Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

won’t be any help. Concussions like that take away short-term memory.”
    Sizemore grunted. “Standard operating procedure for the South American gangs. Beat the crap out of the victims, even if you don’t have to. What about her package?”
    What do you think? But all Sharon said was, “Branson and Sons will be spending a lot of time with their insurers, as they were using one of their own couriers.” She waited. “Don’t you want to know the courier’s chances for survival?”
    “The only survival I’m interested in is my own. If we don’t get a handle on those South Americans real quick, I’ll start losing customers. I can’t afford that. And if you want to keep working for me, neither can you.”
    Sharon kept her mouth closed. She knew more about the company’s finances than her father did.
    And he was right.

Chapter 23
    Glendale
    Wednesday night
    Sam looked up from the mug of coffee Kate had poured for him. Lee Mandel’s file lay open on the worktable next to the tool she called a dop.
    “Okay,” he said. “The Bureau and the local cops agree that the rental car was returned late but intact. No popped trunk. No broken locks. Security system in working order.” He looked up. “None of the cars I’ve rented have security systems. Most of them don’t even have remote-controlled locks.”
    “Try upgrading.”
    “Try living on the government’s per diem for travel.”
    “Just because the trunk lock wasn’t broken doesn’t mean Lee is a thief,” Kate said harshly. “The attacker or attackers could have taken the key from him.”
    “Nobody reported a scuffle involving a man of Lee’s description and a white rental car.”
    “Did anyone ask?”
    Sam’s mouth flattened. “Look. We didn’t know where between the airport and Captiva Island the hijacking took place. If it took place. None of the locals were interested in having a hijacking reported intheir tourist paradise. Our men covered the bases, but it was uphill work. No one saw or heard, or wanted to. To be fair, no matter what happened, it was a long shot that anyone would have seen it, always assuming there was something to see in the first place.”
    “That’s crap.” Kate’s own coffee mug slammed down on the table. “A man doesn’t just vanish into thin air between Fort Myers airport and Captiva Island.”
    “You’d be surprised,” Sam said. “It’s easier than you want to believe, Kate. People with things to hide do it all the time.”
    Her chin came up. Her mouth settled into a stubborn line. “You sound just like the other agents.”
    “You want me to lie to you?”
    “I want you to give me some credit for not being an idiot. Lee wouldn’t have done this to the people who love him. Period. If you start from there, maybe you’ll find different useful questions to ask.”
    Sam opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded. “Point taken.”
    She was too astonished to say anything.
    It was very quiet while he drank coffee and tried to put himself in the shoes of a courier who knew he was carrying a million bucks, wholesale, in his palm.
    Kate watched Sam curiously. Every time she thought she had him pigeonholed, he surprised her. Behind those startling blue eyes there was a first-class brain. Behind the hard line of his mouth there was a sense of humor. Behind his cop arrogance there was a willingness to learn.
    It knocked her off balance.
    He knocked her off balance.
    “What are you thinking?” he asked quietly.
    “Um…” She didn’t know what to say. She sure wasn’t going to say that he appealed to her as a man.
    “It’s a prosecutable offense to lie to an FBI officer.”
    “Then you must be a real busy man.”
    He grinned. “And while we’re on the subject, you can’t caper while you’re a CI.”
    “Caper?”
    “Switch more stones, if that’s what was going on in your head.”
    She looked startled. “Would it help if I did?”
    “I’ll let you know if it ever comes up.”
    And he would make sure it didn’t.
    He turned over some pages in the report. The silence made the rustling of the paper seem loud.
    “Are trunks always forced in courier heists?” she asked after a few minutes.
    He blinked, followed her train of thought, and said, “The South Americans do a lot of trunk popping. And sometimes they beat the crap out of a courier who doesn’t give up the goods quick enough.”
    “Maybe that’s what happened with Lee. Maybe they beat him and hid the…result.”
    “Their usual method