Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (43 page)

Leana looked
defeated.
 
“We’ve got nothing,” she
said.

Marty slid out of his
seat and stood.
 
“I disagree.
 
Actually, I think we have a lot.”

*
 
*
 
*

When they left, he found
Roberta in the kitchen.
 

“So, what’s the
consensus?”

She was standing at a
long, stainless steel table, mixing something that smelled of wheat and lemon
in a massive glass bowl.
 
A row of
bright lights hung above her head.
 
La
Traviata
played in the background.
 
“What she’s experienced up to this point is a piece of cake when you
consider what’s just down the road for her.”

“
Just
down the
road?”

“Right around the
corner.”

“And what’s that?”

“I don’t know.
 
All I know is that as I stood there with
her, the area around her got darker and darker to the point that I could barely
see her.
 
That suggests to me a
build up of events that likely will end with her death if somebody doesn’t stop
the people behind this now.”

“People?
 
It isn’t just one person?”

“I felt evil everywhere
around her.
 
Masculine and
feminine.
 
But the energy wasn’t
consistent.
 
Instead, it kept
shifting.
 
Sometimes, the energy was
weak, but other times, it was strong.
 
Very strong at one point.
 
I
interpret that as meaning there are several people behind this, but because of
the way the energy shifted, I don’t think they’re all working together.
 
Some are, others aren’t.”

“What am I to make of
that?
 
Several people are targeting
her at once and they’re doing it independently?”

“You’re the investigator,
Marty.
 
I just tell you what I see
and feel.
 
I’ve always told you that
I could be wrong.
 
I’ve been wrong
before.”

“More often you’re
right.
 
What about her father, George
Redman?
 
Does his name mean anything
to you?”

“George Redman?” she
said.

“That’s right.”

“I thought he was dead.”

Marty felt a chill.
 
“No, he isn’t.”

Roberta looked at him for
a moment, and then turned her attention back to the contents in her bowl.
 
She stirred and folded.

“Anything else?” Marty
asked.

“That’s it.”

“What about Sean?”

“That’s where it gets
strange.
 
I had no read on him.
 
None.
 
You know it’s rare that I don’t feel at
least something.
 
But when I touched
him, I got zip.”

“Leana told me he was a
former Marine.
 
They’re trained to
shut down their emotions.
 
Could
that be it?”

Roberta folded and
folded.
 
She squeezed fresh lemon
into the dish and folded.
 
But she
didn’t once look at Marty.
 
It was
obvious she was in thought.

“Why shut down your
emotions here?” she asked.
 
“Why
shut down when people are trying to end a significant problem?
 
What’s the point?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then I’d think about
that.
 
I’d give some thought to
him.”
 

CHAPTER
SIXTY-TWO

As Leana was leaving the
Tarot Café to head back to the Columbus Circle project, Pepper was entering
into another world of her own.
 
It
was something foreign to her, this underworld into which she was about to step,
but something she felt was necessary.

Parker had come through
for her.
 
It took him a couple of
days, but yesterday morning, connections were made.
 
Now, in a car moving downtown, she sat
in the back seat in her smart new Chanel suit, her legs crossed at the knee, a
Chanel briefcase at her side, and in it, more cash than she’d seen in her
life.
 

Clearly, a check with her
name on it was out of the question, so a trip to the bank occurred
yesterday.
 
And here she was, about
to make a decision that could derail her cousin’s life or end it completely.

Am I a murderer?

Pepper wasn’t sure
whether she was.
 
She remembered
Leana and Celina visiting her in Arkansas as children.
 
While they had some good times together,
mostly due to the kinder Celina, she always was reminded through them and their
fancy clothes and their pretty cars that they were the wealthy Redmans.
 
They were the ones who were prospering
in New York, while her father—George’s brother, Robert—decided that
he’d rather be a fisherman than accept his brother’s offer of joining him in
Manhattan at his growing business.

She hated her father for
that.
 
She blamed her family’s years
of poverty on his being too proud to go and work for his successful
brother.
 
She knew to her core how
different their lives would have been if only he had done so.
 
