“What on earth are you talking about? I can’t just disappear.”
He smiled. “Sure you can. You’ll see.”
“What are you proposing to do with me? Stash me in a hotel room under a different name?”
“No. I’m going to take you to the Copper Beach house. I’ve got good security there. In addition, strangers stand out like sore thumbs on the island. It’s hard to get ashore without being noticed.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Horrified, she held up both hands, palms out, and waved him to silence. “Thanks but no thanks. I appreciate the thought, but that is not going to work.”
“Why not?”
She lowered her hands. “You said it yourself a few minutes ago. We’re a team. We’re going to have to work this thing together. You don’t stand much of a chance of finding that lab book, let alone breaking the code, without my help. And I need you to track down the blackmailer. Let’s face it. Finding out that my stepbrother is under a lot of pressure to come up with that book really put the icing on the cake, didn’t it? I’m in this thing up to my neck now, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it except see it through.”
He looked at her for a long time.
“Do you always get to the bottom line this fast?” he asked finally.
“Believe me, if there were viable options, I’d be running for the exit by now. You need me, Sam Coppersmith. And I need you.”
He raised his brows. “Like I said, we’re stuck together.”
She smiled. “Well, we do have Newton.”
Sam looked at Newton. “Good point.”
Bored, Newton trotted into the kitchen and began to slurp water out of his bowl.
Abby walked across the room to stand directly in front of Sam. “But I can’t think of anyone else I would rather be stuck with in this situation.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Absolutely certain,” she said.
“Okay,” he said. He stroked her cheek with the back of the finger on which he wore the fire-red crystal. “I agree we’re in this together. But I’m not changing my plans. We’re going to Copper Beach.”
“Why?”
“We need a secure base of operations. Copper Beach is built like a fortress. Most of your work is done online, right?”
“Well, yes.”
“Looks like a lot of my work will be done that way, too.”
“You’re going to try to find Dawson’s major investor, aren’t you?”
“It’s a solid lead. Worth pursuing.”
“I can’t just walk away from my life here in Seattle. Among other things, I need to put in an appearance at my father’s book-launch event. That’s on Friday night. He’s giving a talk and signing Families by Choice. There will be media. Dad has made it clear that it’s very important that the whole family show up.”
“You’re not going into exile. You’re just going to Copper Beach. We can get back here for the book-signing event.”
She looked around, searching for other excuses not to leave her new home.
“All of my stuff is here,” she whispered. Okay, that sounded excessively juvenile. She squared her shoulders. “But you’re right. No reason I can’t leave for a while. Like going on vacation, right?”
He smiled. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“Newton will enjoy the country. He loves to visit Thaddeus because he can run around in the woods.” She turned toward the bedroom. “I’ll go pack.”
She was in the process of folding her nightgown, the lacy new one that she had bought on impulse and had been saving for some special occasion that had never seemed to come, when she heard the chimes that told her she had new email.
She put the nightgown into the small suitcase and picked up her phone. She recognized the code instantly. For no good reason, a chill of apprehension iced her senses.
“Thaddeus,” she said softly.
She opened the email and read the brief, cryptic note. She hurried out into the living room. “We need to see Thaddeus right away. He says he wants to talk to both of us in person. Something about an auction for the lab book.”
Sam tossed his two soy sausages to Newton and dumped the dishes in the sink.
“Let’s go,” he said.
17
“DID HE GIVE YOU ANY DETAILS ABOUT THE AUCTION?” SAM asked.
He was at the wheel of his SUV, driving into the foothills of the Cascades along a narrow, winding road. The terrain was turning steeper and more heavily wooded. Abby was strapped into the passenger seat, her attention focused on the view through the windshield. Newton was in the backseat.
Abby had been unusually quiet since she had locked up her condo and stowed her suitcase and her dog in his vehicle. He had sensed how hard it was for her to accept that her home was no longer safe. He wanted to tell her that she could trust him to take care of her, but he knew that would not make up for the temporary loss of the one place that was hers, the small, cozy space where she was in complete control. He understood about control issues. Hell, he had them, too. Who didn’t?
“No, but obviously rumors are circulating that the lab book will soon be up for auction,” Abby said. “That’s good news and bad news.”
“What’s the good news?”
