Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

contest. The cop won by a mile. “I’ll check out every name, but I’m not counting on it going anywhere. Whoever killed Lee wasn’t buying stones in Fort Worth on the eighth.”
    “The car wasn’t turned in until the ninth.”
    “The car didn’t kill him. Someone who was on Sanibel Island before noon on the eighth did, someone who knew Lee’s habits, someonewho either called Lee away from his lunch or screwed up popping the trunk so that Lee saw or heard, came running, and got killed.”
    “Why?” Kate asked starkly. “Why not just rob him or beat him up like the other couriers?”
    “That’s the million-dollar question,” Sam agreed. “Of all the couriers, his is the only one whose body was hidden. Why? The answer is our killer.”
    “What do you mean?”
    He fiddled with his coffee cup, thought about not telling her, and decided she’d do better with the truth than with well-meaning evasions.
    “I think whoever killed your half brother is part of a group I call the Teflon gang. I think they’re American. I think they have someone on the inside of the gem trade. Way inside. I think Lee must have recognized whoever robbed him in Florida. I think that’s why Lee died.” Sam looked up. His eyes were as grim as the line of his mouth. “And I’m afraid the gang has someone on the inside of the crime strike force too.”
    “You don’t mean just someone with ambition and media contacts and loose lips?”
    “I mean someone who knows just what he’s saying and just what the results will be.”
    Kate closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. They looked the way she felt—angry and afraid and determined. “What can we do?”
    “First I’m going to put you in a safe place.”
    “Already taken care of. Look around you, Special Agent. Dead-bolts and locks and alarms everywhere. What’s second?”
    “I want to move you to another place.”
    “I don’t want to go. I’m safer here than I would be in a motel room going nuts staring at bad art and wondering if the next guy coming through the door will be you or a killer with a badge. I mean it, Sam. I’m staying. I’m safer here.”
    “I’m just one man. I can’t protect you twenty-four-seven.”
    “I’m just one woman who can put bullets into man-shaped targets at twenty-three feet with either hand.”
    Sam lifted his eyebrows. “Did the targets have guns?”
    “Our instructor said that came under the heading of postgraduate work, and she hoped to hell we never had to do that dance.”
    “So do I.” Sam looked at his watch without really seeing it. Whatever the readout said, it didn’t matter.
    There wasn’t enough time.
    But whatever it was, it was all they had. “Okay, we’ll do it your way until that doesn’t work anymore. Then we’ll do it mine.”
    Kate ignored the chill that was gathering under her skin. “Sounds good.”
    He almost laughed. Nothing sounded good to him but grabbing her and running like hell. Too bad that being on the run wouldn’t get the job done.
    “We’re going to make a list of everyone Lee knew in the jewelry trade,” Sam said. “Then we’re going to make a list of everyone on the strike force. Then we’ll see how much the lists overlap.”
    “What if they don’t?”
    “Then we make a list of friends of friends. Somewhere, somehow, there’s a link between Lee and the FBI.”
    “There’s always a pattern, is that it? Like cutting rough?”
    He smiled slightly. “That’s one way of putting it.”
    “So all we have to do is throw away the facts that don’t matter.”
    “All.” Sam laughed wearily. “Yeah, that’s all. Hope you weren’t planning on much sleep. It’s going to be a long night.”
    “Sleep? What’s that?”
    Kate took the yellow pad, flipped to a new page, and drew a stark black line down the center of the page. In neat block letters, she started writing down the name of everyone Lee knew in the jewelry business. Sam was right. It was going to be a long night.
    But at least she wouldn’t be spending it alone.

Chapter 56
    Glendale
    Saturday
    11:08 P.M .
    Kirby was driving a dark blue rental car when he closed in on Kate Chandler’s house. The Lexus wasn’t flashy, but it was a long way from an urban beater. A man in a suit driving an expensive car was assumed to be a solid citizen returning from a late flight. He was a lot less likely to be stopped and questioned by a cruising squad car than some mutt in dirty jeans driving a clapped-out Ford.
    If anyone