Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

cream color. The thick, curved lenses looked teal blue. Seeing the cameras, Archer almost smiled. By the time the Changs checked the videotape—if they became suspicious enough to check it at all—he and Hannah would be long gone. She would be safe with his family.
    And he would be the way he had been years ago: alone, moving fast to stay ahead of the other predators, every sense raised to the burning edge of clarity by adrenaline, searching for someone who was also moving fast, looking over his shoulder, every sense burning.
    “Madame,” Paul said with a faint sneer and a theatrical flourish, “one hundred and seventy-seven round, black, large, matched pearls.”
    He opened the lid on the flat, gunmetal satin jewelry box and set it in front of her. Inside, lying within three oval, satin-lined channels, were round black pearls.
    Not one was a rainbow.
    She fought to keep her disappointment from showing, but doubted that she succeeded.
    “Hey, these look good,” Archer said in a hearty voice. “A little small maybe, but not bad.”
    “The smallest pearl is just under fourteen millimeters,” Paul said stiffly. “The biggest is over fifteen.”
    She didn’t say anything. A single look had told her that these pearls, however beautiful, weren’t part of the Black Trinity. While colorful, the pearls lacked the splendor of rainbows swirling beneath black ice. They were indeed exquisitely matched, both within and across the “strands.” Someone had gathered together one hundred and seventy-seven very, very nice pearls.
    But they weren’t the Black Trinity.
    “Madame?” Paul asked smoothly.
    “How much?” Archer cut in.
    “Two million six hundred thousand dollars. American, of course.” Paul smiled in the manner of someone who has just trumped another player’s ace.
    “Ouch. Oh well, she’s worth it and then some.”
    She gave Archer a pouty air kiss and stood up.
    “Madame would like to see something less expensive?” Paul asked smoothly.
    “Madame would like to see something more colorful,” she said, her voice as flat as she felt.
    “Madame asks the impossible. These are the best pearls the world has to offer. You will find no finer necklace anywhere.”
    “In your dreams, mate,” she retorted, disappointed and not at all reluctant to share the pain. “It’s nice enough, but it needs more pinks and golds and reds and oranges.”
    “I repeat. You ask the impossible. Believe me. Every year the cream of Tahiti’s black pearl farms passes through our owner’s hands. I personally oversee the choices for jewelry. The crème de la crègme is made into matched necklaces. This necklace is the best Mr. Chang has ever assembled.”
    When she would have responded, Archer restrained her by giving her hand a quick squeeze. “Maybe in Tahiti it’s impossible to find more colorful black pearls,” he said cheerfully, “but we’ve heard that Australia has some really special black pearls.”
    Paul shrugged. “One hears many things, most of them false. One rarely sees a necklace such as this one.”
    “Yeah, it’s a nice fistful of pearls,” Archer agreed, reaching into his pocket. “But once my darlin’ saw this, she never looked at another pearl in quite the same way.”
    As he spoke, he pulled a ring box out of his pocket. Without taking his eyes off the jeweler, Archer flipped open the lid and tipped Teddy’s tear-shaped rainbow black pearl onto his palm.
    Paul’s expression shouted that he had never seen a pearl like this in his life. His eyes widened, his jaw loosened, and he reached automatically for the rainbow gem.
    Archer closed his hand.
    Hannah reeled in her own jaw and waited for a signal from him as to how to act. She knew the gem had to be one of Pearl Cove’s. What she didn’t understand was how it had slipped through Len’s fingers.
    “Where did you get that pearl?” Paul demanded.
    It was exactly the question she wanted to ask.
    “It must be treated,” Paul said without waiting for an answer. “Has it been drilled?”
    “Don’t know about treatments,” Archer lied cheerfully, “but it hasn’t been drilled.”
    Paul stared longingly at the other man’s closed hand.
    Archer opened his fingers as coyly as a stripper playing with a G-string. Rainbows gleamed against midnight.
    “May I?” Paul asked, inching closer.
    “Don’t go losing it,” Hannah said quickly. “Nobody we’ve showed it to ever saw one like it.”
    “If it is a virgin—that is,