met Gwen and Abby in that hellhole of an institution that went by the name of the Summerlight Academy, he would have become a happy world-class jewel thief by now. His ability to see in the dark was superior to the latest and greatest in high-tech military night-vision goggles. And he was very, very good with locks and computers.
But Gwen and Abby had insisted that he make his living in a semi-legitimate manner. To avoid the endless nagging of his sisters, he had allowed Abby to teach him the ropes of the paranormal books business. It had been a good gig for the past few years. He had made a lot of money because he worked what Abby called the deep end of the market—the dangerous underworld of paranoid, obsessive collectors who would pay any amount of money to obtain the volumes they coveted.
Although he had an affinity for hot books—he figured that was no big deal because he had a natural sensitivity for just about anything that had serious value—he was not particularly interested in the rare volumes he brokered. When you got right down to it, he was just a go-between—a well-paid go-between, but a go-between nonetheless. The only part he actually enjoyed was the night work. So he craved the illicit thrill of sneaking around in the dark, learning other people’s secrets.
Gwen said he got his kicks from this kind of thing because it allowed him to use his senses to the max. She claimed he would have been just as happy if he had engaged his psychic talents as a cop. But he knew the truth. He liked rummaging around in other people’s secrets because his own past was concealed behind a locked door, one that he had never been able to open—and he was damn good at getting through locked doors. Thus far, every key he had tried had failed to open the door to his past.
The sperm donor bank his mother had used to conceive him had burned to the ground years ago. Half of his family history—the part pertaining to his father—had been destroyed in the fire. He had lost most of the other half of his past when his mother, a single woman who had been orphaned when she was an infant, died in a car accident the year he turned ten. There had followed a series of foster homes and, finally, the Summerlight Academy.
It was there that he had met his real family, his sisters, Gwen and Abby. They were the reason he had stayed at Summerlight. It would have been a simple matter to bail from the school using his rapidly developing talents, but he could not leave Gwen and Abby behind. They had needed him to protect them from the crazies and the bullies. It was the first time anyone had ever needed him. It was like he suddenly had a job to do. He had made sure the three of them had stuck together until graduation.
After leaving Summerlight, Gwen and Abby had reversed their roles, becoming the protectors. They had done their best to keep him from taking up a life of crime, even though he had assured them he would be brilliant at the business. He’d gone along with the more legit gig to keep peace in the family. But at times like this, when he was standing alone in the dark inside someone else’s house, he knew that he had missed his true calling.
He closed the last drawer and went to the closet. It was empty except for a pair of sturdy white walking shoes of the style that they sold to little old ladies who were unsteady on their feet.
He found the small safe concealed behind a wall panel. It was still locked, but it required less than forty seconds to get it open. The stack of bills inside told him everything he needed to know about the old lady.
“A little paranoid, weren’t you, Granny?” he said to the emptiness. “You didn’t trust anyone, not even your own son. Well, you knew him better than anyone else, didn’t you? After all, you were his mother.”
There was one other item in the safe, an old-fashioned checkbook register.
He shoved the cash and the checkbook into the small black backpack he wore and went downstairs. He exited the house the same way he had entered, through a rear window.
He found the car where he had left it several blocks away in a parking lot behind a grocery store. He drove the nondescript vehicle back to the airport and turned it in at the rental counter. He had used one of his spare sets of identification to rent the car. He liked to keep a lot of extras on hand, not only for himself, but also for Gwen and Abby. Just in case.
It occurred to him that Abby probably wouldn’t need that kind of security backup anymore now that she was marrying into the Coppersmith family. That clan took care of its own. And something about the energy between Gwen and Judson Coppersmith told him that she might not need her brother much longer, either.
The thought of losing his sisters to the Coppersmiths threatened to stir up the dark waters deep inside. Since their days at Summerlight, Abby and Gwen had been there for him. Abby had taught him the ropes of the hot books business. Gwen had always been around to drive the nightmare monsters back into the depths. The bad dreams hadn’t surfaced in a while, but he knew they were still swimming around down there in the bottomless pit.
Okay, so Gwen and Judson were sleeping together. No problem. At this point it probably didn’t amount to anything more than a one-night stand. Maybe two or three nights. Whatever. It didn’t mean he would lose her, too. What was happening between the pair was just the natural result of a lot of adrenaline, excitement, danger and mutual physical attraction mixed up together. He’d been there often enough to know how the chemistry worked.
But a chill went through him. Gwen didn’t do casual sex, and while the relationship between her and Judson had ignited quickly, it did not look like it would burn out fast. Even Wyatt Earp had noticed the heat between those two.
He did not want to think about what his nights would be like if the dream monsters returned. He did not want to think about what his world would be like if he lost both of his sisters to the Coppersmith family. So he got some coffee and found a private space in which to suck up the caffeine while he went through the bankbook that he had found in the wall safe. Numbers were always interesting, especially when they were linked to money.
After a while he took the small computer out of the backpack and went online. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. He was as good at finding interesting stuff hidden in cyberspace as he was opening concealed wall safes.
Really, he had been born for a life of crime.
Twenty-seven
She sensed the dark energy of Judson’s psi-charged dreamscape just as she was about to slip into a lucid dream of her own.
She was in her robe, nightgown and slippers, curled up in the chair in front of the fire with her feet tucked under her. She was orchestrating the delicate trance-like state, summoning images from the scene of Louise’s murder, when the currents whispered to her from the other room.
Her first thought was that the unfamiliar tendrils of dreamlight had been generated by her own self-induced hallucination. As often as she had gone into the waking dreamstate, she could never be sure of what she would experience. Trances were, by their very nature, unpredictable.
But when she heard Judson utter an urgent, half-choked shout, she was jolted out of the trance.
She stood quickly. Max was awake, too. He sat up on the bed and gazed fixedly toward the doorway into the other room.
Judson groaned.
Gwen hurried to the doorway. In the faint light from the fireplace behind her, she could see Judson sprawled on the bed. His ring was infused with sun-hot light.
Max jumped down from the bed and joined her in the doorway, meowing in a low, uneasy manner.
Gwen heightened her talent and slid into a waking trance to get a sense of what was going on in Judson’s dreamscape. She was not surprised by the explosion of amber lightning that crackled in the atmosphere, but she was stunned by the dark, seething energy of violence that pooled around the bed. With her dreamer’s intuition, she knew that Judson was living through whatever had caused the nightmare. His unnaturally deep sleep had intensified the effects.
“Good grief,” she whispered. “How long have you been dealing with this dream, Judson?”
She walked slowly toward the bed. She had never dealt with a sleeper so profoundly asleep. Normally she worked with clients who were awake. The therapeutic process involved putting clients into a light trance and then summoning their dreamscapes to a level just below that of conscious awareness. But her intuition warned her that it would not be a good idea to try to shake Judson awake. In his present condition, it would take him some time to
