Above Temptation

by Karin Kallmaker

Kip didn’t look up. “You’ll see that the CEO was poking around in there, which seems a bit unusual to me.”

  Tam cleared her throat. “Are you still needling me about that?”

  “Yes, of course I am.”

  “Oh look, one of our investigators was in there too.”

  “She had authorization from the CEO.”

  “If that’s your logic, so did the CEO—from herself.”

  Kip looked up, one eyebrow adorably arched. “I never said the CEO didn’t have authorization. I said it seemed a bit unusual.”

  “A world of diff—damn!” Her keyboard locked up and her screen blanked, leaving only a pop-up window visible.

  “What?”

  Tam studied the graphic, then laughed. “I thought I hit a trip program left by the hacker or the Feds. It’s got a Yankees logo so I’m thinking it’s a friendly.”

  She clicked the Yankee team logo and control of her keyboard came back. Once the pop-up disappeared she noticed a text file had been deposited onto her desktop. “Hank’s sent me a note.”

  She opened the file and read it to Kip. “Diane and I have some pandemonium from a few clients, others doing wait-and-see. Ted still has flu. Mercedes giving enemas to baby-faced agents. I’ve got rapport with senior agent, listening to alternatives about frame-up, suggesting they focus on M. Gathering that evidence too when it suits them, but not so gung ho since tix for you to Brazil delivered this a.m. How could you go to Carnaval without me?”

  Kip gave a shout of laughter. “I knew it!”

  “You guessed it right.” Tam was grinning. “Start thinking about what Tamara Sterling, inept embezzler, is going to do next to incriminate herself.”

  “Flee the jurisdiction, unfortunately. It does look bad.”

  “I know.” Tam sighed. “What else?”

  “I’m thinking some really good Photoshop images of you and that supermodel will surface.”

  Tam scanned the rest of Hank’s note, feeling a chill. “There’s more. Not sure how Barrett involved. Sky eyes watching for both of you.”

  “Sky eyes? You mean I’m flagged if I try to buy an air ticket?”

  Tam nodded. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve that.”

  “Fortunately, I’m not planning to get on a plane any time soon.” She didn’t seem that perturbed. She set aside the last sheet of paper and reached for her laptop. “I’m going to get to know Wren Cantu, see where that leads me. Look for photos of the two of you.”

  Taken aback by Kip’s nonchalant response to being put on the TSA warning list, Tam said, “Once you’re on the no-fly list who knows if you’ll ever get off it again.”

  Her voice quiet but firm, Kip answered, “It’s a risk I’m willing to take to further the investigation.”

  But not one she had ever wanted Kip to face, Tam thought, though part of her was pleased. It helped enormously to know that back in Seattle her loyal colleagues and friends were supporting her and keeping things together. The quicker this was all resolved, the better.

  Not certain she could get a message back to Hank without it pinging to him as an e-mail the Feds could intercept, she hoped he had left himself a way to see that the message had reached her. It had been clever of him to have figured out where she was likely to be searching for clues.

  Kip made a noise of disbelief.

  “What’s up?”

  “Here’s a photo of you and Cantu.” Kip turned her laptop around. “You look like you’re about to speak, but I think the background has been cloned to make it look like you’re in the same frame.”

  Tam scanned the source—coverage of the New York fundraiser posted on the New York Public Library’s social page. Kip was right. “I wasn’t there—a lot of people can put me in Seattle. I remember when it went off.” She pointed out Nadia to one side, talking to a man Tam didn’t know. “Nadia was delighted with the turnout. They raised a bunch of money for the business collection.”

  “So someone hunted around to find a celebrity of some kind involved with SFI, and then spliced you into the picture? That’s… Well, I get why they’re after you. They think they have a reason to neutralize you. But just picking an innocent person out of the crowd is pretty scummy.”

  “These are scummy people. They zeroed in on a lesbian celebrity, which is even more gossip-worthy.”

