Fifth Ave 02.5 - From Manhattan With Love (12 page)

She lifted her head.
 
“Two men.
 
To your right.
 
Harpoons.
 
Coming straight at us.
 
Get over here.
 
We paddle from the left-side of the boat.”

He looked down, saw them and swam closer to her, lifting himself so his mouth was just above the surface.
 
“They’re either going to shoot us or the boat.
 
The harpoons will sink the boat.
 
We need to get in it now and get out of here.
 
There’s no choice.”

She knew he was right.
 
Together, they scrambled low into the boat and when they did, another harpoon crashed through the hut and soared over their heads.
 

Carmen rushed to the front.
 
This boat was no ordinary boat.
 
It was sophisticated and cost her a fortune.
 
A turn of a key would start the engine.
 
But the moment she turned it, the dual engines were so powerful, all would hear them.
 
She looked at Alex, who was leaning low against the side of the boat.
 
“Hurry,” he said.

Hunching down as low as she could, she turned the key, the engines roared to life and suddenly the air behind them became alive with harpoons and gunfire.
 

She sped away.

Tried to speed away.

Below them, one of the men shot a harpoon.
 
It smashed through the right side of the boat, but instead of shooting clear through to the other side, the harpoon sank into Alex’s thigh and pinned him to the boat.
 
She looked over at him in horror and saw his face twisted in pain while scores of harpoons rained down on them, some glancing off the boat, most plunging into the water.
 
“Go!” he said through gritted teeth.
 
“Move before they shoot again!”

Without thinking of the consequences or what might happen to Alex given the dire situation of his wound, she forced herself to focus and roared away as the onslaught continued.
 

It was a nightmare.
 
She could hear glass breaking behind her and then an explosion as one of the harpoons connected with the propane tank in the kitchen area.
 

She looked over her shoulder and saw her beloved hut alive and thrashing with flames.
 
She’d spent so many years here and now it was gone.
 
She pressed harder on the throttle and moved faster until they presumably were out of reach.
 
She sped left and rounded into an inlet, while warm water leached around her feet.
 
Her boat was going to sink.
 
She pressed the throttle harder and moved into the inlet, which was miles from her hut and where some of the locals lived.
 
She knew one of the families here.
 
They could help them.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Can you see them?”

Silence.

She looked over her shoulder and saw that Alex’s eyes were closed and that he was oddly pale.
 
She looked down at the bottom of the boat and saw that the warm water she thought she was standing in actually was his blood.
 
The harpoon and his leg had created something of a plug, sealing off the water from the boat but not the blood from Alex’s leg.
 
The harpoon had struck an artery.
 
He was bleeding out.

Quickly, she removed her bikini bottom and tied it tight just above the wound.
 
She patted his face and asked him to speak to her.
 
Nothing.
 
She gently shook him and asked him to say something.
 
Nothing.
 
She checked for a pulse.
 
Nothing.
 

Panic rose within her.
 
He had come to mean everything to her.
 
She couldn’t lose him.
 
It wasn’t right.
 
She was in love with him.
 
“Don’t leave me,” she said, shaking him harder.
 
“Please don’t leave me.
 
Please stay.”

She needed to administer CPR, but she couldn’t move him onto his back because of how the harpoon had pinned him to the boat.
 
She’d need to improvise.
 

She pressed her ear to his chest and heard nothing.
 
She checked to see if he was breathing, but he wasn’t.
 
Immediately, she wrapped her arm around his back for support and slammed her fist against his chest in an effort to get his heart beating again.
 
She pressed her mouth against his cool lips and forced air into his lungs, but there was no response.
 
Again, she slammed her fist against his chest and gave him more air.
 
She repeated the procedure four times before she felt for a pulse.
 
But there wasn’t one.

He was dead.

She looked up at the distant shoreline and could see nothing but smoke rising into the air above a hood of trees.
 
She looked down at Alex and everything within her rejected what she saw.
 
She found a towel at the rear of the boat and placed it behind his head to make him comfortable.
 
When she touched his cheek with the back of her hand and bent down to kiss him a final time on the lips, she noticed that her whole body was trembling with grief and rage.
 
She wanted to go back and kill them all for what they’d done to him, but it would be suicide if she did so.

She stepped back into the driver’s seat and sat there.
 
She felt weightless, hopeless, useless.
 
She looked out at the ocean as the boat rocked and swayed.
 
Water lapped against the side of it.
 
