Innocent as Sin (19 page)

Guadalupe
Sunday
9:15
A.M. MST

K
ayla stared at the cell phone in her lap. It wasn’t ringing any longer.

Foley hadn’t left a message.

Hamm closed his cell phone with a distinct click. “The Arizona Territorial Gun Club van is still in Gabriel’s driveway.”

Rand nodded and listened to Faroe on his own scrambled cell phone. Without taking his glance from Kayla’s pale face, Rand asked questions, listened to answers, and made his own requests. When he was certain everything would be in place, he hung up.

“Foley will call again,” Rand said. “Bertone has to smoke you out for Gabriel. We have two choices. Stay quiet or use this opportunity to take Gabriel off the board.”

And pray like dirty bastards that he doesn’t take Kayla out of the game instead.

All in all, Rand would rather have that skinny snake in a cage than loose on the streets with a Galil. He just didn’t want Kayla to be the bait. But no matter how he’d argued, Faroe hadn’t budged. If Rand revealed himself to Bertone as the one who could
ID him with a planeload of arms in Africa, Bertone would get in the wind faster than St. Kilda could follow.

It was Kayla Bertone was looking for.

It was Kayla Bertone expected to find.

Kayla, who sat with her hands clenched around the Stetson he’d taken off. Her fingers had left creases in the hat’s creamy surface. She’d overheard enough of what he’d said to know that she was going to be an actress again.

She hated acting.

“Your choice, Kayla,” Rand said. “I mean it. If you don’t want to talk to Foley, you don’t talk. End of subject.”

Her cell phone rang again.

Rand waited.

Kayla listened to her gut instinct.
Answer or not?

The phone rang.

She picked it up but didn’t open it.

“If you answer, put it on speakerphone,” Rand said quietly.

She changed the setting on the phone and looked at it without answering.

“Hamm, head for that mall we saw from the freeway.”

“Chandler Mall?” Hamm asked.

Her phone rang.

“Is it the closest?” Rand asked.

“Yes,” Kayla said. “Any final instructions before I answer?”

“Play hard-to-get before you invite him to the Cheesecake Factory at Chandler Mall. Don’t tell him about me.” Then, to Hamm, “Go.”

She opened the phone as the SUV accelerated away from Gabriel’s house.

“Hello,” she said tightly.

“Hey, Kayla, it’s Steve, how’s your Sunday going?” Foley’s voice was clear, friendly as a salesman.

“Just great,” she said, “but I’m breaking a personal rule, talking and driving eighty miles an hour on the 101 Loop. What’s up?”

Rand gave her a thumbs-up for the response.

“Well, look,” Foley said, “I hate to bother you on a weekend, but something has come up. I have to see you. Can we meet at your ranch?”

Simultaneously, Hamm and Rand gave her a negative head motion. She gave them a
Well, duh
eye roll.

“I’m really jammed up today,” she said. “Can’t we handle it by phone?”

“Sorry.” Foley’s voice said he wasn’t sorry at all. “It absolutely has to be done in person. That’s what being a
personal
banker is all about.”

“Hell,” Kayla said, just loud enough for Foley to catch. “I’m just really, uh, busy right now. I’m entitled to a private life on the weekends.”

“At the expense of your career?”

The whip in Foley’s voice would have worried her if she hadn’t already written her career off.

“This is bank business?” she asked.

“Why else would your supervisor be giving you a direct order?”

You’ve given me lots of direct orders, jerkwad, and you usually change your mind a few minutes later.
But all Kayla said aloud was, “I’m listening. What’s so urgent?”

Rand made a motion with both hands and mouthed,
Draw it out.

“I certainly hope it doesn’t involve the Bertone account,” she added.

Her tone was so sweetly reasonable that Rand had to smile—sweet reason had nothing to do with her eyes. They wanted Foley’s ass on a platter.

“Actually, it does,” Foley said. His tone was less certain, like an actor whose lines had been changed.

“I thought it might,” Kayla said gently. “I left the fund-raiser rather quickly last night. I wondered if Andre and Elena would be upset.”

“What happened?” Foley asked. “We’ve been worried about you.”

Rand wanted to spit on the floor.

From the twist of Kayla’s mouth, she did, too.

“Well, I was kind of upset,” she said. “A stranger made a hard pass at me in Bertone’s garden.”

“Uh—” Steve cleared his throat. “That’s awful. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Somebody happened along at the right moment and wilted the guy’s dick.”

Rand almost laughed out loud.

“But I was too upset to stay,” Kayla said. “I spent the night at a friend’s house in Gilbert.”

“Someone from the bank?”

“No. No one you know.”

“Are you headed to the ranch now?” Foley asked. “I know you’ve got more stuff to clean out.”

Rand shook his head.

