Chasing Tomorrow

“Who are you?”

The boy seemed surprised but in no way unnerved to see an unknown male in his kitchen. Unlike the rugged cowboy who’d walked in with him, who was glowering at Jean with obvious distrust. The guy looked like a throwback to an old Clint Eastwood movie. Boyfriend? wondered Jean.

Tracy seemed to have lost the power of speech. All her earlier confidence had evaporated. She felt as if she might faint. Eventually she stammered, “Th-This is, er . . . this is . . .”

“My name is Jean. I’m an old friend of your mother’s.”

“From Europe?” asked Nicholas. “Before I was born?”

Jean Rizzo glanced at Tracy. She nodded imperceptibly.

“That’s right. I was hoping your mother might be able to have dinner with me tonight. To catch up on old times. I’m staying down in town.”

“She can’t tonight. We have plans.”

Blake Carter’s voice rang out, as steady and solid and reassuring as the chiming of an old church bell.

“Right, Tracy?”

One look at Tracy had been enough to convince Blake that her “old friend” Jean was nothing of the sort. Blake thought, She’s frightened. Tracy’s never frightened.

“Tomorrow, then?” asked Jean.

The old cowboy had wrapped a protective arm around Tracy’s shoulder in a gesture that could have been paternal or romantic. Jean found himself wondering about their relationship, and what, if anything, the older man knew of Tracy’s past. Or her present, come to think of it.

“Okay,” said Tracy, to Blake Carter’s evident distress. “Tomorrow.”

She never wanted to see Jean Rizzo’s face again. But what choice did she have?

The game of chess was on and it was Tracy’s move.

GIANNI’S, A COZY ITALIAN in the mountain village area, right at the foot of the ski slopes, was popular with locals and tourists alike. The staff all knew Tracy by sight, although Mrs. Schmidt rarely ate out. Everyone wondered who the handsome man was, dining with Steamboat’s wealthiest widow in the corner booth. But nobody asked.

Jean got straight to business. He handed Tracy a sheaf of pictures, mostly family snapshots of the twelve victims. Izia Moreno at her high school graduation in Madrid. Alissa Armand laughing with her sister at a campsite outside Paris. Sandra Whitmore cradling her baby son in her arms.

“The women were all prostitutes. They were killed over a nine-year period, in different cities all over the world.”

“But you think it’s the same killer?”

“It is the same killer. There aren’t many certainties in this investigation but that’s one of them.”

Jean told her about the murderer’s obsession with neatness and the Bible verses. “He’s familiar with police procedures, or at least with the ways in which DNA evidence is collected. He cleans up the crime scenes to protect himself, but it goes beyond that. He’s staging the bodies. It’s like theater.”

Tracy listened but said nothing. She ordered linguine vongole for both of them, a specialty of the house, but barely touched her plate when it arrived.

“I still don’t see where I come in.”

“Each murder took place between twenty-four and forty-eight hours after a major heist of some kind in the same city. None of those robberies were solved. All of them were complicated, meticulously planned and executed. More than half involved a woman. There aren’t many women in your business, as you know.”

“What business is that, Inspector?”

Jean raised an eyebrow. “Come on now, Miss Whitney.”

“Let’s stick with ‘Tracy.’ And lower your voice.”

“Sorry. The point is there are very few females operating at this level. We’re talking seven-figure jobs here. Highly sophisticated.”

Tracy nodded. “Go on.”