In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [111]
66
Julianna Ricci was giving a dinner party. It was an important occasion for her, because she wanted desperately to become co-chair of the grandest charity event of the year, in aid of developmentally challenged children. An event that would put her right up there alongside Manhattan’s biggest socialites.
Julianna was tall and blonde and elegant in a long, celadon silk-chiffon couture dress. With it she wore Alberto’s latest gift: a necklace of emeralds and diamonds and matching earrings.
She had just had the house redone by the latest decorator, and it looked a dream, with enormous displays of flowers wherever there was space for them. Her table was set with the finest Cristofle and Baccarat and Bernadaud; a butler and a houseman waited on them, and the chef had cooked for royalty.
There were twenty at the long table, with Alberto looking handsome and distinguished at the head, and Julianna at the foot. They were just eating dessert—wild strawberries flown in from the South of France over a soufflé with strawberry eau-de-vie, served with flutes of delicate pink Roederer champagne (the favorite, she knew, of her most important guest)—when the butler came in and whispered something discreetly in her husband’s ear.
Mario was waiting in Alberto Ricci’s hall. He looked around at the elegant surroundings. He had thought his own Miami mansion was the ultimate in luxury and class, but this was something else. The works of art on these walls looked like museum pieces, and the furniture had the exquisite patina of expensive antiques. Even the rug was magnificent, forty feet long and of faded silk that must have come from the Ottoman Empire. He felt sick to his stomach. He’d thought he had it all. Now he knew he had nothing.
He peered through the massive bouquet of flowers on the gilded console, into the tall Venetian mirror, at his own face. He hardly recognized himself. Was this shrunken, white-faced man really Mitch Rogan?
He turned as Ricci strode angrily into the hall.
Ricci dismissed the butler with a wave of his manicured hand. “What are you doing here?” he hissed. “I told you never to contact me, never to come to my house.” He already had Mario by the arm, pulling him toward the front door. “Get out, and don’t come back, you stupid bastard.”
Mario turned to look at him. He jammed the sleek little Kahr into Ricci’s gut. And he smiled as he pulled the trigger.
67
They had found no one in the parking lot: the suspect had gotten away, and an all-points was out on him. Camelia was outside the O.R. when his cell phone rang. There had been a shooting at Alberto Ricci’s home.
Camelia had always known, in his gut, that Ricci was at the bottom of the property deal. No matter whom he had used as hit men, Ricci was the true killer.
Sirens screaming, he was at the East Sixty-fourth Street townhouse in minutes.
Mitch Rogan, a.k.a. Mario de Soto, straddled Ricci’s body, where it lay oozing blood onto the priceless Ottoman rug. His gun was aimed at Julianna Ricci, standing on the stairs where she had attempted to flee, screaming her stupid head off.
“You’re not gonna have a head in a minute if y’don’t shut up,” he told her stonily. She clamped her mouth shut, but he could still hear her whimpering. Light from the immense crystal chandelier glinted off the diamonds and emeralds at her throat and reflected in his envious eyes.
He had been a fool, a great stupid fucking fool. It was men like Ricci, this dead man, who won all the big prizes. While men like him scrambled for the smaller pickings, thinking they were such big shots. His whole fucking life had been a sham.
He heard the police sirens and the cries of the terrified guests, still huddled together in the dining room. He almost laughed. They surely hadn’t expected this when they had donned their fancy designer outfits and pricey jewels for the Riccis’ dinner party.
The door burst open. That goddamn woman was screaming