Free Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) by Christopher Smith

while moving toward the hallway that led to the
elevator Carmen took Leana to earlier.   When the man disappeared from sight, Spocatti looked around the room and
watched the other guards, most of whom now had a finger pressed against their
earpieces and appeared to be listening.
    Somehow, they were onto Carmen.
    He turned his back to the room and spoke quietly into the
microphone at his own wrist.   “Where
are you?”
    “In a fucking powder room.”
    She sounded out of breath.   “Where?”
    “Below you on the second level.”
    He heard the sound of something slamming against a wall.   “What are you doing?   I need you to get out of there.”
    “Can’t.”
    He could hear struggling, then the sound of a woman screaming
and a muffled gunshot that cut the scream short.   Though each person was screened before
entering the ship, no one thought twice about Carmen’s digital recorder, which
actually was a gun when unfolded and configured differently.
    “Florence Holt is dead,” she said.   “And not without a fight.   For a tiny little bitch, that
motherfucker was strong.   I’m locking
this bathroom and leaving it.   Do
you want Stout or should I take him?”
    “Listen to me,” he said, looking around the room at the
guards, who were sifting through the crowds.   “Fondaras is sweeping the ship.   It has something to do with Leana
Redman.   One of the guards just
moved toward the bank of elevators.   Be expecting him.”
    “How—?”
    “It doesn’t matter how.   Expect him.   Get off the
ship.   I’m going to take out
Stout.   I’ll meet you back at the
apartment.   Don’t screw this up.”

 
 
    *   *   *

 
 
    Carmen looked down at Florence Holt’s ruined meat face and
moved quickly.   She turned the woman
over, unzipped her silver-sequined dress and pulled it off her.   There was blood and brain matter on the
upper part of the dress.   Before the
stains could fully set, Carmen turned to the sink, thrust parts of the material
under cold water and washed them free.   If someone was coming down here to find her because of Leana Redman,
they’d know what Carmen was wearing and how her hair was worn.
    She held up the dress and inspected it.   It wasn’t perfect, but the lights
throughout the ship were so dim any lingering stains would go unnoticed.   She slipped out of her black dress,
ripped it into quarters and flushed them down the toilet.  
    She put on Holt’s dress.   Like Carmen, Holt was small, which was good.   What wasn’t so good was that the dress
had been tailored to Holt’s body and it looked awkward on Carmen.   It was loose in the front, tight in the
rear.   Those who knew fashion—and
there were plenty on this ship who feasted on it—might take notice.
    But the men working for Fondaras wouldn’t think twice about
it and that’s why, for the most part, she felt it could work.
    She turned to the mirror and twisted her hair so it fell over
her right shoulder.   She removed the
diamonds from Florence Holts neck and ears, rinsed the blood off them in the
sink and dried them with a towel.   She put them on and then reached for Holt’s purse, where she found a
tube of lipstick.   Two quick swipes
across her lips and now they were the color of Holt’s bleeding face.
    There were two things left to do.
    She dipped into her purse and removed a pair of
tweezers.   She used them to pluck
out a note she and Spocatti wrote earlier.   It was a list of ten people who were on the ship tonight.   The idea was Carmen’s.   There was an obvious link between Holt
and Stout—they had each sat on the board of Louis Ryan’s Manhattan
Enterprises once.   So Carmen came up
with a list of people who had no link to Holt or Stout, or especially to Louis
Ryan.   She dropped the note next to
the toilet.   The police would find
it, and if they bought it, they’d be thrown off by it.
    Next, she removed a small camera from her purse, which had
been allowed on the