Sidney Sheldon's Chasing Tomorrow (Tracy Whitney) (29 page)

Feeling her palms start to sweat and her mouth go dry, she reached into her jacket and coiled her fingers around her gun. Then she walked into the tunnel.

It was pitch-black, and narrower than it looked from a distance. With her arms outstretched, Tracy found she could touch the walls on either side. Slowly, like a blind woman, she began to move forward, her feet alert to any bumps or potholes in the uneven ground.

If it branches off, which way should I go?

The thought of getting lost, trapped here in the darkness, filled her with profound fear. And then she remembered.
My phone! How could I have been so stupid?
She stopped, pulled out her cell phone and turned it on. The moment the screen came to life, the light was blinding, dazzling. Tracy saw at once that the tunnel was in fact very short, running only a few more feet. After that it forked both left and right into a long, curved corridor. Looking right, she saw abandoned machinery, including a small cement mixer and a pair of pneumatic drills.
This must be the part they’re restoring,
she thought.
Astonishing that they don’t lock those up, or take them home at night. Anyone could wander in here and steal them.

She looked left.

“Hello, my love.”

Daniel Cooper, his pale face lit up by a revolting smile, stood just inches away from her. Panicked, Tracy opened her mouth to scream but Cooper was too quick for her. Clamping one hand over her mouth, he forced her back against the wall. Tracy reached for her gun. With terrifying ease, Cooper twisted it out of her hand, pressing the barrel against her temple.

“Don’t struggle, my darling.” Cooper’s breath was on her neck, in her ear. Pinning her back against the wall, he slid one hand down to her left breast and squeezed hard, pinching her nipple beneath the fabric of her T-shirt. “You’ve waited for this as long as I have.”

Tracy’s phone clattered to the ground.

All the light went out.

JEAN RIZZO CHECKED IN
to a guesthouse in the center of town with a view out over the city walls. He jumped on his phone at the first ring.

“Any word on Tracy?”

“No, sir. Not yet. The local police had reports of some sort of disturbance outside of town. A small farming hamlet. It’s probably not worth mentioning but—”

“What sort of disturbance?”

“Screams, apparently. They sent two men out there.”

“And?”

“They didn’t find anything. Probably just a wild animal being killed. Someone got spooked.”

Probably.
Jean was tempted to go and see for himself. He had no other leads, and would at least feel like he was doing something. But if Tracy
was
meeting Daniel Cooper in Plovdiv and he was stuck out in the sticks on a wild-goose chase . . .

“Okay. Let me know if anything else comes up.”

He hung up, but the phone rang again immediately. Antoine Cléry sounded breathless.

“I think we’ve found her!”

“Here? In Plovdiv?”

“Yes, sir. She checked into the Hotel Britannia two nights ago.” Cléry blurted out the address.

“I’m on my way.”

Jean Rizzo started running.

TRACY HIT AND KICKED
for all she was worth, lashing out with her nails and teeth, fear and rage both driving her on. But for such a small man, Cooper was astonishingly strong. In just seconds he had pinned her down on the ground. Unable to move her arms or legs, Tracy was utterly powerless, like a butterfly with its wings pinned to a board. The darkness was total, like death. She felt Cooper reach down and undo the button and zipper of her jeans, shoving them roughly to her knees. Within seconds, his clammy hand was inside her underwear, touching her.

“My wife.” He sighed. “My angel.”

Vomit rose up in Tracy’s throat. Cooper’s fingers prodded and invaded while his foul breath assailed her nostrils. He was slow, delighting in what he was doing. Every few seconds he let out a little squeal of excitement.

No!
This couldn’t be happening. Not again.

Tracy flashed back.

She was in Joe Romano’s house in New Orleans. She was twenty-two years old, pregnant with Charles Stanhope’s baby, and she’d come to avenge her mother’s death, to force Romano to admit the truth: that he and his Mafia buddies had killed Doris Whitney, killed her with their lies and greed and arrogance. But it had all gone wrong. Joe Romano overpowered Tracy easily, laughing as he pushed her down, ripping her blouse away and pinching her nipples.

“Fight me, baby! I love it! I’ll bet you’ve never been fucked by a real man.”

