The Quantico profiling team speculated that the killer, impatient with the behavioral unit's slow investigation, was taunting them. Inside their ranks, they named the UNSUB the DLK for Dead Language Killer. The profilers pointed out the inherent dark humor in the old chant, "Latin is a dead language, dead as dead can be, it killed all the Romans and now it's killing me."
Having never studied Latin, Jack figured the bastard was just showing off.
He had no way of knowing which note referred to which death, but Jack decided to take another look at the victims' backgrounds. Both Walker and Buckley were squeaky clean in every way – finances, criminal background, relationships – but the Peterson girl had an astonishing sexual history. It was a slim lead, but Jack took it. They interviewed boyfriends, girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends. Anyone with whom Laura Jean had a relationship, sexual or platonic.
They discovered that at least half a dozen young men and two young women admitted to some kind of sexual encounter with the victim. Each one, however, had a solid alibi for the time in question. Jack's slim lead ground to another halt.
He mentally ran through the first three cases – Peterson, Walker, Buckley. Finally, a fourth death, mimicking the first – the woman buried alive in the salt flats of Utah. No evidence, no note, no toxicology yet. Were they connected? Was this a copycat? Or was Jack's old nemesis starting again?
Jack pushed back from the desk, saved his data, and closed his laptop. He sucked in a deep breath as he felt another rush of adrenalin enhancing his body's chemical changes. He turned his hands, palms upward. Piano fingers, he'd once considered them – long ago when he entertained such youthful fantasies. The slender fingers that used to play with such fluidity were now fleshy pads, calloused and swollen.
He glanced at his wristwatch. He had a moment to peruse the Gant woman's dossier. PhD in Ancient Students, Greek and Roman history and culture. Linguist extraordinaire, according to Myron Higgins, the Judge's assistant who had approached Gant two months ago. She refused in June and again in July, cited school bylaws prohibiting outside consultations by their professors. She was supposedly some kind of whiz kid in her field, on sabbatical from the University of California at Berkley to teach at Our Lady of Fatima University, a private Catholic college in southeast Bigler County.
Jack looked over her teaching schedule. He still had a two-hour drive to Sacramento and thought he could catch her on break. He'd drop in without an appointment. Although he had no leverage to use on the Gant woman, he knew everyone had skeletons in the closet. If he couldn't persuade her with his charm, he thought wryly, he'd find another way to get her assistance.
He always did.
Chapter Six
Dr. Gant's office at the university was the second door down a well-lighted hallway in St. Joseph's Administration Building. Jack lingered at the entrance and examined the small, crowded office.
The woman bent over a file drawer, her light gray sweater riding up from the waist of a black skirt to expose a strip of smooth flesh. From an ancient boom box resting on a corner file cabinet, James Brown crooned about not wanting to be alone tonight. The view and the music jarred some ancient, buried memory that Jack briskly put aside as he rapped on the open door.
He recognized her the second she turned to face him. A giant fist squeezed his heart, his throat spasmed and choked off air, and the soul he'd been sure he no longer had shriveled with momentary shock. He saw at once the gangly girl inside the self-possessed woman who turned to greet him, and another long-suppressed image slammed him with gale force. The young girl who'd whispered his name in the night. Bundled in layers of clothing that she removed one item at a time, all sad innocence and sure purpose. The soft pleading in her voice when she begged him to…
Shit.
For an endless moment, his feet riveted to the spot. A sickening fear smacked him in the gut. Fear that every dirty misstep of his life dangled in plain view – hung out like so much soiled laundry – and barred any hope of salvation.
Not that he'd believed in heaven or redemption for a long time. But still…
"Oh my God," Olivia said, her pretty face a mask of stunned confusion.
Not pretty, he thought, but striking, interesting. High cheekbones and clearly defined brows. Green eyes set far apart, wide and large in a smooth face. Dark hair now wound tightly in a knot at the back of her head, but which he remembered tangling riotously around slender shoulders. A small woman, with fragile bones covering a steely determination.
Time resumed as Olivia sank into the worn office chair behind a utilitarian desk and regarded him with a wide-eyed expression. "Jackie Holt."
Astonishment, bewilderment, and another indefinable emotion crossed her face until she shut it down. Shut it down hard, he could see by the set of her jaw and the flash of those brilliant eyes sharp as cut glass. Impossible that the full, soft lips he remembered now thinned to taut rubber bands, stretched so tight they threatened to snap back viciously.
"Jackson Holt," she repeated.
Under the visual indictment, he remembered with regret the throb of his youthful desire. But God, she'd been so desirable. So sure as she'd insinuated herself into his life in a way neither of them realized would change him forever.
Anger flashed across her face before she narrowed her eyes and shut that down too. "What do you want?"
As the facts clicked into place, Jack berated himself for being the worst kind of idiot. He wondered if his subconscious had deliberately tricked him. But he hadn't known an Olivia Gant. Only Livvie Morse, at a time when the sun rose and set in a fourteen-year old, too-skinny girl with doe eyes and a haunted look.
Had the organization discovered Professor Gant was the same girl from Jack's childhood? Impossible to think the Judge wouldn't check every small detail. No coincidence then that they ended up here together. But why?
He looked around the room, at the desk, the bookshelves, the order surrounding Olivia. If he had any decency left, he'd march out the door and leave her to her neat, organized life. But Invictus training was too deep. He told himself he could use their former friendship, use her for the mission. After all, that was probably what Warren intended all along.
Yeah, the Judge knew exactly what he was doing when he sent Jack to California.
Olivia seemed to recover, stood, and braced her knuckles on the desk top. "Answer me. Say something." Her voice was ice even as it rose several decibels. "Why are you here?"
She stumbled over the last question, but he suspected the urge to shred him to pieces lay just beneath the cold, composed surface of her perfect face. He tried to look unaffected, despised himself for thinking that if she'd forgiven him, his task would be easier.
"I came to see you," he said simply after staring at her another long moment. He sat down and laid his Invictus badge on the desk.
Her brilliant eyes widened, and for a moment she looked confused. "Invictus? You're with the government?" Her eyes cooled even further.
"I've risen in the world," he joked with a wry twist of his mouth. "I have friends in high places."
"Oh, those friends." She drew the words out, giving them a lethal edge as understanding dawned on her.
Jack shrugged. "See, you already know why I've come."
She'd refused the Invictus offer twice, he remembered. He should move on to a backup name on the Judge's list and leave her the hell alone. But now that he'd seen her, he couldn't and realized he didn't want to.
"Knowing you, I'm surprised you rejected Myron Higgins' offer," he said.
"You don't know me at all," she snapped, her eyes level and unreadable as she sat down heavily.
He shrugged again, conceding. "Maybe not."