Beautiful Lies (47 page)

They had not made the progress they had hoped to. They still had hours before they reached the Graveyard.

“There won't be enough moonlight to do any good.” Cullen slapped his palm against the railing in frustration. “I'd hoped to go until midnight. But there's no point. We can't see anything in the dark.”

She joined him at the side and stared at the water. The
moon was a splinter of light, and gathering clouds veiled the stars. “Is a storm brewing?”

He didn't look at her. “The sound's calm enough here.”

“But the sky's full of clouds.”

“The Graveyard was the place the first pearlers came to ride out cyclone season. But we may have some trouble by morning,” he admitted.

She was numb. Trouble just sounded like more of the same. “This isn't the best boat to ride out a big blow, is it?”

“It might be better than whatever Matthew and Dad are sailing.”

“You were hoping we'd find them today, weren't you?”

“There are so many flaming variables, I don't know what to hope for. I don't know what sort of vessel Pete loaned them. I don't know what kind of time they're making, exactly where they're going, or how they intend to get there. Dad's no sailor, and these waters can be treacherous. Even if he's headed for the Graveyard, I don't know if he'll find his way.”

“And you don't know if someone else caught up with them, do you?”

“Don't think about that now.”

“None of the things I
can
think about are much better.”

“Then maybe it's time to get some sleep. We'll be up before dawn.”

“What time is it in San Francisco?”

He glanced at his watch. “About 4:00 a.m.”

“Then I won't get to sleep. This is usually when I wake up. My body thinks it's prime time to toss and turn.”

“When we were married, you slept like the dead. I had to stand you upright in the shower every morning.”

She could no longer risk those memories. “Are you coming down, too?”

“No, I'll sleep up here.”

“You want to keep watch, don't you?”

He didn't deny it.

“I'll stay up here with you, then. Two sets of eyes and ears.”

“No point in both of us being uncomfortable.”

She thought of the cramped quarters below, two narrow bunk beds with a narrower aisle between. She took his empty cup and started down the steps. “Two can listen and watch better than one. Want me to bring up a sleeping bag for you?”

“No, have a wash and get what you need. I'll come down when you've finished and do the same.”

A little later they were settled in sleeping bags in the small space available. The waves had picked up, and the
Robinette
rocked gently. Liana thought of all the places she'd slept since Matthew's disappearance. Strange, threatening places, yet for the first time in years, she was nearly panic-free. She was on a boat out on open waters, her life in ruins around her, yet she was strangely calm.

“The eye of the hurricane,” she said.

“What?”

She hadn't realized she had spoken out loud. “The eye of the hurricane. What you call a cyclone. The center of the storm, when everything is peaceful, but you know the worst is yet to come. That's what this is, Cullen. We've been through hell, and tomorrow we'll go through it all over again. I'm terrified for Matthew, but I'm not afraid of anything else. For the first time in a long, long time. I wonder why.”

“Don't you know?”

She opened her eyes. He was close enough to touch, although she didn't. “Why?”

He lay on his back with his head resting on his hands. “The pearl, Lee. It's out of your hands, isn't it? In every
single way, for the first time since you left Australia, that pearl and everything that goes with it is out of your hands.”

 

Matthew put the finishing touches on two mugs of stew right out of the can. He never ate this way at home, and even though he missed Sue's cooking, he liked the simplicity of eating whatever he wanted, whenever he was hungry. He took the stew up the stairs to Roman, who had dropped anchor for the night.

Roman's eyes were closed, and Matthew felt a stab of guilt. His grandfather was not a young man, and the trip was obviously exhausting him.

“Granddad?”

Roman opened his eyes. “Took you long enough, boy.”

Matthew grinned. The day had been one of the finest of his life. He'd gotten his sea legs, and he'd caught on to his grandfather's commands. He was storing up memories. The thrill of catching the wind, darting between islands and reefs; watching raptly as a school of dolphins cavorted behind the sailboat like family pets.

Once Roman had taken his portion, Matthew flopped down on the seat beside him. They ate in silence until Matthew was almost finished. With his appetite appeased, he was able to put into words something he'd been considering all day.

“I've been thinking, maybe we've gone far enough. Maybe we don't have to find the exact spot where the pearl came from. This is close enough, isn't it? We could drop it overboard now. Before we go to sleep. Then everything would be over.”

“I've been thinking, too. You know, a pearl's just a pearl, Matthew. There's no magic in it. It's the way the pearl makes people feel that's the key, isn't it?”

“I guess.”

“You had it with you a long time before you got to Jimiramira, didn't you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And did you feel any different?”

