North walked into the crimson-and-gold living room of the Abyss. He had a sheaf of printouts in his hand.
“I’ve got it,” he said.
The satisfaction of the hunter who has picked up the trail resonated in his voice.
Sierra had been dozing on a red velvet sofa, a cashmere throw tucked around her. She sat up slowly, yawning, and glanced at the big clock above the fireplace. It was two in the morning.
“What, exactly, have you got?” she asked.
“I found Loring’s bolt-hole. With luck, he’ll still be there, because he has no reason to think we’ve located his hideout. If I’m right, the cache of weapons will also be in the house.”
“What house?”
“An old one on a private estate on Bainbridge Island.”
“Lots of old estates tucked away on Bainbridge,” Sierra said. “You never really notice them, because the island is still surprisingly rural.”
“An entity called the Riverview Trust has owned this particular estate since the days of the lost labs. The trust fund has paid the taxes on it every year since the purchase. Here’s the kicker—Victor’s forensic accounting people were able to discover that the trust was originally established by Crocker Rancourt. The property has never been sold.”
“If Loring really is Harlan Rancourt, that means the house stayed in the family all these years,” Sierra said. “If that’s true, why didn’t Stenson Rancourt go after Crocker Rancourt’s tuning device years ago, when he was running the Foundation?”
“Maybe,” North said softly, “Stenson never knew about the artifacts. Maybe Crocker Rancourt died with his secret.”
“There’s another possibility,” Sierra said. “Talent does go down through the bloodline, but it never shows up in exactly the same way in each generation. Maybe Stenson didn’t get a full dose of Crocker Rancourt’s ability or maybe his psychic talent took a different twist.”
North sat down beside her. “So Stenson either didn’t know about the relics or else he couldn’t find them. Yet somehow the man who calls himself Delbridge Loring managed to locate them. He probably found the tuning device at the same time. He must have been thrilled at first.”
“Until he discovered that the tuning device did not respond to his psychic signature. That was when he realized that it had probably been engineered for Griffin Chastain. It was the most likely explanation because your grandfather and Crocker Rancourt were the only two people involved in the creation of the night gun. They would not have tuned it to anyone else. It was too dangerous.”
“With his knowledge of the paranormal he would have understood that using the improperly tuned devices was extremely dangerous,” North said. “But he could not abandon such a valuable cache of paranormal tech. Whatever else he is, Loring is clearly a scientist who has studied the paranormal. He knows his way around a laboratory. He was desperate. He opened the Riverview Psychiatric Hospital with financial backing from Garraway, recruited the Puppets and started conducting experiments on street people who had some talent.”
“He must have heard the rumors about Griffin Chastain’s dowsing rod coming onto the market,” Sierra said. “He knew he might be able to use it to find the old lab. But he didn’t know what the locator device looked like. Only a Chastain could recognize the psychic signature of the artifact.”
“So Loring made sure my father heard the rumor that a Chastain artifact had been picked up by Swan Antiques. Then he had Chandler followed. After Dad emerged from Swan’s with the radio, Loring figured he had it made.”
“He ordered his Puppets to murder your father and grab the artifact. He told them to use the crystal weapon because he did not want to leave any evidence at the scene that the Foundation investigators could follow.”
“But the device failed to kill Dad,” North said.
“And suddenly you were on the scene, asking questions.”
North leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “I wasn’t alone. I had the best go-between in Seattle working with me.”
“A Vault go-between strives to uphold the highest professional standards.”
“Spoken like a pro.” North looked down at the financial papers he was holding. “This whole damned business is about to come to an end. But we have to move fast. I talked to Victor a few minutes ago. He’s giving orders to get the Foundation jet fueled and ready. I’m leaving for Seattle with a team of cleaners in about forty minutes.”
“I’m coming with you,” Sierra said. She stood and tossed the cashmere throw over the back of the sofa. “This is my contract. I deserve to be in on the ending.”
“Yes,” North said. “You do.”