St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

finally. “I loved it. Nobody was trying to kidnap me then. But I see things even more clearly now.”
    “Amazing how a little fear sharpens the senses. You ran straight for me in the garden, like a cat.”
    “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I was too busy being scared silly.”
    “You weren’t silly,” he said. “You had your best weapon and were ready to defend yourself no matter what the odds. That’s all anyone can do.”
    She was silent for a moment, then let out a long sigh. “Thanks, Rand. I needed that. I felt so damned helpless.”
    Rand remembered holding Reed, seeing death take life from his eyes. “I’ve been there. Helpless and screaming inside.”
    “You sure didn’t look helpless tonight.”
    “Different time, different place. Next time, next place—” He shrugged. “Who knows?”
    What she could see of his face told her the same thing his voice did. He meant every word.
    Not Tarzan, yodeling through the jungle on waves of testosterone.
    Not a lapdog.
    Altogether intriguing.
    The SUV popped over a rocky ridgeline and started down into Dry Valley. In the distance, a light burned. As they came closer, the single yard light in a fixture on a power pole next to the ranch house outlined every detail around the small house.
    “No cars,” Rand said. “No trucks. But then, I’d put my wheels out of sight and wait inside.”
    “I don’t like the sound of that. Do you really think someone’s inside my—Bertone’s—house?”
    “Probably not. But why regret not doing what’s smart?”
    He drove slowly into the yard between the corral and the low-roofed ranch house. The cone of light from the single bulb fell across a post that was mounted with three swinging arms, eachabout a foot long. At the end of each arm there was a hummingbird feeder with a clear plastic barrel and red plastic base.
    “You still have a key to the door?” Rand asked.
    “I never lock it.”
    “You live alone and you don’t lock up?”
    She shrugged. “Mom and Dad never did. There’s a deadbolt on the inside I can use if I’m home.”
    “The last of the innocents,” he said softly. “After I get out, crawl over to the driver’s side. Don’t open the door. If you see anyone but me, hit the horn and drive like a bat out of hell to the Royal Palms. Ask for Joe Faroe.”
    “What about you?”
    Instead of answering, Rand lowered the window and listened.
    Above the sound of the engine came a rush of wind, the rub of dry plants against each other, the call of a song-dog wishing for the moon. Rand listened as the coyote called again.
    Nothing answered.
    “Put your hands over the dome light,” he said.
    She stared for a moment, then put her palms squarely over the SUV’s interior light. Her hands glowed red when he opened the door. Quickly, quietly, he shut the door behind him and disappeared into the shadows beside the corral and barn.
    Kayla scrambled across to the driver’s seat and watched the ghost that was Rand. He used every bit of darkness and landscape to break up his outline against the pale dirt and star-blazing sky. Slowly he circled toward the back of the house.
    And vanished.
    When he disappeared, she felt a sudden isolation. She was in a place that was utterly familiar to her. And utterly un familiar, because a stranger was in the shadows of her childhood home looking for other strangers carrying bags holding handcuffs and duct tape and silenced guns.
    I don’t know who advised people to believe three impossible things a day, but I’m working on it.
    Don’t work, she told herself. Just accept.
    Treat this like a foreign country. I don’t need to understand everything at once. I used to be good at that, at letting go, at not getting hung up on differences to the point that I couldn’t enjoy a new place.
    Now I’m in a new place.
    Accept it.
    Rand appeared at the other end of the ranch house. The silenced gun gleamed dully in his hand. He tested the front door, found it unlocked, and pushed it wide open. Then he waited, listening. After a few moments he went inside.
    Kayla waited, listening, breath held. She flinched and let out an explosive breath when a light turned on inside the house. Other lights came on. Rand reappeared on the porch and walked to the SUV. The gun was nowhere in sight.
    “Shut it down,” he said. “We’re alone.”
    She turned off the engine and got out of the car, walking into a familiar, foreign land.
    He took her arm with his left hand. It was an impersonal