Amber Beach

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “For someone who lives in Seattle, you sure know a lot about Anacortes.”

  “I was raised here.”

  “Oh. Is that where you met Captain whatshisname, he of the bright orange Zodiac?”

  “Conroy. What kind of clothes was Snake Eyes wearing?”

  “Generic stuff. Dark wind shirt and pants, like a warm-up suit. Leather jacket, cheap from the look of it. Some kind of athletic shoes, not new. A baseball cap that looked like it had hitchhiked from hell.”

  A picture of a snake-eyed man half a world away flashed through Jake’s mind. Even as he told himself it was extremely unlikely, he couldn’t shake the memory of Dimitri Pavlov’s little black eyes and standard E-Bloc thug couture, the kind of clothes that would be thought fashionable only in a country where Western consumer goods were rare.

  The problem with Pavlov as Snake Eyes was simple: no money for a ticket to the United States. Half the time Pavlov couldn’t even afford vodka. On the other hand, rumors that the Amber Room had been found would bring quite a gathering of international carnivores. Compared to the dead czar’s priceless amber art, the cost of a plane ticket was nothing. Some crooked entrepreneur could have financed Pavlov’s travel expenses in the hope of making an astronomical profit when the Amber Room was found.

  “Did the man have all his fingers and thumbs?” Jake asked.

  Honor grimaced, remembering the cops’ questions about the dead man who had washed up on a rocky island beach.

  “I didn’t count,” she said slowly, “but I didn’t notice anything missing.”

  “When was the first time you saw him?”

  “About four days ago.”

  “When was the last?”

  “Ten seconds after the first time. I told him the job had been filled and closed the door in his face.”

  “Was he angry about it?”

  “I didn’t ask. He didn’t say anything or make rude gestures.”

  “And you didn’t see him after that?” Jake asked.

  “No, thank God.”

  He frowned. “Not much to go on, but I’ll ask around the rougher bars.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly.

  “Afraid I’ll stub my toe on a bar stool?”

  Honor laughed despite her tension. “I don’t like to think of anyone getting into trouble because of me, that’s all.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “Does that mean you’re at home in tough bars?” she asked, curious about Jake. He rarely answered questions about himself, but that didn’t keep her from trying.

  “I stopped going to tough bars a long time ago,” he said. “But it’s like riding a bike—you don’t forget which moves work and which ones will leave you flat on your butt wondering what hit you.”

  “I didn’t know that being a fishing guide was such rough work.”

  “It isn’t. Growing up is, at least in downhill sliding towns like this one.”

  Honor looked up from her crab, which she was eating again with pleasure. “What did your father do?”

  “A bit of everything.” Jake picked up his wineglass and took a drink. “Is that a sketch pad I saw next to the Chapman’s?”

  She sighed. The subject of Jake Mallory was closed. But when it came to a non sequitur, she could give as good as she got.

  “I can only take so much talk of vectors and angles of intersection before I overload,” she said.

  He followed her train of thought without dropping a beat. “Then you start drawing?”

  “It’s part of my work. I design things using semiprecious stones.”

  “Jewelry?”

  “Jewelry, decorative art, things to please the eye and touch and spirit. Or ‘gemmy little knickknacks,’ as my patronizing brothers would say.”

  Jake smiled faintly. “Could you draw a sketch of Snake Eyes?”

  “Sure.”

  She leaned back in her chair and snagged the sketch pad off the counter. The pencil was a longer stretch. She pushed back on the chair, balancing it on two legs. It rocked, seemed to steady, then teetered on the edge of falling over.

  With startling speed Jake shot to his feet, righted her chair, and handed her the pencil.

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to tip back on your chair legs?” he asked.

  “Regularly.”

  “Did you ever listen?”

  “Does any kid?” she retorted. “No peeking. It makes me nervous when someone watches.”

  After a brief hesitation Jake sat down and went back to eating crab.

  Honor bent over the pad, eyes narrowed in concentration, hand relaxed yet firm on the pencil. Recalling the man’s appearance wasn’t difficult. Although she hadn’t spent much time looking at Snake Eyes, her instincts had been sending out wave after wave of chemical warnings. Adrenaline had burned his appearance into her memory very well.

