Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

the lobby and out through the employee elevator into the valet parking lot below the building. There he loaded the paintings into a white van whose only ID was a magnetic sign attached to the side. The words advertised locksmiths available at any hour of the day or night. A temporary license plate was taped to the back window. There were no other plates on the vehicle.
    Inside the van, beyond the reach of the security cameras, he changed back into the workman’s coveralls and cowboy hat he’d worn to drive into the garage, stripped off the exam gloves that had covered his hands, put on huge sunglasses and some dark face fur, and started the van.
    Beneath the unblinking eyes of the video cameras, the van backed out of its space, turned right, and headed south on Pacific Coast Highway along with about fifty thousand other commuters.

Savoy Hotel
    8 P.M. Friday evening
35
    I an keyed open the door to Susa’s suite and waved in the bellman pushing a luggage cart stacked with painting gear. The message light on the phone was blinking impatiently. He swallowed a curse. While the women painted, he’d spent most of the time draining his patience and the battery of his cell phone on various public servants wearing badges and attitudes of one kind or another.
    “Probably my insurance company,” Lacey said unhappily. “I left this number because the phone next door wasn’t working.”
    “I plugged it in,” Ian said. “Works fine now.”
    “Oops. Details. I’m not good at them.”
    “What do you mean?” Susa said. “You gave the insurers an inventory printout before we went painting. They won’t do anything meaningful until their adjuster goes through your shop and sees what’s what, and she won’t be there until Monday afternoon.”
    Lacey’s lips flattened. “My insurers heard the word ‘arson’ and ran like bunnies.”
    “It’s called ‘use of the money,’” Ian said. “You give it to them and they use it until you can prove they have to give some back.”
    Lacey swiped back a curl with paint-stained fingers. “They didn’t say anything outright, but reading between the lines, you’d think I set fire to the place myself.”
    “Don’t take it personally,” he said. “Arson for insurance money is a favorite scam. You get burned often enough, you get real testy on the subject. In fact, you get real—Whoa, look at those flowers!”
    “Where?” Susa and Lacey said.
    He gestured at a wall mirror in the sitting room. Reflected in it was an array of flowers standing like a frozen fountain of color on Susa’s bedside table. Someone had given her the kind of floral arrangement that made headstones look small.
    “You and the Donovan have a fight?” he asked Susa.
    “No. Besides, he knows everything but orchids make me sneeze.”
    Lacey looked at the silent explosion of flowers. “I’ll be happy to help you out with these. Looks like they came from the same florist who did the display at the concierge desk. Must turn them out like clones.”
    “Take them,” Susa said, waving her hand. “Please. And put them in a distant corner of your bedroom.”
    Ian reached for the flowers.
    “Wait,” Lacey said. “There must be a card saying who they came from.”
    “Don’t see one.”
    Lacey pawed delicately through the petals. “Me, either. Maybe the desk knows.”
    “Call,” Ian said to Susa. It wasn’t a suggestion. “Be sure to tell them that the DO NOT DISTURB sign was on the handle and it was ignored. Some eager bellman needs his knuckles rapped. If he does it again while I’m here, he might just get shot.”
    Susa lifted her eyebrows, picked up the receiver, and punched the number for the front desk. While she did, Ian took two tissues to keep from leaving fingerprints and carried the vase of flowers into the hallway.
    He came back empty-handed.
    “Well?” he asked.
    Susa gave him a sideways glance. “They’re checking.”
    Lacey looked at him. “You left the flowers out there?”
    “Until we know where they came from, yes.”
    “You really are paranoid.”
    “Everybody’s good at something.”
    He went into Susa’s bedroom, checked the closet, and swore silently. Without a word he went to Lacey’s side of the joined suite, checked the closet, and walked back out into the sitting area just as Susa hung up the phone.
    “The concierge desk has no record of a flower delivery,” she said. “They’re checking the delivery schedule now.”
    He wasn’t surprised. “Don’t