“No,” Kayla said. “I’m just running some errands.”

“Oh. Well, maybe I’ll drop by the ranch later, when you’re home, and help you out. I hate to think of you being alone after what happened last night. Poor baby. I’m so sorry.”

Kayla lifted her middle finger at the phone, but her voice was smooth as she said, “Hang on a sec.” She put her hand over the microphone, looked at Rand, and said softly, “Sure you don’t want him at the ranch? We could give him and his gun-freak pal a real welcome.”

Her smile was hard and predatory. Clearly she liked the idea of ambushing the ambushers.

Concrete hummed beneath the SUV’s wheels. Hamm had turned onto the freeway and was speeding away from Guadalupe.

Finally Rand shook his head. “Too many places for a sniper to hit you along the way.”

Kayla took her hand off the microphone. “Oops, damn, I’m about to drop in the cell-phone dead zone at Shea. I’ll call you right back.”

“Who were you talking to?” Foley asked.

“Myself, same as always. Can’t break the habit.”

“You’ve lived alone too long, babe. Why don’t—”

She punched out and looked at Rand.

“Why can’t we just call the cops and have them rig a trap at the ranch?” she asked.

“Faroe is trying, but do you have any idea how much hassle it would be to wire the Maricopa County Sheriff ’s Office into this situation on a moment’s notice?” Rand asked. Then he added in a breathless falsetto, “Oh, Deputy, a very wealthy citizen who also happens to be an international arms smuggler and money launderer is trying to have me killed. He’s using a prominent banker, a Yaqui Indian thug with some ugly friends, and illegal automatic weapons he smuggled into the country.”

“But St. Kilda—” Kayla began.

“Is working for a foreign country in a gray area of the law. And the attack on you last night was never reported. Explain that away.”

“Crap. I feel like Linda Hamilton in
Terminator 2.
”

“Get used to it. The first data dump on the Bertones’ political activities just came back from St. Kilda’s research group. Last year they gave more than $1,700,000 in contributions, half to local politicians and half to national candidates. And that’s just the
money we’ve traced so far. Who knows what they’ve given to elect the local sheriff? Money like that buys a certain amount of clout with local and federal cops.”

“St. Kilda found out all that overnight?” Kayla asked, startled.

“The Internet never sleeps and neither does a St. Kilda researcher. But it was no big hacking deal. Legal political contributions are mostly a matter of public record.”

“So you’re saying we can’t count on any help from the authorities?”

“Eventually, yes, they’ll trip all over themselves to help us. But not until we have solid evidence against Bertone. A lot of it. If we don’t get that, we’ll use the outrage after Okay Martin runs the show to twist the politicians, who will then lean on the cops.”

Kayla laughed. “Okay. That’s Martin’s favorite word.”

“You noticed. Anyway, we can’t count on outside help right now. If nothing else, it’s a weekend. Local cops with enough brass to go after Bertone are playing golf.”

“Why can’t St. Kilda do the job?” Hamm asked.

“If we go looking for a gunfight, ex-judge Grace Silva Faroe will have our balls for breakfast.”

Kayla grimaced. “I’d rather eat at Cheesecake Factory, thanks all the same.”

“In a booth away from the windows after eleven,” Rand said. “Anyone good enough to use a Galil is a sniper who will wait for a sure kill. Last thing he wants is you in a hospital surrounded by cops.”

“What if Foley doesn’t want to play it my way?” Kayla asked.

“Then tell him you’re too busy, you’ll see him at work Monday.”

“He could fire me on the spot. Then we’d never figure out what he and Bertone are up to.”

“Then we lose Bertone and live with it. I won’t let you meet Foley in a place we can’t control.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

“I’m not,” Rand said. “Call Foley back.”

“But—”

“Call him,” Rand interrupted, “or I’ll visit him personally and boot this whole bloody act into the crapper where it belongs.”

Kayla looked at Rand for a long moment. Shaving off his beard should have made him look softer, more civilized.

It hadn’t.

She picked up her cell phone and called Steve Foley.

Chandler Mall
Sunday
10:55
A.M. MST

Y
eah,” Faroe said into the mike beneath his collar. He had an earbud in each ear. Hamm was one connection. Grace was the other. “Got it. You make any progress with the cops?”

“Finally,”
Grace said.
“Good thing one of your old Border Patrol buddies is a desk sergeant.”

“Poor sod.”

“Hey, Sgt. Masters is drawing a Border Patrol pension while drawing full pay from Phoenix PD. Poor doesn’t describe him.”

Faroe grunted. “Be ready to patch me through to Masters.”

“I live to serve.”

He grinned.

Beside him, Lane looked around the parking lot of the huge mall. “Bet they have a cool computer game store here.”

