An Unforgettable Lady

by Jessica Bird

  Kat grimaced and rose from her desk as Grace shut the door with annoyance.

  As soon as he took a seat, Lamont carefully unbuttoned his suit jacket and brushed something off his pant leg with a flick of the hand. A staccato beat sounded out, the rhythm of his shoe hitting the corner of the desk. His impatience was one of the first things she always noticed about him. Well, that and his cologne.

  Grace covered a sneeze with her hand.

  "God bless," he said solicitously. "Are you getting sick?"

  As if he secretly hoped she had something lethal and efficient.

  "Not at all.” Grace sat down, watching his eyes flicker over her. She knew the attention wasn't sexual. He didn't want her body, he was after her job and the piece of furniture she'd put her butt onto.

  His cell phone went off.

  "Excuse me," he said, taking it out of the jacket of his stick suit.

  As the man started in on a chorus of yeses and absolutely she reflected on how long she'd known him. He'd started years ago on the lowest rung of the ladder, working part-time as a grant application sifter while he got through a master's degree in art history at NYU. By the time she came onboard full-time, he’d risen in the ranks and his piece de resistance had been when her father had promoted him into senior management.

  He was a good-looking guy, tall and thin, and as his salary had increased, so had the quality of his clothes. He'd also gradually left behind his Bronx accent until it was only noticeable when he was angry. Over the years, he'd grown adept at accumulating power and he got what he wanted by any means necessary—hard work, blatant bullying, or charming persuasion. He was also good at his job. He'd turned into a first-rate chief development officer, able to raise phenomenal amounts of cash for the Foundation from wealthy donors and major corporations. The flip side was that he was brash, ambitious, and frustrated that he'd been passed over in favor of Cornelius's daughter.

  He was looking for other jobs and, with a wave of grief, Grace remembered that she owed Suzanna for the heads up. Late last week, the woman had called to say that Lamont was sniffing around the museum, looking to take over their Development Office. Suzanna, as chair of the board, had turned him down flat, telling him that she didn't want to endanger the museum's relationship with the Hall Foundation. Evidently, Lamont had left angry.

  He flipped the phone off and slid it into his pocket. "We need to talk about the Gala. It's six weeks away and I need to take charge. I mean, you're so busy getting a handle on things, it's going to be impossible for you to do it all."

  Shooting him a smile, Grace reached over and picked up one of her father's gold pens. As she twirled it through her fingers, Lamont's eyes lit on the thing as if he wanted to wrench it out of her hand.

  "That's a kind offer, Lou. But the Gala is under control."

  "Is it? Then why hasn't Fredrique shown up yet.”

  "I'm not using Fredrique this year and I already told him that three weeks ago."

  Lamont's brows dropped down tightly over his eyes. "But we always use him. He does the parties for everyone who's anyone."

  "Not anymore. After that fiasco last spring, when he tried to wedge live elephants into the Waldorf, people are seriously rethinking his creative urges. He also double-bills. Mimi Lauer says she's not using him again after the ballet's big event this season and I know that the museum wasn't happy with his performance, either."

  She thought of Suzanna again.

  "But I told him yesterday we were going to hire him," Lamont said through thin lips.

  "Then you better call him back."

  "So who are we using? "

  "Me."

  He laughed out loud. "We're talking about five hundred of New York's most important people and this is the first Gala now that your father's dead. You can't afford for it not to go well."

  "We're a nonprofit charity. I'm not going to waste thousands and thousands of dollars just for advice on what color the tablecloths should be."

  "He does more than that. He coordinates the food, the flow of guests—"

  "All things I can do."

  "But your father always—”

  She cut him off with a level tone. "My father, as you pointed out, is dead. And Fredrique is an expense we don't need."

  "Look, you know as well as I do, this town is a tightrope. The Foundation shouldn't fall off into obscurity just because you want to save a buck."

  "Fredrique is not the answer. And I think you're going to be amazed by my sense of balance."

