Sidney Sheldon's Reckless (31 page)

Posing as an award-winning investigative journalist from New York City, Jeff had spent the last four days in Steamboat, researching a book on cowboy culture. He'd been asking a lot of questions around town about the late Blake Carter.

“The Carters were one of the oldest cowboy families in this part of the state, as I'm sure y'all are aware. Blake was the last of the line. The more y'all can tell me about him, the better.”

At first, Blake's fellow hands up at the ranch had been happy to talk, as had his fishing buddies and the local Baptist minister. But as soon as Jeff's questions began to focus on the accident—how thorough or otherwise the police report had been; whether a strange woman had been seen around town or up at Tracy Schmidt's ranch in the days leading to the crash; which doctors had attended the scene—suspicions were raised. Doors began closing and locals stopped talking.

Which was why Nurse Young was so important. In a tight-knit community like this one, run on gossip but big on loyalty, Jeff knew it would be tough to find someone willing to help him. By now just about everybody at the Yampa Valley Medical Center knew better than to talk to the
New York Times
writer. So when Jeff caught Karen Young's eye at Ruby's, a local dive bar, last night, and learned she was a nurse, he'd turned up the charm to full throttle.

“I appreciate your trust in me, Karen.” Reaching under the table, Jeff squeezed her hand. “You know the very last thing on my mind is disrespecting Blake Carter's memory. Or hurtin' this community.”

“I know that.” Karen squeezed back.

For an older man, he really is terribly handsome,
she thought.

Karen had been off older men ever since Neil—Dr. Sherridan—had broken off their affair and gone crawling back to his wife, like the snake that he was. But Jeff Stevens seemed different.

Honorable.

Interested only in the truth.

The fact that Neil might wind up in a whole heap of trouble, if it turned out Blake Carter or the boy
could
have been saved after all, and Jeff wrote an article about his negligence in the
New York Times
, shredding his reputation and destroying his career, would merely be an unavoidable by-product of the truth telling.

Karen Young was all about telling the truth.

“I'll help you in any way I can, Jeff.” She fluttered her sky-blue eyes at Jeff. “We just have to be discreet is all.”

“Discretion is my middle name,” said Jeff, pressing his leg against Karen's, and wondering why on earth she'd chosen to meet in a crowded coffee shop if she didn't want people to see them together. The young lady clearly had the IQ of a bird dropping. “Of course, what would really help me . . .” He looked away suddenly, drawing back his leg and releasing her hand. “No. It's too dangerous.”

“What?” Karen looked crestfallen. “What's too dangerous?”

“No, no. Forget it. I couldn't possibly ask you.”

Jeff took a big swig of his coffee and pushed his chair back, as if preparing to leave.

“Please. Just tell me!”

Jeff shook his head. “You could lose your job.”

“There are more important things than jobs,” Karen said earnestly, leaning forward to give Jeff an enhanced view of her ample cleavage. “If something bad happened to Mr. Carter or that poor boy and I stood by and did nothing, I'd never forgive myself.”

Jeff took her hands again and looked deep into her eyes.

“Karen?”

“Yes, Jeff?”

“I don't suppose you happen to know anyone who has access to the hospital's CCTV archives?”

The girl's face fell. “Gosh, I . . . I don't. I'm real sorry but I don't know anything about security. Is there anything else you need?”

THE REST OF THE
day crawled by.

Frank Dorrien and Jamie MacIntosh had left him so many messages since he got to the States that in the end Jeff had disabled his phone and bought a disposable, pay-as-you-go handset. That, by contrast, never rang. Suddenly, it seemed, nobody at the ranch or the local garage remembered seeing a woman, unusual or otherwise. No one at the cop shop had access to the police report. All the staff at Yampa had been exemplary and none of Nicholas's school friends or teachers could remember anything unusual in the days leading up to the crash. Or, indeed, any other days. If Jeff Stevens the New York journalist was looking for scandal, he could look elsewhere. Steamboat Springs had closed ranks like a threatened clam snapping shut its shell.

