Amber Beach

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Jake hung up, stuffed the box beneath the prowler’s ropes, and dragged him out in the rain to a rendezvous with the realty sign just down the road.

  19

  AFTER MARJU LEFT, Honor started making salmon salad in an effort to do something normal while she tried to reconcile what Marju had said with the brother she had always known. She had barely gotten the bones out of the salmon before there was a knock on the front door.

  “Come on in, Jake. The door is open,” she called. Then she remembered that it wasn’t. She had thrown the dead bolt. Being a target was not only unsettling, it was inconvenient. “Coming!” she called, absently wiping her hands on her jeans as she hurried out of the kitchen.

  She stopped short of the door when she saw the strange car parked in the driveway.

  “Who is it?” she asked through the closed door.

  “Ellen Lazarus and Special Agent Mather. We would like to talk to you.”

  “Whose special agent?”

  “The U.S. government’s,” said a male voice.

  Honor considered letting them stand out in the rain but decided against it. Jake had nominated Ellen as third-string protector, after himself and Archer.

  “Wouldn’t do to irritate the friendlies,” Honor muttered. But it was a tempting thought. Marju’s sad revelations had put Honor in a lousy mood. She couldn’t help thinking about Kyle and amber . . . yet she couldn’t bring herself to believe that her brother was a thief. She simply couldn’t. It felt wrong.

  Abruptly Honor unbolted the door, opened it, and stepped back. Ellen and Mather moved inside and dripped on the mat Kyle had put next to the threshold for just these soggy Pacific Northwest moments. Beneath their unbuttoned waterproof coats, both agents were wearing business suits. Mather’s was a neat navy pinstripe. Ellen’s was a rich burgundy with dark blue trim. Neither of them offered to show any identification.

  “I suppose it would be cheeky to ask for ID, since we’re on the same side and all,” Honor drawled. “So I’ll settle for business cards to add to my collection.”

  Ellen opened a navy purse that was big enough to put a cat in. Mather reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat. Each handed her a card.

  Sourly Honor noticed that, like Ellen, Mather was a consultant. “Do you consult on anything in particular?” she asked, sticking the cards in a hip pocket of her jeans.

  “We’re generalists,” Mather said pleasantly. “However, if you require something more specialized, we can call in the people who carry badges.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think my heart could take the excitement.” Honor turned and headed for the kitchen. “Talk to me in here. I’m making lunch. But if you came to cry about something, forget it. I’m fresh out of Kleenex, even in my purse.”

  As though testing the truth of Honor’s words, Ellen glanced at the black backpack that lay half open near the couch. Both agents followed their reluctant hostess into the kitchen. On the unstated theory that one woman always understands another woman better than any man could, Ellen took the lead.

  “You don’t look like you’ve been crying,” she said.

  “Not me. My brother’s fiancé.” Honor searched the mound of salmon flakes in the bowl for more bones. “You might have heard of her. Marju, lately of Lithuania.”

  “We’ve heard of her,” Ellen said. “We’ve been trying to talk to her for several weeks.”

  “Why?”

  For an instant Mather looked impatient, but he didn’t do anything about it. Ellen just acted as though she hadn’t heard the question.

  “Did Marju say where she was staying?” Ellen asked.

  “No.”

  “Don’t you think that’s odd?”

  Honor shrugged. “I just met her. I have no way to judge her behavior.”

  “What did she want from you?”

  “Same thing everyone else does. Kyle.”

  “If they’re engaged, surely they’re in touch,” Ellen said.

  “Not lately, according to her.”

  “Do you believe her?” Mather asked.

  “Why shouldn’t I? God knows the tears were real. Besides, if she knows where Kyle is, why was she crying on my shoulder?”

  “Perhaps she thought he might have shipped something home,” Mather said. “Or to you.”

  Honor scooped up a stray flake of salmon, popped it into her mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. “It’s possible.”

  “That Kyle shipped something to you?” Ellen asked.

  “No, that Marju thought he had.”