  Lamont rose from the chair, frustration getting the best of him. "I hope when I get back from Virginia you'll be thinking more clearly."

  "Oh, that's right. You're going to see about the Finn Collection. When are you leaving?"

  "Tomorrow afternoon."

  "Good, there still may be a chance for you to switch your ticket."

  "Switch?"

  "None of us should be flying first-class when we're on company business anymore. Not unless we're paying for the upgrade ourselves."

  Lamont's eyes narrowed into slits and Kat picked that moment to come in with a tray.

  "Make sure you save the teabag," he muttered as he pushed past the girl. "She's going to want to reuse it for her next meeting."

  Kat steadied her load. "You want his tea?”

  "No, thanks." But his head on a stick might be nice, Grace thought. "And you can throw out the bag."

  Kat was laughing as she shut the door.

  As soon as she was alone, Grace sagged in the chair, feeling utterly depleted. She couldn't imagine staying in the office a moment longer. She needed to think.

  Picking up her purse and the discarded scarf, she went out to Kat's desk.

  "Do me a favor and close up. I need a break." She wrapped the scarf around her shoulders and walked over to the closet to get her cashmere coat.

  Kat was frowning. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm just tired. And I want to see how the contractors are making out with my guest bath. If I leave now, I might still catch one of them who was going to stay late."

  "Are you still going to go to the Met tonight?"

  Grace took a deep breath. "Yes."

  "Okay. And don't worry. I'll handle everything here."

  Grace smiled. "I know you will."

  * * *

  The tiny digital clock on Smith's computer read 1:07 a.m. He'd been online doing research on a potential client but he hadn't made much progress. He kept finding himself mired in the archives section of the New York Times, looking at pictures of the Countess von Sharone.

  Which was a total waste of time, he thought as he called up another one.

  She'd been on his mind for the past week but even more so after Lieutenant Marks had tracked him down in the afternoon. Another socialite had been killed, the second woman mentioned in that article. He was waiting for Marks to call again with an update on the crime scene, even though technically it was none of Smith's business.

  Marks owed him. The lieutenant's boy had been under Smith's command in the Persian Gulf. Smith had dragged the kid out of a battle zone after he got in the way of a bullet and Marks was a man who returned favors.

  The article that popped up on the screen was a little less than a month old and covered her father's funeral. On the right-hand side, there was a picture of the Countess walking with her mother and her husband across a grassy expanse checkered by headstones. He leaned in closer to the computer. She was wearing a black suit and a small hat, carrying a black bag on one arm. With her head tilted down and eyes looking forward, her face was a study of beauty in grief. Her mother, by contrast, was all stiff reserve, showing nothing. Still, it was obvious where the countess's stunning looks had come from.

  He studied the husband. The count was separated from his wife by about two feet and a million emotional miles, booking as if he'd been dropped into the picture from some entirely different event. His handsome face showed only bland indifference and, with his hands pushed into the pockets of his suit jacket, he lo
oked as if he were sauntering.

  Smith's cell phone rang. "Yeah?”

  Marks's battle-fatigued voice sounded worse than usual. "I’ve got the lowdown if you want it."

  "Shoot."

  "Victim was discovered in her front foyer, just like the last one. Throat was hacked wide open again, a real butcher job. There were signs of a struggle but no forced entry."

  "And both of the women lived in luxury buildings, right? Doormen, secured doors, sign-in sheets."

  "That's right."

  "So how's he getting in?"

  "Don't have a good answer for that one. The boys checked all the common areas, the bottom floor windows and doors. No broken locks or panes."

  "You audit the sign-in sheets?"

  "We're in the process."

  "So tell me the freaky part."

  Marks laughed. "How'd you know there is one?"

  "There always is."

  "Okay, there was something odd. We didn't think much of it at the first scene but it really spoke to me at this one. It's about the victims' clothes. They were ripped, torn, bloodied but they were all arranged neatly on the bodies. Like he straightened 'em up before he left."

