Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (6 page)

“What do you care?
 
They’re frauds.
 
You’re a
Redman and you look terrific.
 
What
do you have to lose if someone dislikes what you’re wearing?
 
You’re about to be a major player in New
York.
 
And major players wear what
they want to wear.”

“You don’t understand.
 
With the hotel, I feel like I have everything to lose.”

“You need to see the bigger picture, Leana.”

“You know how they’ve been to me, Mario.”

“They’re like that to everyone.
 
No one can live up to their standards,
not even themselves.
 
So why
try?”
 
He put his hands on her
shoulders.
 
“Why are you playing the
victim?”

“I’m not playing the victim.”

“I think you are.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m going to tell you what I don’t understand, then I’m
going to leave you alone.
 
You’ve
always wanted your father and the rest of New York to see you for you.
 
That’s been your goal since I’ve known
you.
 
You’ve been headstrong about
it.
 
Determined to achieve it.
 
That fight within you is one of the
reasons I fell in love with you.”
 
He held out his hands and admired her.
 
“Look at yourself.
 
That’s who you are.
 
You’ve never tried to please them
before.
 
Why do you want to do so
now?”

She shook her head.
 
“Because I don’t want to fail.”

“An outfit’s going to make you fail?”

It sounded ridiculous because it was ridiculous.
 
She couldn’t help a smile.

“What confuses me is that you’ve always rebelled against what
others think of you.
 
Why do you
want to stop now?”

She didn’t answer.
 
She looked at herself in the mirror and knew he was right despite her
self-doubt.
 
She never behaved like
this.
 
What was wrong with her?

“You need to get those people out of your head,” he said.

“How?”

 
He pointed at her
in the mirror.
 
“By believing in
her.”

*
 
*
 
*

It took her five minutes alone with a martini to pull herself
together and realize that he was right.

He called ahead and had one of his father’s cars waiting
outside for her, which was just another reason she loved him because beyond the
air-conditioned walls of their penthouse, it still was hot outside and the
humidity had yet to ebb.
 
She
slipped inside the brisk compartment and asked the driver to take her to the
Redman International Building on Fifth.

She felt sick.
 
It
had been three years since she’d last been there.
 
When her mother was imprisoned, her
fallout with her father had only deepened.
 
And now Pepper Redman was in the picture.
 
She’d only complicate the
situation.
 

Why did he want to meet with her tonight?
 
What was he up to?
 
Was he going to criticize her
hotel?
 
Was he going to give her
another lecture about how she knew nothing about the business world?
 

All her life, he refused to give her a trace of praise, so at
the very least, she was prepared to be criticized.
 

If he went too far, she’d just give it back to him and leave.

She closed her eyes and thought of her best friend, Harold
Baines, who committed suicide when Louis Ryan blackmailed him.
 
In his will, Harold left her half his
fortune.
 
Her share was in the
mid-hundred millions.
 

In a personal note to her, Harold wrote, “I’m betting half of
my estate on you because I believe in you.
 
I know you have what it takes to become whatever you want to
become.
 
Others may doubt it, but
I’ve always known that you can do anything.
 
You’ll prove them wrong and you’ll prove
me right.
 
At the end of this note
is an honest group of investors I want you to do business with should you need
them.
 
I think whatever comes next
for you needs to be substantial.
 
Something that will gain your father’s attention and, when you pull it
off, maybe his respect as well as the city’s.
 
Celina’s gone.
 
I’m gone.
 
But you’re alive.
 
Find your passion and act upon it.
 
Do something that shocks everyone.
 
Including yourself, Leana.
 
Mostly yourself.”

She didn’t waste time.
 
She called one of the investors and set up a meeting with the entire
group.
 

“I want a hotel,” she said to them.
 
“There’s one on Park.
 
It’s in poor condition, but the bones
are there.
 
It was built in the
early twenties.
 
It’s an Art Deco
masterpiece and it could be brought back to something spectacular with the
correct restoration.”

The kickback she got was gentle but firm.
 
“You want to open a hotel in this
economy?
 
Leana, hotels are
struggling in New York.
 
They’re
practically giving rooms away.”

“Which hotels are struggling?
 
My father has several in the city.
 
His are thriving.”

“That’s because he’s a Redman.”

“And I’m not?”

“Let me clarify that,” the man said.
 
“He’s
George
Redman.
 
I’m sorry, Leana, but you didn’t learn
from him like Celina did.
 
His
hotels are among the city’s best.
 
And may I remind you?
 
The
last hotel you opened was nearly blown up.
 
You and your father were shot there.
 
Louis Ryan died there.
 
How is that going to play in the press
should you decide to enter into the hotel business now?”

“Don’t you get it?” she said.
 
