“You’re ill,” Abby said. “Maybe you should leave now and go to the emergency room.”
“No. Can’t leave without the book.”
“What sort of crystal research are you doing?” she asked.
“Know anything about latent energy in rocks?”
“Not a lot, but it sounds interesting.”
“So much power,” Grady said. “Just waiting for us to figure out how to tap it. I’m almost there. Got to have that book.”
Abby reached the top of the spiral steps and walked along the balcony to the section of shelving that contained Hannah’s fine collection of volumes devoted to the paranormal properties of crystals. Many of the books were filled with the usual woo-woo and occult nonsense. Hannah said she collected those volumes for historical purposes. But a few of the titles contained the writings of researchers, ancient and modern, who had done serious work on the power of crystals, gemstones and amber.
The most valuable book in the Vaughn collection was Morgan’s The Key to the Latent Power of Stones. Written in the eighteenth century, it was locked in a psi-code that added enormously to its value. In the world of antiquarian and collectible books that had a paranormal provenance, encrypted volumes were the rarest of the rare.
Abby stopped and ran her fingertips along the spines of the books on the shelf.
“Quit stalling,” Grady said. The gun shook in his hand.
“Here it is.” She pulled out the old leather-bound volume. The energy locked in the book whispered to her senses. “Morgan’s Key.”
Grady eyed the worn leather cover warily. “Are you sure that’s the right one?”
“Do you want to see the title page?”
“Yes. Show me.”
Cradling the heavy book carefully in one hand, she opened the cover. Grady took a step closer and looked at the title page. He frowned.
“I can read it.”
“Yes, you’re lucky it was written in English. A lot of the old alchemists used Latin.”
“No, I mean I can read it. The Key to the Latent Power of Stones.” Grady reached out and gingerly turned a page. “I can read this page, too. This isn’t the right book. The voices in the crystal told me that the book I need is encrypted.”
“Oh, right,” Abby said. “You think that because you can read the text the book is not locked in a code. But that’s exactly how psi-encryption works. It camouflages the real text in subtle ways, just enough to distort and conceal the true meaning. You could sit down and read this book cover to cover and think you were reading the original text. But in the end, it would be just so much gibberish.”
“Break the code,” Grady demanded. “Let me see if the text really does look different.”
Abby braced herself for the inevitable shock and focused on the layers of energy that shivered around the old book. Few sensitives possessed the ability to lock a book or other written material in a psi-code; fewer still knew the oldest and most powerful techniques. Talents like her who could crack such codes were even more scarce. The whole business was a dying art. Encrypting a book or a document required physical contact with the item that was to be encoded. In the modern world, people tended to store their secrets in digital form in cyberspace, a realm where old-fashioned psychic encryption did not work.
It figured that she had chosen a career path that was fated to go the way of buggy-whip manufacturing, Abby thought. But she hadn’t been able to help herself. The old books filled with ancient paranormal secrets called to her senses. And those wrapped in psi-encryption were irresistible.
She found the pattern of the code. It was not the first time she had unsealed the old volume. She was the one who had acquired it for Hannah’s collection in the first place. She had unlocked the book twice already, once to verify its authenticity and again to allow Hannah to make some notes. Hannah had requested that the book be relocked after she had read it, in order to maintain its value.
“Done,” Abby said. “I broke the code.”
“Are you finished already?” Grady eyed the book with a dubious expression. “I thought psi-encryption was tricky stuff.”
“It is, but I’m good.”
“I can still feel a lot of hot energy coming off that book.”
“Strong encryption energy leaves a residue, just like any other kind of energy,” Abby said.
“So I can read the real text now?”
“Yes. Take a look.”
She held the book out. Grady’s hand closed around it. The physical contact was all she needed. She channeled the darkly oscillating currents of the encryption energy into Grady’s aura.
The atmosphere was suddenly charged. Grady reacted as if he had touched a live electrical wire. His mouth opened on a silent, agonized scream. The gun dropped from his hand. His eyes rolled back in his head. He stiffened for a timeless moment. Then he shuddered violently. He tried to stagger back toward the spiral staircase, but he collapsed to the floor of the balcony. He twitched several times and went still.
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“Are you all right, Abby?” Hannah asked.
“No. Yes.” Abby took a deep breath and silently repeated her old mantra, Show no weakness. She gripped the balcony railing and looked down at Hannah. “I’m fine. Just a little shaken up, that’s all.”
“You’re sure, dear?” Hannah’s face was etched with concern.
“Yes. Really. Breaking a code is one thing. Using the energy in it to do what I just did is…something else altogether.”
“I knew you were strong,” Hannah said. “But I hadn’t realized that you were that powerful. What you just did was extremely dangerous. If that sort of energy got out of control…”
“I know, I know,” Abby said. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do.” She glanced at the housekeeper, who was crumpled on the floor. “What happened to Mrs. Jensen?”
“She fainted. There was an awful lot of energy flying around in here a moment ago. Even a nonsensitive could feel it. What about that dreadful man? Is he alive?”
