Copper Beach: A Dark Legacy Novel (36 page)

She had assumed the snare involved catching the killer on camera in the lab. But now she was having doubts.

Jenny O’Connell materialized out of the crowd. She had a glass of wine in one hand.

“I’ve been looking for you, Abby,” she said. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior the other day, when you and Sam came to the Black Box library. To be honest, I was a little taken aback, or maybe just plain insulted, that Sam Coppersmith was using a freelancer to go after a hot book for his family’s personal collection.”

“I understand,” Abby said. “It’s okay. I know what librarians and academics think about those of us who work the underground market.”

“It’s hard enough having serious academic degrees and just enough talent to know that the paranormal is real. Most of us in that category have to pretend that we don’t really believe in the existence of extrasensory perception, psychic energy or any of the rest of it. We tell people that we study the sadly deluded folks who do believe in it and examine the effects of such bizarre beliefs on culture and society.”

“I understand,” Abby said again. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Unlike many of my colleagues, I was lucky enough to get a job in a scholarly collection like the Coppersmith company library, where the paranormal is taken seriously. And what did I do? I treated you the way
my old academic colleagues would have treated me if they had realized that I actually do believe in the paranormal.”

“I get that,” Abby said. She smiled. “My father has spent a lot of time in the academic world. I have a sense of how things work there. Please don’t worry. I accept your apology.”

“Thank you.” Jenny sounded grateful and relieved. “I really would like to know more about your end of the field. I have to admit that I’ve always had a great curiosity about the private collectors’ market. It’s such a mystery, and so intriguing. Perhaps we can talk shop one of these days?”

“Sure,” Abby said.

“Wonderful. I’ll look forward to it.”

Jenny wandered off in the direction of the bar. Abby watched her go and then turned to search the crowd once more. There was still no sign of Sam.

There was something else that was bothering her now, as well. Jenny O’Connell had been in the company of Gerald Frye for most of the evening. Now she was alone.

SAM SAT IN THE CHAIR, ANKLES STACKED ON THE CORNER OF
his desk, and listened for the sound of footsteps in the hall. His gun was on top of the desk. So was the green prism.

It was just a matter of time. He had seen the killer make his way to the edge of the crowd a few minutes ago. Sooner or later, he would show up in the lab.

The desk lamp was switched off, but Sam was jacked. The crystals and stones in the display cases glowed in the darkness, casting the strange shadows that could be created only by ultralight.

The footsteps he had been waiting for echoed in the hallway at last, faint at first and then louder as they neared the door. There was a short pause.

The door opened slowly. A figure appeared, silhouetted in the opening. A toxic mix of fear, panic and desperation burned in the atmosphere.

The intruder hesitated, then moved quickly into the room and closed
the door. There was a sharp click. A penlight beam arced through the darkness and came to rest on the packing boxes in the corner.

“You don’t have to go through the boxes, Dr. Frye,” Sam said. “I’ve got what you’re looking for here on my desk.”

Gerald Frye froze. “Sam.”

“I had a feeling you would be the one who came here tonight, but I had to be sure.”

“I was looking for you, Sam. Your mother noticed that you had disappeared from the party. She’s worried because you’ve been so depressed lately. She asked me to see if you’d retreated here to your lab. I told her that you probably just wanted to get away from the crowd for a while, but that I’d make sure you were okay.”

“Skip the bullshit,” Sam said. “You’re here to get the prism that you used to manipulate Grady Hastings. Must have come as a shock today when I mentioned during the tour that I had packed up the contents of the lab of a small-time researcher named Hastings.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The prism is the one thing that connects you to Grady Hastings. You realized that if I ever examined it closely, I would know that it had probably come from the Black Box lab. You were right.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Frye said.

“I recognized the para-engineering immediately. Knew it could only have come from our facility. But there’s a large staff in the Black Box. It took me a while to go through the list of suspects. I had a hunch you were the one who had created the hypnotic recording and tuned it to Grady Hastings’s aura, though. You’re one of the very few people in that lab with the technical expertise and the talent to do it. But that didn’t mean that you were the killer. There was always the possibility that someone else had used your device. Trust me, I know how it feels to be set up. I didn’t want to make a mistake, so I ran this little experiment tonight.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Frye edged toward the door.

“There’s no point trying to run. It’s over. Just a couple of things I want to get clear. Whose idea was it to try to steal the crystals? Yours or Cassidy’s?”

“I’m not going to answer any of your questions. If you lay a hand on me, I’ll scream bloody murder. There are a couple hundred people outside.”

“We’re in a concrete basement. No one will hear you scream.” Sam took his feet down off the desk, sat forward and rested one hand on the glowing green prism. “But I’m not going to touch you. We’re just going to talk.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you want me to know how brilliant and how talented you are.”

There was stunned silence. A great calm descended on Frye. He moved to the nearest display case and examined the cut geode inside. The blue ultralight from the glittering crystals embedded in the rock etched his face in eerie shadows.

Frye grunted. “Everyone said you were heartbroken, but I knew you were just pissed off because you had let Cassidy get so close to your family’s secrets.”

“That was part of it.” Sam got up and walked around to the front of the desk. He leaned back against the edge and folded his arms. “So whose idea was it to try to steal the crystals?”

“Mine. I recognized Cassidy Lawrence for the opportunist she was the first time I met her. We were two of a kind. I dropped a few hints about the Phoenix stones. Imagine my surprise when I found out that she was already aware of them. That’s why she set out to seduce you at that gem-and-mineral show.”

