“You’d be amazed how fast a guy can run when you tell him that you see ghosts. In fact, men I have known have fled, screaming, into the night.”
Judson’s teeth flashed briefly in a wicked smile. “Sounds interesting.”
“You think I’m joking, don’t you?”
“Sure, but I get your point. You’ve had a few problems with long-term relationships. Good to know I’m not the only one.”
There was no reason to tell him that she had not been joking, she decided.
“I think we can both blame our relationship problems on our talent,” she said instead.
Judson nodded. “With the exception of Sam, no one else in my family understands. My mother and my sister are convinced that I’ve got major commitment issues. Their theory is that I’m obsessed with hunting bad guys, that I’m somehow addicted to using my talent. They’re afraid, long-term, that will damage me psychically if not physically.”
“Well, you’re going to have to find a way to deal with it because you need to hunt,” Gwen said without stopping to think. “Your talent drives you to it, just as mine makes me see ghosts. It’s not like either of us can just stop perceiving what we perceive.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not like we have a choice.”
“I’m not sure we’d want the choice. As hard as it is sometimes, I can’t imagine that either of us would want to come upon a crime scene and not know that something bad had happened there. It would be like walking through a graveyard or across an old battleground and not sensing the dead and the dying under our feet. It would be . . . disrespectful, don’t you think?”
He was surprised. Then his eyes tightened at the corners in a thoughtful expression. “Yes, that’s exactly how it is for me.”
“What about your father? Does he understand?”
“Dad tells himself and everyone else who will listen that my problem is that I just haven’t found the right woman. But deep down he’s worried that I won’t get lucky the way he did with Mom and that it’s his fault.”
“Why?”
“He feels guilty because he’s pretty sure the problem is my talent,” Judson said. “He blames himself.”
“Because he thinks you acquired your talent from his side of the family?”
“Because he knows I got it from his side.” Judson’s mouth kicked up at the corner. “Hell, it’s the truth. He’s probably responsible for Sam’s and Emma’s psychic abilities, too. But it’s not his fault he got hit with a heavy dose of paranormal radiation forty years ago.”
“Is that what happened?” she asked.
“It’s a long story, but the bottom line is that Dad was caught in an explosion in an old mine back in his prospecting days. We have reason to believe that there was a lot of paranormal energy released in the blast. Sam and Emma and I are convinced that the ultra-light altered his DNA in a way that affected all three of his future offspring.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” she said. “I have no idea where my talent came from. I never knew my parents. They were killed shortly after I was born. The aunt who raised me swore it didn’t come from her side of the family. That would have been my father’s side. But, then, Aunt Beth had a few issues of her own.”
There was a long silence. Max rumbled on.
“How have you handled your relationship issues?” Judson asked after a while.
“Mostly I just avoid them.”
“The issues?”
“No, the relationships. It’s easier that way.” She stretched and settled deeper into the chair. “Well, now that we’ve established that neither of us is good long-term commitment material, maybe we should get back to our investigation. You said you didn’t think that Evelyn was a victim of some terrible fantasy game. What does that tell us?”
“That she was killed for a very pragmatic reason.” Judson got to his feet and went to the window. He stood looking out into the night. “You knew her better than anyone. Do you have any idea where we can start looking for her secrets?”
“Maybe,” Gwen said.
She rose from the chair and crossed the room to take the photo out of her tote. She brought the picture back to show him what Evelyn had written on the back.
“Mirror, mirror,” he read.
“I think I may know where she hid at least one very important secret,” Gwen said.
Twelve
The next morning, the old lodge was shrouded in a heavy mist. Judson shut down the SUV engine and studied the scene. The rustic, badly weathered structure was two stories in height. The architecture looked like it dated from the early nineteen hundreds. All of the windows on both floors were covered with metal shutters.
“What’s with the blackout windows?” he asked.
“Evelyn was convinced that natural daylight and light in general from the visible end of the spectrum interfered with psi, making it harder to detect and measure,” Gwen said.
“She was right. Sam and his lab techs have come to the same conclusion. So you are now the proud owner of this old firetrap as well as her house?”
“Yep, property taxes, utilities and all.” Gwen fished a piece of paper out of her tote. “I didn’t want the lab and I have absolutely no use for the equipment inside, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell Evelyn. Just about everything in there—all of the instruments and machines that she designed to study the paranormal—is a one-of a-kind device, designed and built by her.”
“What did she expect you to do with the stuff?”
“She hoped that I would find a good home for her precious instruments and test equipment. There aren’t a lot of people doing serious research into the paranormal, but there are a few.”
He smiled faintly. “Like Coppersmith, Inc.”
Gwen brightened. “Do you think that Sam and his R-and-D techs would be interested in some of her devices?”
“I think I can safely predict that Sam and his people would jump at the opportunity to examine whatever is inside that lodge. Can’t guarantee they’ll take every piece of equipment, though.”
“I understand. But I know Evelyn would have been thrilled to have some genuine paranormal researchers give her inventions serious attention. Unfortunately, she never even knew that the Coppersmith lab existed.”
