The Color of Death (31 page)

Scottsdale

Sunday

1:30
P.M
.

Sizemore stalked into his hotel suite,
only to find that Peyton was there with Sharon.

“I need some time with my office manager,” Sizemore said through his teeth.

Peyton knew an invitation to leave when it was shoved in his face. “Dinner at eight?” he said to Sharon.

“She’ll be busy,” Sizemore said.

Sharon started to argue, then saw the pallor beneath her father’s fading flush of anger.

“She,” Sharon said coolly, “doesn’t know what she’ll be doing at eight.” She stood, kissed Peyton, and said softly, “I’ll call you as soon as I know what’s going on.”

He shrugged and left without a word.

“All right,” Sharon said as soon as the door closed. “This better be more than the usual ‘Why are you hanging with that shitheel?’ harangue.”

Sizemore grabbed a beer, opened it, and drank most of it in three long swallows. He wiped his mouth and said, “Groves is trying to frame me for the courier deaths.”

Sharon’s eyes widened. Her skin went as pale as her father’s. Cold sweat gathered on her spine. “What?
What?
He’s crazy! What’s his so-called evidence?”

“I don’t know. Kennedy kicked me out of the office before they got down to it.”

Slowly, she sank back down onto the couch. “There must be something then. Groves is a wild card, but he’s not stupid.”

A beer bottle slammed into a wastebasket. Sizemore grabbed another brew out of the ice and opened the top with a savage jerk of his hand. “There’s something.”

“What?”

“I know Jack Kirby.”

“Kirby, Kirby…” She frowned and drummed her fingers against her leg. “Do I know him?”

“He was on the task force with me in Florida when I took down the South Americans. I don’t think Groves knows it. Yet. So was John ‘Tex’ White. He’d been with the army working on taking down the Colombian gangs.”

“So what? That was a long time ago.”

Sizemore looked bitter at the dismissal of his greatest moment, but didn’t argue the point with her. “Yeah, well Kirby is a PI and he’s working a case here and I had a drink with him a few days ago. Someone must have seen us together. Kirby and White still hang together, I guess.”

“Who cares?” she said impatiently. “You have drinks with a lot of people.”

“None of those people got shot to pieces by Sam Groves while trying to kill Kate Chandler.”

Sharon took a breath, shook her head, and took another. She felt like the top of her head was coming off. “Wait. Back up. I’m missing something.” At least, she really hoped she was. “When did all this happen?”

“Kennedy just kicked me out of his office.”

“No. The killing. Or the attempted killing. Or whatever.” She stood up and started to pace. “What a cluster.”

Sizemore didn’t argue. He just drank long and deep, telling himself that he was just thirsty, that’s all. It wasn’t that his mouth was dry with fear. It couldn’t be that. He had nothing to be afraid of.

How could this happen?

“Talk to me,” she demanded, turning to face him. “And put a cork in the beer. If word of this gets out, Sizemore Security Consulting is ruined.”

He ignored her until he finished the second beer. Then he reached for a third.

With startling quickness, Sharon stepped between her father and the vat of icy beer. “No.”

He started to shove her aside, only to find that she was stronger than she looked.

“It’s my life too,” she said angrily. “Tell me what’s going on and then you can drink beer until you’re too drunk to care about anything but the next beer.”

Sizemore started to explode, then decided she was right. The beer could wait.

“This is much too important to screw up with a father-daughter shouting match,” she said.

He shrugged. He hated when she was right, which was a hell of a lot more often than he gave her credit for.

“What do you want to know?” he muttered.

“This Kirby dude. Where is he now?”

“The morgue.”

She let out a long breath. “Well, that’s going to make it hard to question him.”

Sizemore gave a laugh that was more like a grunt. “Maybe that’s the whole idea. Dead man, no witnesses but Groves and the CI he’s shagging. Easy enough to point the finger at someone else.”

“Kennedy has known you too long to buy their bull.”

“I hope so.” Sizemore looked at his watch. “I expected him to call by now to apologize.”

She frowned and narrowed her eyes at something only she could
see. “So you have a vague connection to Kirby and Kirby is dead. What else could Groves use against you?”

“There’s a leak somewhere on the crime strike force. Groves wants to pin it on me.”

“How?”

“How?” he repeated sarcastically. “Shit, use your head for something besides blowing Peyton. I run a security operation. I have access to a lot of courier information.”

“So do other people. The CI’s father, for instance. Is Groves barking up that tree?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about the couriers themselves?”

“You think they set themselves up to be killed?” Sizemore asked in rising tones.

“Maybe they just expected to get part of the take and they got killed instead. Besides, most of the couriers never even know anything has happened until they check the trunk. They report the theft and walk away perfectly healthy. Only the insurance companies cry.”

