A Madness of Sunshine

by Nalini Singh

  Clearly, the clerk had been trained to never judge a customer based on appearance. It was good advice, given what Will knew of the multimillionaires who lived in the region. One had a habit of walking around town in flip-flops, while another drove a twenty-year-old junker and dressed like the eighties had never gone out of style.

  “Good afternoon.” He showed her his police ID. “I’m working a missing person case and I’m hoping to track down the origin of a piece of jewelry.”

  The woman’s professional facade fractured. “Oh, goodness.” Wide green eyes. “Of course, I’ll be happy to help, but our master jeweler’s probably the one you should talk to.”

  “Does he come into the shop?”

  “Not normally,” the clerk said, “but you’re in luck today. He’s here this morning to personally accept a delivery. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go fetch him.”

  Instead of leaving the sales area, the clerk went to the back of the room and picked up a phone, speaking quietly into it before returning to her previous post.

  A small man who might’ve once been blond, but whose hair had faded to ash gray, bustled out from the back soon afterward. “Detective,” he said, holding out a sinewy hand. “Ava said you were looking to identify a piece of jewelry?” His eyes held a question, but it wasn’t about the jewelry—his attention was on Anahera.

  “I’m sorry for staring,” he said when she raised an eyebrow, “but I could swear I’ve seen you before.”

  “I get that a lot.”

  The jeweler began to turn back to Will . . . halted midmove. “You create the most extraordinary music—your gift is truly angelic,” he said in a hushed tone. “I’m deeply honored to have you in my store.”

  Anahera went still. “Thank you.”

  “I was very sorry to hear of the passing of your husband.”

  Shoulders stiff, Anahera gave the man a tight smile before turning to look at some of the jewels on display. Will, meanwhile, took charge of the meeting. Removing the watch from his pocket, he took it out of the evidence bag to show it to the jeweler. “Is this one of your pieces?”

  The man shook his head at once. “No, I do watches in partnership with a trained watchmaker, but this isn’t my style. Too flashy. That said, the craftsmanship is exquisite—nothing mass-market. Not even an elite mass-market line. This is definitely custom.”

  The clerk, who’d come to hover near her boss, craned her neck to look at the watch. “I don’t recall seeing anything like this before—the design, I mean,” she said. “And Dad and I know most of the other jewelers in the country who do custom work.”

  Her boss—her father—frowned. “Ava’s right. It’s very unique, especially that sunburst design with the diamonds. Some of my competitors do have new jewelers on staff—it might’ve come from one of them.”

  Will didn’t sense deceit in either of these two; if anything, they seemed eager to help. Putting the watch back in the evidence bag, he said, “Would you recommend I speak to any other jewelers or watchmakers in particular?”

  Together, father and daughter came up with a list of seven, all of whom were already on his list. “Thank you.”

  Anahera walked out with him without saying anything further to either the jeweler or the clerk, though she did incline her head toward them in a silent good-bye.

  “Why release your music under the name Angel?” Will asked once they were on the sidewalk.

  Anahera rolled her eyes and her shoulders, as if shrugging off the stiffness. “Record company’s idea. They did a search on the meaning of my name, decided the stage name would be great for promotion. You know, the ‘plays like an angel’ shtick.”

  “Is it true that you’re self-taught?”

  “I used to sneak into the church and practice on their piano.” A faint smile. “When Pastor Mark came out to the cabin the day I got back to Golden Cove, he told me I could come play on the church piano anytime I wanted.”

  “I hear they tune it once every ten years, so you might be in luck.”

  Anahera laughed, and for a moment, they were just a man and a woman taking a walk in the sunshine.

  A minute later, she stopped by a food truck selling fresh-made wraps. “Yes?”

  Will nodded and they were soon eating their lunch as they walked to the next stop. “What’s it like being a famous musician?”

  “Famous pianist,” Anahera corrected. “We’re nowhere near as well-known as pop stars. I have no idea how he recognized me.” She took a bite of her wrap, waited until she’d swallowed before continuing. “I only ever did a few shows and the photo they used on the cover of the last album is all darkness and broken shadows.”

  Much like the music on that album. “You planning to get a piano in the cabin?” He finished his wrap. “Must be hard for a pianist to be in a place where you can’t practice your passion.”

  A skateboarder whizzed down the sidewalk on the other side of the street, expertly dodging the orange cones that marked out a construction zone. He stumbled to a stop when his cap flew off and he had to run back to retrieve it, but a few seconds later he was off again. “Do you remember ever being that young?” Anahera asked, her eyes following the boy until he disappeared down the street. “Having no responsibilities, no real worries.”

  “I had a cop for a father and for a mother.” Will threw both their wrappers into a trash can after holding out his hand for Anahera’s. “I grew up waiting for them to come home. Later, when I realized how dangerous their jobs could actually be, I was always half-afraid to answer the door in case the news was bad.”

  Anahera looked at him, her head angled and her eyes incisive. “Yet you became a cop.”

  “I guess you can’t fight destiny. We are who we are.”

  “Isn’t that a little fatalistic?” A sharp question.

  “Don’t you believe that we’re shaped by our experiences?”