  "You mean the slasher's got a neat streak?"

  "Yeah. He kills them and then puts them back together, in a sense. The victim we found last night was laying on her fancy rug, blood everywhere, picture hanging off-kilter where he'd probably thrown her against the wall. But the suit she was wearing was all buttoned up. The collar was arranged. The skirt was pulled down. One of her shoes had popped off—we know cause we found blood in it—but he'd put it back on her foot."

  "Freddie Krueger with OCD?"

  "Yeah. That's it."

  "You get prints?"

  "Naw. Guy wore gloves. We've got some blood but it's mostly hers. We have a partial footprint but it's a goddam Nike. Who doesn't own a pair of those?"

  "What size?"

  "Ten men's. So he's probably of average height. We're checking for hair and skin under her nails." Marks coughed. "Hey, what's all this to you, anyway?"

  Smith shot a noncommittal noise back.

  "Well," Marks said, "you can expect to hear from me again. This guy's just warming up."

  "Who's next in the article?"

  "Isadora Cunis. Daddy is an industrialist, married one of the top Wall Street stock guys. I talked to her earlier in the day, along with all the others. I’ve urged her to get out of town and I think she's going to take the advice."

  "Call me with news."

  "You betcha."

  Smith put the cell phone down and logged off the site.

  Restlessly, he scanned his room. The hotel he was staying in was a small one in the theater district of New York. The place was clean and quiet, all it took for him to give accommodations a five-star rating.

  He got to his feet and walked over to the window he'd wedged open. Through it, he heard the city below, the sounds of honking horns and rushing taxis steady on the streets even though it was late. He'd come into town from LA to assess threats being received by the CEO of one of the top multinational companies in the world. Smith and the sixty-year-old scion of industry had met over dinner in the man's luxurious suite at the Plaza. After an hour of conversation, Smith had turned the job down despite being offered seven figures for two months worth of work.

  It had been easy to walk away.

  Mr. Corporate America maintained that he was being threatened by eco-terrorists. He'd recently leveled two thousand acres of rain forest to build a manufacturing and assembly plant complex in Brazil. The tree huggers, as the man had explained, were up in arms.

  But Smith knew it was a lie because he'd done his homework. The CEO had two lives. One was aboveboard as an icon of the American dream, a self-made billionaire who had a beautiful, pregnant, second wife less than half his age. The other involved arms, and not the kind you picked up a newborn with. Turned out, the guy had carried a lot more than widgets on his boats as they went back and forth through the Panama Canal.

  In Smith's view, the man was probably trying to get out of the illicit trade and was just now learning that handling people who deal in guns is a lot different from negotiating over a boardroom table with guys in suits and ties. Both lines of work might get you rich but with one you got a golden parachute and a nice watch when you left. The other got you shot in the head and maybe cut up into little pieces. Your family was lucky if they had a body to bury.

  From Smith's perspective, he couldn't justify taking the job. It wasn't that he wanted Mr. Corporate America to get killed. Watching a guy who was a king in his world cry over fennel soup wasn't pleasant, but Smith had rules. If he was going to risk his own life for someone else's, they had to be honest with him.

  It also helped if they weren't in a pigpen of their own making.

  But he didn't leave the guy, flapping in the wind. Before Smith left, he'd passed along the number of another security firm.

  Anyway, if he had taken the job, it would've involved some shuffling of clients. Tomorrow he was due in Paraguay and Tiny would have hated subbing on that job, even though he'd have done it at the drop of a hat. Tiny was big enough to make a linebacker look dainty and as tough as Smith was, but he hated the tropics. Something about spiders.

  Going into the bathroom, Smith peeled off the undershirt he was wearing. In the light flooding down from the ceiling, his muscles stood out in stark relief, a powerful show of flesh and bone that he didn't stop to admire. He'd been in top physical condition all his life but his body was only one reason he was considered a heavy hitter in a profession full of tough guys.

