Copper Beach: A Dark Legacy Novel (21 page)

“I see your son–in–law is having a signing event for his new book on Friday night,” Lander said.

“Yes.” Orinda shook out her napkin. “It’s the start of his book tour. He’ll be gone for almost a month. I understand the publisher has scheduled a number of appearances.”

“Have you read
Families by Choice
?”

“I glanced through it.” Orinda sniffed. “I’m afraid it’s the usual psychobabble that passes for deep insight and wise advice these days. But my daughter tells me that there’s a very good chance it will sell quite well, and may even lead to a TV show.”

Lander’s smile held both sympathy and condescending amusement. “It’s all about marketing and packaging, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so. My son–in–law is very good at both.”

Orinda opened her menu and reminded herself to be careful what she said about Brandon. Not that Lander wasn’t aware of her feelings on the subject. He never pried into personal matters, but over the past
few months it had become very easy to talk to him about so many things.

Their luncheons were supposed to be reserved for conversations about opera, literary works and other cultural matters. But all too often she found herself confiding certain matters that really should be kept in the family.

She gave thanks yet again that Lander could be trusted to be discreet. In spite of the difference in their ages, they were similar in so many ways. He had a charming, poetical way of describing their relationship.
We are old souls who have found each other.

SAM GAZED INTO THE GLOWING COMPUTER WITH THE BROODING
air of an alchemist pondering his fires.

“There was no indication that anything was stolen from Webber’s home,” he said. “The county officials have concluded that he died of natural causes.”

“Well, we knew that would be the official cause of death,” Abby said.

She sank down into the corner of the massive leather couch and curled her legs mermaid-style. Newton bounded up and settled down beside her. She rubbed behind his ears, taking comfort from the physical contact with him.

The toxic mix of adrenaline and nerves following the discovery of Thaddeus’s body and the kidnapping attempt was starting to dissipate, leaving exhaustion in its wake. But she had a feeling that a restful sleep was going to be harder to come by than usual tonight.

“The local media mention that Webber appears to have been a
hoarder who collected old books related to the occult, magic and the paranormal,” Sam said.

“That is absolutely wrong,” Abby said. “Webber had no interest in the occult or magic. But I don’t suppose it will matter. So many people don’t understand the distinction between the paranormal and the supernatural. Regardless, those reports will be enough to fire up the rumor mill in collectors’ circles. My competition will be looking very hard for Thaddeus’s house.”

Sam got up from the computer. “The police will have locked up the place.”

“I’m sure they did,” she said. “For all the good that will do. I think it’s safe to say the authorities have no idea of the value of some of those books. They’ll assume that Thaddeus was just another eccentric hoarder.”

“Did he have any family?”

“Not that I know of,” Abby said.

Sam crossed the room to where a bottle of white wine was chilling in a bucket of ice. A bottle of whiskey and two glasses sat nearby. “Did he make any contingency arrangements for his collection in the event that something happened to him? Is there a will?”

“I have no idea. He always dreamed of founding a library of paranormal literature for serious researchers, but he never had the money to start such an ambitious project, and no academic institution would accept his collection.”

“If he made a will, it will be on file somewhere. I’ll have someone in Coppersmith’s legal department check into it.” Sam took out his phone and keyed a number. “If we can locate a will and the lawyer who drew it up, we might be able to take action to protect Webber’s books, or at least those in the vault, before it’s too late.”

He spoke briefly to whoever answered the phone, giving instructions with a relaxed authority.

“Thanks, Bill,” he concluded. “Let me know when you’ve got something.”

Sam ended the call and reached for the wine bottle. When he realized that Abby was watching him, he raised his brows. “What?”

“Must be nice to be able to pick up a phone and have a lawyer snap to attention like that for you,” she said.

“There are benefits to having access to the resources of a privately held company.” Sam poured wine into one of the glasses. “But guys like Bill don’t come cheap, and they don’t exactly snap to attention, sadly.”

He splashed some whiskey into the second glass and carried both across the room to where Abby sat.

“Thank you for trying to protect Thaddeus’s collection,” she said. She swallowed some of the wine and lowered the glass. “It meant everything to him.”

“We might be able to protect his books, at least for now, but if there is an heir and if he or she doesn’t appreciate the value of the collection, the books will probably go straight into the used-book market,” Sam said.

“Or a yard sale.”

Sam drank some whiskey and sank down onto the couch next to Newton. Absently, he scratched Newton’s ears.

Abby smiled proudly. “Newton was a real hero today, wasn’t he?”

“You’re not supposed to anthropomorphize,” Sam said. “Dogs don’t think in terms of bravery and cowardice. He recognized a threat, and he followed his instincts.”

“He was trying to protect me.”

“You’re his pack buddy. Like I said, he was just going on instinct.”

Abby took another sip of wine. “You were protecting me, too. You’re human. Am I allowed to call you brave and daring and heroic?”

“Nope.” He drank some more whiskey. “I was just doing my job.”

“Heroes always say stuff like that, you know.”

