Death Angel

Exiting into the lobby, she gave the doorman her usual friendly, empty-headed smile. Amado pulled to the curb as she stepped onto the sidewalk. He looked faintly surprised to see her so promptly, but hopped out and opened the rear door of the black Lincoln Town Car for her. There were thousands of cars just like it in New York; all the car services used them. Rafael used them as his personal cars because they blended with all the others, making it easier for him to shake anyone following him.

As Drea stepped into the car she thought she saw the assassin and panic froze her heart, her blood. She stumbled, almost falling, as her feet suddenly refused to work. Amado grabbed her arm. "You okay?"

Her gaze darted around, looking for whatever had alarmed her, made her think of him. He wasn’t there. She hadn’t seen him. Armies of people marched up and down the sidewalks, but he wasn’t one of them. She didn’t see anyone with that lithe way of moving, or that particular way he held his head. She closed her eyes, sucking in deep breaths as she tried to calm her skittering pulse.

She let herself lean on Amado for just a moment. "I turned my ankle a little," she said, managing a faintly helpless tone. "Sorry."

"Did you sprain it?"

"I don’t think so. Not much, anyway." She gingerly rotated her right ankle. "I’m okay." As she got into the car she took another quick look around. Nothing. There were a lot of dark-haired men, but no one like him. A brief glimpse of something, someone, had reminded her of him, but that was all. He wasn’t here. She would know if he were here.

Drea wrenched her thoughts away from the killer. She couldn’t let herself get distracted, or she’d make mistakes, any one of which could be fatal. She had to concentrate, and she had to move fast.

By the time Amado pulled to the curb in front of the library, she had herself focused again. "I’ll be about an hour, I guess," she said vaguely as he helped her out.

"Take your time. Call me when you’re ready to leave."

She could tell from the resignation in his tone that he expected her to be much longer than an hour. The Drea he knew, who they all knew, didn’t have much concept of time and was habitually late. If she thought something would take "just a few minutes" it would invariably take at least an hour, whatever "it" was.

"What’s your number?" she asked. "I think I have a pen…" She let her voice trail off as she began rummaging in the tote.

"Let me have your phone," he said as a couple of irate drivers blew their horns at him.

She pulled the BlackBerry out of its little pocket and gave it to him. He was very patient; he didn’t sigh or anything as he quickly programmed his number into the device. "You know how to use your contact list, right?" he asked, just to make certain.

"Rafael showed me," she said, nodding her head and mentally rolling her eyes.

The cacophony of horns was growing more insistent. "Take your time," Amado said as he got back into the driver’s seat. Despite the increasingly impatient drivers, he still watched as she crossed to the steps and began climbing them. She put on a small limp, just enough that he would notice. Details added up. Not only would he be looking for her bright pink jacket, but also that telltale little limp.

Once inside, she went straight to the ladies’ room. Locked in a stall, she swiftly changed clothes and shoes, packing her things in the tote to be disposed of later. She switched wallets, removing her driver’s license and all her cash from the Gucci wallet Rafael had given her, and stowing them in the generic one she’d picked up at Macy’s. She left the credit cards in the designer one. Not only would using the cards be suicidal, but if someone less than honest found the wallet and used the cards, it would muddy her trail that much more.

She couldn’t leave it lying out in the open, though; that would be too easy, too obvious. Tucking the wallet back in the tote, she flushed the toilet as if she’d used it, and left the stall.

Two other women were at the row of sinks. Drea dawdled, washing her hands, fiddling with her lipstick and generally primping, until they left. Quickly she wet her hands and began dampening her hair, the water both darkening the color and straightening the curl. When her hair was wet enough, she combed it straight back, flattening it to her head, and twisted it into a tight knot that she haphazardly secured by sticking a pen through it. The knot didn’t have to hold for long, just long enough.

Just one more thing. Dampening a paper towel, she washed off as much of her makeup as she could. Then she exited the bathroom with her normal stride, just another busy, hurried, focused New Yorker. No one looked twice at her.

She strode out the exit. Removing the designer wallet from the tote, she held it down by her side, and paused by a trash can. As unobtrusively as possible she let the wallet drop, and used her toe to nudge it behind the can where it was mostly out of sight. Someone would find it, and soon. An honest person would turn it in to the library personnel; a dishonest one would take the credit cards and go on a spending binge. Either scenario worked for her, though the second one would be most troublesome to Rafael.

Quickly walking a couple of blocks away, she hailed a cab and gave the driver a destination. A direct route would have been faster but would also make her easier to track. When she exited that taxi, she walked another couple of blocks and took another one. She changed cabs a third time before reaching her final destination in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Time was getting short, the afternoon sun sinking lower. Drea went into the bank and requested access to her safe-deposit box. She signed in, retrieved her key from her bag, and a slim, young Asian-American woman ushered her into the small room lined floor to ceiling with boxes.