Her husband had trusted no one. He always opened the “experimental” oysters himself. And he was careful to have ordinary oysters in among the special ones, just to have some pearly junk to show the curious. He never would have told her about the rainbows at all if he hadn’t needed her hyperacute color perception to find the best matches among the iridescent, seductively colorful black gems.
Despite all Len’s care, despite his paranoia, in the past few years, some of the special black pearls had been stolen and found their way to the marketplace. Yet Len wouldn’t share the secret of producing the black rainbows.
He had been killed for it. As soon as the murderer discovered that she knew nothing about producing them, her life would be worthless. She would be all that stood between the killer and ownership of Pearl Cove, home of the oysters that produced fabulous, unique black pearls.
“Rainbows?” she asked through stiff lips. “We’ve had some lovely peacock blue—”
“No,” Chang cut in. “They’re not the same.”
“If your family is buying in to Pearl Cove for these so-called rainbows, you’ll be disappointed. I don’t have any for you.” That, at least, was the truth. Most of the special pearls had been destroyed as unworthy. The rest had been kept in the vault.
And the vault lay like a cracked steel egg inside the ruined shed.
Chang watched her with clear black eyes and formidable intelligence. “Think about our offer.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe that the cyclone season is coming.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a fact. Sell Pearl Cove to the Changs. We’re big enough to weather the coming storm. You aren’t. Don’t follow Len into the grave.”
For a breath Hannah wished she owned all of Pearl Cove and could turn it over to the Changs. Then she would run. The Stone Age villages in the rain forests of Brazil had never looked so good to her. So safe.
But that was cowardice whispering seductively in her ear. She couldn’t sell, had no money to run, and was damned if she would be again what she had been at nineteen—a runaway stranded in a strange city with night coming on and no assets to sell but her newly unvirginal body.
“I can’t sell Pearl Cove,” she said evenly.
“You mean you won’t.”
“No. I mean I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Half of it belongs to Archer Donovan.”
“What?” Chang demanded, too shocked to hide it.
“Archer—Mr. Donovan—was Len’s silent partner.”
“For how long?”
“Seven years.”
“Bloody hell. No wonder Len is dead. He finally buggered the wrong man.”
“What are you saying?”
Chang laughed curtly. “They don’t come any more ruthless than Archer Donovan.”
“I didn’t think the Chang family would back up for anyone.”
“A man who can tangle with the Red Phoenix Triad and come out on top deserves respect. Archer Donovan has it.” Chang turned away. “I’ve got to make a call. This changes everything.”
The screen door swung shut behind Chang. Moments later, red dust boiled, then settled in the wake of his car.
For a long time Hannah sat on the verandah in the hammock chair, unmoving but for the occasional prod of one foot against the floor. Back and forth. Back and forth.
She didn’t doubt Chang’s appraisal of Archer Donovan; she had been in a position to see just how ruthless he could be. But not with Len. Never with Len. Despite ample provocation, Archer had never acted against Len McGarry. Quite the opposite. He had saved Len’s life, paid for his rehabilitation, and made him a partner in Pearl Cove. Then he did what Len had demanded: he got the hell out of Len’s life and stayed out.
She didn’t know what the bond was between the two men. She only knew that it existed. Perhaps it extended beyond the grave. Perhaps Archer Donovan would care enough to do what no one else would—find Len’s murderer.
If revenge wasn’t enough to move Archer, there was always money. Even the most ruthless man might be persuaded to search for Pearl Cove’s vanished treasure if he was promised half of something that was worth three million dollars wholesale.
The Black Trinity.
Three
With reflexes left over from the years he couldn’t leave behind, Archer came from deep sleep to full wakefulness. Lean fingers snatched the phone from its cradle before he even looked at the clock.
Two A.M.
Visions of all that could have gone wrong with the family sleeted through his brain. Faith was first in his mind. The man she had just broken up with had knocked around his first wife and at least one of his girlfriends. The Donovan brothers had told Tony what to expect if he laid a hand on Faith, but Tony’s memory wasn’t reliable when he started drinking.
Archer looked at the display on the phone that gave incoming numbers. It was blank. That left out the family, and let in Uncle Sam.
Shit.
“What,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
“Is this Archer Donovan?”
“Yes.”
“This is—”
“Hannah McGarry,” he interrupted, wondering if he was still asleep. That smoky voice of hers had haunted too many of his dreams.
“How did you know?”
“I have a good memory. What’s wrong, Hannah?”
“Len’s dead.”
Archer didn’t try to sort out the boil of emotions those two words brought him: disbelief, relief, guilt, anger, sadness for all that might have been. He didn’t say anything about his own feelings. The tension in Hannah’s voice told him that she had more to say, none of it good.
“When?” he asked.
“Just . . . days.”
Old habits were hard to break. Especially when he could all but taste the fear in Hannah’s desperately level voice. The quality of the connection told him that she was using a cellular phone, open to anyone who cared enough to eavesdrop. So he didn’t ask her where or how or why Len had died.
“I’m sorry,” Archer said softly. “That’s not adequate, but in the face of death, no words are. I’ll be there no later than noon tomorrow, your time, earlier if at all possible.”
