Sidney Sheldon’s Reckless. Сидни Шелдон

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СКАЧАТЬ dripped with menace.

      “How?” Buck asked.

      “That’s your problem. I don’t care how you do it, but you get Tracy Whitney to Langley or your career is over. Is that clear?”

      Milton Buck swallowed hard. “Crystal.”

      NICK AND TRACY SAT AT THE dinner table, watching a video on Nick’s phone.

      “That is awful,” Tracy said, tears of laughter streaming down her face.

      “I know,” Nick grinned. “I’m putting it on Vine.”

      “You are not,” Blake Carter said thunderously. “Give me that phone.”

      “What? No!” said Nick. “Come on, Blake. It’s funny. I’ll bet it goes viral.”

      “It’s disrespectful is what it is,” said Blake. Ignoring the boy’s protests, he took the phone and deleted the footage of the principal of the middle school glancing around what he clearly believed to be an empty corridor before farting loudly.

      “Mom!” Nick protested.

      Tracy shrugged, wiping away the tears of mirth. “Sorry, honey. Blake’s right. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

      “Not ‘people,’” Blake corrected her. “Adults. Teachers, for crying out loud. In my day you’d have had a whip taken to ya for something like that.”

      “In your day they didn’t have phones,” said Nick, still angry. “Your idea of fun was hitting a ball on a string. You know what your problem is? You don’t know how to have fun.”

      “Nick!” said Tracy. “Apologize.”

      “Sorry.” The word dripped with sarcasm. “I’m going to my room.”

      Seconds later Nick’s bedroom door slammed.

      Blake looked at Tracy. “Why do you encourage him?”

      “Oh come on. It was funny.”

      “It was puerile.”

      “That’s because he’s a kid,” said Tracy. “You don’t always have to come on quite so ‘Sam Eagle’ about everything.”

      Blake looked hurt.

      “I’m not his friend, Tracy. I’m his parent.” Realizing what he’d just said, Blake blushed. “Well, I mean … you know … I’m …”

      “You’re his parent,” Tracy said seriously, laying a hand over Blake’s. “He’s lucky to have you. We both are.”

      Tracy felt tremendous love for Blake Carter. Pushing seventy now, the old cowboy had been a wonderful father figure to Nicholas and the dearest friend Tracy ever could have wished for. She knew that Blake loved her. He’d even proposed once, years ago. And though she couldn’t love him back in the same way, she absolutely considered him family.

      “Is something the matter, Tracy?” Blake asked her. “Besides Nick?”

      That was the other thing about Blake Carter. He saw right through her. Trying to hide things from Blake was like trying to hide them from God—a wasted effort.

      “I had a visit today,” Tracy told him. “From the FBI.”

      Blake Carter stiffened, like a deer sensing danger.

      “And the CIA,” Tracy added. “Together.”

      “What did they want?”

      Tracy told him. Not everything, but the bare bones of what had been said, as well as Greg Walton’s proposal that she fly to Langley.

      “What did you say?” Blake asked.

      “I said no, of course. I’ve never met this woman, I’m sure of it. And what I know about counterterrorism you could write on the back of a stamp.”

      “But these guys thought you could help?” Blake said gently.

      “Well, yes,” Tracy admitted. “They did. But they’re wrong. Don’t tell me you want me to go to Langley?”

      “Of course I don’t want you to go,” Blake’s voice grew gruff with emotion. “But maybe it’s not about what I want. Or what you want. These 99 people … they’re out of control. Someone needs to stand up to them. They’re against everything this country stands for. Everything America was built on.”

      “You see, there you go again,” Tracy said archly. “Sam Eagle.”

      “All’s I’m saying is, they need to be stopped. Don’t you agree?”

      “Of course I do,” snapped Tracy. “And they will be stopped. Just not by me. I’m not a spy, Blake. I have nothing to offer here. Heaven knows how this woman Althea knows about me, or why she mentioned my name. But now she’s got the FBI, the CIA and the White House convinced I have some sort of inside information, some magic power to find her and do their jobs for them. The whole thing’s ridiculous! I feel like Alice down the rabbit hole!”

      “OK, Tracy. Calm down.”

      “And even if it weren’t ridiculous, even if I could help, which I can’t— I’m not leaving Nick. Not ever.”

      “I understand that.”

      “Actually I don’t think you do.” There were tears in Tracy’s eyes now. She was angry and visibly upset, although whether it was with Blake Carter or herself she couldn’t have said. “I think you’d better go home, Blake.”

      The old cowboy raised an eyebrow. “OK. If that’s what you want.”

      Before Tracy could gather her thoughts, he’d picked up his hat and left. Tracy heard the sound of Blake’s truck pulling away, followed by a loud blaring of angry teenage music coming from Nick’s bedroom. Tired and miserable, she cleared away the plates and went to bed.

      TWO HOURS LATER, TRACY WAS STILL wide awake, staring at the ceiling.

      She thought about Blake. Why did he have to be so good, all the time? So damn selfless and upstanding and righteous? Didn’t he realize how annoying it was?

      She thought about Nicholas, and how like his father he was. Jeff would have laughed at the fart video. She tried to deny it to herself, but there were times when Tracy missed Jeff so badly it felt like a stone slab pressing on her heart.

      Finally, despite her efforts to shut them out, she thought about her two visitors today. The short, charming CIA chief, Greg Walton, with his earnest entreaties; and the bullying, hateful Milton Buck with his not-so-veiled threats.

       “I’m sorry.”

       “You will be.”

      Tracy hadn’t told Blake about that part. She hadn’t wanted to worry him. Blake didn’t know about the jewel heist Tracy СКАЧАТЬ