He thought about Tricia, but he doubted that was what his grandfather meant. “I'm not sure people can tell if they feel different or not.”

“Did you do anything you don't usually do?”

“Sure. I broke into my mother's safe. Then I charged an airplane ticket on her account. I lied to everybody.” He decided not to mention the encounter with Charlie. “I left my dad waiting at the airport. I—”

“Bloody hell! I get the picture.”

“I know it's worth a lot of money.”

“That it is.”

“In a way, when I get rid of it, I'm stealing from my own kids. But at the same time, I'm protecting them.”

“The tide may have turned, boy. There's no reason to think your children will be changed one way or the other by what you do.”

“My mom will. And I will. I don't want to think about it ever again. I want to decide for myself who I am and what I'll do, without thinking about the pearl. I just want it gone.”

“You could give it to a museum. Once it's really yours.”

“By then I might not be able to. I might do terrible things to keep it, like everybody else.”

Roman was quiet for a moment. “Then let's do it right. Let's find the dinky-di spot and do it the way it's supposed to be done.”

Matthew had the uncomfortable feeling that his grandfather was just trying to delay the inevitable. Roman probably hoped that Matthew would change his mind if they
waited another day. But there was nothing he could do about that tonight. Roman had the pearl in his pocket. From the moment he had learned that Matthew had stolen the pearl, he had refused to help unless Matthew gave it to him for safekeeping.

“Are you really going to let me decide what to do when the time comes?” Matthew demanded. “Because I'm not going to change my mind.”

“When the time comes, the decision will be yours,” Roman said. “On my word.”

A
s Liana watched two huge turtles gliding through the waves just beyond them, Cullen did some calculations. “We'll be entering the Graveyard before long. I thought the wind had thrown us farther off course, but it hasn't.”

All morning Liana had hoped to sight another boat, but as far as she could see, the choppy waters of King Sound were deserted. Even though storms were unusual in June, it looked as if they would get one. Unfortunately, gray skies made searching more difficult. Sea and island melted into sky, and the waves were steadily picking up.

She swept her hand in a broad arc. “No one's out here. I thought Sarah said these grounds were still popular.”

“It's not the right time for gathering oysters, but we might see a pirate ship or two. The waters are remarkably rich. Lots of trouble with fishermen from other countries coming to gather trochus in our waters. They make so much money from one load of shell, it's worth risking time in our jails.”

“If Matthew and your dad ran into one of their boats…”

“They'd be safe. No worries. It might be better than being out on these waters alone.”

Or almost alone. Liana knew that the bigger threat was from whoever had killed Pete Carpenter.

She shaded her eyes with her hand, even though there was no glare off the water. “Cullen, if they're not there, are we going to turn back?”

“We'll spend the rest of the day having a look there and in some of the nearby bays, then we'll decide what to do.”

She was afraid they had run out of options. They had surely run out of conversation. She sat back with the binoculars as Cullen maneuvered reefs and riptides with precision. With the approaching storm, she was doubly glad to be with someone who knew the waters. Thunder rumbled in the distance, but she and Cullen were still silent half an hour later as he carefully guided the
Robinette
into the Graveyard. Once past the mouth of the bay, she saw there were islands here as well, and hills far beyond, rising like the walls of an ancient fort, protecting and sheltering the waters.

She had hoped the bay would be compact enough that sighting another vessel would be a simple matter. But there were mangrove creeks coiling away from the main waters, as well as islands densely forested with gum trees and paperbarks that hid wide stretches of the bay.

“What's that?” Cullen squinted at the eastern horizon and pointed.

She didn't see anything until she put the binoculars up to her eyes. Then she saw the faintest shadow against a distant island. “It might be something. Shall we check?”

He headed southeast.

She hadn't spent much time on the water in recent years. In the early days of their marriage, she had sometimes
gone out with Cullen and his divers, just to be closer to him. But she had forgotten the way that distances couldn't be measured this far from shore. She strained to see, but they seemed to be treading the tossing waves, not moving through them. Only when the shadow began to lengthen and develop shape was she convinced it wasn't a mirage.

“It's a boat,” Cullen said at last. “Probably a small sailboat of some sort. Not a fishing boat.”

“The right size for a crew of two?”

“Looks that way.”

They covered the rest of the distance in silence. Once the sailboat was in plain sight, there was no thrill of recognition. They still had no idea what sort of craft, if any, Matthew and Roman had borrowed. But there was an instant of awareness like none Liana had ever felt when the gap closed and with the help of binoculars she recognized Matthew.

