St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

“She’s a savage critic and I’m a closet masochist. Perfect match.”
    “Then I will leave you to your pain and pleasure,” Bertone said. He looked at Kayla. “Until after the contest, ma petite. ”
    Rand watched his brother’s murderer walk away. When he glanced at Kayla, her face was pale.
    “That was a pleasant little chat,” he said.
    She looked at him in disbelief.
    “Irony,” he said quickly. “You look like you just stepped on a snake. If I heard what I think I heard, you can haul him up on sexual harassment charges.”
    She made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and not quite a curse. “Waste of time. Thousands of women would line up to be harassed by him.”
    “You aren’t one of them.”
    “So does that make me picky or stupid?”
    “You’re a long way from stupid. May I call you Kayla?”
    “Anything but ma petite. ”
    “Okay, beautiful.”
    She surprised both of them by laughing. “Thanks, handsome. I was feeling…smudged.”
    Rand reached out to touch her cheek, saw his paint-spattered fingers, and wiped them on his jeans. Kayla Shaw was a little too attractive and maybe a lot too vulnerable.
    But she was the tool he’d been given to use.

20
    Castillo del Cielo
Saturday
6:10 P.M. MST
    F rom the corner of his eyes Rand saw that Bertone had finally stopped circulating. Now he was making nice with the people standing near his wife.
    “Okay,” Rand said, sticking a brush in a jar of turpentine. “Take me to my hostess.”
    “You’re done?” Kayla asked, startled.
    Close enough for this farce. But all he said aloud was, “It’s a field study. Any rough edges are looked at as virtues, not flaws.”
    “And if you schmooze the hostess enough—”
    “Yeah,” he interrupted. “She might forgive the flaws. So introduce me to her.”
    Kayla hesitated.
    “What?” he asked.
    “I’m trying to decide whether your honesty is appalling or appealing.”
    Rand gave her a smile that was all sharp edges. “Think about it while I talk to her.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a camera.
    “What’s that for?” Kayla asked.
    “I’m hoping to do a portrait of Elena Bertone, Arizona art maven. Sort of a companion to the field study.”
    “You really are trying to flatter your way into winning, aren’t you?”
    Rand had a momentary flashback of Reed’s dying eyes. “Whatever works.”
    “Appalling.”
    “What?”
    “I’ve decided. Your honesty is appalling.”
    “So is starving. Unlike Renaissance Italy, America doesn’t have patrons to support the purity of an artist’s soul. Rat-infested garrets are overrated.”
    “Why don’t you try cutting off your ear?” Kayla asked coolly. “That seemed to put van Gogh on the fast track.”
    “Do you really think I’d look better that way? If so, I’d consider it.”
    She put her hands on her hips. “You’re maddening.”
    “I’m serious.”
    “You mean you’d cut off your ear if I told you to?”
    “No, I said I’d consider it. What do you think?”
    Not knowing whether to throw up her hands or laugh, Kayla looked first at Rand’s left ear and then at his right. “Leave them be. They’re a decent enough pair.”
    His glance dropped from her eyes to her lips and all the way to her toes. “You have a decent pair, too,” he said.
    “You’re outrageous.”
    “I compliment your eyes and you call me outrageous?”
    She opened her mouth.
    He looked hopeful.
    “Right,” she said. “I’m taking you to Elena.”
    Rand would rather have stayed with Kayla, but stayingwouldn’t get the job done. Automatically he checked his camera again, making certain the memory stick was secure, the lens clean, and his fingers nowhere near the USB outlet.
    “Ready to go,” he said, taking Kayla’s arm.
    Kayla looked over to where Elena laughed and drank champagne with several politicians. Then she saw Bertone. “Don’t point that camera at your host.”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it. He’d break the lens.”
    “I mean it,” she said quickly. “He goes postal if someone tries to take his picture. He nearly ripped the face off a photographer at a Christmas fund-raiser. Then he exposed the film and gave the photographer a thousand for the insult.”
    Rand didn’t doubt it. “No problem. I’ll be very careful to keep this pointed away from him.”
    At exactly ninety degrees.
    Kayla led Rand through the packed crowds on the patio to a beautifully landscaped fountain area that was discreetly roped off as a VIP