  “Did your brother ship something to you?” Mather asked bluntly.

  “Which one? I have four.”

  “Kyle,” Ellen said, her voice crisp.

  “He shipped me something. It’s on the desk. Be careful with it. Amber can shatter like glass.”

  Mather left the room with impressive speed. He reappeared a moment later with a piece of amber in his hand. “This?”

  Honor glanced up from stirring the salmon in an idle search for bones. “That’s it. Great piece, isn’t it? It has clarity for radiance and smoky tendrils of cloud for mystery.”

  Neither agent looked impressed.

  “This is all he sent?” Mather asked Honor.

  “No. There were twelve other pieces.”

  “Raw or worked?” Ellen asked.

  “Raw, like that one.” Honor pulled mayonnaise out of the refrigerator and reached for a spoon. “Faith works the amber herself, just like the other gemstones.”

  “What else did Kyle send you?” Mather asked.

  “When?”

  “In the last month.”

  “Nothing. Not a card. Not a letter. Not a phone call. Not one damned thing.” The spoon rang against the side of the salmon bowl as Honor knocked off the mayonnaise with unnecessary force. “But I don’t expect you to take my word for it. So do everyone a favor. Look for whatever you hope Kyle sent me and let me eat my lunch in peace.”

  “You don’t mind if we search the house?” Ellen asked.

  “You won’t be the first,” Honor muttered.

  “What?” Mather said.

  “What kind of a search are you talking about?” Honor asked quickly. “The kind where everything bigger than a matchbox is turned inside out?”

  “No.”

  “Bigger than a breadbox?” she asked.

  Mather looked at Ellen.

  “Yes,” Ellen said.

  “Bigger than a computer?” Honor persisted.

  “What is this, Twenty Questions?” Ellen snapped.

  “No,” Honor said, “it’s me trying to figure out how much of a mess you’ll make in your search.”

  “Two feet by two feet is the smallest size we’re interested in.”

  “Fine,” Honor said. “Search the house. Search the garage. Hell, search the barbecue. Search the boat while you’re at it. Save the Coast Guard a few steps. On second thought, forget the boat. I’d really like to see Captain Conroy dance on and off the Tomorrow’s swim step in this weather.”

  Surprisingly, Mather smiled. It didn’t last long, but it gave Honor hope that he was human underneath the pinstripes and tie.

  “Unless you really object,” Mather said to her, “I’ll search the boat.”

  “Go ahead. But if you find anything, I get to see it.”

  Mather turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Honor said.

  He looked back.

  “You didn’t answer me,” she said. “If you find anything, I get to see it. Otherwise you can go out and get official pieces of paper telling me that I have to let you be on my brother’s property. Do we have an understanding?”

  He looked at Ellen, who shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “Start in the kitchen. I doubt if there’s anything in the boat.”

  Mather began opening kitchen cupboards. He was quick, thorough, and neat.

  Ignoring him, Honor started chopping up celery and green onions for the salmon salad. Before she was finished, Mather moved on to the living room.r />
  “How did you meet Jake Mallory?” Ellen asked.

  Honor’s knife hesitated for a fraction of a second and then sliced on through the last of the green onions. “He answered my ad for a fishing guide.”

  “Is that what he told you he was? A fishing guide?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And you believed him?” The amusement in Ellen’s voice was just short of outright sarcasm.

  The knife whacked through the celery with savage speed. “He can run the boat and we caught a fish,” Honor said. “That’s good enough for me.”

  “Miss Donovan . . .” Ellen began.

  “That’s me,” Honor said, dumping celery and onions into the bowl. She reached for a lemon, sliced it in half, and started squeezing it over the salmon as though something more interesting than a lemon was in her grasp.

  “Are you hostile to us because of Jake?” Ellen asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Why, then? If you have nothing to hide . . .” Ellen smiled and waited expectantly.

