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  She wanted to say there wasn’t, that they didn’t have time for this because it was too important to screw it up. But she didn’t. She opened the door and watched a rush of steam roll out and cover his feet. She looked at him standing there and wasn’t sure if she ever had seen anything quite as magnificent as what she saw now. He was beautiful.

  What am I doing?

  He stepped behind her and reached for a wash cloth and a liquid bottle of soap on the shower rack across from him. She could feel him growing erect behind her and it was something he made no effort to hide. In fact, he pressed against her and started washing her back with the cloth while his penis slipped between her legs and buried itself between them. He smoothed his way down to her buttocks and then to her legs, coming up again until he reached between her legs and lingered there while keeping the wash cloth barely moving.

  To her surprise, she climaxed. She caught her breath and after a moment, she turned to face him. He was pouring shampoo into his hands. “Watch your eyes,” he said.

  As he washed her hair, he lifted it up and kissed her neck and her breasts as he did so. He hadn’t shaved since morning and the roughness of his beard was almost too much for her to bear against her skin. She was on fire. She wanted him inside of her. But when he finished washing her hair, he rinsed the soap clean, kissed her again and stepped aside.

  “I know we don’t have a lot of time. Give me three minutes and I’ll be showered.”

  “You’re joking?” she said.

  “It’s true,” he said. “I can shower in three minutes.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  He winked at her. “There’s always later. You need to do your hair and makeup and get dressed so we can get out of here.” He opened the glass door for her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got plenty planned for later.”

  * * *

  When they stepped out of the hotel room and into the night, they snagged a cab on Third and told the driver the address.

  They needed an element of surprise, so Carmen wore her hair up and kept her face concealed behind large, trendy round sunglasses that suggested she either was a celebrity or a movie star. Jean-Georges never had seen her in a dress and he wouldn’t be expecting her at an event such as this, especially since it was likely he already had viewed the photo of her lying dead in Central Park. She checked her Glock G19 and concealed it in her bejeweled purse.

  Alex took her cue from the celebrity handbook and appeared even more unrecognizable.

  He’d shaved. His curly hair was brushed away from his face and gleamed from the gel he’d put in it. The look emphasized the squareness of his jaw. Assisting to that end were the dark aviator sunglasses he wore. His tux was standard black and white, but the tailoring was impeccable. Model or celebrity? People would be guessing. His gun was just inside his jacket pocket. A knife was strapped to his left calf.

  The cab hurtled through the city, cutting past and around the slower cars because Carmen asked the driver to hurry.

  “What’s the plan?” Alex asked her in French. Each were fluent in it and given the name of their Italian driver--Salvatore Romano--it was unlikely he’d understand them. Still, they spoke low, as near to a whisper as possible given the sound of the traffic.

  She told him.

  “Are you sure that will work?”

  “I’m open to better ideas.”

  He shared one with her. She shot him a sidelong glance and was quiet for a moment while she thought it through. “What if we joined the two?”

  “How?”

  She told him.

  “That could work.”

  “It has to work. Do you have your camera.”

  He patted his pants pocket.

  She looked ahead of them down the street. They were approaching the restaurant.

  “Are you nervous?”

  “I’m concerned he’ll recognize us. When we’re inside, we’ll keep to the corners and wait for our chance to get him alone, if that’s even possible. If it’s not, we’ll figure out something else.”

  “Jean-Georges doesn’t turn out for just any gig. With him here, you can be sure the governor also will be here. Likely the mayor and other dignitaries. We need to be careful because if that’s the case, the security has been vetted and approved by each camp. It’ll be tight.”

  The driver slowed beside the restaurant’s entrance. Alex paid the man and, as they stepped out of the car, the driver checked the tip, paused and then looked over his shoulder at them. It was too dim to see his face, but the edge in his voice was clear when he spoke.

  “Au revoir, monsieur et madame,” he said. “Bonne chance avec votre muertre.”

  A chill went through Carmen. He just wished them well on their murder.

  Before she could act, Alex already was in the car’s back seat. He shut the door, removed his gun, pressed it against the back of the man’s head and told him to drive forward while Carmen, stunned, stood watching from the sidewalk.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When Alex shut the door, the driver began shouting for help, but Alex was quick. He slammed his gun against the side of the man’s head and told him to shut up. When he didn’t, Alex struck him again, harder this time, until blood flowed from the man’s right ear.

  “Drive forward,” Alex said. “Move to the curb at the end of the street. There’s a no parking zone there. Pull next to it.”

  “Don’t kill me.”

  “I don’t plan to.”

  The man was shaking. He pulled over, parked the car and put his hands in the air. They were trembling. In the rearview mirror, he watched Alex with terrified eyes as traffic passed on 52nd Street.

  “Put your hands down.”

  “Please don’t kill me,” he said. “I have a wife. A son. Don’t kill me.”

  “Put your fucking hands down.”

