Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

gems to rework. I don’t need an excuse to talk about fine stones with other professionals. And I sure won’t make them nervous. Dealers and traders love to talk shop with another insider.”
    Sam grabbed the glass carafe that held a thin layer of just-brewed coffee. Ignoring the hiss and burn of coffee dripping onto the hot plate, he dumped scalding coffee into the cup. Barely two-thirdsfull. He shoved the carafe back into place under the dripping coffee and said roughly, “You’re not thinking too well, Kate.”
    She raised her eyebrows, took his coffee, sipped. “I’m sure you’ll tell me what I’m missing.”
    “Pretty simple. If Purcell had the big sapphire for months and nobody gave a damn, why was he killed now? What’s different about this show?”
    Kate gave back the coffee with a hand that wasn’t as steady as it had been. She didn’t like the direction the conversation was taking. “I saw the blue sapphire. I asked questions.”
    “And got caught switching stones by SA Sam Groves, a fact that’s no secret, thanks to SA Bill Colton,” he added with disgust. “Pretty quick after that, a pro shuts up Purcell and takes the sapphire. End of the first promising evidence trail that might have led to discovering what really happened to Lee Mandel. The only good news in this Mongolian goat roping is that I’m the only one who can connect your name to Purcell and to one of the Seven Sins.”
    “You just said that it wasn’t a secret.”
    “The stone swap isn’t, but nobody except the two of us knows that Natalie Cutter is Kate Chandler.”
    Her eyes widened as she understood what he wasn’t saying. “Are you telling me that—”
    “Someone in the crime strike force is talking out of school,” he cut in. “Not the first time. Won’t be the last.”
    “You mean you can’t trust them?”
    “With a whole lot of things, yes. But I can’t take the chance that one of the ambitious cops will whisper the wrong thing in the media’s ear, and next thing we know your name is headlined with Natalie Cutter’s.”
    “I can take the embarrassment.”
    “You wouldn’t have to for long.”
    “Why?”
    “You’d be dead.”

Chapter 28
    Glendale
    Friday
    5:00 A.M .
    Sam’s cell phone woke him up. He grabbed it and checked the window. Then he punched the button.
    “Hello, Hansen. What do you have?”
    “We sound a little sleepy,” came the lab tech’s bright reply.
    “ We are in Arizona, not on the East Coast.”
    “Just getting even for all the times you and your kind have dragged me out of bed or made me work overtime. Last Wednesday, for example, when you lit a fire under someone and they passed the burn on to me. Then there’s the five-months-later rental car. But, hey, who’s counting? Not me. Especially as we got lucky right off with the car.”
    With one big hand, Sam rubbed his eyes and looked around, wondering where in hell he was. Even before the thought registered, he knew: Kate’s house. The couch in her workroom, to be exact. Someone had taken off his shoes, stuffed a pillow under his head, and thrown a blanket over him.
    Too bad she hadn’t taken off his gun harness while she was at it. His ribs felt like they’d been kicked.
    “Okay, we’re even,” Sam said. “Talk to me.”
    “Even? Hell, you owe me on this one. The trunk liner on that rental car showed traces of blood and feces. The liner had been shampooed but there was enough blood residue to glow in the dark, once we added Luminol. We started DNA sequencing on the samples using a new technique. Should have the results any time now.”
    Sam knew that any time now wasn’t necessarily fast. Usually, but not always. “Was the blood human?”
    “Yeah. O positive. I can break it down further into subgroups if—”
    “Do it,” Sam interrupted. “I won’t update the file until I have the DNA report. You find anything else?”
    “Dirt and sand,” Hansen said cheerfully. “A lot of it. Most of it is typical for the west coast of Florida. There was some central and east coast debris too.”
    “Don’t those rental companies ever vacuum their cars?”
    “Not like we do.”
    “What about fingerprints?” Sam asked. “You get any?”
    “It’s a rental car, for Chrissake. Of course we got fingerprints.”
    “Run them, including partials.”
    Hansen made a strangled sound. “Do you have any idea how many—”
    “Just do it,” Sam interrupted. “Strike force priority. That should come in front of