Innocent as Sin sk-3

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Two minutes to backup.”

  When Rand spotted the thin figure against a bank of pale flowers, he knew Kayla didn’t have two minutes. He shucked his backpack, reached in, and pulled out a wicked folding knife. He opened it with a flick of his thumb. His other hand held a big, dark flashlight.

  “One bogey,” he murmured. “I’m going in.”

  “Wait for backup.”

  Rand ignored his boss and shouted, “Kayla, stay hidden!”

  Kayla heard Rand, but couldn’t see him. All she could see was the thin man coming closer to her with each step. She would rather have run, but she was cornered. Grimly she held on to her little knife and waited. She’d only get one swipe at the man. She wanted it to count.

  Light speared out, pinning the thin man’s face in its blinding beam. He flinched and covered his eyes. He was wearing thin black leather gloves. Metal flashed in his hand.

  A knife, not a gun.

  Kayla didn’t wait for a better chance. She sprang out of cover and ran in the direction Rand’s voice had come from.

  Rand turned off the light, opened his eyes, and went down the pathway with the gliding strides of a hunter.

  The thin man went into a knife fighter’s crouch. Rand kept on coming. The man saw the gleam of metal in Rand’s hand, the length of his opponent’s arms, and decided to fight another day. He spun and ran.

  Rand took off after him. Before he could gain any ground, the thin man scrambled up the vines, went over the fence, and vanished. Rand thought about going after him, but didn’t want to leave Kayla alone. No doubt Bertone had more than one killer on the payroll.

  The screaming feedback from the speakers went silent.

  “Jimmy killed the speakers. What’s your status?”

  “One bogey over the fence, west side of garden. Can Jimmy get him?”

  “He’s on the east, but he’ll try. How’s Kayla?”

  Rand switched on the flashlight and ran it over Kayla. Pale, trembling a little, breathing hard. “No blood.” Then he smiled slightly. “Nice knife, honey. Just big enough to get the job done. You can put it away now.”

  Kayla looked at the knife in his hand.

  He folded it with a swift motion and put it in his pocket. “See? Totally harmless.”

  She gave him a look of disbelief, but she folded her knife.

  And waited.

  “Jimmy says the bogey is gone. Poof.”

  “Probably went home to Poppa,” Rand said.

  Kayla started to say something, realized he wasn’t talking to her, and shut up.

  “What?” Faroe asked.

  “He’s Bertone’s. I saw the pass-off when Bertone sent him after Kayla.”

  “What a sweet cluster this has become.”

  “Ya think?”

  The lights in the garden came on again.

  “It’s Hamm,” a voice called out. “I’m coming in.”

  Kayla flinched and opened her knife again.

  “Easy,” Rand said, grabbing her wrist. “Hamm is on the side of the angels.”

  “He works for Bertone.”

  She yanked back suddenly, trying to free her wrist. Rand didn’t let go. Kayla went still, waiting for a chance to run.

  Again.

  24

  Castillo del Cielo

  Saturday

  7:09 P.M. MST

  Move slow,” Rand said clearly. “Kayla’s still on edge. She thinks you’re one of the bad guys. But don’t get all teary about it. She doesn’t trust me either, and I just saved her life.” He looked at her, smiled slightly. “You can say ‘Thank you.’ Really, I won’t faint.”

  Kayla slanted him a glance that told him how not funny he was.

  “We’re on the same side,” Rand said. “What other proof do you need?”

  She looked at his hand clamped around her wrist. “I don’t trust either of you. I’m not sure I trust anybody in this.”

  “Finally, she understands,” Rand said. “Too late, but hey, better late than dead, right?”

  His eyes were as hard as his voice, as bitter as his words. Instantly her adrenaline flashed into anger.

  “How do I know the skinny dude wasn’t after you?” she shot back. “He didn’t say a word, didn’t call out to me, nothing. Hell, he might have just been smelling the flowers.”

  “With a seven-inch blade in his hand?” Rand made a disgusted sound. “I take back what I said about you understanding.”