  Too well. After the first crank phone call she had seen the man in her dreams, the kind of dreams that left her wide awake, straining to hear every tiny sound of wind and forest and wave.

  Very quickly a likeness of the would-be fishing guide appeared on the sketch paper. First Honor drew the shape of the face, then the stance of the body, then the details of clothing and expression. Not once did she pause. She drew slowly only when she was creating something that hadn’t ever existed before. What she was drawing right now was a direct translation from reality. Unfortunately.

  After a minute she held the pad at arm’s length, tilted her head, and studied it.

  “Done?” Jake asked, reaching for the pad.

  “Not quite.”

  She touched up the eyebrows and the line of the mouth, added shadows, and held the result out to Jake. His whistle of surprise and approval of her talent rippled up and down the scale. It reminded her of Kyle’s expertise with flutes and penny whistles.

  “You’re one hell of an artist,” Jake said, recognizing Dimitri Pavlov instantly. As Honor had said: Snake Eyes.

  “That’s illustration, not art.”

  “Says who?”

  “Folks who are paid to know the difference.”

  He grunted, unimpressed by her reasoning. Then he looked at the sketch with unfocused eyes and thought of all the good, legitimate reasons that one of his best Lithuanian amber connections might be in the United States trying to pass himself off as a fishing guide.

  Jake couldn’t think of a single good reason. Bad ones were easy. He had always suspected that the son of a bitch was working for more than one master. Now the only question was, which two or three or four? Politics in the Baltic states was a blood sport based on thousands of years of grudges. Everyone could play. No entry fee necessary. No way out of the game.

  “Was he alone?” Jake asked, flicking a finger at the sketch.

  “I didn’t see anyone else.”

  “What about a car or a truck?”

  “I didn’t look for one. Once I opened that door, all I could think of was getting it closed again. Fast.”

  “I don’t blame you. This guy looks like a nasty bit of business.”

  And he was. Pavlov might not be real long on brains, but he had the kind of contacts that were invaluable in a society where the good guys and the bad guys were a matter of opinion and nobody agreed on anything, even the color of the sky. Both Donovan International and Emerging Resources had purchased Pavlov’s expertise in the past.

  Jake wondered who was buying it now.

  Carefully he folded the sketch and tucked it into his jacket pocket, even though he no longer needed to ask around to find out the man’s identity. He didn’t want Honor asking how he knew Pavlov.

  “Did you lock up the boat good and tight?” Jake asked.

  “Somehow I don’t think theft will be a problem.”

  “Because this is such a small, backward town?” he asked dryly.

  “No. Because after you left I took the rotor cap out of the distributor. The Tomorrow’s engine won’t start.”

  His eyebro
ws lifted. So much for his idea of offering to keep an eye on the boat by sleeping on it—and using the time to go through the electronics without having Honor looking over his shoulder.

  There were several ways to hide something the size of the amber shipment. The quickest, cheapest way was to bury it under the sea and mark its location electronically. Salt water didn’t leave trails and didn’t hurt amber. Kyle’s Zodiac, diving suit, and handheld GPS receiver were missing, along with an anchor heavy enough to sink a fortune in amber. All Jake needed to do was ferret out the electronic treasure map from the Tomorrow’s computer.

  “So you disabled the engine, huh?” he asked. “Did you bring the electronics up to the house?”

  “I didn’t even think of it. Isn’t everything bolted down?”

  “Not quite.”

  She frowned. “Are you saying that the electronics are easy to remove and reinstall?”

  “Not the way your brother has them rigged.”

  “Leave it to Kyle to do things the hard way. Now what?”

  “No problem. I’ll just move aboard the Tomorrow for a while. That way nobody can break in and make off with thousands of dollars in electronics.”

  “You think somebody is after Kyle’s computer?”

  Honor was awfully damned quick, Jake thought uncomfortably. Not that it should surprise him. The other Donovans he had met weren’t stupid.

