The Color of Death (33 page)

Scottsdale

Sunday

11:45
P.M
.

“You sure you can’t spend
the night?” Peyton asked Sharon as they stood outside his hotel room door. “You know I don’t mind if you work.”

“That’s why we’ve lasted so long,” she said, smiling and shifting the computer case to her other hand. “You let me be me.” Her smile faded and the nerves she’d been trying to hide showed in the line of her mouth. “Not tonight. Dad needs me.”

“What’s going on, honey? You can tell me.”

“No, he’d never forgive me.”

Peyton smiled without humor. “Then the rumors are true.”

“What rumors?” she asked sharply.

“That Ted Sizemore got caught with his hand in the jewelry jar.”

Sharon looked away and told herself that there was still time, it would be all right, everything would be all right. “Where did you hear that?”

“You should get out more. It’s the talk of the trading floor.”

She drew a swift breath and shook her head as though he’d slapped her. “There’s not one bit of proof!”

“He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s still your daddy, is that it?”

She just looked frayed and jumpy as a feral cat.

“Listen,” Peyton said urgently. “You don’t have to go down with his boat. We can find a way to put your expertise to work. I’ll finance you through this mess. Change the name of the company. In a year or two people will forget and you’ll be running your own security operation. Hell, you run it now. Your daddy’s just the front. We can get through this. Together.”

For a long moment she looked at Peyton’s earnest face and intent eyes. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he really cared about her, perhaps even loved her. But she knew that at his core, he didn’t care about anyone but himself, which meant he was after something. Maybe sex. Maybe something else.

Maybe she’d give it to him.

Maybe she wouldn’t.

“I’ll think about it,” she said tightly. “Thanks.”

Peyton kissed her with something very close to relief. “We’re a great team. I don’t want to lose that.”

She slid out of his arms. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

He watched her stride down the hallway between rows of framed flower prints and heavy wallpaper. Her shoes didn’t make a sound on the thick rug with the hotel’s logo woven in gold against a red background.

“Sharon?”

She looked over her shoulder.

“Don’t wait too long, honey. I don’t want things to change.”

She understood what Peyton didn’t say—if her father went down, she’d go down with him unless she started damage control very quickly.

And if she went down, her affair with Peyton was over. He’d regret it, but he’d drop her just the same, because hanging on would shadow his reputation, which would cost money. Business first, last, and always.

Men were predictable. Heartbreakingly, humorously, hatefully predictable.

“I won’t,” she said.

She supposed most women were predictable too.

If there was a god, he or she must be laughing its ass off over all the predictable monkeys running in circles, whining and clutching their gonads.

Sharon wasn’t going to be one of them. It was time to cut the losses and change to a new game.

“Peyton?” she said, turning around.

He stopped in the act of closing his hotel room door.

“Breakfast tomorrow?” she asked. “Eight o’clock.”

“Sure thing, honey,” he said, smiling widely. “Your room or mine?”

“Yours. You get better service than I do.”

Glendale

Monday

7:30
A.M
.

Kate woke up stiff and yet content
at the same time. She didn’t know whose bed she was in, but it was as warm as it was cramped. Then she heard Sam breathing, felt him all around her except for her back, which was pressed hard up against the old couch she kept in the workroom for those times when she was too tired to care about where she slept.

She opened her eyes. The world was a blur with brilliant blue sapphires at the center.

“You awake?” Sam asked.

She blinked. His face was so close to hers she couldn’t focus. “Looks like it. How about you?”

“Working on it.”

“You’re working, period. I can feel the vibes.”

“Just thinking,” Sam said.

“That’s what most of your work is. Thinking. So…whatcha thinking?”

“That Peyton Hall and Sharon Sizemore eat dinner together a lot.”

Kate tried not to yawn. “Old news. Years old.”

“So the affair’s over?”

“No. It’s just old news. Peyton has a well-earned reputation as a hound. He’s married, has a long-term mistress—that’s Sharon—has had two- or three-week flings all along the way, and he regularly does the one-night dance with bar girls and dumb secretaries.”

“Nice guy,” Sam said.

“Your irony light better be on.”

He smiled. “It is. So, do you think he and Sharon talk much about business?”

“Probably. After five or six years together, what else—” Abruptly, Kate went silent. “Peyton Hall? You think he’s the one?”

“I think we take another look at him. Real close. If we find a solid connection to Kirby or White or anything military, then we have something to go with.”

“What about Sizemore?”

“What do you mean?”

“You really don’t think he’s guilty, do you?”

Sam sighed. “I’d love to nail his arrogant ass to the wall, but not for something he didn’t do. Before we arrest him, I have to look at every other possibility. I don’t want to ruin someone just because I can’t stand being in the same room with him.”

“Someone in Sizemore’s company has to be passing along information. You think it’s Sharon?”

“I don’t know. She’s been stupid about men before, but leaking information goes way beyond stupid. It’s called being an accomplice. Hell, maybe Ms. Tibble did the nasty with Peyton and wants to do it again, so she passes out tidbits.”

Kate snickered. “How do we start?”

