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  “Because I’d actually prefer to be with you. I do think there’s something between us. But we have this problem. We’re assassins. For too long, we’ve only been out for ourselves. We rarely trust anyone. So, how do we get beyond that? I want to trust you, but I’m not sure that I can. I have a feeling you feel the same way.”

  “I do.”

  “So, what do we do? Take a leap of faith? Hope for the best?”

  He studied her face and she had an idea of what he was thinking. If he showed his loyalty to them by killing her, would they come after him? There was a chance they wouldn’t and Carmen knew it. That’s why when she did play dead for him, her dead face would be one in which her eyes were wide open. If he went for his gun, she’d know it and grab her own. Whoever was quickest would win.

  Or would they? It all depended on what happened next. If the people they were dealing with really wanted them dead, they’d see to it that that happened. And that’s something neither of them knew.

  “It’s almost nine o’clock,” she said.

  “I see that.”

  “We’re on deadline.”

  “You have a way with words.”

  “So, are you ready to kill me?”

  When he spoke, the sadness in his voice was unmistakable. “I guess I have no choice, Carmen.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Outside, they walked over to Fifth and took the Children’s Entrance at the Seventy-Sixth Street entrance to the Park.

  It was fall and there was a chill in the air. Carmen discretely took in her surroundings and she could sense Alex doing the same. In the city, it was still early for a Saturday night and there were several people on Fifth, including one woman who was jogging down the street, her blonde ponytail snapping behind her as if it had a personality of its own.

  Nobody here set off alarms. It appeared as if they were as alone as they were going to get.

  Alex put his arm around her and drew her in close. At first she was surprised by the gesture. But then, when his forearm brushed the butt of her gun, she wondered if that’s why he’d done it.

  Each knew the other was carrying, but neither knew exactly where. Now, Alex knew. She put her arm around his waist and felt nothing but muscle. His gun was either inside the blazer he was wearing at dinner or it was strapped to one of his calves.

  They walked down the right sidewalk. A few other nighttime joggers zipped past them and as they did, Carmen could hear from their ear pods a range of music styles in their wake. Jazz. Hip-hop. Even opera.

  When it appeared that no one was around them, she took Alex by the hand, stepped over one of the low iron fences and hopped over onto a grassy knoll. Below them, in a protective enclave of bushes, they could get this over with.

  “Where to?” he said.

  “Just over there. In the curve of those bushes.”

  “You know this place?”

  “I’ve used it before.” The irony that she herself might die here was not lost on her. As they approached the bushes, she could feel her heart ramp up and start to pound in her ears. Adrenaline shot through her. She wondered if she was making a mistake. He might kill her. It was possible. Or maybe he did have feelings for her and would stick to her plan. She didn’t know. She gave his hand a final squeeze and then let go of it.

  “I’m not going to kill you, Carmen.”

  “I’m not going to let you,” she said. “But if I fail, at least make it quick. I’ll return the favor.” She looked up at him, but with the moon shining behind him, she had difficulty seeing his face. “I’m going to reach into my handbag and remove the bottle.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” he said. “I meant it when I said I trust you.”

  She wanted to believe it, but her instinct told her to follow protocol. She knew he was watching her and judging her moves. She knew he was every bit as nervous and as dangerous as she was. They were the same person, only different gender.

  She pulled out the bottle and handed it to him.

  “I’m going to lie down there,” she said, pointing to the ground. “Just spatter my forehead with the sauce, put some in my hair and then dump the rest of it around me on the grass. Don’t spread it too thinly. We want to lay it on thick so there will be enough of it to shine in the flash when you take your photo. Where’s your camera?”

  He reached into his pocket and instinctively, her arm fell at her side. She was wearing a short jacket. If he pulled a gun on her, she could bust out his knee, pull out her own gun as he fell and finish him off quickly, just as she promised.

  But he pulled out his camera.

  “You look worried,” he said.

  “The next few minutes are going to tell me everything I need to know about you and where we go from here if you make the right choice.”

  “Lay on the ground.”

  She eased back so her eyes never left him and scooted into position, doing so in such a way that her hand was behind her and within inches of her gun.

  Now, with the moon fully at his back, it was even more difficult to see him. All she could make out was a hulking shape of a man wearing a thick top coat. She could see the bottle in his right hand, the camera in his left. She also could hear the unevenness of his own breath.

  “Take the sauce, pour a bit on your fingertips and spatter my face with it.”

  She watched him put the camera back in his pocket and then prepare his hands with the liquid. He knelt down close to her and asked her if she was ready. She said she was, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t let the sauce get in her eyes. It would blind her if it did. She had no choice but to close her eyes for an instant, which unnerved her.

  “Go,” she said.

  She closed her eyes and felt the sauce pepper her face. She opened her eyes and told him to pour a bit on the left side of her forehead, which he did.

  “Mash it around,” she said. “Get it in my hair.”

  He followed through, gently massaging it in such a way that it looked as if she’d taken a bullet just above her hairline.

  “Now pour the rest just to the left of my head.”