  “Computers are expensive, portable, and pawnable,” he said. “That makes them a target.”

  “I locked the boat.”

  He hesitated, then mentally shrugged and went for the gold ring. After all the instructions he had heaped on her head today, plus reading Chapman’s, she should have figured out that she wouldn’t turn into a boat driver overnight. If she was after the amber, she needed a trusty native guide.

  Or at least a knowledgeable one.

  “After reading the newspaper,” Jake said, “it wouldn’t surprise me if every amateur hard-ass with dreams of finding a fortune in amber is after your brother. A locked cabin door with a glass panel isn’t much of a barrier against that kind of ambition.”

  Without meaning to, Honor looked around the small cottage. The newly installed locks taunted her with all that she didn’t know about Kyle, stolen amber, and questions Archer wouldn’t answer.

  “I guess I can sleep on the boat,” she said.

  Clearly the idea didn’t appeal to her.

  “Why bother?” he asked. “I like being on the water. You don’t.”

  She grimaced but didn’t argue the point. “Are you sure you don’t mind sleeping on the boat?”

  “Positive. Put the engine back together while I get some stuff from home. I’ll move aboard tonight.”

  “But what if a burglar does try to break in?”

  “I’ll scream.”

  “That will be a big help.”

  “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Or are you the type who carries a can of pepper spray and a purse pistol?”

  “No to the gun,” she said. “I’ve thought about buying some pepper spray but it never got farther than that. Thinking.”

  “How are you at screaming?”

  “I used to be about nine on the Richter scale. Faith has more volume, but Archer swore that I could pierce eardrums at fifty yards.”

  Jake smiled. “How worried are you about those one-way calls you’ve been getting?”

  “Worried enough to be glad that someone will be within screaming distance,” she admitted.

  “Does that mean you don’t think I’ll give you reason to scream?”

  “If I thought that, I wouldn’t have hired you.”

  “I’m no Snake Eyes, is that it?”

  Honor toasted him with her glass of wine. “I’ve never met a gray-eyed snake. Lucky for you, huh?”

  Luckier than she could imagine, Jake thought. She was as wary as any intelligent urban female, but she lacked the bone-deep spookiness of a wild animal—or someone who had been burned to the bone by trusting the wrong person.

  Jake raised his wineglass. “To luck.” He would need a lot more of it to get out of this mess intact.

  And whether Honor knew it or not, so would she.

  7

  IT WAS STILL dark when Honor’s alarm clock went off. The alarm began as a gentle chiming, graduated to a reasonably polite buzzer, then moved on to an alley-cat-ecstasy imitation, the kind of screeching that gets mating felines in trouble with the neighbors. The whole cycle took fifteen minutes. She had been asleep for the first fourteen minutes and fifty-five seconds. She still wanted to be asleep.

  Groaning, she pulled the pillow over her ears and burrowed beneath the covers. The alarm clock’s shriek followed her. The sound was electronically created, electronically amplified, and absolutely impossible to ignore. Not for the first time she cursed Kyle’s inventiveness with bits and pieces of technology. Somehow he had spliced the horrific scream into an otherwise normal battery-driven clock.

  “All right, all right! I’m awake!”

  The alarm was neither bright enough to accept her surrender nor stupid enough to believe it. The wailing, gnashing sounds went on until she shot out of bed, stalked across the room, and silenced the infernal machine.

  “At least I’m sure Kyle isn’t a drunk,” Honor said, rubbing her eyes. “No man who suffered regular hangovers would invent an alarm clock like that.”

  A pounding sound came from the direction of the front door.

  “Honor! Are you all right?”

  She hadn’t known Jake long, but she had plenty of older brothers; she recognized the voice of a man who was one inch from doing something physical. She raced to the front door, shot the bolt open, and jerked on the handle.

  The porch light showed Jake with his fist raised above the door frame out of her sight. She had no doubt that he was lining up for another blow to the innocent cottage.

  “The sun isn’t even a prayer on the eastern horizon,” she snarled. “Why in God’s name are you hammering on my door?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I wake up. Now was there anything in particular you wanted or are you just a born-again pain in the ass?”