“I want to take another look at Peyton’s bank accounts. Wouldn’t hurt to look at Hall Jewelry either.”

“Back to hacking, huh?”

“Yeah.” He put himself nose-to-nose with her. “Coffee?”

“You asking me to make it?”

“I sure am.”

“You’ll owe me,” she warned.

“I love it when you go all dominatrix with me.” He pulled back enough that she could see his grin.

She tried not to laugh, then gave up when he kissed her nose and walked naked to the bathroom. She really was going to miss this early morning intimacy, having something to think about besides work, having someone to laugh with, to touch, to talk with, to….

Does he feel the same way?

With an impatient sound she stood up and went to make coffee. The kitchen floor felt cold under her bare feet. When she bumped into the refrigerator, its smooth chill made her jump back. Being butt naked had some disadvantages.

While the coffee cooked, she went to her bedroom, which was still mostly torn up. Bed moved. Carpet gone—Sam had done that after the cops left. She couldn’t bear looking at it. Even with the carpet out, she still wasn’t happy. Quickly, she pulled on underwear, grit-stained jeans, and a blue work shirt that had been bleached so often that the only real color left was pale cream. She left the bedroom in a rush, wondering if she would ever be comfortable in that place again.

Sam was sitting at the keyboard with the cell phone tucked between his ear and left shoulder. He’d put on jeans, period. The rest of him was naked and wonderfully tempting. Whatever he did to keep himself in shape showed in the fluid shift and bunch of muscles each time he moved. His fingers raced over the keyboard with more force than necessary to depress the keys.

“Okay, good…no, wait,” he said into the phone. “Go over that bit again.” He listened, typed, nodded, and typed some more. “Got it. Any other shortcuts I should know?” He listened, grunted, and scribbled madly on a pad next to the keyboard, which already had a lot of previous scribbles on it from his other forays into hacking. “Thanks, Jill. If that doesn’t do it, I’ll call again.”

He punched off and smelled the coffee before Kate put it under his nose. “You just saved my life,” he said, grabbing the cup.

“Sounds like I was second in line. She helping you again?”

“What? Oh, Jill.” Sam grinned. “The Bureau only has the best, thank God. There’s a way to get into Hall’s computers. At least, it should work. Nearly all business software is based on the same program, and that program has some frigging big holes in the security.”

“That’s good?”

“Hope so.” Sam drank the rest of the steamy coffee in three big swallows. “We’ll find out.”

He went back to work at the keyboard. Kate watched while screens and minutes raced by, codes asked and answered, until finally he settled back and sighed. “Be damned. It worked. The personnel files are mine.”

“Legally?”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Kate took the hint and shut up. She drank her coffee, refilled both cups, and walked up and down between the worktables. The beautiful piece of yellow sapphire was mounted and ready to be studied with various devices, including an old-fashioned magnifying glass. The sooner she got to work on the sapphire, the sooner she could pay Sam back for his unintended loan to buy the pricey rough.

Not that he was pushing for the money. He hadn’t even mentioned it. Maybe he’d like to go partners in the finished work as well. She turned to ask him, but before she could, he was talking to her.

“Jack Kirby. Son of a bitch. He worked for Peyton Hall.”

“Kirby was a licensed private investigator, wasn’t he?” Kate asked, frowning.

“Yeah? So?”

“So there could be a legitimate reason. Kirby could have worked for a lot of people.”

Sam grunted. “Let’s see what Sizemore says.”

“What? You’re going to tell him?”

“Actually, I think I’ll let him tell
me.
”

Scottsdale

Monday

8:30
A.M
.

Sizemore opened the door
with a beer in one hand and attitude sticking out all over him.

“You sure I don’t need my lawyer?” Sizemore said with something close to a sneer.

“You want him, call him,” Sam said, brushing past Sizemore. “We’ll wait inside.”

Kate followed Sam into the suite.

Sizemore kicked the door shut behind her hard enough to make the frame vibrate before he turned to face Sam.

“I don’t need my lawyer to deal with a mutt like you,” Sizemore said. “You’re not worth two hundred bucks an hour.”

“Neither is your lawyer.”

Kate rolled her eyes and stepped between the men, looking Sizemore right in the eye.

“Before you two start clawing and pulling hair,” she said, “let’s get a few things out of the way. You don’t like Sam. Sam doesn’t like you. Big flapping deal. People do business all the time with folks they despise. That aside, do you have any problem talking to us?”

Sizemore looked surprised. He glanced over Kate’s head at Sam. “Do girls these days go to a special school to learn attitude?”

“The good ones are born with it,” Sam said.

“Huh. Well, I hope the fucking you get is worth the fucking you get. Never was for me.”

Sam couldn’t help it. He looked at Kate and grinned.

She grinned right back at him.

Sizemore shook his head. “I’ll never understand women, or men who understand them, for that matter. Beer, anyone?”

“I’ll pass,” Kate said.

“Me too,” Sam said.

Sizemore lowered himself into his favorite chair and said, “Your party. Your tune.”

Sam pulled up a chair for Kate but didn’t sit down himself.

