Jade Island

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Archer lifted his coffee mug in a silent toast of agreement, and drank the bitter dregs. “Don’t forget dinner tonight.”

  “What about it?”

  “Honor knew you’d forget. Mom and Dad’s thirty-sixth anniversary.”

  Kyle’s broad palm smacked his forehead. “Damn! I’ve got to get them something.”

  “Honor took care of it. She’ll bill you later.”

  “Thank God for little sisters.”

  “They have to be good for something.”

  “Funny,” Kyle said, “that’s what Faith and Honor were always saying about big brothers.”

  “Speaking of Faith…” Archer’s face became expressionless. “She’s bringing her intended to the party. Anthony Kerrigan. Word is she’ll be wearing a diamond.”

  Kyle hissed something under his breath that was as unhappy as the slant of his mouth.

  “I don’t like the son of a bitch, either,” Archer said evenly, “but that’s our problem. Since Honor got married, Faith has been lonesome as hell. If Tony makes her feel good, so be it. Be here at seven with a passable smile on that pretty face of yours.”

  “I’m supposed to have a date with Lianne.”

  “Bring her.”

  “Wonderful,” Kyle said sarcastically. “Bring the Tang family spy into the bosom of the Donovan family to meet the shit-eating insect Faith is going to marry.”

  Archer raked his fingers through his dark hair. “If I thought it would do any good, I’d take good old Tony hiking in Alaska and feed him to a grizzly.”

  “I’ll buy the plane tickets.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe we’re being just a little too protective of our little sister?”

  “No. Tony is a loser. He thinks Faith is a lifetime ticket to a place in the fast lane. When he figures out that she won’t take a dime from the family that she didn’t earn, things will go in the toilet real quick.”

  Archer didn’t argue. “If I thought it would speed the process, I’d give her the results of Tony’s background check, but she wouldn’t—”

  “Give them to me,” Kyle cut in. He already knew Faith was stubborn, especially if she thought her older brothers were interfering.

  Which they were.

  “Tony’s good at wooing and bad at long term. There’s an ex-wife in Boston who’s suing him for nonpayment of child support. A girlfriend in Las Vegas who had two abortions. Another one in Miami who thinks Tony is going to marry her because she’s two months away from delivering his son and heir.”

  There was a long, tight silence before Kyle spoke. “So good old Tony’s dying to know how the other half lives? I’ll show him. I’ll take him fishing in Kamchatka. Big country. Wild. Empty. As they say in Australia, no worries, mate.”

  Archer’s smile was as thin as a blade. “I’ll keep it in mind. But first, let’s give Faith a chance to figure it out for herself.”

  “Too late. You said she was showing up with a diamond.”

  “Engagement ring, not wedding. Not yet.”

  “Not ever,” Kyle said flatly. “I mean it, Archer. Women like Faith and Honor are an endangered species—decent, generous, and honest. Honor has Jake to protect her. Faith just has us.”

  “Faith isn’t stupid, just stubborn. Hormones and wishful thinking won’t last long. Sooner or later she’ll see Tony for the amorous, fertile weasel he is.”

  For a minute Kyle said nothing. He simply watched cloud shadows slide over the kitchen’s lemon-yellow walls. “It’s obvious that Tony likes knocking up his women. What if Faith gets pregnant before her common sense takes over?”

  “Then we’ll have a niece or nephew to spoil,” Archer said softly. “And that lucky baby will have as many fathers as there are Donovan men.”

  Kyle’s breath came out in a hissing sigh. He finished his coffee and smacked the mug down on the glass table. “I’ll be here at seven. With Lianne.”

  “You’re picking her up?”

  Kyle nodded.

  “Let me know when you’re leaving,” Archer said. “I’ll follow you.”

  “That will be a switch, knowing who’s following me. What if someone is already following Lianne?”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  The predatory anticipation in Archer’s eyes almost made Kyle feel sorry for whoever was following Lianne. But what he really regretted was that he wouldn’t be around to help Archer ask questions.

