Copper Beach: A Dark Legacy Novel Read Online Free PDF

deepened when she had gotten out of the SUV and walked to the front door with Sam. She had watched while he did something with his ring that unlocked the door.
     
    “I’ve never seen a security system like that,” she said. “Some kind of variation on a card-key security system?”
     
    “Something like that.” Sam opened the door. “My own invention.”
     
    She had anticipated another tingle of alarm, or at the very least uncertainty, when he ushered her into the shadowy front hall. But to her astonishment, the ambient energy whispering in the atmosphere had given her a small, exciting little rush. She knew that Sam noticed.
     
    “I’ve got a lot of hot rocks down in the lab,” he explained. “After a while, the energy infuses the atmosphere and gets embedded in the walls.”
     
    “That happens with hot books, too,” she said.
     
    “Not everyone is okay with the sensation. Gives some people the creeps, I’m told.”
     
    “Don’t worry about my reaction, Mr. Coppersmith. I’m accustomed to being in the vicinity of paranormal energy.”
     
    “Yeah, I can see that.” Something that might have been satisfaction had edged his mouth. “Call me Sam.”
     
    She had not offered her own first name. This was a business arrangement. The safest thing to do was to maintain at least minimal formality, at least until she figured out how to handle Sam Coppersmith.
     
    He had removed his dark glasses at that point, revealing eyes that were a startling shade of gemstone green.
     
    When he closed the door behind her, she had taken another look at his ring. It was made of some darkly gleaming metal and set with a small crystal. The stone was a deep, fiery red in color.
     
    Sam had led her along a hallway and opened a door to reveal a flight of stone steps.
     
    “Lab’s in the basement,” he had explained. “We can talk there.”
     
    She still could not believe that she had followed him downstairs into a windowless basement lab like some naive gothic heroine. Maybe she had been dealing with eccentric collectors for a little too long.
     
    The cavernous, dimly lit chamber below the house was unlike any lab she had ever seen. It was crammed with display cases and drawers filled with crystals and stones and chunks of raw ore. If it were not for the low simmer of energy in the room, she could have been in the hall of gems and minerals of a world-class natural history museum.
     
    But unlike the specimens in a museum, most of the stones around her were hot. The vibes in the atmosphere were unmistakable. She was no expert in the field of para-rocks, but like most strong talents, she could sense energy that was infused in objects, especially when there was a lot of it in the vicinity.
     
    In addition to the crystals and stones on display, there were a number of state–of–the art instruments on the workbench. There were also some devices made of iron, brass and glass that she was certain qualifiedas antiques. Several appeared to be from the seventeenth or eighteenth century, but a couple of the objects looked as if they had come from the laboratory of a Renaissance-era alchemist.
     
    The low lighting in the room added to the weirdness factor. Unlike most modern labs, there were no overhead fluorescent fixtures. The stone chamber was lit only by the desk lamp and the faint paranormal glow of some of the charged rocks. Abby got the impression that Sam preferred the shadows.
     
    She cleared her throat discreetly. “No offense, Mr. Coppersmith, but are you a real investigator?”
     
    “Depends on how you define
real.
”
     
    “Do you have a private investigator’s license?”
     
    “No. But I do a lot of consulting work, if that makes you feel any better.”
     
    “What kind of consulting?”
     
    “Technical consulting.”
     
    That did it,
she thought. Thaddeus had sent her on a wild-goose chase. She did not have time to waste on mad scientists and gothic mansions. She gave Sam a cool smile and got to her