Dream Eyes (Dark Legacy #2)(67)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“Sorry. Sometimes I get a little too caught up in a dreamscape. Okay, I think I’ve got the lay of the land, so to speak.”

“Context.”

“Exactly, context. You are about to go back into the water to make the long swim out to the sea but you are still at the surface, looking at the dry portion of the cave. Do you catch another glimpse of the object that you know is important?”

“Yes.” Excitement rushed through him. “Yes, now I see it. Something small and white that doesn’t look like it should be there.”

“Take a closer look at the object.”

The dream sequence shifted fluidly around him. He looked away from the frozen curtain of aurora energy and turned to focus on the shadows that shrouded the dreamscape.

“It’s over there on the other side of the pool,” he said. “It looks like the corner of a piece of paper. I can only see a small edge. The rest is hidden under a rock.”

“Hidden?” Gwen pounced on the word. “Are you sure?”

“There’s no way it could have landed where it did by accident. It’s near the spot where they murdered him.”

“Who?”

“The analyst.” Judson came out of the dream on a rush of adrenaline and psi. “He wasn’t dead yet, but he knew he was going to die. He tried to leave a message for whoever came looking for him. I have to get back into that cave.”

“You’re going to swim back through those flooded tunnels?” Gwen asked.

“I don’t think that will be necessary. In case you hadn’t heard, my father runs one of the biggest mining engineering companies in the world.”

“Oh, yeah, right.” Gwen wrinkled her nose. “I keep forgetting you’re one of those Coppersmiths.”

“If there’s one thing Dad knows, it’s how to dig through hard rock. Opening up the entrance to the cavern will be a walk in the park for him. Probably won’t take him more than a few days to get a crew and equipment in place.”

“Gee, solve a couple of murders here in Wilby, and then it’s off to the Caribbean to solve a few more paranormal crimes involving strange pharmaceuticals and mysterious weapons.” Gwen sighed. “You live an interesting life, Judson Coppersmith.”

“Yeah, my calendar seems to be filling up lately.” The image flashed across his senses. And suddenly it was all there, each piece falling neatly into place. “Damn. Should have seen it earlier.”

“What?” Gwen asked.

“The answer is on the calendar.”

Thirty-nine

The town of Wilby rolled up the streets at an early hour. The handful of restaurants were all closed by ten. The last pickup pulled out of the parking lot of the Wilby Tavern shortly before midnight. The staff left twenty minutes later.

Judson waited until the darkest part of the night, and then he went in through the rear door of Hudson Floral Design. He was partially jacked. To his psychic vision, the knives, shears, pruners, snips and thorn strippers arrayed on the workbench gleamed like so much medieval weaponry. The glass vases on the shelves glittered with an acid-green crystalline light.

He moved into the front area of the shop and made his way behind the counter. The door of the small office was closed, but it was unlocked. People who lived in small towns got into some very bad habits when it came to security.

The interior of the office looked much as it had when he and Gwen had talked to Nicole. The torn and mutilated photos were still tacked to the walls.

He crossed the small space and took down the large picture calendar. The first, second and third of August were all marked with the same note. Feed dogs.

He took out the list of dates he had brought with him. The Feed dogs notes appeared exactly where he expected to find them throughout the year.

The faint, muffled sound of a shoe on the rear steps of the shop sent his senses into full sail. The ring on his hand burned with the heat of a miniature paranormal sun. There was time to get out through the front door of the shop.

He left the office and went around the counter. He was reaching for the doorknob to let himself out into the street when he realized that there were two people on the back steps, not one.

He stopped and waited. The back door opened. The beam of a flashlight speared across the back room and into the front of the shop.

“Hello, Poole,” Judson said.

Buddy Poole moved into the room. Gone were the old-fashioned gold-framed reading glasses, the folksy plaid shirt and the red suspenders that he wore when he was behind the counter of the Wilby General Store. Tonight he was dressed head-to-toe in hit-man black.

Poole was not alone. He had Nicole with him. Her wrists were bound behind her back. Her mouth was taped shut. She stared at Judson with wide, terrified eyes. Buddy held a gun to her temple. With his other hand, he aimed the flashlight at Judson.

“Put the gun down, Coppersmith,” Buddy said. “Or I’ll kill her now.”

Judson set the weapon down very carefully on the floor and straightened slowly.

“How did you know I was here?”

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you,” Buddy said. “When you left the inn tonight, I figured you were up to something. I wondered if you were headed for my place. Thought it might be fun to see if you could handle the dogs. But when you didn’t drive out on Falls View Road, I realized you were probably on your way here instead. I picked up this bitch just in case I needed some leverage.”

Nicole whimpered.

Buddy gave her a violent shove that sent her crashing into the wall. She groaned and slumped to her knees.

Buddy ignored her. He watched Judson with psi-hot eyes. “How did you put it all together, Coppersmith?”

“The old-fashioned way,” Judson said. “I started connecting dots. You mentioned that Nicole fed your dogs while you were out of town attending the crafts fairs. When Gwen and I came here to talk to Nicole, I noticed the calendar over her desk. Three days in August were marked, Feed dogs. You were gone for those three days, supposedly attending a crafts fair. But one of those dates, the second, was the day you murdered an old lady. I just finished comparing the rest of the dates of the kills. They match up to the dates when you were out of town, the dates when Nicole was scheduled to feed your dogs.”

Buddy snorted in disgust. “Unfortunately, that’s how Evelyn put it together, too. I got that much out of her before she died.”

“You took her computer and cell phone.”

“I wanted to see if Evelyn had called or e-mailed anyone else about her suspicions. There was only the one e-mail sent earlier that night to Gwen Frazier. I knew she would probably arrive later and find the body, but I didn’t see any harm in that. I was sure that even if Oxley had his suspicions, he would focus on Gwen as a possible killer.”