  What he did linger on were patterns across his skin, crisscrosses and streaks that distorted as the muscles underneath moved. They were scars, ragged testaments to the life he'd chosen. Some were twenty years old, from his violent youth, others were more recent. Some were the result of attempts on his life, others badges of his courage. He was so used to them, he didn't regard them as unusual or ugly. They were like his arms and legs, a part of him so intrinsic it was as if he'd come out of the womb with them.

  Which of course, he hadn't. He just couldn't recall being unmarked.

  Absently, he ran his hand over a pale pink scar that cut across his abdominal muscles. He thought about the countess and imagined her touching him with her delicate hands. The mere thought hardened him.

  He cursed out loud.

  It was a great fantasy but that's all it would ever be.

  Besides, a woman like her would be used to the unmarred skin of investment bankers and aristocrats. Men whose professions didn't require they be stitched back together with a needle and thread. One look at Smith's map of horrors and she'd probably run shrieking in the opposite direction.

  Then again, maybe she wouldn't. He thought of that chin of hers, kicked up high.

  Oh, Christ, who was he fooling? He was never going to find out.

  Smith shut off the light and left the bathroom. Shrugging out of his pants, he tossed them over the back of a chair, logged off his computer, and laid down on the bed. He didn't bother getting under the covers. The night was unseasonably warm for fall and he'd turned up the temperature gauge in the room so that the air conditioning wouldn't come on.

  He hated fake air.

  Smith crossed his arms over his chest and shut his eyes, ready for blackness. He was an efficient sleeper. Out like a light, awake just as fast. A typical night was three hours flat on his back and then he'd be recharged.

  Except he hadn't had "typical" in the past week. Lately, he'd had trouble sleeping, and sure enough, minutes later, he jacked himself up into a sitting position. With visions of the countess swirling in his head, Smith leaned back against the padded headboard, pissed.

  That dreamless trance he went into every night was the closest thing to a normal routine he had. The fact that it was getting thrown out of whack on account of some woman was simply unacceptable.

  Maybe he just needed to get laid.

  He leaned
over to the nightstand and slid a long, thin cigar out of a pack that was mostly full. The flash of his lighter was bright yellow in the darkness, the tip of the cheroot glowed orange when he inhaled.

  That was probably it. He needed to have sex.

  As he exhaled, the feel of the countess's body against his own came to him in a rush.

  But Christ, not with her.

  His cell phone rang.

  Smith's head whipped around, and before the sound came again, he had the phone against his ear.

  "Yeah?"

  There was a long pause. "Is this ... John Smith?"

  His body knew the voice even before his brain recognized it.

  "Yeah."

  "It's Grace Hall," the voice said. "I need you." When Smith put the phone down, he wondered what had taken her so long to call. Tiny, it seemed, might be going to Paraguay after all.

  chapter

  5

  Twenty minutes later, Smith was on Wall Street, walking up the granite steps of her family's skyscraper. As he approached the banks of revolving doors, a uniformed security guard opened a side door for him.

  "Mr. Smith?"

  When he answered, the man stepped aside to let him pass.

  "She's waiting for you," the guard said. "Up in her office, on the top floor. You want to take the elevators over there."

  Smith gave the man a nod and got into the elevator. Fifty-two floors up, it eased to a stop and he stepped out into a plush hallway. At the end of the corridor, he saw light spilling from a pair of doors and he went toward it, his feet silent over thick carpeting. He passed by conference rooms and offices and thought, if it weren't for the spectacular oil paintings hanging on the walls, he could have been in the executive suite of any successful corporation.

  Smith slowed as he came up to the doors. Without knocking, he pushed open one side and saw her.

  Silhouetted against a twinkling view of the city, the countess was wearing a red gown and facing out toward a wall of windows. The flowing silk covered her long, lean body and left her back exposed. With her hair coiled on her head, she had the graceful curves of a ballet dancer.