Read Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) Online
Authors: Christopher Smith
Spocatti was hit, but
George Redman was dead.
The dart was lodged in
the center of his forehead.
The
cyanide either mainlined into his brain or his heart.
Either way, it didn’t
matter.
The job was done.
But if someone heard those gunshots,
Spocatti’s life was about to get more difficult.
He pushed himself up,
shrugged off his jacket, and saw the damage.
He’d been shot in the upper left
arm.
And while he wasn’t bleeding
profusely, he was bleeding enough that people would notice if he left in this
condition.
Quickly, he created a
tourniquet out of his belt.
He
wrapped it several times above the wound, pulled it tight, and tucked what was
left of the strap around his arm so it would look as smooth as possible in his
jacket.
He was in pain, but the
pain only made him feel more alive.
He checked his jacket,
saw the hole and the blood, and slipped it on. Across the room, on the wall,
was a large, decorative mirror.
He
stepped over Redman and one of his guards, went to it and turned so he could look
at the sleeve.
In this light, the
belt made his upper arm bulge weirdly.
Worse, a bit of his shirt showed through the hole.
But the blood was dark,
and it could camouflage.
He pressed his finger
against the area where the shirt was still white, and as he did, it turned dark
red.
In the lobby, where the light
was soft, it would be less of an issue.
He took a breath, tugged down his jacket, and made sure that he looked
as polished as possible.
Move.
He went to the door,
eased it open.
Nothing.
He stepped out, moved into the lobby,
and saw the last thing he wanted to see across the room.
It was Epifania Zapopa, and she was
talking to an older man.
He kept
his head down, and started to move toward the exit, but it was no good.
She spotted him.
He heard her cloying voice rise above
the din.
“Papi!”
He quickened his
step.
Out of his periphery, he saw
her slipping through the crowd in an effort to intercept him.
“Papi!”
He passed the waterfall
and was almost to the door, when above him, he heard a woman shriek.
He turned and looked up to see a flash
of red hair appear at the top of the mezzanine.
And then, as cool as Spocatti was, even
he became unnerved when the woman was shoved over the half wall and began to
pinwheel through the air.
Collectively, the crowd
gasped.
The woman was pushed so hard,
she connected with the waterfall.
She fell into the broad band of water, down through its liquid
brightness, and landed with a sickening thud at its illumined base.
People started to scream.
Security drew their guns
and pressed forward en masse.
The crowd was of two
minds.
Either they hurried over to
the woman, who was lying in an unnatural, broken heap, and where the press
already were taking photographs of her grisly death in vivid explosions of
light, or they bull rushed the exits.
Spocatti joined those
leaving the building.
He fell in
line behind them, a false look of horror on his face.
In their effort to flee, people slammed
against his arm, but he bit through the pain, stepped out of the building into
the night, and was struck by what he heard.
At
least on this corner of Fifth Avenue, with so many on the sidewalk stricken by
what they had just witnessed, it sounded to him as if the city was crying.
For Carmen, it all came
down to one thing.
Create
pandemonium, and do it swiftly.
It
would take them only moments to figure out that what she handed them was an
image on her cell, and not a website.
She reached into her
clutch for one of the darts and pinched it between her thumb and index
finger.
She went to the fire alarm
at the end of the hall, which she had spotted earlier and which had given her a
rush of hope.
She pulled down the
handle, and in the wake of the wailing alarms and the sudden cries of fear from
those in the lobby, she ran down the hallway before the door to the office
could open.
She knew the guard, Sean,
would be the one to open the door, and she was ready for him when he did.
She cupped her hands over
her ears, and looked terrified when the door sprung open.
It was him.
Inside, she could hear Leana crying
uncontrollably.
“What’s happening?” she
said.
“There must be a
fire.
We need to get everyone out
of here.
Now.”
When he turned away to
speak to Leana and Michael, Carmen acted.
She removed the clip from her hair, and held it low at her side as she
shook her hair out.
Then she jammed
the dart directly into the man’s spine.
Purely on instinct, Sean
Scott swung around and bashed Carmen hard across her face with the full weight
of his fist.
She fell to the ground
and skidded across the floor, her nose broken.
For a moment, she was too
stunned to move.
There was nothing
but a roaring in her head, the coppery taste of blood in her mouth, and a
faintness that would end her if she gave herself over to it.
Drawing on whatever strength she had left,
she forced herself up just as the guard fell to the floor, dead.
Leana leaned down beside
him, checked for a pulse, and then looked up in horror at Carmen.
“You killed him,” she said.
Carmen wiped the blood
that was flowing from her nose, and shook it on the floor.
She was still light-headed, but she was
coming back into herself.
