But throughout it all, there was a clear sense of restlessness in the lobby that was almost palpable—and one didn’t have to be a genius to know why. The real reason these people had come wasn’t to hear Alex’s thoughts about Diana and Mike, or to hear what his plans were for Wenn. They were here to hammer him with questions about what happened last night. At some point, I felt that even I might be questioned, and so I steeled myself when Alex asked the group if they had any questions.
And when he said that? It was like a bomb went off as dozens of people spoke at once. Alex, who was nothing if not cool under pressure, ignored the onslaught. He held up a hand in an effort to silence them, but when that didn’t work, he simply started to point to reporters one by one.
“What’s your question?” he asked the first reporter he chose.
“Did you or your wife see the shooters?” the reporter asked.
“We did not.”
He pointed at another reporter.
“Your question?”
“How did you escape from being shot yourselves?”
Alex told the woman about my clutch being knocked out of my hand, and how each of us had bent down to retrieve it when the shooters opened fire. “I placed my body over my wife’s,” he said to her. “And since there was nothing we could do to stop the killers, we were forced to lay there listening to the hail of bullets senselessly killing our friends.”
The questions continued, with Alex handling a crowd rightfully hungry for answers.
“Marion?” he said to one of the reporters.
“Did you witness the deaths of Diana Crane and Mike Fine?”
“Unfortunately, my wife did.”
“Is she willing to talk about what she saw?”
“Out of respect for the families involved, who are grieving as we speak, I think it would be inappropriate for Jennifer to give any details about what she saw. As a city—and as a community—all of us must respect that.”
He pointed to another reporter as a rush of other questions rose up before him. “Bill?” he said.
“Have you or Jennifer considered the idea that you might have been being targeted last night?”
“We have not. The shooters killed those people with a random spray of bullets meant to murder as many people as possible. Given what we witnessed in the aftermath, it was clear that they shot from left to right in a senseless act designed to target the Witherhouses’ guests as we were leaving the building. If they’d wanted to kill Jennifer or me, they would have shot straight down the middle and finished us, which they could have done. But they didn’t. All I know is that right now, the FBI and the police are looking into possible motives.”
“What do you believe those motives are?” a reporter asked.
“I’ll leave that for the officials investigating this case to answer. But there is one critical point that all of you must know about why the shooting ended as abruptly as it did last night—the killers fled the scene because of this man,” Alex said while motioning toward Tank, who was standing at his right.
“Many of you know Mitch McCollister, Wenn’s longtime head of security,” Alex said. “Many of you also know him as ‘Tank.’ Ten minutes before Jennifer and I left the party, I texted him to pick us up. He was waiting for us in a car on Sixty-Seventh Street when the shooters began their rampage. If it hadn’t been for Tank—a former SEAL—who opened fire on the shooters, thus cutting their massacre short, there is no question that many more would have died. Who knows how many people he saved last night, but it was significant. We all know that because they fled the moment he started shooting. And he’s a hero because of it.”
Given the surprised expressions on the reporters’ faces, it was clear that this piece of information was something that none of them had known. Alex welcomed Tank to the podium to answer questions, and the moment he did so, Tank became bathed in staccato rhythms of light as photograph after photograph was taken of him. Typical of Tank, he handled their questions with steadfast ease until Alex ultimately intervened.
“This morning, Jennifer and I telephoned Diana Crane and Mike Fine’s families, but we haven’t visited them yet, which we plan to do. I want to thank all of you for coming here today. For asking your questions. For caring about what happened last night. And I also want you to know that each of us is here to answer any of your questions going forward. With your diligent coverage and reporting—and the critical work being done by local law enforcement and the FBI—the people responsible for this will be found, they will be brought to justice, and in the end, they will pay for what they did.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LATER THAT EVENING, when the day was behind us and Alex and I returned home, I was exhausted—more mentally than physically. But still exhausted.
We’d gone to visit the families of Diana Crane and Mike Fine, neither of which had been easy—but we nevertheless had to do it, and so we did. Regardless of any past conflicts, we knew that we had to stand up, respect their lives, and, more than anything, we needed to do right by their families.
Diana had a husband of thirty-one years and two girls who were in their mid-twenties—all of whom were devastated by the loss of their mother and wife. Mike Fine was younger. At forty-three, he left behind a wife of sixteen years and three children under the age of twelve—two boys and a girl. All of them shattered. All of them without words. All of them wondering what would come next for them.
Alex told them what would come next for them—fifty million dollars in Wenn stock for each family that they could either hold on to in hopes that it would grow—or cash in tomorrow. What they did with the stock didn’t matter to Alex or me. What mattered was that these people knew that we were behind them, that we felt for them, and that we’d always be there for them. I may not have liked Diana or Mike, but what the hell did that have to do with their families? Nothing. They were casualties, and they needed us now.
So? Alex and I decided to shield them. After all, what in the hell was all of our money worth if we couldn’t help people in a situation as dire and as tragic as this?
