Part 6 (2/2)
She met his eyes straight on, as controlled and remote as he was. ”I didn't kill Len.”
”You had a better motive than most.”
”If I wanted his death on my conscience, all I had to do was walk out on him.”
”What does that mean?”
”Hating me kept him alive. Loving pearls almost kept him sane.”
”Almost,” Archer repeated softly, understanding much of what Hannah didn't say. Even ten years ago, Len had gone off on rages of laughter or drinking or s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g. Or mayhem. ”Yet you stayed with him. You're either very brave or very stupid, Hannah.”
”I'm neither. Life happens one day at a time, like water dripping on stone. You don't notice the change except over years.” She rubbed her aching eyes. ”As for the rest, no one deserves all the good or the bad that comes their way. You just take it the way it comes, one day at a time.”
”Echoes of a missionary upbringing?”
She shrugged and stuffed a slippery piece of hair behind her ear. ”I no longer thank G.o.d for the good that happens or blame my inborn evil for the bad. I just...” Her voice faded.
”Survive,” Archer finished.
”Yes. What else is there?”
”Everything.”
”For some people, perhaps. Not for me.”
There was no self-pity in Hannah's voice, no anger. She accepted, and from that acceptance she drew the strength to survive. It hadn't always been that way. Len had very nearly destroyed her.
”What do you want from life?” Archer asked before he could think better of it.
”What I've earned: the Black Trinity. But to find it, I we will have to find Len's murderer. Whoever killed him took the pearls. If you help me find what has been lost, I'll give you half of whatever we get for it.”
Hearing all that Hannah hadn't said in the tension of her voice, Archer wondered who else knew about the pearls, who had killed to take them, and who would kill again to keep them.
She rose, gathered plates, and took them to the sink. When she turned, he was watching her, waiting.
”What's the Black Trinity?” he asked.
”An unstrung triple-strand necklace of black pearls. The whole necklace is worth three million American, wholesale.”
Archer whistled softly through his teeth. ”Three million?
That would be some necklace. Especially since the Aussies took the steam out of the Tahitian black pearl market when they learned how to make Australia's huge silver-lipped oysters produce big black pearls.”
”The Black Trinity is worth at least three million,” Hannah said evenly. ”The smallest strand is twenty inches long, with twelve-millimeter pearls. The middle strand is twenty-two inches, with fourteen-millimeter pearls. The longest strand is twenty-four inches, with sixteen-millimeter pearls. All of the black pearls are round and color-matched within and across their strand.”
”l.u.s.ter?”
”Superb. The pearls have a surface that is as close to flawless as nature gets. If nature doesn't provide it, I try.”
”You're a pearl doctor?” he asked, surprised. Softly, softly, sanding a pearl down through layer after layer of nacre in the hope of finding a less flawed surface was like rolling dice with the devil. When you lost, you lost it all. It took guts and confidence to peel a pearl as patiently as the oyster had created it in the first place.
”If the stakes are high enough, I doctor pearls,” Hannah said. ”It's rather like sculpting. You remove whatever gets in the way of the vision. Sometimes your vision is clear and you end up with something beautiful. Sometimes you end up with a pile of sawdust.”
Soapy sponge in hand, she began was.h.i.+ng the lunch dishes. The food had helped her physically. Her hands were much more sure. Not that it mattered. Her dishes were the high-tech kind that could be shot from a canon without taking a scratch.
Archer watched, thinking about Len and pearls, greed and obsession, cruelty and accident. Len had loved pearls, but only one kind of pearl had obsessed him enough to make him take crazy risks. ”What shade of black?”
For the first time Hannah hesitated. Once she told him, she wasn't certain she would be able to trust him. But she didn't really have any choice. If she went after the murderer alone, she would end up like Len, facedown in the warm, pitiless sea.
”The Black Trinity's pearls are every color of the rainbow, all at once,” she said flatly. ”Red, green, blue, gold, all of it gleaming under a clear black surface, like liquid gemstones under black ice.”
”So he did succeed. I a.s.sumed he had, but I never saw the proof of it.”
Swiftly Hannah turned toward Archer. Her eyes were wary. She was very much afraid that she had just invited the wolf to dine with, and possibly on, the lamb. ”You knew about the black rainbows?”
”I knew Len found an extraordinary pearl in Kowloon. I knew he was determined to discover where it came from, no matter who got hurt. I a.s.sumed he had found what he wanted, put it to work, and kept the results to himself. It would be like him.”
Breath trickled out of her lungs in a hidden sigh. ”Len found out where that first black rainbow came from. Then he found out how to culture more.”
”No surprise there,” Archer said. ”Len could have pried secrets out of the Sphinx.”
The casual tone of Archer's voice disarmed Hannah. ”Do you want to know the secret?” she asked, curious.
”What will it cost me?”
Oddly, his answer rea.s.sured her. She had seen enough envy, enough obsession to possess, enough plain greed, to recognize their presence at a glance. Archer was interested, but he wasn't avid.
Even so, she hesitated. It was one thing to know your life was at risk. It was another to simply hand over the means of your own destruction.
”It won't cost you a cent,” Hannah said, her voice low. ”I don't know the secret of producing the rainbow pearls.” She took a broken breath, let it go. ”And if the vultures circling around Pearl Cove discover my ignorance, I suspect that my life won't be worth a handful of broken sh.e.l.l.”
This time Archer couldn't resist offering some comfort, however small. Gently he put his right hand on her cheek. Her skin was cool, too cool. On some cellular level, Hannah was running on empty. But there was nothing he could do about that right now.
He had an urgent appointment with a dead man.
”Can you stay awake for a few more hours?” he asked.
She s.h.i.+vered and raised her chin. ”Of course. The children will help.”
”Children?”
”When I have time, I teach English to some of the workers' children.”
He almost smiled. For a few hours, kids would be as good as an armed bodyguard protecting Hannah. ”I'll leave when the kids get here and I'll be back as soon as I can.”
”Where are you going?”
<script>