  From the living room came the sound of desk drawers opening. Honor’s breath caught; those were the same noises that had awakened her the night before. She paused in the act of slicing through a second lemon, hardly able to believe it was only last night that she had gone screaming down the path and into Jake’s arms.

  So much had happened, so quickly, so completely, nothing would ever be the same again. Yet it seemed like Kyle had always been missing, she had always been afraid, she had always known Jake.

  You’re losing it, Honor told herself. Get a grip. The smiling blue-eyed lady waiting for your answer isn’t a Barbie doll. She’s real bright, twice as ambitious, and she wants the panel from the Amber Room.

  Mather moved on to the bedroom. In the kitchen, a steel blade sliced through a third lemon and smacked into the wood cutting board.

  “What do you want from me?” Honor asked finally.

  “Cooperation.”

  “You’re getting it.” Honor began squeezing the remaining lemon halves into the salmon salad mixture.

  “Are we?”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that your partner going through my closet right now without so much as a piece of official paper in sight?”

  “If you want to avoid this kind of intrusion in the future, let Mather be your, um, fishing guide.”

  “Can he run a SeaSport?”

  “If he can’t, I’m sure we have someone who can.”

  “So do I. His name is Jake Mallory.”

  “You’ve known him, what—two days?”

  “The proof is in the pudding. Or in this case, in the salmon salad.”

  “He’s very good in bed, isn’t he?” Ellen asked in the same casual tone of voice.

  “The salmon? I wouldn’t know. I’ve never slept with one of them.”

  Ellen smiled briefly. “You know I meant Jake. Such stamina. Unusual in a man over twenty.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “While you’re at it, take my word for this. Jake wants the same thing from you that we do.”

  “Then you’re out of luck. Ménage a´ trois isn’t my style. I’m the old-fashioned type—one of any sex at a time.”

  Honor finished squeezing and started stirring with more force than the salmon needed. Ellen’s fingernails beat a brief tattoo on her purse. The sound of dresser drawers opening and closing came from the bedroom.

  “Do you really think that all Jake wants from you is your rather ordinary body?” Ellen asked curiously.

  “What does that have to do with Mather going through my underwear?” Honor retorted. She prayed that her expression didn’t give away what she was thinking: after spectacular pieces of work like Marju and Ellen, Honor knew just how a very small brown hen would feel in a peacock parade.

  Ellen tried another approach. “Have you ever heard of the Amber Room?”

  “Yes. It’s not in my dresser drawers. Guaranteed.”

  “Either you’re quite smart or quite stupid.”

  “When you figure it out, tell somebody who cares.”

  “What if I were to tell you that Jake was thrown out of Russia and is suspected of setting up your brother to take the blame for the theft of a panel from the Amber Room?”

  Honor yanked out a loaf of bread and began slathering salmon salad over one piece. Part of her was glad that she already knew the unhappy truth about Jay/Jake Mallory. Most of her just wanted to grab the stunning, chatty Ms. Lazarus and drop her off a cliff.

  “Miss Donovan? Did you hear me? Jake is at best your competitor and at worst your brother’s killer.”

  “Is that the official U.S. position?” Honor asked.

  “It’s one of them.”

  “I don’t like that one. Tell me another.”

  “Kyle stole a panel from the Amber Room.”

  “Nope. Don’t like that one either.”

  “Take your pick.”

  “None of the above.”

  Honor slapped a second piece of bread on top of the first and took a big bite. It tasted like library paste. She had forgotten to add salt or pepper, but she was damned if she would let on how rattled she was by looking for such obvious seasonings now. Grimly she chewed, swallowed, and took another bite.

  Mather walked into the kitchen. “I couldn’t help overhearing,” he began.

  “Yeah, right,” Honor said. “That popping sound we just heard was your ear coming unstuck from the door.”

  “Since it’s obvious that Miss Donovan already knew the real reason for Jake’s interest in her,” Mather said, “why don’t we tell her some things she might not know?”

  Ellen tilted her head and appeared to think it over. “Sweet reason?”

  “It works for some people.”

