Chasing Tomorrow

“I don’t think so.”

“But you have to!” She could hear the desperation creeping back into her voice. “Let me see before it’s too late. Isn’t that what you wanted? What the Lord wanted?”

“No. Not anymore.”

“He’s my husband, Daniel. The Bible says we can’t—”

“I SAID NO!”

The hard metal of the gun slammed into Tracy’s cheek. The blow was so sudden, she felt it more as shock than pain.

“I’m your husband! I’m the one God chose to save you. It was your lust for Stevens that blinded you all these years. But that’s all past now.”

He began again, and this time there was no stopping him. Tracy knew what would happen, and the knowing took away the fear. Hands were on her, hurting her, but they weren’t his hands. This time the hands belonged to Lola and Paulita and Ernestine Littlechap. Tracy was on the concrete floor of her cell in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and the women were beating and violating her while she wept and pleaded. She heard their voices. “Carajo! Give it to the bitch.”

Then came the voice of the prison doctor.

“She’s lost the baby.”

That was Charles’s baby. Tracy had changed forever that day. If Tomorrow Comes, she’d told herself, I’ll get my revenge.

Later there had been another baby, with Jeff. She’d lost that one too. And then came Nicholas. My Nicholas. My darling. My life. Nicholas had saved her. Did she love him so much because she’d lost the others?

Suddenly Tracy f

elt overwhelmed with rage. The fear was gone, but a wild, primitive fury took its place. Daniel Cooper was not going to rob her of her son! He was not going to rob her darling Nicholas his mother, or enact his sick fantasies on Jeff, the love of Tracy’s life. She was not going to let it happen, not while she still had breath in her body.

With a scream of fury, Tracy flung both arms behind her head. She could feel Cooper’s penis pressing against her, his hips bearing down on her like a lead weight. Scrabbling around in the dust, her fingers brushed against a loose rock. It wasn’t particularly large or heavy but it would have to do. With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, Tracy grabbed the stone and slammed it down with all her force into the back of Daniel Cooper’s skull.

Tracy heard a shriek of pain and felt his weight slide off her. But he wasn’t unconscious.

“You bitch!” he hissed. One hand shot out and grabbed her neck as she scrambled to her feet. He squeezed hard, crushing Tracy’s windpipe. She kicked out wildly in the darkness, barely able to breathe, completely disoriented. He seemed to have dropped the gun, but she knew if he got his other hand around her throat he would strangle her easily, just as he had strangled those other poor women. A stray kick caught him in the groin, provoking another animal screech. For a second he was knocked off balance and his fingers uncoiled from around Tracy’s neck.

She seized her chance, knowing it would be her last. Charging head down into the blackness, like a bull, she slammed into him with all her body weight. Everything slowed down then. She was aware of fingers grasping, a slipping of feet in the dust. Then a crack, like an egg breaking on the side of a mixing bowl.

Tracy waited, frozen in the dark, breathless silence.

There was a muffled thud as Cooper’s body crumpled to the ground.

Then nothing.

THE RECEPTIONIST AT THE Hotel Britannia was skinny and pale. She had twiglike arms, covered in tattoos, and long, lank hair dyed an unforgiving shade of black. Jean Rizzo wondered how long she’d been doing drugs, but only for a moment.

“Do you speak English?”

She nodded. “Leetle.”

“I’m looking for this woman. Tracy Schmidt.” He pushed a crumpled head shot of Tracy across the desk, along with his Interpol ID card. At the sight of the latter, the girl’s eyes narrowed. “What room is she in?”

“You wait. Please.”

The girl disappeared into a small back office and did not return. Instead a vastly fat man in an ill-fitting jacket waddled out to meet Jean.

“I am the manager. There is a problem?”

“No problem. I need to locate one of your guests, urgently.”

“Ms. Schmidt. Yes, Rita told me.”