But he didn’t.
 
He chose his own path, and the family
suffered because of it.

But now, Celina was dead
and Leana, her new boss, was alive, thriving and loving it.
 
With her in the picture, Pepper knew
she’d never ascend into the world that she deserved.
 
If George was going to start championing
Leana, where did that leave her?
 
The answer was obvious.
 
All
of her dreams of making it in New York City would dissolve because of the one
woman who now stood in her way.

I fought for that Wharton
scholarship for a reason—to be with my uncle.
 
To learn from him and to be successful
because of it.
 
Now, with Leana at
his side, what does that mean for me?
 
It means nothing.
 
It means
he’s choosing her side.
 
It means
I’m finished if I don’t do something.

Her driver pulled
alongside a towering building on Forty-Second Street and Fifth.
 
Even though she knew the neighborhood
well, she still was surprised that the man she was about to meet had an office
on Fifth Avenue, of all places.

“Here we are, Miss
Redman.”

She watched the driver
step out and come around to her side of the car.
 
She reached for the briefcase and felt a
chill.
 
She could stop this
now.
 
She could ask the driver to
get back in the car, say this was a mistake, and just forget it all.
 

Am I a murderer?

Her door opened.
 

Is this who I’ve become?

Pepper felt a cool breeze
touch her face, which was flushed with indecision.

“Miss Redman?” the driver
said.

“I think I’ve made a
mistake,” she said.
 
“Take me to
Columbus Circle, Carl.
 
I have work
to do.”

He started to close the
door.
 
“Of course.
 
I’m sure Miss Redman will be waiting for
you.”

And that was that.
 
She stopped the door with her foot and
stepped out onto the street with her briefcase at her side.
 
She caught the surprised look on his
face, but ignored it.

She’s going to destroy me
, she thought.
 
To hell with it.

“Sorry, Carl.
 
I’ll take the meeting after all.
 
I’ll see you in a bit.”

*
 
*
 
*

The building was an
updated relic from the eighties.
 

Glass and steel.
 
Marble in the foyer.
 
A waterfall bubbling along the wall across
from her.
 
Updated artwork on the
walls, but none of it was remarkable.
 
The building might boast a swank Fifth Avenue address, but along the
way, it obviously forgot its lineage.

Too many buildings of
this era looked the same.
 
They
looked like what her Louis Ryan, Trump, and her uncle had built in the city
back in the eighties, when they were at the beginning of their heydays.
 

But when Pepper had the
chance to build her own building?
 
It would be better than anything this city had seen.
 
It would be fresh, unusual,
cutting-edge, ultra modern.
 
It
would create a firestorm of press as the press itself weighed in on whether it
was the architectural wave of the new New York or something that pressed too
far against the edges to be taken seriously.

Pepper was willing to
take that risk because Pepper was betting on the former, just as Frank Gehry,
Philip Johnson and Frank Lloyd Wright had done before her.
 
She especially liked Johnson’s iconic
Lipstick Building on Third and, in totally different ways, the sheer daring of
Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and Wright’s own Guggenheim Museum
in New York.
 
That’s how Pepper
wanted to leave her mark.
 
She
wasn’t an architect, but she had a vision, and she wanted to be known, at the
very least, as an innovator who took risks.
 

With her uncle’s help,
that’s what she planned to do.

Her heels clicked across
the marble floor as she walked to the wide granite desk across from her.
 
Her suit, she thought, fit
perfectly.
 
Her hair, done yesterday
by Sebastian, was newly tinted red and curled up from her shoulders with a
brightness she didn’t feel.
 
Her
decision made, she tried to walk with steadfast confidence, but it was all an
act.
 
Worse, it felt like one.

I’m doing the right
thing.
 
I’m doing the only thing that
will get me where I want to be.

Seated at the desk were
three security guards, which she thought was overkill, until she remembered
what she was there for.
 
Then their
presence made sense.

“I’m Pepper Redman,” she
said to one of the men.
 
“I have an
appointment with—”

“We know, Miss
Redman.”
 
