Elizabeth Lowell - Innocent as Sin

“The hair won’t be,” Freddie said. “You watch.”

Rand watched.

And learned.

He’d always known that news shows were as much staging-emotion-as news, but he hadn’t really known until he saw the result when Kayla was put into the chair and backlit just enough to show her slender silhouette.

The innocent hair came through like a halo.

“Really good,” Rand said, saluting Freddie.

“Quiet,” Martin snapped.

Rand listened while Thomas joked Kayla out of her nerves, made her forget the camera, and led her through the small steps that had taken her right off the cliff of complicity.

“Oh, yes,” Kayla said, “I was very pleased when my boss gave me the Bertones as my special clients.”

“Special?” Martin asked. “How so?”

“I was their interface with the private banking arm of American Southwest. I kept their various accounts-personal and professional-moved money between accounts, that sort of thing. If they wanted anything that had to do with their money, they called me.”

“And you found nothing unusual in those accounts?”

“No. They spent more than an average household, of course, but they earned far more than average.”

“Didn’t you wish you had that kind of money?” Thomas asked, his voice deep, sincere. “I would.”

Kayla’s teeth gleamed in a brief smile that shone through the shadows veiling her. “Nope. It’s hard for people outside the banking business to understand, but when I handle a client’s money, it’s not real money, like the kind I pay my bills with. A client’s money is just numbers I move from one account to another. Numbers, not dollars.”

“So you didn’t wish you had some of the Bertones’ wealth?”

Slowly Kayla shook her head. “I have some money saved for a vacation, some money for retirement, I pay down my credit cards, that sort of thing. Real money. Real life.”

Rand almost clapped.

Faroe leaned over and breathed into his ear, “She’s good.”

Shaking his head, Rand said very softly, “She’s real. Thomas is good.”

Martin glared at them.

Something in Faroe’s jeans vibrated. He patted the pocket and headed back to his bungalow.

Rand wondered what had come unstuck, and where, but he stayed with Kayla even though she didn’t need the moral support. He needed to give it. So he listened while Kayla’s story and her life unraveled for the education and titillation of news groupies across America.

He barely looked up when Faroe let himself back into the bungalow that had become a stage set for The World in One Hour. Faroe went straight to Martin. Papers rustled as Faroe handed them over.

Martin started to complain.

And then he started to read. A minute later his head snapped up. “Okaaaay! Is this solid?”

“Like a rock,” Faroe said.

“Christ.” Grinning, Martin called over his shoulder. “Cut!”

Lights came on or went off. Everyone in the room looked over at Martin or began talking.

“What’s up?” Thomas called over the noise.

“A wet dream come true.” Martin walked over and shoved papers into the reporter’s hands. “Read this.”

Thomas read, then read again. “Is this-”

“Yes,” Martin interrupted. “Use it.”

Kayla shifted in the uncomfortable chair.

“Don’t move,” Martin said. “We’re just getting to the good stuff.”

“I’ll take it from the sale of her childhood ranch,” Thomas said.

Kayla flinched. She really didn’t want to go through it again-the bittersweet, the simply sad, all the childhood memories tangled with adult necessities.

Rand saw the emotions crossing Kayla’s expressive face and wanted to interfere. She’d been through the wringer enough. She needed a break before she broke.

“No,” Faroe said softly, closing his hand over Rand’s arm, holding him.

“Why not?”

“News is emotional, not rational. You know that as well as I do.”

“She needs-shit,” Rand hissed.

“Shit indeed. We can’t change human nature, but we damn well can use it to our advantage.”

“I’m sure that comforts Kayla no end.”

“Grace made certain Kayla had the bathroom with the big Jacuzzi.”

“Oh, well, that makes all the difference,” Rand said sarcastically.

“Better than a kick in the ass with a frozen boot.”

Martin began snapping out the commands that would once again make the bungalow a TV set. Lights dimmed. Others brightened.

Silence.

Then the sound of Thomas asking how Kayla had felt about selling her childhood home.

Then he asked about how she felt when she had that last breakfast with the Bertones.

How she felt when her boss told her to set up that account.

Emotions, Rand thought bitterly. Screw the facts. How did you feel?

And it was working. Kayla’s voice was more hesitant, more husky, the voice of a woman fighting tears, fighting fear.

Thomas was sympathetic, relentless.

Brilliant.

Eat your heart out, Oprah, Rand thought. That white boy can pluck heartstrings with the best of them.

“Were you aware of the source of the money that was deposited in the Aruba account you set up?” Thomas asked.

“When I verified that the funds existed to be transferred to the correspondent account, I spoke to a young woman with a Jamaican kind of accent. She put me through to the president of the bank. His name was Mr. Thronged. He sounded Dutch and was very efficient.”

“Mr. Thronged,” Thomas said, glancing through the papers Martin had given him. “Did you know that the helpful woman with the lilting accent runs a small store at the north end of the island of Aruba? She makes a hundred dollars a week answering overseas phone calls like yours and putting them through to a retired Dutch banker-a Mr. Thronged-who conducts most of the Bank of Aruba, Sugar Sand branch, business from a phone and fax machine under the bar in his seaside tavern. The capital stock of the bank is all owned by Andre Bertone.”

“I-are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I can see that you’re shocked.”

