Read St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin for Free Online Page A

three.
    With a pencil Rand sketched a few lines on the white grounding of the fresh canvas. First was a waving line a third of the way down from the top to establish the horizon, then another line a few inches lower to show the edge of the cliff. That left three-fifths of the canvas for the meadow and the windblown shout of yellow that was daffodils.
    He looked at the proportions and realized he needed an element on one side of the picture to force the viewer’s eye across the meadow, out over the water, and on up toward the sky, which would be the intense light blue that only came after an early-morning spring rain.
    With the pencil he moved a fir tree thirty yards across the meadow, creating the effect he needed. That was the joy of the canvas. It let imagination and artistic necessity rule over a world that was full of brutal, unchanging, and often ugly reality.
    Before Rand could finish mixing the daffodil colors on his palette, he heard the faint, nasty snarl of a small helicopter. With the eye of a hunter he scanned the horizon off to the east, in the direction of Seattle. The aircraft came in low over the water, rose a hundred feet as it approached the island, and headed straight for him.
    Rand held his breath, weightless as the wind, feeling himself spinning away. He’d seen helicopter strafing runs before. The last one had been while Reed lay wounded on the floor of a St. Kilda helo. They’d taken off just as another helo strafed them. Rand got lucky with an AK-47, bringing down the attacking helo as it went by on its second strafing run.
    But he’d been lucky too late. Bullets had stitched through Reed, leaving him bleeding from too many wounds. Dying.
    Dead.
    Get a grip, Rand told himself fiercely. That was five years ago. Nobody gave a damn but me.
    The helo slowed its approach but came straight in. Fifty yards away it flared and settled onto the meadow Rand had been painting. The little craft’s landing skids crushed daffodils as well as grass.
    Rand waited, willing himself to breathe again.
    The side door popped open. A tall, lean man in blue jeans and a Gore-Tex windbreaker stepped out.
    Though Rand had walked out of St. Kilda Consulting five years ago, he still had friends there. He recognized Joe Faroe instantly—Faroe, who had come close to dying last year in a shootout with a drug lord on the Mexican border.
    Reflexively Faroe ducked his head, avoiding the helicopter’s rotor. As he did, he realized he was walking on the perfume of crushed flowers.
    “Sorry, Rand,” Faroe said when he was close. “Hope we didn’t kill any of them.”
    “So do I.”
    “I suppose if I offered to shake your hand, you’d clock me.”
    “Now there’s a thought.” Then Rand shrugged and forced the tension clamping around his neck and shoulders to loosen. He associated Faroe with Reed’s death, which wasn’t precisely fair.
    But it was real.
    “You’re wasting my daylight,” Rand said roughly. “I don’t want to talk about old times; they weren’t much fun. I don’t want to get drunk with you; I don’t get drunk anymore. And I sure as hell don’t want to re-up with St. Kilda Consulting. I’ve lost mytaste for useless adventures in feral cities and failed states. So just climb back in that helo and disappear.”
    Faroe rubbed his neck and hid a grin. “Grace was right. I should have brought her. You wouldn’t be rude to a pregnant woman.”
    Rand looked at the horizon. He’d liked Faroe once. What happened to Reed hadn’t been Faroe’s fault. They’d all been consenting adults. With a muttered curse he combed his fingers through his wild mane of hair, yanked the watch cap back into place, and practiced being civilized.
    Because rude or civil, hot or cold, Faroe wouldn’t leave until he was good and ready.
    “Heard you’d been wounded and got yourself a wife and a kid,” Rand said.
    “Marriage was a lot less painful.”
    Rand almost smiled. “Heard she’s a judge.”
    “You have good ears.