He glanced at Lucy. There was a gleam in her eyes that told him she felt it, too.
Otis fluttered through the opening first. Gabriel and Lucy followed. Once inside, they stopped to double-check their nav amber and the locator. Otis could always be counted on to lead the way to an exit, but years of professional training and experience ran deep. You never went into the Underworld without well-tuned nav amber and a functioning locator.
“All set?” he said.
Lucy touched the amber in her bracelet and nodded. “Yes.”
He gripped the pendant in one hand and focused on the unique frequency of Pitney’s tuning vibe. A thread of identical energy appeared on the green quartz floor.
“Got it,” he said.
Lucy gave him a curious look. “You can sense Pitney’s vibe in here?”
“I can see prints on the floor. It isn’t usually this easy, but it looks like Pitney spent a lot of time down here. He left a clear trail, and it’s hot.”
“Hot?”
“The last time he came this way he was … agitated. Scared, maybe.”
He started walking, concentrating on the path he was following. If he stopped focusing, the prints faded immediately. Lucy fell into step beside him. After a couple of moments Otis seemed to realize what was going on. He dashed ahead.
“He must have figured out we’re following Pitney’s vibe,” Lucy said.
“He’ll probably get us there faster than I can.” Gabriel kept his attention on the faint path of energy. It was just barely visible in the glow of the quartz. “The next question is whether the arsonist got there first.”
“I doubt it. Not many people can do what you do,” Lucy said.
“The killer might have forced Pitney to reveal the location of the vault before he murdered him.”
“So whether or not we find something useful is what we here in Illusion Town like to call a crap shoot.”
“Trust me, there’s always something left at a scene.”
Otis disappeared around another corner and then reappeared, chortling.
“He thinks we’re playing a game,” Lucy explained. “Dust bunnies, I have discovered, are big on games of any kind. They excel at hide-and-seek.”
The trail led into a vast rotunda. There were over a dozen arched openings marking the entrances to more tunnels. Otis was waiting for them at one of the openings. He waved his miniature dust bunny and bounced up and down.
Gabriel studied the energy path on the floor. It led straight to where Otis stood on his hind legs, barely able to contain his glee.
“Got it,” Gabriel said. He went forward to join Otis. “Now to see what’s left.”
Pitney’s vault was a small chamber to the right inside the tunnel. It had not been cleaned out. Glass and steel cases held heaps of unpolished, untuned amber.
Lucy came up to view the interior of the chamber. “And this is what we here in Illusion Town call hitting the jackpot.”
Otis scampered toward a glass case and hopped on top, apparently trying to figure out how to open it.
Gabriel walked slowly through the space, pausing here and there to examine the collection. “This is incredible. I’ve never seen examples of some of this amber except in museums or in the vaults of the big amber-mining companies. Pitney must have spent his life collecting rare rez amber.”
“Probably because he had a talent for working it.” Lucy studied the pink amber in one of the cases. “You know how it is. Once you become aware of a psychic ability to resonate with a particular form of energy, you can’t resist it. You feel like you have to use the talent, the same way you use your other senses.”
Gabriel looked up from a small pile of uncut purple amber. She was studying the pink rocks very intently. Her energy whispered in the chamber. He responded to it in ways he could not describe.
A thumping sound made him turn around. Otis was jumping up and down on top of a small steel lockbox, apparently annoyed because he could not get inside.
Gabriel walked toward the lockbox. He took the old-fashioned lock pick out of his pack. The lock on the box was mechanical, not high-tech.
“Let me see what I can do, pal,” he said.
Otis muttered encouragement and hopped off the top of the case. He watched intently as Gabriel went to work on the lock. A few seconds later there was a sharp click.
Gabriel raised the lid. Two velvet bags and an envelope were inside the box. Otis chortled exultantly, as if to declare he had won the game.
“Thanks,” Gabriel said. “You saved us a lot of time.”