Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

fought Len McGarry ten years ago and let hell take the leftovers. But Hannah had watched Len with worshipful eyes, and Archer had told himself that she was what Len needed, that her lush, sweet innocence would heal the breaks in his half brother’s soul.
    Remembering his own naïveté, Archer smiled. The curve of his lips was about as comforting as a scythe. No reason to kill Len? “You have no idea how wrong you are, Hannah.”
    Her breath stuck in her throat at what she saw in his face. At that moment he reminded her chillingly of Len. Dangerous. Distant. Ruthless.
    “But in one thing you’re right,” Archer said. “I didn’t kill Len. Where were you when he died, Mrs. McGarry?”
    She met his eyes straight on, as controlled and remote as he was. “I didn’t kill Len.”
    “You had a better motive than most.”
    “If I wanted his death on my conscience, all I had to do was walk out on him.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Hating me kept him alive. Loving pearls almost kept him sane.”
    “Almost,” Archer repeated softly, understanding much of what Hannah didn’t say. Even ten years ago, Len had gone off on rages of laughter or drinking or screwing. Or mayhem. “Yet you stayed with him. You’re either very brave or very stupid, Hannah.”
    “I’m neither. Life happens one day at a time, like water dripping on stone. You don’t notice the change except over years.” She rubbed her aching eyes. “As for the rest, no one deserves all the good or the bad that comes their way. You just take it the way it comes, one day at a time.”
    “Echoes of a missionary upbringing?”
    She shrugged and stuffed a slippery piece of hair behind her ear. “I no longer thank God for the good that happens or blame my inborn evil for the bad. I just . . . ” Her voice faded.
    “Survive,” Archer finished.
    “Yes. What else is there?”
    “Everything.”
    “For some people, perhaps. Not for me.”
    There was no self-pity in Hannah’s voice, no anger. She accepted, and from that acceptance she drew the strength to survive. It hadn’t always been that way. Len had very nearly destroyed her.
    “What do you want from life?” Archer asked before he could think better of it.
    “What I’ve earned: the Black Trinity. But to find it, I—we—will have to find Len’s murderer. Whoever killed him took the pearls. If you help me find what has been lost, I’ll give you half of whatever we get for it.”
    Hearing all that Hannah hadn’t said in the tension of her voice, Archer wondered who else knew about the pearls, who had killed to take them, and who would kill again to keep them.
    She rose, gathered plates, and took them to the sink. When she turned, he was watching her, waiting.
    “What’s the Black Trinity?” he asked.
    “An unstrung triple-strand necklace of black pearls. The whole necklace is worth three million American, wholesale.”
    Archer whistled softly through his teeth. “Three million? That would be some necklace. Especially since the Aussies took the steam out of the Tahitian black pearl market when they learned how to make Australia’s huge silver-lipped oysters produce big black pearls.”
    “The Black Trinity is worth at least three million,” Hannah said evenly. “The smallest strand is twenty inches long, with twelve-millimeter pearls. The middle strand is twenty-two inches, with fourteen-millimeter pearls. The longest strand is twenty-four inches, with sixteen-millimeter pearls. All of the black pearls are round and color-matched within and across their strand.”
    “Luster?”
    “Superb. The pearls have a surface that is as close to flawless as nature gets. If nature doesn’t provide it, I try.”
    “You’re a pearl doctor?” he asked, surprised. Softly, softly, sanding a pearl down through layer after layer of nacre in the hope of finding a less flawed surface was like rolling dice with the devil. When you lost, you lost it all. It took guts and confidence to peel a pearl as patiently as the oyster had created it in the first place.
    “If the stakes are high enough, I doctor pearls,” Hannah said. “It’s rather like sculpting. You remove whatever gets in the way of the vision. Sometimes your vision is clear and you end up with something beautiful. Sometimes you end up with a pile of sawdust.”
    Soapy sponge in hand, she began washing the lunch dishes. The food had helped her physically. Her hands were much more sure. Not that it mattered. Her dishes were the