Innocent as Sin sk-3

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “I want you.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Well, that’s blunt.”

  “You wanted honesty. You got it.” Half the truth, anyway. The rest isn’t mine to tell.

  She stepped aside. “Be careful what you ask for, is that it?”

  “Pretty much.” He tossed the box in back and started to get in the driver’s seat.

  “McCree, this is my car. It says so down at the DMV.”

  “Your point?”

  “I drive.”

  “Have you been trained in high-speed evasion?”

  She stared at him, then turned and got into the passenger side. The door slammed behind her. Hard.

  “The thing about choices,” Rand said as he drove out of the ranch yard, “is that they’re never as clear as they seem when you make them.”

  It didn’t take Kayla long to get to the bottom line. “What do you know that I should and don’t?”

  “Nobody’s motives are pure. Nobody’s.”

  “Including you?”

  “Yes.”

  “St. Kilda Consulting?” Kayla pressed.

  “It’s a human organization made up of people whose motives aren’t one-hundred-percent angelic.”

  “Joe Faroe?”

  “He’s nobody’s angel.”

  “Like Bertone,” Kayla said.

  “No. Faroe is a hard son of a bitch, but he’s honorable. Bertone is slime on cesspool walls.”

  “What if I don’t want to go to Royal Palms? Do I have a choice?”

  “You have the same choice you had in the garden before I showed up.”

  “Fight and die.” She made a low sound. “You really know how to sweet-talk a girl.”

  “You’re a woman.”

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t like sweet talk,” she retorted.

  “Every time I call you beautiful, or touch you, you stiffen up like I burned you.”

  She shrugged. “You did.”

  In the dashboard lights, Rand’s expression shifted. “Talk about blunt.”

  “Being hunted by a kidnapper does that to me.”

  “Frees your inner bitch?”

  “That, too,” Kayla said, smiling. “But mostly it reminds me that my next breath is a gift, not a guarantee.”

  Rand’s mouth thinned as he thought of Reed. “Amen. Amazing how knowing, really knowing, the fragility of life makes choices easier. ‘If I don’t do this, will I go to my grave regretting it?’ is the only question that matters.”

  The first thing Kayla thought was how she would feel if she didn’t pursue the heat she felt between herself and Rand.

  It’s been too long since a man made me curious, edgy, aware of every difference between male and female.

  Girl, your timing sucks.

  “So you count regrets in terms of things you haven’t done,” she said.

  “Always.”

  “Is that why you work for St. Kilda instead of painting fulltime?”

  “My time at St. Kilda could be real short,” was all Rand said.

  “Why do I get the feeling that you aren’t entirely happy working for St. Kilda?”

  “Because I’m not.” His voice didn’t encourage more questions.

  She asked anyway. “Then why are you with them?”

  “They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “They threatened you?” she asked, startled.

  Rand’s fingers tightened around the wheel as the SUV sped through the darkness, pushing a cone of light ahead. A desert night and sweeping light that Reed would never see.

  “My reasons for being with St. Kilda are personal, private, and have no bearing on your decision,” he said.

  “Which decision?”

  “To go or not to go to Royal Palms,” he said sardonically.

  “Whither thou goest,” she said, her tone equally biting.

  He gave a crack of laughter. Then he realized how long it had been since he had laughed. “I like you, Kayla Shaw.”

  “Same back, Rand McCree. Well, most of the time.”

  He was tempted to ask about the rest of the time, but he didn’t. “Liking you wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “Despite its lack of perfection, St. Kilda Consulting is a necessary organization in today’s world of transnational crime, failed and failing states, feral cities, and the just plain savage places in between. All the places where duly appointed and lawful governments are just short of useless, and corrupt governments thrive.”

  She turned and looked at him. “Is that an answer or an evasion?”

  “Yes. If you go to Royal Palms, and if Grace and Joe like what they see of you, they’ll want you to sign up with St. Kilda Consulting. If you don’t feel that grateful, you can leave.”