Hannah’s fingers loosened a bit on the thin, vaguely oblong plastic body of the cellular phone. All she could think of was that Archer understood everything she hadn’t said. “I . . . thank you.”
Archer knew he shouldn’t ask, but the words were out before he could stop them. “Are you all right?”
She shivered, remembering Len’s stripped, battered body and sightless eyes, and Chang’s warning: Cyclone season is coming. Don’t follow Len into the grave.
“Hannah?”
“Hurry, Archer. I’m getting . . . sleepy.”
The quality of the sound changed, telling him that she had disconnected. He didn’t bother cursing the empty line. If someone had a lock on her cellular, she was safer not talking at all.
He punched in one of Donovan International’s unlisted numbers, the one Donovan executives called when things started to go from sugar to shit. No matter what time it was, someone would answer this number.
“This is Archer Donovan,” he said. “Put me through to someone who can get me to Broome, Australia, no later than noon tomorrow. Shave every minute you can.”
“Noon U.S or Australian time?” asked a woman’s voice.
“Australian.”
“Where are you now?”
“Seattle.”
“Thank you. One moment, please.”
It was more than one moment, but at least he was spared any canned music. He waited quietly, not showing the urgency riding him or the adrenaline licking in his blood, called by the fear that even Hannah’s smoky voice couldn’t conceal. He simply held the phone and made a list of things that had to be done before he landed in Australia. Some could be handled from the plane. The important things couldn’t.
K
yle Donovan was in for a rude awakening.
“Thank you for waiting,” said a man’s voice. “None of the Donovan International aircraft can get you from Seattle to Australia in your time frame. We have chartered a jet from Boeing Field to Hawaii. A company jet will meet you there. Our files show that your Australian visa is up-to-date.”
Archer’s passport was never mentioned. People in Donovan International would sooner take up nude ice-climbing than let their passport lapse.
“Are you at the Donovan family suite in Seattle?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
“A car will pick you up in half an hour. A rental car has been reserved in Broome. Will there be anything else?”
“Not at the moment. Good work.”
“That’s what you pay me for, mate,” the man said, allowing his native Australia to color his voice for the first time.
Archer hit the disconnect and headed for the door that led to the family areas of the Donovan suites. Kyle and Lianne were in town to celebrate Donald Donovan’s birthday. Jake and Honor were due in this afternoon. Archer regretted missing his sister and her husband, but not as much as he regretted having to tell The Donovan that Len McGarry was dead. Happy Birthday, Dad. And by the way, the son who hated you is dead.
Grim-faced, Archer started knocking on the door to Kyle’s suite. Moments later, it opened. The person who opened the door wasn’t Kyle, who wouldn’t get out of bed before nine o’clock for anything but a dawn salmon-fishing raid. His wife, however, didn’t need a kick-start to get going. Mussed with sleep, wearing a navy man’s T-shirt that came to her knees, six months pregnant with twins, looking like a grumpy Munchkin, Lianne stood in the open door. One look at Archer’s face had her wide-awake.
“What’s wrong?” she asked quickly. “Is—”
“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he cut in quickly. “Everyone you love is just fine. Get your husband’s lazy ass out of bed. I need him.”
“It’s four-fifteen!”
“I know what time it is. Get Kyle or let me do it.” With an effort, Archer gentled his voice. “It’s all right, Lianne. I just need his computer magic right now. I’ll be in the kitchen making coffee. Or do you want me to wrestle him out of bed for you?”
“Any bed-wrestling Kyle does will be with me. Make enough coffee for three.”
The door closed before Archer could thank his sister-in-law, or even pat the taut mound of her stomach where another generation of Donovans was doing lazy backflips.
By the time Archer had coffee and Canadian bacon made, Kyle wandered into the kitchen wearing navy shorts and a hairy chest. Archer handed his youngest brother a mug of well-creamed coffee and turned back to the pancakes that were just beginning to firm on the griddle. With Kyle, there was no point in trying to talk until the first cup of coffee—and sometimes the second or third—had burned through the morning fog that passed for his brain.
Lianne was more alert. She was still wearing Kyle’s T-shirt, the one that celebrated the hazards of men who went fly-fishing naked. She pushed long, black hair out of her face, poured her own coffee, sugared it, and scooted in next to Kyle in the breakfast nook without saying a word to her husband. Early in their relationship, she had decided that there was only one thing Kyle was good for in the first few minutes after waking up, and she didn’t need a witness for that. Sipping coffee, she looked at Seattle’s glittering lights spread against the utter black of a November morning.
Kyle took his second cup without cream, drank it down, shuddered, and held out his cup for more without looking at Archer. Halfway into the third cup, he raked his fingers through his blond hair, straightened, and clicked into focus.
“Where’s the fire?” he asked irritably.
“If there was a fire, you’d be toast by now,” Archer said.
“Yeahyeahyeah. This better be good.”
“A half brother you never knew just died.” As Archer spoke, he flipped pancakes onto a warm plate.
Kyle’s green-and-gold eyes narrowed to slits. It took him less than two heartbeats to realize that his brother was serious. “Jesus.”
