Copper Beach dl-1 Page 7

  “Your clients have your home address?”

  “No, of course not. Too many crazies in my line. All of my business correspondence goes to an anonymous private post office box and is then forwarded here.”

  She got the outer wrapping off, revealing an ornately carved wooden box.

  “Those are alchemical designs,” Sam said.

  “They certainly are.”

  Abby opened the hinged lid of the box. There was a small leather-bound book inside. She used both hands to take it out. She smiled.

  “What?” Sam asked warily.

  “It’s encrypted with a delicate little psi-code.” Abby opened the cover with great care and studied the title page. Pleasure and a little heat illuminated her eyes.

  Sam looked over her shoulder and studied the Latin. “What does it say?”

  “The title translates to A Treatise on the Herbs and Flowers Most Useful in the Art of Mixing Perfumes. It’s a guide to perfume making, written by someone who obviously had a psychic talent for the craft. According to the title page, it contains some of Cleopatra’s own personal recipes. Isn’t it lovely?”

  “Abby,” Sam said, “it wasn’t mailed to you.”

  “Yes, I know. I told you, my mail goes through a private post office.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said evenly. “It wasn’t mailed anywhere. There’s no postage on it. That package must have been hand-delivered.”

  Abby looked up at last. Her eyes narrowed faintly. He realized he finally had her attention.

  “Well, I do have a few friends,” she said tentatively. “I suppose one of them could have dropped it off.”

  “Is there a note?”

  “I didn’t notice one.” She looked at the wooden box. There was a small white envelope inside. “Wait, there it is.”

  She put the book down and opened the envelope. She pulled out the small card inside and read the handwritten message: “Please accept this small gift as an expression of my admiration for your unique talents. I wish to commission your services with a view to acquiring a rare item that is rumored to be coming onto the market. Price is no object. There will be a generous bonus if you are successful. Regardless of your decision, the herbal is yours to keep.”

  “Someone is trying to bribe you to take him on as a client,” Sam said. “And he knows where you live.”

  “Oh, crap,” Abby said.

  10

  ICY ENERGY ELECTRIFIED THE ATMOSPHERE. ABBY KNEW THAT Sam was jacked. So was she, but in a different way. It made her uneasy to realize that a potential client had found her home address, but she could not bring herself to believe that the little herbal represented a truly dangerous threat.

  “I take precautions,” Abby said, “but everyone knows that these days you can find anyone if you look hard enough. I would point out, for instance, that you found my address tonight. I don’t recall giving it to you this afternoon.”

  “I had your license plate,” Sam said.

  “I beg your pardon? I left my car in Anacortes when I went to see you.” Then it struck her. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it was Dixon, wasn’t it? He made a note of my license plate when he fetched me at the marina. You used it to trace me.”

  “My family takes precautions, too,” Sam said. “How many of your clients have gone to the trouble to track you down like this?”

  “It’s never been much of a problem, to be honest. Everyone knows my reputation. There’s no point approaching me unless you have been referred by someone I trust. Even if someone got as far as the front door of this building, none of the doormen would let him in unless I gave my approval.”

  “Mail and packages are delivered to the lobby. How did these get up here today?”

  “I was supposed to be out of town for the next few days. I had a job down in Portland that I rescheduled after the blackmail threats arrived. The day doorman, Ralph, always brings up my mail and waters my plants when I’m gone. I forgot to tell him that my plans had changed.”

  Sam picked up the note and read it silently. “This isn’t the same guy who is sending you the threatening notes.”

  “No, I’m sure it isn’t. Whoever sent me this herbal is trying to impress me. This is a very generous gift. I could probably sell it for several thousand dollars, enough to cover my mortgage payments for a while and pay off my new furniture.”

  “Are you impressed?” Sam asked softly.

  She drew one finger across the elegantly hand-tooled leather cover. Hushed power locked in stasis stirred her senses.

  “Oh, my, yes,” she whispered. “No one has ever given me anything like this in my whole life. The book is valuable in and of itself as an antiquarian text, but the psi-encryption makes it worth much, much more to the collectors in my market. Who knows what secrets may be hidden inside.”

  Sam’s jaw hardened. “In other words, the person who sent it to you is wooing you.”

  She smiled. “You could say that. Giving me this book is the equivalent of giving another woman a very nice set of diamond earrings.”

  She could see that Sam did not like hearing that. She wondered why it bothered him so much. She had merely been trying to illustrate a point.

  “It’s not personal,” she said quickly. “I mean, it’s not like he wants to have an affair with me or anything. He just wants me to know that he can afford my services and that he’ll pay well for them.” She touched the herbal again. “This gift also tells me that he respects my talent.”

  “Don’t get any ideas about dumping me and taking him on as a client,” Sam warned. “You and I have a deal.”

  She sighed. “Yep, I’m committed.”

  “You don’t have to act like it’s a tragedy. That blackmailer is still out there, remember.”

  “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Can I have a look at that herbal?” Sam asked.

  “Sure.” She handed it to him with some reluctance. The energy of the book was mildly intoxicating. Like an exotic perfume, she thought.

