Authors: Emilie Richards
“Oh, have I?” Frank, who had climbed on board the
Argonaut,
sounded as if she'd told him that he had mistakenly dialed a wrong number. “Now that was stupid of me.”
Liana pocketed the pearl and tore open Cullen's shirt. The wound was ragged and bleeding hard. She ripped off her jacket and folded it, pressing it against the wound to slow the blood loss.
“What do you want?” Cullen demanded of Frank, nudging Liana aside. “What is it youâ¦want here?”
“Sunshine?” Frank raised his eyes to the sky. “Darn. I come all the way to the Southern Hemisphere to soak up a few rays, and you're having a freak storm.”
Liana heard Cullen gasp as she tied the jacket sleeves tightly around his shoulder and under his arm. He turned paler, and his head dropped forward. She was terrified for him, but for the moment there was nothing else she could do. She rose and faced her cousin. “Frank, you're my cousin, my friend.”
His smile died. For a moment he looked genuinely sorry. “I really
was
your friend. But then, your father and my grandmother were twins, weren't they? And that didn't stop him from stealing the pearl from her.”
The boat was rocking harder now, and rain glazed her skin. The thunder had drowned Frank's approach, and the dark skies had made it impossible to see his boat in whatever tidal creek or inlet he had hidden it in on the other side of the island. In the emotion of their reunion with Matthew, she and Cullen had foolishly forgotten that a killer was stalking their son. A few minutes of carelessness had been enough.
Liana placed her hand over the pocket of her jeans. Her eyes flashed to Cullen and Matthew, then back to Frank. “So it's the pearl?”
He smiled patiently, regret forgotten. “Of course. By rights it belongs to my branch of the family.” He trained the gun on her. “Look what Grandmother went through to get it.”
“You want me to give you the pearl? That's all?” she said.
“Now that's why you're the lady boss and I'm your flunky.”
She played for time. “You want to know what else I've figured out?”
“Something about old man Carpenter?”
She felt sick, although she had already guessed that Frank was the one who had murdered Pete. “Aunt Mei was the one who set this up. You know that, don't you, Frank?”
He laughed, and the sound was almost conspiratorial. “Oh, please. Grandmother has nothing to do with this. You think she sent me here? She loves you like a daughter.”
“I know she didn't send you to threaten us, but she sent Matthew to steal it. Aunt Mei told Matthew the story, all the stories about the pearl, every single time she saw him. And she hoped, she
knew,
eventually he'd steal it and rid our families of its curse. Do you know why?”
“I'm all ears,” he said pleasantly.
“Because she must have known you were becoming obsessed with it. She adores you, and she knew if you continued to dream about the pearl it would destroy you. Just the way it's destroyed everyone else. It wasn't even yours, but it was already bringing out the worst in you.”
“It's just a pearl, Liana. Nothing special. Except that it's worth probably a million or more to the right collector.”
“Aunt Mei thought she could save you, and she believed Matthew was strong enough to risk it.”
“Then she was wrong. Can't salvage me, cuz. I'm selfish to the core.”
“No, you're not.” She slipped her hand into her pocket, then swung her arm over the water. “Matthew was right. Aunt Mei was right. And I've been so blind. I let the pearl rule my life. But not anymore.”
Before he could threaten her, before he could turn the gun on Matthew or Cullen and use their safety as a weapon against her, she unclasped her fingers. She didn't watch the Pearl of Great Price's descent back into the waters that had nourished it. Suddenly her hand was empty, but her heart
was full. As Cullen pushed Matthew away and rose unsteadily to his feet beside her, she felt the dawning of a new millennium.
She had expected Frank to rush to the side, perhaps even to dive in. Instead he stood absolutely still, and his gun didn't waver. “I am deeply touched by your altruism. Deeply.”
She clasped Cullen's hand, a hand that was much too cold and unsteady. “Please, it's over, Frank. The pearl's gone. There's nothing to be gained from killing any of us. Dump our fuel, slash the sails. Leave us here. You can be wherever you plan to escape to before anyone finds us.”
Matthew stood, too, and for a moment Frank trained the gun on him until he seemed certain the boy wasn't going to try anything. The storm was moving overhead now, and lightning fragmented the sky. Frank had to raise his voice to be heard.
