Innocent as Sin

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Hamm tells me the van does indeed have metal slides set in at least the left rear door,” Faroe said. “Score one for you. Looks like they’re setting up a mobile shooting platform. Two dudes. Two Galils.”

  Relief went through Rand like rainwater. “Thank God,” he said without moving his lips.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You’re not God.”

  “Stop. You’ll make me cry. No one has seen Foley’s car yet.”

  Rand flicked his collar in acknowledgment.

  “I’m calling in a local cop on a ‘hot tip,’ but I’d like to have Foley on tape first. And camera.”

  “Don’t wait too long,” Rand said through his teeth.

  “If Gabriel shakes Hamm, I’m shutting this op down and pulling Kayla. Be ready.”

  Rand straightened his collar, then bent over Kayla. “Everything’s ready for lunch.”

  “We’re an item, right?” She gestured with the electronic paddle that was issued by the restaurant receptionist to signal diners that their table was ready. “I’m all over you like body oil so that Foley can’t miss the message?”

  Rand smiled slowly. “I’ll handle the body oil part. You can concentrate on Foley.”

  “An undercover item,” she mumbled.

  “Well, I do recall being under the covers…” He nuzzled her neck, then covered the microphone with his fingers. “It wasn’t a one-nighter, no matter what you say. Got that?”

  She brushed his cheek with the paddle. “Will Foley buy it?”

  “Fuck Foley. I’m talking to you.”

  “You fuck him. He’s not my type.” She couldn’t help smiling. “Okay. I hear you.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “I want to.” She let out a long breath. “Let’s table it until this is settled.”

  He bit her gently. “Or until tonight.”

  She closed her eyes. “Or until tonight.”

  “Deal.” He nuzzled her again and released the microphone.

  She cocked her head at him—Stetson, dark shirt stretched over wide shoulders, narrow hips in close-fitting jeans. Definite drool material, and so not the type of man she’d dated since she “grew up.”

  “I hope Foley buys it,” she said.

  “Buys what?”

  “Me hitting the sheets with a western studmuffin.”

  Rand choked. “Studmuffin? Jesus, lady, you—”

  “What if Foley recognizes you as the artist from the party?” she interrupted in a low voice.

  “Then I shaved and cut my hair because you asked me to. But I doubt that he’ll recognize me. He’s too full of himself to really look at other people.”

  “But what if he does?” she insisted.

  “You can’t control all the elements of an undercover op. You just go with the hand you’re dealt.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’m going to nail Foley’s ass to the shooting house wall.”

  She blinked at the banked fury in Rand’s calm voice. “Why? He’s not the one trying to kill me.”

  “No, he’s just the one setting you up for the hit. Nothing to worry about at all. He’s a real sweet guy.”

  She rubbed her temples. “I keep hoping it’s a bad dream.”

  Rand’s smile slid into a downward curve.

  “Well, not all of it was bad,” she said, touching his cheek, kissing him softly.

  He returned the kiss with interest, then broke reluctantly. “Faroe is around here somewhere. He might have Lane with him for cover—weekend dad takes teenager to the mall. They’ll probably work in pretty close, but don’t see them.”

  She nodded.

  “There are several other operators around,” Rand said, “so if somebody grabs you and whispers ‘St. Kilda’ in your ear, do whatever they say.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I laid a hundred on the receptionist and told her I’m asking you to marry me over nachos. As soon as we spot Foley, I’ll signal her and we’ll go to the head of the lunch line. After Foley arrives, be ready to leave the instant I tell you. I don’t want you out in the open one second longer than—” He broke off.

  Faroe was whispering in his ear.

  “Get a table. Foley’s here.”

  47

  Chandler Mall

  Sunday

  11:15 A.M. MST

  Steve Foley was wearing pressed black jeans and a white silk golf shirt. His leather boots had sterling silver toe guards. The wide amber sunglasses he wore were the type favored by trap and pistol shooters. The laptop computer case he carried was made of the same soft black leather as his boots, with the same engraved silver accents.

