Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

house. But that wasn’t on the table. Catching a murderer before he killed Katherine Jessica Chandler was.
    “Sounds good,” Sam said through his teeth.
    He pulled the dark Stetson farther down on his head and shook his Levi’s down over his cowboy boots. His weapon harness was concealedby a jacket that didn’t have pearl buttons but managed to have a western look anyway. As far as he was concerned, simple disguises were always the best. Something always came unstuck on the elaborate ones.
    “Wait a minute,” he said. “I thought Branson and Sons lost their goods when their courier was hit.”
    “They did,” Kate said. “They sent another one.”
    “How do you know?”
    “They didn’t have a choice if they wanted to stay in the show. Last I heard, they’re staying in the show. So either a courier came or one will arrive real soon.”
    With that Kate set off at a brisk pace—or as brisk as she could manage in platform sandals—across the employee parking lot.
    Sam didn’t have any trouble in the cowboy boots, because they were his own, legacy of a misspent youth on his uncle’s Arizona ranch.
    “Is that big bus really your headquarters?” she asked when Sam caught up.
    He didn’t bother to look toward the motor coach, whose generators were working hard to keep everything cool inside. “When we’re not in Sizemore’s hotel suite, yeah.”
    “You guys sleep in the bus?”
    “Not if we want to keep our jobs,” he said. “We have plebe quarters at the back of the hotel overlooking the parking lot and restaurant grease vent. Since my roomie is Bill Colton, I don’t spend much time hanging around there. Sleep, shave, shower, and split.”
    “Colton? Who fixed that?”
    Sam shrugged. “Luck of the draw. We have two other Phoenix agents on temporary assignment with the crime strike force while we’re here for the show.”
    “Are they like Colton?”
    “They’re solid, hardworking, politically savvy federal agents, the kind who make the bureaucratic world go around. Without them, we wild cards would be shit out of luck.”
    Sam ran a plastic key card through the employee entrance e-lock and held the door open for Kate. When she walked past him, he said in a low voice, “You’re not the only unsatisfied camper, Kate. Don’t push my buttons and I’ll stay off yours.”
    She gave him a sideways look. “I couldn’t push your buttons with a sledgehammer.”
    “Listen—”
    “Hey, hold it for me, would you?” a woman called from behind Sam.
    He turned, saw a twenty-something female wearing a bar hostess outfit—white ruffled shirt halfway unbuttoned, tight red pants, black half apron with a pad and a pen sticking out of the pocket. He held the door open for her as requested.
    “Thanks.” The woman brushed by Sam a lot closer than she had to and asked in a low voice, “You work here long, darlin’?”
    “Just started.”
    “Check out the lounge a little later, okay? I have a break in two hours. Gotta run. I’m late.”
    Kate saw the exchange but couldn’t hear it. Not that she needed to. Body language said it all. The woman had done everything but stick her hand in Sam’s pants.
    When he got closer, Kate fanned herself and said, “Whew. And I thought it was hot in the parking lot.”
    Sam made a sound a lot like a snarl. He looked irritated and embarrassed and altogether in a lousy mood. He took Kate’s elbow and hustled her past the employee lockers to a service elevator. He swiped his card again. The doors opened. He shoved his key in a slot, punched the button for the top floor, and waited until the doors shut.
    Then he grabbed her.
    “What—” she began.
    An impatient, hungry male mouth closed over hers. He tasted of coffee and something hotter, something primitive and demanding. She pushed her hands inside his lightweight jacket and grabbed the first thing she could to keep her balance.
    He felt her fingers weave around the weapon harness and called himself twenty kinds of fool. And then he crowded her up against the side of the wall and leaned into her female heat.
    The elevator bumped to a halt.
    Sam dragged his mouth from Kate’s and hit the control that would hold the doors closed. “I told you to stay off my buttons,” he said roughly.
    Kate blinked, gulped at air, and wanted to hit him almost as much as she wanted to jump him.
    “Bullshit,” she said. “That waitress was all over your buttons and you didn’t—”
    “She wasn’t you,” he cut in.