Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

accused. “You’re thinking about it.”
    “What about you? Are you thinking about it?”
    “Sam, help me with this. Or am I wrong about what happens to agents who sleep with their informants?” she asked hopefully.
    He closed his eyes. When they opened, they were no longer smoldering with hunger. “No. I’d be sent to Fargo or fired. If the brass could manage it, they’d do both.”
    She let out a quiet breath and told herself she wasn’t disappointed. Really. Feeling like you’d been dropped off a roof didn’t count as disappointment.
    “A fate worse than death,” she said lightly. Now remember to breathe. Good girl. I knew you could do it. “We’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t happen. Right?”
    “I’ll get back to you on that.” Then he sighed. “Right.”
    Sam allowed himself one more thought about burying his face in her hair and feeling her legs wrap around him as he pushed in deep.Then he shoved down the human and dragged the agent up to the surface again.
    “If you were stealing stuff from couriers,” he said, “where in the gem food chain would you start? Overseas?”
    Like a light switch. Back to cop mode. Kate told herself she was grateful. Then she told herself again.
    “No,” she said tightly. “Not overseas.”
    “Why?”
    She let out a long breath and told herself that her pulse was normal. Entirely. Normal. For a sprinter. “They haven’t heard of Miranda over there and their prisons are shit holes.”
    “Personal experience?” he asked, surprised.
    “Not mine. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
    “Oh, it’s real,” he agreed.
    “Personal experience?” she asked dryly.
    He didn’t answer. He hitched a hip up on the sturdy table and shifted his weapon harness so that it rode comfortably. “So you wouldn’t start near the mines. Where would you go next?”
    Actually, I’m thinking of pulling out your gun and shooting the cop so that Sam can come out to play. If I’d known I had only one chance, I’d have jumped for it.
    All she said aloud was, “I’d go to a big international wholesaler that imports stones into the U.S.”
    “Why?”
    “They move a lot of gems with inventories that read pounds and kilos. It would be easy to mix the stolen and the legal together, as long as you haven’t stolen anything outstanding.”
    “Like the Seven Sins?”
    Her nod sent her dark hair slipping and sliding along her neck.
    Sam swatted down the human and hung on to the cop.
    “For all the expensive advertising,” Kate said, “colored gems—especially treated colored gems—aren’t that rare. Or that unique. A bucket of small blue sapphire rough isn’t going to raise your heart rate. Cut and treated, maybe it would make your pulse kick, but only for a few moments.” She blew out a long, quiet breath and felt herown pulse slow. Better. Much better. “Then you start seeing the differences in cut and quality and color. There’s a lot of junk out there.”
    Sam tried to imagine a bucket of gems. He couldn’t. But that was why he had his own private expert. She could imagine all that and more.
    It was what he was imagining that was the problem.
    “And if that isn’t enough, by the time you’ve been through an assembly-line cutting and polishing operation,” Kate said, “you’ll hold a handful of low-end cut gems and all you’ll think is what a pain it will be to put all the tiny bits of glitter into a silver necklace or ten-carat gold.”
    He tried not to, but couldn’t help it. He laughed. If nothing else, it eased the claws of desire digging into him.
    “It’s true,” she said.
    “I believe you. I was just thinking of childhood dreams of treasure chests and pirates. What would Blackbeard have said?”
    “Bluebeard.”
    “Whatever.” Sam’s grin said gotcha. “So you dreamed too.”
    “Doesn’t every kid?”
    His smile faded. “No. Dreaming takes energy, health, hope. Those things are real scarce in some times and places.”
    Before Kate could ask about the shadows in his eyes—cop or human?—he was talking again.
    “Okay, you’ve picked your wholesaler,” he said. “Now what?”
    She blinked, accepted the change of subject, and said, “The wholesaler could also be a jewelry maker, a retailer, or a gem trader. All that’s required is large quantities of gems coming in, enough so that some extra stuff here and there wouldn’t ring alarm bells. Maybe whoever owns the company doesn’t even know what’s happening. A few corrupt