“Yes.” Tamara’s voice was thick with disappointment. “It’s what I pay you for.”
“You can’t... It’s not fair for you to imply that I’m in the wrong for doing exactly what you require of your employees. You can’t blame me for not forgetting that’s what I am.”
“You’re right. I was hoping for faith and that’s not part of the equation with you.”
Kip failed to keep her voice from trembling. “Faith isn’t part of this job. That’s why we’re who we are. That’s why our reputation is spotless. Facts.” She gestured at the papers in Tamara’s hand.
“A chain of evidence. Those papers are not useful to me right now. They’re tainted because they’re provided by a suspect and I have to vet them. I don’t have the means to vet them, so they’re just confusing everything.”
“They cleared things up for me, because I know I’m innocent,”
Tam retorted.
“Well it doesn’t for me.” Why did Tam have to be so tall? It was a disadvantage, having to tip her head back so far, but Kip stood her ground. She had never envisioned that she would be arguing about ethics in her own entryway with Tamara Sterling.
“I guess that means I’ll just keep gathering information for my own use, and fix this myself.” She snatched her coat off the rack. “Don’t you dare!” Kip swelled with anger. “You’ll make it impossible to prosecute the real thief!”
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“So you do think it’s someone else—not me.”
Caught by her hasty words, Kip said, “And you make it impossible for me to prove it’s you, how convenient.”
“If that’s what I’m doing then why am I here? I could have covered my own tracks a dozen ways by now. Why bother trying to trick you?”
“For fun, maybe.”
“Kip.” The fight left Tamara’s eyes. “You’re not just...It’s not...”
“Who is Wren Cantu to you?” She hoped she didn’t sound as hurt as she felt.
Tamara’s jaw dropped. “Is that what this is about? That stupid gossip program?”
“Gossip program?”
“It was some minor story on SLY, I guess. She was at a fundraiser we arranged in New York. I’ve never met the woman.”
“I’m not talking about gossip.” Kip was lightheaded.
“Then what? She’s nothing to me. I don’t know her. I didn’t fly to New York just to have breakfast with her, either.”
“I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about the corporation in the Bahamas you two opened six weeks ago.”
Kip may have felt faint, but now Tamara looked it. She put her coat back on the rack and leaned heavily on it.
“Run that by me again?”
Kip knew she was looking at someone shocked to the core—
but was it in overwhelmed innocence or the guilt of discovery? I can’t afford to trust her. But how could she be so drawn to someone she couldn’t trust? Someone who wasn’t who she said she was, who offered nothing as proof of her innocence but tainted sources?
“You, or whoever Tamara Sterling is,” she added bitterly, “and someone named Wren Cantu, opened an offshore corporation in the Bahamas six weeks ago. That’s according to the Department of State. I’ll have copies of the documents in the morning, and from an independent source.”
“I did no such thing,” Tamara said. “The Bahamas? Really, their banking is digital live now to law enforcement. Anyone wanting 117
to hide their business would go to a dozen other jurisdictions.”
She took a furious breath. “And I am Tamara Sterling.”
“The same way that Nadia Rachel Belize, now Nadia Langhorn, is who she says she is?”
Tamara flushed with annoyance. “Nadia’s not part of this.
And her childhood history is no more relevant than mine.”
She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that Tamara would defend someone rumored to be her ex-lover. “How am I supposed to believe you?”
“That’s why I’m leaving. You’re not supposed to.”
“I’ll have the report in the morning. We can talk about it after that.”
“I suppose.” She pulled on her coat. “I’m not going to sit idly and wait.”
“You don’t have a choice. You want to be cleared and you want the money back. Let me try to eliminate you as a suspect and then... Then we’ll see.”
Tamara put her hand on the doorknob, but didn’t turn it.
Kip reached to turn it herself and their fingertips touched.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?” Tamara pulled her hand away from their contact.
“My lack of faith.”
“I really could use it. But you have faith in the evidence, and I guess I need that too.”
Kip could hardly hear for the alarm bells in her head. She prided herself on knowing through her intellect, through study and focus. She denied her heart any reasoning powers and had learned to ignore it. But it was her heart that brought her fingertips to Tamara’s chin. “There is one thing I can give you.”
She kissed her tenderly, quietly. Tam tasted of cinnamon and Kip abandoned herself to the moment. She would think later.
Tam said her name as their lips parted, then raised her head and whispered it again. Her arms tightened as Kip inclined forward for another kiss, but her mouth said, “No.”
Kip turned her head and nestled her ear to Tam’s chest just long enough to hear her heart pound once, twice, three times.
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Then she let go.
Tam said something, then the door was closed and she was gone, leaving Kip with her head and heart at war.
She didn’t go after Tam. She didn’t call or text. She did what any heartsick woman of sense would do: she finished the cake, cried into a cup of tea and flicked through channels of late-night television until she fell asleep on her cold, hard sofa.
The city lights twinkled with false cheer and warmth, but the beauty of the panorama from her window failed to move Tam.
She made herself study the empty expanse of black where the shoreline ended. In daylight it was Puget Sound. In the deepest part of night it was a void that existed because of what it wasn’t.
Unlit, silent, like secrets. She found the darkness outside easier to contemplate because the one inside her was too intimate.
She put one hand to her lips, living the memory of Kip’s kiss, playing it over and over. Sweet and impetuous, nothing like the woman who’d walked into her office—could it be only a week ago? Her mind was playing tricks. It seemed like so much longer.
That her knowledge of Kip’s warmth had been part of her for years.
This was a waste of time. She had other priorities. Just one more time, one more recollection of the way Kip’s eyes could spark with light when she was roused, then she would focus on what she could actually do something about. It was time for that whiskey and some creative intrusion into a few databases.
Halfway down the glass she found the resolve to place the bundle of light that was Kip’s smile, the smell of her, the blue eyes, the shrug of her shoulders, the curl of her ponytail, the curve of a hand lifted to accent her words—she put all of Kip into a ball and pictured locking it away. She visualized turning the key in the lock. She had done this a thousand times, and it kept negativity and distractions at bay.
She finished the whiskey with a slight burn in her throat, but 119
she didn’t feel the alcohol. That wasn’t the point. She opened her eyes and waited for the mental clarity and peace of mind that the process always triggered.
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Chapter teN
When Kip came fully awake she realized two things simultaneously. Since she wasn’t asleep in the bedroom she hadn’t heard her alarm, which meant her day was going to get off to a rough start. The light seeping around the blinds suggested it was well after eight.