“What’s going on?”
“Gwen left a few minutes ago. She’s on her way to meet Sundew. And she’s alone.”
Forty-two
Gwen pulled into the driveway of the old lodge. It was not raining, but the gray skies were growing darker and more ominous by the minute. Wesley Lancaster’s rental car was parked under the shelter of the peaked roof at the front entrance. She stopped directly behind him.
His extraordinarily generous offer to buy the lodge to use as a set for his new series had come as a surprise that morning, but the more she thought about it, the more interesting the idea became. The large sum of money would do wonders for her precarious finances while she set up her psychic investigation business.
Wesley was not waiting for her inside his car as she had expected. There was no sign of him lounging impatiently in the entryway, either. It occurred to her that to kill time he had walked around the lodge building to get a closer look at the falls.
She took the code out of her tote and started to key it into the high-tech lock. Belatedly, she realized that the door was unlocked.
She pushed open the heavy steel door.
“Wesley? How in the world did you get the code for the door?”
There was no response from the heavily shadowed interior of the lab. She walked into the energy-infused darkness. The familiar buzz stirred her senses.
The low floor lights came up, illuminating a section around her feet.
She set the tote down on a nearby table and turned to search the shadows. Despite the illumination in the middle of the space, she did not see anyone silhouetted against the glow. She moved forward.
“Wesley? Are you there?”
She saw the body on the floor when she reached the intersection of two aisles. The Viking blond hair was unmistakable.
“Wesley.”
She rushed toward the figure, her senses flaring. Relief flashed through her when she saw Wesley’s aura. He was not dead, but she could tell that he was not in a normal sleep state. He was unconscious.
She crouched beside him, searching for signs of an injury. The sound of the dead bolt of the front door lock sliding home sent a flood tide of fear through her.
It was only then that she realized the floor lights at the front of the lab were still illuminated.
A familiar voice spoke from the shadows.
“You know,” Riley Duncan said, “I gotta thank you and Coppersmith for coming up with a great endgame. I was getting bored with the whole psychic chat room thing. Finding clients for Poole was way too easy.”
Her first thought was that Riley didn’t look like a killer. He looked like what he was—the front desk clerk at the inn. Then she saw the weak light gleam on the barrel of his gun.
“But you didn’t know how to get out of the game, did you?” she said. Instinctively she stayed crouched on the floor next to the unconscious Wesley, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. “After all, Poole was a professional hit man. He killed people for a living, and he did it by paranormal means. He was dangerous.”
“Let’s just say, I knew that I would have to be real sure of success on the first attempt. Figured I had time. Besides, as long as Poole was working, his offshore account was getting bigger and bigger. Then he told me that Ballinger was onto us. Said he had to get rid of her. Next thing I know, you show up. I knew right away that you thought Ballinger had been murdered.”
“Poole knew that as well.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t worry about it too much until Coppersmith arrived. That’s when I did some research online and found out that he might be a problem. That’s when Poole decided he’d have to cut his losses and get rid of Louise.”
“She was the last one who could connect him to the contract killings.”
“There was no way to know how much the old witch really knew or even if anyone would ever believe her if she did talk. But Poole was a real detail guy when it came to his work.”
“Besides, by then he knew that he would probably be able to find a replacement for Louise in Evelyn’s old Summerlight files,” Gwen said.
“You know about those files, huh?” Riley chuckled. “Wow. Didn’t see that coming. Nicely played. But I get bonus points because I’m the one who hacked into Evelyn’s computer and found those old files. When Poole took the computer that night, he was just trying to cover his tracks. I’m the one who recognized those records for the gold mine that they are. Between you and me, Poole was not exactly a wizard when it came to technology.”
“You’re the one who ran the psychic chat room, aren’t you? You’re Sundew.”
“Bonus points for you. I’m impressed. You and Coppersmith are much farther along than I realized.”
A rush of knowing stirred Gwen’s senses. “Zander Taylor was not Buddy Poole’s only son, was he?”
“Nope. Zander and I were half brothers. Different mothers, same father. Dad slept with a lot of women when he was running that cult.”
“How did he find you and Zander?’
“He didn’t even know we existed. I found Poole. Got curious a few years ago and went looking for possible siblings. I located Zander. He was a budding serial killer at the time. I helped him turn his little hobby into a more challenging game. I pointed out that he needed to be more selective when it came to choosing his targets. I convinced him that it would be more fun for both of us if he hunted others like himself, people with genuine talent. Of course, in those days, he didn’t have the crystal so he whacked people in a more traditional way. He loved poison because it left no trace and because it always took a while for the downers to croak. That’s what he called ’em.”
“Downers?”
“Yeah, like those downer cows in the stockyards. The ones sick with that mad cow disease.”
“I can tell the two of you really bonded,” Gwen said. “How did you both end up here in Wilby?”
“Zander had what you might call a sentimental streak. He knew that I had found him, so he asked me to see if I could track down his mother. Took a while because Poole had pretty well erased her trail after he brought her here to Wilby. But three years ago I found the old witch. Imagine our surprise when Zander and I discovered that good old dad was living here, too.”
“That must have been a touching reunion.”
“Poole was a little concerned when we first introduced ourselves, but as soon as he found out that we knew all about his murder-for-hire business and that we shared his taste for the game, he immediately saw the possibilities. I’m the one who came up with the Sundew chat room concept. I transitioned him from his old-school business model into a state-of-the-art firm. Crazy Louise, on the other hand, was convinced that her one and only son, Zander, was in great danger from what she called his demon father.”
“She gave Zander one of the crystal weapons so that he could protect himself.”
“Well, that, too, but mostly I think she hoped that Zander would whack dear old dad. But Zander was a gamer to the core. Naturally, he started using the crystal in his hunt-the-psychic game. Then, about a year later, Ballinger fired up her study, and the first thing you know, she’s rounded up a whole flock of real talents. Zander went a little nuts.”
“He volunteered for the study. And then he started killing the people in it.”
“Couldn’t help himself, I guess.” Riley grunted. “It was like putting a fox in with a bunch of chickens. Poole and I both got real worried, I can tell you. The whole business was in jeopardy. Oxley may not buy into the paranormal, but he’s not stupid.”
“Too many mysterious deaths in one small town would get any cop’s attention,” Gwen said.
“Zander had the sense to make you look good for the first two deaths, but how long could that go on? Poole concluded that Zander was out of control and would have to disappear.”