After his dinner with Tracy in Paris, Jeff knew he had to come here. He had to find out for himself what had really happened to his son. After all, it was Nicholas's death that had dragged Tracy into all this in the first place. Group 99, Althea, Hunter Drexel, Cameron Crewe. None of those names would have touched Tracy if Blake Carter's truck hadn't plunged off the road that night, right here in Steamboat Springs.

And now Jeff, too, had been drawn in. This wasn't their world, his or Tracy's. They weren't spies or counterterrorism experts, for God's sake. And yet here they were, running around Europe fighting other people's battles, solving other people's riddles, like pawns in some giant game of chess. A game in which, increasingly, Jeff doubted there would ever be a real winner.

Meanwhile Tracy, his Tracy, was blaming herself. Tracy thought Althea had killed Nick. That Nick, and Blake, were dead because of her. And she was turning to another man to assuage her of that guilt, to comfort her in her grief.

But what was the truth, really? What had happened here?

Perhaps,
Jeff thought,
if I could answer that one question, I could stop the madness. I could save Tracy, spare her the torment.

I could save myself.

The problem was, he couldn't answer it. Rumors swirled around him, taunting him like blowing leaves he could never quite catch. But he had no actual evidence of anything. As far as Jeff could tell, there was a woman at the diner that night, who may or may not have taken the same road Blake Carter did. But that was it. Maybe the police could have dug a little harder, or the ambulance crew driven a little faster, or the surgeons operated on Nick's brain an hour earlier. But every accident had its “maybes,” every tragedy its “what ifs.” Jeff had seen nothing in Colorado to make him believe that Tracy's crazy conspiracy theory about Althea was true. The whole thing was smoke and mirrors.

I'll fly back to Europe tomorrow,
Jeff thought. Nurse Karen Young had been his last hope, but even she had always been a long shot. Chances were there was nothing worth seeing on the CCTV footage anyway.

Jeff's hotel was in town, a simple but cozy Victorian with a wraparound porch and a fire permanently lit in the parlor. Ski season was over and the tourists had poured out of Steamboat like water through a sieve, so there were plenty of parking spaces out front. Dusk was starting to fall when Jeff got back, tired and defeated. He'd spent most of the day roaming uselessly around Blake Carter's old haunts, getting the cold shoulder from wary locals. But despite his bad mood, he took a moment to look up and appreciate the beauty of his surroundings. Mountains rose like giants from behind the hotel, their snowy tips blushing pink in the sunset. A rainbow of colors oozed into the blue sky like spilled paint, every shade of orange, red, purple and peach, shot through with flashes of turquoise.

No wonder Tracy was drawn to this place.

What a magical corner of the world for Nick to grow up in.

Walking up the porch steps, Jeff felt a stab of loss and longing, a visceral wrench of pain for all the years he'd missed. With Tracy. With their son. It struck him forcibly then that the whole idea of closure was ridiculous. Knowing what happened wouldn't change anything. He couldn't save Tracy from the agony of Nick's death, any more than he could save himself.

“Ah, Mr. Stevens, there you are.” Jane, the hugely overweight receptionist, smiled at Jeff warmly. “I'm so sorry, but the young lady just left. She waited more than an hour but I think she had to get to work in the end. I would have called you but I didn't have a number and—”

“What young lady?” Jeff interrupted her.

Jane blushed. “Oh Lord. How stupid of me. All this time she was here and I never got her name. She was young. Blond. Very attractive.”

Karen.

“She left you this.”

The receptionist picked up a sealed brown paper envelope in her pudgy hands and passed it to Jeff.

His heart rate shot up. He could feel immediately that there was a USB chip inside.

Bounding up the hotel stairs two at a time, Jeff hurried into his room, locking the door behind him. Drawing the curtains, he sat down at his computer and loaded in the chip.

The footage was time-stamped. There was a little under two hours' worth in all.
Thank you, Karen!
Images were streamed from the Yampa Valley Medical Center's car park, front entrance, reception desk and waiting room, and from three corridors inside the building. One clearly led to a surgery suite of some kind. The others looked like regular corridors on a ward, with patients' rooms to the right and left.

