The Color of Death (35 page)

Phoenix

Evening

Five days later

Kate sat on a hunter-green
leather couch and watched Sam walk in from the condo kitchen carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. Like the condo’s decor, he was relaxed and masculine. He handed her one mug, picked up the TV remote from the coffee table, and settled onto the couch next to her. Right next to her, thigh to hip to shoulder. She leaned into his solid warmth and sighed.

“You make better coffee than I do,” she said, saluting him with the mug.

“I grind my own beans.”

“Yikes. Way too much trouble.”

He kissed her nose and nibbled at the corner of her mouth. “Good is never too much trouble. Great is worth all kinds of effort.”

She smiled and took a bracing swallow of caffeine. The last two weeks had been long on adrenaline and short on sleep.

The television flickered to life. It was one of the plasma types, two inches thick and four feet wide.

“Your TV makes mine look like it belongs in a museum,” she said, yawning.

“It does.”

“It still works. If something works, I don’t throw it away.”

“I’ve noticed.” He looked at her intently. “You’re loyal.”

“So is a cocker spaniel.”

He laughed and wondered how he’d gotten through the years before he met Kate.

Life hadn’t been as good, for damn sure.

“Look, that’s Kennedy,” Kate said, pointing at the TV.

Sam looked. “Yeah, that’s Kennedy.” Front and center and being adored by Tawny Dawn’s wide, wide blue eyes.

The camera angle shifted, drawing back.

“And there’s Doug Smith, and…” Kate hesitated, trying to remember.

“Raul Mendoza,” Sam said. “He’s the strike force’s federal entry from Homeland Security.”

“Who’s that other one?”

“A Phoenix PD captain. Ralston, I think.”

“Where’s Mario?” Kate asked, frowning. “He’s Phoenix PD.”

“At home with his wife and kids, if he’s lucky.”

“But didn’t he really help with—” Kate objected.

“The whole crime strike force wouldn’t fit on a TV screen,” Sam said before she could finish her question.

Kate reached for the remote and switched on the sound.

“—being here tonight with us,” Tawny said in an unusually husky voice. “I know how tight your schedule is.”

Kennedy nodded, managing to appear both busy and gracious.

“He looks more important on camera than in person,” Kate said.

“Are you saying you like him at a distance?” Sam asked dryly.

“Yeah. The more the better.”

“We’re all sleeping soundly again in Phoenix, thanks to the FBI. Mr. Kennedy, could you tell us in your own words how you cracked this murderous gang?”

“The usual way,” Sam muttered. “Underlings and gofers.”

“Ssshhhh. I want to hear.”

He rolled his eyes and took a drink of coffee.

“First of all, I want to make it clear that although it is an FBI
supervised crime strike force, we had the help of the Bureau of Homeland Security and many police departments across the United States, from New York to Florida, Chicago to Phoenix to Los Angeles.”

“Cut to the chase,” Kate said under her breath.

“That is the chase,” Sam said. “Just one big happy family of crime busters taking a bow in front of the taxpayers.”

“Working together, we brought to justice one of the most vicious gangs it has ever been my misfortune to discover on American soil.”

“The Teflon gang,” Tawny said eagerly. She knew a good sound bite when she had it in her mouth.

“Exactly.” Kennedy gave her the kind of smile a man gives a dog that does tricks on cue. “This evil gang wasn’t content with robbing couriers and hardworking businessmen. When the crime strike force started closing in on them, the Teflon gang began murdering people who had information the gang wanted kept secret.”

“Is that what happened to the Purcells?” Tawny asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say for fear of prejudicing any future jurors.”

Annoyance flashed over Tawny’s face. “I understand that there is a connection between the Teflon gang and two recent murders in Los Angeles, those of José de Santos and Eduardo Pedro Selva de los Santos.”

“Yes. We believe that the Teflon gang overlapped with the South American gangs that have been preying on couriers.”

“Is that true?” Kate asked, turning to Sam.

“It is now.”

“…investigating multiple leads that show cross-connections among the gangs,” Kennedy continued.

“But really?” Kate insisted.

Sam hit the mute button. He’d heard enough self-serving bullshit for one evening.

“The whole point of a press performance like this,” Sam said, “is to define what is real for public consumption now and in the future. Kennedy was forever publicly baying after South American gangs. He can’t just suddenly admit this crime spree was completely home-grown, now can he? Wouldn’t look good.”

“And that’s what it’s really all about,” she said, waving her hand at the TV. “Looking good.”

“Everyone up there will get an ‘attaboy’ letter from the president within a month. Promotions soon to follow.”

“But you were the one who did most of the work!”

“So what?”

Kate opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

“I bet you were going to say something about ‘fair,’ ” Sam said, giving her a hooded look.

“Um…”

“I cut a deal with Kennedy that I’m happy with,” Sam said. “That’s all the ‘fair’ I care about.”

She sat up straighter. “What deal?”

“I wouldn’t give interviews about Ted Sizemore’s murderous daughter who only brought along one pair of exam gloves, slit the fingertip on a sharp piece of trunk, and ended up leaving some partial prints on a car rented by Lee Mandel.” Sam took a sip of coffee. “I wouldn’t talk about how she milked Sizemore Security Consulting of information, used it to fatten up several overseas accounts, and stole the Seven Sins to frame her lover Peyton Hall for everything, including Lee’s murder.”

Kate’s mouth opened.

Sam kept talking. “I wouldn’t tell any reporter how John ‘Tex’ White admitted that Kirby received orders from a mechanical voice, including the orders to kill the de Santos men. I wouldn’t tell reporters about the voice distorter, blonde wig, and gel bra the cops found in Sharon’s L.A. condo. I wouldn’t tell anyone how Peyton Hall was humping Sharon and at the same time taking information off her computer screen, information he used to beef up his own overseas account by cutting deals with the damned South American gangs, including money laundering. And that was as close as the whole mess got to Kennedy’s wet dream.”

