Nothing for it but to make a scene, Kip thought. She thanked her sensible sandals for plenty of traction on the marble floor as she sprinted forward to yell, “Nadia!” Her mind flicked through the thousands of papers she’d reviewed and zeroed in—more loudly, she yelled, “Rachel!”

Nadia skidded to a stop, pivoted in place, eyes wide.

Everyone in the bank stopped what they were doing, except Kip. With a sudden gasp, Nadia shook herself into motion again.

She scrambled toward the door, elegant heels finding poor purchase on the polished marble. She was reaching to push the doors open when Kip clamped her hand around one diamond-adorned wrist.

So she couldn’t pull the trigger on a woman and child. She had far more practical skills. How much of a challenge could pampered Nadia Langhorn be?

The elbow strike to the side of her head told her, and left her ears ringing. The price of overconfidence, she told herself. She clung to Nadia’s other wrist, ducked another strike and went for the basics, sinking one hand into Nadia’s very expensive hairdo while tangling the woman’s arms in her own designer bag. Nadia 230


let go of Kip in an attempt to free her hair. They twisted against each other until Kip hooked one of her sandals around Nadia’s ankles and they both went down with Kip’s elbow in Nadia’s solar plexus.

From the gasp, she was pretty sure Nadia’s stomach felt like her head.

She rolled back to her feet and the embassy officers were around them. One quickly handcuffed the still struggling Nadia.

Kip was dazedly trying to keep her balance and realized, too late, that handcuffs were also being ratcheted around her own wrists.


231


Chapter SeVeNteeN

Tam rose when the door opened. She had expected something to have transpired, but was still taken considerably aback by the sight of Ted and Nadia Langhorn in handcuffs along with a half-dozen white-uniformed guards. Nadia looked somewhat the worse for wear with a heel broken on one shoe and her hair lopsided.

Robert looked both disconcerted and satisfied, though his tone sounded as if everyone was concluding an ordinary transaction. “Let’s just settle our paperwork, shall we?”

Finally, dwarfed by the embassy muscle, she caught sight of Kip—wrists cuffed in front of her and something strangely wispy and yellow in her hands. Kip gave her a wan but encouraging smile. The papers were secure maybe?

232


Kip cleared her throat and handed the blonde wad of hair to Nadia. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your weave. I was hoping it was real.”

Tam managed not to laugh. She ought to have been worried sick but right then all she could think was that she wanted Kip there always to make her laugh, to make life less of a grim business. How had she ever thought her humorless?

“Ms. Sterling?” One of the embassy officers had stepped forward. “With the permission of the government of the Bahamas, I’m detaining you on behalf of the United States of America.

We’ll transfer you to U.S. soil in a few minutes.”

Tam held out her wrists—it was a first.

Handcuffs were heavier than they looked. She supposed she should argue that being detained didn’t mean she should be manacled, but it was only a minor detail at that moment.

“I have the paperwork.” Robert pulled a crumpled document sleeve from a large purple bag—had to be Nadia’s. “I know Mrs.

Langhorn was eager to get rid of it, but it’s here.” He held it up.

“Your mark Miss Barrett?”

Kip eased her way past her escorts. “Yes, that’s my mark.

Those are the papers you removed from your files downstairs.”

With a huge sigh of relief, Robert handed the document sleeve to Martin LeRoi. “Please take charge of this. It’s vital evidence. All the other copies you requested will be made as soon as possible and carried up to you. Of course, I’ll be available for any deposition you may wish to take from me. That’s all our business, I believe.”

Before Tam could point out that there was one more matter to resolve there was a knock at the door. A wide-eyed clerk stepped into the room, a printout in one hand.

“I need a signature for these transfers, Mr. Manna.”

Robert glowered. “I think it can wait.”

“No,” Tam said. “It can’t. You should sign off on them. All of them.”

Robert gave Tam his attention. Without the least bit of surprise, he asked, “Why Tamara, have you been using my computer?”

233


Behind her Tam heard Kip stifle a laugh.

“I’m so sorry. I did borrow it.”

“Nearly seven million dollars? How enterprising.” Robert initialed the paper and then asked the clerk to bring back a copy right away. “That adds to the considerable sum that arrived on Friday.”

