Elizabeth Lowell - Innocent as Sin

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 under 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.”

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.

Most of him just wanted to kill her. Then Foley.

Slowly.

What a putz.

But a useful one. Until that changed, Foley would live.

Mother of God, he didn’t even ask for Jerry’s last name. She could have told him everything!

Not that it mattered. The snipers could kill two as easily as one. It was just that Bertone hated incompetence. He’d killed men simply because they were too stupid to live.

Foley was shaping up to head the Must Die list.

Bertone forced himself to unclamp his fingers from the wheel. No matter how delightful Foley’s neck would feel crushed between Bertone’s hands, the banker was necessary. It would take time to cultivate another bank, another banker, all the messy details needed to launder money safely.

In the meantime…

Bertone punched a number on his speed dial.

“Bueno.”

“Nothing good about it,” Bertone snarled to Gabriel. “There’s a man with the Shaw woman. Tall. Jeans and a black shirt. Cowboy hat. You kill him. Tell Uri to take Kayla.”

“Sí.”

Bertone hung up and waited for two dead people to walk out of the restaurant.

Chandler Mall

Sunday

11:31 A.M. MST

There’s been activity in the correspondent account,” Kayla said. “Since I’m on record as the account executive, I should know a little bit more about what’s happening.”

“I’ve discussed it at length with Andre,” Foley said. “He’s using the account to finance acquisition of some long-term oil-” He broke off and looked at Rand.

Rand snapped his fingers and mouthed meaningless words.

“Look,” Foley said flatly. “You want to know more, get rid of lover boy.”

“You’re the one who asked me to meet after hours.”

Foley’s jaw flexed. He slammed his laptop case on the table.

Rand’s eyes opened just enough to see into the case as it opened. Nothing more deadly than a computer. Even so, he didn’t really relax. Knives were easy to hide.

Hell, given the right incentive, even the dull ones on the table could get the job done. The long forks would get it done faster.

“All I need from you is access to the account,” Foley said. “There are some transactions that have to be posted, but I can’t gain access through the remote portal. I’m screwing up part of the protocol, I guess.”

Because you never bothered to learn how to do it right, suck face, Kayla thought savagely. You always had one of the “girls” do it for you.

She smiled. “No problem. I’ll do it.”

“That’s why I rely so much on you,” Foley said with a grin as he logged on to the bank web site. Or tried to. He barely managed to keep from smashing his fist on the computer keyboard. “I can get into the account to monitor activity, but when I go to conduct transactions, it says I’m not authorized.”

“I’m not authorized for remote access at all,” Kayla said. She tilted her head. “Maybe the portal you’re using is read-only. Or maybe you need special access to conduct after-hours operations.”

He shook his head. “That’s not good enough. One of Andre’s requirements is that he has access to his money twenty-four/ seven. That’s what I promised him. He conducts business all over the world, all the time.”

Kayla’s mouth thinned. Do you know what kind of shitty business he’s conducting?

“See this?” Foley demanded, slanting the laptop screen toward Kayla. “I can get into the account to read balances, but I can’t move sums to other accounts, either within the bank or outside of it.”

Through slitted eyes, Rand watched Kayla. She’d gone still, then gooseflesh had broken out on her arms. The restaurant was air-conditioned, but not to the point of chill.

The feral smile on her face sent adrenaline into Rand’s blood.

“Let me try something,” Kayla said.

She took the laptop and stared at the screen. “Wow, this is awesome, almost like having your own private bank branch on your laptop.”

And Bertone had been depositing money right, left, and center. One hundred and eighty-two million, and counting.

Holy hell. War is expensive.

“I see our client has been busy,” Kayla said mildly.

Foley looked hard at Kayla’s date, but the idiot still had his eyes closed and was swaying and hip-jigging to a tune only he heard. He hadn’t even tried to peek at the computer screen.

“I got it that far,” Foley said, “but I can’t make any transactions inside the account.”

Kayla put her fingers on the keyboard and typed for a few seconds. Then she frowned and studied the screen. Gooseflesh rippled again as the simple, beautiful, incredible truth echoed in her mind.

Bertone doesn’t control his account.

Foley doesn’t.

I do.

She’d been in such a rush to set up the correspondent account that she’d chosen the password for it herself. She’d meant to give it to Bertone at the Fast Draw but had forgotten.