“Do you know how easy it was to install a video camera in your office, Liana? Because of our friendship, no one questioned my right to be there, even when you were gone.”
For a moment she thought he had lost his mind. “What are you talking about?”
“I'm talking about the way I discovered the combination to your safe. Months ago. You've always been so particular about your privacy. No surveillance cameras. No one watching you. So there wasn't anything to stop me when I decided to do a little filmmaking. And I knew every time you'd be opening the safe. You always had me arrange security. So I installed a camera one evening, just in time. You'd be amazed how advanced the technology is. I filmed you the next day, then one day in April I opened the safe and took it. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
She spoke as if he was a child. “Frank, Matthew took the pearl. And now it's gone forever.”
Rain dripped off Frank's nose and chin; his hair was plastered to his forehead, but his expression was casual, almost good-humored. “Nah, cuzâ¦Matthew took the pearl I put inside the safe. It's a fake, but a darned good one. The French made it. Fish scales and mother of pearl dust held together with resin. It's as heavy as the real thing, not like most fakes. Cullen can tell you, can't you?” He pointed the gun at Cullen.
“No one who knows pearls would mistake a fakeâ¦for the real thing,” Cullen said.
Liana knew what it was costing Cullen to stand. His hand seemed to grow colder. She gripped it harder. “You stole the Pearl of Great Price?”
“You're catching on.” Frank swung the gun toward Roman, who had said nothing but had managed somehow to move a little closer to him. “Old man, another inch and you're dead, just like that friend of yours in Derby.”
“Pete?”
Frank grinned. “Old fart. He died without telling me where you were headed. But I grew up on Grandmother's stories. Once I figured out he was in Australia, I knew exactly what Matthew would do. By the way, it was good of you to make that phone call to the office, Matthew. One of the secretaries who doesn't know you just happened to mention it. It set me on the right track.”
“If you stole the pearl,” Matthew said, “why did you follow us here? Why did you care what I did with a fake?”
“This is a smart boy,” Frank told Liana. “A credit to the family.” He smiled at Matthew, as he had so often in the past. “I had the real pearl, but I knew eventually somebody would discover it was gone, and I was afraid if it was hot it might be harder to sell once I was ready. So, when you took the fake, I just wanted to be sure you got rid of it. Then
later I could pass the Pearl of Great Price off as an unknown pearl and do whatever I wanted with it.”
Liana tried to distract him, praying for a way out of the inevitable. “You're the one who broke into my apartment and accessed Matthew's E-mail. And when Cullen and I figured out where he'd goneâ”
He shrugged. “Then I knew I had trouble. So Plan B was born. I tried to follow you quietly. Right up until the end, I hoped everything would come right by itself and you wouldn't catch up to Matthew in time. Then I wouldn't have to kill anybody. But while you were waiting for Matthew to show up at the pearl farm, I did some scouting on my own. I traced him to the shipyard, but he was already gone by then. Then Old Pete caught me stealing a boat, and once he was dead, I didn't have that much more to lose, did I?”
“So you followed him here?”
“No. I got here first. And then I waited. Deserted, treacherous bay, terrible storm, an ocean just filled with all manner of creepy crawlies.” He pretended to shiver. “If anyone finds what's left of you, it'll be a miracle. They'll assume the pearl went down with Matthew, of course. No pearl. No more Llewellyns.”
He swung the gun toward Cullen. “I don't have a grudge against you. Maybe your great-grandfather killed my grandfather. I don't care. Let bygones be bygones. But I'm going to kill you first, because, even wounded, you're the most dangerous.”
“No, Frank!” Liana moved between Cullen and Frank, but Cullen pushed her aside with what remained of his strength. “If you do kill meâ¦or anybody here, you'll never have the real pearl.”
Frank laughed. “I
have
the real pearl.”
“With you, I suppose?”
“Darned right.”
“Guess again, mate.”
The smile on Frank's face dimmed a watt. “Really? You have ten seconds to explain.”
“The real Pearl of Great Priceâ¦is in my safe at Pikuwa Creek.”
“And how do you figure that?”
Cullen spoke slowly, resting at the end of sentences, as if each breath was more difficult than the one before. “I wasâ¦in the U.S. in April, too. Did youâ¦know?”
“So?”
Cullen hesitated just a moment, and Frank steadied the gun.
