Pearl Cove

by Elizabeth Lowell

“That was your free one. The next wrong answer will hurt.” Without looking up, Archer said, “Don’t come any closer, Nakamori.”

  “Hai. Okay.” Nakamori stopped and looked from Flynn to Archer to the drops of blood that had started welling out beneath the knife point when Flynn tried to sit up. “He not kill McGarry.”

  “Qing Lu Yin says he did.”

  “He’s lying,” Flynn said flatly. “When I saw Len, he was already as dead as Kelsey’s nuts.”

  “Convince me,” Archer said.

  Flynn looked at the flat, metallic eyes of the man above him and wondered what it would take. “Once I got word of the storm coming, I didn’t go near the sorting shed. I was too busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Working on the rafts.”

  “Cutting them loose?”

  Flynn’s eyelids flickered. He knew what lying would get him. He didn’t know what telling the truth would bring. “Yes. We were cutting cables.”

  Though Hannah’s breath came in sharply, she didn’t say a word. She simply watched Archer and wondered if a man could be so merciless and still feel anything at all. Much less love. Len couldn’t. He hadn’t even wanted to.

  “Who was with you?” Archer asked calmly.

  Flynn let out a long breath. The truth hadn’t set him free, but it hadn’t killed him, either. “Tom.”

  Hannah looked at Nakamori. He didn’t meet her eyes.

  “Why?” Archer asked Flynn.

  “Why do you think? I paid him. He was getting more crippled every day. He wanted to go home in style.”

  “Nakamori,” Archer said. “Is it true?”

  “Hai.”

  “Who is paying you?” Archer asked Flynn.

  “None of your sodding busi—” The last syllable was a gasp of pain.

  Hannah’s fingernails dug into her palms, but she didn’t protest. She was still trying to absorb the fact that two men she considered trustworthy had been systematically sabotaging Pearl Cove.

  “Who is paying you?” Archer asked calmly.

  Flynn simply watched him with pale, glittering eyes. He wasn’t going to talk about his employer until there was more pain. A lot more.

  “I’ll assume it’s your government,” Archer said. “If I find out I’m wrong—and I will find out—we’ll talk again.”

  Flynn remembered what Maxmillian Barton had said about wanting to get a handle on Archer Donovan. He wished him luck. “We won’t be talking again.”

  Archer nodded. “Why did your employer want Pearl Cove destroyed?”

  “I’ve been sabotaging it a piece at a time since we decided that Len was selling out to the Chinese. The storm was a bonus. We could put paid to the whole business at once.”

  “Len didn’t sell any part of Pearl Cove to the Chinese or to anyone else,” Hannah said. “He didn’t trust anyone.”

  “Then the Chinese were taking over without his permission,” Flynn said bluntly. “Nobody but Chinese have been hired here for the past three years. Except for Coco and Nakamori, the whole sodding crew is Chinese.”

  Archer spoke without looking away from Flynn. “Hannah?”

  “It’s true. Len said he didn’t trust the Japanese divers any longer, and the Aussies he knew would rather go on the dole than work hard.”

  “So your employer decided if they couldn’t have Pearl Cove for themselves, they would ruin it,” Archer said to Flynn.

  “Yes.” Moving only his eyes, Flynn looked at Hannah. “I’ll give you a better price than anyone else. All you have to do is tell us how Len produced the pearls that look like Lightning Ridge opals.”

  “I don’t know,” she said flatly. “I’ve never known.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if she did,” Archer said to Flynn. “Didn’t you get the word? She doesn’t own Pearl Cove anymore. She’s off the table.”

  The tone of Archer’s voice made Flynn swallow reflexively. “I heard. No harm in trying, mate. Sometimes you hear things wrong.”

  “Not this time.”

  “Right. Anything else?”

  “Who killed Len McGarry?”

  “If I knew, I’d give the bloke a medal. He kept Pearl Cove from going to the Chinese.”

  Archer’s hand moved too quickly to follow. Flynn’s left arm went numb from shoulder to fingernails. Before he could react, Archer was on his feet and out of reach.