Kayla fought the urge to put her face in her hands and wail. “All I was told was that knowing the source of the funds Bertone was transferring wasn’t my problem-that is, my bank’s problem. It was the problem of the bank in Aruba.”

“Then you weren’t aware that Andre Bertone emptied accounts that John Neto had located in Basel and in Liechtenstein, as well as a seventy-million-dollar account at the Bank of Sark in the Channel Islands?”

“No,” Kayla said.

And even she wasn’t sure whether she was answering a question or simply denying that she could have been so badly fooled.

Thomas tapped his finger on the papers Martin had handed him. “All told, Mr. Neto has traced more than two hundred and thirty million dollars that were wire-transferred into the Caribbean Basin.”

“I-no,” Kayla said huskily. “My God, no.”

“The funds went to a variety of offshore accounts, all of which were shielded by bank secrecy acts in their various jurisdictions. Could Bertone be moving the funds through those secret accounts, then consolidating them in the branch bank of Sugar Sands, in order to funnel them here, into the United States?”

“A quarter of a billion-” Kayla’s voice broke. “No. I haven’t seen that kind of money.”

“You’ve seen some of it,” Martin said gently. “Haven’t you?”

“I-”

“The money from arms trafficking, oil-for-food corruption, blood diamonds, ravaged hardwood forests, children starving, children maimed, children raped and dying, you’ve seen some of that money,” Thomas said, his voice a sympathetic rapier slicing down into Kayla’s soul. “Haven’t you?”

The tears shining on Kayla’s shadowed cheeks were her only answer.

“The master correspondent account you set up is nothing but a conduit for dirty money, isn’t it?” Thomas asked sadly. “A conduit greased by hush money, bribes, and corrupt employees.”

“I’m not one of them,” she said hoarsely, her voice breaking. “I’m being set up by Andre Bertone. I didn’t know where the money came from, someone tried to kidnap me, and all I did was try to follow the rules.” She put her face in her hands. “My God, who will believe me now?”

Thomas let the silence stretch…and stretch…until the sound technician got the hint and turned up Kayla’s mike. Soft, muffled sounds came from behind her hands.

“Cut,” Martin said. “First-class work, Brent. That’s it for tonight. Okaaay, who’s ready for a beer?”

Faroe’s grip shifted from Rand’s wrist down to the fist he had made.

“Don’t clock Martin,” Faroe said. “He’s on our side.”

Royal Palms

Saturday

11:55 P.M. MST

Fragrant steam swirled around Kayla’s head, making her feel even more like she’d been cut loose from reality and was spinning off into an alternate universe.

Nice try. Doesn’t fly. There’s only one reality, and I’m stuck up to my lips in it.

Bertone, dirty money, knives, and all the rest.

She nudged the controls. The jets shut off. The water slowly stilled. Fragrant steam still rose around Kayla’s head.

Okay, some of my reality isn’t bad.

Without meaning to, her thoughts went straight to Rand. When she’d looked up from her televised pity party, he’d been watching her with feral green eyes. The muscles on Faroe’s arms had been rigid, as was Rand’s fist in the other man’s grip. After a few moments Rand had jerked himself free, gone to Kayla, and pulled her into his arms.

Normally she would have resented a man’s protective hug, but not that time. She’d hung on to him like the safety line he was.

A very polite safety line.

He’d brought her to the luxurious two-suite bungalow, pointed out the Jacuzzi, and closed the door separating her suite from the shared living area. The door had made a soft, final click as it shut.

Followed by the sound of him going out the front door of the shared area and locking it behind him.

A gentleman.

Both of them knew her defenses were gone. If he’d wanted to make a pass, she’d have jumped to catch it. She was scared, ashamed, wrung out, and in need of comfort.

Well, the Jacuzzi is pretty damned comforting. And it doesn’t need to be complimented on its performance.

So she lay there with relaxed muscles and her mind racing like a squirrel on speed.

Screw this. Any more hot water and they’ll have to iron me before they put me on camera again.

She fiddled the stopper out with her foot, stood, and wrapped herself in a cushy robe that fell to the top of her toes and fingertips. The living area that separated the two suites was empty.

Kayla told herself she wasn’t disappointed.

She went to the built-in bar and decided that whoever had researched her background was thorough-a bottle of Grand Marnier awaited her.

“Now I’m scared. Or I ought to be.”

Mostly she was grateful.

She took a few cubes of ice from the bucket, dumped them in a squat whiskey glass, added a little water, and poured a splash of liqueur in on top. Sipping it, she fought the need to pace, to think.

To scream.

None of that will do me any good.

Take Rand’s advice.

Relax, damn it!

She turned off the lights, closed the door of her suite behind her, and went to the bungalow’s private, walled-in patio, which opened off the shared area. The flagstones underfoot were heated. The air was cool shading into cold. The water dancing in the triple fountains shut out other noises. As her eyes adjusted to darkness, she enjoyed the subtle flash and shift of moonlight over the fountains placed at intervals along the walls.

The front door opened, but the lights stayed off. Her heart hammered, then settled when she recognized Rand’s wide-shouldered silhouette walking across the shared living area. She waited for him to knock on her suite door. Instead he bent and started to slide an envelope under the door.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He straightened and spun toward her so quickly that she flinched. She didn’t feel any better when moonlight flashed off the gun in his hand. Before she could blink, he holstered the gun at the small of his back and walked toward the patio.

“You scared the crap out of me,” he said.