Abby frowned. “You don’t have any family?”
“Not that you’d notice. I think there are some people on my mom’s side somewhere, but I never heard from them after she died.”
“What about your father?” Abby asked.
“He skipped out before I was born.”
A chill of intuition twisted through Abby. “Did you go into the foster-care system after your mother died?”
“For a while,” Grady said. “But everyone decided that I was on the crazy side, so I ended up in a special school for wackos.”
Abby stopped breathing for a couple of heartbeats. Her talent flared. She was aware that Sam was motionless. His eyes were a little hot.
“Was the name of the school by any chance the Summerlight Academy?” Abby asked.
“Yeah.” Grady widened his eyes. “How’d you know?”
“I’m a graduate, too.”
“No kidding?” Grady sighed. “Well, I guess we both survived.”
“Yes,” Abby said, “we did. And when this is all over, I will introduce you to some other graduates. You can join our alumni club if you like.”
Grady started to smile. The smile stretched into a grin. “A club for graduates of the Summerlight Academy? That would be sort of cool.”
Outside, in the parking lot, Abby got into the SUV and fastened her seat belt. She waited until Sam climbed in beside her.
“Given what we know of the laws of para-physics, what are the oddsthat Grady Hastings and I both have the Summerlight Academy in common?” she asked.
“Realistically, the odds probably aren’t all that bad, given your psych profiles and the diagnosis that you both got when you were in your teens,” Sam said. “I doubt that there are a great number of boarding schools in the Seattle area that accept students with your unusual issues.”
“Okay. What are the odds that both of us wound up together in Vaughn’s library that day by sheer luck or coincidence?”
Sam started the SUV and snapped it into gear. “Zero.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Where does that leave us?”
“Looking for a psychic who knows how to locate other genuine psychics in the Seattle area. Someone who has access to the Summerlight Academy records.”
“If he has access to the records,” Abby said, “he would have a lot of information about the students’ psych profiles and their personal situations. I’ll bet that bastard picked poor Grady because he knew he was not only a talent but also alone in the world. There is no family to worry about him or to protect him.”
“The son of a bitch would also know that you have a complicated relationship with your family. I’m guessing he would have preferred to use someone like Hastings, a loner, to break the psi-code, but he doesn’t have much choice. There aren’t a lot of sensitives with your kind of ability running around the Pacific Northwest. There are others who can find the lab book for him, but it would be almost impossible to find another code breaker.”
“In other words, he was stuck with me.”
“Something like that, yes.”
“It’s always nice to be appreciated for one’s talent.”
40
THE HOUSE GRADY HASTINGS HAD LEASED WAS A RUN-DOWNbungalow in West Seattle. The rental looked as sad and depressed as Hastings had looked sitting in the locked ward at the psychiatric hospital, Sam thought. The place was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. The small lawn was patchy and studded with weeds. Yellowed shades were pulled down to cover the grimy windows.
Sam went up the concrete steps and set down the stack of packing boxes he had picked up at a container store. He checked the lock. Grady was right. It was standard-issue and probably original to the house. It took less than thirty seconds to open it.
“Doesn’t look like Grady’s landlord has put much money into upkeep,” he said. He twisted the old-fashioned knob and opened the door.
“No.” Abby followed him up the steps. She had a large roll of Bubble Wrap tucked under one arm. “Why bother? I doubt if Grady was a demanding tenant. All he cares about is his work with crystals.”