“Assuming that the leaks came from your company,” Sam said, “and assuming that you weren’t the source, who was it?”

“Hell, I’ve got twenty employees and a bunch of couriers who only work on a job-by-job basis.” Sizemore took a drink. “Could be any of them.”

Sam looked at the dark skin ringing the other man’s bloodshot eyes. “Is that the best you can come up with after a sleepless night or did you spend the whole time drinking?”

Sizemore flushed and visibly bit back what he wanted to say.

“How many people at your company have access to every file on your main computer?” Sam asked.

“Four,” Sizemore said sullenly. “Me, Sharon, Jason, and Ms. Tibble.”

“Of those four, who has access to the ex-military old-boy club?”

“You know the answer as well as I do.”

Sam waited.

“I’m the only one!” Sizemore said. He slammed his empty bottle in a nearby wastebasket—a bottle because this morning he’d started in on the high-test brew early. He put his head in his hands. “I’m the only one and I didn’t do it.”

Sam made a subtle gesture to Kate. Time for the sort-of-nice cop to step in.

“Did you know that Peyton Hall employed Jack Kirby?” she asked.

Slowly, Sizemore’s gray, shaggy head came up. “What?”

“According to information we have,” Kate said, “Peyton used Kirby for occasional background checks for Hall Jewelry International.”

“Kirby never mentioned it,” Sizemore said. “But why would he? I only saw him a few times in the years since the strike force.”

“What about Peyton Hall?” Sam asked.

“Putz.”

“No argument here,” Kate said, thinking about the man’s reputation with women. “Do you think some of his pillow talk with Sharon might have been about business? Sizemore Security Consulting business?”

“Sharon knows better than to talk out of school,” Sizemore said roughly. “Oh, she might have let something slip here and there, but she’s not stupid.”

“Except with men?” Kate asked gently.

Silence stretched.

And stretched.

Abruptly, Sizemore came to his feet. “Most of the time when I see Peyton, he’s leaning over her, looking at her computer screen while she works. He could get a lot of information that way. Hell, he could even have her security code. And Kirby would be all Peyton would need to hire a bunch of badasses for the dirty work.”

Sizemore grabbed the phone and punched in Sharon’s room number.

No answer. He waited long enough for the hotel operator to break in and then hung up without leaving a message.

“Sharon’s not in her room,” he said.

“Where else would she be?” Sam asked.

“She should be here. She knows we’re leaving. Or we were,”
Sizemore said bitterly. “I don’t know if I’m going to be allowed near an airport until this is over.”

“If Kennedy hasn’t had you arrested by now,” Sam said, “then he isn’t going to.”

Sizemore shoved up his shirtsleeve and held his wrist under Sam’s nose. “I’m under house arrest. Or hotel arrest, to be precise.”

Sam looked at the “bracelet” Sizemore was wearing. It was the latest word in keeping track of people without putting them behind bars. Sizemore couldn’t get away if he wanted to. The band on his wrist let the Bureau track him anywhere on the planet.

The red flush on Sizemore’s face said that he was humiliated by the bracelet, but it was better than being fingerprinted and put in prison.

“Kennedy’s good at covering his ass,” Sam said.

Sizemore’s mouth flattened.

“Is Peyton Hall still here?” Kate asked quickly.

“Sharon had breakfast with the putz,” Sizemore said. “Didn’t say anything about him leaving before tonight. The last of our clients will be out of here by then.” He looked at his watch. “She’s late. Should be here by now.”

There was a light knock on the door and the sound of the lock and the door opening.

“Dad? I’ve been thinking. It isn’t easy to say, but—” Sharon stopped cold when she saw Sam. “What are you doing here—gloating?”

“They came to talk about who else could have access to Sizemore Security Consulting information,” Sizemore said.

Sharon took a deep breath, like she’d been hit. Fear or tears glittered in her eyes. Her fists clenched at her side.

“I’ve been wondering about it too,” she said jerkily. “I was awake most of the night. Thinking. About connections. About who could and who couldn’t.” Visibly, she struggled to control herself. It took a few moments, but she managed. Swallowing hard, she said in a hoarse whisper, “I—Peyton. I’m so sorry, Dad. It’s Peyton. The bastard has been using me all these years.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “What makes you say that?”

“We had breakfast together. He wanted me to walk away from my father.” She took a hitching breath and looked at Sizemore, not at Sam. “I was—upset. I went to get some antacids out of his computer case—he always keeps them there because—oh, shit, that doesn’t matter. I grabbed the bottle and dumped some on my palm and—and—
this
.” She held out her right hand, opened it.

A brilliant blue oval flashed against her shaking hand.

Kate’s breath came in with a sharp sound.

“Is it?” Sam asked tightly.

“Yes.” She looked at Sharon. “Were there others?”

“Yes, damn it! I didn’t know what to do. I was—all those years with him.” She swallowed and wiped impatiently at her eyes. “I left the other stones where I found them and came to tell my father.” She squared her shoulders and glanced at Sam. “It will be all right now, won’t it?”

Sam didn’t answer. He was too busy talking into his cell phone.