Elizabeth Lowell - Innocent as Sin

Both men stared when Rand bailed out of the rental SUV and raced toward the house.

Outside the servants’ entrance to the kitchen, he nearly knocked over a round-faced maid in a classic black dress and white apron. She was emptying trash.

“Mr. Bertone,” he said curtly. “Take me to him.”

The maid’s eyes got big. She was so startled she forgot to speak English. “No es aqui.”

Rand wanted to doubt her, but she was too off-balance, too frightened, to tell anything but the truth.

He’d settle for second best.

“Mrs. Bertone,” he said curtly. “Where is she?”

“En la casa.” She pointed toward the glass wall of the great room that looked out on Pleasure Valley and the Valley of the Sun. “Con Senator Rogers.”

Rand sprinted past her to the front door. Unlocked. He shoved it open, turned left in the atrium, and palmed his phone on the belt clip. Without looking he hit number one on the speed dial and came to a stop just outside the great room.

“Faroe here.”

“Send in the helo,” Rand said.

He punched out without waiting for confirmation. When he strode into the great room, Elena was facing toward the atrium. She looked puzzled for a moment before she recognized him. The handsome white-haired man sitting on the couch with her turned to see what had caught her attention. He looked more annoyed at the interruption than she was.

“Mr. McCree, I think it was,” Elena said, a touch of disdain in her voice.

Rand nodded.

“I was not expecting you,” she said. “The senator and I are in the midst of a tête-à-tête, a private conversation.”

“What I have to say to you tête-à-tête is more important to your children than whatever bullshit you’re trading with the politician.”

“Who is this man?” The senator stood up and faced the intruder as he walked farther into the room.

The politician would have been more impressive if he hadn’t been in shorts and a pink golf shirt.

Elena didn’t rise. “He’s a struggling artist who thinks winning a prize gives him the right to be rude to me. He will regret the impertinence.”

“How did he get past the guard?” the senator asked.

“I have no idea. I’ll call security and have him removed.” She reached for a white telephone on a table at her end of the couch.

The pulse beating in the open throat of her silk shirt put the lie to her cool voice. Some things even a good actress couldn’t hide.

“Don’t bother,” Rand said. “Your guards are scrambling right now.”

He stepped in front of the senator and looked out the tall glass wall toward the south. A brightly painted helicopter was closing in at high speed. Already he could see the camera blister on its nose.

“But,” Rand said, turning back with a feral smile, “you might tell your men to keep their guns out of sight. That kind of publicity will undercut all the social climbing you’ve done up to now.”

“Guns-my children-” She leaped to her feet.

“Your children are fine,” Rand said. “If you want them to stay that way, shut up and listen to me.”

White-faced, Elena sank back onto the couch.

“Now see here, young man,” the senator began.

“No, you see,” Rand said to the senator. “Her husband kidnapped my fiancée. If Elena wants her kids to avoid the shit storm that’s coming down, she’ll listen to me.”

“You’re nuts,” the politician said, reaching past Elena for the phone.

“How would you act if you were on camera, Senator?” Rand asked. “Think about it, because a news chopper is coming in right now. Elena can be gracious about it and help me, or she can look like a gangster’s moll on the six o’clock news.” He turned on Elena. “How would your children like that, Mrs. Bertone?”

She put a hand on her neck to cover the telltale hammering of her pulse. “Whatever you want. Just keep my children out of it.”

“That’s up to you,” Rand said.

The sound of a helicopter’s big blades beat through the windows. The craft was close enough that everyone could see the network logo on its red, yellow, and blue side. The pilot flared and took up station fifty yards off the pool, his camera aimed directly at the front of the house. Technically, he wasn’t violating anybody’s airspace.

Yet.

“I don’t understand,” she said in a strained voice.

“That’s a good story,” Rand said. “You stick with it when the reporters start screaming, asking what you think about the thousands of people who were slaughtered so that you could sit on your pampered ass in the sky castle you designed.”

Her eyes widened. She hugged herself and made a low sound.

Rand kept pushing. He didn’t like it, but it was the least of what he would do to get to Bertone while Kayla was still alive.

“It’s over,” he said flatly. “Your husband’s a gunrunner. The World in One Hour can prove it. Bertone is going down. Hard. Your only choice is whether you and the children go down with him.”

“What the hell is going on?” the senator demanded as he backed away from the windows like they were on fire.

Rand gave him a sideways look. “Senator, you better get the hell out of here. The good citizens of your district won’t like finding out how you were caught in a tête-à-tête with an international gunrunner’s arm candy. Blood, money, and sex make great headlines.”

“This is outrageous!” the senator said.

“No,” Rand shot back. “What’s outrageous is that Kayla Shaw was kidnapped by Andre Bertone, who will torture her to get the magic word that will unlock a quarter of a billion dollars and start a war to overthrow a duly elected government half a world away.”

“Elena?” the senator asked.

“Please go, Senator,” Elena said. “Please. It is not good for you to be…here, now.”

“All I’m doing here is talking about donations and campaign strategy.” The senator gave Rand a cold look. “And if you imply anything else to the media, I’ll have your balls.” He switched his glare to Elena. “Where is Andre? He’ll cut through this bullshit.”

Elena looked blankly at the senator. “Andre is not here.”

“Well, get him here.” The senator glared at the helicopter. “Get him on the phone!”

