“It got to me, too,” Kyle said simply. “I went and found Lianne and held her, just held her. When I felt our babies move, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
The uncertainty of life and the finality of death haunted Kyle’s voice as surely as it haunted Archer’s mind. He forced himself to breathe, to talk, to reassure his youngest brother that their twins would be the lucky ones, the ones who not only survived but thrived.
“Don’t worry about Lianne and your twins,” Archer said. “Len dragged Hannah through some of earth’s deepest hellholes. He didn’t live fancy, either. What the natives ate, he ate. What they drank, he drank. That didn’t change after he got married.”
“I know. I rechecked the passport stamps after I found the hospital records. A week here. Two weeks there. Two days at the next place. Sometimes only a few hours. Flying all over the South Pacific with side trips to Japan or Jakarta just for variety. Was it a coincidence that every place Len went grew, traded, or smuggled pearls?”
“No.”
Kyle waited, but his brother didn’t say anything more. He started to snap at the lack of response; then he remembered that his brother had been up for more than twenty-four hours, had seen his half brother’s corpse, and had just found out about the baby nephew they would never get to nuzzle and tease and love.
“I gotta say,” Kyle muttered, “our half brother had shitty taste in friends. I ran the names of some of the people he met with. Bad cess. Really bad. Right down there in the toilet with the Red Phoenix Triad. Different names, of course. Same slime.”
“When you go looking for secrets, you make your bargains where you have to.”
“Was he a spook?”
Archer didn’t want to answer, but he did. Len had been Kyle’s brother, too. “He began as an officer in a U.S. foreign intelligence agency. He finished as a mercenary. Sometimes he worked for us. Sometimes for them. And always he worked for himself.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“You have good instincts. But remember—Len didn’t start out where he ended up. What else did you find out about Hannah?”
“She keeps the books for Pearl Cove. She orders equipment locally and electronically. If she shops locally for clothes or cosmetics, she pays cash. The farm has open accounts at several places in Broome.”
“What kind of payment record?”
“Pretty good. Not great. Just okay. The last year must have been hard. Some of the accounts started dunning.”
“How serious is it?”
“Pearl Cove is on a cash-only basis with an outfit called Smithe and Sons Equipment. The Broome Green Grocer is a little more flexible, up to one hundred dollars Australian. She orders men’s and women’s clothes by credit card at a virtual store that specializes in casual tropical gear. She orders books at several virtual used-book stores and book exchanges. Reads everything from science fiction to philosophy, with stops in between for Chinese poetry and girl fiction.”
“Girl fiction?”
“Yeah, stories about family and marriage and love, that sort of stuff.”
Archer grunted and drank more coffee. The breeze through the verandah’s screen door was heavy with brine. The temperature was as close to cool as it got in Broome in late November. “Anything else?”
“If she ever saw a doctor, it was the kind who kept old-fashioned handwritten files. Len’s doctor was modern. Kept his files electronically and used the virtual diagnostic sites all the time. Len’s spine was slowly deteriorating. His doctor had him on morphine. If the local bottle shop is any indication, Len had himself on booze. Or is it Hannah who’s heavy on the sauce?”
“If she is, you can’t smell it on her breath or her skin.”
“That close, huh? Fast work, bro.”
“Shove it.”
“Ah, there’s the Archer we all know and love.”
“Shove that, too,” he said without heat. “I’m e-mailing a list of Pearl Cove’s employees for the past year. See what you can get on them.” He yawned wide enough to make his jaw crack.
Kyle snickered. It wasn’t often he had his oldest brother at a disadvantage. “Bet you’re not going to be a chirpy little camper at dawn tomorrow the way you usually are.”
“No bet.” Archer rubbed eyes that felt like they had gone skinny-dipping in sand. “Anything else?”
“Nope. Her name never appeared on any of the singles sites or the sexual chat rooms, so virtual sex isn’t her thing.”
“She could have used an alias,” Archer pointed out.