  “By the time your arm thaws out, you and Nakamori should be halfway to Broome,” Archer said. “While you drive, cool off and think. I could have broken both arms more easily than numbing one. If I see you again, I won’t pull any punches.”

  Flynn came to his feet with a speed that told Hannah nothing had been dented but his pride. The icy coils that gripped her stomach let go so quickly she felt almost dizzy. She didn’t understand her relief. She simply knew it was as real as Archer’s restraint. He could have maimed Flynn. Len certainly would have.

  The Aussie gave Archer a long, narrow look. Then Flynn laughed. “Bugger me, but I think I like you.”

  Archer smiled faintly. “You won’t mind if we don’t shake on it.”

  “Right. Let’s go, Tom. Or do you want to hang around and see if Coco’s willing to play?”

  Nakamori turned and started for the car. Whistling musically, Flynn followed. Archer watched them until their car was no more than a dark spot against the brick-red road.

  The wind lifted, bringing with it the smell of rain, the kind of monsoon downpour that would turn the land into an impassable mudhole.

  “Are you going after Yin?” Hannah asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “When do we leave?” she asked simply. “And where do we go?”

  “If you’re serious about working as a pearl matcher, pick a city. Any city. Donovan Gems and Minerals will put you to work there. If you don’t like that idea, the Linskys would jump at the chance to hire you.”

  “I’ll worry about the future after this is settled.”

  “As far as you’re concerned, it’s settled.”

  “No,” she said instantly. When it was all settled, Archer would leave. She wasn’t ready for that yet. What terrified her was that she didn’t know if she would ever be. “There’s still one person to question.”

  “For now, Yin is out of reach.”

  “Coco isn’t.”

  Archer hesitated, then shrugged. “I’d just as soon you were on a plane when I talked to Coco.”

  “Why?”

  “You won’t like my methods.”

  Hannah’s smile was as thin as a knife blade. “I can’t see you taking her down the way you did Flynn.”

  “Fear and pain work, but with Coco I’ll try money first.”

  When they stepped onto the verandah, Coco was sitting in the hammock chair. The tension around her mouth said that she knew she was next on Archer’s list.

  “You are ver’ quick for a big man,” she said to him. “Like Len. Ssssss. Snake.” She made a striking motion with her hand.

  Deliberately Hannah stepped in front of Archer. “Christian and Tom were too busy cutting apart rafts to kill Len,” she said coolly to Coco. “You were the last one to see him alive. He closed the shed door in your face, I believe.”

  “Oui. But he searched me first, most carefully.” The words were in French. The smile needed no translation.

  Archer said something in swift, precise French that wiped the smile right off her face. Then in English he added, “English only, unless you can’t answer in that language. Then I’ll translate.”

  Without turning away from Coco’s beautiful, sensual features, Hannah spoke to Archer. “Is she strong enough to chisel her way into the shed?”

  He looked at Coco, measuring the supple muscle beneath the soft skin, remembering the easy, lithe walk. “Yes.”

  “I no kill Len!” Coco said, her eyes bright with what might have been tears or simple fear.

  “But you saw who did,” Hannah said. It wasn’t a question. It was a summation of all the times she
had turned around from any task in the pearl sheds or in the house and found Coco watching, watching. Always watching. “Who was it?”

  Coco laughed bitterly. “I tell and die like Len, trapped and alone.”

  “You’ll die the same way if you don’t tell,” Hannah said. “The Red Phoenix Triad isn’t famous for its compassion.”

  Coco paled beneath her golden skin. “You know?”

  Hannah’s smile showed teeth and no mercy. “I know. We met Yin in a triad hangout in Seattle.”

  “Stupid.”

  “It had its moments,” Hannah agreed dryly. “Who killed Len, Coco?”

  She shook her head.

  “Ten thousand dollars American,” Archer said. “Even if you did it yourself.”

  Coco laughed, but it was a sad, bitter sound. “I? I love Len.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened.

  “Is shock to you,” Coco said. Her full mouth turned down at the corners. “He is . . . fascination. Cold like snake. Danger like cyclone. Pain. Hate. He is all.”

