Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (65 page)

“You have every reason to
be proud of it, Leana.”

“We’ll see what the press
says about it.”

“Don’t worry about
them.
 
You restored a gem, and it’s
gorgeous.
 
We’ve all been talking
about it.
 
Let me introduce you to my
friends,” he said.
 
And the
introductions began, with Leana increasingly feeling as if she was out of her
element despite how kind they were to her.
 
She wasn’t normally star struck, but she was now.
 
She couldn’t believe whom he was
introducing her to.
 
They’re just
people
, she thought to herself.
 
They’re just like Michael.
 
Think of it that way.

When she did, she became
less shy.

After engaging with the
group for a few minutes, she bowed out of it and pulled Michael aside.
 
“Do you feel safe?”

He nodded at the men
along the periphery.
 
“As you can
see, I’m covered.”

“Have you seen anything
unusual?”

“I haven’t.
 
But Sean’s team seems on top of it.
 
I’ve been watching them.
 
They’re crawling all over this place.
 
He’s very good.”

“Thanks for all that
you’ve done.”
 
Her eyes skirted toward
the woman who had won the three Academy Awards.
 
“I have to ask.
 
How did you ever get her to come?”

“She lives in
Manhattan.
 
When I was just starting
out, we did a movie together.
 
I
called to invite her, and she said that she’d be happy to come.”

She gave him a kiss on
the cheek, someone snapped a photograph when she did so, but she didn’t
care.
 
She loved her brother and she
was happy to have him back in her life.
 
They were becoming more than family.
 
They were becoming great friends.

“I’ll talk to you soon,”
she said, wanting to keep the moment light.
 
“I have my cell in my clutch.
 
Call me if you need me.
 
You know, like if any hot woman comes on
to you and you want your kid sister to grill her about her intentions.
 
Or, better yet, if you’d actually like
to have a dance with your sister.
 
Anastassios didn’t pay for that orchestra for nothing.
 
And your sister would rather like that.”

“Where is Anastassios?”
Michael asked.

“I talked with him about
an hour ago.
 
He’s circling.
 
But you know how he is—he knows
everyone.
 
He loves parties because,
for him, it means cutting another deal.
 
Just try finding him in this joint.”
 
She tapped her clutch.
 
“That’s why I’ll be calling you when I’m
ready to be twirled around the dance floor.
 
We’ll meet under the Lalique.”

“Under the what?”

She pointed up at the
massive Lalique chandelier, which was one of the hotel lobby’s grand nods to
the past.
 
“Under that,” she
said.
 
“Now have fun with your
friends.
 
I’m off to canoodle with
Mario.
 
A good friend of his is
here.
 
I told him I’d be fine for a
few minutes so they could talk, but now I should get back.”

“Let him wait.
 
Let’s have that dance now.
 
This place is mobbed.
 
We might not see each other again.”

“You sure you can handle
my moves on the floor?”

“The question is whether
you can handle mine.”

She waited for him to
excuse himself from his group before she took him by the hand and walked with
him through the crowd.
 
“I’m so
going to kick your ass.
 
When I was a
kid, Mom taught me how to waltz.
 
She took dance lessons when she was young.
 
Ballet.”

“Really,” Michael
said.
 
“That’s intimidating.
 
Here’s something else that’s
intimidating.
 
Six years ago, I was
in a movie in which I needed to waltz properly.
 
I was trained.”

“Who was the director?”

“Baz Luhrmann.”

“Shit,” Leana said.
 
“I forgot you were in that movie.”

“They’re going to
photograph the hell out of us,” Michael said.
 
“So, you know, don’t step on my toes, or
we’ll wind up on Page Six.”

“We’re going to be there
anyway.”

“Then
let’s try not to look like a couple of fools.”

CHAPTER
NINETY-THREE

In his office at
Manhattan Enterprises, James Cullen sat sloshed and unsteady at his desk, so
much so that he was almost numb to today’s ruthless interrogations by the
police.
 

He was too drunk to remember
everything they asked him, which was probably fine, because what bothered him
went deeper than that.
 
The
questions he dodged like a pro, but there was an intensity behind those
questions that hadn’t been there the first time he was questioned.
 
This time, the main detective on the
case and those who were with him kept hammering at him, which put him on edge
and riddled him now with a sense of impending doom.

He shook the last drop of
vodka into his martini glass and knocked it back.
 
He thought of Louis and their
friendship, and wondered if it indeed had been a friendship, but decided it
didn’t matter.
 
What mattered is
where his relationship with Ryan was about to lead him.
 

Straight to prison.
 

He was convinced of that
now.
 
It was only a matter of
time.
 
They came here today for a
reason.
 
They had something on him,
though he wasn’t sure what it could be.
 
He’d been so careful.
 
But he
knew.
 
He could feel it in his
gut.
 
The police knew something and
they were hovering.
 
Circling.
 
They were going to make it so his life
ended in shame in some airless prison cell of no return.