“Hello, this is Kyle, the brother who can spin rings around you on a computer. Remember me? I can track an alias faster than you can think.”
“Good thing I can’t reach you, runt.”
“Runt? I’ll runt you the next time I get you on a gym mat.”
“Yeahyeahyeah. Lianne can dump you on your ass without breaking a sweat.”
“Lianne can put me on my ass any time, anywhere, and any way she wants. Naked is her favorite.”
The smug, utterly male note in Kyle’s voice made Archer feel a lot more than thirty-seven, going on thirty-eight. He felt ancient, desolate, a ruin on top of a stony hill with nothing but the empty sky for company.
“I left a list of Len’s phone calls for the last six months in your coded e-mail,” Kyle continued.
“Cellular or land phone?”
“Both.”
“Right. Thanks.”
“Right, huh? Less than a day and you’re sounding like an Aussie.”
“It’s called camouflage,” Archer said dryly.
“You’ll need it. Be careful, bro. Very, very careful. My gut wants you the hell out of Australia.”
“I’m always careful. ’Bye, Kyle. And thanks.”
Archer turned off the cell phone, opened his own computer, accessed the e-mail, and studied the lists of phone calls Len had made. Often the names were familiar. Pearl players, for the most part. Many were honest. More were honest only when they had to be. The rest were strangers. All in all, Len had known—and dealt with—some unsavory-to-dangerous men. Smugglers, government fixers, triad “interfaces,” people who lived well outside the law and liked it that way.
Nothing in the lists reassured Archer that the job of finding Len’s killer would be easy. Nor did he dismiss Kyle’s gut feeling that there was danger. His brother’s hunches were better than most men’s solid facts.
Another day here, at most. After that, the word would be out that Archer Donovan was at Pearl Cove. Isolated. Working alone. The predators would descend and it would simply be too dangerous for him to stay on.
Unless Len had been working for Uncle. That would give Archer more time, more leverage to use against whoever had wanted Len dead.
Uncle.
Archer stared at his cell phone as if it was a grenade with the pin out and the spoon held down by a frayed thread. Then he picked the phone up and punched in the number he hated to use.
Because as long as he used that number, Uncle Sam would have his number, too.
“What did you say?” Archer asked, turning suddenly toward Hannah. She had come into the kitchen a few minutes ago and silently fixed a pot of coffee. Her nap had left creases on the right side of her face, as though she had fallen into bed and not moved once. Her shorts and tank top were a silvery gray that reminded him of pearls.
“I asked how you liked our computer,” she repeated.
“ ‘Our’ as in Len’s and yours?”
She swallowed a yawn and rubbed the right side of her face where sweaty skin itched. “Right.”
Archer stared at the computer like it was a loaded gun. Knowing Len, it could easily be just that. Yet it had seemed very innocent sitting on a rattan table in an alcove off the kitchen. And it had worked well enough for him on Pearl Cove’s accounts. Hannah’s simple password “Today” had opened up everything on the hard drive.
It had taken less than an hour to verify that, as a business, Pearl Cove was ninety-eigh
t percent in the toilet. Len had borrowed against everything at least twice, and that included pearl futures.
Of course, there could be another set of books somewhere. In fact, Archer would have bet a lot on it. The question was where.
He glanced at Hannah. Her nap had helped to focus her, but she was still nearly dead on her feet. “So you both used this computer?” he asked, hardly able to believe it.
“Yes.” She poured more coffee in her own cup and held the pot out to him, silently asking if he wanted more. Her eyes looked huge and dark against her pale skin. Despite her fragile appearance, she handled the coffee pot and cup without clumsiness.
“No, thanks,” Archer said, shaking his head. He looked back at the computer screen. Caffeine could only go so far in curing jet lag. He was well past that point. “I’m surprised you didn’t have separate computers. Len didn’t like sharing.”
Hannah shrugged. “Money. Every penny we had went into his pearl experiments.”
