Chapter Thirty-Nine

"Come in," Mark called, taking his hands from the keyboard and sitting back in his desk chair. Laurie peeked inside.

"I'm running to the grocery store. Anything specific you want for dinner?" She smiled. "I think we've officially finished off all the holiday leftovers."

Mark chuckled. They'd been eating turkey for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the last few days—and November had brought its fair share of turkey too—and he had seen about all of that particular bird he wanted to see for a while. "How about steak tonight?"

"Sounds good." She turned to leave, and Mark sat forward.

"Laurie?"

She turned, her expression surprised, questioning.

"Uh." Jesus, had he forgotten how to do this? How to talk to his own wife? They'd had a few conversations over the last few weeks—stilted ones, but those counted too—but they were still out of practice. "Other than Jak's obvious lack of knowledge about common things, what did you think of him?" It'd been several days since Jak and Harper had been to their house, and though they'd recounted the holiday warmly, he hadn't talked to her about the specifics. But now he was officially back to work, and for the last few hours, he'd caught up on emails and wracked his brain about what avenue to follow next. He refused to let these cases grow cold.

Laurie came back into the room hesitantly, as though she was afraid she'd misheard him ask her opinion about a work matter—or, sort of a work matter anyway. She pursed her lips as she thought about his question. "He has a sweetness to him, an…innocence…" She sat in the chair in front of his desk, and seeing her there, that thoughtful look on her face, made his chest constrict. "Although he's clearly all man." She shot him a raised eyebrow look and he chuckled. He figured any woman would have noticed that. "But…I don't know. He has…secrets in his eyes. There's almost something…he wants to hide from everyone else. It could be his lack of confidence, but"—she shook her head—"oh, there I go again, offering up my intuition when you're asking for facts."

"No, I was looking for your intuition."

She looked down, a flush coming to her cheeks as she smiled shyly. And at the look of happiness on her face, he swore at himself. When was the last time you made her look that way? He couldn't even remember.

She looked up. "And, oh, the way he looks at Harper, Mark. He worships her."

He laced his fingers. "Do you think that's a good thing?"

"You mean do I think he could make her his whole world when he should be focusing on, well, the whole world?"

"Yes, exactly."

She looked to the side, thinking again. "Maybe. But I think Harper's an intuitive girl. I think she'll help guide him and step back if that's the case."

"I hope so."

She nodded. "Me too."

For a moment they sat there staring at each other, both smiling, things needing to be said, though Mark wasn't sure where to start, not sure he wanted to do this. Not yet. Not now. Then when? The ringing of his cell phone saved him from having to answer his own internal questions.

"You get that." Laurie stood, seeming relieved by the interruption too. "I'll be back in an hour."

Mark nodded, reaching for his phone as she slipped out the door. He felt her loss but simultaneously was glad she was gone. Although that'd been a step on both their parts, and Mark was glad for it. "Mark Gallagher."

"Agent Gallagher. This is Kyle Holbrook, returning your call."

Isaac Driscoll's former assistant. Mark was momentarily taken aback by the deep tenor of the man's voice. He sounded much older, but Mark knew from his online portfolio that he was in his thirties.

"Yes, thank you for calling me back, Mr. Holbrook."

"Of course. I would have called you sooner, but I was away for the holidays. This is in reference to Dr. Driscoll?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, I'm investigating a crime. Isaac Driscoll was found murdered. I understand you were his research assistant sixteen years ago."

There was momentary silence on the other end of the line. "Murdered? Jesus. I didn't expect that. I assumed you were calling because he'd done something…weird."

Weird? "Why would you assume that, Mr. Holbrook?"

Another pause. "Well, to be honest, I hadn't thought about Isaac for years, so I had to think back when I heard your message. But he had grown increasingly…odd at the end here. I feel bad saying that now that he's…dead. But, honestly, I was happy to see him go. He was always going on about war and how we were all going to die off because people were selfish and stupid and couldn't think beyond their own needs. But most disturbing of all was he tried to convince me that we should start doing research on people, like, not just have them fill out questionnaires or surveys but, like, put them in real-life situations and see how they'd react. But, like everyone knows, that's not how social science works. Or even psychological study. You can't emotionally scar human beings for the sake of research."

