Hidden Pearl Read online

  THE HIDDEN PEARL

  by

  Rain Trueax

  Prologue

  He felt like an old man, not the thirty-five years he was and vowed for at least the third time in less than an hour to consider his projects more carefully in the future. That is if he had a future. He got up from the chair, paced the book-lined room as he waited.

  The door opened, and the man he had come to call Nemesis walked into the room. "You just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?" he asked.

  "I don't know what you're talking about." He had to deceive him, all of them. He wished he was better at lying.

  "Ah, but you do know." Nemesis’ smile was smug and full of assurance. This man saw right through him. Lies wouldn’t work. Would begging? He doubted Nemesis had a heart.

  Three more men entered the small room.

  God, help me. When the door closed, he edged toward it, stopped by a beefy hand against his chest. He looked up into soulless eyes. Who were these people? What the hell had he been thinking to--

  "You were not told you could leave.”

  A stronger surge of fear shot through him when he’d thought he had been as frightened as it was possible to be.

  With a sick sense of recognition, he understood. He wouldn't be able to reason his way out of this. He saw the satisfaction on Nemesis’s face, knew he was relishing the smell of fear. He could almost see him growing in size as he took it in. What kind of human being was he?

  "Have you talked to anyone about this? Like say your wife?"

  "Of course not.” He understood it wasn’t really a question but a threat. “She’s busy with our daughters. Please, have mercy. I have small daughters…”

  "So you will care about saving them, won’t you?" Paper was produced and put on the desk. "Sit." When he didn’t immediately obey, two of the mindless ones took hold of his arms and propelled him to a table.

  "I congratulate you for your wisdom. It can stay with just you. Or…"

  The sentence didn't need to be finished, and he understood then how perfectly the trap had been sprung. He had no choice but to write whatever was ordered. He would not let anyone to hurt Katy and the girls. Perhaps after he wrote this, they would let him go. Maybe they only wanted to keep something for blackmail. He was amazed to realize a thought as awful as that filled him with hope.

  He sat at the table, his guards standing behind him, then was handed a pen.

  Nemesis stroked his chin, then smiled. “Let’s see now… write--I'm sorry for causing grief, but I have no choice but to end my life."

  "I won't write that!" He tried to get out of the chair but was pushed back. He looked into those cold eyes and understood that for him there was to be no way out.

  Chapter One

  "Storm Walker?”

  S.T., still breathing hard from his morning run, had felt his first surge of irritation at seeing the light blinking on his answering machine, a device he frequently wished he'd never yielded to purchasing-- not for his home. His second came at hearing the name his mother had given him, the name he only heard from her.

  “You must call me as soon as possible." There was a moment of silence. "And if you're monitoring this call to avoid me, I warn you that I will keep calling until I hear from you!" She knew him too well despite having had little real time together.

  He reached behind him for the leather thong that held his hair clubbed to his neck and jerked it loose, letting the damp hair fall heavily onto his shoulders. He seldom saw his mother or the red rock reservation on which she lived but she had sure as hell left her mark on him—a mark that showed in more ways than thick black hair or dark skin. There had been another heritage, one harder to escape than geography; it was one of separation, confusion, rejection.

  He filled a glass of water before he sank into the chair beside the phone. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t want to call her back. The worry in her voice left him no choice. She had never asked for money but maybe this time... Sipping half the glass of water, he stared blankly out the window at the darkness, the rays of the sun creeping over the horizon, just beginning to backlight the tall firs surrounding his home. Reluctantly he punched in her number.

  She had been waiting. "Where were you?" Her tone was crisp, each word enunciated.

  "Jogging." He flipped open the Oregonian.

  "Before light?"

  "It's the time I had. What do you want, Mother?" He scanned down the front page; this might be his only chance to look at a paper all day.

  "Your sister's missing."

  "How would you know?" he asked, a note of mockery in his voice that he knew his mother would probably recognize but about which he doubted she would comment. So far as he knew his mother's contact with Shonna had been as irregular as his. He barely knew what his sister might look like by now. He’d seen her three times since he left home twenty years earlier at sixteen.

  He heard his mother's sigh as loudly as though it was in the room with him. "It has been two months since I've heard from her. Every call I’ve made has been ignored. Last night her phone had been disconnected."

  "Did you try Jason's?" he asked, using his father's name with reluctance. He himself rarely called the man who had sired him and knew his mother would be equally if not more reluctant.

  "I did. The son of a bitch denied knowing anything about what she's been doing, but he was hiding something--not to mention stinking drunk."

  "Where was Shonna living?" he asked knowing he likely wouldn’t want to hear the answer.

  "I thought you would have known. She was in Oregon.”

  “I haven’t heard from her in years.”

  “I hoped perhaps you talked... sometimes.”

  “No.”

  Another sigh. “Can you see if she’s okay? Here’s the address I have for her.”

  Reluctantly, he wrote it down. “I don’t know what I can do.”

  "You can do more than I can from Arizona.” There was anger in her voice.

