Consider this a promotion. Now let’s go back inside, shall we?”
She held the man up, because he wasn’t able to walk, and they crossed the rooftop patio to the door that led into the building’s penthouse suite. They took glass stairs down one level to the apartment’s lavish living area overlooking the park. The sixty-two-year-old apartment owner lay where she’d fallen on the carpet, her throat cut. Miss Shirley knelt and recovered the knife from beside the body, then wiped it on the woman’s blouse and secured it in her pocket again. She took the elongated case for her sniper’s rifle from the floor and put it on top of the walnut dining room table. Unlocking the lid, she opened it and caressed the full length of the slim, hard barrel with her fingertips.
Her head turned, gazing through the apartment windows at the tower beyond the park. She calculated the location of the corner room on the fourteenth floor, which was in clear sight. In the background, hundreds of high-rises dotted the skyline.
“I love New York,” she said.
Restak said nothing. A foul odor emanated from his clothes.
“Go take a shower and clean yourself up, Restak. Then we’ll have sex, and you can take care of your apartment.”
“All right … Miss Shirley.”
“Sex is what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes … Miss Shirley.”
“Take a pill from my purse. I suspect you’ll need it.”
Restak slunk away from her. She watched him dig inside her purse and swallow one of the tablets from an unlabeled plastic bottle, and then he shrugged off his soiled clothes and disappeared into the apartment’s palatial bathroom, with its walk-in shower and marble bench. She heard the noise of the water, and she felt a tingling anticipation of all the things that lay ahead. The vigorous sex. The gun, long and sleek in her hands. The shooting and the eruption of blood.
It had been that way with Sofia Ortiz, too.
She took her phone from her pocket and played the video that Restak had sent her. She saw the two people in the elevator inside the UK safe house. They kissed, slowly and then quite passionately, like two people who were very attracted to each other. She found it surprising for a man like Cain to be entranced by someone whose beauty was so ordinary.
At the end of the video, the woman backed away, the hood slipping down. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement, her eyes wide with desire. Miss Shirley froze the playback of the video and studied the woman’s face.
“Abbey Laurent,” she snarled. “Well, well, aren’t you the little slut.”
TWENTY-TWO
ABBEY recognized Holly d’Angelo from the photo that the Carillon tech had loaded on her phone. Peter Restak’s girlfriend looked like an Italian firecracker, tiny and explosive. Her feet pounded on the gym treadmill as if she were running a hundred-yard dash, small legs pumping, sweat glowing on her face and dripping from her hooked nose. Her eyebrows were thick and black, and her long dark hair bounced in a ponytail behind her. She wore a red tank top and formfitting shorts.
The room was loud with the metal clang of exercise equipment, but Holly seemed too deep in concentration to notice anything outside her workout. When Abbey mounted the treadmill next to her, the other woman didn’t turn her head. Abbey switched on the machine and ran beside her at a much more relaxed pace. Every couple of minutes, she glanced over with a smile, but Holly paid no attention.
Half an hour later, Holly still showed no signs of slowing her relentless run. Abbey dialed down the speed on her own machine to a walk, and after another ten minutes, she noticed Holly finally doing the same thing. Abbey climbed off the treadmill and did a series of stretching exercises as she waited for the other woman to finish. When Holly turned off the machine, her entire outfit was soaking wet, and her face was beet red. She did cooldown exercises of her own, and when she was in the midst of pelvic squats with her hands on her hips, Abbey decided to make her move.
“Excuse me.”
Holly looked up at Abbey. When she spoke, her voice had a nasal Jersey accent. “What do you want?”
“I apologize for bothering you, but you look so familiar. I knew it as soon as I saw you on the treadmill. I’m sure we’ve met somewhere.”
“We haven’t met,” Holly replied. “And if this is a pickup line, it needs work.”
Abbey laughed. “No, no, seriously, I