It was soothing, almost hypnotic.
 
She gave into it.
 
Time passed.
 
The sun moved across the sky.
 
She only came around when something nudged against the boat.
 
Pushed it.
 
She looked around her as something whipped about in the water, startling her into focus.
 
She looked down at the water and saw that it was boiling.
 
Dozens of sharks were teaming around the boat, probably drawn by Alex’s blood, which likely was leaking into the water.

She had to collect herself.
 
She needed to save herself.
 
He’d be furious with her if she didn’t do so.

Think.

The family she knew within the inlet could help her.
 
Contacts in the States could send her a new passport.
 
To leave here, she’d need to change her identity, but those matters could be worked out abroad.
 

When her passport came, so would supplies to make her look like her new photo.
 
She’d been in this situation before, but never quite like this.
 
Never in love.
 
She wanted to scream into the sun, but instinct kept her silent.
 
She couldn’t give away her location.
 
She’d be damned if they killed each of them.

She started the boat again and, with Alex at her back, she crept around the inlet, her heart turning to ice as she moved forward through the deep.
 
A feast of sharks slapped their tails against the boat, but she ignored them and kept her eyes on the horizon.
 
Help was ahead.
 
Small huts were behind the swaying palms.
 
She’d seek out her friends and then she’d seek out her enemies.

She’d have her revenge.

They’d pay for what they did.

*
 
*
 
*

In the month following the incident at The Four Seasons, Leana Redman remained in her Park Avenue penthouse, unwilling to leave until they caught the people responsible for killing Jean-George Laurent and for potentially trying to kill her.

People called, including her mother and half-brother, Michael, but in spite of the news coverage that had blanketed the city for so long as investigators tried to learn who the murderer was, there was not one call from her father.

She tried to tell herself that she wasn’t surprised or disappointed, but she was just lying to herself.
 
Her mother told her that he’d never change, which was the truth.
 
He was expecting her to call him, but she wouldn’t.
 
More than ever, she was beginning to care less and less about him.
 
She knew it was unhealthy for her to spend much more time wondering why he was the way he was.
 
He didn’t care for her.
 
As difficult as it was, she needed to accept that.

One morning after many late-night discussions with Mario, much of which involved the security he wanted to have in place for her when she did emerge, she decided she couldn’t stay like this forever.
 
At the very least, she owed it to Harold to pick herself up and move forward with her dreams.
 
Not following them was exactly what he didn’t want.
 
He had entrusted her with his money for a specific reason and that reason wasn’t just to succeed, but to take on her father and succeed.

For herself and for Harold, she needed to see it through.

On some level, the better part of her life always had been at risk, whether because of the drugs she nearly overdosed on in her youth or because she was saddled with her father’s enemies now as an adult.
 
She needed to pick herself up, go to the hotel and get back to work.
 
Three weeks ago they started to refurbish it.
 
She needed to be there and be part of it.
 
She needed to oversee the work that was being done and offer her input.
 
This was her baby and she had to attend to it.

And so she did.

After a shower and changing into a pair of jeans and a sweater, she went downstairs into the kitchen, where Mario was preparing himself breakfast.
 
It was snowing outside and he had a fire going in the sitting room just off the kitchen.
 
He looked over at her when she came in.

“Good morning,” he said.

She put her arms around him and kissed him.
 
“Making anything good?”

“The kitchen might need to be gutted, but the stove works.
 
Here.
 
I made you an omelet.”
 
He slid it onto a white plate as she sat at the granite bar and smiled at him.

“You made that omelet for yourself.”

“So what?
 
I’ll make another.
 
Juice?”

She nodded.

“Coffee?”

“If I can have the entire pot.”

“You can have whatever you want.
 
What’s on your agenda today?”

She leaned back as he poured her coffee into her favorite mug and felt a groundswell of relief and gratitude when she said, “Something different.”

He put the omelet in front of her.
 
He was playing it cool and she loved him for it.
 
“What’s that?”

She picked up her fork and dug in.
 
“I think I need to get out,” she said.
 
“One more day here and I’ll likely have mold on me.”
 
She pointed down at her omelet.
 
“This, by the way, is delicious.”

“It’s the cheese.”

“Whatever it is, it’s fantastic.”

He cracked two eggs and started beating them in a bowl.
 
“So, what’ll you do?
 
I’m doing my soup kitchen runs today.
 
Want to join me?
 
I could use a hand unloading the food.”