Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

with more force than necessary to depress the keys.
    “Okay, good…no, wait,” he said into the phone. “Go over that bit again.” He listened, typed, nodded, and typed some more. “Got it. Any other shortcuts I should know?” He listened, grunted, and scribbled madly on a pad next to the keyboard, which already had a lot of previous scribbles on it from his other forays into hacking. “Thanks, Jill. If that doesn’t do it, I’ll call again.”
    He punched off and smelled the coffee before Kate put it under his nose. “You just saved my life,” he said, grabbing the cup.
    “Sounds like I was second in line. She helping you again?”
    “What? Oh, Jill.” Sam grinned. “The Bureau only has the best, thank God. There’s a way to get into Hall’s computers. At least, it should work. Nearly all business software is based on the same program, and that program has some frigging big holes in the security.”
    “That’s good?”
    “Hope so.” Sam drank the rest of the steamy coffee in three big swallows. “We’ll find out.”
    He went back to work at the keyboard. Kate watched while screens and minutes raced by, codes asked and answered, until finally he settled back and sighed. “Be damned. It worked. The personnel files are mine.”
    “Legally?”
    “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
    Kate took the hint and shut up. She drank her coffee, refilled both cups, and walked up and down between the worktables. The beautiful piece of yellow sapphire was mounted and ready to be studied with various devices, including an old-fashioned magnifying glass. The sooner she got to work on the sapphire, the sooner she could pay Sam back for his unintended loan to buy the pricey rough.
    Not that he was pushing for the money. He hadn’t even mentioned it. Maybe he’d like to go partners in the finished work as well. She turned to ask him, but before she could, he was talking to her.
    “Jack Kirby. Son of a bitch. He worked for Peyton Hall.”
    “Kirby was a licensed private investigator, wasn’t he?” Kate asked, frowning.
    “Yeah? So?”
    “So there could be a legitimate reason. Kirby could have worked for a lot of people.”
    Sam grunted. “Let’s see what Sizemore says.”
    “What? You’re going to tell him?”
    “Actually, I think I’ll let him tell me. ”

Chapter 68
    Scottsdale
    Monday
    8:30 A.M .
    Sizemore opened the door with a beer in one hand and attitude sticking out all over him.
    “You sure I don’t need my lawyer?” Sizemore said with something close to a sneer.
    “You want him, call him,” Sam said, brushing past Sizemore. “We’ll wait inside.”
    Kate followed Sam into the suite.
    Sizemore kicked the door shut behind her hard enough to make the frame vibrate before he turned to face Sam.
    “I don’t need my lawyer to deal with a mutt like you,” Sizemore said. “You’re not worth two hundred bucks an hour.”
    “Neither is your lawyer.”
    Kate rolled her eyes and stepped between the men, looking Sizemore right in the eye.
    “Before you two start clawing and pulling hair,” she said, “let’s get a few things out of the way. You don’t like Sam. Sam doesn’t like you. Big flapping deal. People do business all the time with folks they despise. That aside, do you have any problem talking to us?”
    Sizemore looked surprised. He glanced over Kate’s head at Sam. “Do girls these days go to a special school to learn attitude?”
    “The good ones are born with it,” Sam said.
    “Huh. Well, I hope the fucking you get is worth the fucking you get. Never was for me.”
    Sam couldn’t help it. He looked at Kate and grinned.
    She grinned right back at him.
    Sizemore shook his head. “I’ll never understand women, or men who understand them, for that matter. Beer, anyone?”
    “I’ll pass,” Kate said.
    “Me too,” Sam said.
    Sizemore lowered himself into his favorite chair and said, “Your party. Your tune.”
    Sam pulled up a chair for Kate but didn’t sit down himself.
    “Assuming that the leaks came from your company,” Sam said, “and assuming that you weren’t the source, who was it?”
    “Hell, I’ve got twenty employees and a bunch of couriers who only work on a job-by-job basis.” Sizemore took a drink. “Could be any of them.”
    Sam looked at the dark skin ringing the other man’s bloodshot eyes. “Is that the best you can come up with after a sleepless night or did you spend the whole time drinking?”
    Sizemore flushed and visibly bit back what