Tam hadn’t yet been able to meet either Ted’s or Nadia’s gazes, but she steeled herself for it. What else was there to say but, “I don’t understand why. You didn’t even get the money.”

Ted looked guilty but not the least bit chagrined. “It was never about the money.”

“It was about making sure I wasn’t credible for Markoff’s trial.”

“At first.” Ted looked not the least cowed or worried. In fact, he looked every inch like he had the world by the short and curlies. “Nadia is the one who saw the bigger opportunity when Markoff’s people approached her.”

Nadia shrugged and said nothing.

“You told Ted to tamper with my immigration record, my passport verification... I think out of everything, that surprised me the most.”

She gave Tam a direct look, with none of her usual coy evasions. “That’s how they got to me. I don’t know how they found out. They offered me papers, contracts, faked adoption records—they had copies of everything. They thought I would do anything to keep the past a secret when they’d just handed me all the evidence I’d never been able to piece together about my grandparents. The ones who farmed me out like the accidental mongrel offspring of their thoroughbred son. I agreed to facilitate a crisis for you in exchange for the box of documents. I knew what Ted could do with a little focus. And I knew what a little well-placed gossip could do.”

“Why Wren Cantu?”

Nadia looked like she wanted to ignore Kip, but her satisfaction with her own handiwork kept her talking. “She was supposed to be one of the big headliners at the New York Public Library benefit. She shows up an hour late and spends the night 234


being rude to everyone and with a spoon up her nose. But she can get an invite to any party in that town. I spent the last five years doing all those fundraisers, all that charity work. I watched porn stars and politicians’ mistresses trump me and realized I was going about it all wrong. If I can’t have celebrity, I’ll take notoriety. It’s a bigger paycheck in the end.”

Now that they were talking, Ted had the air of a professor propounding on a pet theory. “You just don’t get the new world order, and you were never going to. Our whole business model is a relic. Rich enough, big enough, you can’t fail today. You can steal anything, ruin a natural wonder, profess ignorance as wisdom, and go on getting richer and richer. All you have to do is blame anything and everything except a corporation for oil on beaches, cancer clusters in school kids, whatever the crime. Toss the public a villain and protect big business and you can be rich, famous and respected.”

“You’ve been rehearsing that speech,” Tam said, her numbness finally giving way to anger. “Did it take you long to believe it?”

“You can be pissed all you want. But Nadia and I are going to be thanking you all the way to the bank. I knew you’d catch us.

You were incredibly predictable. You even brought in a staffer.

Barrett was one of four I had already identified. Only time you surprised me was running for it on Friday morning. I thought the Feds would wind you up enough to keep you in town. Instead, you dropped off the planet. Still, I was pretty sure you’d get here this morning.”

“You’re going to prison.” Kip sounded about as angry as Tam felt. Nadia favored her with a pitying look. “We’re heading for minimum security and with good behavior, ankle bracelets. It’ll give me a chance work through those documents they gave me and write my exposé of my father’s cult and how his parents covered it up. How much do you think his family would pay me not to publish it? I’m betting there’s a house on Star Island in it for me.”

Tam didn’t know what Robert and the embassy agents were 235


making of the conversation but she had been aware of Martin LeRoi’s discreet voice recorder from the beginning. Tam said,

“So this really was about money. I was just collateral damage.”

Ted laughed. “It’s always about money. All it takes is being wildly successful, and I just was. I hacked six banks and embarrassed the premier fraud detection company in the country. Once my book hits the shelves I’ll be doing commentary about corporate hijinks and the failures of big government, and making more in a week than I do in a year now. Life on the Dark Side: One Man’s Corruption by the System. Catchy, isn’t it? And I have the other necessary ingredient—a smokin’ hot wife with brains.”

Tam shifted her gaze to Nadia. She wasn’t serious when she asked, “And you get your own reality show?”

Nadia’s reply was dead serious. “Or a talk show, or my own column at the big blog sites where I get to decide who’s hot and what’s news. We’ll have many friends, and they’ll respect our resourcefulness. We’ll be welcome at Martha’s Vineyard.”