St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

got out and pitched the keys to the guard. “Dump this at one of Scottsdale Air Park’s long-term lots. I want anybody interested in Kayla to think she could have jumped a private jet and disappeared.”
    “Right, Mac,” the guard replied. “I’ll bring the ticket to you, Miss Shaw. You can pick the car up when it’s safe.”
    “Thanks.” She looked at Rand. “When will it be safe?”
    When Bertone’s dead.
    But all Rand said was, “You’ll know.”
    He guided her down the soft, sandy path toward the lighted bungalow, then up the short stairway that led across the central patio to the first bungalow’s door. Rand raised his hand to knock, then stopped.
    “Last chance,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. “There’s a Gulfstream executive jet at Scottsdale Air Park. You could be in Cabo San Lucas in two hours. You’d be safe.”
    “Forever?” she asked.
    “Nobody’s safe forever. But you would be safe until we get a choke hold on Bertone.”
    Kayla took a deep breath and stared off into the night. Beyond the soft lights from the bungalows, she could just make out the rolling landforms of a green, manicured golf course that ran out to the edge of the desert. Calm, peaceful, normal in the faint glow of city lights and starlight. She shook her head.
    “What does that mean?” Rand asked.
    “It looks so ordinary out there.”
    “Death is damned ordinary.”
    She made a sound that might have been laughter. “You’re one of a kind, McCree. A real sweet-talking man. You’re just trying to make this sound irresistible to me, aren’t you?”
    He shrugged. “If it all goes from sugar to shit, I don’t want you standing there, watching me with a surprised look on your face.”
    Like Reed, dying.
    “Lead on, McCree,” Kayla said.

30
    Royal Palms
Saturday
9:15 P.M. MST
    T he last thing Kayla expected to find in the bungalow was a man and a pregnant woman quizzing a good-looking teenage boy about the Krebs cycle. She gave Rand a look.
    He gave it back.
    “Right down the rabbit hole,” she said under her breath.
    “You expected sweaty, muscular men with real short hair cleaning guns and sharpening knives?” he asked dryly. “The mean-looking dude is Joe Faroe. The beautiful rapier—”
    Grace snorted. “I’m pregnant, McCree.”
    “— mind is Grace Faroe,” Rand said without missing a beat. “The lanky bottomless pit with computer attachments is Lane, their son. Meet Kayla Shaw, the banker Andre Bertone tried to kidnap.”
    “That’s my cue,” Lane said, coming to his feet. “Pleased to meet you and I’m gone.”
    “Go online and get a better explanation of the Krebs cycle,” Faroe said to Lane’s retreating back. “The textbook they gave you is lame.”
    Lane waved and vanished through a bedroom door.
    Grace smiled and held out her hand to Kayla. “Ignore Joe. He’s a little new to the teaching game. He thinks glucose metabolism is something exotic and inscrutable.”
    “OIL RIG,” Kayla answered.
    Grace blinked.
    “Oxidation Is Loss, Reduction Is Gain,” Kayla explained. “There’s more, but that’s all I remember from my advanced-placement biology class.”
    “Did you hear that, Lane?” Faroe asked the bedroom door.
    “OIL RIG,” came faintly from behind the door, followed by train-wreck music.
    Faroe grinned.
    Grace shook her head. “Sorry, we’re home-schooling the heathen.”
    “Beats having him kidnapped again,” Faroe said. “Coffee? Wine? Beer? Cheese and crackers? Peanut butter?”
    “Bring it on,” Rand said. “The canapés wore off hours ago.” He looked at Kayla. “What about you?”
    “Lane was kidnapped?” Kayla asked, shocked.
    “We got him back,” Faroe said. His voice said it hadn’t been easy.
    “A very powerful Mexican drug lord was killed in the process,” Grace said. “Joe is still at considerable risk.”
    “So are you,” Faroe said from the kitchen area. “So is Lane. I wish Mary the Markswoman had had a chance to drop that cabrón ’s nephew.”
    Grace gave her husband a slicing, sideways look. “I didn’t hear that.”
    “Hear what?” Faroe asked blandly.
    Kayla glanced at Rand. “Even paranoids have real enemies, right?”
    “Nonparanoids, too. They’re just too dumb to know it.”
    “I don’t know how much McCree has told you about St. Kilda Consulting,” Grace began, giving Rand a hard look for saying anything at all without permission.
    “Enough that I know you aren’t owned by politicians,”