  He got down closer to her and as he did, he dipped down to kiss her. She kissed him back. She reached up and held his face with the palm of her hand and he kissed her harder. She wanted to trust him. She’d never felt this way for any man. She felt a wave of anxiety come over her when they parted and he poured the rest of the sauce just around her head. When he was finished, he stood, put the cap back on the bottle and the bottle back in his jacket. He wiped his hands on the grass.

  “Are you ready for your close-up?” he asked.

  Every part of her body screamed that she wasn’t, but when she spoke, she said that she was ready.

  He dipped his hand into his pocket, presumably to remove the camera.

  “Make your dead face,” he said.

  She made it, twisting her mouth and keeping her eyes open in shock and horror while looking just to the right of him. Now, she was at her most vulnerable. He knew and she knew it. Her heart was ramming against her chest.

  “I love you,” he said.

  Why are you telling me that now?

  And then quickly--too quickly?--he pulled the object from his pocket, aimed it at her head and shot her five times.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The light from the camera blinded her, but she didn’t move. She kept her dead face on in spite of the relief and the confusion that now washed over her. He didn’t shoot her. He just said he loved her. Now, what was she going to do?

  When he finished, he offered her his hand, she took it and stood in front of him. He removed a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, wiped her face clean and then dabbed the sauce from her head.

  “Not the best perfume you’ve worn,” he said.

  “Are you kidding? It’s practically made for men.”

  He kissed her on the forehead and then on the lips. “I meant what I said. I wasn’t joking. I love you.”

  She didn’t know what to say to him. Carmen
never had been in a lasting relationship. She wasn’t sure whether she’d ever been in love. Or if she was even capable of love. “Alex--”

  “And I’m glad that I said it. I want out of this life. It’s time to start over. With you. I think you feel the same.”

  “I have several jobs I’ve committed to after this one. I’m sure you have the same. You know that once we’ve accepted the upfront money, the deal is sealed. There’s no getting out of it. You know the consequences if we even tried to get out of it.”

  “Then we do the jobs,” he said. “We finish what we’ve lined up, then we walk out of this life. Together.”

  It was too much. She hadn’t been expecting any of this. She needed time alone to think and to process it. Walking out of anything that yielding her tens of millions of dollars each year when she was in her prime was something she wasn’t going to do lightly.

  Focus.

  “You’ve got to send them a photo,” she said. “It’s past nine. We’ll talk about the rest of this later.”

  His camera was wireless and had a simple email function that could jettison any photo he chose to anyone he wished. They went through the photos and chose the best one.

  “So, that’s what I’ll look like if someone guns me down?” Carmen said. “Not my best look.”

  “But that’s how it will look,” he said. “Do you want that? We can get out of this, Carmen. We can live a normal life together.”

  She ignored him, though she’d be lying if she said the photo didn’t have an effect on her. “We need to buy some time. Are you able to include any text with the photo?”

  He nodded.

  “Write this,” she said. “‘She’s dead, but it didn’t go as planned. She shot me in the arm. I can’t go to a hospital because when they see why I’m there, they’re required to call the police. I need to get to a pharmacy and then to a hotel room to take out the bullet myself. I won’t be able to catch the plane, but I’ll be in touch. Send an email when the money’s in my account.’”

  He finished typing. “That it?”

  “That’s it.”

  He hit the send button. “Now what?”

  “Now we go after Jean-Georges. We take him out, which will send a message to the rest of the group. If anyone is their unofficial leader, it’s him. If we manage to kill him, we tell them why we did it. We know they want us dead. We tell them to stand down or they’ll be joining Jean-Georges in hell.”

  “Which is exactly where he’ll end up.”

  “The man’s a monster,” she said. “I’ve declined four jobs from him because he wanted me to cross a line. I’m no angel, but I don’t kill children. Ever. There were times he wanted me to knock off some business associate’s kid, but I refused. What’s worse is how he wanted me to kill them. It was sick. The man’s a pervert. I have zero problem seeing him dead.”

  “You know the moment his associates hear about this, they’ll hire someone else to kill us.”

  “Not if we blackmail them. That’s what they’re afraid of. That’s why we’re in this situation now. They’re worried that we know too much. They think we’ll bilk them for money or send what we know to the press. The problem is time. We need to kill Jean-Georges tonight. There’s no time to wait. If we wait for the ‘right’ moment, we’ll be dead. So we act now. We send a photo of his dead body to the group and warn them that if they come after us, we send everything we know about them to the press and to the police.”

  “Then we leave.”

  “That’s right. Just before boarding our flight, we send the picture and the threat from the airport. I have a place in Bora Bora that nobody knows about. We go there and lie low.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until we have to leave for any outstanding commitments.”

  “My next one is in five weeks.”

  “Mine is in seven.”

  “So, we’ll have five weeks together.”

  “Think you can handle it?”

  “That’s not the question.”

  “What is?”

  “Whether you can, Carmen.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “You need to call Jean-Georges,” she said. “Tell him that you’ve emailed the photo and that you were shot. You’ve got tracking on your phone. Use the GPS to find out where he is. Make it quick. Tell him you’re bleeding and can’t talk.”

