Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

would love to shove you down my throat, and he’s just competent enough to track you down the same way I did.”
    “I wondered about that. How did you find me?”
    “I saw you with Gavin, got his name from his badge. Showed your picture—”
    “What picture?” Kate cut in.
    “I got one from the hotel security cameras. Gavin recognized you right off. My SSA—Kennedy—has a copy of the photo, which means good old Bill could take it and show it around until he gets your real identity just like I did.”
    Kate absorbed that in silence. Then she squared her shoulders. “It should be all right. No one will get information from Uncle Gavin. He leaves today.” She looked at her watch. “In two hours I’m going to meet him in the Royale’s lobby and take him to Sky Harbor.”
    “You’re going to be seen with the one man who can identify you as Katherine Jessica Chandler, aka Natalie Cutter, aka the woman who is probably my CI, aka the woman who is number one on someone’s hit list? Wow, that’s really a bright move, sweetheart. Do you have a death wish you haven’t told me about?”
    “God.” Kate raked fingers through her hair. When Sam put it that way, being seen with Gavin probably wasn’t the brightest idea she’d ever had. “Okay. I’ll call him and—”
    “I’ll call him,” Sam interrupted. “And while I’m at it, I’ll tell him not to talk about you to anyone and to call me if someone asks about you.”
    She started to argue, thought about Lee, and shut up. “There must be something I can do besides get ahead on my backlog of stone-cutting,” she said finally.
    “What you should do is go to a motel and tell nobody but me where you are. I’ll pay for it in cash so there won’t be a credit record. No way to trace you.”
    “That’s ridiculous. There’s no—”
    “There’s every reason,” he cut in roughly. “All that stands between you and some asshole with a knife is the false identity of Natalie Cutter.”
    “So far, so good,” Kate said through gritted teeth.
    “What happens when I ask you to start making the rounds of the traders with me?”
    She looked startled. “Are you asking me?”
    “I’m thinking about it. Sure as shit I’m not getting much on my own. How many of the traders know you on sight?”
    She shrugged. “Not many.”
    “How many is not many?”
    “Here? At this show?” She frowned. “None of the traders who were working with Purcell know me.”
    “For these small blessings we are thankful,” Sam muttered. “How about the ones who are setting up as we speak?”
    “It depends on who’s manning the booth for the various traders.”
    “I’ll get a list.”
    “Does that mean you’re asking me to help you?”
    He said something savage under his breath. “I’m asking you to put your ass on the firing line, yes.”
    “How am I going to tell the difference?” she asked ironically.
    “I hope to hell you don’t find out.”

Chapter 36
    Outside Scottsdale
    Friday
    3:15 P.M .
    Kirby sat behind the wheel of a baby-white SUV with heavily tinted glass windows. There was a rental agreement on the passenger seat next to the cut up panty hose that would make his features impossible to identify if he got unlucky with witnesses. On the floor lay the electronic recorder he’d used to catch the frequency of the courier’s key and then to program one of the many blank keys Kirby always had. Now all he had to do was get within ten feet of the courier’s car and open it with his homemade radio key.
    The nice thing about machines was that they were reliable. Stupid, but reliable. Like the mud artfully splattered in the little SUV’s wheel wells and across the back bumper and license plate. Not enough mud to attract a cop’s attention, but like pulling nylon over your head, it made a useful ID damn near impossible.
    As for the rest, according to the rental papers he was Dick Major, head of production for Western Trails Enterprises. He lived in Hollywood and had a California driver’s license. At the moment he wore a black Stetson over his temporarily dyed black hair, had fake face fur that itched like fire ants, and a snub-nosed thirty-eight in his boot holster.
    And sweat. He wore a lot of that too. He was parked in the laughable shade of a desert “tree” that was shorter than he was. But the parking slot gave him a great view of the New Tires—FAST garage bay. The courier had brought his car into the shop on three tires and a rim.
    Kirby had