“I know how to track that kind of chatter. I don’t usually do business with the dealers who work the deep end, but thanks to Thaddeus and Nick, I know who they are and I know how to contact them. I’ll try for a preemptive bid for the lab book. Failing that, I can guarantee that my client will top any other offer.” She gave him a quick, searching look. “That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I want that lab book.” He tightened his hands around the wheel. “Price is no object. What about the bad news?”
“Once the announcement of the auction is made, one or more of the high rollers who want the book will be able to drive the price sky-high.”
“Not a problem.”
“That’s nice to know. What has me worried is that we are now officially in the deep end of the market. Like I told Dawson, some of the collectors are dangerous. If one of them decides he won’t be able to buy the book, he may go after it some other way.”
“He’ll try to steal it?”
“To do that, he would have two likely options. The book is most vulnerable during a transaction. So he can try to identify the current owner or the dealer who is brokering the sale. That won’t be easy. If that doesn’t work, he’ll get a second shot at acquiring the volume if he can ID the new owner.”
“Me.”
“Your problem is that you are not exactly a low-profile collector in my world. Dawson, for instance, now knows that you are trying to acquire the book. If he tells his investor…”
“I see where you’re going with this. But once I have the book, I’ll make sure it’s secure. The word will go out that it is permanently off the market. Even if some people know that my family has it, there won’t be many collectors who will take the risk of trying to steal it from Coppersmith Inc. We’ve got some serious security and an even more serious interest in making sure that notebook stays locked up. We’ll take good care of it.”
“Okay,” she said. But she did not look satisfied.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She hesitated. “I’m not sure. I’ve got a bad feeling about Thaddeus’s last email.”
“We’ll be at his place soon.”
“Take the next left.”
“There’s no road sign.”
“Thaddeus likes it that way.”
He slowed and turned left onto an even narrower strip of badly cracked pavement. The trees loomed close on either side. “Mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“Depends on the question.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what happened when you accidentally started the fire in the bathtub. You tried to unlock a book, and the energy got out of control.”
“I had no idea what I was doing, let alone that it might start a fire.”
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“Paranormal fire is unpredictable. Get it burning hot enough and it will affect the energy in neighboring bands on the spectrum, all the way to the normal.” Sam whistled softly. “Must have been a lot of energy released when you broke that code.”
“Uh–huh.”
“What about the time you disappeared for a couple of days and nearly got arrested for trying to burn down a bookshop?”
“That was a little more complicated,” Abby said slowly. “I thought the owner of the bookshop was just a nice old man who recognized my talent and wanted to help me learn how to handle it. I realized later that he wanted to use me to unlock an old volume that he had in his collection.”
“Did you?”
“No. And to this day, I’m not sure why. When I picked up the book, I got the overwhelming sensation that whatever was inside was dangerous, or at least it would be in his hands. I just knew that I did not want him to be able to read that book.”
“What was it about?”
“Hypnotic poisons. So I lied and told the bookshop owner that I couldn’t break the code. He went a little crazy. He locked me inside his rare-book vault and told me that he wouldn’t let me out until I agreed to break the encryption.”
“The son of a bitch imprisoned you?”
“I was terrified. I held out for as long as I could. I had some fantasy that someone, my dad or the police, would realize what had happened and rescue me. But eventually it dawned on me that no one knew where I was and that I was on my own.”
“You told the bastard that you would break the psi-code.”
“Yes. When he opened the door I told him I had done what he wanted. I handed the book to him. When he touched it, I channeled some of the energy into his aura. I was acting entirely on intuition. I had no idea what would happen. He screamed and collapsed. The next thing I knew, the book was on fire.”
“A shop full of old volumes and manuscripts. Talk about a firetrap.”
“I had no idea how to put out the flames. I pulled the fire alarm and managed to drag the owner out of the vault. That’s where the firefighters and the cops found me. When the dealer recovered, he claimed that I had attempted to burn down his shop.”
“And you ended up in the Summerlight Academy for troubled youth. What happened to the dealer who forced you to decode the book?”
“He died of a heart attack a few months later.” Abby held up one hand. “I had nothing to do with it. I was locked up at the Summerlight Academy.”
He flexed one hand on the wheel, aware of the cold tension simmering in him. “Wish I could have taken care of him for you.”
Abby looked disconcerted. “That’s very…sweet of you.”
He smiled. “Sweet?”
“I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that no one has ever offered to do anything like that for me before. I’m touched, truly I am. So, uh, have you done anything like that before?”
“Most of the time I prefer to use less permanent methods.”