“I went through all the files on the hard drive while you were asleep. I didn’t see any that were Len’s. Frankly, I would have expected him to booby-trap his computer.”
“He kept his work on a separate storage disk.” She went to what looked like a cookie jar, took off the scarlet lid, fished around for a few moments, and pulled out a disk that fit easily in her palm. The disk had been wrapped to protect it from cookie crumbs. Absently she wiped the package on her thigh.
“Chocolate chip?” Archer guessed, looking at the dark smear on her skin. The thought of licking it off sent a shaft of heat through him. He wondered when he would get too tired to respond to her or if exhaustion, like time, wouldn’t be enough to kill his response to his half brother’s wife.
“Yes, it’s chocolate chip,” Hannah said. “How did you know?”
“Len’s favorite. Mine too.”
Smiling rather sadly, she smoothed a spike of chestnut hair behind one ear and rubbed a sleep crease on her neck. “They’re a little stale. I haven’t made cookies since Len . . . ” Her breath went ragged. “Anyway, if you want some, feel free.”
“I’ll take homemade chocolate chip cookies any way I can get them.”
Without a word she set the jar on the floor next to Archer. He reached in and came up with a fistful of cookies.
“Did Len have any particular ritual for loading the disk?” he asked around a big bite of cookie.
As she had said, the cookie was stale. It tasted wonderful, like childhood, when he and his brothers had hidden cookies everywhere in the house to make sure they got more than their fair share. Sometimes they didn’t find all of the cookies for days.
“Len turned on the computer,” Hannah said, “put his disk in the drive, typed in something, and went to work.”
“Code word. Or words.” Archer wiped his fingers on his shorts and then rubbed his palms over his eyes. They couldn’t possibly be as dry as they felt.
After hours of staring at computer screens, the last thing he wanted to do right now was have a go at Len’s records, but there wasn’t much choice. Uncle hadn’t returned his call. Until he knew whether his half brother had been working for the U.S. government when he died, Archer couldn’t realistically assess how dangerous staying in Pearl Cove was. If the motive for killing Len had been politics rather than business, Hannah might not be in danger.
“Don’t suppose you know what his code is?” Archer asked, biting back a yawn. Maybe he should take her up on that coffee. Or maybe sugar and grease would get the job done. He finished off the second cookie and started in on a third.
“Like you said, Len wasn’t big on sharing. Once I got the disk for him, I left. His code was his secret.”
Archer would have been surprised by any other answer. That didn’t mean he liked it. Kyle was across the biggest ocean on earth and sound asleep again. Archer’s hacking skills were distinctly average. Knowing Len, average wouldn’t get the job done.
But he would try anyway, because he didn’t want to examine the pearling shed where Len had died until tonight, when it was full darkness and there was no excuse for any of Pearl Cove’s employees to be poking around the wreckage. He didn’t want them watching him, noting what interested him, suspecting what he was really after.
“Any guesses on the code?” he asked.
Hannah shook her head, sipped coffee that was almost as steamy as the air outside, and waited. It was early evening, she had had a nap, and she felt like she had been up forever. Archer must have felt the same, but it didn’t show except in the darkness beneath his eyes. His thick, short hair was rumpled by casual, raking swipes from his long fingers. His beard was too short to show any lack of combing. Sweat gleamed, caught like dew in the black thatch of hair across his bare chest.
As she watched, several drops gathered at his breastbone and trickled down the narrow line of hair that vanished beneath the waistband of his shorts. Loose, dark blue, and thin enough to dry in minutes, the cloth clung to him almost as closely as sweat.
She couldn’t stop looking. He was beautifully made, neither too heavy nor too lean . . . supple and powerful, entirely and elementally male. She wondered if he was like Len when it came to sex: hard and fast and furious, as though he couldn’t finish soon enough. Then the accident had come and the end of anything sexual.
Hastily Hannah looked at her coffee, unsettled by her own thoughts and the fugitive heat pulsing out from the pit of her stomach. Now was the wrong time for her body to wake up from its long hibernation. Even if it had been the right time, Archer was the wrong man to be looking at. He was too hard. Too cold. Too ruthless.