As we rode the elevator up to our apartment, we were silent. But when Alex closed the door behind us and we moved through the foyer and into the living space, he came up behind me, wrapped his arm around my waist, and then pulled me in close to him so that I could just feel the stubble of his chin against the nape of my neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
At once, I turned to face the grief that was on his face. The loss in his tear-filled eyes. “Don’t be,” I said.
“I should be stronger than this.”
“You are one of the strongest men I know. But you are only human, Alex. In a brief matter of years, you lost your parents and your first wife, which crushed you. You’ve felt death too many times to count. Please know that I’m here for you. That I always will be here for you.”
“I want to make love to you,” he said when he pulled away from me. “I want to celebrate the fact that both of us are alive. I want to hold you, kiss you, and become one with you, Jennifer. Because if I don’t have that? What do I have after what happened last night? What do either of us have?”
“Nothing,” I said. “So make love to me. Take me in your arms, tell me that you love me just as much as I love you, and then do it again. Because I also want to be with you. I need to feel your heart beating against mine. Somehow, we survived last night. Somehow, we even survived today, which in some ways was more difficult because we had to absorb our losses and face the grief of so many others straight on. We need to be together now because of it.”
He took me by the hand and led me into the bedroom.
Both of us were still in the business suits Blackwell had chosen for us. But with a kind of haste that underscored the importance of this moment, we removed them quickly. In a matter of moments, we were standing naked in front of each other while Manhattan’s skyline twinkled in the wall of windows beside us.
“I love you,” he said to me. “I could have lost y
ou. You could have been one of them.”
“But I wasn’t,” I said in an effort to reassure him. “Because I’m here right now, as are you. And thank God that you’re here with me, Alex, because I couldn’t bear life without you. Make love to me now. Take me like you never have before.”
And he did.
With one swift move, he scooped me into his arms as if I was weightless, and then buried his mouth over mine and kissed me so deeply, I could feel his soul thrumming throughout me.
With exquisite care, he laid me down onto our bed. I hooked my arms around his muscular neck, and then I felt the cool sheets press against my back, which gave me such an unexpected chill, my nipples stiffened. I ran my hands through Alex’s hair as we looked into each other’s eyes. Then, he dipped his head down to one of my nipples, and gently started to titillate it with his lips and tongue.
I arched my back when he did that, and because the pleasure was so intense, I reached out on either side of me and grabbed the sheets, gathering them into my fists as I writhed beneath his touch. My body became so alive, it felt like torture when he lightly pressed his nipples against my own. And then, just as he had done so many times in the past because he knew how much it turned me on, he began to rub them against mine while he whispered into my ear how much I meant to him.
After all that we’d been through over the past two days, it was sensation overload, but underscoring his every move was a clear statement of our love for each other. Generally, our lovemaking was more aggressive. But tonight? Tonight was different, delicate, and sensuous. It was underscored with a profound sense of meaning.
Again and again, his nipples flicked across my own. Again and again, he pushed me closer to the edge. When I was just about to come, he ran his chin down the length of my torso, and as he did so, his stubble brushed against my exposed flesh, making me throw back my head in ecstasy just as he entered me with his tongue.
“Alex,” I said.
His response was to enter me even deeper.
“You’re going to make me come—”
And when he intentionally ran his stubble over my clit, I had to stifle a scream as my body was shattered by an orgasm.
“Jesus,” I said.
“More?”
“Make love to me,” I said after I caught my breath.
“Not yet.”
“But I want you inside of me.”
“Not yet.”
With teasing flicks of his tongue, he devoured my sex while he smoothed his hands up my body to caress my breasts, which felt unusually full and heavy to me. When he reared up and slid toward me, he nibbled on my ear, and I could feel his hot breath against my skin as he told me how beautiful I was. When we made love, it was tender, loving, intense, and filled with unexpected moments of emotion.
Alex caressed me so that there was no part of my body that he didn’t stroke or touch. When he entered me, he did so with such care, I knew that what I felt wasn’t just a physical connection of two bodies coming together. Instead, I could feel his absolute love for me behind each thrust.
This was us at our best. This is how we were meant to be. He was driving me to such heights that a part of me broke free from myself. I let go of everything that had plagued us since last evening, and I somehow floated into the beyond, allowing him to take me to the ceiling, through the roof, and into the night air, where my body drifted above the city lights, and saw the moon and the stars.
When we came, it was with such force, it was difficult to deny what we had just experienced together—two people coming together to show their love for one another in the wake of hatred, destruction, and death.
The power of love had just conquered all of that, and I was happy for it because it gave me hope for the future. Love had to be the future—not hate. Never hate. Never crime nor murder. It was love that mattered. It was love that was the answer.
I held him close to me as he finished with a shudder. I kissed his neck and then his lips, and then he slid out of me and off of me. And as he moved beside me, he clutched me close against him. For a long moment, we just held each other, and then he enveloped me in his arms and we gradually drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
OVER THE NEXT THREE days, while they waited for Rowe to find out when the Wenns would be out in public again, Gia and Carlo kept tabs on Janice Jones.