  He did, but he didn’t seem to know where to put them. He was too rattled. They went into his lap, then to the dash and finally they rested on the steering wheel, where Alex could see them.

  “What did you hear back there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me the truth and you live. Did you hear anything?”

  “No! I heard nothing! I swear!”

  “Why are you lying to me?”

  “I’m not lying!”

  Alex asked the question again, only this time in French in an effort to trick him into proving he knew the language.

  “I told you I’m not lying!”

  “Right.”

  Alex buried his gun into the back of the man’s seat and fired twice. The seat was so thick, it muffled the sound to the point that Alex could hear the man’s shirt tearing open as the bullets ripped through and lodged into the dash. The man slumped over, dead. Alex reached forward, pulled him up, turned off the cab’s lights and then switched off the car itself.

  He looked around on the sidewalks, which were empty, and then patted the man on the shoulder. “Au revoir,” he said. “Et bonne chance pour votre voyage.”

  * * *

  He put his gun away, stepped onto the sidewalk, smoothed his hands down the front of his jacket and started moving toward the restaurant, where he could see Carmen waiting for him just outside the entrance. It was chilly. Her arms where wrapped around herself. He reached out his hand for her as he approached. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said.

  “Trouble with the driver?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Is he still irritable?”

  “Depends on where he ended up.”

  There were half a dozen people smoking outside the restaurant, none of whom were paying attention to them. Others in evening wear were walking past the doorman and through the door he held open for them.

  Carmen and Alex joined them and moved up the stairs to the receiving area. A blonde woman in a black suit smiled as they approached. They were in the Grille Room, which glowed deep red and was filled with people. Most were either talking in small groups, enjoying the
glasses of champagne being offered on silver trays by the wait staff, while others were at the bar, which was behind them and to the right.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Mark Edwards,” Alex said.

  The woman looked down at her computer monitor and scrolled through the list of names. “Do you have an invitation?” she asked.

  “We’re just in from L.A. Mamie van Marais suggested we drop by because friends of ours will be here. I believe she called ahead not long ago. She practically demanded we come.”

  The woman nodded and by the way she kept glancing at Alex’s face, it was clear to Carmen that she was wondering if he was a celebrity using a different name for anonymity. “That sounds like Mamie--and I should know because I took the call. Please make yourselves comfortable.”

  Below them on the street, where Alex shot the taxi driver, came the muffled sound of a woman screaming. All turned to look but they could see nothing because they were on the second floor and the windows were across the room. The woman screamed again, louder this time, and started to call for help.

  Carmen ignored her. They needed to get inside. “Do you know where we might find Tootie and Addy?”

  The woman looked down the long corridor to her right, which opened into the Pool Room. It was packed with members of society, all of whom seemed adrift in ether, their feet barely touching the floor. “I’m afraid that’s the question of the day. But you find them in there, for sure. I know they’re not in here.” When she turned back to them, a surprised look came over her face as three members of security hurried past them and took the stairs down to the street.

  Carmen and Alex checked them as they passed. Two men, one woman. The men wore tuxedoes in an effort to blend in with the crowd. The woman wore a simple black dress. For her, the giveaway were her shoes. They were flats. Tonight, at this affair, no legitimate guest would be caught dead in them.

  Alex put his arm around Carmen. “Something’s obviously wrong. We should go inside.”

  They walked past the woman into the corridor, which was lined with people paying little attention to the drama unfolding outside. Why ruin the illusion by facing something real?

  Instinctively, Carmen and Alex moved to the right, away from the large bank of glass and brass doors that led to the front of the building. They stepped into the Pool Room to look for Jean-Georges. A few other guests were wearing sunglasses, likely celebrities, which wasn’t unexpected but nevertheless welcome. It allowed them to blend in.

  “Where do you want to start?” Alex asked.

  Before she could answer, an announcement was made that people should move to the Pool Room.

  As discretely as they could, they moved to their left and allowed the masses to move from the Grill Room and the Front Bar into the Pool Room, which was spectacular.

  Because it was autumn, the room was decorated with four tall trees lit in varying shades of orange. The effect was stunning, decadent and beautiful, particularly given the square pool that bubbled vibrant yellow in the center of the floor.

  Just across from it, in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked 53rd Street, were a man and a woman, who Carmen guessed were Addy and Tootie Staunton-Miller.

  Beside them was a young woman with long, curly dark hair who was creating something of a stir and for good reason. She was wearing an intricate, thirties-inspired evening dress crafted in silver beadwork that stopped just short of her knees. Ropes of diamonds hung loosely from her neck, a thick diamond bracelet was at her wrist and in her ears were two of the largest teardrop diamonds Carmen had ever seen. Standing there, with the diamonds and the dress and the room’s waves of orange light all conspiring in her favor, she looked otherworldly, a dazzling exclamation point gleaming in front of the windows’ wavering mesh curtains.

  Carmen knew who she was.

