Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

just pack it in and head for that tropical beach and let dear old Dad sort out his own mess.
    Soon, she promised herself. Very, very soon. But until then…
    “The courier,” she said with deadly precision, “is awake and doing very well. Three hurrahs for him.”
    “I’d be leading the cheer if the fool had seen anything.”
    “To be fair,” she said, “he was rattled by the flat tire and being late. So he rushed into the hotel to tell us he was here and get an escort to—”
    “Yeah, yeah,” Sizemore interrupted. “Then the fool remembers he didn’t lock the car and runs back into the parking lot.” He made a disgusted sound and took down the level of beer in the bottle by a third. “Some fucking courier.”
    “The point is,” Sharon began.
    “The point is, we look like Keystone Kops,” Sizemore said harshly. “Courier doesn’t lock the car. Thief uses a remote key to open the trunk, only he locks it because it was already un locked. Big laugh out of that one. Ha ha. So the thief thinks his key is bad and goes to work on the trunk with a tire iron.”
    “We—”
    Sizemore swallowed beer and kept talking. “Courier runs out of hotel to lock the trunk, which is now locked, thanks to the thief. Second big laugh. Ha ha. Thief dumps courier with a silenced gun. Then Special Agent Sam Fucking Groves leaps to the rescue and shoots at fleeing SUV, which is against agency policy for Chrissake.”
    Sharon waited for her father to run out of venom. Or beer.
    “Agents come flying out of the HQ like bats out of hell,” Sizemore continued, took a long swallow, then another. “And where is Sizemore Security Consulting in all this? Picking our ass, that’s where. The only time we’ll get mentioned on the news is when they do the ‘laugher’ at the end of the show.”
    “So that’s why you’ve been ducking reporters.”
    Ignoring her, he drank, belched, and fired the empty beer bottle at the wastebasket. It hit with a loud sound. He walked over and kicked the wastebasket halfway across the room, making a real racket. Bottles and caps bounced over the hotel’s luxurious carpeting.
    “Some office manager you are,” he snarled at Sharon. “You should have known that—”
    “How am I supposed to know what the whole FBI can’t find out?” she cut in.
    “It’s your job to know! Hell, ask Jason. He knows fucking everythingabout what’s going on in the gem business and he can’t wait to bend your ear. I should have fired his ass last year when he asked for his second raise in ten months.”
    Sharon didn’t know which was worse, her headache or the anger gnawing in her stomach. Sometimes getting in her father’s face worked, because it was about the only thing he respected. But not when he was halfway drunk.
    “The point is,” she said, “the intact package was delivered by Sizemore Security Consulting to Branson and Sons. That matters more than a few seconds on local TV news feed.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Losing another package in the parking lot of the hotel would have been a public relations disaster. Which brings up my next point.”
    Sizemore twisted the cap off another bottle of beer and turned his back to her.
    She was used to it. She kept talking even as she braced for what her words would bring. In truth, part of her was looking forward to it.
    She just might let it all go, yell back, and to hell with little things like long-range security and enough money not to spend her life dreading bills.
    “I know you don’t want to hear this,” she said clearly, “but it has to be said. There’s a leak somewhere that—”
    “That’s bullshit. ”
    “—we need to stop,” she finished.
    “You’ve checked the couriers and guards again and again. So have I.” Sizemore sent the bottle cap spinning in the general direction of the prone trash can. “You’ve run their credit cards and debit cards and checking accounts. Nothing but Joe Citizens, every last one of them. If their accounts don’t show unexplained cash, then no cash worth chasing is coming in. It’s not our leak. ”
    “If the leak isn’t with us, then it’s with the FBI.”
    Sizemore started to explode, then looked thoughtful.
    Abruptly, Sharon realized he wasn’t nearly as drunk as heseemed. Like her—like any good agent—he could be a game player when it was worth the effort.
    “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “It’s gotta be Groves.”
    Her brown eyebrows rose. “Interesting. Any particular reason or was