Innocent as Sin

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “If it was Grace at risk?”

  Faroe didn’t answer. He just set off at a run to cover the exits opposite the garage.

  63

  Phoenix

  Sunday

  1:41 P.M. MST

  The corridor was empty. Foley crowded Kayla down the hallway to his own office, keyed in, and locked behind him. It took less than twenty seconds. She hoped the guard had seen her on the corridor camera, but she wasn’t counting on it.

  Foley shoved her into a chair.

  “Move and I’ll feed you this gun,” he said.

  Kayla didn’t move. She was still tasting metal and gun oil in her mouth, and her throat was raw from being raked by the end of the pistol. She watched him go to his desk, unlock a file drawer, and pull out a stack of manila folders.

  A grim smile changed his tan, closely shaved face into a death mask. He tapped the files on the desk, then slid them into his briefcase.

  KYC files.

  Kayla’s stomach flipped. Obviously Foley didn’t expect to come back. Those kind of files weren’t supposed to leave the bank. Ever.

  He looked at her. “Bet you wish you’d thought to take the bank references and corporate documents of every suspect private banking client with you.”

  “I don’t have any suspect private clients. I turned down their business or bucked them up to you for refusal.”

  “Have I thanked you for those referrals? Profitable for the bank. Very profitable for me. I’m especially pleased with Jesus Del Santos and Ramon Herrera Parra. Did you know who they were when you bounced them up to me?”

  “No.”

  “Del Santos was the lieutenant governor of Jalisco, and Herrera was chief of the federales in northwest Mexico. They both have eight-figure accounts in our bank now.”

  “How did you wash the blood off their money?”

  “Power, babe, power and politics. Don’t cry to me if you weren’t smart enough to get them on your books.”

  Foley unlocked another file and pulled out a flat aluminum case that could have held cameras. He was undoing the catches on the lid when the phone on his desk began to ring. He glanced at the console.

  “It’s your line,” he said. “Your boyfriend?”

  Kayla stared blankly at Foley.

  Foley glanced at his watch, then cocked his head, listening.

  “They’re going to start looking pretty soon,” he said, more to himself than to her.

  The phone rang.

  He opened the case.

  Kayla saw that it was lined with plastic foam that had been cut out to hold certain shapes.

  The phone rang.

  The pistol on the desk would have fit one of the empty cutouts. Next to it lay a black metal cylinder that she guessed was a silencer.

  The phone rang.

  Black on silver is out this season, she thought. But she didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t trust her voice.

  The phone rang.

  Foley fit the cylinder to the end of his pistol and spun it into place.

  The phone rang.

  He picked up a loaded magazine from the case and dropped it into the pocket of the dark wind shell he wore over his white silk T-shirt.

  The phone rang.

  Methodically he closed and relocked the drawers.

  The phone didn’t ring.

  “You have got two choices,” Foley said. He forced the cold bulb of the silencer between her lips. “You can come with me and keep your mouth shut or you can die here.”

  His expression told her that he meant it. He was coming apart in front of her eyes. There was only one thing he cared about right now.

  Getting out.

  “I’ll go with you,” she managed around the silencer.

  Finger on the trigger, he stared at her for several long breaths. Then he shoved her away.

  “We’ll take the elevator. If we run into anybody—your boyfriend or a security guard or a maid—I’ll kill them.”

  Kayla believed it. She could wait to make a break for it until he got her to the garage. Rand would be there. She was certain of it.

  And he was no innocent bystander.

  “Be quiet or their blood will be on your hands no matter who pulls the trigger,” Foley said. “Got that?”

  She nodded.

  He picked up the briefcase and shoved her toward the door.

  They walked swiftly down the long corridor, past the employee elevators. They turned the corner, heading for the executive elevator that served the parking structure. He reached for the button to call the elevator.

  Around the corner behind them, the employee elevator chimed, announcing a car’s arrival.

  Foley slammed Kayla against the elevator door and held her there with the weight of his body and the silencer digging into her throat. They listened to the metallic jingle of a guard’s key ring and the faint tread of shoes on the hallway floor. The guard knocked loudly on a door.

  “Kayla! Kayla Shaw!” The guard’s voice was achingly clear.

  So close.

  “You first,” Foley whispered. “Then him.”

  So far away.

  She heard the guard open the door to her office, enter, and call her name again. Then he came back in the hallway, shutting the door behind him. A radio crackled.

  “Desk, this is Wapner. She’s not in her office. No sign of trouble. Nobody in Foley’s office, either. You want me to start going office-to-office here?”

  There was a pop of static, then a voice came back over the guard’s handheld radio.

  “Negative. Check the Operations floor and secure it. We still don’t know if this is a diversion or a genuine incident. When backup gets here, we’ll clear the building floor by floor.”

  “Affirm,” Wapner said.

  Foley and Kayla listened to the guard’s jingling progress down the hallway. The elevator was waiting for him. Its doors closed with a sigh very like the one Kayla let out as the crisis passed.

