Read Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove for Free Online

grave.”
    For a breath Hannah wished she owned all of Pearl Cove and could turn it over to the Changs. Then she would run. The Stone Age villages in the rain forests of Brazil had never looked so good to her. So safe.
    But that was cowardice whispering seductively in her ear. She couldn’t sell, had no money to run, and was damned if she would be again what she had been at nineteen—a runaway stranded in a strange city with night coming on and no assets to sell but her newly unvirginal body.
    “I can’t sell Pearl Cove,” she said evenly.
    “You mean you won’t.”
    “No. I mean I can’t.”
    “Why?”
    “Half of it belongs to Archer Donovan.”
    “What?” Chang demanded, too shocked to hide it.
    “Archer—Mr. Donovan—was Len’s silent partner.”
    “For how long?”
    “Seven years.”
    “Bloody hell. No wonder Len is dead. He finally buggered the wrong man.”
    “What are you saying?”
    Chang laughed curtly. “They don’t come any more ruthless than Archer Donovan.”
    “I didn’t think the Chang family would back up for anyone.”
    “A man who can tangle with the Red Phoenix Triad and come out on top deserves respect. Archer Donovan has it.” Chang turned away. “I’ve got to make a call. This changes everything.”
    The screen door swung shut behind Chang. Moments later, red dust boiled, then settled in the wake of his car.
    For a long time Hannah sat on the verandah in the hammock chair, unmoving but for the occasional prod of one foot against the floor. Back and forth. Back and forth.
    She didn’t doubt Chang’s appraisal of Archer Donovan; she had been in a position to see just how ruthless he could be. But not with Len. Never with Len. Despite ample provocation, Archer had never acted against Len McGarry. Quite the opposite. He had saved Len’s life, paid for his rehabilitation, and made him a partner in Pearl Cove. Then he did what Len had demanded: he got the hell out of Len’s life and stayed out.
    She didn’t know what the bond was between the two men. She only knew that it existed. Perhaps it extended beyond the grave. Perhaps Archer Donovan would care enough to do what no one else would—find Len’s murderer.
    If revenge wasn’t enough to move Archer, there was always money. Even the most ruthless man might be persuaded to search for Pearl Cove’s vanished treasure if he was promised half of something that was worth three million dollars wholesale.
    The Black Trinity.

Three
    W ith reflexes left over from the years he couldn’t leave behind, Archer came from deep sleep to full wakefulness. Lean fingers snatched the phone from its cradle before he even looked at the clock.
    Two A.M.
    Visions of all that could have gone wrong with the family sleeted through his brain. Faith was first in his mind. The man she had just broken up with had knocked around his first wife and at least one of his girlfriends. The Donovan brothers had told Tony what to expect if he laid a hand on Faith, but Tony’s memory wasn’t reliable when he started drinking.
    Archer looked at the display on the phone that gave incoming numbers. It was blank. That left out the family, and let in Uncle Sam.
    Shit.
    “What,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
    “Is this Archer Donovan?”
    “Yes.”
    “This is—”
    “Hannah McGarry,” he interrupted, wondering if he was still asleep. That smoky voice of hers had haunted too many of his dreams.
    “How did you know?”
    “I have a good memory. What’s wrong, Hannah?”
    “Len’s dead.”
    Archer didn’t try to sort out the boil of emotions those two words brought him: disbelief, relief, guilt, anger, sadness for all that might have been. He didn’t say anything about his own feelings. The tension in Hannah’s voice told him that she had more to say, none of it good.
    “When?” he asked.
    “Just . . . days.”
    Old habits were hard to break. Especially when he could all but taste the fear in Hannah’s desperately level voice. The