He stopped laughing, took the box from her hand and swallowed some of the wine. It tasted good. A hell of a lot better than vitamin water.

“A very fine vintage,” he declared.

“Goes better with cheese than with a nutrition bar.”

Sierra offered him a chunk of cheese. He took it and ate it. She was right. It paired well with the wine.

“How about some bread?” she suggested.

He tore off a chunk of the baguette and ate it with some more cheese. Then he plucked a couple of olives out of the container.

“Next time I pack emergency rations I’m going to let you do the grocery shopping,” he said.

“Okay.” She retrieved the wine, took a sip and lowered the box. “Had any more thoughts about who might have poisoned you?”

“No, but given the timing, I’m sure the attempt to destroy my talent is linked to this case.”

Sierra nodded. “Sounds reasonable. If we’re right about Delbridge Loring—if he is a direct descendant of Crocker Rancourt—there’s a personal connection. Dosing you with a slow-acting poison feels like an act of revenge.”

North took the box of wine and drank some of it while he thought about that.

“You’re right,” he said. “This has to go back to my grandfather’s generation.”

“You said Griffin Chastain disappeared?”

“After being labeled a traitor. Dad and I don’t believe that he was executed by a spymaster who recruited him to steal Bluestone secrets. But we do believe he was most likely murdered.”

“By Crocker Rancourt.”

“Right. Now we can assume that Rancourt murdered Griffin in order to get the weapons and the tuning device. But something went wrong. Rancourt wound up with the wrong tuner.”

“Wonder how that happened,” Sierra said.

North rested his head against the wall and smiled a little, thinking about the question. “My grandfather was a very, very fine magician. One of a magician’s most basic skills is sleight of hand.”

Sierra raised her brows. “You’re thinking he somehow made sure Rancourt got the wrong tuner?”

“Yep.” North hoisted the wine box. “Nice work, Granddad.”

“Well, one way or another, it seems obvious now that Vortex was not the only lab working on weaponizing paranormal energy.”

North looked around at the glowing black glass walls. “Bluestone was supposed to be a wide-ranging research project designed to explore the possibilities of paranormal power in a variety of fields—communications, medicine, transportation, energy. But given that it was a government project, a lot of the emphasis was on national security and weapons. At the time, everyone was afraid the Soviet Union was way ahead of us in paranormal research.”

“But you said the lab code-named Vortex was the lab that was dedicated to weaponizing paranormal energy.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of similar research going on in the other labs. What set Vortex apart and made it a legend was that it was the only lab believed to have succeeded in creating some genuine prototypes of paranormal weapons.”