St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

raised his glass, then looked at her. “What shall we drink to?”
    “After today, let’s drink to innocence. The few shreds of it left in the world ought to be celebrated.”
    “To innocence,” he said, clinking his glass lightly against hers. “Honored in the absence.”
    “How did you lose yours?” she asked, sipping.
    “The usual way. Backseat of a car.”
    She choked, let him whack her on the back, and then waved him off. “I wasn’t talking about sexual innocence,” she said.
    “I’m not sure I ever was that innocent. I was raised by a half-Tlingit grandmother whose own mother had been stolen as a slave. My father was a commercial salmon fisherman in the San Juans and in Alaska. He was gone half the year. My mother was an artist from Seattle who was gone as much as she was home. From what I saw, it was an open marriage. That’s what they’re calling it now, right? Not infidelity, or adultery, or cheating, just mutual understanding of needs and being sure not to bring anything home but memories.”
    The coolness in his voice made Kayla flinch. “That’s a fair load of sophistication, or something, for a kid to be exposed to.”
    “It was home.” And Reed was always there, ready to laugh or fight or hide, whatever was needed.
    Rand sipped his whiskey, letting the smoky fire spread across his tongue. Every nerve in his body was on alert. Every sense honed to a fighting edge. Or fucking. He’d take either right now. Anything to push back the intimacy stealing over him, the scent of the woman next to him, her voice soft in the darkness, her skin pale, inviting.
    “Any sibs?” she asked.
    “Younger brother. By twelve minutes.”
    “Identical?”
    “Like peas in a pod. Reed always said he was better looking. People always said I was smarter.” They were wrong.
    He let the hot, snarling kiss of scotch spread over his tongue, swallowed, sipped some more. He knew it wouldn’t stop the memories, but it might just blunt the sharpest edges.
    “Identical twins,” Kayla said, grinning. “That must be great.”
    “It was.” Rand let more whiskey bite his tongue, spread fire.
    “You don’t get along?”
    “He’s dead.”
    The fountains laughed liquidly in the silence.
    “I’m sorry,” Kayla said. “I can’t imagine—”
    “You don’t want to.”
    She closed her eyes. The neutrality of his voice told her more than any words; his twin’s loss was still an open wound on his soul.
    Silently Rand watched a feral cat slide from shadow to shadow, hunting rodents in the exclusive resort’s carefully tended gardens.
    Good hunting, buddy. The world needs less rats.
    Kayla knew she should let the subject go. And she knew she wouldn’t. Rand interested her in too many ways, on too many levels.
    “When?” she asked simply.
    “Five years ago. In Africa.”
    She remembered scraps of information that Faroe had given her. Goose bumps rose along her arms. “The man in the bwana suit?”
    “Yeah. Only we knew him as the Siberian. I was the photographer. Reed was the rifle. One of us gave away our position. The Siberian shot Reed, then sent the army after us. I survived. Reed didn’t.”
    He sipped the drink again and was surprised to find it half gone. Slow down , fool. He set the drink on a small glass end table and shifted his shoulders. At least the knots were looser. A little.
    “That’s how St. Kilda got to you,” Kayla said. “They dangled a chance to get Bertone.”
    “Pretty much.”
    “So St. Kilda hires assassins?”
    “No. They want Bertone alive. Dead broke, but not dead.”
    “What about you?”
    “Dead. Period.”

37
    Royal Palms
Sunday
12:15 A.M. MST
    K ayla drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly, telling herself that Rand didn’t really mean his words literally.
    Knowing that he did.
    “When I was in college, my parents died in a small-plane crash in the interior of Alaska,” she said finally.
    Rand nodded.
    “You knew that already,” she said. “It was in that damned file.”
    He nodded again and said, “Just like I know that kind of loss rips out a chunk of your soul that’s never replaced.”
    “You get used to it. The pain.” She grimaced and set aside her drink. “That sounded way too close to another pity party. What I meant is that you get past it, you get used to the new reality, and you get on with your life. But then, you already know that.”
    Not really. I’m still learning.
    Then Rand realized that he’d spoken the words aloud. He twirled