St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

some ID.”
    “I don’t need any.”
    “You need ID if I say you do,” Morehouse snarled. Over his shoulder, he said to one of his men, “Cuff this clown. Sack him up.”
    “What’s the charge?” Faroe asked.
    “No ID,” Morehouse shot back. “I think you look illegal, and I’m taking you in until I’m sure you’re a citizen in good standing.”
    Faroe’s smile was a knife sliding out of a sheath. “I once carried a badge pretty much like yours. Like you, I tried to bootstrap a disagreement with a suspect into an immigration violation.”
    Unwillingly, Morehouse eased his grip. “So?”
    “I knew the guy was a citizen,” Faroe said, “just like you know I’m a citizen. I even knew that a citizen is under no affirmative obligation to prove his status, so long as he is already here on U.S. soil. But I went ahead and sacked him up anyway.”
    “Hooray for you,” Morehouse muttered.
    “I did a year in federal prison for a civil rights violation,” Faroe said pleasantly. “Back off, or you’ll do the same.”
    Morehouse stared at Faroe for a long five-count, then released his arm.
    “Friggin’ lawyers all over the place,” Morehouse said under his breath.
    Grace emerged from the bungalow, carrying a cell phone. She held it out to Morehouse.
    “It’s your boss,” she said.
    Morehouse looked at the phone like it was a snake, then took it and held it to his ear.
    “Yeah, this is Morehouse.” He listened, grunted, listened some more, grunted, and sighed. Then he handed the phone back to Grace. “He wants to talk to you again.”
    Grace held a short, crisp conversation with the bureaucrat at the other end, thanked him, and hung up.
    “Will there be anything else, Officer?” she asked pointedly.
    “No. Sorry about the bother. Ma’am.” Teeth clenched, Morehouse turned and waved his men back to their vehicles.
    Thirty seconds later there wasn’t an agent in sight.
    “Nice job,” Faroe said, nuzzling Grace’s cheek. “Did you pick up anything useful from the director?”
    “He was as confused as Agent Morehouse.” She frowned. “He said they were acting on information directly from Washington, but he wouldn’t tell me from where inside the Beltway.”
    “Must have been a hot call to get those boys out at the crack of dawn on a Sunday. Good thing you convinced Neto to stay in B.C.”
    “Which the agents must have known,” Grace said. “Undoubtedly they have someone watching him. Maybe they lost him.”
    “Or maybe they were after us all along,” Faroe said.
    “An intelligence-gathering raid?”
    “Probably,” Faroe said. “They can’t get to Neto, so they’ll settle for identifying and interrogating the rest of us. How’d you get rid of Morehouse?”
    “I told the director he was being used as a political cat’s-paw.
    No enforcement agent ever likes that idea. I also told him not to send anyone back without specific and narrowly defined search warrants.”
    Faroe grunted. “They might get them.”
    “They know me, and they know St. Kilda Consulting’s lawyers. It will take time.” She grimaced. “I should know. I’m still trying to shake a warrant out of a judge to freeze Bertone’s accounts.”
    Faroe looked toward the resort grounds. “Even if it takes time, we’re suddenly hotter than a flat rock in July.”
    “You think they left someone behind?” Grace asked, looking around the grounds.
    “I’ll bet the place is crawling with plainclothes playing tennis or golf—with long lenses,” Faroe said, pulling her inside and locking the door behind them.
    “We have to keep Kayla off the federal radar,” Grace said tightly. “For whatever reason, the feds are on Bertone’s side. If the political pressure is bad enough, Morehouse will be back with paper I can’t talk us out of honoring. Kayla will be on the firing line.”
    Faroe smiled coldly. “They’ll have to find her first.”

40
    Castillo del Cielo
Sunday
6:40 A.M. MST
    T he child’s soft footsteps woke Elena immediately. She slipped out of bed and went to the door. Miranda was in the hallway outside. Tears magnified her big golden eyes.
    Elena gathered the weeping child into her arms and rocked slowly. “What’s wrong, pet? Did your bad dream come back?”
    “Y-yes.” The little girl threw her thin arms around Elena’s neck and hung on. “Maria s-said I was a b-baby and—”
    “Hush, little one. You’re a beautiful child and Momma loves you. I understand about bad dreams and night