  “I don’t owe you or her anything.” He couldn’t hide the anger from coming through his voice.

  "We share flesh and blood." His mother didn’t sound offended but rather determined. He did remember that about her.

  He laughed shortly. "Does that have meaning?”

  "We have a common spirit."

  "And that explains you leaving me when I was six."

  "Things happened that were beyond my control.” Her tone was emotionless.

  He gritted his teeth against his instinctive response. Glancing down at the newspaper to get control of his anger before he used words he would regret later, he was shocked at the headline--- Suicide of prominent architect Lane Brown is disputed.

  "I do love you, my son. You know that, don't you?" His mother's voice had softened, forcing his attention back to her.

  Closing his eyes, he considered the problem she was attempting to land on his doorstep. "I don't know much about love, Mother, but I will see what I can find out about Shonna."

  “One more thing.” There was a moment of silence. "Beware the chindi, my son."

  "What?"

  "Remember the stories I told you when you were small, the ones about the evil that can be created with death."

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Navajo superstitions, Mother."

  "It is more than that." The words came fast, a new tone of desperation. "I have a bad feeling about this. About what has happened to Shonna. I need to know, but I just ask that you be careful. I do not wish to lose both of my children. I debated… for a long while actually, before I called you for that reason."

  “You suspect violence as a factor?”

  He could almost hear her snap her jaw shut although he knew no sound had carried to him. “Just be careful.”


  "Of course." He suppressed a snort at her pretense of concern but instead gave the answer she wanted to hear. He was no risk taker anyway although some might say his life to date made a lie out of that statement.

  "Thank you." If he hadn't known how unemotional his mother normally was, he would have thought he heard a sob in her voice. "I'll call back later to see what you have found... and to be sure you are all right."

  When he'd hung up the phone, S.T. scanned the article on Lane Brown's death, still feeling a sense of shock. Lane had it all--career, family, money. Why would he kill himself?

  The facts were stark and pitiful. Lane had disappeared. Two days later, his body had been found in a wooded area outside of Eugene--hanging from a tree. His wife refused to accept the police conclusion that he had killed himself, but Lane had evidently left a note leaving no doubt, at least so far as the authorities were concerned. None of that answered the why.

  Trying to put the disturbing phone call from his mother and Lane’s choice of death from his mind, S.T. headed for his bedroom, stripped off his clothing, and stepped into the shower.

  As the water pounded his body, he remembered his last meeting with Lane over a disputed project where S.T. had won the contract. Lane had been laughing, talking about his small daughters’ antics and telling S.T. family life was wonderful. When was he going to try it? Of course, all that had been almost a year ago; what could have gone so badly wrong in a year? As far as S.T. knew Lane’s business had been going well. What would drive a man like Lane to end it all? A fight with Katy?

  Love stunk. Wasn’t there a song like that or shouldn’t there have been? S.T. didn't know when he had quit believing in love. He wondered if he ever had. Maybe his disillusionment came from being born out of two different worlds, torn apart by both. A Navajo mother, a ne-er-do-well, drunken Scot for a father.

  His parents had been ill prepared for commitment to each other and even less to their children. The only amazing thing is they stayed together long enough to produce even one baby, let alone two. His father had technically retained custody, but the truth was nobody had custody of anyone. When his father had remembered he had children, there’d been good moments, good bits to remember. They were rare.

  Storm Walker Taggert he'd been christened. What a name to bestow on a child, but S.T. guessed to his mother it might have seemed logical and perhaps it reflected his father's puckish sense of humor. Whatever the reason behind the name, it had caused him no end of grief. Using initials in school had helped only until his teachers demanded his full name, then the ridicule would begin.

  His black hair, dark skin, rugged Athabascan features hadn't made his life any easier, that is until he'd come into his full height and breadth of shoulder; then at least, when he'd narrowed a threatening gaze on them, the boys had stepped back. As for the girls, they'd been all too willing to forget he was of mixed blood, at least until it came time to meet their parents.

  S.T. dressed quickly, anxious to get to work, get to the building site where he could forget anything but the problems of S.T. Construction, a more successful endeavor than his personal life had ever been.

  #

  S.T. glanced up from the table and the blueprints strewn across it to see his secretary at the door. "Ms. Johnson is here," Helen said smiling.

  "Who?"

  "The photographer." Helen's smile disappeared with his frown.

  He tried to remember asking a photographer to take photos of one of the projects. He hadn’t.

  "I can start anywhere." The voice was a smooth contralto and one he'd never heard before. S.T. looked past Helen to see a tall woman, blond hair pulled into a tight braid that began at the crown and ended somewhere down her back, dressed in a tan cotton suit, a camera around her neck, a large, leather bag slung over one shoulder, and a smile on a beautiful face.

  "Start what?" he asked, reaching for his day-timer. It was the only thing that kept him anywhere near where he was supposed to be. Glancing down the page, there was no reference to a photographer.

  He glanced up. "What's your name again?" he asked, irritated by the flash from her camera as she snapped a picture of him.

