St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

survive?
    In my place, would he do it?
    Hell, yes.
    Then he’ll believe it when I do.
    With feral eyes, Kayla watched the men and waited for achance to knee Foley in the balls and break his nose with her forehead. Her dad had taught her to fight only as a last resort—and then to fight hard, mean, and dirty.
    All she wanted was a chance.
    Just one.

67
    Phoenix
Sunday
2:10 P.M. MST
    T he gate guards had been changed. Bertone was obviously digging deep for people with no previous loyalties or ties—except to him. The man on duty looked Uzbek, was sweating like a turkey on a spit, and smelled like a crowded Paris bus in summer. His hand was on the butt of his pistol, a Tokarev that looked as tough and hard-used as the guard himself.
    Rand rolled the window down.
    “Your business?” the guard demanded in heavily accented English.
    “I’m here at Mrs. Bertone’s invitation. I won the art contest last night. She said she wanted to talk to me about some other paintings.”
    “Wait.”
    The guard retreated, called the house, spoke, listened, and hung up. When he walked back to the car, his hands were at his side.
    “You need appointment,” he said. “Mrs. Bertone too busy with the United States senator to talk some painter. Come tomorrow.”
    “Huh.”
    The guard stared at Rand blankly. “Leave.”
    “Well, hell, could you just open up the gate so I can pull through and turn around?” Rand asked.
    The guard narrowed his eyes. “Use road there.” He pointed to the curbed semicircle in front of the shack that would allow vehicles to reverse direction.
    “Oh. Got it.”
    Rand glanced across at the exit from the estate, which had no gate. It was protected by a strip of tire shredders. He reversed, keeping an eye on the guard, then started into the turnaround.
    The guard walked back toward the shack to get out of the desert’s brutal sun.
    Rand cramped the wheels hard right, hopped the curb, and accelerated quickly toward the tire shredders. At the last second he found a gap between two ranks of the shredders and swung the left-side tires into it. The tires on both right wheels blew out. The SUV lurched hard to the right. He yanked the steering wheel, fought the pull, and straightened out the vehicle.
    With a grind of steel on pavement, he accelerated up the hill. As he rounded the first curve in the long driveway, he heard the hard metal slap of a bullet hitting the tailgate just below the SUV’s rear window.
    Then he was out of range and out of sight.
    At the garage he crammed the nose of the SUV into the passageway that led to the house. Inside the garage, a driver was leaning on a Cadillac with congressional plates, chatting with the man outside washing the limo. The big black Humvee Bertone loved to drive wasn’t there.
    Both men stared when Rand bailed out of the rental SUV and raced toward the house.
    Outside the servants’ entrance to the kitchen, he nearlyknocked 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