  “And if I don’t go with St. Kilda, I get to choose between Bertone and the feds.” Or trust my boss, Steve Foley, to bail me out. She grimaced. Not in this lifetime. “All in all, I’d rather see what St. Kilda has to offer. Assuming that they’ll let me walk away if I don’t like what I see?”

  “No handcuffs or duct tape, guaranteed,” Rand said. “All they’ll ask is that you don’t mention anything about St. Kilda to Bertone or to your bank.”

  “I won’t. What about the feds?”

  “Let’s just hope the question never comes up.”

  “St. Kilda is publicity-shy?” Kayla asked.

  “That, too. Mostly it’s the fact that we work where U.S. agencies can’t or won’t work. All the shades of gray that don’t fit into ten-second sound bites and political slogans. We’ve made friends. We’ve made enemies. Working for St. Kilda carries baggage. Some of it is dangerous. Most of it is just irritating.”

  When he looked at Kayla to see how she was taking his words, she surprised him.

  She smiled.

  “You make St. Kilda Consulting sound like hummingbirds,” she said, “at war with one another and the rest of the world.”

  “Close enough,” Rand said, and he smiled in return.

  “What would you do if you were me?”

  “Run like hell for the nearest exit.”

  The light from the dashboard made his eyes look hard, almost silver.

  “Interesting,” Kayla said. “Why haven’t you?”

  “My motives have no bearing on your decision, remember?”

  “Whew. Talk about honest.” Her voice said brutally honest.

  Silence grew.

  Rand hissed a word under his breath. “Look, I can’t make the decision for you. You have to make it because you’re the one who has to live with the results.”

  “Like you.”

  “Just like me. Your own devils, your own hell.” Chosen very carefully by you.

  “What about angels and heaven?” she asked.

  “Hasn’t come up on my radar.”

  “Never?”

  “I only knew it when it was gone.”

  Too late.

  29

  Phoenix

  Saturday

  9:10 P.M. MST

  Is this car registered in your name?” Rand asked.

  Kayla blinked. It had been a long time since he’d spoken.

  “Yes.”

  There was silence again while he eased the Explorer into traffic on southbound Interstate 17, heading deep into the Phoenix metro area. Without warning he cut across lanes, accelerated, cut across more lanes, slowed down, and watched the mirrors.

  Nobody had speeded, slowed, changed lanes, or done anything to tickle his suspicions.

  “Then we’ll have to get rid of it,” Rand said.

  She stared at him. “My car? I can’t afford another one.”

  “You don’t have to. But from here on out, you’ve dropped off the scope of your everyday life. You won’t go to your new apartment. You won’t go to the ranch. You won’t drive your car. You won’t talk on your cell phone.”

  “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  Silence.

  A lot of it.

 
; “You aren’t kidding.” She sighed. “Is all this really necessary?”

  “Bertone wants you. You want him to get you?”

  She shuddered.

  “That’s what I thought,” Rand said. “Remember the handcuffs. It will help you stay focused.”

  “You can be a cold bastard,” she said.

  “It can be a cold world.”

  “I didn’t mean that as a slam,” she said. “It just-surprised me. Then I remember your painting and know I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done. Were you always that way?”

  “No.”

  Rand turned off the freeway onto Scottsdale Road and headed south on Resort Row. Four minutes later, he drove through the impressive entrance of the Royal Palms.

  “St. Kilda Consulting must have a lot of money,” Kayla said.

  He didn’t answer.

  A few minutes later he drove into a small parking area reserved for a cluster of three resort bungalows. A man stepped out of the shadows. He carried a flashlight big enough to light up the Explorer’s interior. After a look in the cargo area, he snapped off the light and walked over to open Kayla’s door.

  “Good evening,” he said. “They’re waiting for you in Bungalow One.”

  He was polite, crisp, and terribly British.

  Rand got out and pitched the keys to the guard. “Dump this at one of Scottsdale Air Park’s long-term lots. I want anybody interested in Kayla to think she could have jumped a private jet and disappeared.”

