St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

reception area. Rand looked around, sizing up the backdrop.
    The last rays of the sun sparkled on the three-tiered waterfall and on the trays of champagne glasses filled with golden wine. Elena Bertone, perfectly turned out and ravishing in a lime-green suit that fit her lush body like a silk stocking, was chatting and laughing with a circle of men and the few women brave enough to compete with an international beauty queen.
    Behind Elena and to one side, Andre Bertone stood smoking a fat hand-rolled cigar. He was listening to a balding suit who might have been a lawyer or a political aide. Or both.
    Elena was an accomplished actress, which made her a fine hostess. She was animated, vibrant, gracious. She could carry on three conversations at once and still be fully aware of everything going on outside her inner circle. When she saw Kayla approaching,Elena smoothly left the group she was with and walked toward her banker.
    “What is it?” Elena asked.
    “Elena, this is Rand McCree, one of your artists. He’d like to do a quick portrait of you to go with his canvas of the beautiful home you designed. Rand, Mrs. Bertone.”
    “A pleasure,” Rand said.
    And wished it was.
    Elena inspected him from boots to hairline and liked what she saw in between. She flashed her perfect smile as she offered her hand.
    “I know how much in demand you are,” Rand said as he took her elegant hand and shook it once, formally. “If I could just snap a couple of pictures, profile and full face, I can download them to my computer and paint from them.”
    Elena glanced in the direction of her husband, who either hadn’t noticed the good-looking artist approach her or didn’t care.
    “I told Rand that Mr. Bertone dislikes being photographed,” Kayla said. “He’ll make certain that your husband’s privacy isn’t invaded.”
    Rand made it a point to turn his shoulder toward Bertone as he asked Elena, “Would you mind giving me a few moments?”
    Elena checked the nearby people. All of them were engaged, no one was looking lost, and the staff was circulating with an endless, expensive river of champagne and canapés.
    “Artists call this time of day sweet light,” Rand said. “It only lasts a few moments. It makes your skin glow like amber.”
    “You flatter me.”
    “The camera won’t lie, Mrs. Bertone. You glow.” It was the truth, but that didn’t make Rand like himself any better.
    Get over it. You’d do a lot worse than suck up to a murderer’s wife to get your hands on Reed’s killer.
    Kayla listened to the flattery and wanted to hurl, even though what Rand said was accurate—probably because of it. Elena did look like a goddess in the slanting light.
    But does he have to drool?
    He’s an artist. Of course he admires beauty.
    Elena touched Rand’s shoulder, felt strength, and smiled. “Kayla, be a dear and tell Andre what’s going on so he won’t worry. I don’t want another scene like the one at the Christmas fund-raiser.”
    Kayla wanted to point out that Rand couldn’t take a photo while the subject was rubbing up against him. Instead, she turned sharply and walked the ten feet to Bertone.
    With the speed of a professional photographer, Rand took a few insurance shots of the lovely Elena. She posed and projected for the camera like the model and actress she had once been.
    “You’re a natural,” he said, adjusting focus and depth of field. “The camera loves you.”
    And vice versa.
    But Rand wasn’t going to bite the hand that was allowing him to line up Andre Bertone in the second lens.
    “You could have made millions with that face and those gorgeous cat eyes,” Rand said, working quickly through the major lens. “Now, just a few more with the fountain in the backdrop and the light on your face.”
    “Do I really want that?” she asked. “Women over twenty run like Andre if a cameraman catches them in sunlight.”
    “You have nothing to worry about,” Rand said. “Now let me try a couple from this side.”
    He switched position, carefully keeping his primary lens aimed at Elena and getting a perfect full-face shot of Andre Bertone with his hidden lens. Bertone was watching him intently, alert for the instant the camera swung his way.
    Rand held the camera up for long seconds, appearing to adjust the focusing ring, but actually holding down the second shutter release on the hidden lens. By the time he lowered the camera, he had twenty separate photos of Andre Bertone on his memory