“That’s better.” She came back for her abandoned shoes.
“Oh, heck!”
“What?”
“I stepped in a puddle—now I have one wet sock.”
Kip burst out laughing. Tam sounded just like a teenager.
Tam glowered at her. “I hate that. It’s not funny, either.”
Unfortunately, when Tam hopped back across the room to the shopping bags, Kip found it even funnier. Tam swapped out her wet sock and the look when she turned to face her sent Kip scurrying for the meager protection of the counter.
The pursuit was short. Tam trapped her against the refrigerator and Kip decided it was more dignified not to struggle.
Tam said slowly, “It’s not funny.”
“Yes it is. I cannot tell a lie.”
Tam’s fierce display of mock outrage faded away. “Neither can I.”
The kiss was completely expected and it would have been a lie if Kip had protested. There was such tenderness in it that she melted, and even her suspicious, watchful mind was soothed by Tam’s gentleness.
166
The responsive gasp of Tam’s lips against hers and sudden tightness of her hands on Kip’s waist told Kip the gentleness came at a price. One sign from her and she knew where they were headed.
When Tam let her go she looked as pale as Kip felt. Her eyes were glazed and her lips looked bruised.
“You hate a wet sock,” Kip murmured. Desperate to derail the moment before her body had its way, she added, “Know what one of my pet peeves is?”
Tam shook her head, the beginnings of a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth.
“In a spy movie, after an hour of running about, guns drawn, leaping from speeding trains, everything stops, and people in danger decide the right thing to do is take all their clothes off...”
“I know what you mean.”
“And I have a hard time respecting them after that,” Kip said, even more softly.
Tam’s thumb caressed the line of Kip’s jaw. “I want your respect.”
“It’s not respecting you that worries me.”
Tam stepped back, her arms dropping to her sides. “This isn’t my usual MO.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Choosing her words carefully, trying not to be foolish, and not wanting to destroy something she didn’t even understand, Kip said, “The woman knows. How, I’m not sure, but she does.
But she’s made a good living for herself being suspicious of everything. So far, she’s always been right.”
Tam seemed to be waiting for more, but Kip could not make herself add that this time the suspicious investigator was praying that she was wrong.
Without touching her, and in a tone only slightly edged with disappointment, Tam said, “I’m pleased to have met Kip the woman.”
They went back to work. There was nothing more, really, to 167
be said about it, Kip thought. She kept flicking through employee banking records, telling herself that if they were ordinary people they’d be sated and perhaps even asleep in bed at the moment, and if this were an ordinary case she’d be picking over people’s financial records with the blessings of law enforcement.
But really, Kip chided herself, what made them not ordinary?
Just because the number of people who did what they did was relatively rare, that didn’t make it more vital than teaching kids to read or tightening the bolts on an aircraft engine. But here they were, in a situation that was bizarre by any ordinary standard.
“I’m disappointed,” she said aloud, “that this is all turning out to be so impersonal. It’s sort of anticlimactic, you know?”
Tam blinked. “It feels a little personal to me.”
“Of course.” She flushed. “I meant that it’s about the work, not the people. I was geared up to discover a personal vendetta.
‘My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father...’ That sort of thing.” She chuckled at herself. “I guess I was hoping for a little of that spy thing. Practice my Secret Service act.”
“I see your point.”
“Whereas on Monday we’ll probably be pushing a lot of papers at FBI agents and going back to work on other things.”
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do,” Tam said slowly.
She leaned back in her chair, her expression serious.
Kip let her puzzlement show. “You make it sound like an order.”
“Because that’s what it is. On Monday you go back. You cooperate.”
Her heart stilled. “Why does it sounds as if I’m doing that alone?”
“I have to go some place.”
“Not without me.”
“Kip, if you go with me you’ll look guilty. You will, in fact, be committing a felony with people who have no sense of humor.”
“Like what?” She put her hands in her lap to hide the sudden tremor of fear.
“I can take the risk for myself. I have more to lose. And I 168
want Vernon Markoff to rot in prison for the measly seven years he’ll get. He ruined the retirements of thousands of people. He deserves punishment and I’m not going to roll over and let him screw up a prosecutor’s case.”
Kip realized that Tam had probably been smoldering with anger all along, but this was the first time it had bubbled to the surface. “What makes you think I feel any less strongly? That’s why everyone I work with does their job. We’re a bunch of meddling, righteous Boy Scouts—and Girl Scouts,” she added.
“Let me help you.”
“Seriously, you want to travel under a false ID? Lie to a customs agent?”
Kip gaped. “You’re going to that bank in the Bahamas! Are you nuts?”
“It’s really the only way—not the bank. The manager. I need the piece of paper, not a copy, and if I wait, it’ll be gone.”
“The FBI can get to it faster. They’ll just ask a counterpart in country, from the embassy, to do it.”
“But they won’t make it a priority. As fast as we think they’re moving on their information, we both know if this was a violent robbery and not white-collar theft, they’d push every angle of cooperation from other jurisdictions—and that original piece of paper would likely be secured. But this case is not a priority for resolution. They’ll expend resources to question and box me in so that I’m still here when they do make actually understanding and solving the case a priority. If I go there, it’ll probably end up making them more interested in securing evidence, too.”
Kip didn’t know what to say. Tam was telling the truth.
Prosecution of white-collar crimes was slow in part because law enforcement had scarier stuff to deal with. She had worked on cases where evidence had dried up because the Feds didn’t get there in time, even when an SFI investigator had set up neon pointers right to it.
“You’ll look like you’re fleeing the country. The Bahamas instead of Brazil. Leaving Seattle unexpectedly looks bad enough.”
“So be it. I’ll be back before anyone truly cares.”
169
“How will you pull this off?” Kip closed her eyes to think.
Tam knew someone who could get her a fake license so she could board a plane?
“What you don’t know you can’t withhold.”
No, Kip thought. I want to see this through to the end, she told herself. She no longer had any suspicion that Tam was guilty, but the rest of the world would think so based on the evidence that the FBI and a court would accept. “Everything you procure is going to be tainted. My evidence is going to be ruined the moment you touch it. This is not the part where the lone hero sends the sidekick to safety. I don’t care how tall you are, you are the sidekick here.”