Amber Beach

by Elizabeth Lowell

“Use the glasses.”

  She picked up the binoculars with one hand and braced herself on the dashboard with the other. The rough water made focusing on anything through the glasses nearly impossible. After a few minutes she put them down and hung on to the dashboard with both hands.

  “See anything?” Jake asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Keep trying.”

  “Forget it. If I look through those glasses again at this speed, your wonderful omelet might reappear.”

  “Uh-oh. I didn’t know you were the seasick type.”

  “I wasn’t until I tried to focus through the binoculars on something that was jumping all over the—” She swallowed hard. “Can we talk about something else?”

  Jake looked at the radar screen. Nothing showing ahead. The bastard has legs, he thought sourly, and the balls to go between them.

  “Are we still pulling away from the crowd?”

  “Yes. All I can see is the Day-Glo Zodiac.”

  “Hell.” Jake eased back on the throttle, breaking off the futile chase. “I don’t especially want to put Bill through a wringer.”

  “He’s a big boy. He can take it.” Honor’s tone said that she had no sympathy to spare for the official types who kept dogging her. “If he can’t keep up, he can always drop off.”

  “He has his orders.”

  “So does every good soldier.”

  “He’s not that bad, honey.”

  She started to tell him that her name was Honor, not Honey. Then she realized that he sounded friendly rather than patronizing. All the same . . .

  “Are you sure, darlin’?” she asked mildly.

  He gave her a fast, surprised look, followed by a slow, slow grin that made her wonder if she hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew.

  “Darlin’, huh?” he asked.

  “It was that or buttercup.”

  He gave a crack of laughter. “Buttercup. My God. You must have driven your brothers around the bend.”

  “I did my best. When I wore down, Faith took over.”

  The rueful affection in Honor’s voice when she spoke of her family took the smile right off Jake’s face. It reminded him of how close Honor was to them—and how far away from him.

  “Giving up on the other boat?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She waited but he didn’t say anything more.

  “So now what?” she asked.

  “Gas.”

  He didn’t say anything more to her until he cut back to a snail’s pace at the mouth of a public marina.

  “Go to the bow and get ready to toss a line to the gas jockey,” he said.

  Even if Honor had felt like arguing, she wouldn’t have. The look on Jake’s face wasn’t the warm and friendly kind. She stepped up onto the port gunwale and edged carefully to the bow. The landing line was hardly necessary. The Tomorrow came up alongside the fuel dock like a well-trained dog.

  The attendant was a curvy girl with big hair who didn’t look old enough to drive. She tied off the bow quickly, then leaned out and grabbed the stern cleat so the boat couldn’t drift out from the dock.

  Hastily Honor retreated from the bow, handed over the stern line, and watched enviously as the attendant secured the Tomorrow with a few fast turns around the dock cleat. As the girl started dragging the heavy gas hose toward the boat, Jake opened the cabin door.

  “Hey, Kyle,” the girl said brightly, “long time no— Oops, you aren’t Kyle.” She checked the name of the boat again. Definitely the Tomorrow.

  “No problem,” Jake said, smiling at her. “Sounds like Kyle is a regular.”

  “Between gas and compressed air, he’s in here twice a week. Or was,” she added wistfully. “I haven’t seen him in a while. Guess he’s on vacation.”

  “Guess so,” Jake said easily.

  The look he gave Honor told her not to say otherwise. If the gas jockey didn’t read newspapers, who were they to trouble her with reality?

  “Cool boat,” the girl said, looking at the Tomorrow.

  “Yeah.” Jake put the key in the gas cap and began unscrewing the bright chrome disk. “I’m keeping it in shape for Kyle. I figured I’d better fill up the tanks before I went anywhere. He didn’t give me any fuel-consumption figures.”

  The attendant laughed, tossed her breast-length mane of kinky ringlets, and gave Jake a smile that said she would be happy to go over any figure with him, especially hers.