Dear heaven, had she actually killed someone? Horrified at the possibility, Abby went to her knees beside Grady. Gingerly, she probed for a pulse. Relief swept through her when she found one.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s unconscious, but he’s definitely alive.”
“I’ll call nine-one-one now.”
“Good idea.” Abby drew a deep breath. She was already starting to feel the edgy adrenaline-overload buzz that accompanied the use of so much psychic energy. In a couple of hours she would be exhausted. She focused on the immediate problem. It was major. “How on earth am I going to explain what happened here?”
“There’s nothing for you to explain, dear.” Hannah rolled her chair to the desk and picked up her phone. “A mentally disturbed intruder broke into my home and demanded one of the rare books in my collection. He appeared to be on drugs, and whatever he took evidently caused him to collapse.”
Abby thought about it. “All true, in a way.”
“Well, it’s not as if you can explain that you used psychic energy to take down an armed intruder, dear. Who would believe such a thing? The authorities would think that you were as crazy as that man who broke in here today.”
“Yes,” Abby said. A shuddery chill swept through her, bringing with it images from her old nightmares, the ones filled with an endless maze of pale-walled corridors, sterile rooms and locked doors and windows. She wasn’t going to risk being called crazy, not ever again. “That is exactly what they would think.”
“I have always found that when dealing with the authorities it’s best to stick with the bare facts and not offer too much in the way of explanations.”
Abby gripped the railing and saw the understanding in Hannah’s eyes. “I came to the same conclusion myself a few years ago, Mrs. Vaughn. Those are definitely words to live by.”
Hannah made the call and put down the phone. She glanced up at Abby.
“What is it, dear?” she said g
ently. “If you’re concerned that word of what you did with that encryption energy might get out into the underground market, you needn’t worry. I won’t ever tell anyone what really happened here, and Mrs. Jensen passed out before she witnessed a thing. Your secret is safe with me.”
“I know, Hannah. I trust you. Thank you. But there’s something about this Grady Hastings guy that is bothering me.”
“He is obviously mentally unbalanced, dear.”
“I know. But that isn’t what I meant. He was sweating so hard. He seemed on the edge of exhaustion. It was as if he was struggling against some unseen force.”
“Perhaps he was, dear. We all have our inner demons. I suspect that Grady Hastings has more than most people.”
• • •
The new nightmare started that same night.
She walked through the strange glowing fog. She did not know whom or what she was searching for, only that she desperately needed to find someone before it was too late. Time was running out. The sense of urgency was growing stronger, making it hard to breathe.
Grady Hastings materialized in the mist. He stared at her with haunted, pleading eyes and held out a hand.
“Help me,” he said. “You have to help me. The voices in the crystal told me that you are the only one who can save me.”
She awoke, pulse racing. Newton whined anxiously and pressed his furry weight against her leg. It took her a few seconds to orient herself. When she did, she was horrified to realize that she was no longer in bed. She was in the living room of her small condo, looking out the sliding glass doors that opened onto the balcony. The lights of the Seattle cityscape glittered in the night.
“Dear heaven, I’ve started sleepwalking, Newton.” She sank to her knees beside the dog and hugged him close.
The first blackmail note was waiting for her when she checked her email the next morning.
I know what you did in the library. Silence will be maintained for a price. You will be contacted soon.
3
“YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD THE RUMORS ABOUT SAM COPPERSMITH.” The water-taxi pilot eased off the throttle, allowing the boat to cruise slowly into the small marina. “Don’t pay any attention to ’em.”
Abby pushed her sunglasses higher on her nose and took a closer look at the man at the helm. Half an hour ago, when he had picked her up at the dock in Anacortes, he had introduced himself as Dixon. He looked to be in his mid-sixties, but it was hard to be certain of his age because he had the rugged, weathered features of a man who had spent a lifetime on the water.
Dixon Charters was painted on the white hull of the boat. The name of the business was accompanied by a logo depicting an orca leaping out of the waves. Images of the magnificent black-and-white killer whales that prowled the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest in pods were ubiquitous throughout the San Juans. Orcas graced signs above bookstores, souvenir shops, real estate offices and restaurants. They decorated menus, greeting cards and calendars. Parents bought cute, cuddly stuffed orcas for their children.
Abby had grown up in the region. She understood the significance of orcas both culturally and historically. And they were certainly magnificent. There was nothing like the thrill of watching the sleek, powerful creatures launch their multi-ton bodies out of the depths and into the air and then plunge back beneath the surface. But in her opinion, most people tended to forget that orcas were anything but cute and cuddly. They were intelligent, powerful, top–of–the-food-chain predators. Just ask a salmon, she thought.
“I’m here on business,” she said coolly. “I can assure you that the very last thing I care about is Mr. Coppersmith’s personal life.”
“That’s good,” Dixon said. He nodded once, satisfied. “Because the gossip about him being the one who murdered his fiancée six months ago is pure bullshit. Pardon my language.”
