Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

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