Chasing Tomorrow

“Does your wife wear this out?”

“Sometimes.” Brookstein replaced the necklace. “She wears both. The fake and the real one. If it’s something really big, like the gala at LACMA on Saturday night, she’ll wear the real deal. I’m being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award,” he couldn’t resist adding.

“Congratulations! Your wife must be thrilled for you.”

Alan Brookstein frowned. “I don’t know. She’s thrilled to have a chance to flash those rubies, make all her girlfriends feel like crap, you know what I mean?” He laughed mirthlessly. “The truth is, Sheila can’t tell the difference any more than the rest of ’em. If it’s big and red and sparkly, she likes it. Kind of like the gnomes.”

Tracy followed the director through to his dressing room. A false panel at the back of a closet pulled aside to reveal a fourth safe.

“The code is changed every day.”

“For all the safes, or just this one?”

“For all of them.”

“Who changes the codes?”

“Me. Only me. Nobody knows what I come up with each day, not even Sheila. I appreciate your company’s concern, Theresa, but between this and our guards and the alarm system, I truly don’t think we could be better protected.”

Tracy nodded. “Mind if I look around a little?”

“Be my guest.”

Removing her shoes, Tracy flitted from room to room. She stepped inside closets and began climbing shelves, rifling through the Brooksteins’ suits and shirts and dresses and shoes. From her capacious Prada purse, she pulled out a variety of equipment, much of which looked like electronic monitors of some sort, which made an ominous, static-y, crackling sound when run along the edges of mirrors.

“Okay.” From her position at the top of a wooden stepladder, where she’d been examining the safety of a ceiling panel, Tracy suddenly spun around.

Standing at the foot of the ladder, Alan Brookstein, who’d been within inches of getting a clear view of her underwear, jumped a mile.

“What? Is there a problem?”

“Happily, no.” Tracy smiled. “No cameras or devices of any kind. I agree, you’re sufficiently protected. Although I would be careful which staff members you allow access to this room. We have had cases of maids installing pinhole cameras close to known safes, capturing the lock and unlock codes, and passing them on to boyfriends who then raid the houses in question.”

“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 beginn

ing 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.