  Sourly Honor thought that not reading the newspaper had its points—the girl obviously didn’t know her hair was years out of date. Not that it mattered. A figure like hers would always be in fashion with men.

  The girl handed Jake the gas nozzle and watched while he deftly slid it into the mouth of the tank. Vapor curled up as he began pumping fuel.

  “This baby uses a lot of gas if you run it at top speed,” she said. “Kyle sure must have. He’d go through a hundred gallons or more every few days. He must be rich.”

  “He gets by,” Jake said. “When was he in last?”

  “Oh, about two weeks ago.”

  Honor barely smothered a startled sound. Jake didn’t even look up from the gas tank.

  “He didn’t top off, though,” the girl continued. “Just stayed long enough to fill his dive tanks and the tank for his Zodiac.”

  “A tank for his Zodiac?” Honor said, confused.

  “Gas for the outboard engine that drives his tender,” Jake explained.

  She still wasn’t sure she knew what was going on, but at least Jake seemed to.

  “What was he diving for?” Honor asked the girl curiously. “There aren’t any sunny coral reefs out there.”

  “Some of the guys go after the local version of king crab. Some of them go after cod with a speargun. Some get sea urchins for the Japanese roe trade.” The attendant tossed her head again. “Some just dive to get away from the old lady. Is he married?”

  “Who? Kyle?” Honor asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “No.”

  The attendant brightened and hurried off to help another boat dock.

  “Do you really think she saw Kyle two weeks ago?” Honor asked in a low voice.

  “She doesn’t have any reason to lie.”

  “But . . .”

  Jake waited. He wanted Honor to sort through all the unhappy implications herself. Then she wouldn’t shoot the messenger who brought the bad news, namely J. Jacob Mallory.

  “Why wouldn’t he call us?” she asked.

  “You know him better than I do. Why wouldn’t he call you?”

  Her only answer was silence.

  Jake glanced at the dial on the gas pump, listened to the sound of fuel going into the tank, and began easing up on the feed.

  “Something is wrong,” she said.

  He gave Honor a look that said she had the brains of a pet rock. “You’re just figuring that out?”

  “No, I mean really wrong,” she said tightly. “It’s one thing for me to have a strong hunch that Kyle is in the San Juans. It’s another for him to actually have been here and not called any of us. Why would he cause us so much worry? He knows we love him, no matter what.”

  The hurt and confusion in her voice made Jake wince, yet she still hadn’t arrived at the obvious and most painful conclusion: Kyle had avoided his family because he had something to hide.

  Like murder and a fortune in hot amber.

  Without a word Jake screwed the cap back onto the port gas tank, unscrewed the cap to the starboard tank, and resumed pumping gas. A cool, salty breeze ruffled his short hair, bringing with it the promise of open water and a day without limits. Beneath a layer of high cloud, the air was “severe clear.” Visibility unlimited. The sea was gentle. A great day to go looking for amber treasure sunk beneath the sea with a missing anchor.

  Jake pumped gas and wondered if Kyle had done the standard pirate thing and sent a corpse to the bottom to guard the treasure. Maybe that was how the man with the missing fingers had died.


  And maybe it was Kyle who had died, Kyle who was sunk on the bottom of the sea with all his secrets locked behind dead lips.

  “What are you thinking?” Honor asked.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “What does wanting have to do with this mess?” she asked in a rising voice. “Did anyone ask me if I wanted any of this to happen?”

  Jake held out his hand. The look of surprise on her face told him that it was about the last thing she had expected him to do. Yet she didn’t hesitate. She took his hand and allowed him to draw her close.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he said against her cheek, “when the wind isn’t blowing every word we say right back to the chatty Miss Ringlets.”

  Honor drew a ragged breath and leaned her forehead against his shoulder.

  “Jake?” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “It’s about time.”

  “For Kyle, not me.”

  “Be scared for you.”

  “I can’t believe he . . . stole anything. But I’d rather believe that than believe he’s dead.”

