Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

warmer than observation—something like the unqualified love she gave her brother—but Jake wasn’t in a position to be fussy.
    “Kyle’s passion is ancient jade,” she continued, “not ancient amber, and he doesn’t need money.”
    “If you’re looking for a motive, don’t forget Kyle’s other passion,” Jake said evenly. “The very modern Marju.”
    “He left her!”
    “Did he? Or did he run out of luck doing something dumb in order to finance his love life?”
    The downward curve of Honor’s mouth said that she didn’t like thinking about her brother’s fiancé, a red-hot motive for real stupidity.
    “He still didn’t need money,” Honor insisted.
    “How long would Kyle’s personal checkbook hold out living high in Brazil? Not the Donovan family money, but his own?”
    A ripple went through her body, a signal of the tension that was increasing with every word Jake spoke.
    “Don’t ask me to believe Kyle is a thief,” Honor said harshly. “Please, don’t! ”
    Jake reached for her, wanting to hold her and comfort her. She drew back as though he had offered to hit her. His mouth thinned in anger and frustration. She might trust him when she thought about it, and she sure enjoyed sex with him, but she still lumped him with her brother’s enemies.
    “It will be slack tide soon,” Jake said, turning away. “I’ll drop anchor and get the dive gear ready.”
    Instead of answering, Honor grabbed a fishing rod and a heavy lure and went out on the stern. The motion of the boat in choppy water had become so familiar to her that she didn’t even notice it. She simply widened her stance, lifted the rod, and sent the lure whipping out over the water with all the force of her fear and anger behind it.
    Honor didn’t say anything when Jake went over the stern and into the water wearing wet suit, mask, hood, flippers, and snorkel. She didn’t seem to notice when he finally returned and put on the air tank. Yet when he went off the swim step and sank below the cold water, she shivered as though she were chilled clear through. After a few more casts she reeled in, put the rod in a holder, and stretched her aching arms.
    No matter how carefully Honor looked at the ocean around Seal Rock, she saw no sign of Jake other than the dive buoy he had set out. To make the time pass more quickly, she went inside the cabin and tried to sketch. The pencil felt awkward in her hand. The images in her mind were more horrifying than artful.
    With a sound of disgust, she put away her sketching materials and looked around. At home she would have paced away her nervous energy. But there wasn’t room for pacing on the boat, and the substitute she had discovered—casting—didn’t appeal to her right now.
    The radio crackled, making her jump. She heard the Coast Guard “All Stations” broadcast for information about a twenty-seven-foot SeaSport, name Tomorrow probable destination the San Juan or the Gulf Islands. Hurriedly she stepped up into the helm seat and switched from the hailing channel to the work channel.
    No one answered the Coast Guard’s query.
    After a few minutes of listening, Honor let out a sigh of relief. Her glance fell on the chart plotter. Jake had left it on, displaying the last entry Kyle had made. She stared at the representation of Seal Rock and the dotted lines that seemed to circle around the rock at random. Seven “hits” were recorded.
    Honor went back to the menu, called up the first stored route, and looked at it. Nothing had changed since the last ten times she had stared at it, silently demanding that the chart give up its secrets to her. She called up the second route. Nothing new. The third. The fourth. The fifth. The sixth.
    “Where are you, Kyle?” she said aloud. “Damn it! Where are you!”
    One by one, she retrieved and stared at all the routes Kyle had stored. Like her attempt to sketch, no inspiration came.
    “If you weren’t trying to hide something, why doesn’t your log show that you went to these places?”
    Silence and a slowly subsiding wind were her only answers.
    Honor pulled Kyle’s logbook off the dash and flipped through it as she had many times before. Nothing new leaped out at her.
    “Kyle, you’re going to have to help me on this one. I have the key, but it’s no good without the lock. Where did you hide the lock? ”
    As soon as Honor said the words, a thread of excitement snaked through her. Almost afraid to believe, to try, and then to suffer