  “Damned few,” Ellen said. Then she shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  “As a member of a family that is involved in international trade,” Mather said, “you are aware of the new world dynamic since the Berlin Wall came down.”

  Honor nodded and went to the refrigerator to look for a Coke. The sandwich definitely needed help getting down her tight, dry throat. She hoped that the poker face she had learned at the hands of four sister-baiting brothers was firmly in place. She didn’t want to reveal any bleeding wounds to the pinstriped shark.

  “Countries that once depended on a vast central government for order, economy, and direction were thrown without preparation into a free-market situation,” Mather said crisply. “Some nationalisms and religions took the remains of their soviet wealth and went to war. They took a big step backward fiscally. They became, or are fast becoming, Third World economies. Are you following me?”

  “Tanks, bombs, and bullets alone aren’t the kind of foundation you build a new society on,” Honor said, putting the can of soda on the counter with an impatient movement. “Civilian infrastructure is the first lesson of noncommunist economies. Some of the folks over there are still learning it. The longer they wait, the farther back they slide into the swamp of soft currency, poverty, and anarchy.”

  Mather looked relieved. “Good. You understand. It will save us all a lot of trouble.”

  Honor doubted it. Instead of saying so, she took a bite out of her sandwich and concentrated on chewing and swallowing.

  “You wouldn’t know it from reading American newspapers,” Mather said, “but there are literally dozens of groups competing for power in the former Soviet Union. We only hear about the most obvious ones or the ones that—”

  “We’re on a short clock,” Ellen interrupted. “The point is simple: the new Russian Federation is a collection of nuclear bombs with their fuses lit. If the wrong people end up with the Amber Room, there’s going to be a nasty war. We’ll all be downwind of the fallout.”

  Mather’s disappointed expression almost made Honor smile; he looked the way she had felt when Jake wouldn’t let her rhapsodize to the Coast Guard about the SeaSport’s big engine. Apparently the emerging former E-Bloc economies
were Mather’s passion.

  “Um, yes,” Mather said. “Marju Uskhopchik-Mikniskes is a Lithuanian separatist.”

  “Kyle’s Marju?” Honor asked.

  “Yes. Ms. Uskhopchik-Mik—”

  “Call her Jones,” Honor interrupted dryly.

  Mather hesitated. “She is, or was, part of a plot to sell the Amber Room for money to use fighting Russia.”

  “Tanks, bombs, and bullets?” Honor said.

  “Exactly,” Ellen said. “But Marju’s playmates are out of the running now. We think they stole the Amber Room, or at least a panel of it, from the Kaliningrad mafiya. You’ve heard of them?”

  “According to Archer, they have all the class of the Colombian cartel and twice the brutality,” Honor said. “The bad news is that they have more international connections and a broader ‘tax base’ than Yeltsin.”

  “If Archer knows that, why is he holding us at arm’s length?” Mather asked impatiently. “He must know they’re after Kyle.”

  Both agents looked at Honor.

  “Ask Archer,” she said. “He just gives me orders, not explanations.”

  “No wonder you have a smart mouth,” Ellen said. “Older brothers will do it every time.”

  Smiling slightly, Honor decided that maybe she wouldn’t throw Ellen over a big cliff after all. Just a little one. Just enough to muss up her sleek hair.

  “You want some salmon salad?” Honor asked.

  Ellen smiled and shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m on a diet.”

  Honor cheered up even more. “That’s worse than having an older brother. How about you, Mather?”

  “I’m an older brother.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Oh, he’s not too bad,” Ellen said, giving Mather the kind of sideways look that was guaranteed to make a man feel one hundred percent healthy. “He’s trainable.”

  “So are gorillas,” Honor said. She took another bite of her sandwich, sighed, and reached for the salt.

  “Has Jake told you that the Organizatsiya could be involved?” Ellen asked.

  “With gorillas?” Honor asked, startled.

  Mather looked at the ceiling like he expected to find God there. “No, with the Amber Room.”