It was the man seated
directly in front of her who spoke.
 
“We’ve been expecting you.
 
Behind us, take the first elevator to your right.
 
It’s private and goes straight to his
floor.
 
You’ll be met by his
assistant, who will take your briefcase and study its contents; and if all is a
go, he’ll take you inside.”

The man nodded at her in
polite dismissal, and Pepper thought,
He knows my name; he knows why I’m
here; he could testify against me; I’m probably on camera; they could send me
to jail.
 
What am I doing here?

The right thing.

She stepped into the
elevator.
 

The doors whisked shut
and she was boosted into the sky.
 
She closed her eyes and took a breath.
 
The elevator was moving so fast, it
vibrated.
 
And then, when it reached
the sixty-eighth floor, it slowed until it stopped at the seventy-first
floor.
 
Her heart raced when the
doors slid open.
 
Standing beyond
them was a muscular man in an immaculate gray business suit.
 
He was tall and in his late thirties, with
a cleft in his chin and blond hair cut in such a way that it was as stylish as
the rest of him.

“Pepper Redman,” he
said.
 

It wasn’t a question, but
a warm greeting.
 
He stepped aside
so she could move past him into the room beyond.
 
It was a warmly lit reception area
furnished with lavish appointments—Stickley furniture, four original Arts
and Crafts lamps on low wooden tables, what appeared to be original William
Morris wallpaper in subtle shades of gold on the walls, what absolutely was Lincrusta
wallpaper on the ceiling, and six paintings by two artists she recognized on
sight—Marc Chagall and Gustav Klimt.
 
As inviting and as unusual as this space was—and in what she
initially considered a run-of-the-mill building—she still felt a
chill.
 
The design was meant to
impress and to set a mood.
 
Who was
this man Parker designed for her to meet?
 
Who were his clients?
 
Obviously, important people.
 
Obviously, influential people.
 
People who would feel at home in such decadence.

The sort of people I want
to become.

“If I could have the
briefcase, I’ll be just a moment.
 
Please have a seat.
 
If you’d
like coffee or tea, Esther will bring you some.”

“I’m fine,” she
said.
 
“Thank you.”

“Relax and enjoy the
paintings.
 
I could look at them all
day.
 
Others are inside for you to
enjoy.”
 
He smiled at her.
 
“I’ll be right back.
 
Is this locked?”

“Is this what?”

“The briefcase.
 
I assume it’s locked.”

“It isn’t.”

“You
are
daring,”
he said, and he left the room, leaving her alone.

To distract herself, she
went to one of the Chagall’s, which she was surprised to see here.
 
It was a painting she had studied in
college—“The Promenade,” in which Chagall’s wife, Bella, is tethered by
his outstretched hand as she floats above him.
 
She knew from her art history class that
the painting was meant to reflect the love that binded them beyond the limits
imposed by nature.
 
The painting was
meant to be transcendent—he walks the earth while she is an angel that
hovers in the air.
 
Pepper looked at
Bella and thought that she was her opposite.
 
In a matter of moments, she was about to
float away into a darker place where there was no love and where no one would
consider her an angel.

Time passed.
 
She looked behind her at the
elevator.
 
It wasn’t too late.
 
She could just say to hell with the
money, leave it behind, and rise up through the ranks at Redman International
the proper way.
 
It was a set back,
but she still was young, and with time, she’d leave her mark, even though she
wanted to leave it now.

I’m not a murderer.

You could be.

There are other ways.

Are there?

I wasn’t raised to be
this.
 
How did I even get here?

Because you had no
choice.
 
Because she’ll ruin
you.
 
You know that.
 
You can see it in how she treats you.
 
Poor Penelope from Arkansas.
 
Not fit to run the Redman empire, or
even a portion of it.
 
Not solid
enough to make a name for herself.
 
Your uncle has essentially said the same thing.
 
Have you forgotten his phone call?
 
He took you off one project, and he’ll
take you off others because he has her to lean on.
 
But with her out of the picture, he’ll
have no choice but to turn to you.
 
Now is your chance.