Chapter 21

_Wednesday, April 8

2:41 P.M.

_

Ally was very fond of Kristen's West Village neighborhood, since she herself had once had an apartment on West Eleventh Street, just west of Seventh Avenue. The street was tree-lined and many of its nineteenth- century town houses were home to single families, though sometimes the ground floor, with the entry "under the stoop," i.e., beneath the stairs, was rented out to provide a little side income. She had rented one of those "garden apartments"--the upstairs owners were two gay bankers--and had loved it. However, it also was entirely possible that Kristen had the whole town house to herself--that was the kind of thing that a lot of celebrities who lived, or even just spent time, in New York did. There was privacy and there also was the sense of living in an actual house instead of in some cookie-cutter apartment. Then again she could have a downstairs neighbor.

A solitary town house seemed somewhat at odds with the extroverted personality Kristen displayed on TV, but the privacy was probably intended more for her sugar daddy, Winston Bartlett, than for her.

Ally had been pushing the pace ever since she got off the phone with Stone. At Twenty-third Street she had peeled off the West Side Highway and gone over to Seventh Avenue, where she had a straight shot downtown. She pa.s.sed St Vincent's Hospital, and the notorious six-way intersection that caused so many accidents, and hung a right on West Eleventh.

She was approaching the corner at Bleecker Street when a huge black Lincoln Navigator lumbered in front of her, at an angle that cut her off and blocked the street. Then the vehicle abruptly slammed to a halt.

"What--!"

She hit her own brakes and managed to slide to a stop just before she collided with the Lincoln's rear b.u.mper. At first she thought they'd deliberately cut her off, but then she realized the move had nothing to do with her. A man and a woman were piling out. He was muscular and balding, with dark hair and sungla.s.ses, and he was dressed in black.

She had red hair streaked with white and was dressed in a nurse's whites. They were in a major hurry.

That was when she recognized the man she'd met at Gramercy Park, the j.a.panese sidekick Bartlett had called Ken.

Oh s.h.i.t.

Then she realized that a thirtyish woman was running down West Eleventh Street toward them, carrying a dark green backpack in her left hand.

They were gesturing for her to come to them and get into the vehicle, though she didn't appear to see them yet. Halfway down the block behind her, a man in a tan flight jacket was running, calling out.

"Kristen, wait I just want to talk--"

The running woman glanced over her shoulder at him and, at that moment collided with Bartlett's flunky. As she recoiled from the impact the red-haired woman seized her left arm.

"Kirby, come," the woman said. "You're not well. We'll take you back."

"No!" she yelled, and twisted free of the woman's grasp. But now the j.a.panese guy had grabbed her other arm.

"It's going to be all right," he said as he caught the top of her head and started shoving her through the open door of the Navigator. "You shouldn't go out alone."

At that moment the man in the tan flight jacket reached the scene. It was Stone, but he'd been moments too late.

He stretched his arm into the Lincoln and tried to take the girl's hand. "Kristen, don't go with them. I just need to talk--"

"You don't need to do anything, pal," the man called Ken declared.

"Except get out of the way."

He chopped the side of Stone's neck with an open hand, sending him sprawling backwards onto the pavement, flight jacket askew.

Now something odd was going on. Another girl was running down the sidewalk. "Kristy, wait. Don't ..."

But the redheaded woman had already gotten into the backseat of the SUV, beside the girl, and the j.a.panese man was heading around the front. Three seconds later, he was behind the wheel and peeling out.

They were gone.

Ally sat watching, stunned. But now a Chevy sedan was departing a parking s.p.a.ce three cars down from where she was and she quickly pulled in.

By then Stone Aimes had picked himself up off the sidewalk and was gazing wistfully in the direction of the vanishing Lincoln. The girl who'd been behind him stopped and was talking to him.

Ally quickly locked the Toyota and went over.

"But why did she run?" Stone Aimes was asking. He was disheveled but then being slugged and knocked to the sidewalk takes a toll on anybody's poise.

"She didn't know who you were," the girl replied She looked like she would have been more at home in the East Village than here: late twenties, tattoo on one bicep, eyebrows pierced blue jeans, hair needing a better day. She had serious acne scars on her cheeks. "I think she thought you were them, whoever they were."

Ally looked Stone over and felt a surge of admiration. In spite of the fact he just got decked, there was an athletic feeling about the way he carried his body, as though he was ready to pounce on a news source.

Only he just didn't pounce quite fast enough this time.

She walked up and gave him a hug. For a lot of reasons.

"Hey, we can't go on meeting like this."

"My G.o.d, how humiliating." He winced.

"What in heaven's name just happened? That was Kristen, all right. But why was she running from you?"

"I saw this woman walking very fast up the street carrying a backpack and I just took a shot and called out 'Kristen.' She glanced back at me, then took off like a rabbit. All I accomplished was to drive her directly into the grasp of those goons."

"You scared her," the girl with the pierced eyebrows shouted, gazing angrily at Stone. "Who are you? Why did you--?"

"I'm a newspaper reporter," he said. "Who are you?"

"I sublet the garden apartment from her. I met her when I was doing her makeup at the E! channel. I mentioned I was looking for a place and she said she liked me and wanted somebody she liked to be her subtenant.

The rent is really low. Then they canceled her show and she had a mental meltdown and went to a spa somewhere to regroup. Or at least that's what everybody at E! says."

"So that's definitely Kristen Starr?" Ally asked.