“In this case, it’s the simple truth. You hired me to find a blackmailer. Now it looks like I’m dealing with a blackmailer who is getting desperate enough to commit murder and attempted kidnapping.”

“And you hired me to find that lab book. Which reminds me.” She reached into her tote, took out her phone and checked her email. “There are a few new messages. Let me see if any of them are from those dealers I contacted earlier.”

She ran through the new mail. There was a note from her father, reminding her of the signing event, and a message from her stepmother, demanding that she get in touch immediately. Ignoring the first two emails, she opened the third. In spite of her exhaustion, she experienced another flash of adrenaline.

“Here we go,” she said, trying to keep her professional cool. “The auction is scheduled for next week. No preemptive bids are allowed, but it has been noted that my client will try to top any bid. We are guaranteed the opportunity to do so.”

Sam sat forward, eyes heating. Energy whispered in the atmosphere. Newton stirred and raised his head, ears sharpened.

Sam looked at the phone. “Which dealer is running the auction?”

“He calls himself Milton,” Abby said. “But that’s just his online alias. I don’t know anything more about him, aside from the fact that he is one of the dealers who works with the most dangerous collectors and the most dangerous books. I’ve never done business with him, but he says he knows my reputation and trusts that my client is solid.”

“I’ll call one of the people in the IT department.” Sam reached for his own phone. “See if he can trace Milton.”

“I doubt that you’ll be able to find him. Dealers like Milton don’t survive this long unless they are very careful.”

“Thaddeus Webber was careful,” Sam pointed out. “Someone found him.”

SAM CAME AWAKE AS HE ALWAYS DID AFTER THE DREAM, BREATHING
hard and drenched in sweat. He wrenched the covers aside and
sat up on the edge of the bed. He forced himself to take a few deep breaths.

After a while he got up, yanked off his damp T–shirt, pulled on a pair of pants and opened the bedroom door. For a moment, he stood in the shadowed hall and studied the door across the way. Abby was inside that room. She had not invited him to join her. He had not pushed. His intuition warned him that she not only needed sleep, she needed time to come to terms with whatever had happened between them last night.

One night of hot, psi-infused sex did not a relationship make,
he thought. Well, it had for him, but he could tell that Abby was having trouble with the concept. It was probably hard to focus on your personal life when you were worried about people with guns trying to kidnap you. A woman had to set priorities. So did a man, and keeping Abby safe was his one and only priority now.

He started down the dimly lit hall toward the stairs but paused when he heard the click of dog nails on the other side of Abby’s bedroom door. Newton was awake and alert inside the room.

“It’s okay,” Sam said, keeping his voice to a whisper. “Go back to sleep.”

He went downstairs to the kitchen, turned on a light and took the whiskey out of the cupboard. He poured a medicinal shot and drank it, leaning against the granite counter. The heat of the liquor burned away the last fragments of the dream.

When the glass was empty, he thought about going back to bed, but that would be futile. He would not sleep again tonight. He never did after the dream. He would be awake until morning, so he might as well do something productive.

He turned off the light, left the kitchen and went down to the basement. He walked along the hall, the same hall that appeared in the damn dream. The ghostly images of Cassidy walking this path to her doom were not from his memories. He had not been in the house that
night. But he had imagined how it must have happened so many times that his reconstructed version of events had become as detailed and as graphic as a photograph.

He opened the door and went into the chamber. The energy in the room stirred all of his senses. The lab was drenched in darkness, but the specimens in the glass cases were all hot. They burned most strongly at night.

He jacked up his talent and walked through the dazzling rainbow of paranormal light. The hues ranged across the spectrum, from icy ultrablack to hot ultrareds and on into the silvery ultrawhite energy that the old alchemists had called the Hermetic Stream,
the water that did not wet the hands.

The raw-amber pieces were especially powerful to his heightened senses. He stopped in front of a glass case and studied the copper-and-gold radiation given off by the specimen inside. The same color as Abby’s hair, he realized. He smiled a little and reached out to open the case.

Soft footsteps and the click of dog nails sounded in the hall. He turned away from the case and saw Abby and Newton silhouetted in the doorway. Abby had a flashlight in her hand. The beam speared into the lab, illuminating one of the glass cases.

Newton trotted into the room and immediately began to investigate the space, his nose to the floor.

Sam looked at Abby. She had put on her robe and slippers. Her hair was a wild storm of curls around her face. His slightly jacked senses got hotter.

“Didn’t mean to wake you up,” he said.

She moved slowly into the room. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” He went to the desk and flipped the switch on the lamp.

“Not much in the way of lighting,” she said. She switched off the flashlight. “I think of labs as being sterile, brightly lit places, like the Coppersmith Black Box.”

“They often turn off the lights in the Box. Paranormal energy is more vivid to the senses in darkness.”

“Yes.”

She walked slowly toward him, gazing into the cases that she passed. He felt energy shimmer in the atmosphere and knew that she had heightened her talent. He would know her aura anywhere and in any light, he thought.

“What do you see when you look at these stones?” she asked.

He looked at her, not the gems and crystals that surrounded them. She dazzled his senses more than any of the rare stones in the room.