Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

young enough to be Eduardo’s grandson looked up from the machine that noisily, relentlessly ground away to reshape the gem from an older, less beautiful, or more recognizable stone into a new, anonymous one. The young man smiled and nodded eagerly but didn’t speak. Eduardo was el Patron, el Jefe, the man who made or broke an immigrant’s chances with a single gesture. Manolito’s extended family had pinched and saved for three years to pay the smuggler who brought him to the U.S. To be sent home would be a catastrophe for his whole family.
    With an expert eye Eduardo squinted at the settings on the machine, measured the angle of the rough being cut, and patted the boy approvingly on the shoulder. “Bueno, chico. Bueno.”
    Leaving the grinning, relieved boy behind, Eduardo went to the man who oversaw a series of faceting machines. A few quick words, a friendly whack on the arm, and el Patron moved on.
    The cell phone in his pocket vibrated. He retreated to a fairly quiet corner of the barnlike building and answered the phone mostly in English, which even if overheard by the workers wouldn’t make any sense to them. “ Bueno, Eduardo speaks.”
    “There’s a shipment leaving Long Beach Harbor. Be ready to mix it with the lot that came in last week.”
    “Of course, señor, ” he said, recognizing the voice of Peyton Hall, the COO of Hall Jewelry International.
    “Don’t get greedy, chico .”
    “Never, señor .”
    Silently, Eduardo hoped that one of the lots would have a nice stone or three that wouldn’t be missed. That was where his real profit came from—skimming goods that weren’t well documented. Who was to know whether a ten-carat stone was reworked into one or three stones, or perhaps ruined entirely and worth nothing at all? Only Eduardo knew, and he wasn’t talking.
    Then there were the gems that came to him from his countrymen by means he never questioned. Profitable, very profitable. It was good to have family that others feared, family that would never betray him, not even for a sapphire bigger than his thumb.
    Without realizing it, Eduardo smiled.
    He’d sweated for two weeks before deciding that he simply couldn’t risk destroying the beautiful stone by reworking it. He’d taken it to a gem trader he knew by reputation only. The man had looked and looked again. And again. Then he gave Eduardo ten thousand American dollars, no questions asked.
    Eduardo had been so grateful he’d paid to have a new altar made for the village church.
    Humming softly, he dreamed of the next shipment coming in. Three more, that was all. Then he would take his cache of stones and retire to Ecuador to sit and smoke cigars and dream in the hot sun.

Chapter 10
    Scottsdale
    Tuesday
    1:00 P.M .
    Warily, Kate Chandler stood just outside the bank of elevators and checked the lobby. A lot of men milled about, some of them in jeans and sports coats, but none of them was Special Agent Sam Groves. She was certain of it. She had a vivid memory of him burned into her mind—short, dark brown hair with a flash of silver at the temples. Eyes as hard and blue as the missing sapphires. Way too intelligent. Way too male.
    He was an armed chameleon who could be easygoing one instant and rough as a brick the next. She would be a long time forgetting the hand that came out of nowhere, the eyes that saw too much, the contempt in his voice. No, she wouldn’t have any trouble picking him out of a crowd.
    What she had trouble doing was getting him out of her mind.
    Kate rubbed her arms briskly. Even after going home for a shower and a change of clothes, she could still feel his grip and the clammy panic that had swept through her, followed by a flood of adrenaline that even hours later made her skin prickle in memory. It had been so quick, so easy for him to grab her. No warning. Nosound. Nothing but a hand out of nowhere clamping around her fingers and the certainty that she was doomed.
    It was somehow worse than the phone message that had threatened death in eerie mechanical tones. That had scared her, but not like Sam Groves. With him, between one instant and the next, the world had changed. For the worse.
    Is that what Lee felt? Everything fine and then SLAM and it all goes to hell?
    A shiver went through her. She ignored it. Thinking about what happened or might have happened or will happen won’t do any good. FBI agent Sam Groves is smart and quick. So what? I’m smarter and quicker. I got away from him.
    Didn’t