She lived in a three-bedroom, two-million-dollar apartment on Eighth Avenue and West Forty-Third Street with spectacular views of the Hudson River and lower Manhattan. On the first day, when Gia and Carlo strolled past the building at just past six in the morning, the sun was bright, and the March air was crisp against their backs. As they walked by the doorman, they nodded at him. He nodded back.
“Fancy,” Gia said about the building when they were out of earshot.
“Janice Jones must have been one gold-star stripper,” Carlo said.
“Rowe did the right thing,” Gia said. “Giving her the money to buy the place in a cash deal with no ties to him was smart. Janice was his mistress at the time. It would have made it difficult for Meredith to uncover any links between them.”
“I bet it burns his ass that Jones still lives here,” Carlo said.
“You think? She destroyed him when she outed their relationship at that press conference.”
“I wonder how she affords to stay here?” Carlo said. “There are building fees, lights to keep on, food to buy. Where is she getting her money now? Is she back to stripping?”
“I doubt it. Remember the jewelry Rowe told us he’d given to her over the years? My guess is that she’s selling them off whenever she’s tight on cash, and that it will be a very long time—if she’s smart with her money—before she runs out of it. But whatever,” she said. “Let’s get a coffee at the Starbucks across the street. We’ll take a window seat and wait to see if she emerges.”
“You do realize that we could be sitting there all day, don’t you?”
“Starbucks won’t mind,” she said. “After all, isn’t that what they’re all about? Buy a cup of coffee, plug in your computer, and stay as long as you want? If that’s what we have to do to start getting a read on how Janice lives her day, Carlo, then suck it up because I see no other way.”
OVER TIME, THE RHYTHM of Janice Jones’ life played out for each of them, but on that first day? There was an unexpected twist.
At nine, Jones started her day by getting a coffee at the Starbucks where Gia and Carlo were sitting. Unbelieving, they watched her jog across the street, enter the store, and stand in line, which allowed them to view her in person for the first time.
“Can you believe this?” Carlo said over his coffee.
“It’s Starbucks. It’s morning. It’s right next door to her. It actually makes perfect sense.”
Rowe had shared several photographs of Jones with them, but as far as Gia was concerned, none of them did her justice. Janice Jones was beautiful and polished, a fine-boned woman in her early thirties with blonde hair, blue eyes, and fresh-looking skin.
She also was in impeccable shape, which was clear since she was wearing black leggings, a deep-blue Spandex workout shirt, and matching sneakers. She looked flawless—and Gia had to admit that, because of Jones’ background as a stripper, she hadn’t been expecting her to look so poised and sophisticated. If Stephen Rowe was going to cheat on Meredith, it was no wonder that he’d chosen this woman.
“She’s hot,” Carlo said in a low voice as Jones gave her order.
“Looks to me like she’s off to the gym...”
“Either that, or she’s going for a run. Let’s hope for the gym.”
“It’ll be the gym,” Gia said. “She’s not going to run with a cup of coffee in her hands—unless she finishes it here. We’ll see, but my bet is that she’s going to enjoy her coffee while she either walks or takes a cab to whatever gym she goes to.”
“Plenty of them around here.”
“I think there’s a gym on every block in this city.”
“No question—and there she goes. Coffee clutched to her breast. Hair swinging in her ponytail as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. God, does that woman have a shock coming her way. Let’s give her a minute to walk ahead of us, and then we’ll follow.”
They followed her to the Manhattan Plaza Health Club, where she disappeared inside for two hours. Over the next two days, it became clear to them that this was part of her morning routine, information that would become critical to them when they decided when and how to take her out.
FOR JANICE JONES, AFTERNOONS were either spent lunching at expensive restaurants with her girlfriends, or going shopping with them on Fifth.
“The middle of the day is out,” Gia said on the third day to Carlo.
They were in their kitchen, and Carlo was pouring them each a glass of red wine.
“She always seems to be with someone in the afternoon, which will make it impossible to get near her. But in the mornings, I think that we can agree that she’s out on her own. Same goes for early evening. For the past two nights in a row, she’s gone for a run at seven o’clock. If she runs at that time tonight, then we have a confirmed pattern. She’ll run south to Thirty-Sixth Street, she’ll cut a right and run until she hits Madison Avenue, and then she’ll take a left onto Forty-Third Street and head back to her home. A solid three-mile run.”
“And so what if she does?” Carlo said as he leaned on the island and took a sip of his wine. “As far as I’m concerned, nights are also out. Rowe wants us to take her down on the same day that we murder the Wenns. You know that. And there’s a perfectly good reason for that, which we agree with—not showing our hand and potentially giving ourselves away. Since we both know the Wenns’ next social event will likely be in the evening, we also know that our only chance to get Jones is going to be in the morning.”
Annihilate Them Page 12