  White silk wasn’t a good choice for a man wearing a wire. Though loose, the fabric clung to Foley’s gym-hardened muscles…and the dark shadow of the wire he was wearing on top of them.

  “He’s wired for sound,” Rand murmured to his collar as he leaned close to include Kayla in at least part of the conversation.

  “Beautiful,” Faroe said. “Any guesses on the range?”

  “A thousand feet, max. No bulges for a bigger transmitter. He’s carrying a laptop, so I suppose he could be wireless.”

  “We haven’t found a reliable way to make that kind of transmission go beyond a building. He could have a bigger transmitter in his jeans.”

  “No bulges there, for sure.”

  Faroe laughed. “I’ll tell St. Kilda.”

  The hostess showed Foley to the table personally. Her smile said that if he was lacking bulges anywhere, she hadn’t noticed.

  “Don’t you ever take a day off?” Kayla asked.

  Foley looked blank.

  “Your laptop,” Kayla said.

  He smiled tightly. “Money never sleeps.” His smile faded when he looked at the man beside Kayla.

  Rand met Foley’s glance with a total lack of interest.

  Rude bastard, listening to his iPod while on a date, Foley thought. “Where did you find him?”

  “She pulled back the sheet and there I was.” Rand’s smile was all hard teeth.

  Kayla rolled her eyes. “Jerry, this is my boss, Steve Foley. Steve, this is Jerry.”

  Neither man offered to shake hands.

  If Foley asked for a last name, Kayla was going to say she and “Jerry” hadn’t gotten that far.

  Foley slid into the booth opposite the closely pressed couple. Then he winced and shifted slightly.

  Rand almost laughed. Poor bastard. Someone didn’t put the wire on right. It’s jerking every time he moves.

  “What’s up?” Kayla asked, leaning against Rand with the ease of a woman with her lover.

  Rand nuzzled her neck and watched Foley’s leather laptop case. If the banker started to take anything lethal out of it, Rand would be over the table and around Foley’s throat before anyone could blink. That case was wide and deep enough to conceal more than one weapon.

  “Sorry to interrupt your Sunday morning, but I need Kayla for a few minutes. Bank business, you understand. Private.” Foley’s smile was barely civil.

  “I’ll just put in my other earbud,” Rand said, straightening and moving slightly away from Kayla. “Plenty of privacy that way.”

  “I hate to be rude,” Foley said, “but Kayla and I have work to do.”

  “You’re not being rude.” Rand grinned. “Kayla’s been praising you to the skies. Says you’re the world’s smartest banker. I’ve got money to invest. Match made in heaven, right? You just go ahead and conduct your off-hours business while we eat lunch. That way she won’t put in for overtime.”

  Foley stared at the other man.

  Rand stared back.

  The banker realized that short of physically throwing Kayla’s date out of the booth, he wasn’t going to get her alone. A scene was the last thing Foley wanted, but he gave in with little grace.

  “Lunch.” With a grimace, Foley picked up a menu that had more pages than a small weekly.

  “Order for me,” Rand said to Kayla, running
his fingertip over her bottom lip. “You know what I like.”

  She caught the fingertip in her teeth, nipped, licked, and released. “I sure do,” she said in a husky voice.

  Foley’s eyes narrowed.

  “Is Lane old enough to see this?” Faroe’s voice asked in Rand’s ear. “We’re only a few tables away.”

  “Behave, darlin’,” Rand said, “or we’ll never get rid of—um, get through with business and on to better things.”

  Kayla ordered steak and eggs for them.

  Foley ordered a Bloody Mary.

  While the server wrote, Rand looked casually around the restaurant. Faroe and Lane were in place several tables over. They’d been there long enough to have food in front of them. Faroe was drinking coffee with his sandwich while Lane sucked up cola and made his way through a plate of cheeseburgers that were barely bigger than silver dollars. Lane was careful not to look anywhere but at his dad or his food.

  The server left, promising Foley the drink in short order.