Mark nodded, a cold feeling settling in his bones. "Do you have any reason to believe he acted on any of this talk?"

"No. In fact, I thought that was the reason he retired early. He realized the job was causing him to entertain unhealthy ideas. But when I heard you mention his name in the message, I feared he might have gone back to work somewhere else and done something unethical, if not…immoral. I'm glad to hear that's not the case, though I'm sorry to hear something so terrible happened to him."

Mark's mind was racing. "Mr. Holbrook, if I email you a couple of photographs, can you let me know if you've seen either of the people in them?"

"Of course. I have my email open now, if you'd like to send them over."

"Okay, great. It'll just take a second." Mark drafted a quick email and attached the photographs of Jak and Emily Barton saved to his desktop and pressed send.

"Got it," Kyle Holbrook said a second later. There was a pause, and then the man came back on the line. "No, I don't know either of them. I don't suppose you can tell me who they are?"

"The woman was murdered in Helena Springs in a similar manner to Dr. Driscoll."

"Christ. Two murders?" He sounded genuinely shocked, but, of course, Mark was only going by his voice. "This other photograph you sent me, is he a suspect?"

Mark hesitated to call Jak a person of interest, though in actuality he still was. He has secrets in his eyes. "He lived near Dr. Driscoll," he answered with a nonanswer.

"Ah. Well, I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help."

"No, you've been a great deal of help. If you think of anything else, please give me a call."

"Absolutely. Good luck, Agent Gallagher."

Mark hung up the phone and then sat staring, unseeing, at his computer for minutes.

He tried to convince me that we should start doing research on people.

Mark had a sinking feeling about what Isaac Driscoll's research had focused on. Or, rather, whom.

To raise him until Dr. Driscoll is ready to train him.

Was Driscoll studying Jak? Or just "training" him? Both? To what end? He'd found the notes on the strange animal observations in Driscoll's cabin, but nothing more. He'd go back and look under all the floorboards, in the rafters, he decided, before officially clearing it as a crime scene. There had to be more. If Jak wasn't mistaken, the man had had cameras set up, for God's sake.

Jak…he has secrets in his eyes.

"What secrets are you still keeping from me, Jak?" Mark murmured to himself. Did Jak know more about what Driscoll had been doing? Or had he himself done something he was ashamed of?

The picture of the Battle of Thermopylae that he'd printed was on his desk, half obscured under a pile of papers. He picked it up, gazing at it for a few moments, remembering what he'd read about the Spartans.

They'd trained their children to become soldiers; they'd made them endure harsh survival exercises to strengthen them, to discover their worth.

Children…not child.

He pictured the cabin where Jak lived, the unused beds. The dormitory setup that only housed one person. If Driscoll had set the place up like that, who else had he intended Jak share it with? And why hadn't they?

Mark dug out the "map" that had been found in Isaac Driscoll's drawer, looking again at the one word printed at the bottom: Obedient.

Isaac Driscoll had been fascinated with the Spartans, had possibly been doing his own studies on children, somehow mixing up the ancient rituals with his current project, whatever that might have been. The possibility was almost too sick to consider, too demented to contemplate the details until Mark had more answers. He did another Google search, this time looking for phrases related to Thermopylae and the word obedient. After a few minutes, he found it, a monument that was erected to the soldiers who'd died at Thermopylae: Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.

A monument to the dead. Obedient soldiers. A map that marked the places they lay?

A cold feeling wound its way around Mark's bones. He could be wrong. It was just a word. Just a…hunch based on unconnected pieces to the puzzle that was this case. This was going to be a shot in the dark. Still…he picked up his phone, dialing his office, willing to put his ass on the line. His blood was humming in that way it did when he knew he was onto something. He asked for his boss, and when he picked up, Mark got straight to the point. "I think we need to get some cadaver dogs out to Isaac Driscoll's land."