  Jake let out a long breath. Honor had gotten to the bottom line without his help, which meant that she wouldn’t waste time being angry with him for telling her what she really didn’t want to hear. Now if he were very, very careful, he might win enough of her trust to get past the solid wall of Donovan family silence to the truth about Kyle, amber, murder, and treachery.

  Unless Honor found out who her fishing guide was first.

  That wasn’t a happy thought. Jake hoped that Ellen would keep her perfectly painted mouth shut for two more days, as promised, but he wasn’t counting on it. When her boss put on pressure, she immediately would go to Plan B, whatever that was. Jake would just as soon not be around to find out.

  He finished filling the tanks and turned on the blower while Honor went to pay the bill. When she came back, she was suffering from a kind of sticker shock. She looked at the Tomorrow’s gleaming length as though expecting to see fuel pouring into the marina.

  “This puppy sucks gas,” she said.

  “The price of getting there fast. I can keep it to sailboat speed, if you like. It wouldn’t take much more than a few hours to get home, if the tide and currents are right.”

  “Hours?” She stared at him. “How fast do sailboats go?”

  “Depends on wind, weight, sail, and hull design. If they’re burning fuel instead of wind, most of them go six to eight knots.”

  “What were we doing on the way here?”

  “Normal cruising speed, most of the time.”

  “What is that in miles per hour?”

  “Oh, maybe thirty-five, depending on tide and currents. We went faster when all four jets of the carburetor kicked in, but it’s hard on the fuel consumption.”

  “I’m glad my credit card is good.”

  “So am I,” Jake said, thinking of the plot charter and the stored routes he had found. “We’ve got a lot of places to go. Unless Kyle told you about any places he particularly liked . . . ?”

  “Every time he talked fishing, I changed the subject.”

  Jake wasn’t talking about fishing, but he wouldn’t get anywhere pointing that out. Nor was he getting any help from Honor in narrowing down the search. If she knew where her brother or the amber might be, she sure wasn’t giving out any hints.

  It looked like the bright lady hadn’t figured out the simple truth: there was no way she was going to learn enough to set out alone into the San Juans anytime soon. Yet she acted as though she had all the time in creation.

  If Ellen kept her mouth shut, Jake had until day after tomorrow. A big if.

  He bit back on his impatience and set about casting off from the fuel dock. None of the boats had been brave enough to follow him to the dock, especially the Olympic, but it wasn’t long before three small craft appeared from different quarters and began pacing the Tomorrow as it headed out into the San Juan Islands.

  Jake looked, but didn’t see the Olympic. Nor did the Bayliners come close enough for him to identify passengers.

  “Can we outrun them?” Honor asked.

  “Probably, but why waste gas? The bite won’t be on for a while.”

  “The bite?”

  “The time when fish bite. We’re supposed to be going fishing, remember?”

  “To hell with fishing,” she said tightly. “Teach me how to use the electronics and drive the boat.”

  Jake clamped down on his temper. As he had feared, she still thought a few quick lessons were all that stood between her and the freedom of the open sea. Ms. Donovan needed a dose of reality therapy. For starters, they would work on knots.

  “Boating, huh?” he said. “Okay. There’s some spare line in the back cupboard. Bring me two pieces.”

  After a minute Honor reappeared with a piece of red line and a thinner piece of blue. She looked at them doubtfully. “What good will two little pieces of rope do?”

  “On a boat it’s line, not rope. It’s for tying in knots. We’ll start with a bowline.”

  “A what?”

  “A basic knot every boat driver should know. You do it like this.”

  Jake let go of the helm and took the blue line. Like the well-designed little craft that it was, the SeaSport continued to streak happily over the water, holding true. Reassured, Honor watched closely as he took one end of the blue line in each hand, did something fast and mysterious, and the rope-line-flipped into a tricky-looking knot. Unlike most knots, it was asymmetrical and unattractive.

  In fact, the bowline had more than a passing resemblance to a hangman’s noose.

  “Now you do it,” he said.

