He threw himself back in his chair and spread his hands wide apart in a Voilà gesture. He waited for a reaction, smiling in expectation.
Gwen tried to think of something encouraging to say.
“I see,” she said. “This is a fictional series, right?”
“No, no, no. Don’t you get it? We’ll work with genuine psychic investigators to reopen cold cases and solve real crimes.”
“Where do you plan to find these psychic investigators?” she asked. “It pains me to say it, but there are a lot of fakes and frauds in that line.”
He winked. “But you and I know where to find the real deal—genuine psychics—don’t we?”
She sat very still. “Evelyn’s records?”
“I envision a small team of investigators composed of people like you and some of the others who participated in the Ballinger Study.”
“As I recall, you were never convinced that there is such a thing as the paranormal, let alone that people could use that kind of talent to solve crimes.”
“Between you and me, I’m still not entirely convinced,” Wesley said. “But that isn’t important. This is television. This will work. I know it in my gut. With Evelyn gone, I’m going to need your help putting the show together. The first step is to track down the psychics who participated in Evelyn’s study two years ago.”
“That’s why you searched her house, isn’t it? You weren’t looking for her last ideas for a new Dead of Night episode. You wanted to find her records relating to the Ballinger Study.”
“You want the truth, Gwen? I’m desperate and I need your help. Ratings are in the toilet. They’re threatening to cancel Dead of Night. What’s more, this isn’t just about me. If I don’t come up with a new concept and fast, we’re both going to be out of a job.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is a good idea, Wesley. I was okay with writing up scripts based on Evelyn’s research of historical crimes, but you’re talking about taking the show in a whole different direction, one that could cause a lot of legal problems.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
“Stop and think about what might happen if you go around the country trying to reopen murder investigations in a reality TV format. Law enforcement isn’t going to be at all cooperative. The families of the deceased will be upset. And even if you did uncover a for-real case of murder using psychic investigation techniques, how on earth would you go about proving it?”
“This is television,” Wesley said. “We don’t have to prove anything. All we need to do is come up with a convincing theory of the crime that’s strong enough to cast doubt on the original findings. Hell, we’ll be doing a public service. At the very least, we can force regular law enforcement to take a closer look at some cold cases.”
“How do you intend to decide what cases warrant a Dead of Night investigation?”
“That’s where you come in. Your job will be to come up with the right cases. Shouldn’t be too hard. Once the word gets out online that I’m looking for reports of deaths that are unexplained or are in some way suspicious, we’ll be flooded with leads.”
“I can’t help you, Wesley.”
But he was not paying attention now. Dazzled by his own brilliance, he plowed forward.
“We’ll start right here in Wilby,” he announced. “We’ll investigate Evelyn’s death.”
Gwen stared at him. “What?”
“It’s perfect.” He flung up both hands, palms out. “Paranormal researcher slain by dark forces unleashed in her secret lab.”
“Forget it.” Evelyn’s ghost had been right, she thought. Wesley wanted to use her death as an episode on the show.
“After the first show, the lab will become the permanent set for Dead of Night,” he continued. “All of our future investigations will launch from there. I have to get back inside the lodge as soon as possible and take a closer look. Word in town is that you inherited that as well as her house. We could run over there right now.”
“No.”
That stopped Wesley. His face fell. “She didn’t leave the lab to you? But everyone is saying—”
Gwen got to her feet. “The lab is mine, but I won’t allow you turn Evelyn’s death into an episode for your series.”
Wesley stood. “You think she was murdered. This is your chance to prove it.”
“Law enforcement and courts require hard evidence. No one is going to pay any attention to an investigation run by a bunch of television psychics.”
She started toward the door.
Wesley lunged after her. He seized her upper arm, forcing her to stop.
“I need Evelyn’s list of psychics,” he said. “I’ll pay you for it. Name your price.”
She glanced down at his hand. “Let me go.”
“Listen to me, damn it, you can’t walk away. There’s too much at stake here.”
Gwen sensed the flood of icy energy an instant before she heard Judson’s cold voice.
“Take your hands off her,” he said.
Gwen felt the shock that snapped through Wesley. His hand dropped away. He stepped back so quickly he bumped into a nearby table. He glared at Judson.
“Don’t you dare threaten me, Coppersmith,” he said. “I’m trying to talk to Gwen. She works for me, damn it. I’ve got a right.”
Judson ignored him. He looked at Gwen.
“Finished in here?” he asked.
The banked embers of a glacial fire still burned in his eyes. Heads were turning in the lobby. At the front desk, Riley Duncan was frowning.
Trisha Montgomery appeared from the back office. “Is there a problem?” she asked. The question was coolly polite, but there was steel in her eyes. “Gwen?”
“It’s all right, Trisha,” Gwen said quickly.
The situation was deteriorating. She knew that she had to separate the two men as fast as possible.
“Wesley and I have finished our business discussion,” she said to Judson. “And the last thing we need is a scene,” she added in low tones as she whisked past him.