Matthew stepped closer to his father. “You figured out the combination to the safe, didn't you, Dad? The way I did.”
“Stay out of this, Matthew,” Frank ordered.
“I knew you would figure out what I'd done,” Matthew continued, as if Frank hadn't spoken. “But you must have figured it out first.”
“Shut up!” Frank shouted, swinging the gun toward Matthew.
Liana's heart filled her throat. “Matthew, be quiet!”
“No, Mom. Don't you see? I didn't need a camera like Frank. I figured out the combination on my own. It wasn't just random numbers, not the way everybody thought. Dad was the one who gave me the idea. He warned me once I should never use my birthday or anything personal as my computer password.”
“Well, you didn't listen to that bit of advice, did you?” Frank said. “I figured out your password in ten minutes.”
“Yeah? Well, when I used Aunt Mei's address, I didn't know I'd have a thief and a murderer tracking me!”
“Matthew!” Liana started forward to try to protect him, but Frank waved her back with the gun. He didn't fire. Even in her terror, she knew that killing Matthew was not going to be easy for him.
“All right, Llewellyn,” Frank said. “Your son figured out the combination. Now you're sayingâ”
“Dad liked to play keno,” Matthew said. “He told me he used to choose numbers that meant something to him. And that's what my grandfather Thomas did, too.”
“Shut up, Matthew,” Frank warned. “Or I'll shoot your father at the next word! I swear I will! What numbers is he talking about?” Frank swung the gun back to Cullen. “This is your big chance, Crocodile Dundee.”
Cullen was panting, and Liana's own breath was coming in short bursts. “That's easy. The dayâ¦of the San Francisco earthquake. That was the worst moment of Thomas's life. He wasn't a man who would choose a happy date, was he?”
Frank laughed. “You know, you and the kid almost had me going. But I know my California history. The earthquake was April 18, 1906. That's four, eighteen, right? I remember the combination, and it doesn't begin with a four. Bang, you're dead.”
“No, it's the date
and
the time. Backwards,” Matthew shouted. “Twelve, five, six, nineteen, eighteen, four. I figured it out from stories about Thomas. I was fooling around with it one day while I was waiting for Mom to finish a meeting. Four for April, eighteen for the eighteenth, 1906 at 5:12 a.m. We'd just studied the earthquake in school. I wrote a paper about it. When the numbers didn't work in the right order, I reversed them. When the safe opened, I knew I had to steal the pearl.”
Frank was no longer laughing.
Cullen didn't look relieved or surprised. For once his ex
pression was a perfect poker face. “Now do you believeâ¦I nabbed it from the safe?”
Frank leveled the gun at his heart. “Not a chance. Matthew just fed the whole thing to you.”
Cullen nodded. “Good on yaâ¦mate. Becauseâ¦you're right, it's all a lie.”
“Dad!”
“Be quiet, son.” Cullen struggled for another breath. “Matthew did figure outâ¦the combination. But I never even got near Lee's office. Only, I still have the real pearl. Do youâ¦want to know howâ¦I got it?”
“You're wasting my time!”
“Your grandmotherâ¦discovered that you stole it, Frank. She found itâ¦on one of her visits toâ¦your houseâ¦. You kept itâ¦at home, didn't you?”
“Where?” Frank demanded.
Liana knew Cullen, like Matthew, was just playing for time. The boat was rocking harder, and rain was sweeping across the deck. Roman was inching closer to a fascinated Frank. Cullen was gasping, as if trying with all his strength not to lose consciousness.
“She would never say. But she saw what itâ¦had done to you, and she knew your only hopeâ¦was for me to bring itâ¦back here to Australia. She never got over stealing it from my grandfatherâ¦. She thought it should belong toâ¦me. Because of Bryce. So she wrote me a letter, and I flew to San Franciscoâ¦. There was a family gathering that weekend, a birthday, I think. She saidâ¦she was too tired to go, then she made Betty take herâ¦to your condo while the familyâ¦was together. She replaced the Pearl of Great Price with one I brought for her, the biggest pearl ever to comeâ¦out of Pikuwa Creek. And that'sâ¦where the Pearl of Great Price is waiting for you. At Pikuwa
Creek, in my safe. You can have it, Frank. But not if we're dead. Our lives for the pearl.”