  As Foley pressed the executive elevator button, for the first time he realized how good she felt squeezed between the metal door and his body. He smiled and slid the pistol down between her breasts, circled one nipple with the silencer.

  “Too bad you never let me in your pants,” he said.

  She swallowed against the vomit rising in her throat.

  The door opened. She staggered backward, free for an instant.

  He laughed and punched a floor button.

  She couldn’t stop a sound of dismay. He hadn’t punched the button for the garage.

  He was going to the roof.

  She wasn’t going to get away.

  Be safe, Rand.

  Whatever you do, be safe.

  Kayla no longer believed that safety was a possibility for her. Compared to Foley’s sweaty finger on the trigger, doing federal time was looking like paradise.

  At least she would be alive.

  64

  Phoenix

  Sunday

  1:45 P.M. MST

  When Rand came through the front door, the lobby guard was on the phone and the radio at the same time.

  “I told you to stay the hell out of the way,” the guard growled. “No, not you,” he said to the phone, then held the receiver against his shoulder.

  “Some friends of mine are outside,” Rand said quickly. “Two of them are in shorts and T-shirts checking the executive parking structure. Another man is keeping an eye on the opposite exits. Some more friends are on the way. Don’t shoot them by mistake.”

  The guard squinted at Rand for a few seconds. “Are you some kind of badge?”

  “We’re private. Kayla hired us to protect her.”

  “Looks like you fucked up.”

  “Let me upstairs.”

  The guard shook his head. “I don’t care if you’re a friggin’ FBI undercover. Nobody goes inside. My boss chewed hard when he found out I’d called in the local police. Then I told him a girl was missing.”

  “She is.”

  “You
’d better not be screwing me here, or I’ll have your ass for kicking practice.”

  Rand grabbed what was left of his temper and held on. “We’re staying on public property, but if we see Kayla in trouble, we’re going to trespass the hell all over your shiny shoes. You don’t like that, find her before we do!”

  The guard pointed at the door with a long index finger. “We’ll do a floor-by-floor as soon as the PD arrives. Now get the hell out of my face.”

  Rand glanced again at the elevators, but knew the guard was just looking for an excuse to take him down. With a ripe curse, Rand strode across the lobby and out the front door before he or the guard lost it. The front door opened.

  Sunlight poured over Rand like fire.

  A fourth car had arrived. The woman trotting toward him was trim and lithe, carrying two radios. She gave one to Rand.

  “Jeff and Barney are in the garage,” she said. “They found a Range Rover that comes back to your brunch date, Foley.”

  “Tell them to sit on it. Don’t let it move.”

  “Already done. Faroe has the back covered. We’ll find the woman.”

  “What we’ll find is a hostage situation and a bunch of cops who will take five hours to get organized.”

  He spun and glared up at the shiny glass skin of the building, looking from pane to pane, hoping to see something better than his fear. The woman answered the radio phone. Faroe reported that the back side of the building was secure.

  No one had seen Kayla.

  Rand saw his brother’s face, covered with blood, no more pain, no fear, just a slow sliding away into death.

  Only it was Kayla’s face, Kayla sliding away.

  “Suck it up,” the operator said to him, gripping his forearm with surprisingly strong fingers, “or get out of the way.”

  He stared into her serious brown eyes. “What’s your name?”

  “Mary. I’m a sniper.”

  “Where’s your rifle?”

  “I’m on vacation.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Trying to keep you from going ballistic.”

  He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “The true warrior fights best when he reminds himself that he is already dead,” Mary said.

  “Faroe’s favorite saying,” Rand said bitterly. “But what does the warrior do when his fear is for someone else?”

  There was no answer but the one Mary had already given him.

  Suck it up.

  He looked away from the building, trying to find something, anything, that would allow him to focus. There was a tree nearby, bare branches. A fiercely colored hummingbird dashed in and sat for a moment, looking right and left, searching for flowers or competitors or females. Sunlight flashed on the bird’s green feathers and brilliant red gorget.

  Anna’s hummingbird. A species noted for pushing the edges of its territory, its limitations.

  Good luck, bird. You’ll need it.

  The bird took off in a flash of color and intensity.

  Rand blew out a breath. “Okay,” he said to Mary. “I’m okay.”

  She looked at him intently, nodded.

  Then he heard the helicopter.

  “No way,” Mary said, grabbing his forearm again.

  “Why not? Bertone owns more than fifty aircraft.”

  “In Africa.”

  “Not all of them.”

  The sound of the chopper was loud, but still low and far enough away that Rand couldn’t see it. He turned and looked at the bank building. There was room for a good pilot to set down on the front lawn.

  Mary followed his glance. “We’d still have her covered.” She touched the belly pack at her waist. “If the pilot lands, I can put ten in the turbine.”

  Rand stared at the building. Certainty washed over him in an icy wave. “Not if he lands on the roof.”

  He ran for the front door while Mary punched the radio and started giving staccato updates.

  An instant later the helicopter dropped down onto the roof and landed, still under full power. The cargo door of the aircraft slid back.