  “Sure. Right after I walk on water.”

  “Use the blue line as a guide.”

  “But I—”

  “But nothing,” he interrupted, turning back to the helm. “You wanted to learn. I’m teaching you. Knots are the easiest part of running a boat. While you do that, I’ll explain some of the most basic aspects of boat handling, so you’ll know what to expect when you take the helm for something more demanding than trolling.”

  Honor set her mouth in a straight line, looked at the blue knot, and tried to make one just like it. The first knot fell apart. So did the second. And the third.

  Meanwhile Jake kept up a steady lecture that included the location of the pivot point on a powerboat versus a sailboat. Then he went on to the responsiveness of the helm under varying conditions of speed, trim, thrust, wave, wind, current, and the most common combinations of those elements.

  The knot Honor was trying to tie kept falling apart. Her lips became thinner and thinner. Spots of color burned on her cheeks. She knew she had a good visual imagination, but she couldn’t visualize where the little loop came from, the one that held the whole big loop of the knot together.

  “Here,” Jake said finally. “Try a different knot. This is a double sheet bend. You use it to tie two lines together. It doesn’t slip, even with synthetic line.”

  His hands moved swiftly. First the knot in the blue line—the one she had been trying to copy—came undone. Then another one appeared with astonishing speed. He handed the blue line to her and took the helm again.

  She eyed the new knot in disbelief. It looked like the blue mother of all night crawlers had doubled back and looped around itself. If it had been a design, she would have chucked it into the trash.

  “I thought knots were beautiful, like macramé,” Honor said.

  “Two lines that stay tied together when you need them are beautiful. The rest is aesthetics, and aesthetics won’t save your butt when a pretty knot comes undone.”

  Honor turned the knot over and over in her hands, trying to trace which end of the line was which where the knot came together. Just when she thought she saw the pattern underneath the chaos, Jake started talking again.

  “Remember when you’re coming up to a dock, you always check wind direction, currents, an
d the general ‘feel’ of the boat before you commit to docking. There aren’t any brakes on a boat, so if you’re going too fast you have to put it in neutral and then wait a second and put it in reverse. Of course, unless your helm is dead center, going in reverse will pull you off course. Remember that, because that’s how you suck the stern over next to the dock when—”

  “Stop,” Honor said loudly. “It’s much too much, muchtoofast!”

  “Are you kidding? I haven’t even scratched the surface.”

  “All right. So I’m slow.”

  Jake knew it was his method rather than Honor’s mind that was at fault. But the time Ellen had given him was slipping away like the tide.

  “You’re not slow,” he said curtly. “You’re stubborn. So am I. Guess who’s more stubborn?”

  “Merde.”

  “Try the knot again. Keep trying it until you get it right. While you try, I’ll tell you more about how to trim the bow for various speeds and water conditions.”

  Honor bent over the knot while Jake talked quickly and relentlessly. The result was confusion rather than understanding. There was fear, too, fear that she simply didn’t have what it took to help Kyle. She hadn’t felt this inadequate since she had tried to play football with her brothers.

  The knot she was working on fell apart. Again. If Jake noticed, he didn’t even pause in the mind-numbing flow of facts.

  “What was that about chine?” she asked desperately. “Is that even a word?”

  “Chine is the line of intersection between the side and bottom of a boat. If you present the chine correctly to the water, you get a smoother ride.”

  “Oh.”

  And that was just the beginning. The longer Honor listened, the more she realized how silly she had been to think that running the Tomorrow was something she could pick up like skiing—a few hours, a few pratfalls, and watch her fly.

  Jake measured the dismay growing on Honor’s face, but didn’t let up on the ruthless flow of information and instruction. The lady had hired him to teach her how to fish and how to run the boat; not one word had been mentioned about finding a missing brother or stolen amber. By God, he would bury her in teaching until she figured out that she wasn’t going to turn into a boat handler overnight. Then she would have no choice but to ask his help in her real hunt.