He felt something damp and soft being pressed against his lips.
A sponge?
He sucked weakly, desperate for water, but the liquid wasn’t water. It was bitter. Narcotic. He drank anyway, pushing the horrors of what he knew was to come from his mind.
The lamb.
Death on a cross.
The pain had stopped for now. Idly Jeff wondered whether anyone would come to his rescue. Was anybody even looking for him? The police? Interpol? The FBI? Cooper was obsessed with Tracy. But Tracy wouldn’t come. How could she? Tracy knew nothing about any of this.
Besides, Tracy didn’t love him anymore.
Tracy hadn’t loved him for a long time.
The bitter liquid worked its magic.
Jeff slept.
JEAN RIZZO WAS READY to cry with frustration.
“There must be something. Have we checked passenger lists for every airline?”
His colleague sighed. “Out of Denver yesterday? Yeah. We have. No Tracy Schmidt. No Tracy Whitney.”
“How about domestic flights? Maybe she had a stopover in another city.”
“If she did, she used a different ID. She’s a con artist, right?”
Retired, thought Jean.
“She probably has a lot of passports. You released her picture?”
Jean grunted. He had given the photograph of Tracy that Interpol had on file to the staff at Denver Airport and had it mass–e-mailed to law enforcement agencies across the United States and in a string of major European cities, along with Jeff Stevens’s image. The problem, in both cases, was that the pictures were about fifteen years old. Why the hell didn’t I take Tracy’s picture when we were together in New York? I had all that time. He could have asked Blake Carter for a more up-to-date image, but he knew such a request would only cause the old man to panic. The last thing Jean needed was for Tracy’s disappearance to go public.
“Call me as soon as you hear anything.”
While he waited in vain for the
telephone to ring, Jean turned his attention back to Daniel Cooper’s riddle. He suspected strongly that Jeff Stevens was already dead. With the other victims, the women, Cooper had never hung around but had dispatched them swiftly and mercilessly. But Tracy was a different story. Wherever Tracy had gone, she’d been following the clues Cooper laid out for her. Jean Rizzo had no doubt that Tracy would be walking right into Cooper’s trap. But if she could decode Cooper’s message, so could he. And if Stevens was alive, the trail would lead to him too.
Jean’s first stop was at his friend Wiliam Barrow’s apartment. Barrow was a foreign transplant in Lyon, just like Jean. A Londoner by birth, Thomas Barrow taught international relations at the university. He and Jean Rizzo had become friends years ago, when Thomas consulted on a case Jean was working on. He’d done a lot of work with Interpol since and the two men remained close.
“I don’t see how I can help.” Thomas poured Jean a cup of coffee so thick it was technically a solid, and he turned down the Wagner that was playing on his sound system. Jean had given Thomas a brief history of the Bible killings and Daniel Cooper. He explained that Cooper was holding a man hostage and that the man’s life, among others, depended on his, Jean’s, deciphering Cooper’s letter to Tracy.
“You’re a crossword nut,” said Jean.
“This isn’t a crossword.”
“It’s a puzzle. Crosswords are puzzles.”
“Well, yesss . . .” Thomas answered hesitantly.
“Just read it as if it were a crossword and tell me if anything comes to mind. I need a time and a place.”
Jean watched as his friend read in silence. After about a minute Thomas announced cheerfully, “I’ve got a few ideas.”
“Great!”