“In other words, you have done that sort of thing before.”
“Maybe.”
“When you work for that private contractor you mentioned? The one who does some business with the post office?”
“To be clear, the post office is not the client,” he said. “It’s a different agency.”
“When was the last time you worked for the contractor?”
“About three months ago.” He paused. “But I was on an assignment the night Cassidy was murdered.”
“Ah,” she said softly. “No wonder you had a hard time establishing an alibi.”
He did not respond to that. It was enough that she believed him, he thought.
“Take that gravel road to the right,” she said.
He slowed the SUV and turned into a rutted lane that wound through the trees and dead-ended in a small clearing. A high steel security fence protected a run-down house and a yard filled with large stone pots. As far as he could tell, the only things growing in the planters were weeds.
He brought the vehicle to a halt and studied the scene. “You’re sure this is the right place?”
“I told you, Thaddeus is a bit eccentric.” Abby unfastened her seat belt and opened the door.
“Doesn’t look like he’s much of a gardener.”
“The pots and the weeds are all that remain of an experimental garden he planted years ago. He was trying to grow some exotic herbs that he found for sale online. Supposedly, the herbs had psychical properties. But they didn’t do well in this climate.”
Sam got out of the car. “How do we announce ourselves?”
“There’s an intercom at the gate.” Abby started forward. “I’ll let Thaddeus know we’re here. He’ll disarm the security system and let us in.” She opened the rear door of the SUV. “Come on, Newton. We’re going to visit Thaddeus.”
Newton bounded down, but he did not look like his usual enthusiastic self. Instead, he flattened his ears and moved close to Abby.
“Maybe he’s not a country dog at heart, after all,” Sam said.
“I don’t understand it,” Abby said. “Usually he loves to come up here.”
Small shards of ice touched the back of Sam’s neck. He jacked his senses a little and looked around, trying to decide what it was about the scene that was bothering him.
“Wait,” he said, making it an order.
Abby stopped and looked back at him. “What is it?”
“Looks like the gate is unlocked.”
“That’s impossible. Thaddeus always keeps the gate locked.” She took a closer look. “Good grief, you’re right. It’s not like Thaddeus to get sloppy with his security system. He’s totally paranoid, and he’s got reason to be. He deals with some very dangerous collectors.”
Sam went back to the SUV, opened the cargo-bay door and unzipped his duffel bag. He took out the small pistol, shut the door and went back to the gate.
“That’s a gun,” Abby said. She sounded oddly shocked.
“Good observation.”
“But I thought you used that crystal gadget for self-defense.”
“Sometimes a gun works better. It gets people’s attention faster.”
He gave the gate a cautious shove. It swung open easily enough. He walked into the yard. Abby followed quickly. Newton trailed behind. He whined softly.
“Something is wrong,” Abby said.
“Yes,” Sam said. “But I think the trouble has already come and gone.”
“You can tell things like that?”
“I’ve got pretty good intuition when it comes to this kind of stuff.” He glanced at Newton. “So does your dog.”
“Maybe Thaddeus fell ill or took a fall,” Abby said anxiously. “If he managed to call an ambulance or a neighbor, that would explain why he unlocked the security system.”
“Maybe.” But he knew before he went up the three concrete steps that whatever he found inside the little house was going to be bad.
The front door was ajar. He pushed it wider.
Abby eyed the open door. “This isn’t good.”
“No,” Sam said. “It isn’t.”
Sam took another look at Newton. The dog’s ears were flat, and his tail was down. He stayed close to Abby, but he did not have the go–for-the-throat vibe he’d had earlier, when Abby had confronted Dawson.
Sam moved across the threshold. An all-too-familiar miasma iced his senses. He knew that Abby felt it, too. But, then, most people, psychic or otherwise, could sense death when it was close by.
“Dear heaven,” she whispered. “Not Thaddeus, please.”
Sam went along the small front hall. The house felt empty and filled with the silence of the dead. There was no other sensation like it. He heard Abby and Newton behind him.
The place looked like the home of a hoarder, but as far as he could tell, the only things Thaddeus Webber had ever hoarded were books. There were thousands of them on the floor–to–ceiling shelves. Hundreds more were stacked on the floor.
“It’s hot in here,” he observed. “Psi-hot.”
“Most of the books in this house have a paranormal provenance,” Abby said. “Get enough hot books together, and you can feel it. If you think it’s warm up here, you should see the vault.”