA. Alan Brookstein, Sheila’s fat, self-important husband, was being given some award.

“Try the Balenciaga first,” she called into the bedroom.

While Sheila swathed her bony frame in complicated layers of black silk, Elizabeth pulled the fake necklace that her partner had commissioned out of her purse. It was the work of a moment to exchange it for the real one, which Alan had removed from the safe in his dressing room earlier and laid out helpfully on his wife’s dresser.

“Should I bring the necklace through?”

“Would you? You’re an angel, Liza,” Sheila gushed.

Elizabeth fastened the fake rubies around Sheila Brookstein’s scraggy throat. She felt a moment’s anxiety as the older woman frowned into the mirror.
Surely she can’t tell the difference?
But the frown soon vanished, replaced by Sheila’s usual vacuous, smug, self-satisfied smile.

“How do I look?”

Like a wrinkled old turkey with a string of worthless red rocks around its neck.

“Ravishing. Alan’s going to die of pride.”

“And all the other directors’ wives are going to choke with envy. Bitches.” Sheila cackled nastily.

IT WAS ALMOST ANOTHER
hour before Sheila finally left in the back of her chauffeur-driven Bentley Continental. In that time “Liza” had styled and sprayed her thinning hair three different ways and helped the makeup artist apply the thick layers of foundation that Sheila felt made her seem younger, but that actually gave her skin the look of hardened clay. And all the while Sheila had talked and talked and talked.

“Whatever did I do before I met you, Liza?

“You’re like a sister to me.

“Isn’t it incredible how we have so much in common? Like we’re both such incredible
listeners
. Alan never listens to me. He thinks I’m stupid. I swear to God, that bastard . . .”

Never again,
Elizabeth thought, speeding toward the Century City condo for the rendezvous with her partner, the priceless ruby necklace tucked safely in her purse.
This time tomorrow I’ll be on a yacht in the Caribbean.

Good-bye, Sheila! Good-bye, Liza Cunningham!

And good riddance.

“YOU’RE AN IDIOT. YOU’VE
been duped.”

Elizabeth Kennedy felt the color rise in her cheeks. Not out of embarrassment. Out of anger. How dare her partner berate her like this? After the months she’d spent getting close to the Brooksteins! The endless, mind-numbing hours in Sheila’s company. Flirting with the repellent Alan.

“My job was to swap out the necklaces. That’s what I did. What the hell was
your
contribution?”

“Your job was to acquire the Iranian rubies. These are not the Iranian rubies.” Elizabeth’s partner looked up from the magnifying loupe. “You swapped a fake for a fake.”

Elizabeth’s mind began whirring. It was impossible that Sheila had deliberately deceived her. For one thing, she had no reason to. For another, she wasn’t smart enough. Alan Brookstein must have switched the necklaces and laid out the fake tonight without telling his wife. But why would he . . . ?

An unpleasant thought suddenly occurred to her.

“What if he never bought the real rubies in the first place? What if
he
was duped?”

“Don’t be stupid,” her partner said rudely.

“It’s possible.”

“No, it isn’t. Don’t you think I checked that out months ago? Unlike you, when I do a job I do it thoroughly. And accurately. Brookstein has the necklace. It must still be in the safe. You’ll have to go back and get it.”

Elizabeth hesitated. She longed to tell her partner to stick it. That she wasn’t in the business of taking orders. But then she thought about all the time and effort she’d put into this job. And the Brooksteins’ empty house . . .

“Give me the damn code.”

ELIZABETH THOUGHT QUICKLY, HER
agile mind skipping through all the possible risks and strategies. The gala itself would go on for another few hours at least, probably longer, so there was little danger of either of the Brooksteins returning home. Conchita, their housekeeper, would also have gone home by now, so the house would be empty but alarmed. That was no problem. Elizabeth had a key and had memorized the code.

More problematic were the two security guards, Eduardo and Nico, who patrolled the property at night. Both of them knew “Liza” by sight, which gave her the option of brazening it out, walking in through the front door and explaining that she’d forgotten some personal item. The downside to that was that it would definitively pin down Liza Cunningham as the guilty party once the theft was discovered, which might be as soon as later that same night. That meant cops and FBI out looking for her, E-FIT pictures, and all sorts of irritations and complications that Elizabeth would rather do without.

