Copper Beach

leave us?”

    “Looking for a psychic who knows how to locate other genuine psychics in the Seattle area. Someone who has access to the Summerlight Academy records.”

    “If he has access to the records,” Abby said, “he would have a lot of information about the students’ psych profiles and their personal situations. I’ll bet that bastard picked poor Grady because he knew he was not only a talent but also alone in the world. There is no family to worry about him or to protect him.”

    “The son of a bitch would also know that you have a complicated relationship with your family. I’m guessing he would have preferred to use someone like Hastings, a loner, to break the psi-code, but he doesn’t have much choice. There aren’t a lot of sensitives with your kind of ability running around the Pacific Northwest. There are others who can find the lab book for him, but it would be almost impossible to find another code breaker.”

    “In other words, he was stuck with me.”

    “Something like that, yes.”

    “It’s always nice to be appreciated for one’s talent.”

40

    THE HOUSE GRADY HASTINGS HAD LEASED WAS A RUN-DOWN bungalow in West Seattle. The rental looked as sad and depressed as Hastings had looked sitting in the locked ward at the psychiatric hospital, Sam thought. The place was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. The small lawn was patchy and studded with weeds. Yellowed shades were pulled down to cover the grimy windows.
    Sam went up the concrete steps and set down the stack of packing boxes he had picked up at a container store. He checked the lock. Grady was right. It was standard-issue and probably original to the house. It took less than thirty seconds to open it.

    “Doesn’t look like Grady’s landlord has put much money into upkeep,” he said. He twisted the old-fashioned knob and opened the door.

    “No.” Abby followed him up the steps. She had a large roll of Bubble Wrap tucked under one arm. “Why bother? I doubt if Grady was a demanding tenant. All he cares about is his work with crystals.”

    “True. As long as he had his lab, he was probably content.”

    Abby smiled a secret smile.

    He eyed her with suspicion. “What?”

    “Nothing. It just occurred to me that Grady isn’t the only person around who is content so long as he has his lab.”

    “Yeah, well, I’m not the one sitting in a psychiatric hospital.”

    “There is something to be said for that.” Abby followed him into the house, put down the roll of Bubble Wrap and closed the door. When she turned around and saw the nearly empty space, she froze. Outrage heated the atmosphere around her.

    “There’s hardly any furniture left,” she yelped. “Someone stole Grady’s stuff.”

    “It’s possible,” Sam said. “Empty houses are magnets for thieves. But I think it’s more likely the landlord jumped the gun and started clearing out Grady’s things.”

    “Bastard. I hope he wasn’t able to get into the shed in back. Grady will be crushed if his lab stuff is gone.”

    Sam walked through the kitchen and opened the back door. The shed sitting in the yard looked like a ramshackle wooden fortress. The one window was boarded up. The gleaming new metal door was closed.

    He walked across the weed-infested yard and examined the lock on the door. Abby followed him.

    “Doesn’t look like anyone has gotten inside yet,” he said. “But it’s probably a good thing we’re here. Got a hunch the landlord will be taking a blowtorch to this door when he figures out that a regular locksmith can’t open it.”

    He raised his ring to the dull, gray crystal embedded in the metal on the wall next to the door. Cautiously, he focused a little energy through the Phoenix stone. He sensed the familiar tingling current of power. The lock crystal began to heat with violet-hued ultralight.

    There was a sharp click as the lock disengaged. Sam opened the door.

    “The kid’s good,” he said. “Very, very good.”

    “And certainly not as crazy as everyone, including me, believed,” Abby said.

    “Maybe not.”

    He found a switch on the wall. The lights came on, revealing a battered metal workbench and a number of old metal cabinets. The concrete floor was bare.

    He examined the lab with professional interest. The small space did not gleam with steel and polished equipment like the Coppersmith labs. There were no state–of–the-art computers. The chemistry equipment on the workbench looked as