  “Sounds like you might be late for dinner tonight,” Kyle said.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “If the tail’s license plate goes back to Uncle, I’ll be on time.”

  “Why would the government be following Lianne?”

  “To find out where she goes.”

  “Kiss mine, Archer. You know what I mean.”

  Archer shrugged. “Maybe they want to know if she’s clean or dirty. I sure as hell would.”

  Kyle started to say that Lianne was clean. Then he shut up. Just because his gut said she wasn’t a thief didn’t mean dick to the rest of the world.

  And it shouldn’t mean dick to him.

  “What if the license plate doesn’t come back to Uncle?” Kyle asked evenly.

  “Then life gets interesting.”

  Chapter 11

  Lianne slowed at the U.S.-Canada border, pulled into the Pace Lane, and slid across the international boundary with no more ceremony than a nod and a wave. Cars that didn’t have frequent-entry stickers on their windshields were stacked four across and twenty deep at the customs booths while people answered questions about plants, pepper spray, tobacco, alcohol, firearms, and other forbidden fruit.

  She checked her watch as her car bumped over the thick “sleeping policemen” that slowed traffic coming away from the border booths. Off to the right side of the wide asphalt area, unlucky Canadian drivers stood around with trunks and doors open while Canadian customs officers went over their vehicles. The most frequent violation was undeclared U.S. merchandise, whether socks or cigarettes. The high taxes in Canada made personal-use smuggling by otherwise honest citizens not only tempting but inevitable.

  The trunk full of jade artifacts in Lianne’s red Toyota wasn’t “dutiable.” No taxes or declaration required. Nor did she need guards, armor plate, guns, or any of the other hoopla essential to people whose cargo was money, plain and very spendable. The jade she carried was priceless, which wasn’t the same as easily converted into cash.

  Even so, Lianne kept watching her mirrors. After the auction last night, she was more than a little jumpy. Yet, despite the restlessness that made her edgy, she didn’t really believe she was being followed. No car had latched onto her bumper and stayed with her no matter what she did. Several other cars got off I-5 with her at Blaine to gas up, but that meant nothing. Gas in Canada was easily twice the price it was in the States. Smart motorists planned ahead.

  Beyond the Canadian border buildings, traffic was quickly shunted onto B.C. 1. Painfully new housing tracts—bedroom communities for the booming city of Vancouver—competed with milk cows for possession of the salt-grass flatlands that lay between the international border and the muscular curves of the Fraser River. The city itself was on the far side of the river, a dense band of white buildings sandwiched between bold black mountains and cold blue sea.

  As always, Lianne was struck by the beauty of Vancouver’s physical setting. San Francisco bragged about its scenic wonders, but Vancouver had more, and more spectacular, scenery, up to and including a breathtaking bridge spanning the entrance to a deep, protected harbor. All the city lacked that San Francisco had was the San Andreas Fault. On the whole, people in Vancouver got along quite nicely without the extra adrenaline provided by earthquakes.

  As for Lianne, she didn’t need adrenaline at all. Her dreams last night had been a tangle of ageless jade shrouds and the immediate sexual reality of Kyle Donovan. If she hadn’t been so determined to speak alone with Wen, she would have broken a lifelong rule about first d
ates and sex and gone home with Kyle.

  Her mouth turned down in a wry, unhappy line. For all the good it had done her to stay alone, she should have accepted the invitation in Kyle’s beautiful eyes and spent the night with him. She wouldn’t have gotten any less sleep than she had, and she would have had a lot more fun. She was certain of it.

  That was one of the reasons she hadn’t slept well. The other was Harry’s curt refusal to let her drive Wen back to Vancouver when she returned the jade to the Tang vaults. Instead, Harry had driven his father home after the party.

  The Tang family compound fronted on the heavy traffic of Grenville Street. From the exterior, the compound was as inviting as a jail. All the way around a city block, high, solid, windowless residential walls of varying color and composition came right out to the sidewalk. Though it looked like there were at least four separate homes with abutting walls and separate entrances on each block, only a few of the entrances actually opened onto anything. The rest were like the false fronts on old Western buildings, show without function.