  Hannah could only stare. The very things that had driven her away from Len had lured Coco. “He should have married you.”

  Coco’s shrug was as fluid as the sea. “Then he no more have you. A cat with a bird, to play, you understand? He take one pretty feather at a time.”

  “Yes,” Hannah said in a low voice. “I understand. He used my sense of honor to keep me within his reach. I knew it and I stayed anyway. I owed him my life. I thought I could change his for the better. I was wrong.” She felt the heat of Archer’s hands on her shoulders and wanted to lean against him. “The day Len died, Coco. What did you see?”

  “Qing Lu Yin,” she said simply. “He want the secret of the pearls. He hurt Len—fists, club, you understand?”

  “Yes,” Archer said. “Go on.”

  “Len smile. Make Yin crazy. Careless. Len move fast.” She made a striking motion with her hand again. “Try to cut throat of Yin with oyster shell. Len strong, ver’ ver’ strong, but Yin not cripple. He kick the wheelchair upside down and put knife in Len’s ribs.”

  Hannah went still but didn’t interrupt. She believed Coco. Only Archer had ever mentioned the knife.

  “Yin hammer shell in same place, hide knife wound. You understand?” Coco asked.

  “Yes,” Hannah said.

  “Len still live. He try to pull shell away. Too weak. Yin take all pearls he dare and run.”

  “Yin is good at running,” Hannah said, remembering the Dragon Moon café.

  “What did you do?” Archer asked when Hannah was silent.

  “I go to cottage, wait for big wind.”

  “You know the pearls that Len called the Black Trinity?” Archer asked.”

  “Oui.”

  “You know that Hannah would recognize them if they ever came on the market?”

  “Oui,” Coco said. “He hate her for that. Her eyes, better than his. Better than mine.”

  “You know what would happen if the Black Trinity was ever traced back to you?” Archer asked.

  She looked in his eyes and she knew. “Oui,” she whispered.

  “Tell me what happened to the Black Trinity,” Archer said, “and I won’t ask how Angelique Dupres’s Tahitian pearl farm ended up with a fortune in Pearl Cove’s new crop of pearls. The same pearls that went missing when Len died.”

  Hannah stiffened and tried to turn toward Archer. His hands tightened, holding her as she was.

  “You didn’t tell me,” she said.

  “I hoped I wouldn’t have to.”

  “Why?”

  “No one likes being betrayed by the people around them.” His hands became subtly caressing. “You’ve had enough pain. I didn’t want to be the one to bring you more. But that seems to be what I’m best at. Bringing you pain.” He lifted his hands and pinned Coco with a cold look.

  She spread her hands in an unconscious gesture of pleading. “I no see Black Trinity when Len die. I no see after. Pearls, they everywhere, you understand? Like—like sea-foam after storm. Yin take many. I take rest and send to sister to sell. Better Coco than the storm, yes?”

  “Have you stolen enough from Hannah for your retirement yet?” Archer asked.

  Coco simply smiled. “I work hard, monsieur. Ver’ hard. Ask any man.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you do. Say hello to Ian for us.”

  Surprise showed for an instant on Coco’s face, then nothing showed at all.

  “That’s what I thought,” Archer said.

  “Good-bye, Coco.” Hannah’s voice was distant. “You’ll understand if I don’t give you severance pay.”

  “Oh, she’ll get paid,” Archer drawled. “But it will be Chang money, not ours.”

  With a lithe motion Coco came to her feet. “Bonne chance with your new cat, small bird.”

  His hands flexed at his sides. A cat with a bird, to play, you understand? He take one pretty feather at a time. Archer understood too well. He knew that every time Hannah looked at him, she saw Len. She saw the cruelties of the past rather than the possibilities of the present. Archer couldn’t change that. He could only end the pain by getting out of her sight.

  “I’ll help you finish packing,” he said neutrally.

  Hannah watched him leave and wondered why it felt like he had said good-bye.

  Standing on a street corner in Rio. No money. No hope. Nothing but night coming down on her like thunder.

  And this time Archer was walking away from her.