On balance, she decided it would be easier simply to burgle the house—cover her face and slip in through a window. She would have forty seconds to disable the alarm, more than enough time. And Eduardo and Nico were hardly the CIA. She’d simply wait until they were distracted, talking to each other on one side of the property, and quietly make her entrance somewhere else.

By the time Elizabeth pulled up in the alley behind the estate and switched off her engine and lights, her heart rate was barely elevated. Coming away with the wrong necklace had been an annoyance. But it was easily rectified, and would be well worth the effort.

Slipping her black silk balaclava over her face (it was terribly important to work in comfort; Elizabeth’s trusty mask was like a second skin), she was about to open the door when she suddenly froze.

The master-bedroom window popped open. Elizabeth heard the familiar, soft slither of a rope being thrown out. Seconds later a diminutive black-clad figure emerged, abseiling down the rear wall of the property with the silent grace of a spider gliding down a line of its own silk. It was quite beautiful to watch, like ballet. The figure stopped on a small flat roof about twelve feet off the ground. From there he paused, seemed to judge the distance, then made a catlike leap onto the boundary wall of the property, about thirty feet from where Elizabeth was parked.

Belatedly, she began to feel angry. The burglar’s exit had been such a virtuoso performance, Elizabeth had been momentarily blinded by admiration. But now she felt a different, more raw emotion.

I don’t believe it. After all that effort, someone beat me to it. That bastard’s got my necklace!

At that precise moment the figure on top of the wall turned and looked directly at Elizabeth’s car. Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out the string of rubies and dangled them mockingly in Elizabeth’s direction.

What the . . .

Elizabeth turned on her headlights. Even from this distance she could see the red glow of the stones, taunting her. Then the black-clad figure removed his balaclava. A cascade of chestnut hair burst forth.
A woman!
A face Elizabeth Kennedy thought she would never see again smiled down at her, with a look of the purest triumph in her green eyes.

Climbing into her own car, Tracy Whitney blew her rival a kiss before speeding off into the night.

ELIZABETH KENNEDY SAT IN
her car for a full five minutes before she made the call.

“Did you get it?”

Her partner’s voice was cold, curt, demanding. Elizabeth had come to hate it over the years.

“No.” She responded in kind, without apology. “I was too late.”

“What do you mean, ‘too late’? The gala’s only halfway through.”

“By the time I got here, someone else had stolen the necklace. I saw them leaving, just now.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

Elizabeth said, “You’ll never guess who it was.”

More silence. Elizabeth’s partner did not like guessing games. Or any games, for that matter.

“Tracy Whitney.”

When her partner spoke again, Elizabeth could have sworn she detected a trace of emotion.

“That’s impossible. Tracy Whitney’s not active anymore. She’s almost certainly dead. No one’s seen her for—”

“—almost ten years. I know. I was there, remember? But I’m telling you, it was Tracy Whitney. I recognized her immediately. And I’m pretty sure she recognized me.”

TRACY PAID THE BABYSITTER
at the hotel and tipped her very generously.

“Wow, that’s so nice of you. Thanks. How was the movie?”

“Exciting. I loved every minute of it.”

The sitter left. Tracy walked into Nicholas’s room and watched him sleeping. She’d taken a huge risk tonight, letting that girl—Rebecca, as Tracy would always think of her—see her face. But it had been worth it.

I wanted her to know it was me who outsmarted her.

Tomorrow Tracy would bring the ruby necklace to her dealer contact and leave Los Angeles seven figures richer than when she’d arrived. But it wasn’t the money that was making the adrenaline course through her body or the pleasure chemicals flood her brain. It wasn’t even outsmarting her nemesis—or not entirely. It was the joy of a virtuoso pianist reunited with her instrument after years in exile. It was the delight of an expert surgeon regaining the use of his hands after an accident. It was coming back to life, when you hadn’t even realized you were dead.

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

S
ANDRA 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.