  “If I believed that,” Anahera said, “I would’ve never escaped Golden Cove. I’d be like Matilda, giving my trust to the wrong man over and over again.”

  Even as Anahera spoke those words, she knew she was being a hypocrite. Maybe she hadn’t fallen for a physically abusive man like her father, or like the users Matilda dated, but she’d fallen for a liar, hadn’t she? Wasn’t that a kind of abuse, too? Making a woman fall in love with you, then smashing an anvil into her already broken heart.

  “This is our second stop.” Will opened the door of what looked to be nothing but a vestibule and his next words held the cool caution of a cop. “Better if I go up first here.”

  Anahera followed to find herself facing a narrow flight of steps, the kind that usually led to dingy apartments or fading internet cafés. But these steps were not only well lit, with the wood polished to a shine, there was also tasteful artwork on the walls—including a reproduction of one of Monet’s water lily paintings.

  At the top was a heavyset Asian male dressed in a black suit; he stood with his feet braced apart, one hand loosely clasped over the wrist of the other, and his face expressionless. The only thing missing was a neon sign with the word SECURITY on it. Will had clearly already spoken to him, because he said nothing as she walked in through the door Will was holding open for her. She could see it was much heavier than the one below and reinforced with metal.

  Beyond was the hushed quiet of an upscale jeweler’s. Anahera knew immediately that this wasn’t a place for casual browsers. You made an appointment during opening hours, or, if you were important enough, they’d accommodate your schedule—or bring the jewels directly to you.

  Not surprisingly, there was no friendly smile from the clerk this time. Instead, he gave them a supercilious sneer down his blade of a nose before scanning his gaze up then down both their bodies. “I’m afraid we’re not open to the public,” he said in a voice that matched the look on his face. “I do apologize if the security guard gave you a diffe
rent impression.” Not an ounce of sincerity in those words.

  Anahera wondered what he’d say if she told him she could afford the things in here. He’d probably call her a liar without saying a word. For some reason, that made her want to laugh . . . and then she remembered the jewels Edward had bought her during their marriage. Anniversary gifts. A glittering bauble for each year.

  She’d left them all in a safety-deposit box in London.

  Will didn’t react to the clerk’s condescending manner except to take out his ID and say, “I need to talk to someone about identifying a piece of jewelry.” His tone was so even and unruffled that it was deadly.

  The clerk visibly paled. “Of course, Detective,” he said and picked up a nearby phone to murmur into it.

  Another man walked out from the back seconds later, followed by a woman. Of East Asian descent, they were as identical as it was possible for two people of different genders to be—the same sleek hair, the same wide but fine bone structure, the same color suits. Charcoal, not black. Both paired with crisp white shirts.

  “I’m Shannon Chen and this is my brother Aaron Chen,” the woman said, holding out a hand toward Will.

  Not just siblings. Twins. Anahera would bet every cent she had on that.

  Releasing Will’s hand after the introductions between them were over, Shannon Chen reached out for Anahera’s.

  Anahera accepted the handshake, intrigued by this woman with the dark and brilliant eyes and her silent brother. “Anahera,” she said without adding anything further.

  “Detective, Anahera,” Shannon Chen said, “if you’d please come into the back to our private sitting room. We have an international client and her family arriving in ten minutes and I’d rather they not see us being questioned by the police.”

  “No problem,” Will said. “We’ll follow you.”

  A faint smile on the other woman’s face before she and her brother led them back into the private sitting area—though no one made any move to actually sit.

  Instinct telling her that Shannon Chen liked the look of Will, Anahera lingered in the hallway outside the actual room. She made a point of looking at the abstract painting on the wall, the pigment carved in austerely straight lines, but her ear was tuned in to the conversation happening within.

  37

  “I’m attempting to track down the maker or seller of this watch,” she heard Will say. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t attempt to lie to me. This is a serious missing person investigation and if I find out that you withheld information, I won’t hesitate to charge you. It doesn’t matter if you have friends in high places—they’ll drop you like a hot potato if it turns out our missing person was the victim of foul play.”

  His voice was matter-of-fact rather than threatening.

  “Our customers are used to privacy,” Shannon Chen replied, “but we don’t use that as a shield. The nature of our business means we’ve previously been targeted by thieves—I’d much rather you and your fellow officers not think of us as criminals.” The words were crisp and professional, even a little sharp, but Anahera noticed Shannon Chen had chosen her words with care. She hadn’t said that they weren’t criminals, only that they preferred not to be thought of as criminals.

  A subtle distinction and maybe no distinction at all, but it was interesting.

  “As for this watch . . .” A pause. “I don’t recognize it and I know all of the pieces we’ve ever made or traded. Aaron?”

  Another long pause, as if the watch was being examined. “No,” said a deep male voice that was oddly soft. “The style is too delicate for one of mine. I prefer harder edges. Shannon’s wearing one of my designs.”

  Anahera had noticed Shannon’s watch when they shook hands. It was more blocky than she might’ve expected on such a slender wrist, but it suited Shannon Chen. There was a sense of power to her and to the watch both; it was likely her brother had made the watch specifically for her. Anahera had seen far more delicate pieces in the showroom.