  He plucked the phone from his inside blazer pocket and Carmen saw the butt of his gun. She figured it was there. To make sure she remained quiet, he held up his hand while he dialed.

  Jean-Georges, whose full name was Jean-Georges Laurent, was part of a powerful business syndicate that had corporations and enemies all over the world. They were in bed with governments and with corporate leaders. For years, it had been Alex and Carmen who took care of the enemies, but that obviously no longer was the case.

  The man answered on the third ring. Alex said what she told him to say while the GPS got a hook on his location. “Did you hear me?” Alex said. “She shot me. I’m in no shape to fly. I’ll catch the flight tomorrow or the next day. Now, I need to get to a pharmacy and find something to remove the bullet and stop the bleeding. I’ll be looking for the money in my account tomorrow morning. I’ll talk to you later.”

  He turned off the phone and looked at Carmen. “He’s out,” he said. “There was an orchestra. It sounded like a crowd. People talking over each other. Light laughter.”

  “Let me see your GPS.”

  Alex pointed to the blinking dot. “He’s at Ninety-Nine East Fifty-Second Street.”

  “Do a search for it.”

  He pressed a button. “Four Seasons.”

  “If there’s an orchestra, it’s a private event.” She looked at her watch. “It’s still early. Depending on the event, he could be there for another few hours. I have a contact who can get us in, assuming she’s not there herself.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Mamie van Marais.”

  “Didn’t you take out her husband?”

  “Two years ago. Now Mamie wipes her ass with his money. She owes me and she knows it. If anyone can get us inside, she can.”

  She pulled out her own phone, found van Marais’ number and dialed it. When the line was answered, Carmen said, “I need to speak to Ms. van Marais.”

  “Who shall I say is calling?”

  “Tell her it’s Carmen.”

  Carmen waited less than a minute before Mamie van Marais picked up the phone. “I asked you never to call me here.”

  “You wouldn’t have a ‘here’ if it wasn’t for me, Mamie. This is important. I’m calling in a favor.”

  “Carmen, I don’t know how I possibly could do you a favor. We both know how resourceful you are.”

  “And you’re one of my resources. Tonight, something is happening at the Four Seasons. I need to get inside.”

  “I know what’s happening. That horrible Tootie Staunton-Miller is throwing a party there tonight with her gay husband, Addy. They just completed the restoration on their home on Fifth and although I can’t stand her, I have go give it to her. She did it right. That house is back to what it once was--the grand dame of Fifth Avenue. Fifty rooms! Tootie and Addy have been staying in the Royal Suite at the Waldorf Towers for years while waiting for the restoration to be complete and now it is. It has one of the only private indoor swimming pools in New York. Tootie likes to say that to anyone who will listen. In fact, some are saying she says it too often.”

  “So, why are they at The Four Seasons? Shouldn’t they be celebrating at their new home?”

  “Never,” Mamie said. “Only select people will ever be invited to the home itself. I heard that Tootie had massive photographs installed in the Pool Room at the Four Seasons to give people an idea of how the restoration turned out, but only the best of the very best will ever actually see the house in person. It’s all about positioning, dear. Her popularity will skyrocket thanks to that house. Everyone but the real money will want to say they’ve been invited th
ere. I can hear them now. ‘I’m sorry, but Tootie Staunton-Miller invited us to dinner at her grand home on Fifth Avenue so we’ll need to decline.’ It’s grotesque. She’s got the best house on Fifth and she’s doing well with her charitable affairs, but she’ll never be as endearing as Addy is. We all love Addy, regardless of his sexual complications. But Tootie? She can toot herself to the moon.”

  “I need you to get me in.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Killing your husband wasn’t, Mamie.”

  She lowered her voice. “Please don’t talk about that. Ever. It’s awful how Bonzy died. Who knew he had such enemies?”

  “I just need for you to get me and one guest into the event. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “She knows I loathe her. You’re asking a lot.”

  “That’s because I gave you a lot. You have my cell. I expect a call back in five minutes.”

  “But who should I say is coming?”

  Carmen came up with some bullshit names and a location. “The Mark Edwards of East Hampton.”

  It took Mamie four minutes to secure an invitation for them, which would be awaiting them at the reception area.

  “Thanks, Mamie.”

  “I suppose I should be reading the front page of the Times tomorrow? Final season at the Four Seasons? Death by drowning in the Pool Room?”

  “Good-bye, Mamie.”

  Carmen looked at Alex. “You have your tux?”

  “Never travel without it.”

  “And I have a dress. Let’s get back to the hotel. If nothing else, I need to get this steak sauce off me. I don’t think Tootie Staunton-Whatshername would approve of it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  At their hotel, which was a modest but clean joint on Third Avenue, each rushed to get ready.

  They had adjoining rooms. Carmen slipped into hers while Alex moved into his. “Twenty minutes,” she said. “We need to hurry.”

  Carmen laid out her black cocktail dress and shoes, and added a string of pearls. When she stepped into the shower, she heard a door crack open and knew. Through the glass shower, she watched the door to her bathroom swing open. A very naked Alex walked inside and knocked gently on the glass. “Room for two in there?”