  “Right, Mac,” the guard replied. “I’ll bring the ticket to you, Miss Shaw. You can pick the car up when it’s safe.”

  “Thanks.” She looked at Rand. “When will it be safe?”

  When Bertone’s dead.

  But all Rand said was, “You’ll know.”

  He guided her down the soft, sandy path toward the lighted bungalow, then up the short stairway that led across the central patio to the first bungalow’s door. Rand raised his hand to knock, then stopped.

  “Last chance,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. “There’s a Gulfstream executive jet at Scottsdale Air Park. You could be in Cabo San Lucas in two hours. You’d be safe.”

  “Forever?” she asked.

  “Nobody’s safe forever. But you would be safe until we get a choke hold on Bertone.”

  Kayla took a deep breath and stared off into the night. Beyond the soft lights from the bungalows, she could just make out the rolling landforms of a green, manicured golf course that ran out to the edge of the desert. Calm, peaceful, normal in the faint glow of city lights and starlight. She shook her head.

  “What does that mean?” Rand asked.

  “It looks so ordinary out there.”

  “Death is damned ordinary.”

  She made a sound that might have been laughter. “You’re one of a kind, McCree. A real sweet-talking man. You’re just trying to make this sound irresistible to me, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged. “If it all goes from sugar to shit, I don’t want you standing there, watching me with a surprised look on your face.”

  Like Reed, dying.

  “Lead on, McCree,” Kayla said.

  30

  Royal Palms

  Saturday

  9:15 P.M. MST

  The last thing Kayla expected to find in the bungalow was a man and a pregnant woman quizzing a good-looking teenage boy about the Krebs cycle. She gave Rand a look.

  He gave it back.

  “Right down the rabbit hole,” she said under her breath.

  “You expected sweaty, muscular men with real short hair cleaning guns and sharpening knives?” he asked dryly. “The mean-looking dude is Joe Faroe. The beautiful rapier-”

  Grace snorted. “I’m pregnant, McCree.”

  “-mind is Grace Faroe,” Rand said without missing a beat. “The lanky bottomless pit with computer attachments is Lane, their son. Meet Kayla Shaw, the banker Andre Bertone tried to kidnap.”

  “That’s my cue,” Lane said, coming to his feet. “Pleased to meet you and I’m gone.”

  “Go online and get a better explanation of the Krebs cycle,” Faroe said to Lane’s retreating back. “The textbook they gave you is lame.”

  Lane waved and vanished through a bedroom door.

  Grace smiled and held out her hand to Kayla. “Ignore Joe. He’s a little new to the teaching game. He thinks glucose metabolism is something exotic and inscrutable.”

  “OIL RIG,” Kayla answered.

  Grace blinked.

  “Oxidation Is Loss, Reduction Is Gain,” Kayla explained. “There’s more, but that’s all I remember from my advanced-placement biology class.”

  “Did you hear that, Lane?” Faroe asked the bedroom door.

  “OIL RIG,” came faintly from behind the door, followed by train-wreck music.

  Faroe grinned.

  Grace shook her head. “Sorry, we’re home-schooling the heathen.”

  “Beats having him kidnapped again,” Faroe said. “Coffee? Wine? Beer? Cheese and crackers? Peanut butter?”

  “Bring it on,” Rand said. “The canapés wore off hours ago.” He looked at Kayla. “What about you?”

  “Lane was kidnapped?” Kayla asked, shocked.

  “We got him back,” Faroe said. His voice said it hadn’t been easy.

  “A very powerful Mexican drug lord was killed in the process,” Grace said. “Joe is still at considerable risk.”

  “So are you,” Faroe said from the kitchen area. “So is Lane. I wish Mary the Markswoman had had a chance to drop that cabrón’s nephew.”

  Grace gave her husband a slicing, sideways look. “I didn’t hear that.”

  “Hear what?” Faroe asked blandly.

  Kayla glanced at Rand. “Even paranoids have real enemies, right?”

