From Manhattan With Revenge Boxed Set (14 page)

“How did you find out?”

“I was abducted.”

She watched Gelling’s face light up again.
 
He was enjoying the story.
 
It didn’t matter to him that reliving
that time in her life was painful for her.
 
If Spocatti hadn’t sent her here, she’d leave.
 

“By whom?” he asked.

“Men my father were hired to kill.
 
They caught wind of it—don’t ask me
how, because I don’t know—and they came after me.
 
I was working at the Met at the time.
 
I used to walk part of the way home,
especially in the fall, because for me, this is the best time of year to be in
Manhattan.
 
I was on Fifth.
 
They pulled alongside me in a limousine,
held a gun on me, told me to get inside and took me hostage.
 
They warned my father that if he didn’t
allow them to leave the States and go back to their country, where they
stupidly thought they’d be safe, they would kill me.
 
My father agreed.
 
I was released.
 
They got on a plane and went home.
 
My father waited two months, hopped on a
plane and killed them in Stockholm.”

“It’s always Stockholm,” he said.
 
“Or Berlin or Beirut.
 
Or Moscow or Madrid, but never
Brisbane.
 
Never Canada.
 
Never Maine.
 
How those areas must feel slighted by
assassins.”

She just stared at him.

“How did you feel when you knew who your father was?”

“Betrayed.”
 
She
paused and thought back to that time.
 
Now, Carmen was thirty-eight.
 
She was twenty-three when she was abducted.
 
Had it really been fifteen years since
she first learned the truth of who her father was?
 
She was surprised by how quickly the
time had passed, and also by how much she had changed during that time.
 
“But also relieved.
 
He saved my life.”

“But only after he put it in jeopardy.”

“Indirectly, but you’re right.”

Gelling was about to speak when Frank entered the room with the
iced teas.
 
The room’s bright
sunlight reflected off the watch, making it appear like a sphere.
 
Carmen wondered if it glowed in the
dark.

Frank stopped beside them.
 
Gelling’s tea had a straw in it with an extendable tip.
 
When the drinks were delivered, he
shooed the man away.
 

“During those two months, you and your father must have
talked.”

“We did.
 
And I’m
not going to lie to you.
 
There’s no
question I felt betrayed, but I also became intrigued by his life.
 
I always considered my father a
gentleman.
 
He wasn’t violent.
 
He was nondescript, just an
average-looking man who happened to have superior skills
 
in areas that were foreign to me.
 
I was a young woman when I first learned
about his other life.
 
My father and
I were never very close.
 
After the
abduction, I knew why.
 
We began to
talk.
 
He told me stories and let me
in.
 
Because I didn’t judge him, I
think part of him wanted to share his life with someone, because he’d never had
the opportunity to do so with anyone else.”

“He didn’t share it with your mother?”

“We never discussed my mother.
 
She left us when I was four.”

“Why did she leave?”

“You’d need to ask her.”

“Do you keep in touch?”

“Mr. Gelling, I don’t even know if she’s alive.”

“Where is your father now?”

“In a Madrid cemetery.”

“See?” he said.
 
“Madrid.
 
It always comes
back to one of the big foreign cities.
 
Everything happens there.”
 
He leaned toward his glass of iced tea and puckered his lips around the
straw.
 
He sipped it while he
studied her.
 
“Did he die of natural
causes?”

“He was gunned down in the streets of Mexico City.”

“Mexico City,” he said, as if he was underscoring his former
point, which she found pointless.
 
“Awful, but not a surprise.
 
When was this?”

“Fourteen years ago.
 
I was twenty-four.”

“And you sought revenge?”

“He was my father.
 
I loved him.
 
Someone had to
pay.”

“Did you find whoever killed him?”

“I did.
 
I also
found the others who targeted him.
 
I killed them all.”

“That was a brave undertaking.”

“I was twenty-four.
 
I didn’t know any better.”

“Youth can be so liberating and dangerous.
 
For you, I’m assuming it was both.
 
Why did they want your father dead?”

“He was hired to take out the leader of a drug cartel.
 
The cartel wasn’t happy about that.
 
They came after him.
 
The end.”

“And then you went into the family business?”

“You could say that.
 
Everything changed for me after my father’s death.
 
I saw a different world.
 
I discovered I was a crack shot.
 
The people who used to hire my father
contacted me.
 
They offered me a job
for an obscene amount of money.
 
The
person I was asked to kill was about as close to evil as you could imagine.
 
He hurt people.
 
I suppose that’s why I took it.
 
Maybe I thought by getting rid of him, I
was doing some good in the world.
 
Maybe that was my justification.
 
But you’re right—that’s youth for you.
 
Liberating and dangerous.
 
Now I work for hire.
 
My only exception is that I refuse to
kill children.
 
I haven’t looked
back since.”

“Not until Alex...”

Just hearing his name stung.
 
The image of his face flashed before her
eyes.
 
