His voice was matter-of-fact rather than threatening.
“Our customers are used to privacy,” Shannon Chen replied, “but we don’t use that as a shield. The nature of our business means we’ve previously been targeted by thieves—I’d much rather you and your fellow officers not think of us as criminals.” The words were crisp and professional, even a little sharp, but Anahera noticed Shannon Chen had chosen her words with care. She hadn’t said that they weren’t criminals, only that they preferred not to be thought of as criminals.
A subtle distinction and maybe no distinction at all, but it was interesting.
“As for this watch…” A pause. “I don’t recognize it and I know all of the pieces we’ve ever made or traded. Aaron?”
Another long pause, as if the watch was being examined. “No,” said a deep male voice that was oddly soft. “The style is too delicate for one of mine. I prefer harder edges. Shannon’s wearing one of my designs.”
Anahera had noticed Shannon’s watch when they shook hands. It was more blocky than she might’ve expected on such a slender wrist, but it suited Shannon Chen. There was a sense of power to her and to the watch both; it was likely her brother had made the watch specifically for her. Anahera had seen far more delicate pieces in the showroom.
Will had clearly noted the same. “It’s not worth putting your entire business in jeopardy to protect one client,” he said in that mild tone he could turn lethal. “Think carefully before you answer my question. Is this one of yours?”
“I don’t have to think, Detective. This isn’t one of ours.” Shannon’s tone had cooled from professional to glacial. “However, I recognize the workmanship. I’ll write down the address for you.”
Voices drifted in from the showroom, the language Korean from what Anahera could make out. The clerk answered in the same language, though he was clearly not ethnically Korean. She’d pegged him as more likely to be Indonesian. “Good service,” she said quietly to Shannon after turning to see Will sliding the watch back into the evidence bag. “How many languages does he speak?”
“Five at last count.” The other woman smiled at her, the act unexpected. “You don’t sell jewels that start in the six figures without offering service of the highest caliber. Now”—she shifted her attention back to Will—“if you don’t mind, Aaron will show you the back way out while I go and greet our clients.”
“Thank you for the help.”
Shannon Chen headed to the doorway. “Come by sometime when you’re not in the mood to interrogate and we’ll have lunch.” She’d already passed Anahera, her perfume a subtle, elegant, and expensive musk, when she paused suddenly and glanced back. “I knew I remembered that face. Your husband bought your engagement ring from us when we were based in Auckland, showed me a photo of you.” Her eyes dropped to Anahera’s left hand, but she was too professional to mention the lack of either a wedding band or that tastefully extravagant engagement ring.
Despite the courtesy, Anahera barely made it down the chipped concrete of the back steps without screaming. “It’s like Edward’s ghost is following me around today,” she said the instant she was alone with Will in the delivery bay behind the building.
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her anorak, fisting them to white-knuckled tightness. “And how creepy is it that the brother doesn’t speak until the sister tells him to?”
“Twins can be that way. It’s like they each take on certain duties. With the Chens, Shannon is the talker and the leader while Aaron takes care of everything in the back—and is probably the only person Shannon truly trusts.”
Sudden dark heat burned at the backs of Anahera’s eyes. She looked desperately toward the light at the end of the small street, needing a way out. She couldn’t break down, not here, not now, not with this cop with his hard eyes and his body that made hers threaten to wake.
“I’m going to get the car,” Will said, stepping ahead. “No point in you walking back, too. Wait by the parking sign on the street and I’ll pick you up.”
Always a cop.
Seeing too much.
If he’d pushed, she’d have pushed back harder, her rage a smashing wave.
But he was giving her room, was taking the first steps to the busy street beyond.
“I miscarried twins.” The words she’d never once spoken shoved out of her throat. “I was far enough along that I had the bump, that the doctors could tell me I was carrying twins. But I waited to tell the people at home.” Some London friends had known, but those friends lived in a different world than the people of Golden Cove. “I wanted to surprise Josie and Nikau and the others with a great big six-month bump. And then I never told anyone at all.”
Shifting on his heel to return to her, Will looked at her not with sympathy, not with pity, but with an understanding as desolate as it was angry. “It never fucking stops hurting, does it?”
Jesus, God, someone finally got it. “I keep waiting for it to stop, but no, it never does.” And on days like today, when she’d come up against a pair of twins, the wound dug its way in and twisted.
What would her twins have grown up to be like? Would they have been like Shannon and Aaron Chen, two people so in sync that they each had a specific role in the relationship and in the world? Or would her twins have been so different from each other that it was difficult to even tell that they were siblings? Anahera would never know. “Did you lose a child?”
“He wasn’t mine, but I lost him anyway.” Voice rough and fingers curled viciously into his palms, Will nudged his head toward the street. “Let’s go. The address Shannon gave me is on the outskirts of town. We may as well pick up your laptop before we leave.”
Walking out with him and into the chaos of life, Anahera blinked against the influx of noise. “You’re certain Shannon gave you the right person?”
He handed over a piece of paper. On it was written an address; below that the words: The koru paired with the minuscule ruby embedded in the back is her trademark.
38
“This is it.” Will brought the SUV to a stop on a leafy suburban street, outside a white villa fronted by a manicured lawn and the bare limbs of dormant roses. “Your laptop should be safe enough to leave. This is an exclusive area, no street crime to speak of.”
“Did you already have this place on your list?”
“Yes. We were going to hit it last.”
Anahera glanced at the other side of the street, her eyes on a new build that had been made to match the style of the older homes. A few more years, Will judged, a little more age on the plantings around it, and it would lose that unpolished new shine, begin to truly blend in.
“It doesn’t look like the jeweler advertises.” Anahera turned back to the villa. “How did you find out about her?”
“I’m a detective.”
A hint of a smile on her face. “Touché.”
Will wasn’t expecting the smile, or how beautiful she was when the light hit her eyes. Getting out of the vehicle without replying because he had no idea what the fuck to do with his response to her, he met her by the villa’s small white gate. Her smile was gone, her face back to its usual difficult-to-read state, and her hands stuffed into the pockets of her anorak.