  Will had clearly noted the same. “It’s not worth putting your entire business in jeopardy to protect one client,” he said in that mild tone he could turn lethal. “Think carefully before you answer my question. Is this one of yours?”

  “I don’t have to think, Detective. This isn’t one of ours.” Shannon’s tone had cooled from professional to glacial. “However, I recognize the workmanship. I’ll write down the address for you.”

  Voices drifted in from the showroom, the language Korean from what Anahera could make out. The clerk answered in the same language, though he was clearly not ethnically Korean. She’d pegged him as more likely to be Indonesian. “Good service,” she said quietly to Shannon after turning to see Will sliding the watch back into the evidence bag. “How many languages does he speak?”

  “Five at last count.” The other woman smiled at her, the act unexpected. “You don’t sell jewels that start in the six figures without offering service of the highest caliber. Now”—she shifted her attention back to Will—“if you don’t mind, Aaron will show you the back way out while I go and greet our clients.”

  “Thank you for the help.”

  Shannon Chen headed to the doorway. “Come by sometime when you’re not in the mood to interrogate and we’ll have lunch.” She’d already passed Anahera, her perfume a subtle, elegant, and expensive musk, when she paused suddenly and glanced back. “I knew I remembered that face. Your husband bought your engagement ring from us when we were based in Auckland, showed me a photo of you.” Her eyes dropped to Anahera’s left hand, but she was too professional to mention the lack of either a wedding band or that tastefully extravagant engagement ring.

  Despite the courtesy, Anahera barely made it down the chipped concrete of the back steps without screaming. “It’s like Edward’s ghost is following me around today,” she said the instant she was alone with Will in the delivery bay behind the building.

  She shoved her hands into the pockets of her anorak, fisting them to white-knuckled tightness. “And how creepy is it that the brother doesn’t speak until the sister tells him to?”

  “Twins can be that way. It’s like they each take on certain duties. With the Chens, Shannon is the talker and the leader while Aaron takes care of everything in the back—and is probably the only person Shannon truly trusts.”

  Sudden dark heat burned at the backs of Anahera’s eyes. She looked desperately toward the light at the end of the small street, needing a way out. She couldn’t break down, not here, not now, not with this cop with his hard eyes and his body that made hers threaten to wake.

  “I’m going to get the car,” Will said, stepping ahead. “No point in you walking back, too. Wait by the parking sign on the street and I’ll pick you up.”

  Always a cop.

  Seeing too much.

  If he’d pushed, she’d have pushed back harder, her rage a smashing wave.

  But he was giving her room, was taking the first steps to the busy street beyond.

  “I miscarried twins.” The words she’d never once spoken shoved out of her throat. “I was far enough along that I had the bump, that the doctors could tell me I was carrying twins. But I waited to tell the people at home.” Some London friends had known, but those friends lived in a different world than the people of Golden Cove. “I wanted to surprise Josie and Nikau and the others with a great big six-month bump. And then I never told anyone at all.”

  Shifting on his heel to return to her, Will looked at her not with sympathy, not with pity, but with an understanding as desolate as it was angry. “It never fucking stops hurting, does it?”

  Jesus, God, someone finally got it. “I keep waiting for it to stop, but no, it never does.” And on days like today, when she’d come up against a pair of twins, the wound dug its way in and twisted.

  What would her twins have grown up to be like? Would they have been like Shannon and Aa
ron Chen, two people so in sync that they each had a specific role in the relationship and in the world? Or would her twins have been so different from each other that it was difficult to even tell that they were siblings? Anahera would never know. “Did you lose a child?”

  “He wasn’t mine, but I lost him anyway.” Voice rough and fingers curled viciously into his palms, Will nudged his head toward the street. “Let’s go. The address Shannon gave me is on the outskirts of town. We may as well pick up your laptop before we leave.”

  Walking out with him and into the chaos of life, Anahera blinked against the influx of noise. “You’re certain Shannon gave you the right person?”

  He handed over a piece of paper. On it was written an address; below that the words: The koru paired with the minuscule ruby embedded in the back is her trademark.

  38

  “This is it.” Will brought the SUV to a stop on a leafy suburban street, outside a white villa fronted by a manicured lawn and the bare limbs of dormant roses. “Your laptop should be safe enough to leave. This is an exclusive area, no street crime to speak of.”

  “Did you already have this place on your list?”

  “Yes. We were going to hit it last.”

  Anahera glanced at the other side of the street, her eyes on a new build that had been made to match the style of the older homes. A few more years, Will judged, a little more age on the plantings around it, and it would lose that unpolished new shine, begin to truly blend in.

  “It doesn’t look like the jeweler advertises.” Anahera turned back to the villa. “How did you find out about her?”

  “I’m a detective.”

  A hint of a smile on her face. “Touché.”

  Will wasn’t expecting the smile, or how beautiful she was when the light hit her eyes. Getting out of the vehicle without replying because he had no idea what the fuck to do with his response to her, he met her by the villa’s small white gate. Her smile was gone, her face back to its usual difficult-to-read state, and her hands stuffed into the pockets of her anorak.