The chopper’s rotor wash whipped up waves on the lap pool. The engine roar made the panes of glass in the wall vibrate.

Suddenly Elena leaped up off the couch and dashed to the sliding glass door, throwing it open with such force that it nearly jumped the track.

A cameraman hung out the side door of the news chopper, baseball cap on backward, zooming his lens in on the angry woman in the doorway.

“Get out of here!” she screamed. “Get out! You have no right to be here. You are ruining everything. I will sue you. My husband will ki-” Abruptly she realized that she was truly on film.

She turned away and shut her mouth.

The senator had noticed the camera before Elena did. He made doubly sure he wasn’t in the camera’s sight before he pulled a cell phone out of his back pocket and hit a number. Without a glance at his hostess, he hurried out of the great room. His voice trailed away into the distance as he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen and the servants’ entrance. “Listen, we’ve got a huge problem. Get hold of our contacts inside the local TV network. Find out what the hell is…”

Rand was on his own cell phone, talking to Faroe. “Tell the helo to swing around and cover the parking area.”

“Somebody leaving?”

“Only the rats. One of them is a United States senator driving a big black Caddy SUV. They’ll love a shot of that back in Manhattan, home of unrapid transit.”

He closed the phone on Faroe’s hard laughter.

When the helicopter lifted up and over the house, Elena was still standing like an angry statue with her back to the glass doorway. The aircraft’s clatter and racket shook the roof, then faded slightly as it circled around to line up a shot of the car park.

Finally she looked at Rand.

He was waiting with the patience of a true predator.

“Why?” she asked.

“You were home. Decide, Elena. Now. Your kids or your husband. Which will it be?”

Phoenix

Sunday

2:14 P.M. MST

Kayla braced herself with a foot against the passenger seat and tried to pull down the T-shirt Rand had given her. The blue cotton proclaimed that “Life Is Good.” Though the soft cloth was smudged with dirt, grease, and blood from her cut lip, and her hands were cuffed behind her, she agreed with the sentiment.

It certainly was better than the alternative.

And she really wanted to live long enough to watch Steve Foley eat the fancy gun he kept shoving in her mouth.

So think of that while you’re trying to seduce the slimy son of a bitch. Maybe then you’ll smile rather than hurling all over his Italian shoes.

She watched Foley through slitted eyes. He was jumpy, sweaty, pumped full of adrenaline.

But his hand never relaxed its grip on the pistol.

If he puts that gun in my mouth again, he’ll be close enough for me to hurt him. Bad.

Much as she’d rather grab the gun and shoot him with it, she knew she’d have a better chance to survive playing scared and eager to please.

It was half true. As long as Foley didn’t figure out which half, she’d have a chance.

Just one.

It had to be enough.

Phoenix

Sunday

2:14 P.M. MST

Ican’t help you,” Elena insisted again, looking out the window.

She hadn’t looked at Rand since the senator had retreated, leaving her alone to face whatever came.

Don’t smack her, Rand told himself. It won’t do any good.

He silently repeated the mantra that was the only thing keeping him from trying force on the stubborn beauty queen. She’d come from the gutters of São Paulo. Her ability to take pain probably exceeded his ability to give it to her.

It wasn’t something he wanted to test.

His hand shot out, fastened on the hinge points of her jaw, pressed hard enough to feel bone flex.

“Look at me,” he said.

Her eyes turned toward him, large and tragic, swimming with tears that never quite fell.

He felt like shoving an Oscar down her perfect throat.

“You’re going to jail with Bertone,” Rand said. “Your children are going to Social Services. They’ll be separated and fostered out to families who make less than your maid.”

“Lawyers,” Elena said through clenched teeth, all that she could manage through the iron grip of his hand.

But whatever she saw in his eyes made her flinch.

“Lawyers take money,” Rand said. “Your husband is broke.”

That shocked Elena more than anything Rand had said or done. She tried to jerk away, but his grip was too strong.

“There was a quarter of a billion dollars in the account Bertone set up through Kayla,” Rand said. “She moved it to a place Bertone can’t reach. You. Are. Dead. Broke.”

Her skin turned the color of ashes. “No. No! He only has half that much money.”

Rand smiled. “Then he’ll have some really pissed-off partners. If you help me, I’ll help you keep your children and enough money to live well in Brazil.”

“My friends-”

“Will read about you in tomorrow’s paper,” Rand cut in ruthlessly. “‘Elena Bertone, wife of an international gunrunner, was arrested with her husband for plotting to overthrow the lawful government of Camgeria and reap billions in oil revenues through the immoral use of illegal arms.’”

“I’m innocent!”

Rand doubted it, and didn’t care. “If you don’t help me get Kayla back, I’ll cover your reputation in the blood of all the innocent children who died in Africa to enrich you and Andre Bertone. Your own children can visit you in jail-if they remember your name. Your choice, Elena. It’s the only choice you have left.”

The television helicopter reappeared over the front of the house. It circled, grabbing footage from a variety of angles.

Elena clapped her hands over her ears to muffle the roaring sound of the engine. “Make them go away. The noise. I can’t think!”

“Try being in a war zone. That helo is a songbird compared to the Russian gunships that Andre sells.”

Miranda came running into the great room and threw her arms around Elena. “Mama, Mama, what is that noise?”