She couldn’t survive another Len.
When Hannah looked away, Archer let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. The fundamental female approval in her eyes had him halfway to an erection before he knew what hit him. The faint flush high on her cheekbones didn’t help him to cool off. He wished he could pull her shorts down, open her legs, and push into the sultry velvet deep inside her.
With an impatient curse at his own unruly lust, Archer forced his thoughts back to Len’s computer. It wasn’t a cold shower, but it was close enough. After a few minutes of thinking about various possibilities for entry codes, his body slowly relaxed again.
He shoved in the disk. As he settled deeper into the chair, broken wicker strips poked into his legs, homing in on the same tender places like heat-seeking missiles. He wondered how Len had tolerated the ridiculous chair. Then he remembered—the nerves leading to his brother’s legs had been severed years ago. The only thing he sat in was a wheelchair.
The screen lit up. The cursor flashed in a little box, urging him to enter the user code. He started with the simple stuff first. When the first two tries failed, he turned off the computer, waited, and rebooted.
Hannah waited until the fourth time he restarted the machine before she asked, “What are you doing?”
“Using Len’s name with variations based on elementary codes.”
She blinked. “Oh.” After five more tries, she said hesitantly, “Len didn’t think much of codes. Said they were for little boys in tree houses.”
Archer grunted, shut down the computer, and rebooted.
“Why do you keep shutting down the computer?” she asked.
“Even the most paranoid password programs will give you two tries before they fry circuits. Kyle has a way around that, but he isn’t here. I’ll just have to do it the hard way for a while.”
“I see.” She sipped coffee that was now the same temperature as her tongue. “This could take a long time.”
He slanted her a sideways glance that reflected the tropical blues and greens of the tiles in her kitchen floor. “Yeah. You have something better to do?”
“Watch flies land?” she suggested.
Smiling, he tried two more variations. Nothing.
Fifteen minutes later, he shut down the computer and turned to Hannah. “Okay, his code probably isn’t a variant of his name or birthday, the date of his marria
ge or the date he was paralyzed. It’s not a variant of your name or birth date, either. You don’t have any pets, so—”
“My name?” she cut in. Her eyes widened into startled, navy blue pools. “Why mine?”
“People have lousy memories. When it comes to passwords, they use names and dates that are important to them.”
She laughed out loud. “Forget my name. I wasn’t important to Len. Not that way.”
“You were his wife.”
“We shared a computer.”
“And a house.”
“Not in the last few years. He pretty much lived out in the main pearl-sorting shed. There’s a small loo, a sink, a hand shower, a bed.” She smiled thinly. “All the comforts of home and none of the drawbacks.”
“Why didn’t he keep the computer in the shed?”
“He didn’t want anyone to know that he could use it.”
Snake tongues of adrenaline flicked through Archer. He looked at the computer and wondered how many of the answers he needed lay inside. “You’re sure of that?”
“That he wanted his computer use kept a secret?”
“Yes.”
“Positive.”
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“Guess,” he said curtly.
“Guessing implies that Len and I have—had—enough thought processes in common for a guess to be effective. I gave up guessing at Len’s reasons for doing anything years ago. He and I didn’t think alike.” Hannah’s eyes focused on Archer in dark speculation. “You would have a better chance at it.”
“Are you saying I’m like Len?”
The bitterness in Archer’s voice caught her by surprise. “I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
He let out a soft, hissing curse and reached for another cookie. “I’m not Len. I repeat. Not. Len. If I saw things the way he did, I’d have stayed in the field or gone private with him when he asked me to.”
Hesitantly, Hannah touched Archer’s hand, where he still held his fourth cookie. Or maybe it was his sixth. A melting chocolate chip touched her fingertip like a tiny, soft tongue. “Right. You’re not Len. But you’re cool, efficient, and merciless. That requires thinking a certain way, doesn’t it?”