  "Sorry for that but it was a perfect shot. I’ll try to resist not warning you in the future, but… I’m Christine Johnson." She reached out her hand. When he didn't immediately take it, she smiled more broadly. "Would you like my ID?" She raised well-shaped eyebrows.

  "It wouldn’t change anything.”

  "You'll hardly know I'm around," she said, glancing around the room, her gaze obviously missing nothing as they swung from the model of the high-rise he was currently building, to the bookcase, the computers, printers, the large, old oak desk, a long wooden table, then back to him.

  "Mainly because you won't be," he said with a cold smile. "What is this about?"

  "The photo essay, of course. You don't mean you've forgotten?" she asked, moving around the room and again looking at him through the camera lens.

  He was now vaguely remembering something about photographs, about a piece on himself, followed with his refusal. "I said no." He thought he had sent back that reply.

  Her smile disappeared, replaced by a stern expression he vaguely remembered seeing on disapproving school teachers a time or two. "I've come a long way," she said crisply, her steady gaze meeting his.

  For Christine Johnson, seeing S.T. Taggert came as a complete shock. If she'd expected anything it would have been a crisply suited businessman, someone who looked the part of a multimillionaire, who fit her working title for the new piece--young power brokers of the Northwest. Instead she saw a tall man, muscles not hidden by the plain T-shirt that stretched across broad shoulders, long black hair tied at the back of his neck by some kind of leather thong, ethnically interesting features that were handsome enough to land him on the cover of a magazine, any magazine.

  Photographing this man would be a joy, something she would do for nothing, something that would win her prizes if she managed to capture half the animal magnetism she was seeing. The challenge was like a shot of adrenaline. She felt hungry for the photos she already could see in her mind’s eye.

  "I'm sorry about that," he said, not looking the least bit sorry, "but even if I wanted to oblige you, this would be a bad time."

  "When would be better?" she asked, hoping she wasn't staring at him like a cat at a mouse. She was mentally deciding which f stop would best accent the interesting shadows cast by those high cheekbones. Sometimes she used digital but for this, she wanted film where she could develop it herself, back to what she used to do when the film was a tactile part of her life, more real than the sometimes easier digital but also more soul satisfying.

  "No time is a good time."

  "Publicity of the right sort is good for business.” She squinted a little, cutting away the background and concentrating on the angle she wanted. Trying not to be obvious, she shifted a little to her left to get a different perspective. Lower would be good if she knelt.

  "No photographs while we are talking, honey,” he said, “or you’re out the door.”

  She decided to ignore the honey at least once. She wasn’t out to annoy him. She set the camera down. “Any photos I take will always be subject to approval, of course.”

  “Which will be easy to arrange as there aren’t going to be any.”

  “You said we could talk about it.”

  He looked down at his watch. “Five minutes. Talk.” His expression as he looked back at her was hard, no weaknesses showing. Easy to see this man as a part of nature, raw animal power. As if he was reading her mind, she now saw the expression that would scare off anyone with a weak constitution. Fortunately, Christine thought, shifting into fighting mode, that didn't cover her.

  "This will be a positive article for promoting business and not just yours. In our economy and with the mixed feelings people have about business, this is a big plus. You will have full approval of the photos. It will encompass your work, your projects and stay out of your
personal life.” The Spartan table in front of him would be a perfect counterpoint to his lean frame. “I see the artist as visible through the work and will use my photos to prove that point.”

  "Sorry, but I don't like having my picture taken as you doubtless know by the fact that there aren’t many if any out there."

  “I could understand that for someone less photogenic than you but...” With his bronzed skin, chiseled features, full lower lip, wide mouth, all those lines and angles, he was a dream come true for a camera. So far as she could tell, he didn't have a bad angle. She wondered if she could talk him into loosening his hair.

  "Adding to that I don't like publicity."

  "Is there a reason for that? Like something you want to hide?”

  He snorted with disgust. “Reporters,” he said. “They’re always the same.”

  “It’s our job to tell the truth, to tell stories to inform the public. I though am more photojournalist than reporter as such.

  “Tell someone else’s story, honey.” S.T. wasn't about to tell her how vulnerable being pushed out into the limelight always made him feel. He knew his Native American background would be on display even if not mentioned. No photo essay piece would ignore his dual heritages. He had consented to an interview once, hated the printed article, and vowed to not repeat the mistake. If had decided if his work couldn’t stand on its own without a need for publicity agents, too bad. So far he had been proven right.

  “The little I have read about you seems to be positive.”

  He bent back over his blueprints. "You’ve had your five minutes," he said through his teeth. "It's my face, my business, and I don't want it plastered across any magazine. Making her mad was probably his best shot at getting her out of his office without bodily picking her up and carrying her. "I don't think much of your tabloid rag anyway."

  She laughed, the sound full and hearty. "A lot of people don't. I happen to disagree with you. I think we've come a long ways and are doing serious pieces that help people live their lives with more choices, more understanding for the options out there, but you're entitled to your opinion. What if I take the photographs and the risk by letting you kill the whole piece if you don't like the slant it takes?"