  “I know.” Kip frowned. “It’s possible she’s not so innocent in other ways, I suppose. The report I got on her shows a lot of debt. Using your little backdoor login, I see that she’s depositing thousands in cash every week, just under the notification limit, and transferring it out.”

  “Drugs or money laundering for drugs. That won’t go undetected for long. Banks in the U.S. are obligated to report not just literal cash transactions of ten thousand or more, but any pattern of cash transactions that might be for illicit purposes.”

  “Once the Feds get a whiff of this in her records, even if she can prove you and she never met, they’ve still got her for lots of other fun things. It’s all a big messy scandal that has nothing to do with Markoff and his associates.” Kip looked disgusted.

  “And if I’m reputed to be dating her, and she’s involved in drugs, then I’m involved by association. Cantu turns out to be a good red herring.”

  “One whiff of drugs and prosecutors don’t want you on the witness stand.” Kip tapped at her keyboard before reaching for one of the manila envelopes. “Somewhere in here… Okay, take a look at these. These are the copies of the waiver you supposedly filed with State about the foreign corporation interest.”

  Tam flipped through the pages. Her name, Wren Cantu’s, a reasonably good job of her signature at the bottom. “These were filed in person.”

  “It’s a proxy service,” Kip said promptly. “Someone mailed the originals to the document service, who then delivered them to the right clerk. That’s a lead to follow, since the proxy would have had to mail the receipts back to someone.”

  Tam jotted a note on her work log. There was a growing list of leads that she hoped, delivered en masse to the agents investigating her, would provide them with enough doubt that they ran some of them down before deciding she was their best and only suspect.

  She turned to the copies of the applications to open bank accounts in the Bahamas, all with different banks, all of which had ties to other countries, like the Bank of Zurich of the Bahamas. That was where the first account, the one that had received the most transfers, had been opened. She ran her finger down the page and stilled.

  “What is it?”

  “I know this man.” She turned the copies so Kip could see them. “Back when SFI was just getting started, one of the first cases was pulling back funds that had been compiled in the Bahamas at this bank, then transferred to their parent bank in Switzerland. I went there myself to establish our credentials and create a relationship that would let us open accounts quickly, make large transfers, and with their awareness that we were working for the good guys, and with the blessing of law enforcement, which was almost always true.”

  “So you met Robert Manna?” She peered at the signature and stamp. “Deputy Manager?”

  “Yes. He would remember me very well.” She held up the application copy. “We both liked breakfast in the same cafe. This paperwork wasn’t even necessary. When we’re on a case we’ll open and close several accounts and all by remote access.”

  “So why would he have approved it? He’d have to have known it was fishy.”

  “I’d like to know the answer to that.”

  “Is he the kind of person you could call and ask?”

  Tam’s brain was spinning with possibilities. None of them were good. “I would have thought so. He’s a proper, particular creature of habit who dislikes upset and is happiest when files are tidy and proper. But I have to take a page from your book—our book. I suspect he was compensated, which makes me pretty sad, because I thought he was one of the people in the Bahamas who disliked the illegal flow of money through their system. I tip him of
f, then the originals of this application—fingerprints and all—won’t be found should anyone ask.”

  “At least we have copies.” Kip expression grew gloomy. “But defense attorneys have a field day with the lack of originals. How incompetent the bank is, the investigators are, that they couldn’t find a simple piece of paper, and they’re covering their incompetence by accusing an innocent man of wrongdoing.”

  “I’ve heard that more times than I can count.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “You keep looking for the inside accomplice, because a real person here in the U.S. doctored those bank statements. I’ll follow up a hunch.”

  Several times throughout the morning Tam looked up from her own screen, trying to memorize the curve of Kip’s mouth, the crease between her eyebrows, the way her hands moved over the keyboard. She caught herself watching Kip flex and shake out the muscles of her right hand, sometimes massaging it after writing a long note.

  On her own screen, in addition to scanning the financial dealings of known Markoff associates, she planned a travel itinerary for only one person.

