The whole place glowed with a cozy, inviting warmth that suggested a very personal touch. A lot of time and attention had been lavished on the little condo to transform it from a living space into a home.
“Nice,” he said.
Abby smiled, the first genuine smile he had gotten from her. She was suddenly radiant. Deep satisfaction and delight lit her eyes. “It’s my first home. I’ve been renting forever. But I finally managed to save enough for a down payment. Moved in three months ago. Did the decorating myself. My friends helped me with the painting and built-ins.”
There was more than just pride of ownership in her voice. “It’s my first home” said a lot. The little condo was very important to Abby. Something else she had said struck him, too. Her friends had helped her paint and decorate. There was no mention of any assistance from her stepbrother and half sisters.
He walked to the granite counter that divided the living area from the kitchen and angled himself onto one of the bar stools.
Abby took a canister down out of the cupboard. “I assume you came to see me tonight because you’ve made some progress on the investigation?”
“Nope. I’ve got zip.”
For a heartbeat or two she did not move or even blink. Her stillness was absolute. She recovered quickly and frowned.
“Then what in the world are you doing here?” she asked.
He folded his arms on the counter. “My job. I told you I don’t have any startling revelations, but I do have a few questions.”
“You could have called.”
“I prefer to get my answers face–to–face.” He smiled. “Less chance of a misunderstanding that way.”
“Fine, whatever.” She removed the lid of the canister and started spooning loose tea into a pot. “Ask your questions.”
“You said you don’t know what the blackmailer wants.”
“I told you, he hasn’t made any specific demands.”
“Do you have any theories?”
“I assume he’s after some very hot, probably encrypted, book. He wants me to get it for him.”
“But you don’t know which book?”
“Not yet.” She put the lid back on the canister. “At any given time, there are always a few extremely rare volumes with a paranormal provenance floating around in the underground.”
“Did Thaddeus Webber give you any clue?”
“No.” She opened another cupboard and took down two mugs. “Our communication on the subject thus far has been via email. Thaddeus lives alone in the foothills of the Cascades. He’s very reclusive. Quite paranoid. He doesn’t have a phone. Says they’re too easy to tap. When he insisted that I contact you immediately, I emailed him a couple of questions, but the only response I got was ‘Talk to Sam Coppersmith. He’ll know what to do.’ ”
“I think he’s right. I have a better idea of what may be going down than you do.”
She gave him a wry smile. “I’ve come to the same conclusion. Talk to me, Sam.”
“I’m pretty sure that Thaddeus Webber sent you to me because he thinks your blackmailer is after an old lab notebook that my father spent years trying to find.”
“For the record, whoever he is, he’s not my blackmailer, but go on.”
“Eventually, Dad concluded that both the notebook and the man who had recorded the results of his experiments in it had been buried in an explosion in an old mine called the Phoenix. But now there is reason to believe that the notebook has surfaced in the collectors’ market. We know of at least one very dangerous man who is after it.”
Abby raised her brows. “I assume that you are not referring to yourself ?”
For a second, he didn’t comprehend. Then it hit him that she had just let him know that she considered him dangerous.
“No need to insult me,” he said, going for offended. “I’m on your side in this thing, remember?”
“Actually, it’s starting to sound like you’ve got your own agenda, but I’m good with that. Everyone has an agenda, right?”
He did not dignify that with a response. “What I’m trying to explain here is that it’s reasonable to assume that Webber sent you to me because he thinks that you’re in danger from someone who is after that notebook. He understands that I’m the best-qualified person around to look after you until we find that damned book and get it off the market.”
“Okay, I get that, but remember that you’re supposed to be working for me.”
“Trust me, I am not going to let you out of my sight until we find the notebook and the person who is trying to blackmail you.”
“I’m not sure that translates into working for me.”
“You will have my full attention until this is over,” he assured her gravely.
For a long moment, she studied him with deeply shadowed, unreadable eyes. The shriek of the teakettle’s whistle broke the tense silence. She turned away to pour the hot water into the pot.
“All right,” she said. “I guess that’s the best deal I’m going to get. You find my blackmailer and make him go away. In exchange, I will find the lab notebook for you.”
Irritation sparked through him. “This isn’t a business arrangement.”
“Yes.” She set the kettle down.”That is exactly what it is. Never mind. I take it you think this lab book is locked in a psi-code?”
“According to the rumors, yes. We don’t know when it was locked or who did the encryption.”
“This man you mentioned, the one who kept the records of his experiments in the notebook, you say he died in a mine explosion?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About forty years ago. His name was Ray Willis. He and my father and another man named Quinn Knox were mining engineers who all had some intuitive sensitivity for the latent energy in rocks and crystals and ores. In addition, they had the vision to see that the future of technology was going to be dependent on the so–called rare earths. They formed a partnership and went into the exploration business. They hit pay dirt, literally, when they picked up the mineral rights to an old abandoned mine out in the Nevada desert. Whoever sank the shaft originally was probably looking for gold. There wasn’t any there. But Dad and his partners were after twenty-first-century gold.”
“The rare earths.”
“Right. They were all convinced that the Phoenix was the modern equivalent of a gold mine.”
“Did they find the minerals and elements they were looking for in the Phoenix Mine?”
“Yes, but they found something a lot more interesting and, according to Dad, a lot more dangerous. They discovered geodes filled with quartzlike crystals unlike anything they had seen before. There was no data on them in the research literature. But they eventually turned up a few old references to similar crystals in some ancient books on alchemy.”
Abby made a face and poured the tea into the mugs. “Alchemy. That figures. The old alchemists were always coming up with secret formulas and running experiments with para-crystals and amber and other stones in an effort to enhance their powers.”
“Dad, Willis and Knox could sense the energy locked in the rocks, but they had no idea how to access it, let alone figure out how to use it. They set up a small on–site lab and started conducting experiments.”
Abby set one of the mugs on the counter in front of him. At least she was no longer looking skeptical. Instead, she appeared to be reluctantly fascinated.
“They found out that the crystals had paranormal properties?” she asked.
“Yes. But they soon realized that they were playing with fire.” He was suddenly very conscious of his ring. “Maybe literally. All they could tell in the field lab was that the energy in the stones was volatile and unpredictable, and that it was paranormal in nature. Dad and Knox wanted to stop the experiments until they could get some of the specimens to a properly equipped facility. But Ray Willis was obsessed with the stones. He was convinced they had enormous value, and he decided that he didn’t want to share the potential profits.”