St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

releasing her.
    Before she could think of anything to say, Elena broke away from the winner and stood close to Rand. Very close.
    “I want to commission a larger, more finished portrait of the Castle of Heaven,” Elena said in a husky voice. “Please stay. Once the dancing begins, we can talk.”
    Rand didn’t need an earbud to know what Faroe would say. “You flatter me, Mrs. Bertone.”
    “Elena, please.” She flashed that million-watt smile and put her hand on his bare forearm.
    “Elena.” Rand smiled. “I’ll be glad to stay for the rest of the party.”
    Kayla wondered if she was the only one who noticed the difference in Rand’s eyes when he looked at his hostess. He enjoyed Elena’s beauty, but he didn’t want her.
    Is he picky or stupid? Because he sure isn’t blind.
    And he sure isn’t stupid.
    Kayla told herself not to be flattered.
    She was anyway.
    Elena squeezed Rand’s arm and glided out to her guests, jeweled sandals flashing in the bright lights.
    “What the hell do I do with this?” Rand asked Kayla, flicking the huge check with a paint-splashed fingernail. “Paper a wall?”
    “Cash it at the issuing bank on Monday.”
    “American Southwest? Where’s that?”
    “Try MapQuest.”
    “I’d rather try you.”
    Kayla stared at him. He meant it.
    Or at least he looked like he did.
    How can I tell what’s true and what’s false in a man who had Elena Bertone eating out of his hand with just an easy smile and some deep-voiced flattery?
    “Aren’t you afraid that Elena will discover her new lapdog is jonesing for another lap?” Kayla asked, irritated and curious at once.
    “Even lapdogs have teeth.” Rand showed her a double row of his. “I just know when to bite and when to shut up and wag.”
    “Wagging draws the better paycheck. But there are more important things than money.”
    “Easy for a banker to say.” Rand spoke through clenched teeth. “You have no idea what’s at stake.” And I’m a fool for caring what she thinks of me. This isn’t about a bonehead with a boner.
    This is about Reed.
    Kayla looked at her wristwatch. Almost seven. She picked up the purse she’d left on a table next to the stage. “See you around.”
    “What about dinner?”
    “Enjoy it. I’m busy.”
    She walked off and didn’t look back.
    Grimly Rand shouldered his backpack, screwed in an earbud, and listened to Faroe’s laughter.
    “Relax,” Faroe’s voice whispered. “They only spit like that when they’re interested in a man.”
    “Screw you.”
    “Jimmy will bump into you at your car. Literally. Pass him the memory stick.”
    “When?”
    “Five minutes.”
    “I’m supposed to stay around.”
    “So pass it and go back. I want that stick off the estate ASAP. Where’s Bertone?”
    “He took off when the photographers appeared.”
    “Keep looking. I don’t trust him behind you.”
    Neither did Rand. He looked for Bertone and finally found the big man back in the shadows, lighting a cigar, well away from the area where photographers were allowed.
    Bertone was watching Kayla’s progress across the party into the shadows at the back of the estate. When she disappeared, he turned and looked up at the second story of the Castle of Heaven. A thin man leaned on the balcony rail, watching the party.
    Watching Bertone.
    Rand had noticed the man before and assumed he was one of the many bodyguards who circulated every minute of every hour, protecting the Bertone family.
    Bertone took a deep pull on his fresh cigar until its ember glowed like a stoplight. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Then he dropped the cigar and crushed it out beneath his heel.
    Immediately the thin man vanished into the house. He reappeared a few moments later at the back of the house, heading in the same direction Kayla had. In his left hand he carried a small duffel.
    Bertone lit another cigar and walked back to the party. In moments he was talking with a group of people.
    Rand looked at his watch. Seven o’clock.
    Yet neither Elena nor Bertone was headed to the garden for a private chat with their private banker.
    Only the thin man was.
    “Houston,” Rand said softly to his collar, “we’ve got a problem.”

22
    Castillo del Cielo
Saturday
7:00 P.M. MST
    K ayla strode down the lighted path, wishing her shoes flashed and sparkled rather than being dark and banker-perfect. The wishing didn’t stop with her shoes. The rest of her was depressingly banker-perfect, too. Except on the inside. On the