Voices from his past
slipped in and out of his clouded mind.
 
Cullen listened to them, and mused over them.
 
They were correct, of course—he
never should have agreed to any of this.
 
He never should have done it, never should have even fancied it.
 
Even if the idea of cashing in on one
hundred million dollars was too much for him to ignore.
 
He still had all the prestige that came
with the Cullen name, but his money wasn’t what it used to be.
 
He had a few million of his own left,
plus the millions that came from Ryan’s stock in Manhattan Enterprises, but
like so many, he’d never fully recovered from the stock market crash.
 
And really, when it came to money, did
anyone ever have enough?

Greed got the best of
him.
 
Greed would take him down,
just as it had taken down so many before him.

With an effort, he rose
from his seat, but fell back into it because he was dizzy from drink.
 
He then planted his hands on the table
so he could steady himself as he stood.
 

He wanted to watch it
again.
 

With his ruined leg
holding him back, he stumbled over to the sofa that faced the large-screen
television, sank into it, fumbled to grasp the remote on the table beside him,
and looked hard at it before finding the damned buttons to turn on the
television and DVD player.
 

He found them and pushed
them.
 
Then he stared at the remote
control again in an effort to find the button marked “play.”
 
Where was it?
 
Everything was out of focus.
 
He pushed a button, but it was the wrong
one.
 
It was the “pause”
button.
 
Frustrated, he looked
again, found the “play” button, pushed it, and sighed as he leaned back on the
sofa.

Louis Ryan filled the
screen.

He was wearing a dark
suit and his crown of silvery hair was neatly groomed.
 
And while his expression appeared
neutral, Cullen knew better.
 
Cullen
knew to look into Ryan’s eyes.
 
That’s where the fury was.
 
That’s where the man’s fire burned.

Cullen had watched this
so many times over the past month, but he now had to force himself to focus on
what Ryan was saying, some of which he’d missed at the start.
 
But not this section.
 
This was the part that pulled him in from
the start when the DVD was anonymously delivered to him after Ryan’s
death.
 

“You now know what George
Redman did to my wife.
 
You
understand why I’m doing this now.
 
It’s almost over.
 
Celina is
dead.
 
Leana Redman is now in my
employ.
 
Soon, The Hotel Fifth
opens, and that’s where it ends for all of them.
 
But I’m not stupid, James.
 
You know that.
 
I know things can go wrong.
 
If I fail and my life ends, which it
very well might, that doesn’t mean that this ends also.
 
It means that I need you, my best and
oldest friend, to finish it for me.
 
Not right away.
 
We’ll give
it three years so people will have enough time to drop their guards.
 
Then we act again.
 
If you agree to my terms, I’ll pay you
handsomely—a third party who will remain anonymous will take care of all
of it.
 
I know what you lost in the
market.
 
We’ve talked about it.
 
But you can have it all back, and so
much more.
 
My plan for revenge
against Redman and his family must not die even if things don’t go as I planned
when my hotel opens and I die.
 
This
is a possibility.
 
I’m aware of
that.
 
I’m prepared for that.
 
I’m fully aware of the risk I’m
taking.
 
I’m reaching out to you now
through this video in case that happens.
 
Help me, and I’ll see to it that you not only have the Cullen name, but
all the money that name deserves.”

Cullen switched off the
television.
 
With an effort, he rose
from the sofa, walked over to the DVD player dragging his prosthetic leg behind
him, and ejected the disc.
 
He put
it in its case and brought it over to his desk where he wrote “Love, Louis
Ryan” on a sticky note.
 
He attached
the note to the case and placed it on his desk.

He went to the bar behind
his desk, and removed another chilled bottle of Belvedere.
 
He clicked a switch next to his desk,
and the office was filled with his favorite aria, Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma,”
from his great opera, “Turandot.”
 
Cullen had listened to it several times already tonight as he readied
himself for the inevitable.

“None shall sleep,” he
said, as he reached into a drawer and removed a full bottle of Ambien.
 
He opened the cap and smiled as he
poured the sleeping pills into the palm of his hand.
 
“The irony is staggering.”

He opened the bottle of
Belvedere, swallowed as many of the pills as he could, went back to swallow
more, and then he maneuvered his way over to the sofa and sank into it.
 

As he became drowsier and
drowsier, and moved closer to the gray, unknown edges of death, he thought
about his life.
 
He remembered his
first love, Carolyn, long since dead.
 
He thought about the trauma of losing his leg to cancer, and how he
thought—at least when that happened—that it was the worst moment of
his life.
 
He thought of his mother,
who was kind to him in ways that his strict father wasn’t.
 
He loved her for that.
 
He saw her face now, and he felt a rush
of love for her.
 
He thought about
the lavish lifestyle that had been handed to him, and all that it had provided
him.
 
He thought of vacations
abroad, his love of Paris, the years he spent in England, and the position he
held in Manhattan, which would be destroyed by morning due to that disc.