Copper Beach

than she had ever been in her life or merely scared out of her wits. It was a classic fight–or–flight response. There was obviously more than one kind of top–of–the-line predator living here in the San Juans.

    She looked at Dixon. “I have one question for you, Mr. Dixon.”

    “Sure.”

    “Why are you and everyone else on the island so absolutely convinced that Sam Coppersmith did not murder that woman?”

    “Simple,” Dixon said. He winked. “Coppersmiths are all real smart, and Sam is probably the smartest of the bunch. If he had killed that woman, there would have been nothing at all to link her death to him. He sure as freaking hell wouldn’t have left her body in his own lab. She would have flat-out disappeared. No problem making that happen here in the islands. Lot of deep water around these parts.”

4

    “THADDEUS WEBBER INDICATED THAT YOU HAD SOME EXPERIENCE with this sort of thing,” Abby said.
    “Obsessed collectors who send online blackmail threats to innocent antiquarian book dealers?” Sam Coppersmith leaned back against his desk and folded his arms. “Can’t say that I have. But an extortionist is an extortionist. Shouldn’t be all that hard to find the one who is bothering you.”

    “I’m glad you’re so optimistic,” Abby said. She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair and glanced uneasily at her watch for the third or fourth time. “Personally, I’m getting a bad feeling about this meeting. I think there may have been some mistake. Thaddeus Webber must not have understood my problem.”

    “Webber wouldn’t have sent you to me if he hadn’t thought you needed me.”

    Sam had said very little during the short drive from town. But she had known that his senses were slightly jacked for the whole trip because her own had been fizzing. They still were, for that matter. It was an unfamiliar sensation. She wondered if her intuition was trying to send her a warning. Or maybe she was simply sleep-deprived. Regardless, she was quite certain that Sam was assessing her, measuring her reactions, testing her in some way.

    Her first view of the gray stone mansion that was the Copper Beach house had not been reassuring. The place was a true gothic monstrosity. It loomed, bleak and shadowed, in a small clearing on a bluff overlooking a cove and the dark waters of the San Juans. From the outside, the windows of the old house were obsidian mirrors.

    She had concluded immediately that Sam and the house deserved each other. Both looked as if they belonged in another century, one in which it was considered normal for mysterious men to live in dark mansions that came equipped with attics and basements that held scary secrets.

    Her sense of unease had deepened when she had gotten out of the SUV and walked to the front door with Sam. She had watched while he did something with his ring that unlocked the door.

    “I’ve never seen a security system like that,” she said. “Some kind of variation on a card-key security system?”

    “Something like that.” Sam opened the door. “My own invention.”

    She had anticipated another tingle of alarm, or at the very least uncertainty, when he ushered her into the shadowy front hall. But to her astonishment, the ambient energy whispering in the atmosphere had given her a small, exciting little rush. She knew that Sam noticed.

    “I’ve got a lot of hot rocks down in the lab,” he explained. “After a while, the energy infuses the atmosphere and gets embedded in the walls.”

    “That happens with hot books, too,” she said.

    “Not everyone is okay with the sensation. Gives some people the creeps, I’m told.”

    “Don’t worry about my reaction, Mr. Coppersmith. I’m accustomed to being in the vicinity of paranormal energy.”

    “Yeah, I can see that.” Something that might have been satisfaction had edged his mouth. “Call me Sam.”

    She had not offered her own first name. This was a business arrangement. The safest thing to do was to maintain at least minimal formality, at least until she figured out how to handle Sam Coppersmith.

    He had removed his dark glasses at that point, revealing eyes that were a startling shade of gemstone green.

    When he closed the door behind her, she had taken another look at his ring. It was made of some darkly gleaming metal and set with a small crystal. The stone was a deep, fiery red in color.

    Sam had led her along a hallway and opened a door to reveal a flight of stone