From Manhattan With Revenge Boxed Set by Christopher Smith Page A

know is that she also had come back for them.
    She returned to Manhattan three days ago, after burying her
fellow assassin and lover, Alex Williams, in Bora Bora, where he was murdered
while they were on vacation.   There,
they were making plans to leave behind their professional lives as assassins so
they could be together in a tropical paradise that offered a measure of
security due to the sheer remoteness the island provided.
    But with his murder and the burning down of her longtime home,
it proved a costly assumption.   For
reasons that still were unclear to her, the syndicate she and Alex worked for
killed Alex and tried to kill her.   She managed to escape, but now they were after her.  
    After all, the sound of those shoes didn’t lie.  
    She could tell by the definitive strike of the footfalls that
they belonged to a man.   When would
he act?   She didn’t know, but in her
coat pocket was her Glock, her hand was wrapped around it and she’d use it if
necessary.
    Unless he shot her in the back, which was possible though it
would be stupid on his part given that they were on Fifth, which was alive with
traffic.
    She could feel him behind her.   The footsteps were coming closer.   She kept her pace steady, her body
loose.   Fifty feet.   Forty.   Closing the gap and doing so in such a
way that was so obvious, it was amateurish.   Why was he giving himself away like
this?
    He was probably twenty feet away from her when she approached
Seventy-Seventh Street.   The traffic
light was red and there were a line of cabs waiting for the light to change.   Grab one?   Plenty were empty.   But if the light didn’t change quickly,
he might be brazen enough to approach the cab and shoot her because otherwise,
he would have missed his chance and disappoint whomever hired him.
    Best to move on.
    She looked as far down the sidewalk as she could and saw others
coming toward her.   The area was
well-lit, just bright enough to quell a murder, unless the man following her
was determined to take her out.   Again, possible but again, stupid.   Still, who knew what his orders were?   Who knew if he was just young and naive
enough to believe he could pull this off?   If he was, she was ready for it.  
    In fact, when the light turned green and traffic roared to
life, she decided she’d had enough.   She stopped and faced him.
    He also stopped.   Their eyes met.   He wasn’t
the young man she was expecting.   Instead, he looked somewhere in his late thirties.   Tall.   Brown hair.   Good looking.   Wearing a knee-length black coat to keep
out the cold and also to better conceal whatever he was carrying.
    “Carmen Gragera?” he asked.
    She watched his hands.   Said nothing.   A couple
brushed past them, the woman’s head on the man’s shoulder.   Carmen could smell the flowery perfume
the woman left in her wake.
    “You and I should talk,” he said.   “I’m a friend of Alex Williams.”
    “That’s your first mistake,” she said.   “Alex didn’t have any friends.”
    His brow furrowed.   “What gives you that idea?”
    “Maybe you meant to say you were colleagues?”
    “That’s not what I meant to say.   I was his friend.   Since childhood.”
    “Then you know Alex well.   Where did he grow up?”
    “Indianapolis.”
    Anyone could know that, but only those closest to Alex would
know what she was about to ask.   During their last two weeks together, when they spoke freely about their
private lives, he brought up the one topic that haunted him most.   It was something he said he’d never be
able to live down.   Not with
himself, not with his family.   “What
was Alex’s biggest regret?”
    “There were a few things.”
    “Why not take a shot at one of them?”
    “Should I start with his family?”
    “If you want.”
    “OK, so you want the obvious one.   Alex regretted not being there for his
father’s death.   He had the
opportunity to catch a flight and spend some time