Innocent as Sin

63

Phoenix

Sunday

The corridor was empty. Foley crowded Kayla down the hallway to his own office, keyed in, and locked behind him. It took less than twenty seconds. She hoped the guard had seen her on the corridor camera, but she wasn’t counting on it.

Foley shoved her into a chair.

“Move and I’ll feed you this gun,” he said.

Kayla didn’t move. She was still tasting metal and gun oil in her mouth, and her throat was raw from being raked by the end of the pistol. She watched him go to his desk, unlock a file drawer, and pull out a stack of manila folders.

A grim smile changed his tan, closely shaved face into a death mask. He tapped the files on the desk, then slid them into his briefcase.

KYC files.

Kayla’s stomach flipped. Obviously Foley didn’t expect to come back. Those kind of files weren’t supposed to leave the bank. Ever.

He looked at her. “Bet you wish you’d thought to take the bank references and corporate documents of every suspect private banking client with you.”

“I don’t have any suspect private clients. I turned down their business or bucked them up to you for refusal.”

“Have I thanked you for those referrals? Profitable for the bank. Very profitable for me. I’m especially pleased with Jesus Del Santos and Ramon Herrera Parra. Did you know who they were when you bounced them up to me?”

“No.”

“Del Santos was the lieutenant governor of Jalisco, and Herrera was chief of the federales in northwest Mexico. They both have eight-figure accounts in our bank now.”

“How did you wash the blood off their money?”

“Power, babe, power and politics. Don’t cry to me if you weren’t smart enough to get them on your books.”

Foley unlocked another file and pulled out a flat aluminum case that could have held cameras. He was undoing the catches on the lid when the phone on his desk began to ring. He glanced at the console.

“It’s your line,” he said. “Your boyfriend?”

Kayla stared blankly at Foley.

Foley glanced at his watch, then cocked his head, listening.

“They’re going to start looking pretty soon,” he said, more to himself than to her.

The phone rang.

He opened the case.

Kayla saw that it was lined with plastic foam that had been cut out to hold certain shapes.

The phone rang.

The pistol on the desk would have fit one of the empty cutouts. Next to it lay a black metal cylinder that she guessed was a silencer.

The phone rang.

Black on silver is out this season, she thought. But she didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t trust her voice.

The phone rang.

Foley fit the cylinder to the end of his pistol and spun it into place.

The phone rang.

He picked up a loaded magazine from the case and dropped it into the pocket of the dark wind shell he wore over his white silk T-shirt.

The phone rang.

Methodically he closed and relocked the drawers.

The phone didn’t ring.

“You have got two choices,” Foley said. He forced the cold bulb of the silencer between her lips. “You can come with me and keep your mouth shut or you can die here.”

His expression told her that he meant it. He was coming apart in front of her eyes. There was only one thing he cared about right now.

Getting out.

“I’ll go with you,” she managed around the silencer.

Finger on the trigger, he stared at her for several long breaths. Then he shoved her away.

“We’ll take the elevator. If we run into anybody-your boyfriend or a security guard or a maid-I’ll kill them.”

Kayla believed it. She could wait to make a break for it until he got her to the garage. Rand would be there. She was certain of it.

And he was no innocent bystander.

“Be quiet or their blood will be on your hands no matter who pulls the trigger,” Foley said. “Got that?”

She nodded.

He picked up the briefcase and shoved her toward the door.

They walked swiftly down the long corridor, past the employee elevators. They turned the corner, heading for the executive elevator that served the parking structure. He reached for the button to call the elevator.

Around the corner behind them, the employee elevator chimed, announcing a car’s arrival.

Foley slammed Kayla against the elevator door and held her there with the weight of his body and the silencer digging into her throat. They listened to the metallic jingle of a guard’s key ring and the faint tread of shoes on the hallway floor. The guard knocked loudly on a door.

“Kayla! Kayla Shaw!” The guard’s voice was achingly clear.

So close.

“You first,” Foley whispered. “Then him.”

So far away.

She heard the guard open the door to her office, enter, and call her name again. Then he came back in the hallway, shutting the door behind him. A radio crackled.

“Desk, this is Wapner. She’s not in her office. No sign of trouble. Nobody in Foley’s office, either. You want me to start going office-to-office here?”

There was a pop of static, then a voice came back over the guard’s handheld radio.

“Negative. Check the Operations floor and secure it. We still don’t know if this is a diversion or a genuine incident. When backup gets here, we’ll clear the building floor by floor.”

“Affirm,” Wapner said.

Foley and Kayla listened to the guard’s jingling progress down the hallway. The elevator was waiting for him. Its doors closed with a sigh very like the one Kayla let out as the crisis passed.

As Foley pressed the executive elevator button, for the first time he realized how good she felt squeezed between the metal door and his body. He smiled and slid the pistol down between her breasts, circled one nipple with the silencer.

“Too bad you never let me in your pants,” he said.

She swallowed against the vomit rising in her throat.

The door opened. She staggered backward, free for an instant.

He laughed and punched a floor button.

She couldn’t stop a sound of dismay. He hadn’t punched the button for the garage.

He was going to the roof.

She wasn’t going to get away.

Be safe, Rand.

Whatever you do, be safe.

Kayla no longer believed that safety was a possibility for her. Compared to Foley’s sweaty finger on the trigger, doing federal time was looking like paradise.

At least she would be alive.