  Jake leaned his weight against the fist that was out of sight above the door. He put his other fist on his hip.

  “What in hell is going on?” he asked.

  His tone sliced through the lovely fog of sleep Honor had been trying to hang on to. Her eyes widened as she really looked at Jake for the first time. He had shaving cream smeared across one bearded cheek. An oddly carved amber medallion on a black silk cord gleamed against a pelt of rumpled male chest fur. Dark blue skivvies rode low on his hips, cupping the remains of an early-morning erection.

  “Good grief!” she said, staring. “Do you always run around in your underwear?”

  “Only when I’m racing to the rescue of screaming idiots.”

  “Screaming . . . ohmygod. Could you hear it clear down on the boat?”

  “The boat, hell. I’m expecting them to scramble a squadron from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.”

  She groaned and covered her eyes. “It’s all Kyle’s fault.”

  “What? Is he here?” Jake asked sharply, looking past her.

  “No. Just his alarm.”

  “Alarm? As in clock?”

  She nodded. “Kyle and I have one thing in common. We are not morning people.”

  “So?”

  “So he built an alarm clock guaranteed to get me up. It was a birthday present.”

  Jake closed his eyes and tried to calm the storm of adrenaline that had exploded through him when he heard the awful screaming.

  “Birthday present,” he said. Breath hissed through his teeth. “It’s a wonder Kyle survived your gratitude.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about waking you up.”

  “I was already awake and thinking about shaving for the first time in a month. Are you finished staring or were you planning to stuff money in my jockstrap?”<
br />
  Honor’s mouth dropped open. Her eyes narrowed. The door slammed in his face.

  Jake let out another hissing breath, turned away, and lowered the hand that he had kept out of her sight. The gun he held was dark and every bit as efficient as it looked. He figured it was a little soon in his relationship with the sexy Ms. Donovan to explain why a fishing guide needed a handful of matte-black death.

  Thank God for the Donovan temper. Making her mad enough to slam the door had been pure inspiration. It had been brought on by the knowledge that if he had to stash the gun out of sight in the cottage’s rain gutter, he was in for an hour of penance with the cleaning kit as soon as he retrieved the weapon.

  Not to mention the fact that a few more seconds of being admired by those wide, amber-green eyes of hers and he would have popped right out of his Jockey shorts.

  “Down, boy,” he muttered, walking quickly toward the little dock.

  Boy wasn’t having any of it. That was the problem. Boy had seen what he wanted—it had tangled chestnut hair, a sleep-softened mouth, and a hip-length green T-shirt that fit just enough to make him want to get inside it.

  “I don’t need this.”

  But he sure wanted it.

  “Of all the butt-dumb, ass-stupid . . . ouch!”

  Even as he cursed the cold, uneven rocks he hadn’t noticed when he sprinted barefoot up to the cottage, he welcomed the discomfort each step brought. It helped to get his mind off his crotch.

  On the way to the boat, he decided to hell with shaving. After four weeks the stubble had become beard-soft and didn’t itch anymore. Besides, winter was coming eventually and he had it on good authority that women hated face fur. They liked the clean—shaven pretty boys or the way—cool types who had to plan their dates two days in advance so they would have just the right amount of fuck-you bristle on their city cheeks.

  Muttering every step of the way, Jake tried to find the silver lining in his particular cloud. The best he could come up with was the fact that by now everyone watching the cabin would know the prey was up and about.

  The thought of Ellen getting a predawn wake-up call made him smile.

  Honor pulled herself together, dressed, and hurried down to the dock. It was still dark. The Tomorrow’s lights were on, the engine was chuckling to itself like a tree full of ravens, and fishing gear was laid out. She looked at the rods standing upright in the rod holders next to the cabin door. Then she measured the big black dip net waiting in what Jake called a “rocket launcher” mounted on the roof. Exotic bits of fishing gear dangled from the rim of a white plastic bucket. Inside the bucket a package of frozen bait fish was slowly thawing.