Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

with your name on it.”
    “I’m touched. Is Ian checking out the Oasis address?”
    “Been there. Done that. Nobody home. He vetted the place from stem to stern. Nothing except signs that she left in a big hurry.”
    “Anything else?”
    “Cesar Firenze Marquez, aka Socks, is the lead on everyone’s news show. The TV folks are especially proud of their footage.”
    “Why do you think I had the copies made?” Shane asked. “TV news would lead with a dead cow rotting if they had film of it.”
    Niall laughed. “The cops are getting calls right and left from people claiming they saw Socks. If our boy is still in town, he’ll be walking real small to avoid attention.”
    “What’s the official police take on Cline’s death?”
    “Officially they’re exploring all leads with great diligence.”
    “Unofficially?”
    “They wouldn’t give a shit if a TV crew hadn’t been there to record the body,” Niall said. “Cline wasn’t on the cops’ Ten Most Loved list.”
    “Do you want me to send the plane back to Vegas?”
    “No. Dana said to pull out all the stops on this one. Having a pilot and plane at your beck and call is just one of the stops.”
    Shane grunted. “Good thing I can afford it.”
    Niall’s laughter was clear in his voice, “We’re keeping that in mind.”
    With a flick of his thumb, Shane disconnected. Another flick shifted his unit to computer function. He pulled a slender stylus from a clip on the side of the unit and went to work on the information that Rarities, via Factoid, was funneling into his computer as fast as they uncovered new data.
    “I didn’t know you were allergic to goldenrod,” Shane said after a moment.
    Risa gave him a slanting sideways look that told him to go to hell.
    He grinned. “And scallops.”
    She stomped down on the accelerator to pass a polished new SUV whose driver still hadn’t figured out where the metal monster began and ended.
    “You’re behind on your lockjaw vaccination,” he continued, scrolling through whatever forbidden records Factoid had found.
    “If you access my yearly gyn exams, you’re limping back to the plane alone.”
    Laughing, Shane ran his fingertips over Risa’s cheek and brushed the corner of her mouth. “Your teeth are in fine order, too.”
    She showed him a double row of perfection as she nipped at a fingertip that kept trying to burrow into her smile. He threaded his fingers through her short hair, safely out of reach of her teeth.
    “You’re distracting the driver,” she said.
    He caressed her ear, felt her shiver.
    “ Really distracting,” she added.
    Reluctantly he shifted his attention back to the computer. In silence he read computer files while the town’s colored lights slid over the windshield and left bright reflections on the computer’s small screen. He sensed the darting glances Risa gave him, but she didn’t disturb his concentration by asking questions before he had a chance to discover the answers.
    The colored lights ended when the highway wound through a stretch of national forest. A faded ribbon of red hung just above the rugged western horizon, silent testament to the sun’s dying power. The waning moon was a radiant white force against the blue-black sky. Stars shimmered, but only where night lay thickly beyond the reach of sun or moon.
    The village of Oak Creek slid by on either side of the car in a flurry of lights clustered along the highway. Beyond the lights, night waited darkly, patient as night is always patient. Soon darkness ruled but for the sword beams of cars whipping over black pavement.
    Risa followed the sign for getting on the interstate and romped down on the gas pedal to match the ambient speed of the Arizona freeways—eighty miles per hour in the slow lane. When she cracked the window a bit, air as cold and perfect as a high mountain stream rushed around her. She drank it in, better than water, more vivid.
    “Want me to drive?” Shane asked without looking up from the screen.
    “I’m fine. I just wanted to find out if the air was as clean as it looked. It is.”
    “Yeah, I keep forgetting how beautiful the red-rock and cedar desert can be.”
    “I’ve never been here before tonight, so I have nothing to remember or forget.”
    He looked up from the computer. In the light reflected from the dashboard, her eyes were gleaming, mysterious, beautiful enough to squeeze his heart. “You don’t get out often enough.”
    “I work for a slave