“And Coppersmith was never aware of her work.” He unfastened his seat belt. “Damn shame. You know, this isn’t the first time that it has occurred to me that those of us with real talent need to come up with a way to find each other and communicate. It’s like we’re all working in the dark.”
“Evelyn used to say that a lot, too.”
“Did she spend a lot of her time here at the lab?”
“Are you kidding?” Gwen smiled. “This place was her life. She invested just about every dime she ever got into it. The security system is state-of-the-art because she wanted to protect the things she designed and built.”
“Not like you can buy good quality paranormal instruments and monitors online. Believe me, Sam and his lab techs have tried.” Judson opened the door and got out. “Let’s take a look.”
Gwen jumped out and walked around the front of the SUV to join him. He saw the gritty determination in her eyes and knew that going back into Ballinger’s lab would not be easy for her. She had found the bodies of two friends there and nearly been murdered herself.
“When was the last time you were in there?” he asked.
“The day after Taylor attacked me.”
“When you and Ballinger came here to search for the weapon.”
“Yes.”
She went up the steps to the heavy metal door. He followed her and stopped beside her. The numbers on the lock’s keypad were illuminated in red. He recognized the manufacturer’s logo on the small, square panel.
“I’m impressed,” he said. “Ballinger really did spring for good security. Must have cost her a fortune to install this system.”
“I told you, the stuff inside this place was important to her,” Gwen said.
Sh
e keyed in the code. The red lights on the panel turned green.
“Does anyone else besides you have access to this place?” Judson asked.
“No, Evelyn changed the code after the murders. As far as I know, I’m the only one who has it now that she’s gone.”
He glanced at the paper in her hand. “She might have jotted it down someplace, just like you did, or stored it on her computer.”
“Yes, that’s quite possible. Evelyn was very focused when it came to her research, but she could be absentminded about other things. The code is not an easy one to remember. That’s why I wrote it down.” Gwen frowned. “Are you thinking that the killer was after the code to this lab the night he murdered Evelyn?”
“Maybe, but murder seems a little over-the-top if that’s all he wanted. It would be easier to break the code on this door or take a crowbar to one of the windows. Those metal shutters are designed to keep out light and the average burglar, but they’re not armor plate.”
“True.”
Gwen opened the door. Judson looked into a cavernous, echoing space filled with deep shadows and the kind of heat that was the hallmark of paranormal energy.
Heavy currents of psi swirled and seethed inside the lodge, much of it similar to the kind that circulated in Sam’s crystal vault and in the company’s R&D facility. The atmosphere got downright electric when a lot of paranormal artifacts, crystals or other psi-infused objects were housed in a confined space.
But beneath the hot energy, he sensed something else—the unmistakable miasma of death and violence.
“You were right,” he said, “The people who died here didn’t die of natural causes.”
“I can still feel it, too,” Gwen said.
She pressed a glowing switch on a wall panel. A strip of low-level floor lights winked on, illuminating a small area around their feet. The rest of the lab remained drenched in deep gloom.
Judson closed the door, shutting off the weak daylight. “No fluorescent overheads?”
“No,” Gwen said. “There are task lamps at the various workstations, but most of the lab is lit with this kind of strip lighting. It’s all on automatic sensors. Once we pass through a section, the lights will go off behind us.”
“Ballinger really had a problem with visible light, didn’t she?” he said.
“Evelyn found almost all light a distraction. Something to do with her talent, I think. She was very sensitive to ultra-light energy.”
Gwen moved along the concrete floor. Another strip of lights winked on, revealing a few more feet of flooring.
“The mirror engine is at the back,” she said, leading the way. “It takes up the entire rear wall.”
He raised his other vision, increasingly intrigued as he followed Gwen through a maze of workbenches, cabinets and display cases. In addition to a vast array of odd tools and machines, there was a large collection of crystals and stones that he knew would fascinate Sam.
He eased his talent higher, opening himself to the energy-infused atmosphere. There was a lot of ambient psi around, but it was the dark currents of violence that riveted his senses.
He had recovered from the nightmare in the cave, but Gwen was right—as long as he had his talent, he would be compelled to hunt. She was the only woman he had ever met who got that part of him—got it and was not repelled or unnaturally attracted to it. She simply understood and accepted his nature.
And she had made it clear last night that she was not looking for a forever commitment any more than he was. By all logic and reason, that made her the perfect woman for him, the woman of his dreams.
Now, if he could just get her to stop insisting that he needed therapy.
Gwen came to a halt. “That’s the entrance to the mirror engine.”
But he had already sensed a heightening in the energy level as they neared the back of the lab. Hot psi cracked and snapped in the atmosphere, raising the fine hair on his neck and arms. His palms prickled.
“Whatever it is, it’s powerful,” he said. “I’m impressed.”
“The engine was Evelyn’s greatest creation.” Gwen skirted a workbench. “She told me that originally she had envisioned it as just another small experiment. The first version was about the size of a walk-in shower. But the results were so extraordinary that she kept expanding the surface area dedicated to the mirrors. Eventually the engine grew to the size you see now.”
