Jayne Krentz - Copper Beach

“Didn’t want to give her mother the satisfaction of being able to say I-told-you-so.” Abby shook her head. “Can you believe it? Spend nearly two decades with a man because you don’t want to admit your mother was right about him?”

Sam cranked the engine. “Families.”

“A constant source of entertainment.”

“They keep life interesting. You really think your dad hung around this long because of the Strickland money?”

“Sure. Even though he’s not an heir, it has certainly made life very comfortable for him and provided him with a lot of social connections.” Abby paused. “And to think that he doesn’t yet know that it’s gone. I wonder when they’ll give him the bad news?”

“Good question.”

Sam reversed the SUV out of the slot and drove onto the street, heading downtown. The lights of the city’s office buildings, hotels and apartment towers glittered like watery jewels through the rain-splashed windshield.

“Just one more question about Kane Thurston,” he said.

“What?”

“Was he ever there for breakfast?”

“Nope. Although I did meet him for brunch at a restaurant a few times. Does that count?”

“No,” he said. “Brunch in a restaurant doesn’t count.”

Abby’s phone chimed. She reached into her purse, grabbed the device and glanced at the caller ID.

“It’s Nick,” she said. Her tone was suddenly a few degrees brighter. She took the call. “Hey, Nick.”

Sam heard the easy familiarity and affection in her voice and felt a tug of simple, primal jealousy. Knowing Nick was gay did nothing to assuage the response. Abby was closely bonded with her friends. She’d had years to forge the connections among herself and Nick and Gwen. He, on the other hand, was a newcomer in her life, and as far as she was concerned, their relationship was not easy to define. The passion was high-energy, but he knew she did not fully trust the intimacy that it generated. It was all happening too fast for her.

She needed time to recognize and accept the bond between them, he thought. But meanwhile, he did not have to like the fact that he was playing second fiddle to a cat burglar and a psychic who read auras for a living, to say nothing of the dog.

“Are you sure?” Abby’s tone altered abruptly. Alarm edged her voice. She leaned forward in the seat, phone clamped to her ear. “Nick, wait, don’t hang up. What do you mean? Tell me what’s going on.…Okay, okay, I’ve got it. Code red.…Yes, he’s with me.…Yes. Ten minutes. I promise.”

She ended the connection and sat very still, phone clenched in one hand. She had been tense all evening, but what she was radiating now was off the charts.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

“There’s a bar on a side street half a block off Broadway,” she said urgently. “It’s not far from here. We need to go there right now. Nick is waiting.”

“What’s with ‘code red’?” Sam asked.

“It was the old signal that the three of us used when we were in the Summerlight Academy. It means what code red always means. Something very bad has happened.”

LANDER KNOX STUDIED THE BACK-COVER PHOTO ON HIS COPY of Families by Choice while he waited in line. The smiling faces of the Radwell family stirred the deep wellspring of hot acid inside him. It was all he could do not to hurl the book at the author’s head. Just one big happy family.

He took out the small bottle of acid-reducer pills and popped one into his mouth. The picture was deceptive, he reminded himself. Things were no longer quite so perfect for the Radwell clan, thanks to his financial games. The knowledge that he had caused some serious collateral damage soothed him.

Acquiring the lab book and a psychic who could break the code that protected his inheritance was still his primary objective. But the loss of the Strickland money was starting to send shock waves through the family. It was obvious that not everyone in the clan knew what had happened yet. But during their last lunch together, he had sensed the panic and helpless anger that seethed inside Orinda Strickland. The old woman was terrified. And tonight he had glimpsed the strain in Diana Radwell’s eyes. Not much longer now, he thought. Soon they would all be forced to confront the enormity of their impending financial doom.

It would be interesting to see what happened when the bankruptcy ax fell. The old lady would probably have a heart attack, for starters. And it was a known fact that major financial problems often caused divorce. The Radwells’ marriage would no doubt be the next casualty. Dawson was already awash in guilt and viewed himself as a failure. There was no telling where that might lead. It was not unheard of for a man who had lost everything to commit suicide. The pretty blond twins would no longer be able to afford the sky-high tuition at the private college they attended. In the end, the picture-perfect Radwell family would be devastated.