Sizemore frowned. “And we look like dickheads.”

“Maybe Mandel Inc. was working with dirty couriers,” Sharon continued. “Maybe the son found out and something went wrong.”

“You think the man killed his own son?”

“Read the Bible. Hell, read the newspapers. It happens all the time. Maybe no one meant for anyone to get hurt,” she said, waving her hand impatiently. “Maybe that’s just the way it turned out. Shit happens.”

Sizemore pulled at his lower lip with his thumb and forefinger. “I like it. Can we prove it?”

“I don’t know.” She went and sat by her computer again. “But if we put our minds to it, we might be able to inflate the theory enough to keep us afloat.”

Glendale

Sunday

5:30
P.M
.

“When do you think he’ll call?”
Kate asked.

Sam shifted, lifting her to a more comfortable position on top of him. They’d flipped a coin for top or bottom and he’d lost. Not that he was complaining. The floor wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly. It was just that the bed was a lot more accommodating.

Or had been. Right now the bedroom smelled like industrial strength cleaners. Kate wouldn’t even look at it.

He didn’t blame her.

Besides, the living room floor had a lot to recommend it. Convenience, for starters. Oh, yeah. It was convenient. He smiled at the memory. He liked having her come apart in his hands, his arms, both of them too hungry to make it more than three steps inside the front door to shut off the alarm. He could get used to that kind of heat and loving.

Who are you trying to fool? You’re already used to it. What are you going to do when this is all over? Ask her to make ice cubes in Fargo with you? Because that’s where you’ll be until hell freezes solid or your twenty years are up, whichever comes first.

But until they broke the case, he had Kate, all warm and soft, covering him like a dream.

“Sam?”

“Mmm?” he asked, running his thumb down her spine to the alluring shadow between her buttocks.

She moved her hips and both of them took a swift breath.

“Kennedy,” she said breathlessly. “When will he call?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think he’ll believe the connections we made?”

“He doesn’t have much choice. But just in case…” Reluctantly, Sam lifted Kate and slid out from under.

“What?”

He dropped her slacks on top of her and zipped up his own. “Back to work.”

“Slave driver.”

“You weren’t complaining earlier.”

She smiled and slanted him the kind of glance that told him she was remembering the second time, when she’d begged him to finish and he’d just kept on moving slow and easy and deep until she came so hard she almost blacked out.

He grinned.

“You look real smug,” she said, pulling on her thong.

“All your fault.”

“Yeah?”

He slid a fingertip down from her belly button to the crease where her right leg joined her body, then lower, lower, skimming lightly, like a tongue tasting. “Yeah.”

She blew her hair out of her face. “Keep that up and it will be round three.”

“You have an optimistic view of my ability.”

She grinned and nipped lightly on his chin. “All your fault,” she said, repeating his words as she stepped into her jeans. “In fact—”

Sam’s cell phone rang. Since he’d never made it all the way out of
his pants, everything was still within reach. He pulled the cell phone off his belt and looked at the code. “Mecklin.”

“Is that some kind of exotic curse?” she asked.

“No. It’s an agent in Florida.”

Kate measured Sam’s expression. Playtime over. Back to work for both of them. “Okay, I’ll make some sandwiches while you talk. I wouldn’t want your, uh, ability to flag for lack of food.”

He was smiling as he answered the call. The smile didn’t last past Mecklin’s first words.

“Somebody is closing down the pipeline.”

“Which one?” Sam asked.

“The sapphire one—Florida to L.A.”

The last of Sam’s sexy good humor vanished. “Who? Where?”

“Remember the de Santos cousins I told you about in L.A.?”

“Eduardo and José, the cutter and the launderer?”

“Bingo. They were murdered last night.”

“Any suspects?” Sam asked.

“In José’s case, given the necktie, they’re looking for a Colombian connection.”

“Any mutt with a knife can do a necktie.”

“Yeah,” Mecklin agreed. “Gotta love copycats.”

“What about Eduardo?”

“Torture and strangulation.”

Sam grunted. “Anything at the crime scenes?”

“Blood and dead bodies.”

“How are the cops treating it?”

Mecklin laughed without humor. “Like two cold cases in the making. Everyone is talking to the usual suspects, knocking on nearby doors, filing reports, and all the rest of the brain-dead routine. Like I said—the cops know a case that’s headed for the cold files. They’ll save their energy for something they have a chance of solving.”

Sam couldn’t blame the locals. There were lots of murders in L.A. When someone with known gang connections died, not a
whole lot of sweat or tears got used up finding out who and when and why.

“Okay, they got the L.A. end of the pipeline,” Sam said. “Was Hall Jewelry robbed?”