Okay, didn’t see that coming. Abby’s pulse kicked up for a few beats. She had already figured out that Sam Coppersmith was probably somewhat eccentric, but that hadn’t bothered her. Eccentric collectors made up a good portion of her clientele. She had not, however, heard about the murdered fiancée. She’d taken time to run a quick background check on the Coppersmiths, but she had been in a hurry this morning. Maybe she should have done a little more research before coming to Legacy Island.
“Is that so?” she said politely, going for noncommittal.
“You know how it is when a woman dies under mysterious circumstances,” Dixon said. “The cops always look at the guy she was sleeping with and the one who finds the body. In this case, that man just happened to be one and the same.”
“Sam Coppersmith?”
“Yeah. But the sheriff cleared him. It was those damn bloggers with their conspiracy theories who tried to stir things up. It was the Coppersmith name that got their attention. When your family operates a big business like Coppersmith Inc., there’s always folks who’ll suspect the worst. No one here on the island believed a single damn word of what they wrote about Sam, though.”
“I gather the Coppersmith family is respected here,” Abby said. She kept her tone politely neutral.
“Well, sure,” Dixon said. “But it’s more than that. The Coppersmiths have been a part of the local community for damn near forty years. That’s when Sam’s parents’ bought the old mansion out on the bluffs. Named it Copper Beach. There was hardly anyone else living on the island when they arrived. They pretty much founded the town. The first mayor and town council voted to name the town Copper Beach.”
“If no one lived on Legacy Island before the Coppersmiths arrived, who built the mansion you just mentioned?”
“Man named Xavier McClain. He made a fortune in shipping and lumber back in the early nineteen-hundreds. Bought the island and built the big house. According to the legend, he was downright strange.”
“Everyone has a different definition of strange,” Abby said politely. Trust me, I know whereof I speak, she thought.
“The old stories say that McClain was really into the woo-woo stuff, you know?” Dixon aimed a forefinger at his temple and made a few circles. “He claimed he saw things other folks couldn’t see. There are a lot of tall tales around here about how he got up to some real weird shit, I mean stuff, in the basement of the old house.”
“What happened to Xavier McClain?” Abby asked.
“No one knows for sure. His body was found when it washed ashore in the cove below the big house. Most folks assume he fell from the bluff. Others say he jumped. A few think he was murdered. The kids like to tell you that his ghost still walks the bluff on foggy nights, but I don’t hold with that nonsense. Anyhow, after McClain died, his descendants didn’t want the house, let alone the island. Way too expensive. They sold out to Elias Coppersmith.”
“Wait a minute. Are you telling me that the Coppersmith family owns Legacy Island, not just a house?”
“Well, they don’t exactly own the town. They gave that property to the local residents. And folks around here own their own homes, of course, on account of Elias Coppersmith subdivided some of the land and sold it. But yeah, the family still owns most of the island. The only one who lives here year-round now is Sam, but the rest of the Coppersmiths are always coming or going. They’ve all got their own houses out there on the bluff now. Sam took the old house on account of no one else in the family wanted it. His mom never did like the place. Willow and Elias live down in Sedona; that’s where the main headquarters of the company is located.”
“Willow and Elias are Sam’s parents?”
“Right. They’ll be coming up here soon,” Dixon said. “They always show up for the R–and–D lab’s annual technical summit and staff family weekend. On the last night there’s a real fine barbecue. The locals are invited. It’s a big deal around here.”
Abby examined the boats in the marina slips. The majority appeared to be hardworking craft of one kind or another. Several were rigged for serious fishing. The green plants and the curtains in the windows of others sp
elled live-aboards, people who lived full-time on their boats. Unlike the marinas on some of the other islands that catered to summer tourists, there were no luxury yachts.
One sleek, clean-lined boat caught her attention. The name on the hull was Phoenix. Dixon followed the direction of her gaze.
“That’s Sam’s boat.” He said. “I’m surprised he didn’t pick you up himself today. But he only leaves the island when he has to these days.”
“Is Sam involved in the family business?”
“Sort of. He and his brother run their own consulting firm, real high-tech stuff, you know? But they do a lot of their consulting for the family business so I guess you could say they are involved.”
She had learned a little about the family business in the course of her cursory online research this morning. The Coppersmith fortune had been built on the mining and research-and-development of so–called “rare earths,” the elements and metals that provided the sophisticated materials and crystals so vital to modern technology. Rare earths with unfamiliar names, such as lanthanum and cerium, were used in everything from computers and cell phones to X–ray machines and self-cleaning ovens.
“Sam was always a bit of a loner, even when he was a kid,” Dixon said. “But after he found his fiancée’s body he really started keeping to himself in the old Copper Beach house. Lot of folks, including my wife, swear that losing the love of his life about broke his heart. They say his family is worried about him. They think he might be depressed or something, you know?”
Great, Abby thought. Thaddeus Webber had sent her all this way to hire a reclusive mad scientist with paranormal talents who was suffering from some form of depression due to the death of a fiancée he might or might not have killed. The long trip from Seattle today was looking more and more like a waste of time. She glanced at her watch, wondering if she should tell Dixon to turn the water taxi around and take her back to Anacortes, where she had left her car.
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