  * * *

  Hours later Kip said, “I have to get out for a walk.” She stretched out her sides as she waited for more soup to boil. “Get my heart pounding.”

  Not that it hadn’t been pounding most of the morning. Tam had a habit of pulling at her collar while she worked, and every time she did that Kip went through a lust spiral that included the delicious fantasy of running her tongue along the skin that was so briefly exposed.

  She was disgusted with herself, leering at a woman like a hormonal adolescent. She knew better, could act better. But did she stop? No, she went right on using Tam as her personal fantasy female.

  She had even tried summoning up the disapproval of her grandfather, which ought to have stiffened her backbone, but it didn’t work. She didn’t like herself for behaving this way, and yet there seemed no end in sight.

  Tam got up from the table with a grimace. “Oh, did you hear that? I stood up and something went crack. After a mere four hours. I’ve done twenty-four hours without a break.”

  “Recently?”

  “Are you calling me old?”

  It sounded like Tam was heading toward her. Kip threw a glance over her shoulder. She thought that most of all, she liked that Tam’s hair was pointing in all directions, giving her the look of a mad scientist. A damnably hot mad scientist.

  “Never.” She poured the chicken soup into mugs. “If we continue a walk up the road we won’t lose our way, and it’s vigorous. On a clear day a hike to the top is a beautiful view. I could really use the fresh air.”

  Tam appreciatively sniffed the contents of her mug. “Any new thoughts?”

  “Nothing inspired.” Kip leaned against the counter as she fished in the soup for the noodles. “I’m two-thirds through your list of the fifty or so people who went into the accounting file area who didn’t make sense being there. None of them have suddenly paid down debts, made unexplained luxury purchases and so forth. I’m not surprised. We all know how to hide money, at least for a while. For all I know, they were paid via PayPal, and it’s sitting in an account only they know how to access, keyed to the social security number of a dead relative.”

  Tam nodded. “You’re right. It’s not hard to hide a little bit of money.”

  “A couple of people working a couple of days could narrow it down, I’m sure, looking a little harder than I can on my own. But so far I have nothing. Except I didn’t know that our head of finance is independently wealthy.”

  “As Cary will tell you, she works for a living. She spends all her trust fund payments on art and charity.”

  “For a moment I thought I had found something. But I verified the donations. She paid a huge chunk into the Hendrix museum, the Seattle Children’s Museum, and so forth.”

  “Cool, huh?” Tam sipped at the warm broth and licked her lips. “I was glad to hire her.”

  There was a great deal of admiration in Tam’s tone, and jealousy wasn’t exactly what Kip felt, but it was close enough that she put it on the growing list of personal failings that were developing as a result of her entirely inappropriate feelings for Tamara Sterling. Kip Barrett, woman in lust, was not a good person.

  She was lacing on her hiking boots when Tam commented, “My new tennis shoes are going to get soaked.”

  “The fire will dry them out again. Or you can stay here.”

  The expression on Tam’s face, which had been professionally distant, flickered with something Kip could only describe as heat. “Not my first choice.”

  She led the way in the heavy, cold air, liking the thick sound of their shoes on the wet gravel. Her ears were tickled with motes of snow that melted on contact. The road wasn’t so much snow-covered as it was muddy. In just a few steps she felt tension slipping off her shoulders.

  “Further up the coast there are some scenic points. I love this area.”

  “Why didn’t we take the Bremerton ferry? Wouldn’t that have been shorter?”

  “Mileage, yes. But time… Not really, and I like driving. Sometimes I take the ferry home, though, especially if I’m ending the weekend with a book I’m trying to finish. It’s less stressful.”

  It was harder to talk as they climbed. Kip welcomed the throb of her muscles and veins with the taut chill of skin reddened by the sharp air. The cold scrubbed her eyes clean and she felt as if she could really breathe deeply again. The cloud cover didn’t allow for any kind of view, but the snow-dusted trees were beautiful.

  “I usually turn around here.”

  Tam immediately stopped walking. “Bless you.” She swallowed, gasped for air, then said, “A little walk, she says.”

