Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

for her, too.
    Caffeine was no substitute for sleep.
    “I think this pretty well defines the concept of cluster fuck,” she said.
    Niall and Dana watched April, wondering when she was going to drop the last shoe. They didn’t know what it would be. They only knew that the brilliant, ruthless Ms. Joy always had at least one more weapon in her arsenal than people expected.
    “What did Gail say?” Shane asked.
    Not that he thought Gail would change her public story, but he had to be sure before he tried to cut a deal with the very sharp April Joy. His earlier talk with Gail had been private and to the point: either she helped him or he buried her. She knew he could do it.
    More important, she knew he would.
    “Same thing she said the first time,” April said. “She got the call. She chickened out.”
    “I can vouch for that. She never left the building,” Ian said. “Spent the night on the casino floor talking to the customers. It’s all on video.”
    Shane began walking his gold pen across his fingers, end over end, the click of gold meeting gold, silence, silence, click. “Who did Gail talk to right after she decided to back out?” he asked April.
    “Morrison and Firenze.”
    “Carl or John?”
    “Carl. He took Gail’s money back to the vault. Morrison left, supposedly to take his money back to his own vault.”
    Click. “Who did Carl talk to about the meeting?” Shane asked April.
    “Gail.”
    “No one else?”
    “Just those two,” April said.
    Click.
    April looked at Risa. “You’re sure Cherelle wouldn’t have called Socks in for backup?”
    “Yes. She didn’t trust him. With good reason. He never gave her a chance. Just walked in and started shooting.”
    Click.
    Shane’s free hand smoothed over Risa’s dark hair. She let out a long breath and looked at her hands as though expecting to see them covered in bright arterial blood.
    “What about Tim Seton?” Risa asked in a low voice. “Has he turned up?”
    “No,” April said.
    “If the amount of blood he left on his mother’s doorstep is any indication,” Ian said, “he wouldn’t have been in any shape to hold a pump shotgun long enough to send several rounds through his buddy Socks. Morrison’s lawyers can scream all they want. He’s good for murder one. When he figures it out, he’ll start talking.”
    Click.
    “Don’t hold your breath, slick,” April said to Ian. “Morrison’s lawyers are talking about their client the civic hero, who killed a felon that had just killed a defenseless woman and was about to kill another one.”
    “Even if I swallow that without choking to death,” Dana said, “what was Morrison doing there in the first place?”
    Click.
    April smiled coldly. “He said he was worried that Gail would change her mind about going after the gold artifacts. He was there to protect her if she showed up. Then Socks came on the scene and started shooting. Morrison nailed him three times, only to be shot by two trigger-happy yahoos who should have known better.”
    Click.
    The pen flashed and disappeared into Shane’s pocket. “We have two separate problems,” he said. “Druid gold and a fake laundry. They intersect with me. They intersect with Gail. They also intersect with Morrison. There’s a pattern.”
    “What pattern?” April asked acidly. Her tone said cluster fuck.
    “None of what I’ll say can be proved legally, because all the parties are either dead or missing,” Shane said.
    Motionless, April waited.
    “At some time in the past week, Virgil O’Conner was murdered in Sedona,” Shane said. “Either before, during, or afterward, his Druid gold was stolen by Cherelle, Socks, and/or Tim Seton.”
    “Connection?” April said sharply.
    “O’Conner believed in channeling,” Risa said. “Cherelle and Tim represented themselves as channels. Also . . . we found three wooden boxes with O’Conner’s name and address in Cherelle’s rented room near Sedona. We believe, but can’t prove, that they came from his home.”
    April filed away the name of Virgil O’Conner.
    Risa threaded her fingers more deeply through Shane’s. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Cherelle and too much blood.
    “The DNA on file for Tim matched the DNA in the blood left on Joey Cline’s floor,” Shane continued.
    “How do you know that?” April asked.
    He ignored her. His talent for picking apart various official firewalls and looking through computer files wasn’t going to be part of the