  If there were other St. Kilda operators in the restaurant, Rand didn’t recognize them. Nor did he see any of the thugs who’d been gathered around Gabriel in Guadalupe.

  A minute later the Bloody Mary appeared in front of Foley. The restaurant made its profit on the bar. As long as someone was drinking, the food would wait.

  Foley took a swallow, then another. “Kayla, we really should be alone to talk about the account I have in mind.”

  “That dude makes a lousy undercover,” Faroe murmured in Rand’s ear. “You’re supposed to guide the mark, not beat him to death.”

  Kayla managed a look of confused innocence. “I don’t understand. Is this about the Bertone account?”

  “Some aspects of banking involve proprietary information,” Foley snapped. “Our clients expect confidentiality. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.”

  “Then you’re here about the Bertone account?” Kayla repeated.

  “Yes,” Foley said through his teeth.

  “Good.” Her fingers drummed on the table. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m not happy about the Bertones. Come Monday, I’m thinking about going to Mal Townsend and asking for reassignment.”

  Foley looked like someone had handed him a foot-long worm. “What are you talking about? Mal isn’t your boss. I am!”

  “And Mal is your boss,” Kayla said. “You’ve turned down my requests for reassignment for months. I don’t have any choice but to go above you.”

  Foley straightened in the booth. The Bloody Mary glass met the table’s polished surface hard enough to slosh a few drops down the side. “You’d go against my direct order?”

  “I said I was thinking about it.” She frowned and rubbed her eyes. “I’m spooked by this Bertone situation, and you’re not giving me much help.”

  “What the hell is she doing?” Faroe asked.

  Rand scratched his shirt. Hard. It was Kayla’s show. He yawned and made a show of putting in the second earbud. Soon he was jiving to an imaginary beat.

  Foley glared at Rand. “I really don’t want to discuss bank business in front of a total stranger.”

  Rand had closed his eyes and was humming a tune. Badly. He could still hear the conversation but gave no sign of it.

  “Ignore him,” Kayla said, shrugging. “Jerry’s high-octane in the sheets, but beyond that he’s no lightbulb.”

  Four tables away Faroe almost choked on his coffee.

  “Trust me,” she said to Foley. “It’s not like we’re giving Bertone’s private banking information to the comptroller of the currency.” Then her eyes widened and she looked at her boss like she’d never seen him before.

  “Kayla—” Foley began loudly.

  “That explains a lot,” she said over him. “We’re avoiding the normal reporting requirements for large transactions by handling them through a correspondent banking account. Right?”

  Rand began snapping his fingers lightly, shoulders swaying to an imaginary beat, hips hitching in time. He opened his eyes long enough to give Kayla a come-and-get-it leer.

  Foley’s hands fisted. He glared at her through his amber shooter’s glasses. His expression said he would love to see her over the sight of a gun. And her boyfriend right after her.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” Foley said.

  “I know that my name is on the bottom line as the one responsible for the Bertone account, that you told me to set it up, and that nowhere are you on record as being responsible for anything to do with Bertone’s money.”

  “Go, sistah!” Faroe said in Rand’s ear.

  “Oh, yeah, babe,” Rand sang huskily. “Lay it down on me.”

  She kicked him under the table.

  He didn’t open his eyes.

  “I don’t have anything to do with Bertone’s money,” Foley said.

  “Bullshit,” Kayla said sweetly. “I suppose you didn’t recommend a real estate agent to me when I wanted to sell my ranch.”

  “Well, I, uh, yeah,” he said, surprised by the change of subject. “I was just trying to help.”

  “Who? Thanks to the agent you sent me to, my ranch was instantly sold at a price well above market value to—surprise!—Andre Bertone.” Kayla’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was sarcastic enough to curdle milk.

  “Uh…” Foley drank more Bloody Mary. It didn’t inspire anything but another drink. He signaled the server.

  “So now I look like a dirty banker,” Kayla said. “You gave me full responsibility for the Bertone account to set me up. You’ve been planning this for months.”

