Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

number she never wanted to remember and never could forget. When someone answered, she didn’t waste any words.
    Very quickly she was put through to the man at the top. She didn’t waste any words with him either.
    “Your son has been shot. Send help to my house now. ”

Chapter 30
    Las Vegas
    November 3
    Afternoon
    A lmost reluctantly Risa watched her office door close behind the smiling Smith-White. With quick, ripping motions she stripped off her exam gloves and fired them into the nearest wastebasket. She wasn’t looking forward to what was coming next, but it had to be done.
    “You do realize that you have just spent two-point-four-seven million dollars on goods you can’t exhibit?” she asked Shane.
    “Plus the ten thousand no-questions-asked reward, and who says I can’t exhibit them?”
    “I do.” She held a palm out as though pushing him away. “No. Don’t interrupt. You hired me to advise you, and now you’ll damn well listen to what I say. The provenance Smith-White offered is a joke. A bad one.”
    Expressionless, Shane looked at the provenance Smith-White had provided for the incredible gold artifacts. “Purchased from an unnamed South African private collector during World War I by another private collector, James Madison, an American on a world tour. Said transaction not validated by paper but by recollection of Madison’s great-grandson, who sold the gold to J. E. Shapiro last week to cover a gambling debt. Shapiro sold it to William Covington, who sold it to Smith-White. All three recent transactions duly recorded.”
    “Do you believe that?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think I want an answer!”
    Shane smiled slightly. “I’m sure you do. So do I. Until we find out who is going to answer first, plan for a trip to Rarities ASAP. I want these artifacts put through every scientific wringer they have. I’ll leave it to you to sort out what we can of their stylistic history. Tell Dana that we want special care with the photos they take. One of them is likely to be the cover for the Druid Gold exhibit catalog.”
    “You call Dana.” Risa’s eyes were narrowed, furious. “I quit.”
    Shane’s dark brows lifted. “Everybody will assume you slept with me.”
    “So my reputation as Ice Goddess takes a hit. So what? Better that than being linked in print with stolen goods.”
    “Prove it.”
    “I will, just as soon as I can afford a full Rarities search on the objects.”
    “You’ll have to be working for me for that to happen,” Shane pointed out with a thin smile. “Rarities won’t look at shit for you unless you own said shit and request its examination by them.”
    Risa wanted to scream. He was right. Damn him.
    “However,” he added, throwing Smith-White’s record of past sales on her desk, “if you’re still working for me, you won’t have to pay for a thing. And you can always quit later, when you have the very proof that I will have thoughtfully, and at great expense, gathered for you.”
    Risa had the uneasy feeling that Shane was both laughing at her and pleased that she was willing to quit over provenance. “I don’t get it.”
    “You will. That’s a promise.”
    “If I don’t, my resignation will be retroactive to this moment.”
    “Agreed. Now, call Dana.”
    Risa was reaching for the phone when it rang. She picked it up and said curtly, “Sheridan.”
    “This is security at the front desk. Ms. Cherelle Faulkner would like us to make another key for her. Apparently she lost hers.”
    “Some things never change,” Risa muttered, thinking of her friend’s lifelong lack of interest in keeping track of keys and other small things. “Make her another key.”
    “Should I change the electronic combination?”
    “Hell,” Risa said through her teeth. The last thing she needed right now was to be running around getting new keys for her own apartment every time Cherelle lost another one. “No. Same combination.”
    As she hung up, she met Shane’s questioning green eyes. She could see that he wanted to know what was going on, but she was out of patience with him, herself, and the world. Worse, there was no short explanation for Cherelle, lost keys, and an old friend’s bittersweet presence in Risa’s Golden Fleece apartment.
    “I don’t have time to go into it now,” Risa said as she punched in Dana’s number.
    “Later, then.”
    She moved her shoulders, trying to loosen knots tied by Cherelle and guilt and impatience and stolen gold.