“After you pass that test, we’ll worry about game stores,” Faroe said. Then, into the mike: “No, not you,
amada.
Lane is jonesing for a shopping expedition. And no, I don’t see a beat-up delivery van with mismatched cargo doors. Hamm says they haven’t left the driveway yet.”

“Lane should be studying,”
Grace said through the earbud.

“All work and no play makes—” Faroe broke off and touched the earbud in his right ear. “Hamm says they’re moving. I’m switching over to Rand’s frequency.” He twisted the dial on one of the iPods in his pocket and said, “Angel on the move.”

A scratchy sound came back as acknowledgment.

“Showtime,” Faroe said to Lane.

“Is the TV crew going to be here?”

“Yeah, but you better not see them.”

Lane grinned like a pirate. “See what?”

Chandler Mall
Sunday
11:05
A.M. MST

T
he Cheesecake Factory brunch crowd had spilled out into the morning sunshine in front of the Chandler Mall. Rand and Kayla sat inside, with Rand between the door and Kayla. Hands in jeans, he leaned one shoulder against the wall, looking like a man listening to his iPod and waiting to be fed.

Kayla glanced at him.

A slight shake of his head was the answer. Then he scratched his neck, reminding her that he was part of other conversations.

“Hamm tells me the van does indeed have metal slides set in at least the left rear door,”
Faroe said.
“Score one for you. Looks like they’re setting up a mobile shooting platform. Two dudes. Two Galils.”

Relief went through Rand like rainwater. “Thank God,” he said without moving his lips.

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re not God.”

“Stop. You’ll make me cry. No one has seen Foley’s car yet.”

Rand flicked his collar in acknowledgment.

“I’m calling in a local cop on a ‘hot tip,’ but I’d like to have Foley on tape first. And camera.”

“Don’t wait too long,” Rand said through his teeth.

“If Gabriel shakes Hamm, I’m shutting this op down and pulling Kayla. Be ready.”

Rand straightened his collar, then bent over Kayla. “Everything’s ready for lunch.”

“We’re an item, right?” She gestured with the electronic paddle that was issued by the restaurant receptionist to signal diners that their table was ready. “I’m all over you like body oil so that Foley can’t miss the message?”

Rand smiled slowly. “I’ll handle the body oil part. You can concentrate on Foley.”

“An undercover item,” she mumbled.

“Well, I do recall being under the covers…” He nuzzled her neck, then covered the microphone with his fingers. “It wasn’t a one-nighter, no matter what you say. Got that?”

She brushed his cheek with the paddle. “Will Foley buy it?”

“Fuck Foley. I’m talking to you.”

“You fuck him. He’s not my type.” She couldn’t help smiling. “Okay. I hear you.”

“Do you believe me?”

“I want to.” She let out a long breath. “Let’s table it until this is settled.”

He bit her gently. “Or until tonight.”

She closed her eyes. “Or until tonight.”

“Deal.” He nuzzled her again and released the microphone.

She cocked her head at him—Stetson, dark shirt stretched over wide shoulders, narrow hips in close-fitting jeans. Definite drool material, and so not the type of man she’d dated since she “grew up.”

“I hope Foley buys it,” she said.

“Buys what?”

“Me hitting the sheets with a western studmuffin.”

Rand choked. “Studmuffin? Jesus, lady, you—”

“What if Foley recognizes you as the artist from the party?” she interrupted in a low voice.

“Then I shaved and cut my hair because you asked me to. But I doubt that he’ll recognize me. He’s too full of himself to really look at other people.”

“But what if he does?” she insisted.

“You can’t control all the elements of an undercover op. You just go with the hand you’re dealt.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m going to nail Foley’s ass to the shooting house wall.”

She blinked at the banked fury in Rand’s calm voice. “Why? He’s not the one trying to kill me.”

“No, he’s just the one setting you up for the hit. Nothing to worry about at all. He’s a real sweet guy.”

She rubbed her temples. “I keep hoping it’s a bad dream.”

Rand’s smile slid into a downward curve.

“Well, not all of it was bad,” she said, touching his cheek, kissing him softly.

He returned the kiss with interest, then broke reluctantly. “Faroe is around here somewhere. He might have Lane with him for cover—weekend dad takes teenager to the mall. They’ll probably work in pretty close, but don’t see them.”

She nodded.

“There are several other operators around,” Rand said, “so if somebody grabs you and whispers ‘St. Kilda’ in your ear, do whatever they say.”

“Anything else?”

“I laid a hundred on the receptionist and told her I’m asking you to marry me over nachos. As soon as we spot Foley, I’ll signal
her and we’ll go to the head of the lunch line. After Foley arrives, be ready to leave the instant I tell you. I don’t want you out in the open one second longer than—” He broke off.

Faroe was whispering in his ear.

“Get a table. Foley’s here.”