Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

brushing her breasts against him, then her thighs. “Coco understands many things.”
    For a moment he was tempted to take what she was so plainly offering.
    Seeing it, Coco smiled. Like the cigarette smoke curling up between her feet, her smile was cool.
    Chang let go of her and stepped back a bare inch. Just enough not to feel her hard nipples against his chest. “I don’t have time now. Later.”
    Black eyebrows rose like sleek whips. “What if I do not have time later?”
    “Find it.”
    Coco thought of the cache of pearls she had built over the years, of the payments she had received from the Chang family, and of other payments from the pearls her half sister sold whenever Coco gathered enough to make it worthwhile. She would take Chang’s money and his screwing, because he was the most interesting game in town at the moment; he wanted her, but not enough to beg.
    Nakamori had been hers for years, enslaved, pleading for the sweet poison he was addicted to. Flynn was too much like her; neither of them felt jealousy as other people seemed to, something to kill or die for. With Flynn there was simple sexuality, a bull covering as many cows as presented themselves. All women were the same to him. Cows. Just as all men were the same to Coco. Bulls.
    She would always regret that Len had died before she could find the key to seduce him. From him she would have had the secret of the black pearls that looked like Australia’s famous black opals. And from him she also would have had the only emotion she felt deeply.
    Fear.
    Sighing, Coco stretched and rubbed herself against Chang. “C’est vrai, mon cher. Coco find time. Later.”
    Chang didn’t bother to say good-bye. He simply turned and strode off to his car, leaving Coco with a thin wisp of cigarette smoke coiling up between her bare legs.
    Before Pearl Cove vanished from his rearview mirror, Ian was calling Cable Beach hotels. Most people who demanded to know if someone was registered at a hotel would be politely told that such information wasn’t given to the public. The Chang family, however, owned one hotel outright and had employees at all the others. When a Chang wanted answers, he got them.
    By the time Ian sped into Broome, he knew he was in trouble. He went to his office, looked at the deceptively placid ocean until he was certain of his own self-control, and then called his father’s private line.
    “There is a problem,” Ian said in curt Cantonese when his father came on the line.
    “Increase the offer by ten percent.”
    “That is not the problem.”
    “I listen.”
    Ian didn’t doubt it. Being listened to by Sam Chang was an experience most people didn’t wish to repeat. It reminded everyone of the days when emperors were gods who anointed or executed at will.
    “Hannah McGarry has vanished,” Ian said baldly. “So has Archer Donovan.”
    The silence that came back told him that Sam was still listening.
    “She is not at any hotel, motel, or rented room in Broome,” Ian said.
    “Not under her own name, perhaps?”
    “Of course,” Ian snapped. Then he reined in his impatience. He had had a lifetime to get used to one simple fact: his father thought that his Number One Son was incapable of doing anything more taxing than producing sons. It had taken five tries, but Ian had managed to get a son and heir. Unfortunately, as far as Ian was concerned, said son and heir was useless, a gambler and a wastrel whose greatest ambition was to clean out his father’s and grandfather’s bank accounts.
    “Speak,” Sam said harshly.
    “Hannah McGarry is not staying in Broome under any name. No tall Caucasian woman with short sun-streaked hair and big indigo eyes has checked into any accommodation, with or without a man. No tall, muscular Caucasian man with pale eyes and short black hair and beard has checked into any accommodation, with or without a woman. Donovan’s car has not been turned in to the rental agency, which means that they are probably in Derby by now. Or even Darwin.”
    The silence was different now. Ian couldn’t say how it was different; he just knew it was. He had had many years to learn how to read his father. Right now the senior Chang was thinking hard, fast, and cruel. Ian hoped he wouldn’t be on the receiving end of the cruelty, but braced for it anyway.
    “Incompetence,” Sam said angrily. “When will I grow accustomed to Number One Son’s incompetence?”
    Ian muttered the required apologies for living,