Elizabeth Lowell - Innocent as Sin

Like Reed, dying.

“Lead on, McCree,” Kayla said.

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 myself 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.

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.

Without moving from behind Foley, Andre Bertone inspected the two-shot patterns in the targets.

“Very nice,” Bertone said.

“I got a little loose on the long shots.” No longer shooting, Foley held his specially balanced and ported Model 1911A Colt pistol with the muzzle in the air. “It’s amazing how much a muzzle can wobble in the span between two bullets.”

“It wobbles even more if the target has the chance to shoot back,” Bertone said. “Or even if the target is merely alive. You’ve never fired at a living human, have you?”

“That’s why I burn two hundred rounds a week. If it all becomes automatic, there’s less chance of clutching when it counts.”

Foley checked the chamber of the pistol in his hand to make sure it was clear before he closed the slide. The smooth metallic action snapped shut with authority. He put the gun into its nest in an aluminum Halliburton case and snapped the catches on the lid.

Bertone watched with an amusement he didn’t bother to conceal. Practice was one thing.

War was quite another.

Foley was dressed in a black special-ops coverall, black boots with soft rubber soles, a black baseball cap without insignia, and sport-shooters amber-colored glasses. He looked more like a member of a police weapons team than a fast-rising banker.

Quickly Foley opened a second metal case and lifted out a bulkier weapon, a German-made nine-millimeter submachine gun with a folding stock and a heavy, cylindrical sound suppressor threaded into its short, matte black barrel. This was Foley’s personal favorite weapon, a highly modified and militarized H amp;K MP5A.

“Sweet, huh?” Foley said, admiring the muted play of light over the weapon.

Bertone didn’t answer. He used guns, but he didn’t love them any more than he loved toilet paper.

Tools were made to be used.

Men were made to use them.

Smiling, Foley hefted the gun lightly. Because he was a civilian, it was illegal for him to own the silenced submachine gun. For that reason he seldom used it, not even in the shooting house of the most sophisticated firearms club in the gun-proud state of Arizona. Though he was both a member of the Arizona Territorial Gun Club and on its board of directors, normally the club wouldn’t have winked at the presence of a weapon whose possession would cost its owner twenty years in federal prison.

But the club was officially closed now, empty but for Foley and Bertone. Foley wasn’t going to turn himself in, and neither was Bertone.

“At least you got away from Elena’s party in time to shoot,” Foley said. “Silver lining and all that.”

“I always make time to shoot.”

Bertone watched as Foley slid under the spell of the deadly weapon. Some men got off on after-hours strip clubs or motorcycles, extreme boxing or illegal gambling. Foley got off on the shooting house, with its targets and its mock-up hostage rooms. Bertone, a behind-the-scenes owner of the Arizona Territorial Gun Club, was more than happy to ignore violations of federal firearms law by members of the club who could be useful to him.

Like Foley.

The banker pulled the bolt on the weapon, checked to make sure it wasn’t loaded, then snapped a twenty-shot magazine into place. The gun suddenly acquired the lethal weight that he loved. Nothing felt as good as holding a loaded weapon.

“May I?” Bertone asked politely, holding out his hands for the weapon.

Reluctantly Foley handed the gun over.

“Thank you,” Bertone said when the weapon was finally presented to him.

He knew how unhappy Foley was to part with the gun. That was why Bertone had asked for it. He hefted the gun, slapped the bolt forward skillfully, and lifted the gun to his shoulder, keeping the muzzle pointed downrange and in the clear.

He tested the gun’s balance, lowering it and then fitting it back into the firing position. A silencer usually made a weapon awkward, but this one was carefully designed. Much better than the planeloads of Cold War-era Kalashnikovs and Dragunovs that he’d sold over the years.

“How did she get away?” Foley asked, frowning as he watched Bertone handle his weapon with eerie skill.

Without benefit of sights, Bertone aimed at a standard silhouette target fifteen yards away and pulled the trigger.

The loudest sound was the working of the bolt as he fired three separate three-round bursts in quick succession. The soft fluorescent light of the range appeared magically through three tight groupings in the body mass of the target. He pointed the muzzle into the air and stepped back from the firing line.

“One of my security guards was too alert,” Bertone said. “He saw her heading into the garden alone, saw the lights go out, and was worried. He interrupted Gabriel before he could secure his target.”

“Well, that sucks. We need deniability and Kayla is it. Get her back.”

“Gabriel will reaquire her.”

Foley moved uneasily. He’d only met Gabriel once. It had been enough. The man’s eyes were empty.

Bertone smiled. “Gabriel is adept with many weapons. You would have liked the weapon he was carrying-a silenced Chinese pistol, absolutely untraceable. It’s so rare that even the FBI’s firearms library collection doesn’t have one.”

“Why didn’t he use it?”

“He didn’t have time. When the security guard charged in with a flashlight and a gun, Gabriel went over the fence and worked his way back around to the house.”