Jayne Krentz - Copper Beach

“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.

“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.”

“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.