But she was an employee of American Southwest Bank who had, at best, engaged in an unusual private transaction with a very important client. That was a firing offense.

She could live with that.

It was the idea of going to prison for laundering money that spiked her blood pressure.

Automatically she went through the discreet metal detectors, nodded to the guard, and used her electronic passkey on the elevator. Her office wasn’t on the top floor, but Steve Foley’s was. If neckties and ever-shining shoes bothered him, he didn’t show it. He dressed for success, talked for it, breathed for it.

He was the youngest vice president in the bank’s history. He’d been at the bank a year less than Kayla, decades less than many of the other women in her department, yet he’d leapfrogged over them and into the corner office with the ease of a handsome, charming young executive bound for greatness.

It hadn’t hurt that his father was a member of the bank’s board of directors.

Kayla still wasn’t sure if she was more annoyed by the implicit sexism or the explicit nepotism in his rapid promotions. She was sure that she’d never cared for Foley, had passed up his offers for a social relationship with bland professional smiles, and had worked hard for every tiny raise she got.

Now she had to tell him she’d screwed up. She wondered if he’d be sympathetic or happy to see her on her knees. Her gut said that sympathy was a long shot.

She found Foley behind a clean walnut desk that was decorated with a seldom-used pen set, a never-used baseball autographed by a Diamondbacks reliever who had since been traded to Kansas City, and a booster’s award plaque from the National Rifle Association. Pretty typical of an Arizona executive. He glanced in her direction as she entered and closed the door behind her.

“Hey, Kayla.” He flashed a smile perfect enough to be a news anchor’s. “How’s the best-looking banker in Phoenix?”

Kayla ignored both the smile and the personal remark. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

Foley glanced at the closed door. “That’s what I’m here for.” He gestured to the client chair across the desk from him. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not certain yet,” she said, which was half true. “I just had a meeting with a client. He asked me to deposit a big check for him.”

“Well, that’s what banks are for, isn’t it?” He pointed to the chair. “Sit.”

She was tempted to keep on standing, but she sat down, carefully keeping her knees together, a feat that particular chair made nearly impossible. No doubt that was why Foley had chosen it.

“This is an unusually big check,” Kayla said.

“How big?” Foley asked without looking away from her long legs.

“Twenty-two million dollars.”

He focused on her face. “Not bad, Kayla. Not bad at all. You should be dancing, not frowning. Unless there’s some difficulty with the check?”

“It’s drawn on a Caribbean bank by one of our best clients, Andre Bertone.”

“He’s good for a lot more than twenty-two million,” Foley said, rocking back in his swivel chair. “So what’s the problem?”

“I thought I should run it by you before I cashed the check,” she said carefully. “I’ve never heard of the bank the check is drawn on, and I’ve never seen this account in Mr. Bertone’s records. When I tried to do some fundamental due diligence, Andre and Elena both told me where the money came from was none of my business.”

Foley sighed and shook his head. “Most of our wealthy clients just don’t understand our obligations under the Patriot Act. I assume you explained everything to him.”

“Of course.”

“And?”

“He went postal,” Kayla said.

“I don’t understand.”

“First, he tried what amounted to blackmail. Very cleverly done, but still blackmail.”

Foley’s mouth opened. He shook his head sharply, then picked up his desk pen. “Explain.”

“Remember that land I own out toward Wickenburg?”

“Sure do. Did you decide to sell it like I advised?”

Kayla told herself that Foley didn’t mean to sound patronizing. And if she repeated it often enough, she might believe it. “The deal just closed this morning.”

“Good. Small ranches are sentimental holes in all but the wealthiest purses. You don’t have a big one. What’d you get for it?”

“Twenty-five thousand an acre.”

“Yowsa,” Foley said, fiddling with the pen. “That’s a great price. Did you go with Charlotte Welmann?”

Kayla nodded. She’d taken Foley’s recommendation because she didn’t know any local Realtors and hadn’t wanted the hassle of selling Dry Valley by herself. “Charlotte started with a high price because she wasn’t sure what the market would be.” Kayla grimaced. “The place sold in a day.”

“Huh. Guess you should have asked more.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Who bought it?”

“Charlotte told me the buyer was an out-of-town investor who was quietly buying up ground for a large development. I was required to sign a confidentiality agreement, promising not to reveal the sale. The buyer’s agent said his client was worried that other landowners would hear about my sale and start jacking up their prices.”

Foley nodded. “That’s pretty standard. So what does all this have to do with your, ah, blackmail problem?”

“About an hour after I signed the agreement and picked up the escrow check, I learned the identity of the buyer. Andre Bertone.”

Foley’s blond eyebrows lifted. “Well, that’s a little weird, but I don’t see-”

Kayla cut across his words. “Bertone told me if I didn’t deposit his twenty-two-million-dollar check without questions, he’d see that I got in trouble with the bank and the federal government over the Dry Valley sale.”

Reaching into her valise, she pulled out the check and shoved it across the desk to her boss. Then she rubbed her fingers over her skirt, trying to remove even the feel of the transaction.

Foley picked up the check and looked at it silently. It appeared to be just what she’d said it was.

Twenty-two million bucks.

“Okay, let me get this straight,” he said finally. “You think that one of our best clients spent a quarter of a million dollars on a scheme to compromise you, and potentially the bank as well.”

She nodded. Foley might be a pretty boy, but he was a damned shrewd banker.

He looked at the check again. “Have you verified that the funds are present in the account?”

Kayla shook her head. “I didn’t want to do anything that looked like I was agreeing to Bertone’s demands. That seemed to me like a one-way ticket to federal prison.”

Thoughtfully Foley slid the check in small circles on the polished surface of the desk. Then he pushed the check back to her. “If this all happened the way you say it did, you’ve done nothing wrong. The bank will back you two hundred percent.”

She let out a long breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.”

“Be serious, Kayla.” He leaned forward and grinned. “I always take care of the people who take care of me.”

The remark made her uneasy, but she let it pass. She didn’t like a lot of what Foley said. “So what do we do-call the FBI?”

He leaned back. “No. That’s the last thing we do. The Bertones have been very good customers of American Southwest. This may all be some extraordinary coincidence, or, more likely, a cascade of misunderstandings. Andre is an international financial force. This may simply be the way they do business in his banking circles. We need to explore a little more, find out exactly what’s going on. If we don’t like what we find, we’ll file an SAR.”

“But-”

“So process this check,” he said, pushing it back to her, “just to keep Andre happy, while I figure out exactly what we ought to do.”

Kayla’s stomach felt hollow. “Isn’t that a bit risky?” Especially for me.

“Not if we can figure a way of covering the transaction for the moment. Is this an account you’ve handled before?”