St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

gesture, a means of guiding her, yet Kayla was aware of his touch immediately, intensely. Then she saw that his right hand never strayed far from the gun at the small of his back.
    “I thought you said we’re alone.” She looked pointedly at his right hand.
    “I’m ninety-seven percent sure. The gun’s for the other three percent.”
    “Are you certain you aren’t a federal cop?” she asked.
    “Would you feel better if I was?”
    “No.”
    He stopped by the front door. “Interesting. Why?”
    “I saw Bertone talking to some of the most powerful politiciansin the state tonight. I’ve seen thousands and thousands of dollars in campaign donations flow from the Bertones to national politicians all over the States.”
    “So?”
    “So right now I don’t trust anyone who draws a public paycheck. Call me a cynic.”
    “I’d call you a realist. Money is just another word for power.”
    Rand suspected that Faroe could name every politician who’d taken Bertone’s money, but Rand would ask Faroe just to be certain.
    Bertone’s political allies were Kayla’s enemies.
    “Anything look out of place to you?” Rand asked when Kayla walked into the house.
    She glanced around. “Considering that I’ve been packing up stuff, no.”
    She walked into the bedroom.
    He followed.
    “You’re neater than I am,” Rand said, looking around the room. “Or did you pack up all the little things already?”
    “No. But too much clutter is like a traffic jam—it makes me edgy.”
    An open book lay facedown on the bedside table. Rand picked up the paperback. The Lonely Planet guide Australia and New Zealand on a Shoestring. She’d been reading about the high lake and glacier country of South Island.
    “Is this where you were going to go to ground?” he asked, gesturing with the book.
    “Up until yesterday, all I had was itchy feet.”
    “And now?”
    “I itch everywhere.”
    He almost smiled. “Smart.”
    “Uncomfortable.”
    “You get used to it.”
    “I’d rather go to Queenstown and stop itching.”
    He gave her a sideways glance and saw that she was looking wistfully at the picture of glaciers and lakes.
    “You mentioned blackmail,” Rand said.
    “I did?”
    “Back in the garden. You said Bertone was the blackmailer, not you. What did you mean?”
    “Guess my dossier wasn’t quite complete,” she said.
    He closed the book and turned to her.
    “Thursday I sold the ranch,” she said. “Got a really great price, never met the buyer.”
    “Bertone.”
    “How did you know?”
    “I know Bertone.”
    “Well, thanks to him,” she said bitterly, “now I look like a down-and-dirty banker.”
    “Figures.”
    “You believe me?”
    “It fits with the rest of your dossier,” Rand said. “You’re too clean to volunteer for the kind of mud bath Bertone needs. He had to have a twist on you. Why didn’t you go to the feds?”
    “Bertone has a lot more traction with the feds than I do. I didn’t want to bet my freedom on a he-said-she-said slanging match. Maybe I should have. But I couldn’t get enthusiastic about my chances of winning, so I looked for another way out.”
    “Find one?”
    She looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t know.”
    Kayla turned and walked out of the bedroom. The kitchen area was the center of the small ranch house. With the ease oflong familiarity she pulled out several stockpots, dumped in sugar and hot water, and put the pots on the gas stove. Each burner came on with a soft whump.
    She stared at the flames.
    “What do you think?” she asked finally. “Should I go to the feds?”
    Rand thought of Neto being refused a visa— not in U.S. interests —and of the politicians sucking up expensive champagne at the Bertones’ paint-off. “As a last resort, maybe.”
    “What about running?”
    He shook his head slowly. “You don’t have enough money to hide for the next fifty years.”
    “That’s what I figured. Then I went to my boss.”
    “Which one?”
    “Steve Foley.”
    Another name to run by St. Kilda’s research department. “And?”
    “I can talk about what happened to me, my personal finances. I can’t talk about my clients. I could get fired.”
    “There are worse things. Handcuffs, for instance.”
    Kayla flinched. “I have a responsibility to my clients and my bank.”
    “That’s what Bertone is counting on. A sweet little bird who’s terrified of singing outside the choir.”
    She set her jaw, stirred each pot, and watched bubbles