“Cullen!” She pointed. “It's Matthew! Look!”

“Easy, Lee.”

She turned and saw that Cullen had taken out the semiautomatic she had practiced with yesterday. “What are you doing?”

He shoved it in the waistband of his shorts. “We don't know who's on board with him.”

She spun around, straining to see. “It looks like one other person. An older man. It's probably your father.”

“Come here and take the wheel.”

She did, handing him the binoculars. He focused, then he grabbed the wheel again. “It's Dad, all right.”

“There's nobody else on board, unless they're below.”

“Let's find out.”

She gripped the railing as he sped toward the sailboat. Thunder boomed, amplified now and extended, but the ap
proaching storm no longer seemed important. Minutes passed. Matthew grew larger. She watched him peering over the side at their approach; then she tossed the binoculars on a seat when she could see her son without them. Cullen cut the engine, and they drifted to the side. Cullen took the line and tossed it through the air toward a gawking Matthew.

“Grab it, son, and tie us off.”

Matthew did as he was told. Roman joined him at the side. When the boats were secured, Cullen addressed his father. “Your place or ours, Dad?”

“We're not the ones who came looking for you,” Roman said gruffly.

“That you didn't.” Cullen held out his hand to help Liana to the foredeck of the sailboat. Then he joined her.

She made her way toward Matthew, grabbed him in a bear hug and felt his arms close convulsively around her. She held him for a moment, then she shoved him away. “Do you have any idea what you've put us through?”

Matthew still looked stunned. “What are you doing here?”

“What am
I
doing here?” She shoved him again with the heel of her hands, harder than she had before. He stumbled backwards. “You lied! You ran away. You broke into my safe and took the pearl, and you're asking me what I'm doing here?”

She felt Cullen's hand on her shoulder. “Give the boy a chance to speak.”

She couldn't stop. “We were afraid you were dead!”

“I'm okay, Mom. I can take care of myself. I just had some things to do.”

He was taller. She could swear he was taller. His hair had been long. Now it was short and streaked from the sun. He was sunburned.

He was alive. She hugged herself and swayed in rhythm with the swelling waves. He was alive.

Cullen turned to his father. “Matthew's fourteen. A fourteen-year-old boy doesn't have the best judgment. So where was yours? Don't you know what it's like to worry about your own kid?”

“You gave me plenty to worry about.”

“You had no right to keep Matthew's presence here a secret.”

“I did what I had to.”

Liana glanced at Roman for the first time. She hadn't been prepared for the resemblance to Cullen. Or to Matthew. “What about me? Didn't I count, either?”

“Stop it,” Matthew said. “I talked Granddad into this. He did it for me. If you want to be angry at somebody, be angry at me. Okay?”

Liana lowered her voice and was momentarily drowned out by another clap of thunder. She started again. “How could you have done this to us, Matthew? Your dad and I have been worried sick.”

“You know why he did it, Lee,” Cullen said. He faced his son. “We know, Matthew. You stole the pearl and brought it here. You thought you were helping everybody by getting rid of it. It's gone now, I suppose.”

Matthew exchanged glances with his grandfather. “It's gone. We—” Thunder cut him off.

“No, it's not gone,” Roman said when the thunder died. “I have it,” he told Cullen. Then he turned to Matthew. “It's time for honesty, boy.”

Matthew turned pale under his sunburn. “But you said this would be my choice,” he told his grandfather. “You gave me your word.”

Roman slipped his fingers into the pocket of his well-
worn white moleskins and carefully lifted out a tiny jeweler's case. “Your mother kept her rings in this whenever she was tidying the house,” he told Cullen. He snapped open the lid and held out the Pearl of Great Price, nestled on a square of linen. It gleamed as if in full sunshine, an iridescent sphere, seemingly perfect in every way.

Roman didn't smile. “The boy's superstitious, but maybe I am, too. Joan was a good woman. I reckoned we could use her blessing.”

As Liana watched, hardly daring to breathe, Roman pinched the pearl between index finger and thumb. But he didn't give it to her, as she expected. He turned. “Hold out your hand, Matthew.”

Matthew's eyes widened.

“Don't do this, Dad,” Cullen said. “He's fourteen. He can't be expected to make this kind of decision.”

“Hold out your hand, Matthew,” Roman repeated.

Matthew stared at his father, then at his grandfather. Finally he unclasped his fingers and held his hand palm up. The boat was rocking harder now, and only streaks of distant lightning brightened the gloom. Matthew's hand was unsteady.

