Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

chaos—dents, scrapes, lines, gouges, pits, everything that a violent, debris-packed storm could do to metal.
    “How can you tell?” she asked. “The whole door is scratched and banged up.”
    “Storm damage is random, not symmetrical.”
    As Archer spoke, his long index finger traced the faint, repeated parallel gouges that radiated out from—or into—the top hinge. The marks of purposeful damage were repeated on the middle hinge, as well.
    Hannah shivered convulsively and stood up.
    Without standing, Archer looked at her pale, drawn face. “You’re certain that Len was inside the shed when the storm struck?”
    She nodded jerkily.
    “Alone?” he asked.
    Again the jerky nod.
    He watched her for a minute, wondering why the discovery of the marks had upset her. Earlier, when he had told her that someone had knifed Len and then rammed a fragment of oyster shell between his ribs to disguise the wound, she hadn’t shown much response. Maybe she had just been too tired.
    A soft breeze tugged at her hair and flattened the thin white tank top over her breasts and belly. She had changed from shorts to cutoff jeans. Her legs were racehorse-long, beautifully shaped, and bare. He wondered what she would do if he ran his palms up the back of her legs, over buttocks hugged by worn jeans, beneath the tank top to her shoulder blades, then slowly around to the high breasts that were as naked as his tongue beneath the tank top.
    With a silent curse Archer yanked his mind back to the business at hand. The steel door had buckled along the side, between the hinges. The damage could have come from a crowbar or from the storm itself, after some hinges had given way. He was betting on the crowbar. Once the door was pried partly open from the hinge side, the violent cyclone would do the rest.
    Absently Archer fingered the frayed wires of what had once been the door’s electronic lock.
    “Most electronic systems freeze in the locked position if the power goes out,” he said. “Is that the way the shed was set up?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is there a manual release on the inside?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did Len spend a lot of time alone in the sorting shed?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did everyone know it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Not much help there.”
    She didn’t respond.
    “Hannah.”
    Though Archer’s voice was soft, she flinched. Then she looked at his eyes and flinched again.
    “What’s the problem?” he asked. “You called me, I came, yet more often than not I feel like I’m opening oysters with my bare hands when I ask you questions.”
    Visibly she took a grip on herself. “I was all right before you came. I knew I had only myself, that I couldn’t let down. So I didn’t. But now . . . ”
    Archer knew that she hadn’t been all right. She had been running on nerve and adrenaline, headed for a big crash. Yet all he said was, “Want me to leave?”
    “No.” The reply was instant, certain.
    “Good. I wasn’t going to go even if you asked.”
    Startled, she stared at him. What she saw in the reflected glow of the flashlight both frightened and reassured her.
    “Len was murdered,” Archer said evenly. “I’m in this for the whole distance, with or without your help.”
    “I know,” she whispered. “I knew when you came back from Broome. You looked the way Len used to look. The way you look now. Deadly. But you’re sane and he wasn’t, not always. Not even most of the time.” She rubbed her hands over her arms. “God, I hope I did the right thing by calling you. I don’t want more death. I just want the Black Trinity.”
    “I’m not planning on Old Testament justice. The modern kind will do just fine.”
    Hannah’s long eyelashes swept down as she let out a breath in a relief she couldn’t hide.
    “But one way or the other, there will be justice,” Archer added softly. He stood and snapped off the flashlight. “Show me what’s left of the main shed.”
    Without a word she turned and walked back to the path leading down to the water. Crushed oyster shell crunched softly underfoot. He walked just behind her, trying not to notice the rhythmic, elementally sexy arc of her hips. He knew that she wasn’t swinging her ass for his benefit.
    You look the way Len used to look. Deadly.
    Archer didn’t need to ask how that made Hannah feel about him. She needed him, but she didn’t like it—or him—one bit. He didn’t really blame her. He was associated with the worst hours of her life, when Len had begun the