Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

Risa and shook his head sadly. “It’s already started.”
    “What has?” Niall asked.
    “Finishing each other’s sentences. Reading each other’s minds.” He glanced at Niall. “Like you and Dana. Enough to make a man swear off women.”
    “Your sentences could use some finishing,” Niall retorted, scanning the first printout for the highlights. “This Socks is the kind of boy who keeps the penal system in business. In and out since he was ten. He’s been on the streets a whole eighteen months now.”
    Risa rubbed her temples. “Will wonders never cease.”
    “Hey, it’s a record,” Niall said. “Most time he’s spent on the outside since he graduated.”
    “High school?” Ian asked.
    “Juvie,” Niall said. “Once he turned sixteen, he started going away for longer times as an adult. Hard time.”
    Shane went to the wet bar, pulled a bottle of sparkling water out of the small refrigerator, and handed it to Risa. She gave him a surprised look that told him she’d just figured out she was thirsty and wondered how he’d known.
    Ian gave her an I-told-you-so smile.
    “Is that where Socks picked up Seton?” Shane asked. “In jail?”
    Niall nodded and scanned the page rapidly. “Cellmates. Socks is suspected of shanking an old guy in prison. No proof. No charges.”
    “Shanking?” Risa asked.
    “Killing him with a homemade knife,” Shane said.
    She grimaced as she unscrewed the bottle top. “Nice guy.”
    “Oh, he’s a sweetheart,” Niall agreed. “Armed robbery the last time out. Assault and battery before then. Burglary. Attempted rape. And after his dance through the Golden Fleece, you can add kidnapping, burglary, assault, and attempted murder. Car registered in Nevada. Nevada driver’s license suspended for driving under the influence. No wife. No kids to speak of. No home address. Mother dead. Father a drunken small-time crook whose specialty was drying out in county jails in between running cigarettes from Indian reservations and selling them out of his trunk at swap meets. But that was only when he wasn’t breaking legs for loan sharks.”
    “Hard to see someone like Socks having the contacts to steal the kind of high-end antiquities Smith-White sold us,” Risa said. Water gurgled lightly as she raised the bottle to drink. A lemony tang spread over her tongue. She gave Shane a grateful look and decided she might forgive him for being overly protective. “Where would Socks find that quality of goods? Ditto for Cherelle. What about Tim?”
    Niall grunted. “I doubt that Timothy Edgar Seton had them lying around the house. A really pretty face and a badly spotted soul. Underage drinking and gambling. Statutory rape and accessory to armed robbery. No high school graduation, but he went to the Gentleman’s Deal, an expensive training ground for casino dealers and ‘escorts.’ Dealt blackjack, slept with women who paid his bills, buddied around with the hard-asses. His mother is Miranda Caroline Seton, never married, lives at 113 Oasis Lane in a house registered to a rental company. Father not listed on birth certificate. No other relatives. Seton lists his mother’s place as his home address. Driver’s license. No car.”
    Ian made a sound of disgust. “I’m not seeing any road to gold in Tim’s background.”
    “Does credit count?” Niall asked. “Seton has four active credit cards. All maxed and late.”
    “I’m shocked,” Shane said. With a sharp motion he twisted off the top of another bottle of water. “Where are the bills sent?”
    “His mother’s place.”
    Shane took a long swallow of water. He was still trying to wash the taste of Shapiro’s apartment and Cline’s death out of his mouth. By tomorrow, cop reports would be entered on the central computer. Whatever the cops knew, Shane would know, thanks to a boyhood spent trying to please—and surpass—Bastard Merit, king of the hackers.
    “Cherelle Leticia Faulkner,” Niall said, picking up another sheet of paper. “She’s done a few nights with the county mounties for vagrancy, prostitution, shoplifting, petty grifting. The kind of childhood that a muckraking tabloid would love to cry croc tears over. Foster homes, abuse, more foster homes, suspected abuse, finally landed in an Arkansas trailer park and stuck for almost eight years. She ran away at seventeen with a drug salesman who sold illegal stuff along with the legal. After that she dropped off the scope. No marriage license. No known