Tracy had reached for her gun and shot Romano, leaving him for dead. But her gun was gone now. She was powerless. Daniel Cooper was on top of her, grunting like a pig. Tracy heard him unzip his fly. Terror overcame her.
I can’t do it! I can’t fight him off!

She forced herself to focus. There had to be something else, another way to stop him.

What did she know about him?

What were his weak spots? His fears?

He’s the Bible Killer. He hates prostitutes.

His breath was coming faster now.

He hates immoral women. He believes he’s on a mission from God.

Cooper pushed up her T-shirt. His wet lips were on Tracy’s breasts, sucking at her like a baby at its mother’s teat. Tracy sobbed, squirming away from him, aware that her struggling only heightened his excitement. Ripping off her jeans and panties completely, Cooper straddled her, forcing her thighs farther apart. His erection, tiny but rock hard, pressed against Tracy’s stomach.

For God’s sake, Tracy! Think of something! Make him stop.

And then it came to her.

“We have to stop.” She spoke firmly, like a schoolteacher admonishing a child. “Daniel! We have to stop NOW.”

Her tone made Cooper hesitate for a split second.

“We’re not married yet.”

Cooper froze on top of her like a statue.

“What?”

“I said we’re not married. This is against God’s law and you know it. We’re not married and we
can’t
marry. Not while Jeff Stevens is still alive.”

Reluctantly, Cooper slid off Tracy onto his knees. She was still pinned underneath him and the gun, her gun, was still pressed against her skull.

“What makes you think Jeff Stevens is still alive?” Cooper sounded petulant.

“Well, isn’t he?” Tracy masked her fear as best she could. She kept her voice steady but her legs had begun shaking uncontrollably.
Please let him be alive. Please don’t let all this have been for nothing.

“I don’t know.”

This wasn’t the answer Tracy had expected. She knew she had to think quickly.

“You know where he is, though, don’t you, Daniel?”

“Of course I do.” Cooper laughed, a high-pitched, oddly feminine giggle. Tracy remembered it well.

“The lamb is at Golgotha, my dear. The sacrifice has been made. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

Golgotha. Place of the skull.
Tracy’s mind raced. Wasn’t Golgotha on a hill? Or perhaps Cooper was speaking purely metaphorically.

“I asked the Lord to spare him until you came. I wanted you to see. But you took so
long,
Tracy. He may be dead by now.”

“Take me to him, then,” Tracy blurted.

“I don’t think so.”

“But you have to!” She could hear the desperation creeping back into her voice. “Let me see before it’s too late. Isn’t that what you wanted? What the Lord wanted?”

“No. Not anymore.”

“He’s my husband, Daniel. The Bible says we can’t—”

“I SAID NO!”

The hard metal of the gun slammed into Tracy’s cheek. The blow was so sudden, she felt it more as shock than pain.

“
I’m
your husband!
I’m
the one God chose to save you. It was your lust for Stevens that blinded you all these years. But that’s all past now.”

He began again, and this time there was no stopping him. Tracy knew what would happen, and the knowing took away the fear. Hands were on her, hurting her, but they weren’t his hands. This time the hands belonged to Lola and Paulita and Ernestine Littlechap. Tracy was on the concrete floor of her cell in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and the women were beating and violating her while she wept and pleaded. She heard their voices.
“
Carajo!
Give it to the bitch.”

Then came the voice of the prison doctor.

“She’s lost the baby.”

That was Charles’s baby. Tracy had changed forever that day.
If Tomorrow Comes,
she’d told herself,
I’ll get my revenge.

Later there had been another baby, with Jeff. She’d lost that one too. And then came Nicholas.
My Nicholas. My darling. My life.
Nicholas had saved her. Did she love him so much because she’d lost the others?

Suddenly Tracy felt overwhelmed with rage. The fear was gone, but a wild, primitive fury took its place. Daniel Cooper was not going to rob her of her son! He was not going to rob her darling Nicholas his mother, or enact his sick fantasies on Jeff, the love of Tracy’s life. She was not going to let it happen, not while she still had breath in her body.