  Hamm trotted up, dogged by motion sensor lights. “You okay, babe?” he asked Kayla.

  “I’m not a babe,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Adrenaline,” Rand said to Hamm. “Never can tell how it will hit someone. Right now, Kayla is channeling her inner bitch.”

  “Quit yapping and get her the hell out of that garden trap,” Faroe said impatiently.

  He must have said the same to Hamm, because the guard touched his ear and looked hard at Rand. “The Man says to get moving. She’s not safe here anymore.”

  Kayla looked from Rand’s earpiece to Hamm’s. His wasn’t an iPod, but apparently they were talking to the same person. The Man, whoever that was.

  She was terrified that it was Bertone.

  “Let’s go,” Rand said.

  “I’m not going anyplace, not with you and not with him,” Kayla said. “For all I know it’s Bertone whispering in your ear.”

  Rand pulled out his earpiece and screwed it into Kayla’s ear. “Say hello, Joe. The lady thinks you’re Bertone.”

  “Christ Jesus, I should have left you painting flowers in the rain,” Faroe snarled. “Now get your ass out of there.”

  Kayla blinked. “He’s not a happy camper.”

  “That’s our Joe,” Rand said, taking back the earpiece.

  “You’re burning a lot of bridges, McCree. If she’s Bertone’s stalking horse, I’ll kill you myself.”

  “Oh, yeah, talk dirty to me, you know it turns me on,” Rand said. Then, to Kayla, “Have you ever seen our skinny pal before?”

  “No.”

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him again? As in a mug shot?”

  “Are you a cop?” Kayla asked, startled.

  “No. Would you?”

  “You’re the one who jacklighted him,” she said.

  “I kept my eyes closed so I wouldn’t lose night vision.”

  “Yes, I’d recognize him.” She shivered and stopped trying to free herself from Rand’s grasp. “I think he dropped something before he climbed the wall.”

  “He was carrying a small duffel when I saw him head for the garden,” Rand said. “He didn’t have it when he went over the top.”

  Hamm clicked on a flashlight and ran its beam along the base of the west wall. The spear of light picked out a dark, shapeless blob.

  “Get it,” Rand said to Hamm. Then, to Kayla, “What did the guy look like?”

  “He was dark, mestizo,” Kayla said, “not much taller than me, really thin but ropy, too, like he’d put on all the muscle he could. I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Bertone has. He sent him after you.”

  “There’s no reason for him to,” Kayla said bitterly. “He’s the blackmailer, not me.”

  Hamm trotted up with the small bag. “You’re gonna love this.”

  He tossed the bag to Rand, who caught it without letting go of Kayla. “What is it?”

  “A handy-dandy kidnap kit,” Hamm said. He looked at Kayla and shook his head. “You were lucky, babe.”

  “Christ. Get her out of there NOW,” Faroe snarled. “Bertone has a lot of thugs working for him.”

  Rand looked at his hand on Kayla’s wrist. “You going to run if I let go, ma petite?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Been there. Not worth a rerun.”

  Rand waited.

  Kayla looked at him for a long moment. Nothing about him made her nerves curdle the way they did when Bertone was near. And Rand had indeed been ready, willing, and frighteningly able to fight f
or her.

  Some artist.

  Hey, you wanted a third option, Kayla told herself bitterly. Looks like Rand is it.

  Oh, lucky, lucky me.

  “I won’t run,” she said. For now.

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  Rand dropped her wrist and started walking quickly toward the wooden gate. As he walked, he rummaged in the duffel. His hand reappeared holding a small black pistol with a silencer screwed on, ready to go.

  “Sweet.” Rand smiled rather fiercely. “Bet it’s stone-cold, too. Thanks, Bertone. I’ll put your gift to good use.” He shoved it in his waistband at the small of his back, right next to the taped area that was chewing on him.

  “Was that a silencer?” Kayla asked, hurrying after Rand.

  “Sure was. Skinny is quite the dude. He came ready to party. Duct tape, handcuffs, a black cloth people sack.”

  “He wanted to kidnap you,” Hamm said matter-of-factly. “Sack you up and take off.”

