Secrets & Lies (44 page)

The phony Stiletto then pointed the gun at Leo and Maria. They both dropped their champagne glasses and raised their hands, too.

“The diamond! Let's have it!”

“No!” Maria cried. “Leo! Do something!”

He just stood there, probably too scared to move, but I saw his lips move. “Give it to her, honey. Do it now!”

I quickly turned my head to survey the rest of the yard. Nobody was watching us. The people near the house were all looking up.

The “Stiletto” didn't wait for Maria. She moved close, grabbed the diamond necklace, and roughly yanked it off the woman's neck. Maria cried out in pain, and then she started screaming.
Really
screaming, loud enough for people to hear.

The gun barked once. No one noticed. The bang blended with all the other blasts and pops.

The screaming stopped.

Maria fell.

“No!” Leo shouted. He immediately got to his knees to tend to his wife.

By then, the phony Stiletto had jumped into the gazebo, and I
swear it looked like she sank into it. Snapping out of my shock, I bolted after her, and saw that there was a trapdoor in the gazebo's floor.

I went back to Leo, who was lightly slapping his wife's face. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” Then he stood and shouted, “Help! Vince! Help! The Black Stiletto just shot Maria!”

That got some attention. Men started running across the lawn toward us. The fireworks kept going.

I backed away from the scene.
Who was impersonating me? Why would they kill Maria DeAngelo? Was it just for that diamond?

Several men, including Vince DeAngelo, crowded around us. I became one of the bystanders. No one noticed me, so I slowly inched my way toward the house. But I was too mortified and stunned to leave yet.

DeAngelo cried to the heavens. “Mariaaaaaaaa! My God! Maria!”

Leo stood and helplessly watched his father-in-law break down. Men started running about, shouting, “The Black Stiletto! The Black Stiletto is here! She killed Maria! Find the Black Stiletto!” Some of the men opened the gazebo trapdoor and went down. More ran to the house.

The fireworks eventually halted. Paulie ran up and stopped when he saw his sister lying on the grass. I heard a man say that one of the servants was found knocked out in the wine cellar. I suppose that's where the trapdoor led. That meant the fake Stiletto was somewhere in the house.

“Bring me her head!” DeAngelo hollered. Tears ran down his face. “Bring me the Black Stiletto's head! A million dollars to anyone who brings me her head!”

I figured I needed to get out of there fast. Leo had forgotten all about me. The place had erupted into chaos. Guests were trying to get close to the scene, but DeAngelo's men tried to hold them back; it was easy to weave my way through the crowd and reach the back to the house.

Just as I approached the veranda screen door, Christina emerged.

“What's going on?” she asked.

“The Black Stiletto just shot Maria,” I managed to say.

“
What?
” Then she bolted past me and ran toward the gazebo along with everyone else.

Had she been in the house the entire time?

I was literally shaking when I made my way through the mansion to the front door. I walked out the open front gate—the guards were no longer there—and stepped into the shadows to follow the road out to where I'd parked my car. I heard sirens approaching in the distance. Police? Ambulance?

My Sunliner was still hidden in the dark where I'd left it. I got in and sat, trying to make sense of what had just happened. An ambulance and two police cars, their lights flashing and sirens blazing, rushed past me on the road. When I thought it was safe enough, I started the car, left the headlights off, and drove away from DeAngelo's property. I waited until my taillights could no longer be seen from the gate before turning them on. Once I was back in Las Vegas, I stopped—I don't know where—and tried to get hold of myself. I'd found I had spontaneously started sobbing.

I wasn't crying for Maria. I certainly wasn't crying for Leo.

No, the tears were for me. Only me.

Happy New Year.

The Black Stiletto:

Endings & Beginnings

Raymond Benson is the author of over thirty books and previously penned
The Black Stiletto
(2011),
The Black Stiletto: Black & White
(2012), and
The Black Stiletto: Stars & Stripes
(2013).

Between 1996 and 2002, he was commissioned by the James Bond literary copyright holders to take over writing the 007 novels. In total he penned and published worldwide six original 007 novels, three film novelizations, and three short stories. An anthology of his 007 work,
The Union Trilogy
, was published in the fall of 2008, and a second anthology,
Choice of Weapons
, appeared summer 2010. His book
The James Bond Bedside Companion
, an encyclopedic work on the 007 phenomenon, was first published in 1984 and was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award by Mystery Writers of America for Best Biographical/Critical Work.

Using the pseudonym David Michaels, Raymond is also the author of the
New York Times
best-selling books
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
and its sequel
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Operation Barracuda
. Raymond's original suspense novels include
Evil Hours, Face Blind, Sweetie's Diamonds
(which won the Readers' Choice Award for Best Thriller of 2006 at the
Love Is Murder Conference for Authors, Readers and Publishers
),
Torment
, and
Artifact of Evil. A Hard Day's Death
, the first in a series of “rock 'n' roll thrillers,” was published in 2008, and its sequel, the Shamus Award-nominated
Dark Side of the Morgue
, published in 2009. Other recent works include novelizations of the popular videogames,
Metal Gear Solid
and its sequel,
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Homefront: The Voice of Freedom
, co-written with John Milius, and
Hitman: Damnation.

Raymond has taught courses in film genres and history at New
York's New School for Social Research; Harper College in Palatine, Illinois; College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois; and currently presents Film Studies lectures with
Daily Herald
movie critic Dann Gire. Raymond has been honored in Naoshima, Japan, with the erection of a permanent museum dedicated to one of his novels, and he is also an ambassador for Japan's Kagawa Prefecture. Raymond is an active member of International Thriller Writers Inc., Mystery Writers of America, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, a full member of ASCAP, and served on the Board of Directors of The Ian Fleming Foundation for sixteen years. He is based in the Chicago area.

www.raymondbenson.com
www.theblackstiletto.net