  Twenty-eight

  There weren’t many cartons stacked by the front door, because there wasn’t much Hannah wanted to take except for clothes, a few household goods, and her wood-carving tools. Hannah was stuffing clothes, towels, and dive gear into a battered duffel bag. Her hands were clumsy, an accurate reflection of the turmoil in her mind. She didn’t want Archer to leave.

  And she knew he was going to.

  You’ve had enough pain. I didn’t want to be the one to bring you more. But that seems to be what I’m best at. Bringing you pain.

  She closed her eyes and fought against the fear that was beating against her with black wings. She didn’t know what mistake she had made. She only knew she had made one. A terrible one, every bit as bad as trusting her life to Len McGarry had been.

  “I wish I had some bubble wrap for this,” Archer said.

  She turned away from the swim mask and fins she was blindly trying to cram into a space that was too small by half. He was standing across the room, holding the wood sculpture that was the only thing she had ever carved that she couldn’t bring herself to destroy. Too much of her was in that sculpture, the woman trapped in the very wave that would free her, but only if she survived the wild, dangerous ride.

  Suddenly Hannah’s hands itched to create the new form condensing in her mind, a woman who was the wave, driving force and consummation in one. No beginning. No ending. Just the timeless, infinite surge of life.

  “Wrap it in this,” Hannah said, throwing Archer one of the towels stacked within reach. “There’s room in the duffel if I leave out some dive gear.”

  “Pack the dive gear. I’ll carry this myself.” As he spoke, Archer ran his fingertips over the haunting curves that suggested but never showed the woman within the wood.

  Heat shimmered over Hannah as though she had been stroked.

  Knowing he shouldn’t, knowing he was going to anyway, Archer spoke without looking away from the sculpture. “Would you sell this to me?”

  “No. I’ll give it to you. It’s the least I can do after all you’ve done for me.”

  “All I’ve done is remind you of the worst days of your life.”

  She was too shocked to do more than stare at him. “That’s not true!”

  “Not comfortable, maybe, but it sure as hell is true. You look at me and you see the past. Len. The miracle is that you didn’t let Ling blow my head off.”

  The bitter acceptance beneath Archer’s level voice made Hannah flinch. “In the beginning, yes, I saw Len ev
ery time I—”

  “Quiet,” he said across her words.

  “No, let me fin—”

  “Quiet.”

  Belatedly, the change in him got through her. No bitterness now, no acceptance, simply the cool deadliness of a man trained to kill. He set aside the sculpture and turned toward the verandah door with a predator’s focused grace.

  Out front a car door slammed.

  “Visitor coming,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “No one I recognize. Come here, but stand to the side of the window.”

  Hannah went and stood close to Archer. Through the silvery porch screen she saw a balding man of middle years, medium height, and utter self-confidence walking up the front path. He wore tropical-weight slacks and shirt and carried a manila envelope in one hand. She had never seen him before in her life.

  “Do you know him?” Archer asked.

  “No.”

  The man knocked on the outer door.

  “What do you want?” Archer called out.

  “Message for Archer Donovan.”

  One of Archer’s black eyebrows rose skeptically. The man didn’t look like a messenger boy. “What’s the return address?”

  “April Joy.”

  He muttered something savage under his breath. Then, softly, he said to Hannah, “Stay here.”

  “Is the man dangerous?”

  “Not to you. You’re off the table.”

  “What about you?”

  Without answering, Archer opened the door. He would have shut it behind him again, but Hannah’s foot was in the way. Then all of her was. He allowed it only because it was too dangerous to divide his attention. He opened the outer door and gestured the man onto the porch.

  “Ms. McGarry, I’m Max,” Barton said, looking past Archer. “My condolences on your husband’s death.”

  “Is that the message?” Hannah asked.

  “My message is for Archer Donovan.”

  “You’re looking at him,” Hannah said, jerking her thumb toward Archer.

  “The message is private.”

  “So am I,” she said bitingly.

  Barton looked at Archer, who was watching him with pale eyes that gave away nothing. Barton smiled coldly. “Has your number, does she, mate?”

  “Yeah. I’m putty in Hannah’s hands,” Archer said. “She’s solid brick in mine. What does April want now?”