  Sam opened the book with due care. “I can feel a little heat, but nothing that would warn me that it’s encrypted.”

  “Whoever locked that book was very skilled with the old techniques. You probably wouldn’t notice anything at all unless you actually tried to concoct some of the recipes. Then you would find out, probably the hard way, that the perfumes you created were all off in some fashion.”

  Sam looked up. “The hard way?”

  “The results might vary, from foul-smelling concoctions to some that are downright poisonous. It would depend on just how serious the person who set the code was about protecting her secrets.”

  “You think a woman locked this book?”

  “Yes,” Abby said. She smiled. “Every psi-code is unique. It’s like a fingerprint in that it reveals a lot about the individual who set the encryption. You’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you that you do not want to re–create any of those recipes unless the code is broken first.”

  “I believe you.” Sam put the book down on the desk. “What are you going to do with the herbal? Keep it?”

  “No, I really can’t do that. The person who sent it was very gracious and very generous about insisting it was a gift, but I could never accept such a valuable item for services that haven’t been rendered.”

  “How will you return it?” Sam asked. “You don’t know the sender.”

  “I’m sure that won’t be a problem. I’ll give the book to Thaddeus Webber. He’ll find a way to return it to whoever sent it. Thaddeus has connections throughout the hot-book market. Unlike me, he works the deep end.”

  “Do you think that the person who sent you the herbal is a deep-end collector?”

  “Yes.” She placed the herbal carefully back into the box. “I do.”

  “Think he knows you’ll arrange to return the book if you don’t accept him as a client?”

  “Certainly.” She smiled. “I told you, I have a reputation in this business.”

&n
bsp; “In other words, he didn’t take much of a risk when he gave you the herbal.”

  “No. But it was a very elegant gesture, regardless.”

  Sam watched her close the lid of the box. “You know, I had no idea until now how delicate business negotiations are in your world.”

  “I thought I made it clear. In my line, reputation is everything. All my transactions involve an element of trust.”

  “Well, that attitude explains why you aren’t yet ready to hold hands and jump off the edge of a cliff with me,” he said, without inflection.

  She blanked for a couple of beats. Then she chuckled. The chuckles turned into laughter, and she was suddenly laughing harder than she had in some time.

  “That’s hilarious.” She wiped the corners of her eyes. “You are a very unusual man, Sam Coppersmith.”

  “You want to know the sad part? I wasn’t trying to make a joke. I need your trust to do my job, Abby.”

  She sobered and blinked a few times to clear her eyes. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize. Never mind. As you just pointed out, we have a deal, and I do trust you to honor your part of the bargain. I give you my word I’ll honor my end. I’ll do my best to find that lab book. Speaking of my little problem, just how do you plan to go about finding the blackmailer?”

  Sam looked as if he wanted to pursue the topic of trust, but he must have concluded that the conversation was not going to be useful. He turned away and went to stand at the window, looking out into the night. Newton joined him.

  “A chat with Thaddeus Webber would be a good place to start,” Sam said. “But I’d like to do it in person, not via email. Unlike you, he isn’t so easy to find. Think you can get him to agree to talk to me?”

  “Yes, I’m sure I can. I want to see him, myself, in order to give him the herbal. I’ll email him tonight and set up a meeting. He’s quite security-conscious, though, so he’ll want to choose the time and place.”

  “Fine by me, so long as he makes it soon, preferably tomorrow.”

  “I doubt that will be a problem. Thaddeus is the one who sent me to you in the first place, after all. He’ll be as helpful as he can.”

  “Good.”

  She waited a beat. Sam did not say anything else. He and Newton continued to contemplate the night.

  She cleared her throat. “So do you plan on returning to Copper Beach tonight? It’s a long trip.”

  “What?” Sam sounded distracted, as if she had interrupted his train of thought. He turned around. “No, I’m not going back tonight. I thought I made it clear I’ll be sticking close to you until this is finished. Got a spare blanket for your sofa?”

  Blindsided. She stared at him, speechless. A tiny tingle of panic iced her spine. Should have seen this coming.

  “I really don’t think it’s necessary for you to spend the night here,” she said quickly. “It’s not like there is an immediate threat to my safety.”

  “Sure there is.”

  “I don’t see it.”

  “Let’s review,” Sam said. “You are suddenly very hot, in more ways than one. Every time I turn around, someone else is either trying to bribe you or trying to blackmail you into working for him.”

  “Just two people,” she said. “Three, counting you.”

  “That’s two too many. Sooner or later, someone may decide to take more direct action. This place is not exactly a fortress.”

  “I’ve got Newton,” she said. But she was grasping at straws, and she knew it.

  “I’m sure Newton is a fine animal, but he’s not exactly a pit bull or a rottweiler. Tonight, I sleep here.”

  She thought about the black leather duffel he had left in the entry hall. “I’m guessing that whatever is inside that bag you brought, it’s not your gym stuff.”

  “Overnight kit, a change of clothes and some of the equipment I use in my consulting work. I never leave home without it.”

  “You came prepared.”

  “We’re in this together, Abby.”

