“So why would he have approved it? He’d have to have known it was fishy.”
“I’d like to know the answer to that.”
“Is he the kind of person you could call and ask?”
Tam’s brain was spinning with possibilities. None of them were good. “I would have thought so. He’s a proper, particular creature of habit who dislikes upset and is happiest when files are tidy and proper. But I have to take a page from your book—our book. I suspect he was compensated, which makes me pretty sad, because I thought he was one of the people in the Bahamas who disliked the illegal flow of money through their system. I tip him off, then the originals of this application—fingerprints and all—
won’t be found should anyone ask.”
“At least we have copies.” Kip expression grew gloomy. “But defense attorneys have a field day with the lack of originals.
How incompetent the bank is, the investigators are, that they couldn’t find a simple piece of paper, and they’re covering their incompetence by accusing an innocent man of wrongdoing.”
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“I’ve heard that more times than I can count.”
“So what do we do?”
“You keep looking for the inside accomplice, because a real person here in the U.S. doctored those bank statements. I’ll follow up a hunch.”
Several times throughout the morning Tam looked up from her own screen, trying to memorize the curve of Kip’s mouth, the crease between her eyebrows, the way her hands moved over the keyboard. She caught herself watching Kip flex and shake out the muscles of her right hand, sometimes massaging it after writing a long note.
On her own screen, in addition to scanning the financial dealings of known Markoff associates, she planned a travel itinerary for only one person.
Hours later Kip said, “I have to get out for a walk.” She stretched out her sides as she waited for more soup to boil. “Get my heart pounding.”
Not that it hadn’t been pounding most of the morning. Tam had a habit of pulling at her collar while she worked, and every time she did that Kip went through a lust spiral that included the delicious fantasy of running her tongue along the skin that was so briefly exposed.
She was disgusted with herself, leering at a woman like a hormonal adolescent. She knew better, could act better. But did she stop? No, she went right on using Tam as her personal fantasy female.
She had even tried summoning up the disapproval of her grandfather, which ought to have stiffened her backbone, but it didn’t work. She didn’t like herself for behaving this way, and yet there seemed no end in sight.
Tam got up from the table with a grimace. “Oh, did you hear that? I stood up and something went crack. After a mere four hours. I’ve done twenty-four hours without a break.”
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“Recently?”
“Are you calling me old?”
It sounded like Tam was heading toward her. Kip threw a glance over her shoulder. She thought that most of all, she liked that Tam’s hair was pointing in all directions, giving her the look of a mad scientist. A damnably hot mad scientist.
“Never.” She poured the chicken soup into mugs. “If we continue a walk up the road we won’t lose our way, and it’s vigorous. On a clear day a hike to the top is a beautiful view. I could really use the fresh air.”
Tam appreciatively sniffed the contents of her mug. “Any new thoughts?”
“Nothing inspired.” Kip leaned against the counter as she fished in the soup for the noodles. “I’m two-thirds through your list of the fifty or so people who went into the accounting file area who didn’t make sense being there. None of them have suddenly paid down debts, made unexplained luxury purchases and so forth. I’m not surprised. We all know how to hide money, at least for a while. For all I know, they were paid via PayPal, and it’s sitting in an account only they know how to access, keyed to the social security number of a dead relative.”
Tam nodded. “You’re right. It’s not hard to hide a little bit of money.”
“A couple of people working a couple of days could narrow it down, I’m sure, looking a little harder than I can on my own.
But so far I have nothing. Except I didn’t know that our head of finance is independently wealthy.”
“As Cary will tell you, she works for a living. She spends all her trust fund payments on art and charity.”
“For a moment I thought I had found something. But I verified the donations. She paid a huge chunk into the Hendrix museum, the Seattle Children’s Museum, and so forth.”
“Cool, huh?” Tam sipped at the warm broth and licked her lips. “I was glad to hire her.”
There was a great deal of admiration in Tam’s tone, and jealousy wasn’t exactly what Kip felt, but it was close enough 164
that she put it on the growing list of personal failings that were developing as a result of her entirely inappropriate feelings for Tamara Sterling. Kip Barrett, woman in lust, was not a good person.
She was lacing on her hiking boots when Tam commented,
“My new tennis shoes are going to get soaked.”
“The fire will dry them out again. Or you can stay here.”
The expression on Tam’s face, which had been professionally distant, flickered with something Kip could only describe as heat.
“Not my first choice.”
She led the way in the heavy, cold air, liking the thick sound of their shoes on the wet gravel. Her ears were tickled with motes of snow that melted on contact. The road wasn’t so much snow-covered as it was muddy. In just a few steps she felt tension slipping off her shoulders.
“Further up the coast there are some scenic points. I love this area.”
“Why didn’t we take the Bremerton ferry? Wouldn’t that have been shorter?”
“Mileage, yes. But time... Not really, and I like driving.
Sometimes I take the ferry home, though, especially if I’m ending the weekend with a book I’m trying to finish. It’s less stressful.”
It was harder to talk as they climbed. Kip welcomed the throb of her muscles and veins with the taut chill of skin reddened by the sharp air. The cold scrubbed her eyes clean and she felt as if she could really breathe deeply again. The cloud cover didn’t allow for any kind of view, but the snow-dusted trees were beautiful.
“I usually turn around here.”
Tam immediately stopped walking. “Bless you.” She swallowed, gasped for air, then said, “A little walk, she says.”
“It’s good for us.”
“If I live. I had no idea I was this out of shape.”
Kip smiled to herself. Tam was glowing with energy. Her breathing was already slowing and nothing about her suggested she was unfit. “It’s all in your head.”
She got a distinctive hand gesture in response, and after her laughter died the forest hush overwhelmed her. The wind moved 165
the tall pines around them, a sound she loved, but there was also the whisper of the snow falling like faerie wings gliding through the air. It was a fanciful thought—snowfall was too quiet for her to hear. It didn’t make sense that she thought so, but it didn’t have to, either.
She stole a glance at Tam, who was gazing down the mountain.
She looked as if she was thinking about something not entirely pleasant. Kip wanted to take that expression away, but that wasn’t her job here. Her feelings toward Tam didn’t make sense, and unlike fancies of faeries in the snow, it was essential to her that they did.
The hike down was a little more perilous. She slipped once and Tam caught her, and only moments later she returned the favor. Back in the cabin they both stripped off their wet shoes, and Tam took off her wet socks as well. Kip watched her rifle the shopping bags, then happily pull on a new pair.