“Sharon and Peyton. What a pair.”

“They deserved each other.”

Kate frowned and watched the politic words crawl across the
bottom of the TV screen. “Why did she do it? Did she hate her father that much?”

Sam appeared to consider the idea. “I think she hated the old-boy club as much as she hated her daddy. She wanted to prove she could make fools of them.”

“She did, for a while. And then they made a fool of her.”

“Did they?” Sam asked. “Left on his own, Kennedy would have booted this case to the far side of the moon. It took a stubborn, gutsy, and very bright woman to bring down Lee’s murderer. That’s you, darling.”

“And a stubborn, gutsy, very bright FBI man with her.”

Sam laughed humorlessly. “Not very bright or I’d be lined up on the TV with Kennedy’s pets.”

“That was the rest of the deal, wasn’t it?” she said after a moment of silence.

“What was?”

“You don’t get any credit, public or private, for breaking the case.” Her voice rose angrily and she swiped her hair away from her face. “That stiff son of a bitch Kennedy gets it all.”

“He can have it. I got what I wanted.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What was that?”

“You.”

Kate blinked.

“Kennedy had already cut my transfer orders to Fargo,” Sam said. “I didn’t figure you’d want to work gems in North Dakota, so I made a little deal with a big horse’s ass and the transfer papers were shredded. Of course, I can’t guarantee I’ll keep out of FBI trouble for the next three years, ten months, and seventeen days…”

“But who’s counting, right?” she asked, smiling.

“Wrong. I am. That’s a long time to stay on Kennedy’s good side.”

“Does he have one?”

Sam shrugged. “I haven’t found it yet.”

“Don’t kill yourself looking for it. As long as you bring me coffee, I’ll happily cut gems anywhere.”

He gave Kate a long look, the kind that made heat uncurl through every part of her.

“You sure about that?” he asked intently.

She met his eyes. “Very sure.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“I’d rather be held by you.”

“It’s a deal.”

by
Heather Lowell

Read the exciting new romantic suspense thriller from HarperTorch paperbacks and HarperCollins e-books.

Hollywood, California

Saturday, February 20

2:00
A.M
.

I
f being raped by a hulking professional football player was the price she had to pay to make it big in Hollywood, Kelly Martin figured she should pull up stakes and head back to Kansas. Even working the Blizzard machine at Dairy Queen had to be better than what she had endured over the last few hours.

With a sideways glance at the huge man driving her home in his Hummer, Kelly pressed a hand low on her abdomen to quiet the burning, grinding pain there.

She was positive Britney never had to do anything like this to get her first recording contract.

Kelly felt tears well in her eyes and pushed the thought away. When that didn’t work, she bit her lip hard.
I will not let this jerk see me cry. At least not again.

Without turning her head, Kelly checked the position of the man next to her in the front seat, then decided she couldn’t move farther away from him without opening the door and bailing out. Which she would do if he made a single move toward her.

She almost laughed out loud. All of her friends at Central High School in Hays, Kansas, would probably kill to be in her position—being driven home in a luxury car after an evening spent in Hollywood with an all-American
hero. Sledge Aiken was the most sought-after celebrity quarterback in the country, especially after his team’s dramatic Super Bowl win last month in New Orleans.

With his slow Southern drawl, light brown hair, and wild green eyes, he would be considered a catch anywhere. When those were paired with six-feet-one inch of heavily muscled physique and a talent for football handed straight down from God, Sledge was the kind of man most girls dreamed of at night.

When Kelly had been offered a chance to go on a date with him, she’d taken it in a heartbeat. After all, every girl in the club was after him. And Jerry had told her going out with Sledge would increase her chances of being seen by celebrity photographers—which in turn would boost her prospects for getting a recording contract.

But Kelly hadn’t known the price she would have to pay. She flashed back to an hour earlier, to the terror and helplessness she’d felt when she realized that Sledge wasn’t going to be stopped by her tears and pleas. When she’d realized that he was going to continue to press her slender body into his velvet couch and take away from her something she would never get back. Something he had no right to take.

Kelly’s lip trembled, even though she still had her teeth clamped around it hard enough to draw blood.

The car turned into a residential area and slowed to a stop in front of a modest single-level home.

“So, are you free next weekend?” Sledge’s voice came out of the darkness, causing Kelly to jump visibly. She had hoped to go inside without having to say another word to him.

She shrugged her shoulders and brought her thumb up to her mouth, chewing on its lacerated cuticle.

Sledge took her silence for agreement. “Then I’ll set things up with Jerry again, okay?”

Kelly shrugged once more and reached for the door handle. It was locked.

“Hey, wait a sec. I got something for you, sugar.” At one time, Sledge’s thick Alabama accent would have made her heart turn over. Right now, it made her skin crawl. If she’d had anything at all in her stomach, she was sure it would have come up right then. But she’d been so ill at Sledge’s house after…she bit harder on her cuticle, then tugged again on the door handle.

Sledge released the locks and held something out to her, causing her to flinch away from him.

“It’s for you. And there’s a lot more where that came from. You’re a gen-uine firecracker, darlin’.”

Kelly looked at the crisp hundred-dollar bill in Sledge’s beefy hand. Then she raised her wounded gaze to his for the first time since they’d gotten into the Hummer. She looked into his eyes for guilt, apology—anything. But when he smiled and winked at her she pulled the door open and bolted.

“Aren’t you going inside?” Sledge called through his open window.

Kelly ignored him. She passed the house and continued running down the street in her high heels and cocktail dress, until she disappeared into the darkness of the night.