“The cutting room was busted up some, the safe was opened. Nothing left but a couple of stones that got spilled on the way out.”

“What kind of stones?”

“How the hell would I—wait.”

Sam heard the other agent tapping at a computer keyboard.

“Red,” Mecklin said after a minute.

“Red?”

“Stones. The stuff that was dropped on the floor was red. That’s all that the cops said. If you need more information, wait for the insurance report.”

“No thanks. I was hoping for blue stones. Wonder if the murderer was too.”

“What?” Mecklin asked.

“Nothing. Just thinking aloud. What about Seguro Jimenez, the Florida end of the pipeline? Is he okay?”

“According to his wife, he’s visiting family in Ecuador.”

“You believe her?”

“I believe that the grapevine got to Seguro before I did,” Mecklin said. “I believe he already knew about the de Santos murders. Either he had a part in them, was afraid he was next, or he
was
next and we haven’t found the body. Any way it comes down, he’s gone somewhere that we can’t get to him.”

“End of pipeline.”

“Looks that way. Sorry I don’t have better news.”

“I’ll take what I can get. Keep on Seguro. If you hear he’s back in town—”

“I’ll be on him like a streetwalker wanting out of the rain,” Mecklin cut in.

“Thanks.”

Sam punched the end button, saw the battery was low, and went
to the suitcase he’d brought to Kate’s house. By the time he’d set up the charger and plugged it in, then unloaded his files and computer onto various worktables, Kate appeared in the door of the workroom. She was carrying a tray of sandwiches and fruit. A big pitcher of iced tea unbalanced the tray.

“I’ll take that,” Sam said, lifting the pitcher.

“Thanks. That should keep us going until the coffee is ready.”

He looked at the half gallon of tea. It had been hot outside, but not that hot. “Thirsty?”

“Sure am. Gee, I wonder why.”

He smiled slowly. “Same here.”

“You wonder why?”

“I know why I’m thirsty. Want me to tell you?”

Her lips turned up in a very female smile. “Sure, but only if you’re not going to slip into cop mode at the wrong moment.”

“Is there a right moment?”

“Last night was a good one. It saved our butts.” She handed him a thick sandwich made from the leftovers of last night’s chicken. For the first time in hours, looking at food didn’t make her stomach flip. “Did, uh, Meckler—”

“Mecklin,” Sam said around a big bite.

“Mecklin have anything interesting to say?”

“Two men died in L.A. last night.”

“And this was unusual how?”

“They were the two men most likely to have handled the big sapphire on its way to Purcell.”

Her hand hesitated before it reached a sandwich. “How so?”

“One laundered Colombian money through the gold market in L.A. The other was a cutter in L.A. Both were de Santos, cousins of a cousin of a friend of a cousin to Seguro in Florida, the man who insists he didn’t buy the big blue gem from the her/him act.”

Kate blinked, almost smiled, and said, “I want a big kiss.”

“Why?”

“I understood that.”

A corner of Sam’s mouth turned up. “I’ll owe it to you. Every time I get my hands on you, we end up on the floor.”

“Or against a wall.”

He grinned and kept taking big, efficient bites of food.

“Were any more sapphires found?” Kate asked as she took a cautious nibble of sandwich.

“No.”

“Anything to connect the deaths with Purcell?”

“Does a necktie and torture count?” He saw the look on her face and kicked himself. “Sorry, darling. I keep forgetting you aren’t a cop. You sure handled yourself like one last night.”

“Pure, undiluted practice. I was terrified.”

“Why do you think repetition and drills are such a big part of any cop’s or soldier’s training?”

“I was still screaming in my mind,” she said.

“You think I wasn’t?”

“I don’t know why that makes me feel better, but it does. Even if it isn’t quite true.” Kate blew out a long breath and returned to her sandwich.

Sam had already finished his and was looking hopefully at the tray.

“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be lucky to eat this.”

He scooped up the last sandwich and went to the worktable where he’d spread out his files.

“Why hasn’t Kennedy called?” Kate asked.

“You mean to grovel?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t hold your breath on that. He’s probably checking facts and then checking them again while he looks for other explanations. He sure as hell isn’t going to be eager to pull the trigger on his old buddy Sizemore.”

“Neither are you.”

Sam didn’t argue. “Sizemore is a prick, but that’s not a good enough reason to ruin his reputation. The evidence we have is largely circumstantial. And…” After a moment, he shrugged.

“And what?”

“And I’d like a backup position if Kennedy doesn’t go for our interpretation of the facts.”

“What backup position?”

“Good question.” He looked at the files and tablets and sticky notes. “Let’s hope we find an answer.”