Jeff settled back to watch, not sure what he was looking for exactly, but hoping it would jump out at him when he saw it.

Minutes rolled by. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. An hour.

When he finally saw the figure, sauntering confidently up to the reception desk, he had to pause the footage and rewind.

It can't be.
Jeff leaned forward, staring at the screen as if he'd seen a ghost.
It can't possibly be.

Jumping up, he pulled open the bedside drawer and started reassembling his phone, sliding in the sim card and battery.

I have to call Tracy. Right now.

Waiting impatiently for the home screen to load, Jeff tried to think of what he was going to say exactly. What words would he use to break this news? To tell Tracy she was wrong. To tell her . . .

The phone rang loudly, startling him.

“Hello?” He answered without thinking.

Frank Dorrien's voice boomed in his ear, angry and doom-laden. “Stevens! Where in Christ's name have you been?”

“I can't talk now,” Jeff said dismissively. “I need to speak to Tracy.”

“Jeff . . .”

“I'm sorry, Frank. This can't wait.”

“Well, it'll have to,” Dorrien shot back hurriedly, before Jeff could hang up. “Tracy's in a coma, Jeff.”

Jeff froze. The room had started to spin.

“What?”

“She was attacked the night you left Paris. Bludgeoned from behind.”

Jeff held on to the desk for support. He felt terribly light-headed suddenly. Dark spots swam before his eyes. When he spoke his voice sounded strangled. “I don't understand. Who attacked her?”

“We're not sure. Various witnesses—”

“Why didn't you tell me sooner?”

“We tried,” said Frank. “Repeatedly. None of us could reach you.”

“Well, what have the doctors said? I mean, she's in a coma. But she's going to recover, right? She's going to be OK?”

“She hasn't woken up since it happened,” Frank said bluntly, although not without compassion. “I'm sorry, Jeff, truly I am. But it doesn't look good.”

CHAPTER 23

T
RACY HEARD BLAKE CARTER'S
voice first, out in the corridor.

“Where is she? I need to see her. I need to explain.”

And the doctor. “She's not up to visitors yet, Mr. Carter.”

I am up to visitors!

Blake's alive? He's been alive all this time? And now he's here to see me?

Blake!
She sat up in bed, tried to call out his name, but no sound came out. Then the pain came back, the agony, like a herd of elephants stampeding across her skull, pulverizing her bones into dust one after the other.
Blake, I'm here! Don't leave!

She passed out.

FRANK DORRIEN WAS IN
the room.

Tracy couldn't see him. She couldn't see anything. She couldn't move, or speak, or do anything except breathe. And listen.

“Who's her next of kin?” the doctor was asking.

General Dorrien's voice. “She doesn't have one.”

“Is there no one we can notify? A friend?”

“No. We'll take care of it.”

“But there must be . . .”

Frank's voice again, more hard-edged this time. “There isn't. Come on, Doctor. Let's be honest. We both know she isn't going to wake up. So it's all a moot point anyway.”

Tracy thought,
I'm not going to wake up.

Profound peace overwhelmed her.

She would be with Nick at last.

“WAKE UP!”

Someone was shaking her. Shining a light in her eyes.

She'd been having the most wonderful dream. She and Nick were playing chess, back in the kitchen at Steamboat. Blake wasn't there—he'd gone out riding—but Jeff was, whispering in Nick's ear, teaching him how to cheat, or at least how to outsmart his mother. They were both laughing. Tracy didn't approve but she was laughing too.

Until Althea walked in, her long dark hair billowing behind her, her face a mask of death. Sitting down at the table, she swept away the chess pieces. Tracy watched, frozen, as they clattered to the floor. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

“I hate chess. Let's play poker.”

And then the kitchen was gone, Nick too, and they were at a table in a casino—the Bellagio?—and Hunter Drexel was dealing. But the cards weren't playing cards, they were Tarot cards, and Tracy turned over the Lovers and Althea looked at Jeff and started laughing and laughing and then Hunter Drexel grabbed Tracy by the shoulders and shouted:

“WAKE UP! Look at the light! The truth's right in front of you, Tracy! Wake up!”