Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

looked up. “What?”
    “Cherelle. Or should I say Lady Faulkner?”
    “In Sedona?” Risa stood up.
    “Looks like it. ‘Lady Faulkner will be your guide in all matters Druidic. Speak with King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and the Master Druid, Merlin himself. Through Lady Faulkner you will know the most intimate practices of the ancient and powerful—‘ “
    Risa snatched the paper from Shane’s hand, scanned rapidly, and grimaced. “So that’s what Bozo meant.”
    “What?”
    “He said something about the gold she got in Sedona from an old geezer.” Risa glanced up and found his eyes intent on her. “There’s more Celtic gold out there somewhere.”
    “You didn’t mention that to Detective Wilson.”
    “I was tired of his questions.” And she hadn’t wanted to implicate Shane in trafficking in hot gold artifacts. “You know they’re stolen, don’t you?”
    Shane smiled. “Never doubted it. Question is, how long ago?”
    “Not long enough,” she said succinctly.
    “No. Not long enough.”
    “You sound quite certain.”
    “Factoid hasn’t found even a whisper of them on anybody’s hot sheet. Not Interpol, not Scotland Yard, not the stolen archaeological treasure data bases, not museum thefts, not private collectors—not one damn thing. If those gold objects ever existed in any public record, we can’t prove it.”
    “Well, hell,” she said. “If Rarities’ top researcher can’t find anything, it’s not there to be found. Which leaves us with a problem.”
    “No, it leaves me with a problem.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You’re fired.”

Chapter 36
    Los Angeles
    November 3
    Early evening
    S. K. Niall sat in his Rarities office and gave the view screens on the far wall a quick, comprehensive glance. Dana stood next to him, her hand on his shoulder, kneading his muscles with the absentminded sensuality of a cat. He didn’t take it personally. Yet. That would come later, when they ate dinner at his cottage on Rarities Unlimited’s parklike grounds. The riots of color he managed to achieve in his November gardens were quite beautiful by moonlight. So were the lights of L.A. spread out below. From his bed they were incredible.
    And so was Dana.
    “I thought that damned meeting would never end,” Dana said. “Some people just don’t understand that they’re paying for an expert opinion, not an advertisement for their goods. Did Risa call back?”
    “No. Want me to call her before we leave?”
    Dana sighed, stretched, and began tracing the strong lines of Niall’s neck with delicate fingertips. “If it can wait until morning . . .”
    “That’s what I was thinking.”
    “Big surprise. You’re always thinking of sex.”
    His smile was quick and primitive as a love bite. “That’s one of the things you like best about me.”
    She laughed as he lifted her over the arm of the chair and onto his lap. “Not again! One of these days we’ll get caught.”
    “Promises, promises.” But he kept his hands out of the danger zones while he gave the security screens a final scan. “Looks good. All buttoned up for the night except for number-two clean room.”
    Dana focused on the screen displaying the clean room that was still in use. Lawe Donovan, a part-time consultant with Rarities Unlimited, was checking out the emeralds in an early-Renaissance reliquary a dealer was hoping to sell. Ian Lapstrake was with him. They had formed a kind of rough-and-tumble friendship, probably because Lawe was missing his twin Justin, who at last communication was somewhere in Madagascar. The harsh illumination of the room turned Lawe’s hair from chestnut to gold and Ian’s black hair into a shiny kind of midnight.
    “Like a study in darkness and light,” Dana murmured. “Beautiful in a masculine way.”
    “Quit drooling. You’ll wound my manly feelings.”
    “It would take a fifty-caliber round to wound your manly feelings.”
    “Which is the second thing you like about me,” he retorted. “I don’t fold up at the first sign of your royal displeasure.”
    “Then I’ll try my temper on Lawe. I’m ready to lock up and go home.”
    “Go ahead. I’ll—”
    “With you,” she cut in.
    He glanced at her dark eyes. Their lazy, sultry gleam told him all he needed to know. Like him, she viewed their earlier play as a snack—and she was ready for a full meal. He lifted her to her feet and activated the audio for the third clean room.
    “How’s it going, boyo?” he