The ache of his loss was like
a tide closing in, suffocating her.
 
She remembered the first time he told her he loved her but then forced
the memory away.
 
Focus.
 
“Actually, Alex makes me look forward,”
she said.
 
“They’ll pay for what
they did to him.”

“I don’t blame you.”

I don’t care if you do.
 
“I need your help.
 
I need to know how to get to Katzev.”

“Your story is fascinating, Carmen.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“I do.
 
And I want
to thank you for sharing it with me.”
 

You gave me no choice.

“I have one question?”

“What’s that?”

“Why won’t you kill children?
 
A life is a life.
 
Who cares if it belongs to a child?”

“A conscience needs to begin somewhere, Mr. Gelling.”

“That’s a smooth answer, Carmen, but I think it goes
deeper.
 
Do you have a child?”

She didn’t want to go here, but this wasn’t about her.
 
It was about Alex.
 
It was about doing anything to avenge
his death, so she leveled her eyes with his and told the truth.
 
“I can’t have children.”

“What a shame.
 
Or
not.
 
In my case, I wish I never had
children.
 
Rotten little greedy
beasts.
 
Still, why can’t you have
them?
 
Can’t conceive?”

“That’s right.
 
Years ago, when I was in love with a young man I worked with at the Met,
we tried to get pregnant.
 
We were
seriously involved for about a year at that point.
 
Neither of us wanted marriage, but
children?
 
We both wanted
children.
 
Unfortunately, each time
we tried, I miscarried.
 
Three times
in a row to be exact.
 
I saw my
doctor and was told I couldn’t carry.
 
Apparently, something’s wrong with my tubes.
 
So, life cheated me out of having a
child.
 
I have no interest in
cheating others out of what I wanted, but couldn’t have.
 
Whenever asked, I refuse to do it.
 
There are no exceptions.”

“I’m sorry for your losses.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“But it’s still there, isn’t it?”

It was with her every day, but she was finished with this line
of questioning and sipped her tea, offering no response.

“This Katzev,” he said.
 
“Of course, I’ve heard of him.
 
And also of Jean-Georges Laurent and what you and Alex did to him that
night at the Four Seasons.”

“Laurent tried to kill us.”

“I know he did.
 
And
I have to say, what he had in mind was ingenious.
 
Under different circumstances, I think
even you would admit to that.
 
But
you and Alex were smart to come clean with each other when you did.
 
Love saved you.
 
By telling the truth, you spared each
other’s lives.
 
It’s like a movie.”

“How do you know this?”

“It’s what I do, Carmen.
 
It’s what keeps me going at one-hundred-and-three.
 
People talk to me and tell me
things.
 
I’d never tell you who told
me anything, of course.
 
That goes
back to my days as a psychiatrist.
 
Confidentiality is critical, which is why Vincent trusts me and why you
will come to trust me.”
 

He leaned forward in his chair and met her gaze.
 
“Just as you would never kill a child, I
would never sell either of you out.
 
We all have our morals and ethics, regardless of how far they’re
sometimes stretched.
 
I believe that
doing the right thing is important.
 
What Laurent and Katzev tried to pull on you and Alex crosses the
line.
 
So, here I am.
 
Prepared to help.”

She was growing impatient with him.
 
She just bared part of her soul to
him.
 
Now, she wanted the
address.
 
“Where does Katzev live?”

“I have no idea.”

It was like a slap across her face.
 
She was confused.
 
Then angry.
 
She just spilled some of her most personal
secrets to this man.
 
“But I thought
you knew?
 
Spocatti sent me to you
because you knew.”

“That isn’t true.
 
He sent you here because I know people who might know.
 
In fact, I know people who likely will
know because I know everyone.
 
That’s what you’re really here for, Carmen—my contacts.
 
I’m going to give you a name of a person
who I’m fairly certain will know Katzev’s address.
 
Or can find it.
 
She’s powerful.
 
Travels in all sorts of circles, some of
which she’d rather keep quiet, not that I blame her.
 
Odd woman, really, if you know her
history, but that’s the sort of person you need right now.
 
Someone with her history.
 
And her contacts.
 
And her knowledge of these sorts of
things, of which she’s intimate.
 
I’ve already called ahead to tell her about you.
 
She’s eager to meet because she thrives
on this as much as I do.”

“What’s her name?”

“Babe McAdoo.
 
She’s
a socialite from one of the big New York families.
 
Non-traditional.
 
A bit off.
 
As eccentric as, uh, you know who.”
 
He glanced quickly at Big Ben.
 
“But in her set, maybe that’s just how
it is.
 
Who knows with her?
 
There will be times when you’ll think she’s
speaking in tongues, but it’s all an act.
 
When you get down to business with her, she’s all business.
 
It’s like she switches on a light and
becomes the person you need.
 
And
when she’s that person, she’s quite good.
 
I actually admire her when she’s that person.”