Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

high-tech kind that could be shot from a canon without taking a scratch.
    Archer watched, thinking about Len and pearls, greed and obsession, cruelty and accident. Len had loved pearls, but only one kind of pearl had obsessed him enough to make him take crazy risks. “What shade of black?”
    For the first time Hannah hesitated. Once she told him, she wasn’t certain she would be able to trust him. But she didn’t really have any choice. If she went after the murderer alone, she would end up like Len, facedown in the warm, pitiless sea.
    “The Black Trinity’s pearls are every color of the rainbow, all at once,” she said flatly. “Red, green, blue, gold, all of it gleaming under a clear black surface, like liquid gemstones under black ice.”
    “So he did succeed. I assumed he had, but I never saw the proof of it.”
    Swiftly Hannah turned toward Archer. Her eyes were wary. She was very much afraid that she had just invited the wolf to dine with, and possibly on, the lamb. “You knew about the black rainbows?”
    “I knew Len found an extraordinary pearl in Kowloon. I knew he was determined to discover where it came from, no matter who got hurt. I assumed he had found what he wanted, put it to work, and kept the results to himself. It would be like him.”
    Breath trickled out of her lungs in a hidden sigh. “Len found out where that first black rainbow came from. Then he found out how to culture more.”
    “No surprise there,” Archer said. “Len could have pried secrets out of the Sphinx.”
    The casual tone of Archer’s voice disarmed Hannah. “Do you want to know the secret?” she asked, curious.
    “What will it cost me?”
    Oddly, his answer reassured her. She had seen enough envy, enough obsession to possess, enough plain greed, to recognize their presence at a glance. Archer was interested, but he wasn’t avid.
    Even so, she hesitated. It was one thing to know your life was at risk. It was another to simply hand over the means of your own destruction.
    “It won’t cost you a cent,” Hannah said, her voice low. “I don’t know the secret of producing the rainbow pearls.” She took a broken breath, let it go. “And if the vultures circling around Pearl Cove discover my ignorance, I suspect that my life won’t be worth a handful of broken shell.”
    This time Archer couldn’t resist offering some comfort, however small. Gently he put his right hand on her cheek. Her skin was cool, too cool. On some cellular level, Hannah was running on empty. But there was nothing he could do about that right now.
    He had an urgent appointment with a dead man.
    “Can you stay awake for a few more hours?” he asked.
    She shivered and raised her chin. “Of course. The children will help.”
    “Children?”
    “When I have time, I teach English to some of the workers’ children.”
    He almost smiled. For a few hours, kids would be as good as an armed bodyguard protecting Hannah. “I’ll leave when the kids get here and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “Broome.”
    Hannah didn’t ask why. She knew.
    Len McGarry.

Five
    B efore Hannah called the children, someone knocked on the front door. Reflexively Archer stepped to the side and stood deep in the shadows, invisible against the brilliance of the light outside.
    Uncertain, Hannah looked at him. He jerked his head, silently telling her to answer the door. She went through the front door, crossed the verandah in a few steps, and opened the screen door that offered a thin, useful shield against the blazing light.
    “Christian,” she said, surprised. She noted the cuts, scrapes, and bruises on his arms. Fighting with sunken oyster cages wasn’t easy work. “Is something wrong?”
    “Hello, luv.” Christian Flynn looked her over thoroughly. Cutoff jeans, a tank top the color of a peach, and full lips to match. Eyes a blue so deep it slid off into purple. Breasts that would just fill a big man’s hands. Bare, narrow, arched feet. “Pretty as a pearl. How do you do it?”
    “I sleep with oysters.”
    She retreated across the verandah into the relative coolness of the house. He followed her without waiting to be asked. His sandals made faint slapping sounds just behind her heels. With his tall, athletic body, quick grin, and rugged Outback blond looks, he went through women like a home-grown Australian flu.
    Hannah found Flynn almost amusing, as long as he wasn’t turning those cobalt blue eyes in her direction.