  Rand kept his eyes closed. He whisper-sang words to an old blues tune. Hip-hitches kept time.

  “Will you tell that idiot to stop twitching?” Foley snarled.

  “As soon as you cut me in on a share of the profits from Bertone’s correspondent account.”

  Foley blinked. “A share?”

  “As in money. Real money. Half of what you’re getting.”

  “Are you crazy? You can’t—” Foley broke off as the server returned with another Bloody Mary. He took a steadying swallow. “You can’t prove any of this.”

  She smiled slowly. “Want me to try?”

  Foley wondered how the hell the conversation had gotten out of control. “Look, you misunderstand.”

  “That was yesterday. Today I’m a lot smarter. Half of what you’re getting.”

  Foley looked at the table. “Listen, babe, you really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then I’m out of time for you,” Kayla said, tucking the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “Places to go, things to do, and most of all, people to talk to.”

  She put her hand around Rand’s wrist and tugged.

  “Huh?” he said.

  She lifted out one earbud and leaned in close. “We’re gone.”

  “Wait!” Foley said.

  “For what?” Kayla asked.

  “Look, I know how hard you’ve been working,” Foley began. “You’re overdue for a raise. Twenty thousand a year, okay?”

  “Twenty a year? That’s chump change,” she said.

  But she stopped pushing Rand out of the booth.

  He stuffed the second earbud back into place and closed his eyes, mostly because he was afraid to look in Faroe’s direction. Both of them would have fallen out of their chairs laughing.

  “She’s a natural,” Faroe said between snickers.

  “You’re making a lot more than twenty thou a year under the table,” Kayla said to Foley.

  “I didn’t say anything about money under the table, babe. I never said a word about that.”

  “I see. I threaten to talk out of school and you decide I’ve earned a raise. Yeah, that’ll fly, babe.”

  Foley’s lips moved, but nothing came out.

  “You’re booking a fat, fat profit on Bertone’s money coming through the bank,” Kayla said. “It will look sweet on your year-end evaluation, so good that your bosses won’t go looking for unhappy lumps u
nder the know-your-client carpet. Bet you get performance bonuses. Big ones. You’re a director, after all.”

  Foley took another swallow of his peppery drink, coughed, and cleared his throat.

  Rand sang fragments of “Devils and Dust.” Springsteen’s driving rhythms were echoed in Rand’s hips.

  “So I want the same percentage of profit from Bertone’s account that you get in bonuses,” Kayla said. “Somewhere around two million.”

  Foley removed his glasses, revealing the red eyes of a man who hadn’t slept well. He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked around as if expecting someone. “That’s impossible,” he said finally. “I can’t justify a raise like that.”

  “Make me a vice president, with performance bonuses back-dated to a month ago,” Kayla said. “Of course, you’ll have to clean up that lousy personnel evaluation you gave me two months ago, but I’m sure you’re up to it.”

  Rand forgot the words and just kept humming.

  “Hoo-yah,” Faroe said. “She’s a pistol!”

  Foley looked like he wanted to bang his head against the booth. “All right. It’s a deal.”

  “What is?” Kayla insisted.

  “You’ll be a VP and report directly to me. You’ll have your choice of offices—”

  “Yippee skip,” she said.

  He ignored her. “Plus the raise.”

  “Fifty thousand, minimum,” Kayla said.

  “But—” Foley throttled back his temper. The hell with it. The bitch won’t live to collect a cent. “Of course.”

  “I don’t expect to get paid the same performance bonus that a director gets,” she said reasonably, “but be smart and don’t chisel me.”

  “Don’t worry,” Foley said through his teeth. “You’ll get everything you deserve.”

  48

  Chandler Mall

  Sunday

  11:28 A.M. MST

  Andre Bertone’s hands were locked around the wheel of his parked car hard enough to leave dents. They’d been that way since he’d seen Kayla walk into the Cheesecake Factory with a man who looked like a cowboy and moved like a bodyguard.

  The headphones he wore kept bringing him news that went from bad to worse. Part of Bertone admired Kayla’s brass.