Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

her brother was a thief, the less she would feel betrayed by Jake when she found out that he was no more a fishing guide than she was a woman who was yearning to learn how to fish.
    Jake didn’t want to be classed in the same lying category as Honor’s ruthless, treacherous, charming brother.
    “I think you’ll agree that your brother and a fortune in amber disappeared at the same time?” Jake asked mildly.
    Honor closed her eyes, then opened them and met his level glance. “Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a thief.”
    Even more than a month’s growth of beard couldn’t hide the impatience and anger that drew Jake’s mouth into a hard line. He switched the lower screen from chart to depth sounder and stared at the colorful red and blue screen. Flat bottom. Ninety feet down. No fish showing. Nothing had changed.
    Including Honor’s stubborn belief in her brother.
    “You’re a loyal sister but a lousy thinker,” Jake said. “You’ll get a lot closer to where your brother is if you take the most likely explanation for the facts as we know them and work from there.”
    “You think Kyle stole the amber.”
    Jake glanced up from the screen. “Can you think of a better explanation?”
    She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She swallowed. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it.”
    He raised one dark eyebrow and waited.
    “I . . . I just . . .” Her voice died into a painful silence.
    “Never mind,” he said roughly. “Believe whatever you have to, but don’t expect the rest of the world to worship at the altar of Kyle Donovan.”
    “The man driving the amber shipment was killed when it was stolen,” Honor said in a strained voice. “Could you believe that your brother was a thief and a murderer?”
    “I’m not close enough to my stepbrothers or half brothers for it to get in the way of my judgment.”
    Jake looked back at the fishing rods. Nothing new there, either. He turned back to Honor.
    “Whatever the circumstances,” he said in a neutral tone, “I’m assuming that Kyle and the amber are together. Some other people in official positions seem to be assuming it, too. Can we agree on that much, at least?”
    She nodded.
    He let out a hidden breath and sorted quickly through the information he had gotten from the newspapers rather than firsthand in Kaliningrad or from Ellen and Conroy.
    “Okay,” Jake said. “Do you know how much bulk we’re talking about?”
    “Six feet, two inches, about one-ninety,” Honor said in a clipped voice.
    “I meant the amber. How big a shipment are we talking about?”
    “I don’t know. Depends on the quality, I guess. The newspaper mentioned a million dollars. From the cost of the one shipment Kyle just sent me, a million dollars would buy a lot of ordinary amber.”
    “Is that what Donovan International is claiming from its insurer—a million bucks?”
    “We don’t have a claim. We never received the amber, so it wasn’t ours to lose.”
    Bullshit , Jake thought savagely, but he didn’t say anything aloud. Obviously the Donovan males were hiding a few things from their beloved little sister.
    “How about the amber itself?” he asked. “Was it raw or worked?”
    She frowned. “I’m not sure, but I think both.”
    Excitement threaded through Jake. Honor was the first person who had mentioned worked amber as opposed to material fresh from the mine. Unless he took Ellen’s talk about the Amber Room seriously. He really didn’t want to do that. He was still praying that Ellen was chasing a ghost.
    The last thing he needed was the kind of trouble a stolen Amber Room would bring down on his head. Financing a handful of wannabe rebels was one thing. A dumb thing. Stealing a piece of a country’s cultural history was quite another.
    Wars had been started for less.
    “What kind of worked amber?” Jake asked casually.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Old or new stuff? Cups, sculptures, boxes, rosaries, tables, candlesticks, mosaics, jewelry? What was the worked amber like?”
    “Really old. Neolithic. Kyle started collecting Stone Age pieces when he was handling the jade trade for Donovan International. Then he discovered the small Neolithic figurines or pendants carved of opaque amber. Bastard amber is what he called it.”
    Jake knew the type of amber object Honor was describing. It was another of the things he and Kyle had found in common: Jake had a long-standing fascination with fossil resin shaped into art by