  Inside the real entrances lay another world. A beautiful, serene one. In a central courtyard, spring bulbs bloomed beneath rhododendron and azalea, pine and dwarf maple and juniper. Birds drank from a pond where huge koi held station like lazy, colored flags. The smell of early lilies and sweet rain filled the silence.

  In summertime the courtyard shimmered with bees and the laughter of children. In fall it burned with all the colors of maple and Autumn Joy sedum. In winter the courtyard slept gracefully, like a black-and-white cat storing up energy for the tumult of spring.

  Lianne had seen the courtyard in all its moods, but never had she joined the Tang women who sat and laughed and talked while their children chased butterflies and each other. It wasn’t the language barrier that kept Lianne apart. It was the much more subtle, much more insurmountable social barrier. She was an employee, not an acknowledged member of the Tang family.

  A distant, aged Tang cousin who also acted as houseboy waited by the side door. He called out to her in Chinese. “Uncle Wen is still sleeping. The celebration last night tired him. Daniel will help you replace the jade.”

  Lianne’s heart hesitated, then beat steadily again. Daniel was Johnny’s Number Three Son. Her half brother. She had seen him at a distance many times but had never been within speaking range of him. In truth, other than the party last night, Lianne couldn’t remember a time when she had been close enough to her half brothers to have a conversation.

  Before she could refuse help, Daniel came rapidly down the stairs to the service entrance, where she had parked. Though Lianne had never met him, she had learned about him as she had learned about her other half siblings. Daniel had been raised in Hong Kong until he was ten, when he was sent to live with relatives in Los Angeles. At twenty-six, he had a fine arts degree from the University of Southern California, a law degree from Harvard, and utter ease with two very different cultures.

  But what struck Lianne was how much he looked like his father. Her father. Their father. He had inherited Johnny’s athletic body, handsome face, and strong hands. He was eight inches taller and seventy pounds heavier than she was.

  And a single look at his face told Lianne that Daniel despised her.

  “Open the trunk,” he said curtly. “I’ll put the jade back in the vault. You don’t have to come in.”

  Lianne forced her voice to be businesslike and nothing more. “That’s kind of you,” she said as she walked around to the trunk and opened it, “but it’s my responsibility to make sure everything is replaced exactly as Wen left it.”

  “Listen, Ms. Blakely, there’s no need for you to hang around waiting for Wen’s approval. Just send your bill to the Jade Trader. My grandfather doesn’t need you underfoot.”

  A rush of anger mingled with shame tightened Lianne’s throat; her half brother was treating her like a door-to-door insurance salesman. For an instant she couldn’t say anything. Then her chin came up and she met Daniel’s cold glance with one of her own.

  “Wen Zhi Tang gave me the honor and responsibility of handling the Jade Trader exhibit in Seattle,” she said in a clipped voice. “That includes putting every piece of jade back into the vault myself. If that bothers you, don’t watch.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Being by yourself with all that jade.”

  “It would hardly be the first time.”

  “I know. That’s what worries me.”

  Lianne went cold. “Are you implying that I can’t be trusted?”

  “Hey, you’re sharp, aren’t you? But I already suspected that. I knew it for damn sure a few months ago.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Save the innocent act for someone who doesn’t know where you came from,” Daniel said bluntly. “From now on, every time you walk into the Tang vault, you’re going to have me at your elbow. If I’m not here, you’re shit out of luck. And I’m not going to be here a lot of the time.”

  “Let’s go to Wen right now and—”

  “You’re through going to Wen,” Daniel said, cutting off Lianne’s words. “He’s tired and old. He deserves rest. From now on, you deal with me. I’m the Tang family jade expert.”

  “What does Joe Ju Tang have to say about that?”

  “What do you care? It’s not your family.”

  Before Daniel could say any more, a whispery yet strong voice came from the doorway.

  “Lianne, is that you?” Wen asked in Chinese.

  “Yes, Uncle Wen,” she said, looking away from Daniel with relief.