“I doubt that religion had anything to do with it. Len McGarry wasn’t a churchgoing man.” Archer put the pancake plate in the oven and poured more batter onto the griddle.
“Half brother. Holy shit.” Kyle looked into his coffee and took a slow, deep breath. “Dad or Mom?”
“Dad. Before he met Mom.”
“How do you know?”
“Long story. I don’t have time for it and it doesn’t matter now. Just don’t say anything to The Donovan or Susa,” Archer added, using his parents’ nicknames. “I’ll tell Dad when I know more. He can tell Mom whatever he wants.”
“Was The Donovan married before?” Lianne asked.
“No.”
She winced. “I hope being raised a bastard was easier on your half brother than it was on me.”
“Len wouldn’t know easy if it walked up and tied a knot in his pecker,” Archer said, putting a plate of pancakes and bacon in front of his sister-in-law. “Eat. You’re too thin to be carrying that big mutt’s children.”
“Thin?” she asked, outraged. “Archer, I could barely get into the breakfast nook!”
“We run to twins, sugar,” he said, smiling at her. It was one of his rare smiles, the kind that made people want to get closer rather than to look for the nearest exit.
“Who are you calling sugar?” Kyle asked, rubbing Lianne’s belly and eyeing her plate of food at the same time.
“Not you, fish breath. There’s nothing sweet about you in the morning.” Archer pulled a plate out of the oven and shoved food under Kyle’s nose. “Feed your nerd cells. I need them.”
“Talk to me.” Kyle picked up the syrup and began pouring generously. “I can listen and eat at the same time.”
“About two this morning, Len’s widow, Hannah McGarry, called and told me he was dead. Her voice told me a lot more. She’s scared down to the soles of her elegant feet.”
Something in Archer’s tone made Kyle stop shoveling in food and look at his brother. Elegant feet?
Archer didn’t notice his brother’s glance. His eyes were narrowed, more gray than green, with not a hint of the blue that sunlight and sky could bring out. He was focused on a past only he could see.
“She was calling on an open line,” he said, “so I didn’t ask questions and she didn’t offer answers. I told her I’d be in Broome by noon tomorrow.”
“Broome? In Australia?” Lianne asked.
Archer nodded.
“Pearls,” Kyle said instantly.
Archer nodded again. “Len and I are—were—partners in a pearl-culturing venture. Pearl Cove Farms.”
“I didn’t know that,” Kyle said.
Archer didn’t answer. There was a lot about his past that his family didn’t know. He planned on keeping it that way. If he could have wiped some of the memories from his own brain, he would have. But he couldn’t, so he lived with them and did whatever it took to make sure that no one else had to.
“Normal spelling on Pearl Cove Farms?” Kyle asked, already organizing the computer search in his mind.
“Yes.”
“Is it a registered business?”
“Licensed, taxed to the max, and all but one form duly filed,” Archer said.
“Which one?”
“The partnership agreement.”
“Why?”
“Len’s choice. I didn’t care. But the partnership will stand up in court, here or there, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Everything you can get electronically on Hannah McGarry.”
Archer slid into the opposite side of the breakfast nook. His knees bumped Kyle’s. Archer was older by four years and a timeless amount of experience, but Kyle was every bit as large physically.
“What about Len?” Kyle asked. “You want me to go after him while I’m at it?”
&n
bsp; “Sure, get what you can. Pearl Cove, too.”
“You got me up before dawn to do what any hacker could do?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you aren’t any hacker. You’re my brother and Len’s half brother. You won’t leave any tracks, you’ll keep your mouth shut about what you find, and you won’t be tempted by bribes or blackmail. And if it gets really nasty . . . ” Archer shrugged. Kyle, for all his blond good looks, could fight for his life. And had.
“Why don’t I like the sound of that last bit?” Lianne asked beneath her breath.
“Because you know how nasty family fights can be,” Archer said.
“Family?” Kyle asked.
“Len,” Archer said curtly. “He’s dead, but whatever snowball he pushed off the mountain is still rolling. And I have a nasty feeling that his widow is standing right in the center of the avalanche chute.”
“So you’re flying halfway around the world to stand there with her?”
“I’d do the same for Lianne.”
Kyle blinked, then sighed. “Sorry. I’m just not used to having another brother, much less a sister-in-law to worry about. You’re right. She’s family.” He gave Lianne a sideways glance. “Will the Tang family give me a rain check on—”
“No,” Archer said instantly. “You’re staying here.”
“Wrong. I’m going to Australia. As you pointed out, Len was my brother, too.”
“You didn’t know him. I did.”
Lianne’s tilted, cognac eyes went from brother to brother. Though one man was dark and one was light, both were stubborn to the core.
“If you go, I go,” she said to Kyle.
“No,” the brothers said as one.
“Why is it,” she asked sweetly, “that every time you two agree on something, I’m the loser? Like hell I’m staying here.”
“You’re both staying here,” Archer said. “If I need anyone, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Damn it—” Kyle began.
“No.” Archer’s voice was cold and deadly. Like his eyes. It was the very part of himself he had tried to keep from his family. “Don’t push me on this, Kyle. Neither one of us will like what happens. But it will happen just the same.”
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