Reckless

“But Tracy doesn’t know this,” Frank continued. “She thinks she’s alone.”

“Right.”

“So what’s her plan? What would her next move be?”

Jeff closed his eyes, praying for inspiration. To his astonishment as much as Frank Dorrien’s, it came.

Sitting up suddenly, he said, “I have an idea.”

TRACY SHUT OFF THE speedboat’s engine as she drew up to the Villa Michele’s outer wall.

She was dressed in sky-high platform heels, fishnet stockings and a skintight black Lycra dress that left little to the imagination. Her breasts, not usually her best asset, looked enormous this evening and very much front-and-center thanks to her amply padded bra. As it was not the sort of outfit that allowed one to conc

eal a gun easily, Tracy carried a small quilted purse, a cheap Chanel knockoff made of shiny, wipe-down plastic.

She felt cold, uncomfortable, and ridiculous. But her getup had done its job. The old man at the dock who’d rented Tracy the boat hadn’t given her a second glance, still less asked for any ID. All the girls who went to the villa as Mr. Trent’s guests paid cash on return. Hookers were good customers, regular, reliable and they rarely needed the boat for more than a couple of hours.

Tracy fit right in.

When she reached the Viscontis’ island, the old man had explained, Tracy was to moor the boat by tying a heavy rope onto a large iron ring, bolted to the private harbor wall. Arriving in pitch-darkness it took her a while to locate said ring. When she did, it looked like something out of a medieval dungeon, rusted and creaking and huge. By the time she’d secured the boat, her hands were freezing and rubbed raw, and there were dirt and rust stains on her palms.

A real whore would have wet wipes in her purse, Tracy thought. All I have is a pistol, a new cellphone, a recording device and some wire.

Jumping out of the boat onto the thin strip of grass at the base of the wall, she wiped her hands as best she could on the turf. To her right, a set of steep stairs led up to a wooden door, that in turn led into the formal gardens and then to the villa itself. A CCTV camera directly above her head looked blindly out over the lake into the darkness. Tracy slipped beneath it to the foot of the stairs and began to climb.

She’d come prepared to pick the lock, but she found the wooden door had been left open. Cameron Crewe’s voice rang in her ears. He wants to be found. It’s a trap!

Maybe it was true.

If so, Hunter Drexel should be careful what he wished for.

Tracy’s heart hammered against her ribs as she crossed the manicured, Italianate garden. She waited for alarms to go off, for a spotlight to suddenly catch her or guards to come running, roused from their drunken slumbers. The crunch of her feet on the graveled path sounded deafeningly loud to her own ears as she weaved her way in and out of the shadows of the poplars. According to her research there were no dogs at the villa. But Tracy still half expected to hear the heavy, panting breaths of slavering Dobermans, intent on ripping her limb from limb. She’d spent half of her adult life breaking and entering expensive homes, but the adrenaline never left her.

The last time she’d broken in anywhere was at Frank Dorrien’s house. Tracy remembered now how triumphant she’d felt that night, finding the hard drive from Prince Achileas’s computer, and the first images of Althea—Kate. Those pictures had proved that the general had lied, about Captain Bob Daley and his relationship with the dead prince, and about other things too. They were also still the only known images of Kate. The woman who had killed Nick, and claimed to know Tracy, but who remained as much of a mystery now as she had done when this all started.

With luck, in a few short minutes, that mystery would be solved. Tracy would be talking to Hunter Drexel face-to-face, finally learning the truth. The whole truth.

At last she approached the house itself. Crouching low beneath the height of the ground-floor windows, she flattened herself against a wall, scratching her legs badly on the rose bushes that clung to the villa like thorny limpets. Lights were on inside. Tracy listened. She could hear classical music—a sonata of some sort, coming from deeper within the house—but no voices. The whole place, in fact, was eerily quiet. Peaceful, but not in a good way. There was a faint smell of cooking, garlic and anchovies and lemon coming from a few yards away. Tracy saw that the French doors to the drawing room had been flung wide open to the garden, presumably to allow in the cool evening air.

She approached them cautiously, gun drawn, stealing herself for battle. She didn’t want to kill Hunter, but she must overpower him. Hopefully he would talk to her of his own accord. He was a journalist, after all, in another life. A story teller. Not to mention a vain egotist. Those sorts of people invariably liked to talk. But Tracy wasn’t about to take any chances.

With one last, deep breath, Tracy burst into the room.

CHAPTER 28

THE ROOM WAS EMPTY.

At one end, a fire crackled gently in a vast Baronial fireplace. In front of it lay what looked like a recently discarded newspaper—today’s La Repubblica—and a half drunk glass of scotch.

The music was coming from farther inside. Tracy followed it, keeping her back to the wall and her weapon drawn, inching her way along a long, parquet-floored corridor. Grand double doors at the end opened onto what looked to be a dining room. Tracy could see a long, rustic refectory table with a centerpiece of brilliant blue hydrangea flowers. Then suddenly, she froze.

There he was.

After all the reported sightings and grainy photographs, all the “what ifs” and near misses, Tracy was finally looking at Hunter Drexel. The blond hair was gone. He had reverted to his usual dark curls. And he looked stockier and healthier than he had in the pictures from Montmartre. Casually dressed in a sweater and jeans, with his back to Tracy, he was carrying a large bowl of salad over to the table like a man without a care in the world. He bore only the faintest traces of a limp and though he appeared to be alone, he was setting places for two.

Just as Tracy wondered Who’s he expecting? Hunter’s voice rang out loudly, bouncing off the ancient walls.

“Is that you, Miss Whitney?” He didn’t look up, but continued setting the table. “Please, don’t skulk around in the corridor. Come in.”