“Her lack of connections didn’t matter, anyway, because you didn’t have the kind of money you needed to go after an encrypted book. They’re expensive. You had to find another angle.”
“Yes,” Frye said. “I needed someone in the underground market who could not only find the book for me but also break the code.”
“So you set out to find your own freelancer. You got lucky and came up with Abby.”
Frye rocked a little on his heels. “How did you put it together?”
“You made one critical mistake. You used the Summerlight Academy student records to find the local talent you needed.”
“You know about that? I admit, that does surprise me.”
“You were obviously aware that the Summerlight Academy had more than its share of talents among the alumni, because troubled teens with certain para-psych profiles often ended up there. How did you discover that? Were you a student at the academy?”
“No,” Frye said. “My mother was one of the counselors at Summerlight for years. She had some talent herself, enough to realize that several of the so–called troubled teens in the school were actually psychically gifted. She wanted to follow them and study them over time. She even went so far as to shape the admissions criteria to ensure that families dealing with teens who displayed certain kinds of psychological issues were encouraged to enroll their kids in the academy.”
“In time, she created a very handy database of talents throughout the Pacific Northwest.”
“For all the good it did her,” Frye said. “Most of the real talents at the school either dropped out of sight after they graduated or refused to cooperate in her research study.”
“But you were able to use the records to trace Abby.”
“The files were very complete,” Frye said. “I found family names and addresses, and the name of the college she had attended. With all that to go on, the investigator I hired had no trouble locating her. After all, she had never left Seattle.”
“Before you contacted her, however, you wanted to be certain that she could actually deal with serious psi-encryption.”
“I certainly didn’t want to risk another disaster like the Cassidy Lawrence fiasco,” Frye said.
“So you set up an experiment to test Abby’s abilities.”
“When she took the job cataloging Vaughn’s library, I saw the opportunity to conduct my test. Thanks to Jenny, I knew that Hannah Vaughn was rumored to have a small collection of encrypted books in her collection, including The Key.”
“To run your experiment, you needed another talent, someone you could manipulate with the prism. You chose Grady Hastings out of the Summerlight files, too. How did you get the prism into his lab?”
Frye snorted. “That was simple. I mailed it to him, explained it was a free sample from an online company that made scientific and research equipment. Miss Radwell passed the test with flying colors.”
“But you knew that you couldn’t afford her, even if you could get someone to refer you, so you started sending blackmail notes. Abby, however, immediately contacted Webber. By then he had heard the rumors about the lab notebook. He realized that Abby might be in danger. He sent her to me.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” Frye hissed. He slammed a fist on the nearest workbench. “It was as if there was a conspiracy against me.”
“It was a classic example of the oldest law of engineering. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment.”
“No, it was your fault, you son of a bitch,” Frye snarled. “When luck breaks, it always breaks in your favor. You should have been arrested for murder after you found Cassidy’s body. But you walked away. When the rumors of the lab book started circulating, who does Abby run to for protection? You. I set up a careful, controlled experiment, and you figure it out because you believed the wild story of a kid who has been declared certifiable.”
“For the record, Grady hasn’t been declared crazy yet. He’s still undergoing observation. But yeah, I figured it out. What are the odds?”
“Don’t you dare laugh at me, you bastard,” Frye said. “I have as much claim on those crystals as you or anyone else in the Coppersmith family.”
“In that case, maybe you should have been up front about those claims instead of hiding your true identity, infiltrating Coppersmith Inc. and murdering an innocent young woman.”
“Cassidy Lawrence was no innocent, but that aside, I had no choice. I knew that you would never give me my share of those crystals or tell me the location of the mine.”
“Because the stones are dangerous.”
“I’ll be damned.” Frye was amused. “You’re afraid of them, aren’t you? You and the rest of the Coppersmiths are prepared to let them sit in that vault forever, rather than discover their properties and find out what they can do.”
“We’re not afraid of them. We’re being cautious with them. We need more advanced technology and instrumentation before we risk running experiments on them.”
“Your family doesn’t deserve those crystals.” Frye reached into his pocket and took out an object. “So I’m going to take them. Now.”
“A gun, Frye? That’s a little over-the-top.”
“Not a gun. Something a lot more interesting. A weapon that only I can use, because I’m the one who constructed it. One that won’t leave any evidence. You Coppersmiths aren’t the only guys who can work crystal.”
Dazzling energy flashed from the object in Frye’s hand. An icy shock wave lanced through Sam’s senses. He tried to move and discovered that he could not even unfold his arms. The glowing stones and crystals in the cases did not dim, but the atmosphere took on an eerie, foglike quality.
“What made you think that I created only one prism?” Frye asked. “The one you found in Grady Hastings’s house was a simple version I designed to deliver hypnotic commands. But this one is far more sophisticated. It throws the subject into a trance that is more like a true dreamstate. You will know what you are doing, but you won’t be able to resist my orders. You will open the vault for me, and then you will take your own life using your own gun. For the record, this is what I used on Cassidy. While she was trapped in the dreamstate, I gave her an injection of a fast-acting drug that stops the heart but leaves no trace in the body.”
The crystals and stones in the display cases were drifting in and out of the paranormal mist now. Sam fought to focus his para-senses and discovered that he no longer had any control over them. He could hear every word Frye said, but he could not respond.
“The difference between a true dreamstate and your present condition is that under the influence of the prism, you are aware that you are locked in a dream.” Frye walked slowly through the maze of glowing specimens. “Aware that you are powerless.”
Sam watched one of the glowing rocks in the gallery burst into flames. The fire wasn’t real. He knew that. But in his dreamstate, it seemed very real.
“I did bring a gun,” Frye said. “But this time, we’ll use yours.”
He went behind the desk and picked up the pistol. Sam watched, helpless to stop him.
Frye’s words echoed in his head. You are aware that you are locked in a dream.…
That was the definition of a lucid dream. According to Abby’s friend Gwen, strong talents were especially good at manipulating lucid dreams: they just had to focus.
With an effort of will, he succeeded in pulling his attention away from the burning stone. The paranormal flames were abruptly extinguished. But now the darkly glittering interior of one of the geodes summoned him into an endless black hole in the universe. In the distance, he heard a labored thud-thud-thud. His heart. He was using a harrowing amount of energy to overcome the effects of the prism.