Full Circle (21 page)

Geoffrey tried for a sneer. “Arrest me for what?”

Kayla took a careful look around. In Dar es Salaam, Geoffrey had lived in one of the finest hotels, which was not saying much. The establishment was run by a respectable Indian family. He had paid extra for a larger room with a working AC and daily maid service. He had claimed to have family money.

Kayla did not know what she had expected to find. A glimpse into who this man actually was, perhaps. But the apartment possessed the sterile charm of an expensive hotel suite. The rear windows framed an astonishing view of the river and the bridge and the morning traffic. The interior was care-fully coordinated in designer fashion, a muted series of russets and browns, no doubt this year's masculine colors. The place was beautiful, expensive, and heartless. Kayla turned her attention back to the man. The apartment suited him perfectly.

Geoffrey did not snarl. But almost. “What are you smiling at?”

Her own calm was the answer. Kayla said, “It should be obvious, Geoffrey.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“What would you have me call you then? Thief? Criminal? Fraud? Liar? Phony?”

He gestured irritably. “Call me whatever you want.”

Adam touched her arm. “May I?”

Kayla gestured without taking her eyes off the man she did not know. “This is my associate.”

Geoffrey re-aimed his sneer. “Going down-market, are we?”

Adam said, “We have a proposition for you.”

He reached for his telephone. “I'm phoning my solicitor.”

Adam was ready for that. “Ask him to meet us at MVP headquarters.”

“What?”

“No doubt it's hard to make an appointment with your chair-man. But I would imagine Rupert Madden could find time for Scotland Yard.”

Blotchy spots appeared as he slipped the phone into his back pocket. “You don't think Madden knows?”

“Oh, he might
surmise
. No doubt he
assumed
something like this happened. But if the press were to catch wind of this, which they will, will he stand up for you?”

For the first time, Kayla thought of him as Derek. She shaped the name in her mind and applied it to this stranger standing before her. Derek Steen was afraid. Of Adam.

Derek said, “That's slander.”

The policewoman said, “Actually, sir, slander only occurs when the rumors are untrue.”

Adam said, “We'd be delighted to see this situation played out in the court of public opinion. What do you think would happen to your career, Derek?”

“What do you want?”

“Two things. First, what do you know about MVP's role in bringing down Austin's firm?”

Derek blanched whiter still. “Nothing. That is . . . There isn't any such plan.”

“Your future depends upon honesty here, Derek.”

“I don't know anything about this. It's total fabrication.”

“We're not after prosecuting you, Derek. We're after saving Oxford Ventures.”

“There's not . . . I am not aware of anything of that nature.”

Adam gave it a moment, the silence dragging tight as the air grating in Derek's throat. Then, “You owe Kayla some funds. How much was it again?”

“Six hundred thousand pounds,” Kayla said. “And my watch.”

“I never . . .”

Officer Walton said, “I have checked the records this morn-ing, sir. I must inform you that Britain has very clear agreements with Tanzania governing the extradition of felons.”

“But we don't want that,” Adam said. “Not any more than we want to bring the press into your chairman's office.”

Adam glanced at her. Kayla knew what was required. “You
robbed
me. You owe me.”

Derek's gaze slipped back and forth like a frantic eel. “I don't have anything like that amount.”

Adam asked, “Where's your checkbook, Derek?”

His gaze slipped to where his briefcase lay open on the dining room table. Instantly he drew it back. Too late.

Adam walked over and searched among the papers. He ex­tracted a slender kidskin case and a silver pen. He walked back and set both on the side table by Derek's hand. “We have a special going. This morning only. You're going to write out a check for half of what you stole.”

“I can't—”

Officer Walton said, “Far be it from me to advise a member of the public on such a matter, Mr. Steen. But I understand the prisons in Dar es Salaam are quite inadequate.”

“We're not going there, though, are we?” Adam said. “Just like we're not interested in taking a meeting with Madden. And calling the press.”

“You're mad, the lot of you. Nobody has that sort of cash laying about.”

“That's a real shame, Derek.” He walked around the counter and hefted the phone. “Who do we call first, your chairman or your attorney?”

Derek's gaze dropped to the checkbook. “I could possibly manage half that.”

“Write out the check to Kayla Austin,” Adam said. “Then call your bank and do whatever you need to make sure the funds are waiting for us. Do that, and all this goes away. We walk out of your life.”

Adam looked at her. And nodded once. Kayla felt the electric current pass between them, stronger than words. She sup-plied, “Just like you walked out of mine.”

chapter 22

A
dam took care of everything. He thanked the security agent and the policewoman for them both. He flagged a taxi and went to the nearest branch of Derek's bank. He coached Kayla through signing the check and requesting a banker's check made out to cash. They then traveled to the brokerage agency where he had set up her account. Kayla sat and let their investment discussions wash over her.

Adam took her back to the taxi and said, “There's one more thing I need to take care of before we go.”

“Can it wait?”

“I know you're exhausted. But this has to happen now.”

Adam asked the taxi to find them an inexpensive hotel near Paddington Station. The driver pulled up in front of a Victorian row house whose rooms were large and slightly seedy. Entering the room he had secured, Adam pulled the frayed cover off the bed and watched Kayla sink onto the mattress. “A hundred and fifty thousand pounds was as far as I thought I could push him.”

Kayla realized he took her silence as regret, or disappointment, and was apologizing. “We needed this so much.”

“I wish it was more.”

