“No. This is different. But also very unstable.”

“It all fits,” North said. “If Loring really was Rancourt’s grandson, he probably considered the cache of artifacts his inheritance. He must have blamed the entire Chastain line for depriving him of what he believed was rightfully his.”

“Sins of the fathers and all that garbage,” Jake said quietly.

“Whoever shot Loring went old-school with a pistol,” Brianna observed. “Either the killer ran out of paranormal weapons—”

“Aura-balancing devices,” North corrected absently.

Brianna shrugged. “Sure. Whatever. Either the Puppet didn’t have any more lethal tech or else he couldn’t make it function.”

“There’s another possibility,” North said. “Maybe the two remaining Puppets still believe in the con. If they think they can use the para tech without Loring’s help, they may have decided they didn’t need him anymore.”

“You think they came here to kill Loring and steal the cache of devices?” Jake asked.

“It’s a possible scenario.” North surveyed the empty basement. “But I doubt if they found the artifacts. The devices have been concealed for decades. What are the odds that a couple of unbalanced Puppets would be able to find Rancourt’s vault?”

“Not very good,” Sierra said. “In my experience collectors usually go extremely high-tech when it comes to protecting their artifacts. Crocker Rancourt would have had good reason to take a lot of precautions. After all, he had committed murder to get his hands on the devices.”

North began a slow prowl of the basement, his senses heightened. There was no sign of a vault or a gallery but he could see the psychic energy of footprints—a lot of them. They burned on the floor. Some were faint with age. Some were fresh. He followed the hottest prints, old and new, to a blank concrete wall.

“Here we go,” he said. “There’s a door here somewhere.”

The concrete was a solid barrier that effectively blocked paranormal radiation, but there were always tiny cracks between even the most carefully concealed door and its frame.

He could sense small threads of energy leaking out from whatever was behind the wall. He recognized his grandfather’s psychic signature and smiled a little.

“Whatever is behind that wall was designed and built by Griffin Chastain,” he said.

He traced the faint threads of leaking energy with his fingertips, drawing an imaginary line straight down to the floor.

There was a small crack in the concrete that was too straight to be the result of the natural settling of an old house.

“Stand back,” he said. “There’s always a possibility that Loring left a trap behind.”

Sierra and the others retreated a few steps. North studied the hot energy around the crack.

He pushed gently. A small section of the floor slid aside, revealing a traditional bank vault–style lock.

“We’re in luck,” he announced. “Crocker Rancourt used standard technology for his vault. It was probably state of the art at the time, but it’s old and outdated now.”

He dropped his pack on the floor and took out the electronic lockpick. He moved quickly, very sure of what he was doing. It didn’t take long to break the old lock. Gears rumbled inside the wall. A large section of concrete slid aside, exposing the interior of a steel-lined vault. Energy poured out of the opening. An array of artifacts glowed hot on the shelves.