Jayne Krentz: Copper Beach

“Man named Xavier McClain. He made a fortune in shipping and lumber back in the early nineteen-hundreds. Bought the island and built the big house. According to the legend, he was downright strange.”

“Everyone has a different definition of strange,” Abby said politely. Trust me, I know whereof I speak, she thought.

“The old stories say that McClain was really into the woo-woo stuff, you know?” Dixon aimed a forefinger at his temple and made a few circles. “He claimed he saw things other folks couldn’t see. There are a lot of tall tales around here about how he got up to some real weird shit, I mean stuff, in the basement of the old house.”

“What happened to Xavier McClain?” Abby asked.

“No one knows for sure. His body was found when it washed ashore in the cove below the big house. Most folks assume he fell from the bluff. Others say he jumped. A few think he was murdered. The kids like to tell you that his ghost still walks the bluff on foggy nights, but I don’t hold with that nonsense. Anyhow, after McClain died, his descendants didn’t want the house, let alone the island. Way too expensive. They sold out to Elias Coppersmith.”

“Wait a minute. Are you telling me that the Coppersmith family owns Legacy Island, not just a house?”

“Well, they don’t exactly own the town. They gave that property to the local residents. And folks around here own their own homes, of course, on account of Elias Coppersmith subdivided some of the land and sold it. But yeah, the family still owns most of the island. The only one who lives here year-round now is Sam, but the rest of the Coppersmiths are always coming or going. They’ve all got their own houses out there on the bluff now. Sam took the old house on account of no one else in the family wanted it. His mom never did like the place. Willow and Elias live down in Sedona; that’s where the main headquarters of the company is located.”

“Willow and Elias are Sam’s parents?”

“Right. They’ll be coming up here soon,” Dixon said. “They always show up for the R–and–D lab’s annual technical summit and staff family weekend. On the last night there’s a real fine barbecue. The locals are invited. It’s a big deal around here.”

Abby examined the boats in the marina slips. The majority appeared to be hardworking craft of one kind or another. Several were rigged for serious fishing. The green plants and the curtains in the windows of others spelled live-aboards, people who lived full-time on their boats. Unlike the marinas on some of the other islands that catered to summer tourists, there were no luxury yachts.

One sleek, clean-lined boat caught her attention. The name on the hull was Phoenix. Dixon followed the direction of her gaze.

“That’s Sam’s boat.” He said. “I’m surprised he didn’t pick you up himself today. But he only leaves the island when he has to these days.”

“Is Sam involved in the family business?”

“Sort of. He and his brother run their own consulting firm, real high-tech stuff, you know? But they do a lot of their consulting for the family business so I guess you could say they are involved.”

She had learned a little about the family business in the course of her cursory online research this morning. The Coppersmith fortune had been built on the mining and research-and-development of so–called “rare earths,” the elements and metals that provided the sophisticated materials and crystals so vital to modern technology. Rare earths with unfamiliar names, such as lanthanum and cerium, were used in everything from computers and cell phones to X–ray machines and self-cleaning ovens.

“Sam was always a bit of a loner, even when he was a kid,” Dixon said. “But after he found his fiancée’s body he really started keeping to himself in the old Copper Beach house. Lot of folks, including my wife, swear that losing the love of his life about broke his heart. They say his family is worried about him. They think he might be depressed or something, you know?”

Great, Abby thought. Thaddeus Webber had sent her all this way to hire a reclusive mad scientist with paranormal talents who was suffering from some form of depression due to the death of a fiancée he might or might not have killed. The long trip from Seattle today was looking more and more like a waste of time. She glanced at her watch, wondering if she should tell Dixon to turn the water taxi around and take her back to Anacortes, where she had left her car.

Dixon eased the boat against the dock. A gangly-looking boy in his teens trotted up to help with the lines. He gave Abby a curious once-over. She gave him a vague smile in return and turned to study the small cluster of weathered buildings that surrounded the marina. There were a few more structures along the short waterfront, but all in all there wasn’t a lot to the town of Copper Beach. It barely qualified as a village. But that was typical of most of the remote communities scattered across the San Juans.

People moved to the islands for any number of reasons. Some sought privacy and a simpler, slower way of life. Others came looking for a serene environment that encouraged contemplation and meditation. The islands had been home to various cloistered orders, religious sects and assorted communes and marijuana entrepreneurs for years.

A lot of folks who chose to live in the San Juans arrived with one paramount objective in mind—to get off the grid altogether. Their goal was to get lost and stay lost. It was not all that hard to do, because in the islands people minded their own business. Outsiders were stonewalled if they got too curious. Which only made Dixon’s gossipy comments about Sam Coppersmith all the more intriguing, Abby thought. It was as if he felt some responsibility to defend Sam against the lurid rumors that had evidently circulated at the time of the woman’s death.

Dixon and the teen finished tying up the boat. Abby stepped cautiously off the gently bobbing craft onto the planked dock and looked around, wondering if she was supposed to walk to her destination.

“Can I pay someone to drive me to Coppersmith’s house?” she said to Dixon.

“You won’t need a lift,” Dixon said, angling his head. “Sam’s here to get you.”

A chill of awareness stirred the hairs on the back of her neck. Automatically, she raised her senses and turned to watch the man who was coming toward her along the dock. His dark hair was a little too long. A pair of black-framed sunglasses shielded his eyes, but the hard-edged planes and angles of his face told her a great deal about him.

It was the currents of raw power that burned in the atmosphere around Coppersmith that compelled her senses. She could literally feel the heat, both normal and paranormal, even from this distance. When he drew closer, she glimpsed a small spark of fire on his right hand. She took another look and concluded that the flash of light had been caused by sunlight glinting off the stone of his ring.

Her initial shiver morphed into a charged thrill. She could not decide if she was more excited than she had ever been in her life or merely scared out of her wits. It was a classic fight–or–flight response. There was obviously more than one kind of top–of–­the-line predator living here in the San Juans.

She looked at Dixon. “I have one question for you, Mr. Dixon.”

“Sure.”

“Why are you and everyone else on the island so absolutely convinced that Sam Coppersmith did not murder that woman?”

“Simple,” Dixon said. He winked. “Coppersmiths are all real smart, and Sam is probably the smartest of the bunch. If he had killed that woman, there would have been nothing at all to link her death to him. He sure as freaking hell wouldn’t have left her body in his own lab. She would have flat-out disappeared. No problem making that happen here in the islands. Lot of deep water around these parts.”