“That’s one of the reasons I want to do
this.
 
People won’t expect me to go
into the hotel business for that very reason.
 
People will think it’s audacious.
 
Probably reckless.
 
For that reason, the press will pay
attention, and the press will write about it, which you and I both know is
gold.”

“Not if you don’t come through with the goods.”

She was unwilling to give up.
 
“How about meeting me halfway?
 
I may not have been an active
participant in my father’s success, but I certainly paid attention to him and
Celina when they were working on new projects, including his hotels.
 
When I had the chance, I listened.
 
Let me make an appointment to see the
hotel.
 
Then you can decide if I’m
wrong about it.”

“Is it even for sale?”

“Thanks to Harold, I have enough money to make almost
anything available for sale.
 
Just
humor me.
 
Let’s take an afternoon
and visit it.
 
I promise you won’t
be disappointed.”

They weren’t.

Within a matter of weeks, a deal was inked, the city approved
the historic updates presented to them by architects her father himself used,
and the painstaking restoration work began.
 

That was two years ago.
 
Four months ago, branding the hotel began.
 
They decided to name it The Park.
 
Two months ago, the official website was
launched.
 
A month ago, a
reservation system on the site went live.
 
And now, in just four weeks, the hotel’s doors would open to welcome its
first full house in over a decade.

The limousine swung onto Fifth and moved toward the Redman
International Building.
 
Her cell
rang.
 
She pulled it out of her
handbag, looked at the number, but didn’t recognize it.
 
With her staff working days, evenings
and nights to finish the hotel in time, it could be anyone.
 
She answered it.
 
“This is Leana.”

“Leana Redman?”

She didn’t recognize his voice.
 
“This is she.
 
Who’s calling?”

“A friend.”

“Which friend?”

“The kind of friend who tells you that things aren’t going to
go well for you.
 
The kind of friend
who tells you that before your death, things are going to take a serious turn
for the worst.”

She looked up and saw the driver looking at her in the
mirror.

“Who is this?”

“The end of you.”

“What did you say?”

“You’re a murderer.”
 

“I’m a what?”

“You’re a murderer and your own hotel says so.
 
It’s there for everyone to see.
 
I suggest you go and look at it for
yourself.”

The line went dead.

Leana sat there for a moment, staring at the phone.
 
They were nearing Redman
International.
 
She told the driver
to take her to the hotel, then she called her father to tell him she’d be a few
minutes late.
 
“I’m stuck in
traffic,” she said.
 
“I’ll be there
soon.”

Hands shaking, she called Mario and told him about the
conversation.
 
“I’ll meet you at the
hotel,” he said.

When they turned onto Park, Leana could see the hotel in the
distance.
 
A group of people was
standing in front of it, including the police, whose cars were pulled to the
curb, their lights flashing across the hotel’s facade.
 

Everyone appeared to be looking up at the black tarp that
protected the front of the building during construction.
 
Most stared at it.
 
Cars slowed while people paused to look
at it.
 
The crowds and the press
took photographs of it.
 

As she drew closer, she noticed that two news vans were there.
 
And then she saw Mario, who broke toward
her into a run when he spotted her car.
 
He held up his hands and motioned for the driver to pull over onto
Forty-Eighth Street, next to the Starbucks.
 
He opened her door.

“What’s wrong?” she said, stepping out of the car.

“The press is here,” he said.
 
“Compose yourself.
 
Expect the worst.
 
Tell them it’s a prank.
 
Play it cool.”
 

“Play
what
cool?”

“Just listen to me.
 
It’s a prank.
 
That’s what
you’ll say.
 
It’s just an
unfortunate prank and you will have it removed immediately.
 
You’ve got to listen to me now,
Leana.
 
It’s just some stupid
prank.
 
You’ll be shocked and hurt
when you see it, but try not to let it show.
 
Try to keep it light.
 
You’re untouchable.
 
Right now, I need you to act that way.”

She looked up and caught a glimpse of the tarp just as the
media saw her.

As she came around to look up at it, the press charged
forward and bathed her in what seemed like a thousand explosions of light.
 
Time ground to a halt.
 
Leana lifted a hand to her eyes so she
could see, but the lights were too bright.
 
The reporters started calling out her name.
 
They shouted at her for answers she
didn’t have because she couldn’t see what they were talking about.
 

It wasn’t until there was a break in the flickering deluge
that she saw all of it.
 

Her hand dropped to her side.
 
She felt Mario take her by the arm to
steady her.
 
The circus of voices,
lights and cameras began in earnest again, determined to capture her at her
most vulnerable.

Scrawled on the tarp in massive red letters were six
words.
 
She read them again and
again as if she had to assure herself that this wasn’t real and that her family
wasn’t being targeted again.