Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

very female body fairly vibrated with pent energy. He had already told her the story of Shane, the gold, and the FBI more than once, but he knew her too well to point that out.
    She really hated losing priceless artifacts. If someone gave her a target right now, she would start shooting and apologize later.
    “No,” Niall said. “The angle was wrong. All I saw was Shane sticking his head into the Bronco.”
    “Well, bloody, bloody hell,” Dana snarled. “Then how do we know they’re good? It could have been a sting from the start, complete with manufactured gold, and we’re all running around like ants in scalding water for nothing.”
    Risa didn’t say anything. She just kept pacing from her living room to her bedroom and back. With every step she remembered all the angry words she had slung at Shane before he left. She would have eaten every one of them just for the chance to hold him.
    Assuming he would even let her after she had chewed him up one side and down the other.
    Big assumption.
    “If he bought the gold,” Risa said, “it’s good.”
    Dana cocked her head. “You sound certain.”
    “I am.”
    “If he’s that good, why does he have you?”
    “He doesn’t. You do,” Risa shot back. “That’s why I’m here and Shane is waiting in a cell somewhere.” Abruptly she held up her hand. “Sorry. It’s not your fault.” She shrugged jerkily. “Shane gets hunches about certain kinds of artifacts. I can fault him on provenance, but not on what he decides to buy.”
    “Things that go bump in the night?” Dana asked, glancing sideways at Niall.
    Risa rubbed her arms. “That’s as good a way to describe it as any.” She spun around and began pacing again. “Damn it. What are all those expensive lawyers doing, taking the FBI out for a ten-course meal while they discuss what does and does not constitute entrapment?”
    Niall put an arm around her shoulders as she paced on by. The mouth that had made more than one man look twice was pale, thin, and as hard-looking as anything that lush could be.
    “Easy, luv,” he said. “Shane’s all right. They won’t be hauling out the rubber hoses for Bastard Merit’s only son. The FBI is jumping salty and hard, which means they want something from Shane. The lawyers are doing everything they can to get him loose.”
    “It isn’t enough!” She bit back the tears that wanted to flow—tears of rage. She hated feeling helpless. “Oh, God, don’t you see? I’m the one who brought Cherelle into the Golden Fleece. It’s my—”
    “Shane’s a big boy,” Ian interrupted. He was leaning against the kitchen doorframe, drinking coffee. “He knew the rules of the game before he took cards in it.”
    Risa rounded on Ian. The fact that he was right didn’t stop her from opening her mouth to tell him what she thought of useless bodyguards who let the guy who really needed guarding go to jail.
    Before she could get the first word of her tirade out, the phone rang. She made a dive for it.
    “Whew. Saved by the bell,” Ian said, grinning and sipping coffee.
    Risa gave him a slicing glance as she spoke into the phone. “Sheridan here.”
    “Hi, baby-chick. I’ve got some gold pieces for you that will knock your eyes out.”
    “Cherelle! Where are you?”
    Ian swiftly crossed the room and turned on the recorder he had installed on her apartment phone.
    “Yeah, it’s mama-chick,” Cherelle said. “Glad that Socks didn’t hurt you. That boy has a big ol’ streak of mean in him.”
    “You could have told me you were passing around the apartment key.”
    “I didn’t give it to him. I must have lost it somewhere. Have the cops picked him up yet?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “Shit.”
    At the other end of the line, Cherelle bit the inside of her mouth and winced. She was already raw from gnawing on herself. The beers she had drunk took a little of the edge off her cocaine hunger, but not nearly enough. She kept hoping to see a handcuffed Socks on the news channel so she could sell the gold and get the hell out of Vegas.
    No such luck.
    So she would just have to keep on making her own luck. “Here’s the deal. I’ve got seventeen pieces of gold.”
    Risa’s breath hitched. “Even after the six you sold today?”
    “I never sold any. Socks must have unloaded Tim’s gold. What an asshole. Bet he didn’t get gas money for them. He sure didn’t get dick for the first four pieces.”
    Risa forced herself to unclench the fist she’d