“The pearl is yours, boy. You're the one who took it, after all. So it's your decision. What'll it be? Will you steal this from your mother a second time? Are you smart enough, good enough, to decide for everybody what's the right thing to do? Because it's your decision now.” Roman set the pearl in Matthew's palm, then he folded the boy's fingers around it. “God help you, though, if you make the wrong one.”

Liana didn't dare to breathe. She was certain that if she moved toward her son, or even looked as if that was her intention, Matthew would throw the pearl into the bay.
Even in the calmest weather, the waters of the Graveyard were too treacherous for them to have any hopes of retrieving it. It would be lost forever.

“It brings out the worst flaw in anybody who has it,” Matthew said. “Mom, you were getting worse and worse. You could hardly leave the house. You were so unhappy….”

Liana felt tears streaming down her cheeks. “Not because of a pearl, Matty.”

“You've done a lot of things because of it. You stayed at Pacific International, even though you hate it.”

She wondered if he knew that, at least partly because of the pearl, she had also kept him from Australia and his father's life at Pikuwa Creek.

The first drops of rain dotted the deck. Matthew clenched his fist, and his knuckles turned white with strain. “I've seen some of your jewelry, Mom. And Dad told me that you used to love designing it.”

“The only thing you'll accomplish if you throw that pearl in the water is to prove you don't trust your mother,” Cullen said. “You're telling her she's not strong enough, or even smart enough, to take care of herself. Well, she's both. Your mother will do whatever she has to, no matter the consequences.”

The words sounded like a tribute. But Liana knew exactly what Cullen meant.

“I believe in you,” Matthew told her. “But you can't control the pearl. It's evil.”

“Do you really know what's right for everyone, Matthew?” Cullen said. “Is that
your
greatest flaw? Is that what stealing the pearl has done to you?”

Matthew looked stricken. The
Argonaut
was pitching from side to side in the water. Liana held on to the lifeline with one hand and extended the other, slowly and carefully.
“It's not your decision.” Despite the thunder, she spoke softly, as if she were pacifying a younger Matthew. “It never was. I love you so much for wanting to protect me. But you can't. In the end, we're all responsible for ourselves, no matter how much the people we love want to help us.”

“I hate it!” His voice was choked with tears.

“It's a pearl,” Roman said. “Just a pearl. Not good, not bad. A pearl that inspires people to act like fools and criminals. But that's all, boy. And maybe you can change that now. But not by throwing it in the bay.”

Matthew swallowed. Liana wanted to put her arms around him again, to hold him tight, to change him back into the infant she had nursed and comforted at her breast. But Matthew was almost a man, and this was a man's decision.

At last he stepped forward and held out his hand. She extended hers a little farther, palm up. She felt oddly disoriented, as if she were not one but many people, the embodiment of generations, who had held out their hands just this way, yearning for whatever they needed most. Archer, who wanted to fulfill his dreams of land and cattle. Tom, who blindly valued loyalty and friendship more than life. Viola and Willow. Bryce and Mei, and even Thomas, who had hoped that one flawless pearl would save him forever from the shame of his ancestry and the childhood terror of a city collapsing around him.

Yet, in the end, the pearl had promised each of them everything and given them nothing.

Matthew dropped the pearl into her hand, and it lay shining against her skin, dewed by raindrops, lit by lightning. His voice shook. “When it's mine, I'll bring it back here and bury it forty fathoms deep.”

“When it's yours, I'll help you,” Cullen told him.

Liana's fingers closed around the pearl. Her grandfather had died for it; Cullen's great-grandfather had killed for it, and she had sold her soul to keep it. She felt no pleasure and no relief. The Pearl of Great Price was no hotter than the air surrounding it, but it seared her palm.

A new voice spoke. “I don't think it
will
be yours, Matthew.”

Liana looked up as the men turned. Frank Fong stood in a powerboat just at their stern. For a moment she froze, unable and unwilling to comprehend what was happening. In a blur of movement beside her, Cullen drew the .38 from his waistband and aimed it, but not quickly enough. Frank lifted his arm and fired first. The revolver clattered to the deck and slid into an open hatch. Cullen fell to one knee.

“Dad!” Matthew pitched himself at his father, trying to hold him up. Roman started toward Frank, but Frank swung the gun toward him. “You're next, old man.”

Roman faltered.

“What are you doing?” Matthew shouted. “This is my dad, Frank. You shot him!”

Liana knelt beside Cullen and saw the blossoming of blood on his shirt, well below his collarbone. She was trembling, but her voice was steady. “Frank, put the gun away. Everything's fine here. You've misinterpreted the situation.”