Sidney Sheldon's Chasing Tomorrow (Tracy Whitney #2)(86)
“I’m sure.”
“Whoever was in that case could have damaged the Sábana, or even destroyed it. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“But they didn’t,” Jean observed.
“No.”
“They didn’t try to steal it either. Or to extort money.”
“Exactly. I truly believe that the person who left the letter and telephoned me was trying to warn me. I think he was sincere. More than that, he was well informed. My staff confirmed that they’d seen the other man he told me about, the one posing as a policeman. You’ve seen the CCTV footage?”
Jean nodded. The hunched, dark-haired man in the parka was not familiar to him. If this was Daniel Cooper’s new accomplice, he was certainly very far removed from Elizabeth Kennedy, his former partner in crime.
“The way this guy broke in . . .” Se?ora Prieto continued admiringly. “It wasn’t just that he bypassed our alarms and cameras. That glass is bulletproof and the key codes supposedly impenetrable. He knew exactly what he was doing. He even ensured that the atmospheric balance of argon and oxygen was left intact. Who does that?”
“So he understood about the need to preserve the Shroud?”
“Yes. And how to preserve it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he must be a curator himself. Or an archaeologist.”
Jean Rizzo smiled. An American expert on antiquities who can crack codes and bypass alarms, with a flair for the dramatic . . .
Magdalena Prieto looked at him curiously. “Am I missing something?”
“The man who left you that note is called Jeff Stevens. And no, Ms. Prieto, you’re not missing something. Although I think I might be. And Comisario Dmitri certainly is.”
Magdalena waited for him to elaborate.
“If Jeff Stevens thinks Daniel Cooper’s in Seville to steal the Shroud, then Daniel Cooper is in Seville to steal the Shroud. Under no circumstances should you reduce your security.”
Magdalena blanched. “All right. We won’t.”
“And e-mail me the footage of the second man.”
“I’ll do it this afternoon. Do you think you’ll find him, Inspector? Because in all honesty, I don’t think Comisario Dmitri’s even trying.”
“I’ll find him,” Jean Rizzo said grimly. “I have to. Your Sábana Santa’s not the only thing at stake.”
JEAN RIZZO WALKED BACK to his hotel through Maria Luisa Park. The shrubbery glowed lush and green after the rain. Vivid pink laurel blossoms dazzled in the spring sunshine, in contrast to Jean’s gray, dour mood.
He thought about Jeff Stevens. About the showmanship and panache of his latest stunt, followed by the letter to Magdalena Prieto. A man would have to have serious glamour and charisma to attract a woman like Tracy Whitney, and clearly Jeff Stevens had it in spades. Equally clearly, behind the one-liners and the suave, James Bond exterior lurked an almost palpable loneliness. Like Jean, Jeff had loved deeply once and had lost the only woman he’d ever truly loved. Jeff blocked out the pain with hookers. Jean had never had it in him to do that. In a way, he wished he did. But both men had thrown themselves into work, into their respective passions, as a way to survive loss.
Jean wondered if the strategy was working better for Jeff Stevens than it was for him. At least I have my children. Without Clémence and Luc, Jean truly didn’t know how he would survive. Stevens has a son, a beautiful son, and he doesn’t even know it. The thought made Jean Rizzo profoundly sad.
After his meeting with Magdalena Prieto, he’d gone to see the Shroud for himself, listening to the same audio guide to the tour that Daniel Cooper’s mysterious accomplice had apparently taken some four times. It was fascinating, but gruesome. The idea that someone would torture to death an innocent man in order to fake Jesus’ burial cloth . . . that someone would go out and find an individual, abduct, beat and crucify him . . . it beggared the imagination. Even by medieval standards, that was some serious depravity. The fact that it had likely been done for money only made it worse.
Jean Rizzo thought, Am I wasting my time? Let’s say Daniel Cooper really is the Bible Killer, and I find him and stop him and punish him. Does it really matter in the long run? Won’t there be another serial killer after him, and another, and another? Isn’t mankind intrinsically, irredeemably cruel?
But then he answered his own question.
No. The world is full of goodness. It’s the freaks, the anomalies like Cooper, who go out there raping and slaughtering women. The fact that there were freaks back in the Dark Ages who liked to torture and kill to mimic some scene from the Bible doesn’t mean . . .
He stopped walking. A thought, a theory, something began to form in his head.
Daniel Cooper.
Torture and murder.
The Bible.
The Shroud of Turin wasn’t just a holy relic. It was evidence of a crime. Of a murder. A murder surrounded in mystery.
Jean Rizzo ran back to his hotel. Bounding up the stairs two at a time, he opened his laptop, tapping his feet impatiently until his in-box appeared.
Come on. Be there. Be there be there be there.
And it was. His most recent e-mail. Magdalena Prieto must have sent it as soon as he left the museum. Jean clicked open the attachment, zooming in closely on the image of the man’s face. The prominent forehead. The hooked Roman nose. The dark, springy curls of hair erupting out of the scalp like springs bursting out of an old mattress.