Part 49 (1/2)

”She wants you off the table. All the way off.”

”Good idea,” Hannah said instantly.

Archer and Barton ignored her.

”There's a problem with that,” Archer said. Each word was clear, distinct. ”April knows what it is.”

The other man grunted. ”I'm supposed to clear up that problem.”

”I'm listening.”

This time Barton's smile was genuine, if small. ”I can see that. You sure you don't want back in the real game?”

”Dead sure.”

”That's what she said you would say,” Barton muttered.

Eyes narrowed, Hannah looked from one man to the other. She didn't like the direction of the conversation. The thought of Archer going back to the covert life made her stomach twist. Len had loved it, but Archer said he hadn't been strong enough to stay in the game. She hadn't believed him at the time. Now, suddenly, she did. Archer simply wasn't cold enough to play international chess with human p.a.w.ns.

The memory of Summer teething blissfully on Archer's knuckles went through Hannah like lightning through darkness. Len would never have allowed anything that close to him, even his own child. Yet Archer had smiled at his niece with a tenderness that still amazed Hannah. But it hadn't amazed his family. They took his love for granted. And that was what it was. Love.

”Don't want to play again, huh?” Barton asked. ”Not even to get your brother's killer?”

”I don't need April to get Len's killer,” Archer said in a level voice. ”All I need is time. I've got it.”

”Right. Well, mate, I'm going to make your hunt easier.”

Hannah's hand went over Archer's wrist as though to keep him from moving one inch toward Barton. Her nails dug in hard. She didn't want him hunting anything, especially a man dangerous enough to kill Len McGarry.

Archer ignored the pressure of Hannah's nails on his wrist. He was focused on Barton's shrewd, dark eyes.

”You're probably thinking that Sam Chang ordered McGarry's death,” Barton said to Archer.

He didn't deny it.

”Sam's spies eventually figured out that Pearl Cove was being sabotaged by the Aussies,” Barton continued. ”The old b.a.s.t.a.r.d was beside himself. He had placed men everywhere but where he needed one most in Len's confidence.”

”I figured that out for myself.”

”Did you figure that Chang offered a million dollars to the person who brought him the secret of the rainbows?” Barton retorted. ”Qing Lu Yin decided he would be the one. The cyclone was his chance. He got Len alone and started questioning him.” Barton shrugged. ”Yin f.u.c.ked up big time. McGarry died and took the secret of the rainbow pearls with him.”

Hannah closed her eyes and saw again Len's body half beached, half floating, wholly dead.

”How did you find out?” Archer asked. ”Yin. Not directly,” he added quickly, sensing the change in Archer. ”The word was pa.s.sed back up the line.”

”By the Red Phoenix boys?”

The civilized voice didn't fool Barton. What he was seeing in Archer's eyes wasn't a bit civilized. ”Right.”

”Why should I believe them?”

Barton handed over the unsealed manila envelope. ”They send you their apology on the death of your brother. They want you to understand it wasn't a triad matter.”

Without looking away from Barton, Archer took the envelope and opened it. The cool, smooth surface of a glossy photograph met his fingertips. He pulled it out.

When Hannah gasped, he glanced down quickly. One look was enough. The color photo was Qing Lu Yin, right down to the black eye and oyster-sh.e.l.l gash on his chin. No possibility of a mistake, even though blood was everywhere and his severed head was tucked underneath his arm in the Red Phoenix Triad's trademark execution style.

Archer pushed the brutal photo back into the envelope. ”Apology accepted.”

The ruined shed sent thin, misshapen black fingers raking up into the late afternoon. Light the color of hammered bronze filled the air from the sea to the distant arch of the cloud-whipped sky. Wind swirled with just enough force to tug at the cloth of Archer's tank top and press his shorts against his body. The air was the temperature of blood, neither hot nor cool.

When he heard sound behind him, he didn't turn around. He knew it was Hannah. Everyone else was gone. He had made certain of it personally, searching every cottage, every shed, everywhere that was big enough to hide a human being. There was nothing but empty rooms, empty drawers, and bits of domestic debris that were already being blown away by the wind.

”Everything I'm taking is packed,” she said quietly.

He nodded but made no move to leave. He wasn't ready to walk away from her. He never would be. But he would walk away just the same.

Soon.

Silently Hannah stared at the jackstraw ruins of the shed. Only the vault stood upright, and it gaped crookedly. There was nothing new for her here. Nothing old, either. Nothing that she wanted to take with her. Yet, like Archer, she found she couldn't simply turn away and leave. Hands on her hips, she looked at what had once been the center of her life and the soul of her husband's. She tried to find meaning in wreckage.

There wasn't any. It was simply a pearl shed that had been destroyed by a storm.

So she watched Archer instead, hunger in her eyes and a tension in her body that made it hard for her to breathe. He had walked away from her before. He would walk away again. She would be free of the past, of Pearl Cove, and of Archer, who reminded her of Len. She would be free of everything except the certainty that she had made another terrible mistake.

What's it like to love someone enough to die in his place?

Chills rippled over Hannah's skin in primal recognition of the truth. Like two pearls of the same size and color, Len and Archer were similar. And very, very different. The layers of Len's life that had acc.u.mulated in such pain and fury were uneven, pitted, flawed. The layers of Archer's life were different. Not perfect. Just... beautiful.

And she had hurt him as cruelly as Len ever hurt anyone. You're like Len! d.a.m.n you, you're like Len! As cold a b.a.s.t.a.r.d as ever walked the earth.

No wonder Archer wanted to get away from her. In surviving Len, she had become just as savage as he was.

Bile rose in Hannah's throat. Too late she understood the meaning of her dreams Archer's pain and her screams of denial that he could be hurt. Because if he could hurt, he could love. If he loved, she had used his vulnerability like a weapon against him. The same way Len had used her own vulnerability against her, a cat with a bird.

Protection and s.e.x. That's all'?

Yes.

She had gotten her wish. Archer no longer threatened her with love. With vulnerability. Yet she was standing here, figuring it all out too late, vulnerable to her soul.

”Could Len get on any of the pearl boats by himself?” Archer asked, walking slowly toward the vault.

Swallowing past the constriction in her throat, Hannah forced herself to talk to the man who might have loved her, the man she had been too much a coward to love in return. ”No. He had to be carried aboard.”

”Could he dive alone?”

”He needed a mechanical lift to get in and out of the water. He couldn't reach the controls while he was on the lift.”

Archer nodded and never looked away from the side of the vault. The thick outer door hung on its hinges like a broken jaw. The smaller locker doors inside were open, as though to prove that nothing of value lay beyond. ”What about the car?”