Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

“How did they explain all the open lockers and drawers?”
    “Simple. Obviously Len was checking the inventory when the cyclone ripped the place apart. A lot bigger things than pearls went missing in the wind.”
    Part of Archer’s mind enjoyed the symmetry and utility of the explanation: whatever happened, the cyclone did it. If he hadn’t seen the chisel marks on the door and felt the ease of his knife’s passage between a dead man’s ribs, he would have been tempted to accept the explanation himself.
    “A variation of the SODDI defense,” he said softly.
    “What?”
    “A defense lawyer’s favorite explanation. Some other dude did it. In this case it’s a storm, not a man. No worries, mate. Certainly no murder. No insurance money. Just an exhausted widow, a destroyed farm, and shrugs all around, because what else can you do? Life’s a bitch and then you die.”
    Hannah wanted to laugh but was afraid she might not be able to stop. He had caught the man’s tone so exactly. “Sure you aren’t an insurance adjuster?”
    “Dead sure.” Archer waited for her to ask what he did. When the silence stretched, he smiled thinly. She assumed he was like Len had been before he was paralyzed—employed by people who didn’t want to know his real name and sure as hell didn’t want him to know theirs. “Occasionally I work in my father’s business, Donovan International. It’s an import-export business with emphasis on raw materials. My brothers and I have our own business, Donovan Gems and Minerals.”
    “You’re not what Len used to be?”
    “A mercenary? No, I never was.”
    “Len said you were.”
    “Len hired out to the highest bidder. As long as that was Uncle Sam, we sometimes worked in the same vineyards. When Len went freelance, I stayed behind. After a few more years I got out entirely.”
    “Why?” she asked.
    “Why did Len leave?”
    “No. Why did you?”
    “I wasn’t strong enough.”
    This time Hannah couldn’t help laughing out loud.
    Archer didn’t laugh. He had told her the exact truth. He hadn’t been strong enough to survive the covert game.
    Silently he played the flashlight over the jumble of lumber that covered the vault, and wondered if the flanking walls would stand up if he started moving debris around. He wanted to take a closer look at the drawers. Somehow they didn’t look quite right.
    “You’re serious,” Hannah said, no longer laughing, watching Archer’s face. In the bleak flare of the flashlight, his eyes were clear, polished crystal.
    “Some men can work in a sewer and come out smelling like roses,” he said evenly, running the blade of light over the ceiling. There were gaps, rips, open seams. It wouldn’t take much to bring another section down. “I’m not one of them. Every day, every lie, every double cross, every seductive, addictive rush of adrenaline . . . ” He shrugged. “It was eating away at me. I knew one day I would wake up, look in the mirror, and see something that turned my stomach.” Something like his half brother had become, but Archer wasn’t going to say that to Len’s widow. He turned and looked at her. “I got out. End of story.”
    Hannah didn’t know she was going to touch Archer until she felt the smooth pelt of his beard beneath her fingertips, then the surprising heat of his lips. She snatched her hand back. “That wasn’t weakness. That was strength.”
    “Len didn’t see it that way.”
    “Why would you care what Len thought?”
    “Didn’t he tell you?”
    “What?”
    “He’s my brother.”
    For a moment she was too shocked to say anything. She had wondered about the bond between the two men, but she hadn’t suspected a blood tie. Other than their size and way of moving, they hadn’t had much in common physically. Never once, not once, had Len so much as hinted at a blood relationship with Archer Donovan.
    Archer used the silence to listen to the sounds of night. He thought he had heard a scuffle, as though a foot had nudged into a stray piece of wood. But it could just as easily have been the wind shifting the precariously piled debris.
    Letting breath slide from his lungs, he listened intently, using every sense. He heard only the random movements of wind.
    “Your brother?” Hannah managed finally. “I didn’t even know Len had any family. The first time I asked about his parents was just after the wedding. He sliced me up with a few words and walked out, leaving me in Shanghai with no food and