  “Right.” She took a deep breath. “Actually, there are three of us involved in this thing. You, me and Newton. And right now Newton has priority. It’s time for his late-night walk.”

  “Please don’t tell me that you make a habit of going out onto the street alone at this hour every night?”

  “No need for that,” Abby said. “The main reason I chose this particular condo building is because it has a lovely dog garden on the roof.”

  Newton bounded toward the front door, claws skidding on the floor.

  “He knows the word walk,” Abby explained.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Sam said. “Maybe he is a little bit psychic.”

  “All dogs have a psychic vibe,” Abby said. “But Newton has more talent than most. I knew that the instant I saw him in the animal shelter.”

  Some time later, she closed her bedroom door, turned off the lights and pulled back the covers. The curtains were open, allowing the nighttime glow of the city to spill into the room.

  Newton jumped up onto the foot of the bed and settled down.

  “Feels weird knowing he’s out there in the other room, doesn’t it?” Abby whispered.

  Newton regarded her alertly, his proud, intelligent head silhouetted against the city lights.

  She pulled the down quilt up to her chin and contemplated the shadows on the ceiling. She should have been more uneasy about the situation, she thought. She was not accustomed to having a man spend the night. Her dates were never invited to stay until morning. Even with Kane, she had not taken that step. Maybe that had been a sign that the relationship was doomed, she thought. A woman should long for that kind of domestic intimacy with the man she was thinking of marrying. But she had never felt the need to have Kane stay. And in the post-Kane era, she had been living something of a cloistered life. There had been no other relationship that had even come close to being serious.

  Her new home was her refuge, her fortress, her private, personal space. It was the first place that had ever truly belonged to her. She had filled it with things that had meaning to her. She had decorated it with the colors and fabrics and furnishings that she loved. And tonight a man she had known for less than a day was sleeping on her new sofa. She was still making payments on that sofa.

  “I probably won’t sleep well tonight,” she said to Newton. “But what if I have that damn dream and go sleepwalking out into the front room? It would be so embarrassing.”

  Newton put his head down on his paws.

  Abby looked out into the night and thought about the lucid-dreaming advice that Gwen had given her. Set your psychic alarm clock to alert you when you start dreaming. Then take control of the dream.

  11

  “Help me.” Grady Hastings was barely visible in the swirling mist. He reached out a pleading hand. “Please help me.”

  Abby looked at him through the eerie light that illuminated the dreamscape and knew that she was dreaming. The strange fog that ebbed and flowed around Grady was different tonight. It burned with an inner radiance that she had not noticed in the previous dreams. She could move through it, get closer to Grady.

  She was dreaming, but she was aware that she was dreaming. Her psychic alarm clock had gone off right on time. She could take control.

  “Tell me what you want from me,” she said, speaking in the silent language of dreams.

  The mist thickened around Grady. It was getting harder and harder to see him, but she sensed his desperation and despair.

  “Help me,” he said. “You’re the only one who can.”

  She tried to grasp his hand.…

  AND CAME FULLY AWAKE IN A RUSH OF ENERGY, HER SENSES sparking and flashing like dark fireworks in the night. The primordial instincts of childhood kicked in. She tried to hold herself utterly still, not daring to move, but she could not stop the shivering that racked her body.

  Heart pounding, she opened her eyes, searching the shadows. No one leaped out of the closet. No monster crouched at the foot of her bed. Newton
was not there, either. That was not right, because she could feel his warm weight pressed against her leg.

  In the next heartbeat she realized that she was on her feet beside the bed. At least her psychic alarm had awakened her before she had actually started to walk out of the bedroom.

  There was something very wrong with the shadows in the room. They seethed and shifted. It took her a few seconds to figure out that the pulsing, roiling ultralight was coming from the small, hot storm brewing on her dresser.

  “Oh, crap,” she whispered to Newton. “It’s the herbal. I accidentally ignited it in my sleep.”

  Newton growled softly.

  She rushed to the dresser. Hot currents from the herbal were seeping out of the wooden box. She realized that she had inadvertently tapped some of the encryption energy in the old book when she tried to take control of the dream.

  She looked at the box with a sense of dread. Currents of hot psi from the darkest end of the spectrum twisted and wreathed around it. Any minute now she would start to smell charring wood. And then the smoke alarms would go off. If the condo building’s fire-detection systems were activated, the fire department would be called automatically. Even if no real damage was done, her neighbors and the condo board of directors would want to know what happened.

  Disaster loomed.

  She opened the box very carefully. Energy flared higher. Gingerly, she put her hand on the leather cover of the herbal. Shocks of paranormal electricity crackled through her. She ignored them and channeled her talent, dampening the currents. She could only hope that Sam was a really sound sleeper.

  The last of the hot energy had almost winked out when the bedroom door opened abruptly. She looked over her shoulder and saw Sam’s shadowy frame silhouetted against the city lights that illuminated the living room. Icy energy chilled the atmosphere. The room was suddenly very cold.

  “What’s going on?” Sam asked. His eyes burned. The strange crystal in his ring glowed with an inner fire.

  Newton spared him a brief glance, ears sharpened, and then returned his full attention to Abby and the hot book.