“Guess that explains a few things.”

“Cassidy, of course, thought she was using me. She was accustomed to being able to manipulate every man she encountered. She certainly dazzled you.”

“How did she learn about the crystals?”

“The rumors of the Phoenix Mine have had forty years to turn into a legend. Cassidy came from a long line of crystal talents. She paid attention to that kind of chatter. She picked up the whispers of the Phoenix a year ago and started doing some serious research. She arranged to meet you at that gem-and-mineral show. The next thing you know, you’re giving her a tour of the lab and she’s filling out a job application.”

“You started working for us before Cassidy did. How did you learn about the Phoenix Mine and the crystals?”

“Ray Willis filled up more than one lab notebook with the records of his experiments,” Frye said. Cold triumph rang in his words.

“I’ll be damned. Willis kept more than one notebook?”

“There were two, the one he showed to your father and Knox, and a second one in which he kept his own private records. Shortly before the explosion in the mine, he sent the second one to my mother for safekeeping.”

“Why would he send it to your mother?”

“The two of them were lovers at the time that your father and the others discovered that vein of crystals,” Frye said. “He realized the true value of the stones immediately, and wanted to conceal some of the results of his experiments from his partners.”

“Did your mother have any idea of how dangerous the stones are?”

“No, of course not. The first lab book wasn’t encrypted, but it might as well have been, as far as she was concerned. The notes are all written in the form of para-physics equations and technical jargon. I found it when I went through her things after she died a few years ago. But there was nothing in the notebook concerning the exact location of the Phoenix Mine.”

“But after you found the lab book you knew who did have that information, though, didn’t you? Your father’s partners, Elias Coppersmith and Quinn Knox.”

“I managed to track down Knox,” Frye said. “He was deep into the booze and the pills by then. I tried to question him, but I couldn’t get much out of him. His brain was mush. He told some very tall tales about the Phoenix Mine, but he had long since forgotten the coordinates, or pretended that he had forgotten. All I got from him was that it was somewhere in Nevada.”

“Lot of desert in Nevada.”

“Knox did let slip one other interesting bit of information. He told me the story of how he and your father had escaped from the mine after Willis tried to murder them. He said that they both nearly died because your father insisted on carrying out a sack of rocks.”

“You realized that my family probably still had the crystals.”

“I decided my best bet was to get a job with Coppersmith Inc.,” Frye said. “With my talent, it wasn’t hard to work my way into the Black Box facility.”

“You became a trusted employee, but you couldn’t find what you wanted most, the location of the Phoenix. And there was no record of the geodes that my father had carried out of the mine the day of the explosion.”

“Since the stones were not housed in the lab vault, I knew they were most likely either here on the island or down in Sedona,” Frye said. “Couldn’t see the Coppersmith family letting the crystals get too far out of sight. After a couple of visits here, I realized that your private lab was the most likely place.”

“But my security is good, and you didn’t even know where the vault was located. You needed to get someone inside. And then Cassidy came on the scene, and you saw your opportunity. How did she find the vault in the wall?”

“There aren’t that many firms that specialize in high-end vaults and safes here in the Northwest. I eventually tracked down one that had a record of an installation here on Legacy a few years ago. There weren’t many details, but a contractor had left some handwritten notes that made it clear the safe had been installed in a basement wall.”

“Cassidy had the freedom of the whole house when she stayed here with me. But I still don’t know how she found the vault. I never showed it to her.”

“Finding it wasn’t that hard,” Frye said. “I knew there had to be a phony wall somewhere, and that the vault would be behind it. I gave Cassidy one of the high-end metal detectors we use in the lab. It didn’t take her long to find the lever that opens the wall.”

“After that, the two of you figured you were home free. You weren’t concerned about your ability to crack the vault. Given your lab equipment and your talent, you assumed that would be a piece of cake. You chose a night when you knew that I was going to be away from the island on a consulting trip.”

“When you go off on one of those trips, you’re generally gone for several days,” Frye said. “We knew we’d have plenty of time.”

“You and Cassidy came to the island in a private boat. You anchored in one of the small pocket beaches to make sure no one in town witnessed your arrival. You made your way here and managed to disarm my house security system.”

“I’ve always had a talent for locks, and yours had come straight out of a Coppersmith lab,” Frye said. “That part was easy. Cassidy and I came down here to the basement. She showed me the mechanism that opens the fake wall.”

“You got the wall open, but then you discovered that there was a new lock on the safe, one you couldn’t hack.”

“That damn crystal lock is your own design, isn’t it?” Rage flashed in Frye’s voice and in his aura. “I realized immediately I wouldn’t be able
to open it. The only option was to blow it. That’s what Cassidy wanted me to do. But I hadn’t come prepared for that. I knew enough about the crystals to know they were volatile. The last thing I wanted to do was use an explosive device. She was screaming at me.”

“So you cut your losses and murdered her.”

“I had to kill her,” Frye said. “I had no choice. She was raving mad, furious with me for failing to get into the safe. She said I was a screwup. I’m pretty sure she intended to kill me. I acted first.”

“Plan B, stealing the crystals, had fallen apart. You went back to plan A, trying to find the Phoenix Mine. This time, you decided to go at it using a research approach. You spent a lot of time in the Coppersmith company library. You even started a relationship with the librarian, Jenny O’Connell.”