  The old man stood in the doorway. Wind tugged at his clothes and lifted his collar-length, thinning white hair. Barely taller than Lianne, weighing only a few pounds more than she did, he nonetheless commanded attention. The dark gray suit he wore was a fine blend of wool and silk; it had been tailored impeccably to fit his frail frame. His shirt was silk, as was his sedate burgundy tie. His shoes were handmade of a leather so soft it could have been used for gloves.

  “Why are you standing outside when it is warm inside?” Wen asked impatiently. “Come, come! The spring wind is unkind to old bones. Qin? Qin, are you near?”

  “I am here,” said the houseboy patiently.

  “Bring tea to the vault. Cookies, too. I am hungry.”

  “Grandfather,” Daniel said in Chinese, “do not trouble yourself with this matter. I will see that each piece of jade is returned to its rightful place.”

  “Trouble?” Wen gave a harsh, papery laugh. “At my age, jade is the only trouble worth having. Help Lianne return my children to the vault. If you listen and look well, you might finally learn something useful about the Stone of Heaven.”

  Daniel’s face darkened, but his voice didn’t change. “Thank you, Grandfather. I have much to learn from you.”

  “Best be quick about it,” Wen muttered. “The husk of my body dries more with every day. Soon the wind will take me.”

  “It would not dare,” Lianne said, smiling. “Though you would make a fine fighting kite.”

  Wen’s face wrinkled into a huge grin. Laughing silently, he turned back to the house. Then he stopped and glanced over his shoulder, seeking the small, bright-colored shadow that was all he could see of Lianne.

  “Let the boy bring the jade,” Wen said curtly. “Come, girl. Come and tell me once again how my children look in their nests of silk and satin and velvet.”

  Lianne sensed more than saw the whiplash of anger followed by rigid control that went through Daniel. Yet when she looked at him, he was bending into the trunk of her car, lifting out cartons of jade, and setting them carefully along the driveway as though he wanted nothing more in life but to do Wen’s bidding.

  “I am coming, Uncle Wen,” Lianne said, hurrying up the steps. “It is always an honor to be your eyes.”

  The trunk slammed hard enough to bend metal. Lianne winced and said nothing. She was used to encountering indifference in the Tang family, but outright hostility was new. She foun
d herself wishing that her very own stuffed elephant was by her side. The thought made her smile, chasing the chill of her half brother’s blunt rejection of her and his doubts about her honesty.

  The door led to the kitchen. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was a smooth blend of Oriental and Occidental. The colors, use of space, flooring, and art were largely Asian. The furniture, lighting, appliances, and plumbing were Western. The scent was unique, a blend of incense and the Pop Tarts that Wen loved.

  During their slow progress through the kitchen and down a corridor to the vault wing, Wen started questioning her about Dick Farmer’s jade suit.

  “My grandsons could tell me nothing,” Wen said irritably. “They think only of stocks and banks and real estate. Did you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah!” Wen waited, but she said no more. “Is anyone nearby?” he demanded.

  Lianne looked over her shoulder. They were alone. “No.”

  “Is the suit as good as mine?” Wen asked impatiently.

  She was too shocked to answer. A few years ago, she accidentally had discovered the suit when she was doing the yearly inventory and inspection of the Tang vault. She had been in one of the deep closets inspecting the trays of jade thumb rings and archer’s cuffs, when the vault door opened. Joe and Wen walked in, arguing about Joe’s love of horses and ancient calligraphy.

  Lianne decided to finish the archery inventory and hoped that the men were through bickering before she announced herself. A few minutes later she heard a crash. She rushed out of the closet and spotted Joe braced against the weight of what looked like a steel door.

  When she saw what was in the small, hidden room beyond the door, her mouth dropped. While Wen berated Joe for drunken clumsiness, Lianne stared, unnoticed, at the type of jade treasures she had only dreamed of seeing if she was ever permitted inside mainland China’s state collections.

  But of all the things Lianne saw in that first, unguarded instant, it was the jade shroud that was engraved on her mind. Until that moment, she hadn’t known that any such treasure existed in private hands.