  “How can you be sure?” Kayla asked, dazed.

  “If he’d wanted to kill you,” Rand said, touching the new gun at his back, “you’d be dead. A professional gun trumps an amateur knife every time.”

  She stared at him as he held the gate open for her, then looked away and slowly shook her head. “This is so not happening. Not to me. I backpacked through guerrilla territories and dope smugglers and pythons and never once was in real danger. Now I’m a banker and I’m-” Her voice broke and she shook her head again.

  Rand tossed the bag to Hamm. “Give this to the tech guys. They won’t find any prints because he was wearing gloves, but we might as well do it by the numbers.”

  “Got it.”

  “Joe,” Rand said to his collar, “I’m either staying with her or bringing her in. Which is it?”

  “Bloody hell. Bring her in. If she goes sideways on us-”

  “Yeah, yeah, my ass is potato salad. Just remember who sweet-talked me into coming back.”

  “If I find the bastard, I’ll kill him.”

  Rand laughed, surprising himself. “Yesterday I would have helped you.”

  “But not today?”

  Rand found himself looking at Kayla. “Not today.” The same fingers that had handled the deadly gun tipped her chin gently up toward him. “I can’t explain here. No time and no place to hide. Let me take you to a place where there’s time and safety.”

  She just stared at him.

  “I promise I won’t lie to you, ever,” Rand said. “Ask me anything you want. If I can’t answer, I’ll tell you why. In return, you’ll be honest with me. Deal?”

  She was silent, then, “You are an artist, right? You didn’t just make that part up?”

  He smiled slightly. “You saw me paint. You have one of my paintings.”

  “I don’t trust what I’ve seen.” Her voice was weary and wary. Then she looked at him again, trying to read his eyes. “Who are you working for?”

  “St. Kilda Consulting.”

  “Shit Marie,” Hamm said, shaking his head. “When you take a burn, you take a big one. Faroe’s going to go right through the earphones and give you a Colombian necktie.”

  Rand ignored him, pulled the camera out of his backpack, and gave it to Hamm. The memory stick went with it. “Don’t lose this.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “Anything else?” Rand asked Kayla.

  “I have to go back to my ranch for a few things. Will you let me?”

  “If I go with you.”

  “Son of a bitch! You bring her right to the motel.”

  “But it will be dangerous,” Rand said calmly. “Your ranch is the second place they’ll look for you.”

  “What’s the first?”

  “The apartment you just rented and haven’t had time to really move into.”

  Kayla digested the fact that he knew a lot more about her than he should. “I’ll be quick at the ranch. Take a back road.”

  “Don’t even-”

  “Shut up, Joe,” Rand said. “It’s not that big a risk.”

  “The hell-”

  Rand talked over Faroe. “It will take Bertone time to reorganize. Besides, you wouldn’t want her little babies to starve, would you?”

  “Her what?”

  Rand didn’t answer.

  25

  Castillo del Cielo

  Saturday

  7:25 P.M. MST

  Not many people could make Gabriel Navarro uneasy, but Andre Bertone did. It wasn’t just Bertone’s burly body, his height, his wealth, that made Gabriel wary. It was a killer’s knowledge that he was in the presence of a better killer.

  And Gabriel had pissed that better killer off.

  Elena’s laughter wasn’t helping. “Oh, my. Tell me again how a little mouse of a banker defeated one of the best-”

  “Enough.” Bertone cut across his wife’s amusement. “Who came to Kayla’s aid?”

  Gabriel shrugged and stubbed out his cigarette in a crystal ashtray. Then he crossed his legs and looked at Bertone. “Tall dude. Moved good. Like a fighter, you know?”

  Elena snickered and said mockingly, “But of course. We have so many warriors in Pleasure Valley.”

  “What did he look like?” Bertone asked.

  “I told you. Tall.”

  “Mexican, white, black, mestizo?” Bertone asked impatiently. “Young, old?”

  “Like I said. The dude blew out my eyes with his flashlight. Didn’t see shit ’cept for a big knife. Moved like he could use it. You said no killing, so I booked.”

