Innocent as Sin Read Online Free PDF

del Cielo to pick up deposits and drop off receipts.
    In short, she was a gofer. It wasn’t what she’d thought banking was all about, especially private banking, but it paid the bills.
    As she waited for the guard to come out of his “shack” and buzz her through the gate, she looked at the tumbling, glistening wall of the water feature next to the guard building. Castillo del Cielo’s annual water bill for squad-sized showers, epic water features, and three swimming pools was almost as big as the escrow check in Kayla’s purse. As a desert girl that kind of extravagance made her uneasy, but the child in her delighted in the play of sunlight and dancing water, and the scent of water in the desert.
    Even if it was tainted with chlorine.
    She glanced through her open window at the guard shack, where a young man stood listening patiently to the phone held against his ear. Jimmy Hamm had been working for the Bertones for two months. He was a young, chatty former minor-league ballplayer who stared at her legs every chance he got.
    She wondered if he’d be so flirty if he knew she made out the employment checks Elena signed.
    “Mrs. B. says you can go up, but please hurry,” Hamm said, coming out of the shack and smiling at Kayla. “Are you late? You’re never late.”
    Kayla glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Nope.”
    “She’s been edgy,” Hamm said, leaning against the Explorer’s door. “The old man is back.”
    “Mr. Bertone?”
    “He got in late Thursday night. At least I think that was him in the back of the limo. Never seen him to swear to it.” Hamm leaned close and whispered, “Never seen him in daylight, either. You think he’s a vampire?”
    Kayla rolled her eyes. “He’s a globe-trotting businessman.”
    “Yeah? What business? Drugs?”
    “Drugs?” She laughed and shook her head. “Switch to decaf, Jimmy. Mr. Bertone trades in oil and other natural resources. Now open the gate before you make me late.”
    Reluctantly Hamm stepped back from the Explorer. He leaned inside the guard-shack door and triggered the gate mechanism.
    Kayla shifted into gear and rolled through, both amused and irritated by Hamm’s persistent interest in her and his employers. She could handle the smiling come-ons, but the Bertones put a high value on their physical and fiscal privacy. Wealthy families were targets for everyone from civic and political fund-raisers to thieves and kidnappers. The wealthy kept the world at bay with gates and security cameras and a thick layer of servants, lawyers, and bankers.
    In the Bertones’ shoes, she would have done the same. Especially as they had three young children to protect from the world’s predators.
    Mentally going over the final details of the Bertones’ big art party tomorrow, Kayla pulled into the car park behind the five-car garage. She turned off the engine and automatically gathered her leather valise and purse. She hesitated, put the escrow envelope in the valise, and headed for the back of the house, where Elena had her office. Along the way Kayla waved to the Brazilian chauffeur, Antonio, who was washing a massive black Hummer. Head-high lilies bloomed along the flagstone path to the house. Everything looked and smelled green.
    Money green.
    “Down here,” Elena called.
    Kayla swerved without breaking rhythm. Apparently Elena was on the terrace between the Olympic-size pool and the children’s splash pool.
    “You’re late,” Elena said. “But I saved you some brunch.”
    Kayla slid onto a chair beneath the sunshade and dropped her leather bag on the flagstone.
    “I’m a minute off, by my clock,” she said cheerfully, “and you can blame that on your gate guard, who keeps trying to charm me out of my tiny little mind every time I come by.”
    “Of course he does.” Elena gave her the million-candle-power smile of the international beauty queen she’d once been. “You’re an attractive young thing who makes a good living and he’s a former