The dark mirrored walls that formed the outside of the engine extended halfway to the vaulted ceiling. Judson estimated they were fifteen feet high. There was energy infused into every inch of the thick glass. Flashes of ultra-light appeared and disappeared in the depths of the reflective surfaces. He looked through the entrance and saw a hall of mirrors.
“Evelyn designed the interior in the form of a simple maze,” Gwen said. “The idea was to maximize the mirrored surfaces inside. The result is that there are lots of twists and turns and short hallways and corridors that end in interesting passages.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this, and I doubt that Sam has, either,” Judson said. “He’s going to be a like a kid in a sandbox. Where did Evelyn get the idea for building this engine? From her own research?”
“She told me that years ago she found some notes describing the possibility of constructing a mirror engine in an old diary that she discovered in a library. Evidently a Victorian-era paranormal researcher named Welch tried to build a similar device back in the late eighteen hundreds, but there was a major flaw in the design.”
Gingerly, Judson reached out to touch the nearest mirrored panel. A shock of psi zapped across his senses. Hastily, he yanked back his finger.
“What was the flaw in Welch’s design?” he asked, shaking his fingers a little.
“Welch was a wack-job. He concluded that the most efficient way to trap strong energy in mirrors was to murder people. He planned to kill his victims in a chamber of mirrors that he had constructed in his mansion, hoping to infuse the energy given off at death into the glass.”
“What the hell?” Judson looked at her. “Are you serious?”
“Oh, yes,” Gwen said. “Evelyn showed me Welch’s notes. She said he had been onto something but that he was wrong in his conclusions about how to fuel a true mirror engine.”
“Good to know,” Judson said. He studied the mirrored hallway with a growing sense of unease. “What happened to the first engine?”
“Evelyn wasn’t sure, but from what she could find out, the mansion in which it had been constructed was destroyed in a huge explosion and fire. Her theory was that the engine got overheated and blew.”
“How many other people besides you and Ballinger knew about the history of the mirror engine and Welch’s theories of how to fuel it?”
“As far as I know, Evelyn didn’t tell anyone else except me,” Gwen said. “We discussed making the story of the first engine into an episode for Dead of Night. But Evelyn said she didn’t want to turn that snippet from paranormal history into a TV show, for fear that some modern-day crazy might take it seriously.”
“She was right. There’s always a nutcase out there in the audience. But Zander Taylor murdered two people here in this lab and tried to kill you. Are you certain he wasn’t aware of Welch’s work?”
“As certain as I can be,” Gwen said. “He did a lot of talking that day, boasting about all the psychics he had killed. But he never mentioned the mirror chamber or Welch’s work. As far as Evelyn or I could tell, he was not interested in the science or the history of the paranormal. He just liked to commit murder by paranormal means.”
“And he somehow came across an untraceable weapon that allowed him to fulfill his fantasy. Did he tell you when or how he found the camera?”
“No. All I can tell you is that Evelyn was certain it didn’t come from her lab. But maybe she did find out recently.” Gwen’s expression sharpened. “Maybe that’s the secret she hid inside the engine.”
“What about lights inside the maze?”
“There’s some more strip lighting in there,” Gwen said. “But in a weird way you don’t need lights inside. The mirrors give off so much energy that I think most people with a little talent could perceive the illumination. There is a lot of power in there, though. It can be disorienting.”
She moved through the entrance. He followed. He thought he was prepared, but the hot energy of the mirrors crashed and churned like storm-tossed waves on a beach, igniting his senses.
“Damn,” he said. “This is a real adrenaline rush, isn’t it?”
Gwen glanced back over her shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay with being in here?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Understanding brightened her eyes. “It is kind of a thrill ride, isn’t it?”
“That’s one way to describe it.”
“The interesting thing is that it doesn’t affect everyone the same way,” she said. “The other members of Evelyn’s study found it very disturbing. They said it gave them the same creepy feeling you get when you go into a dark alley or down a mine shaft.”
She turned a corner and disappeared deeper into the chamber. He caught up with her. The energy in the mirror panels seemed to be getting stronger as they moved toward the heart of the engine.
Judson looked into the depths of a nearby mirror and saw his own image repeating endlessly into a dark infinity.
“You said Ballinger concluded that the energy given off at death was not the way to fuel a mirror engine,” he said. “What did she use?”
“Crystals.” Gwen went around another corner. “But the original stones had to be tuned frequently. Luckily, she found someone right here in town who could do that, Louise Fuller.”
“The woman who makes the wind chimes?”
“Yes.” Gwen glanced back over her shoulder. “Evelyn said that Louise has some kind of paranormal affinity for crystals.”
“Sam will want to meet her.”
“Good luck with that. Louise doesn’t like people very much. She’s a very odd character. Eccentric and reclusive. The locals call her the Witch of Wilby. But she does make amazing wind chimes. Even with Louise’s help, however, Evelyn had a hard time keeping the mirrors working for more than a couple of hours at a time at the start of the project.”