With a scream of fury, Tracy flung both arms behind her head. She could feel Cooper’s penis pressing against her, his hips bearing down on her like a lead weight. Scrabbling around in the dust, her fingers brushed against a loose rock. It wasn’t particularly large or heavy but it would have to do. With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, Tracy grabbed the stone and slammed it down with all her force into the back of Daniel Cooper’s skull.

Tracy heard a shriek of pain and felt his weight slide off her. But he wasn’t unconscious.

“You bitch!” he hissed. One hand shot out and grabbed her neck as she scrambled to her feet. He squeezed hard, crushing Tracy’s windpipe. She kicked out wildly in the darkness, barely able to breathe, completely disoriented. He seemed to have dropped the gun, but she knew if he got his other hand around her throat he would strangle her easily, just as he had strangled those other poor women. A stray kick caught him in the groin, provoking another animal screech. For a second he was knocked off balance and his fingers uncoiled from around Tracy’s neck.

She seized her chance, knowing it would be her last. Charging head down into the blackness, like a bull, she slammed into him with all her body weight. Everything slowed down then. She was aware of fingers grasping, a slipping of feet in the dust. Then a crack, like an egg breaking on the side of a mixing bowl.

Tracy waited, frozen in the dark, breathless silence.

There was a muffled thud as Cooper’s body crumpled to the ground.

Then nothing.

THE RECEPTIONIST AT THE
Hotel Britannia was skinny and pale. She had twiglike arms, covered in tattoos, and long, lank hair dyed an unforgiving shade of black. Jean Rizzo wondered how long she’d been doing drugs, but only for a moment.

“Do you speak English?”

She nodded. “Leetle.”

“I’m looking for this woman. Tracy Schmidt.” He pushed a crumpled head shot of Tracy across the desk, along with his Interpol ID card. At the sight of the latter, the girl’s eyes narrowed. “What room is she in?”

“You wait. Please.”

The girl disappeared into a small back office and did not return. Instead a vastly fat man in an ill-fitting jacket waddled out to meet Jean.

“I am the manager. There is a problem?”

“No problem. I need to locate one of your guests, urgently.”

“Ms. Schmidt. Yes, Rita told me.”

“I need her room number and key.”

“Certainly.” The manager smiled nervously. Jean wondered what exactly it was he was trying to hide. “However, Ms. Schmidt is not in the hotel at present. She left this afternoon at around five and has not yet returned.”

Jean Rizzo experienced a sharp pain in his chest.
I’m too late.

“Did she say where she was going?”

“I’m afraid not. But she has been interested in the chess championships we’re hosting here in Plovdiv. She attended a game yesterday. It’s the final tonight. Viktor Grinski is playing Vasily Karmonov. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d gone over to watch.”

Seven nights at three times three.
Nine o’clock. Jean looked at his watch. It was already ten after nine. The meeting with Daniel Cooper would be happening now. If Tracy had found him. There was a chance she was still scrambling around in the dark, trying to solve the last piece of the riddle, just as he was doing.

Jean grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled down some numbers. “This is my phone. I’ll be at the championships. If she returns, the moment she returns, I want you to call me at once. Do not let her leave under any circumstances. Do you understand?”

“Of course. May I tell her that the police—”

“No,” Jean shouted over his shoulder. He was already halfway out the door. “Don’t tell her anything. Just keep her here.”

TRACY DRAGGED DANIEL COOPER’S
limp body out of the tunnel back into the amphitheater. It was only a few yards back to the light of the outside world, but it felt like miles. Cooper weighed a ton. He was a slight man, but his limbs seemed to have been filled with lead. By the time she got him outside, she was soaked with sweat.

He was breathing, but barely. Blood poured hot and red from the gash on his head, like magma spilling out of a fissure in the earth’s crust. The whole left side of his skull had folded in, like a child’s soccer ball that had been stamped on.

“Where’s Jeff? Where is he!”

Cooper groaned. A hideous gurgling sound started somewhere in his throat.

“Tell me where he is!” Tracy demanded. She was becoming hysterical. “What did you do to him?”

Cooper was slipping in and out of consciousness. It was clear he didn’t have much time left. That it was now or never.

Tracy forced herself to calm down. She tried a different tack.

“You’re dying, Daniel. You need to confess. Make your last act of contrition before the Lord. Do you want the Lord’s mercy, Daniel?”