Copper Beach

that was to be encoded. In the modern world, people tended to store their secrets in digital form in cyberspace, a realm where old-fashioned psychic encryption did not work.

    It figured that she had chosen a career path that was fated to go the way of buggy-whip manufacturing, Abby thought. But she hadn’t been able to help herself. The old books filled with ancient paranormal secrets called to her senses. And those wrapped in psi-encryption were irresistible.

    She found the pattern of the code. It was not the first time she had unsealed the old volume. She was the one who had acquired it for Hannah’s collection in the first place. She had unlocked the book twice already, once to verify its authenticity and again to allow Hannah to make some notes. Hannah had requested that the book be relocked after she had read it, in order to maintain its value.

    “Done,” Abby said. “I broke the code.”

    “Are you finished already?” Grady eyed the book with a dubious expression. “I thought psi-encryption was tricky stuff.”

    “It is, but I’m good.”

    “I can still feel a lot of hot energy coming off that book.”

    “Strong encryption energy leaves a residue, just like any other kind of energy,” Abby said.

    “So I can read the real text now?”

    “Yes. Take a look.”

    She held the book out. Grady’s hand closed around it. The physical contact was all she needed. She channeled the darkly oscillating currents of the encryption energy into Grady’s aura.

    The atmosphere was suddenly charged. Grady reacted as if he had touched a live electrical wire. His mouth opened on a silent, agonized scream. The gun dropped from his hand. His eyes rolled back in his head. He stiffened for a timeless moment. Then he shuddered violently. He tried to stagger back toward the spiral staircase, but he collapsed to the floor of the balcony. He twitched several times and went still.

    There was a moment of stunned silence.

    “Are you all right, Abby?” Hannah asked.

    “No. Yes.” Abby took a deep breath and silently repeated her old mantra, Show no weakness. She gripped the balcony railing and looked down at Hannah. “I’m fine. Just a little shaken up, that’s all.”

    “You’re sure, dear?” Hannah’s face was etched with concern.

    “Yes. Really. Breaking a code is one thing. Using the energy in it to do what I just did is…something else altogether.”

    “I knew you were strong,” Hannah said. “But I hadn’t realized that you were that powerful. What you just did was extremely dangerous. If that sort of energy got out of control…”

    “I know, I know,” Abby said. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do.” She glanced at the housekeeper, who was crumpled on the floor. “What happened to Mrs. Jensen?”

    “She fainted. There was an awful lot of energy flying around in here a moment ago. Even a nonsensitive could feel it. What about that dreadful man? Is he alive?”

    Dear heaven, had she actually killed someone? Horrified at the possibility, Abby went to her knees beside Grady. Gingerly, she probed for a pulse. Relief swept through her when she found one.

    “Yes,” she said. “He’s unconscious, but he’s definitely alive.”

    “I’ll call nine-one-one now.”

    “Good idea.” Abby drew a deep breath. She was already starting to feel the edgy adrenaline-overload buzz that accompanied the use of so much psychic energy. In a couple of hours she would be exhausted. She focused on the immediate problem. It was major. “How on earth am I going to explain what happened here?”

    “There’s nothing for you to explain, dear.” Hannah rolled her chair to the desk and picked up her phone. “A mentally disturbed intruder broke into my home and demanded one of the rare books in my collection. He appeared to be on drugs, and whatever he took evidently caused him to collapse.”

    Abby thought about it. “All true, in a way.”

    “Well, it’s not as if you can explain that you used psychic energy to take down an armed intruder, dear. Who would believe such a thing? The authorities would think that you were as crazy as that man who broke in here today.”

    “Yes,” Abby said. A shuddery chill swept through her, bringing with it images from her old nightmares, the ones filled with an endless maze of pale-walled corridors, sterile rooms and locked doors and windows. She wasn’t going to risk being called crazy, not ever again. “That is exactly what they would