She held her breath, but in the end Judson reluctantly turned away from his prey and followed her. They climbed the stairs in silence. Wesley stalked out of the tearoom, crossed the lobby and went outside to get into his car. Trisha returned to her office. Riley went back to work. The guests picked up their books and magazines.
On the third floor, Judson unlocked Gwen’s door. She walked into the room. Max was ensconced in the center of the bed. He got to his feet to greet her. She crossed the room to rub his head.
Judson closed the door and stood with his back to it.
“What was going on down there?” he asked.
“Don’t look now, but we may have some competition in the psychic detective business.” Gwen sank down onto the side of the bed. “Wesley wants to fire up a new TV series focused on solving real cold case crimes using a team of genuine psychics as investigators. But you know how hard it is to find real talent.”
Comprehension heated Judson’s eyes. “He wants Evelyn’s records of the Ballinger Study so that he can use them to find genuine psychics. He was the one who searched her study before we got there.”
“Yes.” Gwen planted her hands behind her on the quilt and braced herself. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was planning to go into the psychic investigation business myself.”
“The field is getting crowded,” Judson said. He glanced at his watch and went to stand at the window, looking out into the woods. “We have some time. How long would it take?”
“How long would what take?” she asked.
He turned his head to look at her. “You said you could help me find what I’m looking for in my recurring dream. How long would it take?”
She stilled. “Not long.”
“Let’s do it.”
“Are you sure?”
His eyes burned. “Dad said that a man would really have to trust a woman before he let her put him into a trance. I told you earlier that I
trust you.”
“But you still don’t like the idea of needing dream therapy.”
His smile was rueful. “You know me well, don’t you, Dream Eyes?”
“Think of me as a repair person. Some people fix plumbing. I fix dreams.”
“You have a gift, an incredible talent,” he said. “What you do is amazing.”
“Why, thank you.”
“Walk through my dreams, partner. Help me find what I need to find.”
“All right, but I have to warn you, I need context first,” she said.
“I knew you were going to say that. Am I good or what?”
“You’re good. Talk to me, Judson.”
Thirty-seven
He needed answers, and it wasn’t like he was having any luck getting them on his own, Judson thought. Time to call in the services of an expert. Gwen was one hell of a talent. And he trusted her.
He turned back to the window.
“What, exactly, do you mean by context?” he asked.
“I know that your dream is connected to whatever happened on that last job with your no-name-agency client, but that’s all I’ve got. I need more if you want me to guide you through a trance.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you what happened. But I don’t see how it will help you interpret my dream.”
“Take your time.”
He fell silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts and memories. After a while, he started talking. He knew that he would not stop until he had told her everything.
“You know that Sam and I do—did—some investigative work for an off-the-books government agency,” he said. “What you don’t know is how we got the client.”
“I assume you don’t advertise Coppersmith Consulting services online.”
“No. The director of the agency, Joe Spalding, recruited me and two other guys, Burns and Elland, in our senior year in college. Spalding was a quietly powerful figure in the intelligence community. He had been green-lighted to set up an experimental covert ops department staffed with agents he believed had some paranormal talent. It was supposed to be an updated version of the old CIA remote viewing project.”
“How in the world did he identify potential agents like you?” Gwen asked.
“Spalding’s real secret asset was that he was a talent himself,” Judson said. “A strong one. He could recognize other people with similar psychic profiles if he got close enough to pick up the energy of their auras. He set up shop on a handful of college campuses, offering to pay students to take what he called an experimental psychology test that was designed to determine if a person had any psychic talent. I signed up out of curiosity to see if his test really worked.”
“You knew you had some talent, so you were testing his test,” Gwen said.
“Yes. The test, as it turned out, was a fraud. It was the old tell-me-what-card-I’m-holding-up-now experiment.”
“Useless, according to Evelyn.”
“Right. But Spalding wasn’t depending on the results of his test. He was trying to find other people with what he called hot auras. A lot of nontalents showed up to take the test, of course, but he also got a few people who, like me, were drawn to the experiment because we wanted to know more about the psychic side of our natures.”
“Spalding recognized you when he saw you,” Gwen said.
“Yes. He found Burns and Elland at another campus. He offered all three of us a thrilling career filled with action and adventure as well as the opportunity to use our psychic talents in the service of our country.”
“I gather you couldn’t resist the offer,” Gwen said.
“Hell, no.” He turned around to face her. “I was twenty-one and looking for all the things Spalding promised. Mom tried to talk me out of joining the agency. But Dad was all for it. He said it would be good experience since I seemed fated for a career in the security field. And it was good experience. For a while.”
Gwen smiled. “You were living every young man’s dream. You were a real psychic secret agent. Very cool.”
“Good times, yeah. Spalding understood that I preferred to work alone, and he let me run with my assignments. He didn’t ask questions. All he cared about was results. I always got results. But after a couple of years, I realized that I wasn’t cut out to work for someone else. I liked the investigation process, though.”