  “It’s good for us.”

  “If I live. I had no idea I was this out of shape.”

  Kip smiled to herself. Tam was glowing with energy. Her breathing was already slowing and nothing about her suggested she was unfit. “It’s all in your head.”

  She got a distinctive hand gesture in response, and after her laughter died the forest hush overwhelmed her. The wind moved the tall pines around them, a sound she loved, but there was also the whisper of the snow falling like faerie wings gliding through the air. It was a fanciful thought—snowfall was too quiet for her to hear. It didn’t make sense that she thought so, but it didn’t have to, either.

  She stole a glance at Tam, who was gazing down the mountain. She looked as if she was thinking about something not entirely pleasant. Kip wanted to take that expression away, but that wasn’t her job here. Her feelings toward Tam didn’t make sense, and unlike fancies of faeries in the snow, it was essential to her that they did.

  The hike down was a little more perilous. She slipped once and Tam caught her, and only moments later she returned the favor. Back in the cabin they both stripped off their wet shoes, and Tam took off her wet socks as well. Kip watched her rifle the shopping bags, then happily pull on a new pair.

  “That’s better.” She came back for her abandoned shoes. “Oh, heck!”

  “What?”

  “I stepped in a puddle—now I have one wet sock.”

  Kip burst out laughing. Tam sounded just like a teenager.

  Tam glowered at her. “I hate that. It’s not funny, either.”

  Unfortunately, when Tam hopped back across the room to the shopping bags, Kip found it even funnier. Tam swapped out her wet sock and the look when she turned to face her sent Kip scurrying for the meager protection of the counter.

  The pursuit was short. Tam trapped her against the refrigerator and Kip decided it was more dignified not to struggle.

  Tam said slowly, “It’s not funny.”

  “Yes it is. I cannot tell a lie.”

  Tam’s fierce display of mock outrage faded away. “Neither can I.”

  The kiss was completely expected and it would have been a lie if Kip had protested. There was such tenderness in it that she melted, and even her suspicious, watchful mind was soothed
by Tam’s gentleness.

  The responsive gasp of Tam’s lips against hers and sudden tightness of her hands on Kip’s waist told Kip the gentleness came at a price. One sign from her and she knew where they were headed.

  When Tam let her go she looked as pale as Kip felt. Her eyes were glazed and her lips looked bruised.

  “You hate a wet sock,” Kip murmured. Desperate to derail the moment before her body had its way, she added, “Know what one of my pet peeves is?”

  Tam shook her head, the beginnings of a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth.

  “In a spy movie, after an hour of running about, guns drawn, leaping from speeding trains, everything stops, and people in danger decide the right thing to do is take all their clothes off…”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “And I have a hard time respecting them after that,” Kip said, even more softly.

  Tam’s thumb caressed the line of Kip’s jaw. “I want your respect.”

  “It’s not respecting you that worries me.”

  Tam stepped back, her arms dropping to her sides. “This isn’t my usual MO.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  Choosing her words carefully, trying not to be foolish, and not wanting to destroy something she didn’t even understand, Kip said, “The woman knows. How, I’m not sure, but she does. But she’s made a good living for herself being suspicious of everything. So far, she’s always been right.”

  Tam seemed to be waiting for more, but Kip could not make herself add that this time the suspicious investigator was praying that she was wrong.

  Without touching her, and in a tone only slightly edged with disappointment, Tam said, “I’m pleased to have met Kip the woman.”

  They went back to work. There was nothing more, really, to be said about it, Kip thought. She kept flicking through employee banking records, telling herself that if they were ordinary people they’d be sated and perhaps even asleep in bed at the moment, and if this were an ordinary case she’d be picking over people’s financial records with the blessings of law enforcement.

  But really, Kip chided herself, what made them not ordinary? Just because the number of people who did what they did was relatively rare, that didn’t make it more vital than teaching kids to read or tightening the bolts on an aircraft engine. But here they were, in a situation that was bizarre by any ordinary standard.