St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

see.”
    He leaned aside.
    Kayla saw five white Chandler squad cars pulled up at odd angles around the tired-looking Chevrolet van she’d seen in Guadalupe. Officers swarmed around the van, which was parked with its rear cargo door pointed in the direction of the restaurant’s front door. Three officers had opened the cargo doors and were leaning in to examine the interior of the van.
    Two men were facedown on the asphalt, their hands cuffed behind them.
    “Is it—” she began.
    “Oh, yeah,” he said, glancing around while he appeared to be nuzzling her hair. “Hell’s angel was flying too close to the ground. Crash and burn, you bastard.”
    An officer emerged from the cargo area carrying a lethal-looking long gun with a sniper’s scope on it.
    “One of the guys on the ground, the skinny one—” she began.
    “Yeah,” Rand said. “Say buh-bye, darling. He’s going down, big-time.”
    “Is that one of the guns we saw in Guadalupe?” Kayla asked very quietly.
    “I’d bet on it.” Then, “End of the ride. Watch your step.”
    She walked off the escalator, but all she could concentrate on was her memory of the parking lot with its silent show-and-tell. “You were right. About the gun slits.”
    “Sure was.”
    “Don’t sound so cheerful. I was the target, wasn’t I.”
    It wasn’t a question.
    “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Rand said. “But if it was Bertone on the other end of Foley’s wire, he must have been shitting green lizards.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you, you clever little banker lady, have the key to his millions. If he kills you, he kills himself. But he didn’t know that when he pointed his skinny death angel at you and told him to pull the trigger.”
    Her mouth flattened. “Now what?”
    “Tell me you didn’t forget Bertone’s password.”
    “I didn’t.”
    He let out a breath. “Good.”
    “Just because my hips swing when I walk, I’m not stupid. And I sure don’t have a little black book of passwords.”
    “Dang.” He smiled slowly. “Here I was getting all hard just thinking about it.”
    She gave him a look as he hustled her past windows full of things with price tags and blank faces. “Are we going somewhere in particular?”
    “No. We’re waiting for Bertone to get in touch with his inner password.”
    “What about my naughty pink thingy?”
    “I’ll get in touch with that.”

52
    Chandler Mall
Sunday
11:40 A.M. MST
    L ane walked eagerly next to his dad as they strolled toward the gang of squad cars blocking the parking lane in the crowded mall lot.
    “This is a classic example of a felony takedown,” Faroe said. “Watch and learn.”
    “Beats hell out of the Krebs cycle,” Lane said, peering at the milling officers.
    “Gotta watch that adrenaline. It’s witchy stuff. Just remember, your mother as a judge has done more to leave the world a better place than she found it than I have hanging with St. Kilda.”
    “Then why isn’t she still a judge?”
    “Ask her.”
    “I did.”
    “What’d she say?”
    “To ask you,” Lane said.
    “Sometimes good doesn’t get the job done. Then St. Kilda does. We’re the guys in the gray hats.”
    “Look at that gun! What kind is that?”
    “Ease back,” Faroe said quietly. “The cops have things under control, but they’re still full of adrenaline and their guns are full of bullets. Give them plenty of room and don’t do anything sudden.”
    One of the cops who was leaning out over the hood of his squad car with a shotgun at the ready glanced up at them and said flatly, “Stay back. This is a crime scene.”
    Faroe stood with his hands out at his sides, palms open.
    Lane imitated him.
    The cop nodded.
    “I’m just worried about my car, Officer,” Faroe said. “I don’t want any buckshot holes in it.”
    “Your car’s fine, sir. Just stay back out of the way.”
    “Yessir,” Faroe said.
    He drew Lane back behind a red Ford pickup, where they could watch without making anyone nervous.
    “The nice thing about Arizona cops,” Faroe said, “is they’re used to dealing with armed suspects and felony takedowns.”
    “You mean that open-carry law that Mom is always rolling her eyes over?”
    “Yeah. Note how the cops all pulled in from separate directions, but left firing lanes open in case the mopes in the van tried anything. Good technique.”
    Lane watched the officers unload two heavy-caliber automatic weapons and a half-dozen magazines of ammunition from the van.
    “Why didn’t