“Because it suited your talents,” Gwen said. “It was satisfying work.”
“Yes. But I knew that I didn’t want to work for Spalding or anyone else forever. I wanted to be my own boss. In the meantime, Sam had finished getting his fancy degrees in geology and engineering. We all knew that he was destined to head up the Coppersmith R-and-D lab, but like Emma and me, he didn’t—couldn’t—work directly for Dad.”
“You Coppersmiths care a lot about each other, but you’re all too strong willed to take orders from each other,” Gwen said.
“Like Mom says, we’re all chips off the old rock and Dad is a very hard chunk of stone. As it happened, Sam was thinking about setting up his own consulting firm, but there’s not a lot of demand for paranormal crystal consultants outside the Coppersmith R-and-D lab. Spalding, however, saw a use for Sam’s talents in the field. It was Spalding who suggested that Sam and I set up a private investigation business and work for him on a contract basis.”
“Coppersmith Consulting.”
“Trust me, the word consulting covers a lot of gray territory. Spalding liked the idea of a contract arrangement because it was so easy to hide off-the-record investigations that way. Sam and I went into business. Spalding was our main client. Things went along swell for quite a while. But about a year ago, things started to change.”
“What happened?” Gwen asked.
“The changes were subtle at first. As contract consultants, we realized we were out of the need-to-know loop on a lot of stuff. But we had our intuition. We started to get uneasy about some of the jobs. Started turning down work from Spalding unless we could get enough background out of him.”
Gwen smiled. “You and Sam wanted to know what you were getting involved in when you agreed to take a job. You wanted context.”
“Sounds familiar?”
“Yep. So, to recap, I’m getting the impression that over time your relationship with Spalding and his little agency became somewhat strained.”
“Right.” He started to prowl the room. “But we all managed to make it work for a while. The bottom line for Spalding was that he needed us. We were the strongest talents he could put on a case and he knew it. If he wanted results, he used us, and if he used us, we demanded context.”
“What about the other agents?”
“Burns and Elland turned out to be the canaries in the coal mine. I noticed the changes in them first.”
“What kind of changes?”
“I had worked with both of them long enough to have a sense of their paranormal strengths as well as their limitations. Their abilities were similar to your friend Sawyer’s—preternatural night vision and hearing, lightning-fast reflexes. They could disappear into the shadows.”
“What happened?” Gwen asked.
“I went into the office one day to get a briefing from Spalding on a new investigation. Spalding was on the phone when I arrived. Burns was there. He offered to pour a cup of coffee for me. When I took the mug from his hand, I sensed something in his energy that just seemed somehow wrong.”
“Define wrong,” Gwen said.
“Unstable. Unhealthy. Unwholesome. He looked bigger, too, like he’d been lifting weights. There was some kind of heat in his eyes that I’d never noticed before. I asked him if he felt okay. I wondered if he might be coming down with a heavy-duty virus.”
“How did he respond?
“It was as if I’d flipped a light switch. He went from calm and friendly to furious, like I’d insulted him. I thought he was going to take a swing at me. Then Elland came into the room and said something like, Take it easy, buddy. Burns turned around and stompe
d out of the room. After he left, I saw that Elland was suffering the same kind of fever, but he was a little more in control.”
“Were they sick?”
Judson paused again in front of the window.
“Damned if I know,” he said. “If it was an illness, it was a fever that affected their paranormal senses. All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to spend any time around either Burns or Elland. We Coppersmiths are a healthy bunch, but that day in Spalding’s agency I started wondering if people like us—people of talent—might be vulnerable to fevers of the senses that normal people don’t have to worry about.”
“A reasonable concern. When did you run into Burns and Elland again?
“When they tried to kill me on that Caribbean island,” he said.
“Wow. Okay. Go on.”
“Shortly after that small scene at the agency, Spalding contacted me about an urgent, high-priority investigation. An intelligence analyst from another agency was missing. The working theory was that either he had gone rogue with some extremely sensitive information or else he’d been murdered. Spalding wanted me to find out what had happened. As usual, my job was to get answers. Sam and I don’t do apprehension or arrests.”
“You’re just the consultants.”
“Just the consultants,” he agreed quietly.
“This was that final job that Coppersmith Consulting took for the no-name agency?” Gwen said. “The one where you went off the radar for a while?”
He glanced at her, surprised. “You know about that?”
“I didn’t at the time. I was in Hawaii. But when I got back, Abby said that you had dropped out of sight for a while in the course of your last case and that something had gone wrong but that you had returned safely. Everyone said that you were taking some time off over on the coast to come up with a new business plan for Coppersmith Consulting.”
“All true,” he said.
“Except for the part about the recurring dreams.”
“Except for that part.”
“Tell me what happened on the island,” Gwen said.
“I followed the missing analyst there. The story was that he had gone on a cave-diving trip. The islands in that part of the Caribbean are riddled with underwater caves. They attract a certain breed of diver.”