  Rand reached the lobby just as the helicopter took off. It banked steeply and sped off to the east. The pilot was lean and blond.

  Not Bertone.

  Just before the cargo door slid closed, Rand saw two figures inside the bay. One was lying flat. The other flipped a bird at him.

  Then there was nothing but the fading sound of rotors.

  “Shit. If I’d had my rifle…” Mary said in a low voice. But all she had was a pistol and the radio was yammering. When Rand started toward the parking lot, her strong hand clamped down on his forearm, holding him. “Faroe wants to know what kind of helo, ID numbers, all of it,” she said quickly.

  “Hind, Mi-24. Russian. Bertone imports them for firefighting.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Oh, yeah, Bertone’s a sweetheart.”

  And he’s a dead man walking.

  Rand wrenched his arm free and ran toward the rental SUV. “Where are you going?” Mary called after him. He didn’t answer.

  65

  Phoenix

  Sunday

  1:50 P.M. MST

  Rand fought Sunday-afternoon traffic on Scottsdale Road, cursing and wheeling from lane to lane until he almost overran a police cruiser and had to clean up his act. He wanted to smash his fist through the windshield. Instead, he concentrated on being a good citizen and courteous driver.

  The cruiser finally turned onto the freeway.

  Rand put the accelerator on the floor.

  As he raced under the 101 Freeway, headed north toward Cave Creek and Pleasure Valley, his cell phone went off. He fished it out and punched up the speaker.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Faroe shot back.

  “Driving.”

  “Don’t piss me off. Where are you going?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Then I already know. Sky house, right?”

  Rand didn’t answer.

  “Make sure you can do the time for any crime you commit,” Faroe said.

  “I’ll bury it deep.”

  Faroe’s end was silent for a moment. Then a low curse and “In your place I’d do the same. Let me know if I can help.”

  “Did the cops find anything at the bank?”

  “Negative, so far. They’re trying to trace the helicopter.”

  “They won’t find a thing. The pilot wasn’t Bertone.”

  “You sure? He used to fly helos before he could afford to hire someone else for the dirty jobs.”

  “Too lean. Long hair, wrong color.”

  “Damn. One of our guys works a regular job at the FAA regional center,” Faroe said. “He may be able to get a line on the bird.”

  “They’ll stay under the radar. If I see the helo at the house, I’ll tell you, but I doubt that it’s there.”

  “So why are you going?”

  “Remember? You don’t want to know.”

  “You met Mary. We’re getting her the tools of her trade as I speak. Keep it in mind.”

  “I will.”

  Rand punched the call off and drove hard until he turned onto the county road that led to the gated entrance to Andre Bertone’s house. He stopped on a high hilltop short of the gate and stared at the mansion on top of the mesa. From here he could see the garage and someone washing the bulletproof limo that drove Elena everywhere she and the kids wanted to go. He could also see the helipad.

  Empty.

  He wasn’t surprised. Foley had left more wreckage behind than even Bertone’s diplomatic passport would clean up.

  But Elena was still there.

  Maybe Bertone was, too.

  Be there, you bastard.

  He grabbed the cell phone and punched up Faroe’s number.

  “Where do you want Mary?” Faroe asked.

  “Not yet. I need a helo. I’m going to test Kayla’s certainty that El
ena is a good mother.”

  “Huh.” Faroe breathed out hard. “You want the helo open or stealth?”

  “Bells and whistles all the way,” Rand said. “Hell, bring in a news chopper.”

  “Okay.”

  “What?” Rand asked, confused.

  “I told you yesterday.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “The camera crew from The World in One Hour put the squeeze on a local network affiliate for a weather and traffic chopper. They’re doing background shots of Phoenix, the businesses Bertone owns, and as much of the Bertone house as they can legally get.”

  “Thank you, God,” Rand said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You’re going to hell.”

  “You know anyone who isn’t?”

  “No. I’m on a hilltop about a half mile south of the castle. If I can’t get inside, is the helo pilot good enough to pick me up?”

  “Ask Martin. You have his cell?”

  Rand didn’t bother to say good-bye. He just cut out, called Martin, and waited for the okay man to answer.

  66

  Over Phoenix

  Sunday

  1:54 P.M. MST

  All Kayla could see was the shiny tops of Foley’s loafers. All she could hear was the hammering noise of a helicopter in flight. She knew she was bruised and scraped from Foley’s rough handling, but she couldn’t feel anything except the adrenaline flooding her body. Her thoughts came with unnatural speed and clarity.

  Can’t run now.

  Foley is the weak link.

  Bertone is the stone killer.

  Work on Foley.

  She groaned and pushed away from the gun barrel jolting against her skull. Even Foley was smart enough not to shoot in a moving helicopter.

  “Hold still, bitch!” he yelled.

  The pilot winced and yanked off his headphones.

  Kayla pulled her hair free of Foley’s grasping fingers and shouldered herself into a sitting position against the helicopter’s side. Behind her back, handcuffs wrapped her wrists like obscene bracelets.

  No weapons within reach.

  No purse.