  “Nonparanoids, too. They’re just too dumb to know it.”

  “I don’t know how much McCree has told you about St. Kilda Consulting,” Grace began, giving Rand a hard look for saying anything at all without permission.

  “Enough that I know you aren’t owned by politicians,” Kayla said. “And don’t want to be.”

  Grace gave Kayla a considering look. “You’re not as innocent as you look.”

  “I might have been two days ago.” Kayla shrugged. “Even sin was innocent once. The rest is timing and opportunity.”

  Faroe’s surprisingly warm laughter rolled out of the kitchen area. “Innocent as sin, huh? McCree, you brought us a keeper.”

  Rand smiled and touched Kayla’s dark hair so lightly she wondered if she’d felt it at all. “She grows on you.”

  “So now I’m fungus,” Kayla said. “McCree, you really need to kiss the Blarney stone. Twice.”

  Faroe brought out plates of crackers, cold cuts, cheeses, and fruit from a high-end deli. “Start on this. I’ll bring some drinks.”

  “I’ll get them,” Grace said.

  “Amada,” Faroe said, “sit down. You’re on your feet too much.”

  “It’s a miracle I got through the first pregnancy without you,” Grace said under her breath. But she sat down, sighed with pleasure, and put her feet up on the coffee table.

  “Where’s the nondisclosure agreement, Judge?” Rand asked. “Or don’t you have it ready?”

  “It’s ready,” Grace said. “Is she?”

  They looked at Kayla.

  “I’ll know after I’ve read it,” she said. “Or do you expect me to sign something blind?”

  “St. Kilda wouldn’t want to work with anyone stupid enough to sign before reading,” Grace said.

  She picked a sheet of paper from the end table. Rand took the paper before she could give it to Kayla. He read it quickly, nodded, and handed it to Kayla.

  “This is legal lite,” Grace explained, “but it will give protection to you and St. Kilda Consulting if the feds come calling.”

  Kayla read the document quickly.

  I, Kayla Shaw, do agree to discuss certain matters involving mysel
f and Andre Bertone, as well as other matters arising from an investigation by St. Kilda Consulting. I do so freely and without duress.

  I hereby promise not to disclose the nature of these discussions with subject Bertone or with any other persons not involved in St. Kilda Consulting’s investigation. I promise not to disclose St. Kilda Consulting’s proprietary information to any person not approved by one of the principals of the organization, namely James Steele, Joe Faroe, or Grace Silva Faroe.

  In return, St. Kilda Consulting and its representatives agree not to disclose my cooperation with them. Under terms of this agreement, I accept the payment of one United States silver dollar and other valuable considerations.

  Like saving my life? Kayla thought.

  There was a signature line across the bottom with her name and the date typed beneath.

  Faroe handed her a pen and waited while she signed. Then he gave her the silver dollar.

  The coin felt heavy in Kayla’s hand, solid, real. She worked with money all the time, but it didn’t have substance. Not like this. With an odd smile, she flipped the silver dollar into the air, caught it, and slapped it down on the back of her hand.

  Heads.

  Whatever that meant.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Tell us about your relationship with Andre Bertone,” Grace said.

  31

  Outside Phoenix

  Saturday

  9:25 P.M. MST

  B LA-BLAM!

  Two shots rang out almost as one.

  A second later, BLA-BLAM again, the same deadly double-tap, a heavy auto-loading pistol, then again and, after a slightly longer interval, again.

  Steve Foley stood in a shooting stance, firing at four silhouette targets that were suspended from clips on wires at ranges from seven to twenty meters. The sharp reports of his gun were muffled. The Arizona Territorial Gun Club’s indoor shooting range had earth-buffered concrete block walls that swallowed up echoes and fed back dead air. The clearest sound was the hard metallic clicks as the shooter ejected the magazine and cleared the breech of his weapon.

  Even though the club was on the edge of one of America’s fastest-growing metro areas, no whisper of gunfire disturbed civilians beyond the building.