Copper Beach

quick, searching look. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

    “Yes. I want that lab book.” He tightened his hands around the wheel. “Price is no object. What about the bad news?”

    “Once the announcement of the auction is made, one or more of the high rollers who want the book will be able to drive the price sky-high.”

    “Not a problem.”

    “That’s nice to know. What has me worried is that we are now officially in the deep end of the market. Like I told Dawson, some of the collectors are dangerous. If one of them decides he won’t be able to buy the book, he may go after it some other way.”

    “He’ll try to steal it?”

    “To do that, he would have two likely options. The book is most vulnerable during a transaction. So he can try to identify the current owner or the dealer who is brokering the sale. That won’t be easy. If that doesn’t work, he’ll get a second shot at acquiring the volume if he can ID the new owner.”

    “Me.”

    “Your problem is that you are not exactly a low-profile collector in my world. Dawson, for instance, now knows that you are trying to acquire the book. If he tells his investor…”

    “I see where you’re going with this. But once I have the book, I’ll make sure it’s secure. The word will go out that it is permanently off the market. Even if some people know that my family has it, there won’t be many collectors who will take the risk of trying to steal it from Coppersmith Inc. We’ve got some serious security and an even more serious interest in making sure that notebook stays locked up. We’ll take good care of it.”

    “Okay,” she said. But she did not look satisfied.

    “What’s wrong?” he asked.

    She hesitated. “I’m not sure. I’ve got a bad feeling about Thaddeus’s last email.”

    “We’ll be at his place soon.”

    “Take the next left.”

    “There’s no road sign.”

    “Thaddeus likes it that way.”

    He slowed and turned left onto an even narrower strip of badly cracked pavement. The trees loomed close on either side. “Mind if I ask you a personal question?”

    “Depends on the question.”

    “I’m pretty sure I know what happened when you accidentally started the fire in the bathtub. You tried to unlock a book, and the energy got out of control.”

    “I had no idea what I was doing, let alone that it might start a fire.”

    “Paranormal fire is unpredictable. Get it burning hot enough and it will affect the energy in neighboring bands on the spectrum, all the way to the normal.” Sam whistled softly. “Must have been a lot of energy released when you broke that code.”

    “Uh–huh.”

    “What about the time you disappeared for a couple of days and nearly got arrested for trying to burn down a bookshop?”

    “That was a little more complicated,” Abby said slowly. “I thought the owner of the bookshop was just a nice old man who recognized my talent and wanted to help me learn how to handle it. I realized later that he wanted to use me to unlock an old volume that he had in his collection.”

    “Did you?”

    “No. And to this day, I’m not sure why. When I picked up the book, I got the overwhelming sensation that whatever was inside was dangerous, or at least it would be in his hands. I just knew that I did not want him to be able to read that book.”

    “What was it about?”

    “Hypnotic poisons. So I lied and told the bookshop owner that I couldn’t break the code. He went a little crazy. He locked me inside his rare-book vault and told me that he wouldn’t let me out until I agreed to break the encryption.”

    “The son of a bitch imprisoned you?”

    “I was terrified. I held out for as long as I could. I had some fantasy that someone, my dad or the police, would realize what had happened and rescue me. But eventually it dawned on me that no one knew where I was and that I was on my own.”

    “You told the bastard that you would break the psi-code.”

    “Yes. When he opened the door I told him I had done what he wanted. I handed the book to him. When he touched it, I channeled some of the energy into his aura. I was acting entirely on intuition. I had no idea what would happen. He screamed and collapsed. The next thing I knew, the book was on fire.”

    “A shop full of old volumes and manuscripts. Talk about a firetrap.”

    “I had no idea how to put out the flames. I pulled the fire alarm and managed to drag the owner out of the vault. That’s where the