Savaged

by Mia Sheridan

  He had a sad expression on his face and Jak wondered if it had been wrong of him to ask, but then the grandfather’s lips tipped upward and he leaned back in his chair. “Smart as a whip,” he said. “Everyone said so from the minute he was born. He picked up everything quickly, was good at whatever he put his mind to. He had so much . . .” His voice faded away and then he sat up straighter and his voice sounded strong again. “Potential.”

  Potential. His father was smart. He picked things up. He had . . . potential. Hope. Hope for . . . a good life. Jak stored the word away. He liked that one. And he wondered if he had potential too. Maybe he’d gotten that from his father, along with the look of his face. He ran his hand along his jaw.

  “You’ll want to shave, I imagine, once you get settled in your room.”

  Jak nodded slowly, unsure. He kept his beard short with his pocketknife, but he hadn’t shaved his face since he’d grown face hair. It kept him warm in the winter. It told others he was a man who could mate and have his own offspring.

  But the men he’d seen in civilization so far all had shaved faces. He guessed females in civilization thought other things were more important than mating and offspring. Jak ran his fingers along his jaw again, wondering what Harper would like.

  “Anyway,” the grandfather sighed, “your father was a good man. He would have led a good life if that woman . . .” He seemed to grind his teeth together for a moment, and then he brought his own hand to his jaw, rubbing it before going on. “Well, suffice it to say, I wish things had been different, but here we are.”

  Here we are.

  The grandfather didn’t look happy about that, and Jak suddenly felt even more out of place. Be still, don’t move. Don’t become prey. He knew that wasn’t the right word, but it was the best one he had. Animals smelled confusion, and fear, and they took advantage of it. Humans did the same, he knew, but they couldn’t smell it. They used their eyes and their brains instead.

  He didn’t yet know if the grandfather was good or bad, and he hoped he was good, but until he knew for sure, he would watch him. This house made him feel funny with its big, cold walls, and its beautiful caged birds, and the people who made strange looks and said things that made him think they were saying other things underneath if he knew how to listen right.

  “Speaking of your father, Jak, his downfall began because of a woman.” He seemed angry. “I would hate to see the same thing happen to you.”

  Jak sat back, staring at the old man. Harper. He was talking about Harper. A sharp prick of anger made his chest tight. “The woman you brought here today, she’s obviously not of our ilk.”

  Jak had some idea what the man was saying, but stayed quiet. Waiting for all the words so he could put them together in his mind. Understand. “The name Fairbanks comes with much privilege, but it also comes with its share of difficulty. Namely, others will want to use you for what you can do for them. It’s why your father ended up on the path he did.” The grandfather gave him a stare and then sighed. “Do you know what a gold digger is, Jak?”

  Gold digger. Someone who digs for gold? But he didn’t think the grandfather meant that. He shook his head slowly.

  “It’s a woman who wants you for your money, son.”

  “I don’t have any money,” he said slowly.

  “You didn’t have any money. But you’re a Fairbanks now. All of this”—he waved his hand in the air—“is at your fingertips.”

  “What?”

  “What is at your fingertips? Why, this house, the opportunities the Fairbanks name opens up for you, perhaps the Fairbanks estate someday, Jak.” He leaned forward, looking thoughtful. “I’ll teach you the basics.” He raised an eyebrow. “And someday maybe . . . you can hire good people to deal with the business specifics.” He sat straighter, looking more . . . hopeful. “Someday you’ll have a son of your own and then all of this will go to him. It’s the way estates work, Jak. It’s the way a family name goes on and on.”

  Jak ran everything the grandfather had told him through his mind. The grandfather believed his mother had ruined his father’s life. He thought Harper would ruin Jak’s life too. That she was a gold digger who wanted him for his money. But Harper, she had kissed him before she knew he had anything. Before she even knew he was a Fairbanks. Before he had a last name at all.

  Plus, he trusted her. She was honest, and sweet, and she’d cried for Pup because Jak had loved him. And even more than that, he’d scented her. She was his mate. That was all.

  The grandfather stood. “In any case, you must be tired. We can talk about this another time.” He looked at the watch on his wrist. “I’ve got to get going. Let me show you to your room. I took the liberty of having our housekeeper, Bernadette, pick up some clothing and whatnot for you.” Jak stood too. He followed him when he left the room, leading him to a staircase so big and wide, he could have lived right there.

  His room was down a long hallway with carpet so soft it felt like springtime grass under his feet, even through his shoes. He hopped on it lightly as he walked and the grandfather gave him a look that made him stop. “I hope you’ll be comfortable here, Jak,” the grandfather said as Jak followed him into a large room with a huge bed in the middle with not just one blanket, not just three like Harper’s bed, but so many it looked like Jak would be sleeping on a cloud.

  Jak stepped slowly inside. “The bathroom’s behind that door. Your new clothes are in the closet. Just leave your old ones on the floor and the maid will . . . take care of them.” Jak turned back to the grandfather, whose face looked like he’d eaten something bad, but then he changed it to a big smile that only moved his lips. “Welcome home, Jak.” Then the grandfather left, closing the door behind him.

  Jak took a minute to look around the room and then inside the bathroom, walking to the mirror. He stood in front of it, turning his face slowly one way and then the other. Did he look like the man in the photo? His father? He couldn’t see it, but the grandfather said he did. Jak’s face was dark from the sun—both winter and summer—darker than the grandfather’s or Agent Gallagher’s. His cheeks were chapped from the wind and his beard was rough and . . . uneven. He had cut it using only the feel of his fingers.

  Jak had a scar under his cheekbone from where the blond boy had cut him that terrible day.

  He looked different than all of them. Strange. Wild. And that’s because he was.

  He thought of the things he’d done—some because he’d had no choice, others because he had wanted to live. But he could be different now. He could be like them. Harper had accepted his looks and the part of himself he’d shown her, but she never had to know about the way he’d both crawled and killed. Never had to picture him the way he’d been in his lowest times. Never had to know that part of him even existed. Here . . . at Thornland, he could leave all that behind. Only Driscoll knew about that part of him and Driscoll was dead. He could be . . . civilized. He could be a man—all man, only man—so Harper never caught a glimpse of that beast within him.

  He picked up a can of something that said shaving foam, looking at the other bottles on the shelf over the sink, swallowing thickly when he saw the things he’d lived without for so many years. Everything felt . . . big. Smelled big. All of it was huge, bigger than he remembered, shinier, more. Very. He stepped back into the bedroom, closing that door behind him.

  Welcome home, the grandfather had said.

  So why did he still feel lost?

  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 wh
ile. “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 furrowed her brow for a moment 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.”

  He shook his head slowly. “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?”

  She shrugged. “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 slightly 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 non-answer.

  “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, who.

  To raise him until Mr. 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?” he murmured to himself. Did he 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 Is
aac 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.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  She almost didn’t recognize the man in the khakis and the white button-down shirt as he came toward her, but it was him. She knew that stride, the way he seemed not to walk but to prowl. And then he smiled—that boyish unpracticed grin full of open pleasure—and her heart leaped. She rushed forward and he did too, taking her in his arms, both of them laughing, as though they hadn’t seen each other in months, when in fact it had only been three days.

  He swung her around once and she laughed, leaning forward so he could kiss her. He did, both of them sighing as their mouths met. When the kiss ended, he placed her back on the marble floor of the Fairbanks’s foyer.