Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

“Was it a courier kind of hit?”
    Peyton added more coffee to his cup, dumped in some cream and sugar, and started to pace. “Eduardo’s cousin was found with a Colombian necktie. Before that he was rumored to be laundering drug money through the Hill Street gold market.”
    “Must have pissed someone off.”
    “Yeah. I’m just wondering who.”
    She shrugged. “Why do you care? You don’t deal with the Colombians, do you?”
    “Just want to make sure that no one is trying to muscle in on the business,” Peyton said, sidestepping her question. “The way L.A. is today, you have enough ethnic gangs around to make nineteenth-century New York’s problems look like squabbles on a playground.”
    Sharon shrugged. “I think of it as job security.”
    “I think of it as a pain in the ass.”
    She pushed away the rolling room service table and patted the bed next to her. “Come tell me all about it.”
    “I thought you said you had some work to do for your father.”
    “It will wait.”
    He glanced at her computer on the bedside table. Before breakfast had come, she’d been following some interesting threads on various couriers. He hadn’t planned on hitting anything so soon, but after Eduardo’s death in the cutting room, he’d have some ground to make up.
    He kissed Sharon with lips that tasted of coffee. “I’ll take you up on it tonight. Go ahead and work now. I’ve got some things of my own to do.”
    Sharon pulled her computer into her lap, settled against the headboard, and called up a file. The mattress gave in heavily as Peyton settled next to her, his own computer in his lap. Soon she was immersed in her work, trying to connect courier thefts with the information the FBI had. She knew how much her father wanted to break the case before the Bureau did. And she wanted to be the one who gave him facts every step of the way.
    From time to time Peyton glanced at her computer screen. If she noticed and looked at him, he just smiled at her, kissed her, and went back to his own computer without a word.
    The companionable silence was broken only by the click of keys.

Chapter 61
    Scottsdale
    Sunday
    1:10 P.M .
    Kate looked at the black motor coach with its blanked-out windows and grimaced. “Why do I feel like I’m about to be thrown in irons and grilled like a cheese sandwich?”
    Sam smiled faintly. “Not you. Me.”
    “What for?”
    “Oh, they’ll think of something.”
    The door opened before Sam could reach for it. Doug stuck his head out. “Took you long enough.”
    “I wanted a doctor to look at Kate’s cheek.”
    Doug glanced at the thin line across Kate’s cheekbone. “Not deep enough for stitches. Already scabbed over. Clean. Looks good to me.”
    “You sound just like the doctor,” Kate said, “but if you try to give me any more shots, I’ll go for your throat.”
    Doug’s smile flickered, then settled. “Sam said you were a tiger.”
    Her smile turned upside down. “Was that before or after I threw up?”
    Sam wanted to gather her in a comforting hug, but he couldn’t. Not in front of the boss. “You didn’t throw up.”
    “I wanted to.”
    “So did I.”
    She gave him a look of disbelief.
    “What?” Sam said. “Do you think I shoot men on a weekly basis?”
    “I—I didn’t think.” She looked at him and saw the new lines around his eyes, the new shadows, the pallor beneath the strength. Why did I assume it wouldn’t reach him the way it reached me? Because he’s an FBI agent? She wanted to touch him, comfort him, tell him she understood and it made him all the more a man to her. She kept her hands and thoughts to herself. Doug might be a friendly boss, but he was still Sam’s boss. “I’m sorry,” she said to Sam.
    “Don’t be,” Doug said, gesturing Kate inside. “Jack Kirby was a miserable piece of shit.”
    “Then you have an ID?” Sam asked, following Kate up the steps.
    “Oh, yeah. Kennedy will fill you in.”
    “Don’t try to tell me the mutt was Ecuadorian,” Sam said under his breath.
    “Nope,” Doug said with faint malice. “Pure d American, born and raised in southern California and educated by the U.S. Army, and from there to the DEA. Spent a lot of time undercover.”
    “Army? Was he a Ranger?” Sam asked.
    Doug paused in the act of reaching for Kennedy’s door, which was partway open.
    The door opened fully. Sizemore stood there looking impatient and curious at the same time. Obviously, he’d been listening.
    “Why do