The words did not come easily, for to shape them meant giving structure to hope. She had lived so long without any. “We might be able to turn everything around now.”

“That's my thinking. At least you've got more time to try.” He checked his watch. “I need to go out for a while. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

“All right.” The last thing she heard was the door opening and closing. Kayla dove into sleep.

She drifted back toward the surface several times. Once when the door opened, and she opened her eyes long enough to see it was Adam. Again when the room became tainted by some sharp chemical smell. Kayla sat up and swung her feet to the floor and rubbed her face. “Adam?”

The bathroom door cracked open. Light spilled into the darkened room. “I'm here.”

She rubbed her face again. “How long have I been asleep?”

“A couple of hours. Maybe a little longer.” Adam pushed open the door.

Kayla rose to her feet and backed until she met the wall. Derek Steen entered the room. But it was Adam who said, “It's me.”

He walked over and turned on the switch by the door. Kayla felt the world return to gradual focus. Adam wore Derek like a suit. “I took Derek's company pass from his briefcase when I fetched his checkbook.”

“You're going inside mvp?”

“We need to see if Derek has anything to help your dad, Kayla.”

“That's crazy!”

“Listen to me.” Adam's calm was unnerving. “Getting the money for your project was only half the battle.”

All her possible responses created a jumbled mess in her brain, such that the only one to emerge was, “Joshua fired you!”

Adam pointed at the table by the window. “I've brought you a sandwich and a juice.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“You need to eat, Kayla.”

She made it around the bed and over to the window with-out taking her eyes off him. As she passed the bathroom, she smelled the odor again and realized, “You've dyed your hair.”

He followed her over but did not sit down beside her. The room had an old-fashioned bay window with heavy green drapes. Outside there was the rumble and hiss of city traffic. “I need to look enough like him that anybody I pass won't be alarmed.”

She peeled away the sandwich cover and took a bite. “You went out and bought his clothes.”

“Close as I could find.”

“It's amazing.”

Adam wore a copy of Derek's clothes from that morning. They formed a version of city casual—cashmere sweater over a pin-striped shirt with a white collar, and a flashy foulard knotted about his neck. Fawn-colored gabardine slacks. Italian loafers. Gold watch that dangled loose.

She leaned more closely. “Are you wearing contacts?”

“Eye color was something I couldn't risk having wrong.”

“And your face. How did you . . .”

“Makeup.” His features possessed a hint of Derek's slackness. The tinted hair was slicked back and spiked. His eyes were gray now, not quite as light as Derek's, but enough for someone who merely glanced his way. “These are tricks, Kayla. Like cue cards.”

Adam stood by the window drapes and watched her eat. Several times he started to speak, then caught himself. Kayla waited until she finished the sandwich and drank the last of the orange juice to ask, “What is it?”

“When we were away over the weekend, you said how perfect it was for me to escape into acting roles. Well, you were right. On the show, my role was the dissipated playboy, the guy who could have any woman and usually did. In a lot of the episodes, I needed to go from the night before to the day after. But there's more.”

When he did not continue, Kayla said softly, “More.”

“A good actor has to find some core identification with the character and the role. When I met Derek, I saw myself.”

“You're not him.”

“Not who I am. Who I almost became.” He lifted one edge of the drapes and stared at the night. “I was so close.”

Just after eleven, Adam paid his taxi and climbed the stairs leading from the street to the MVP headquarters. The big chrome-and- glass doors swung open before him. Adam stepped inside and crossed the lobby. He hid his dread behind a Derek-style frown. Or so he hoped. The guard behind the curved reception desk watched him but did not rise from his seat. Adam pulled his cell phone from one pocket and the pass he had palmed from Derek's briefcase in the other. He pretended to pay attention to the phone while he approached the steel barrier. He slid the pass through the magnetic barrier and then leaned into the revolving bars. They clicked around, granting him entry.

He faced three banks of elevators. He punched the hotel number and stood in pretended concentration while he searched for the bank of elevators that serviced the seventh floor. When the hotel answered, he asked to be put through to Kayla's room, and then headed for the central bank.

“Adam?”

“I'm in.”

She breathed easier for both of them. “You have the detective's instructions?”

“Right here.” Detective Foley and his in-house source had come through for them again. Adam touched the pocket containing the notes from his telephone conversation, detailing the layout of Derek Steen's floor. But Adam doubted he would need them. They were there for assurance's sake. Like the words of dialogue he used to write on the inside of his palm, to trigger his memory in case of a panic attack. Adam stepped into the elevator, punched the button for seven, and tried to convince himself that it was just another role.

“Be careful,” Kayla said. “And come out of this safely.”

“Do my best.”

“I mean it. That's the most important thing tonight. Your safety. Daddy would agree a hundred percent.”

“This is one gig we don't need to be telling the old man about, though, do we?” The double doors fronting the elevators were red leather embossed with the MVP logo. Adam ran the pass through another magnetic reader, and the doors swept open to reveal the currency trading floor. He started down the central aisle.

“Where are you?”

“The money pit.”

“Where?”

The currency floor occupied almost the entire seventh floor. The windowless chamber was a hundred feet square with a thirty-foot-high ceiling. A supervisor's balcony overlooked one end and running electronic newsboards the other. The desks were split into a dozen islands crammed inside a sea of green carpet. A cluster of late-working peons shuffled papers on a long table by the far wall. The odor of empty pizza cartons wafted across the room. “Once I thought there would be nothing finer than working here.”