“So, I
did.”
“Who are you?” Michael
asked.
Carmen couldn’t help a
smile.
She dropped her clutch to
the floor, but not before grabbing the can of mace that was inside it.
“I’m Louis Ryan,” she said.
“Back from the dead.”
She
pressed the button that released the blade from her hair clip, flicked it at
her side, and held out the can of mace in front of her.
She swiped the blood from her face, and
started to move toward them.
“Where are Leana and
Michael?” Mario said, moving through the crowd with Marty and his wife,
Jennifer, at his side.
They scanned
the area for them as the lobby emptied and people fled the building.
“There are security
cameras hidden everywhere,” Marty said.
“Look around—you’ll see them.
Somewhere in here, somebody is monitoring them.”
Mario turned, looking for
Sean Scott, but instead he saw Zack Anderson, who was trying to keep the crowd
calm as they hurried through the open doors.
He called out to him.
Zack looked up, and ran
over.
“Have you seen Leana?”
“I saw her about fifteen
minutes ago, before this happened.”
He pointed over to the sprawling reception area.
“She went through there.
Sean and Michael were with her.
So was a woman with blonde hair.”
“What woman?”
“No idea, but she looked
upset.
Sean looked as if he was
trying to console her.”
“What’s back there?”
Marty asked.
“Offices.
Nothing more.
Is Leana OK?”
“If she’s with Sean, she
is.
I want to get her out of here
with me, not with anyone else.
I
assume there’s no fire?”
“There isn’t.
Somebody must have yanked one of the
alarms.
Somebody ruined tonight for
her.”
Mario shook his head in
disappointment, and hurried with Jennifer and Marty to the reception desk.
He lifted himself up, and slid over
it.
Marty and Jennifer followed
suit.
What they found in the back
were two hallways, one that led to the right and another that cut to the left.
“I’ll go right,” Mario
said.
“You two go left.
When one of us finds them, we call out
to each other.
Then we regroup, and
try to figure out what happened here tonight.”
“Don’t go into this
blindly,” Marty said.
“Take your
time.
Listen as much as you can
despite the alarms.
We don’t know
who that woman was, but I find it suspicious that the alarm was pulled not long
after Zack saw them together.
It
could be nothing, but in my business, you take nothing for granted.”
“Understood.”
At that
moment, they heard Leana scream.
“Scream again,” Carmen
said, “and I’ll cut your throat.”
“Put down the blade,”
Michael said.
“Please, put it
down.”
Carmen titled her head
toward him.
“Now, why would I want
to do that?”
“Because you’re
frightening her.”
“And that concerns me
how?”
“You can leave.
There’s still time.
You don’t have to do this.”
“A contract is a
contract, Mr. Archer.
You’ve signed
your share of them over the course of your career.
I’m assuming you always delivered what
you promised.
So will I.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Leana asked.
“What’s the point?”
“The point is that Louis
Ryan planned for this to happen should anything go wrong the first time around,
which it did as we all know.
I’m
just one of the vehicles that will finish his unfinished business.
You remember his original plan, don’t
you, Leana?
And you, Michael?
Kill every Redman.
We can do this quickly and painlessly,
or it can get messy and painful.
You decide.”
She took a step toward
them, her can of mace and the blade lifted in front of her.
Blood was dripping out of her nose and
down her face.
She saw Michael look
around him, likely looking for something to throw at her, but there was
nothing.
She took another step forward,
and they each took a step back.
“Don’t make this difficult,” she said, moving closer.
“Either way, the outcome will be the
same.”
“Is my father dead?”
Leana asked.
“Stop buying time.”
“I need to know.”
“By now he is.
Yes.”
Behind her, Carmen heard
the doorknob turning.
Trying to be turned.
The door was locked.
But doors could be kicked
open.
“Help us!” Leana
screamed.
“Help yourself,” Carmen
said.
In a flash, her arm swung out
in a perfect arc.
She sliced their
throats just as the door behind her burst open.
Their bodies began to
fall.
Time seemed to slow, but
Carmen was trained to stay focused.
She turned and saw Mario
De Cicco’s ashen face as he watched his wife hit the floor.
Blood spurted in fans from her throat as
she and Michael writhed on the ground.
Behind him were a man and a woman she didn’t recognize.
Before De Cicco could
charge at her, she held up her can of mace, pointed it at his face, and said,
“You’ve got two choices.
If you’re
quick, there’s still time to save them.
Let me go, and you can try to revive them.
If you don’t, I’m here to tell you that
I’ll do the same to the rest of you.
Now, step back.
All of
you.
Get out of my way, and maybe
you’ll have some luck.
The longer
you stand there, the greater the chances are that they both die.”