Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

Prologue
    Sedona
    Thursday, October 30
    T he silvery disc of a nearly full moon kept Virgil O’Conner awake. He liked it that way. At eighty-one, he had long since decided that watching shades of darkness twist across the Arizona night was better than being in their grip and screaming himself awake.
    “I’m sorry I took it,” he whispered to the night. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry . . .”
    The darkness didn’t answer. It never had.
    His heart faltered, skipped, and settled down. He let out a long breath that wasn’t quite relief. He wanted to die, but not yet. Not until the dead forgave him for touching their sacred gold.
    Neckrings of braided gold chains, as smooth and heavy and supple as he once had been.
    Armbands as wide as his spread fingers, heavy gold covered with symbols so eerie and beautiful they raised the hair on his scalp.
    Cloak pins as big as his hand, pins carrying the likeness of an animal, yet frighteningly human.
    A mask that was more than human.
    Shapes of gods or demons or dreams long dead.
    Twenty-seven pieces of gold. Beautiful gold.
    Deadly gold.
    A chill condensed on his skin. Automatically he reached for the lap robe, but its soft warmth couldn’t heat the freezing in the marrow of his bones.
    He was a dead man screaming.
    “No,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t mean it! I never sold any of it, even when I needed money. I worked two jobs. Worked hard. I could have melted it all down or . . . or . . .”
    His voice died into a whispery rasp. He knew the spirits that hounded him couldn’t hear his words. He wasn’t a channel. He couldn’t reach his tormentors to explain his innocence.
    Unless, just maybe, he held some of their gold in both hands. No gloves this time. Nothing to protect his flesh. Just his skin and potent gold.
    The thought made him shudder. He had touched the gold once, long ago, with his naked fingers. He had never touched it that way again. He didn’t even want to think about touching it. But he kept thinking about it just the same, reliving every black instant of the night so long ago when he had followed his dead great-uncle’s instructions, borrowed a metal detector from military stores, and gone digging in Britain while the death throes of World War II echoed around.
    The sacred oaks where neither Romans nor Angles dared to go. Nine hills. Six groves. Three man-rocks facing in. One spring. Three times three times three of gold.
    He jerked his head sharply. He didn’t want to remember. It made his heart twist as it had that night, pain lancing through every cell in his body, in his soul.
    “Hold tight,” he whispered to himself. “Just till tomorrow. Midnight. That’s when they’ll finally understand why I did it.”
    Or he would die.
    He wasn’t sure if he really cared which happened, life or death. He only cared that the gold stop killing him by inches.
    “Hold tight. Tomorrow. Midnight.”

Chapter 1
    Los Angeles
    Friday, October 31
    Morning
    E ven though Risa Sheridan was only an occasional consultant to the international firm of Rarities Unlimited, she didn’t resent flying from Las Vegas to Los Angeles for a few hours of work. She never knew what treasures a client might have brought to the company’s headquarters so that Rarities could “Buy, Sell, Appraise, Protect.” All she could be certain of was that whatever she would be inspecting was at least four hundred years old—and usually much older—because ancient jewelry was her specialty.
    Risa’s feeling of anticipation flattened when she looked through the double glass doors that led to Rarities’ offices; Shane Tannahill was already on the other side of the bulletproof glass. Despite the fact that she had left Las Vegas before he did, her boss had beaten her to Los Angeles.
    Shane had one of his hands tucked into a pocket of his black slacks. The other hand anchored the soft leather jacket he had slung over one shoulder. A visitor’s badge hung on a chain around his neck. Angular face impassive, jade green eyes narrowed, dark hair neatly trimmed, he lounged against the guard desk. Waiting for her.
    He wasn’t a patient man.
    Bloody L.A. traffic, she said silently.
    It wasn’t her fault that her plane had been held on the ground in Vegas for a security check. Then in L.A. a semi truck hauling gasoline had turned over on Sepulveda, blocking the easiest exit from the airport and thoroughly screwing up the city’s already overburdened surface streets.
    And making her