  She recognized her from the press, but also from her time with Vincent Spocatti, the assassin she worked with a year ago who failed to bring her and other members of her family down two years before. She was Leana Redman, the estranged daughter of the billionaire George Redman, both of whom were famously shot by the now-deceased businessman Louis Ryan, who went to great lengths to ruin the Redman family due to a personal vendetta.

  Carmen studied Leana. Given her height, her looks and her figure, she would have been mistaken for a model if she didn’t have such an intelligent, mischievous look in her eyes.

  She was standing next to a man somewhere in his late thirties. He was tall and dark and had a body that rivaled Alex’s. He was either Italian or Sicilian--Carmen couldn’t tell which, though he was so good looking, she decided she really didn’t care.

  She watched Leana step forward so the press could photograph her. They called out her name and actively singled her out. But why? What had she done? Carmen scanned the room for Jean-Georges. He didn’t appear to be anywhere in the crowd, which still was filing in, making it so impossibly tight, it was becoming difficult to move.

  There was a sudden rush of applause. Carmen looked back at Leana and her lips parted in surprise. She was stepping forward to give Jean-Georges Laurent a hug.

  Alex’s attention was on those who were pressing in. She reached for his hand and motioned to the windows across from the pool. “Look.”

  “About time. Who’s he with?”

  “Leana Redman.”

  “Why do I know that name?”

  “She’s infamous in this city.”

  “What makes you infamous in New York?”

  “Having a billionaire for a father helps. For her, what sealed the deal is that she was the victim of a murder plot that ended in the death of her sister and another billionaire.”

  “So many billionaires,” he said. “Maybe the people occupying Wall Street should occupy the Four Seasons. What’s with the photos?”

  “No idea. Do you have a make on security?”

  “Throughout the crowd. No drinks. Not smiling. Moving too much. Edgy. Some aren’t as obvious. They’re good. But most won’t be a problem.”

  “We don’t know what any of them will be, so keep your eye on them.”

  He put his arm around her. “Looks like someone’s getting ready to speak.”

  Addison Miller, the closeted gay husband of Tootie Staunton-Miller, was handed a microphone and tapped the top of it as he walked to the right of Jean-Georges and Leana.

  Tootie, who wore her many diamonds as if they were a suit of armor that braced herself against the poor, formed her mouth in the way the very rich do when they knew they were under the microscope by their peers. Her lips were barely lifted. Her face, either frozen due to plastic surgery or through sheer force of will, was otherwise expressionless.

  Alex lowered his head to Carmen’s ear. “You know,” he said, “we might want to reconsider.”

  “Reconsider what?”

  “Our plan. I wasn’t expecting the crowd to be so dense. It’s almost impossible to move and because of that, the three exits are mostly blocked.”

  Discretely, he motioned toward them. “One is up those stairs to the right. The second is through that door, which looks as if it leads to the kitchen. The third is how we entered--down the corridor. There, they can either escape through the doors that lead to the front of the building or run down to the stairs where we came in. For them, the trouble is that escape won’t be so easy. Look at it in here--it’s bordering on chaos. If we created some kind of a panic, I could shoot Jean-Georges from here, the crowd around us would scatter and before they even knew what to do, we could cut through the corridor, hit the first set of doors on the right, run out of the building and be on the street before anyone made their move.”

  It was risky, but she knew how gifted he was as a marksman. He rarely missed. She was intrigued. “What about his photo?”

  “You don’t think the press will take care of that? They’ll do our jobs for us. If you want me to, I also could take out the Redman girl and you could send the coverage of her death to your friend. A gift of sorts.”

 
; “You mean to Spocatti?”

  He nodded.

  And in the moments before Addison Miller spoke, Carmen decided she didn’t mind the idea. In fact, she rather liked it. She hadn’t heard from Spocatti since they were last here in Manhattan.

  It would be good to send him a gift. It would be good to stay in touch because she knew she could learn more from him.

  “I like it,” she said. “But we need to position ourselves in a better spot. Something that will best facilitate our exit. They won’t be standing there much longer. We need to find that spot--maybe just inside the corridor--and we need to monitor security before we act. Tonight, we’re also going to murder Leana Redman. I once learned a lot from Vincent. He can be a miserable son of a bitch when he wants to be, but he still taught me plenty. In the end, I think we became friends.”

  She looked through the crowd at Leana, who now was waiting for Addison Miller to address those in attendance. And then she reached for her phone and pressed a button. “Let’s do this for him.”

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER NINE

  Two Hours Earlier

  Leana Redman left the building on Forty-Seventh and Park Avenue and was about to step into the limousine waiting for her at the street corner when she turned to admire the building behind her before leaving.

  It was beaten up a bit, not unlike she was a year ago and probably still was emotionally. But there was something solid and steadfast about it that made her feel connected to it. Its brick and terra cotta facade had weathered its share of neglect, but here it stood, having survived its wars and ready for a new opportunity to allow it to shine in the face of all the other buildings that surrounded it.

  The parallels they shared were not lost on her. In fact, they were among the reasons she chose to buy the building.