The hot acid sank back into the bottom of the well. Lander suddenly felt much better. The person ahead of him in line thanked Radwell for the signed book and moved out of the way. Dr. Brandon C. Radwell smiled.

“How would you like the book inscribed?” Brandon asked.

“Would you mind making it out to ‘Lander, who will one day choose a family of his own’?”

“Certainly.” Brandon wrote quickly and signed the book. “Good luck to you, Lander. Remember, family is everything. Choose wisely.”

“I’ll do that, Dr. Radwell.”

FROM THE OUTSIDE, THE NIGHTCLUB LOOKED LIKE A LOW-RENT dive. It resembled a lot of the other clubs in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The door and the street-front windows were painted black. But when Sam ushered Abby inside, they were greeted with a comfortable, upscale space warmed by a large stone fireplace. The back bar gleamed with polished wood and glass.

A grand piano occupied one corner of the room. A middle-aged woman dressed in a beaded gown, her blond hair piled high, played a classic show tune. Her makeup was elaborate. Rhinestones dripped from her ears and draped her throat and wrists.

The clientele was a surprising mix of male and female, but the body language made it clear that the men and women at the tables were friends, not dates. The dress code was eclectic, tending toward high-end designer jeans, shirts and slouchy jackets for the men. The drinks were mostly variations on martinis and cosmopolitans.

A few heads turned when Sam and Abby walked into the room, but after a brief, discreet scrutiny, everyone went back to their drinks and conversation.

Nick sat alone in a booth at the back of the room. There was a blue martini on the table in front of him, but it appeared to be untouched. Abby slid onto the seat across from him. Sam sat down beside her. Nick gave him a bored look.

“I see you’re still hanging around,” Nick said.

“Sure,” Sam said. “I live in hope that one day you and I will be friends.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“I’m crushed, of course,” Sam said. “But I’m sure I’ll get over it.”

Abby leaned forward. “What’s going on, Nick?”

“As of five-thirty this afternoon, I am no longer your competition,” Nick said. “I fired my client, and I stopped looking for that hot encrypted book. If you’ve got any sense, you’ll quit looking for it, too.”

“What happened?” Abby asked.

“Benny Sparrow had a heart attack and died in his shop last night.”

“Not Benny, too,” Abby whispered.

“Yeah.” Nick took a small taste of his drink and set the glass down. “I was willing to overlook Webber’s heart attack. He was an old man and in bad health. Stuff happens. But now that Benny has checked out the exact same way, we’re looking at one too many coincidences.”

“Who was Benny Sparrow?” Sam asked.

“One of the three or four deep-end dealers most likely to be using the alias of Milton,” Nick said.

“The killer must have gotten Benny’s name from Thaddeus,” Abby said.

“Looks like it,” Nick said.

“Do you think Benny had the notebook?” Sam asked.

“If he did, the killer has it now,” Nick said. “We won’t know one way or another until we find out if the auction is still on. So far, there hasn’t been any update.” He turned to Abby. “This thing is way beyond a deep-end deal. We’re talking the Mariana Trench. Time to bail, my friend.”

“I can’t, Nick,” Abby said.

“Listen to me, Abby. You need to dump Coppersmith here, and get the hell out of Dodge. Like right now. I’m leaving town tonight. You can come with me.”

“If the book is locked in a psi-code, then leaving town won’t do me much good,” Abby pointed out. “If the killer does have the book and decides he needs me, he’ll come looking. I can’t run forever.”

“I can set you up with a clean ID,” Nick said. “I made new, updated sets for you and Gwen a while back, just in case.”

“Thanks, but it would be hard for me to disappear permanently,” Abby said. “My family may not be close, but trust me, a lot of my relatives would notice if I just up and vanished tonight.”

“Not to mention me,” Sam said. “I’d notice, too.”

Nick glared at him. “You still think you can take care of her?”

“I’m in a better position to protect her than you are,” Sam said.

Abby gave Nick a worried look. “Where are you going?”

“To Hawaii to join Gwen. Got a reservation on a red-eye. I’m taking an extended vacation until this auction is over.”

“Who was your client?” Abby asked.

“Mr. Anonymous,” Nick said. “I’ve done other jobs for him. Look, are you sure you don’t want to come with me tonight, Abby?”