  Bertone said something in Russian and lit his cigar.

  Elena sighed and opened the French doors to air out the smoke. With every step her sandals flashed wealth and impatience.

  Gabriel watched her without seeming to. If she’d been anyone else’s woman, he would have tried to put his hands on her.

  But she was Bertone’s.

  “You’re sure he called out Kayla’s name?” Bertone asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Find her,” Bertone said.

  Gabriel stood up. “Catch or kill?”

  Bertone’s eyes narrowed. The intelligence and instincts that had gotten him from the frozen gutters of Siberia to Arizona’s Pleasure Valley were twitching. Right now, Kayla knew more about who had saved her than he did.

  Knowledge was a weapon.

  “Catch,” Bertone said curtly.

  He could always kill her later.

  26

  Beyond Phoenix

  Saturday

  8:04 P.M. MST

  Slow down,” Kayla said to Rand.

  He looked sideways at her. After she’d gotten in the car and given him directions to Dry Valley, she hadn’t said a word.

  “I thought you were asleep,” he said.

  “Just thinking.” Trying to get used to the impossible. Failing. Trying again. And again. “There’s a deep dip up ahead, a desert wash that runs wall-to-wall in the monsoons. If you don’t slow down, you’ll-”

  The suspension on the SUV bottomed out as Rand crested a little rise and dropped into the arroyo she was describing.

  Kayla grabbed the overhead handrail and grunted at the impact, then again when the vehicle crested the rise on the far side. She felt weightless in the second before the body of the car slammed down again.

  “About that dip,” Kayla said through her teeth. “There are others. If you don’t listen to me, what’s the point of having me along?”

  Rand lifted his foot, dropped back to a more reasonable speed, and smiled slightly. “Still channeling your inner bitch?”

  “Listen, macho man. I don’t do any better with the ‘You Tarzan, me Jane’ bullshit than I do with the toe-licking lapdog. And I figured out real quick in the garden that the lapdog was an act.”

  “What about Tarzan?”

  “I’ll get back to you on that.”

  “When?” Rand asked.

  “When I’m damn good and ready.”

  He gave her another sideways
glance. She was stiff, clutching the handrail with one hand and bracing herself on the console with the other.

  “Still scared?” he asked gently.

  Her mouth flattened as she stared at the night racing by on either side of the headlights. “I don’t like handcuffs. They freaked me out more than the silencer on the gun did.”

  “Rather be shot than bound, huh? Me too.”

  She blew a little breath out of her nose. “Listen, Tarzan. A woman living alone in this world is considered fair game. Smart women know it. Dumb women end up handcuffed one way or another.”

  “My name is Rand,” he said patiently. “You can call me McCree if Rand is too friendly for you. Unless you want to be called Jane?”

  She almost smiled. “Okay, McCree.”

  “As for being fair game, everybody in the world is fair game for a guy like Bertone.”

  “So you do know him,” she said.

  Gunfire stitching through the helo.

  Reed bleeding, sighing.

  Dying.

  “We’d never met face-to-face until tonight, but yeah, I know a lot about him.”

  “And me.”

  “And you,” Rand agreed. “You can read my dossier if you like.”

  She blinked. “Will it tell me why you wanted to slit Bertone’s throat?”

  “I’d better buff my acting skills. I didn’t think I gave myself away.”

  “Only once, the last time he turned his back on you.”

  Silence filled the car.

  Kayla waited.

  “Yes, I know Bertone well enough to want him dead,” Rand said. “But that makes me one of about a million potential assassins.”

  “Why? Because he’s rich?”

  “Because he’s evil.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “Interesting choice of words.”

  “It’s the twenty-first century,” Rand said calmly, steering the SUV through another steep dip. “People are free to talk about evil rather than bad childhoods, which most people have without turning into murderers. The Siberian started poor, but so do billions of people. They don’t end up like him.”

  “Siberian? Bertone? He’s Russian?”

  Rand nodded.

  “That explains it,” she said.