Page 12 of Unwanted

“I won’t let you down, Pup,” Jak said, and it felt good. But it felt bad that he had no idea how to start or what to do. Jak put his hands in his pockets, lowering his head against the cold, almost-night air and startling when he touched something solid and smooth in his pocket.

The thing the dark-haired boy had passed to him before they’d fallen.

He pulled it from his pocket and looked at it. It was shiny, and he ran his thumb over it.

A pocketknife.

Jak’s heart jumped. Live! he’d told the other boy, and maybe…maybe this had been that other boy’s way of telling Jak to do the same.

Chapter Nine

The cabin was small, dim, and somewhat shabby, with dirty wood-planked floors and a few pieces of worn, mismatched furniture. Definitely not the rustic getaway Mark had pictured when he’d learned that Isaac Driscoll had taken early retirement and moved out there immediately afterward. Mark flipped the overhead light switch and then stood just beyond the doorway and gave the room a once-over before stepping inside, Harper entering behind him.

She pulled her jacket around herself and moved to the right of the door as she put her hands in her pockets. “Is it okay that I’m in here?” she asked, her breath emerging as white vapor in the chilled room. “I could wait in the truck—”

“It’s fine. The crime scene techs have already completed their work. And I might have a question or two.” He smiled back at her. “This isn’t exactly what I’m used to, location wise. You might see something I don’t. If some item or another seems strange or out of place, don’t hesitate to mention it.” He walked to the table next to the kitchen area—really just a counter and sink with a two-burner hotplate and a mini fridge. Just like at the first crime scene, there was fingerprint dust everywhere.

“I hear you’re from California.”

“Born and raised,” Mark answered.

“What brought you to Montana?”

“Just looking for a change. My wife’s sister lives in Butte, and when I saw the opening at the Montana Department of Justice, I applied.” He looked back at her, and she was watching him with a small skeptical look on her face that told him she knew he was leaving something out. He almost smiled at the way it was so obvious when her wheels were turning. He’d only known her for an hour, but he could already tell she questioned a lot and didn’t quite know if it was insight or her brain running wild. He could relate. That inquisitiveness had turned out to be a good quality for him as far as the job he did. He hoped she’d figure out where to apply it as well instead of allowing it to run amok. She was young. Very young. She had time.

Then again, his daughter had been young too, and she hadn’t had nearly enough time. Not nearly enough. He shut those thoughts down, picking up a notebook on top of a short stack of other notebooks in various colors on the table and leafing through it. It appeared to be a field journal of some sort with observations about possums and…he turned the page…deer…wolves. Different sections were labeled with chapter headings as though he was outlining a book. Mark flipped through the rest of the notebook quickly and then checked briefly inside the others. Why had Isaac Driscoll taken special interest in those three specific animals and no others?

He gave the cabin another once-over. Was that the reason the guy had been out here? To write a nature book? “Harper, you’re a wildlife expert of sorts,” he said, and she opened her mouth as if to disagree with the statement, but he went on before she could. “If you were going to observe animals and, say, write a book on their behaviors, would you want to live among them?”

“I mean…yeah, maybe. But I can’t think of any animal that hasn’t already been highly observed in its natural habitat, especially around here…a hundred books written, etcetera. It wouldn’t be new material.”

“That’s what I was thinking too,” he murmured, slipping the notebooks into a folded paper evidence bag he removed from his pocket. The techs hadn’t deemed them important, but something told Mark he might want to look through them later.

“Unless,” she said, stepping into the room, “the animal or animals were being observed under very specific circumstances that were different in some way.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth in thought for a moment. “Like if the data being recorded was about how an animal would react to something it hadn’t previously been exposed to? Like what they do in labs.”

“Yes. Only Isaac Driscoll was a researcher with a doctorate at Rayform Laboratories. He took early retirement sixteen years ago and moved here. He left the lab for the wilderness.” Albeit not the kind of lab that studied animals, from what Mark gathered.

“I don’t know what to make of that. Unless he was just observing animals for his own interest,” Harper offered.

Could be. The real question was, why would living alone in the wilderness observing possums get you murdered? And in such a violent fashion? He needed to see the spot where Driscoll had been killed. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Harper before walking toward the room where the murder had occurred.

The technicians had taken some of Isaac Driscoll’s blood for processing, but the majority was still there on the wall and floor—a large, dark, congealed puddle.

He wondered if the victim had a next of kin—he was still waiting for that information—and, if he did, if they’d even want this dingy cabin in the middle of nowhere where their relative had been killed. Would they want the property? And if so, what would happen to Lucas with no last name? He sighed, staring at the large, dark stain. What the hell had happened here?

It hadn’t been a quick death—again, the arrow had been shot with enough force to pin the victim to the wall so he was rendered helpless. His blood had drained from his body. The same as the Jane Doe in town, though this shot had hit the victim in the chest and he’d remained conscious long enough to reach his phone and dial 9-1-1. Maybe it had been in his pocket? Accessible enough so he could reach it even in the throes of death.

There was malice in both cases—hatred even. Neither was a random crime, though the arrows found in each body were slightly different in appearance. Whether that meant there were two killers or whether a singular killer had simply used different arrows, he didn’t know. The crimes were too similar not to be related though. But how? Why? That was the most important thing to figure out really. Find out why and he should find out who.

And whoever had shot the victims certainly knew their way around a bow and arrows. He would double-check with an authority on the weapon, but from his own educated guess, both were kill shots, carried out expertly and swiftly. Powerfully. How strong would someone have to be to shoot through a human body? He’d have to look into that. What he did know was that neither victim had been shot by a novice.

Mark took one last look around the sparsely furnished room: a bed, stripped now of bedding, and a dresser. Hanging above the dresser was the only piece of art Mark had seen in the house. He moved closer, studying it. It was a depiction of an old-fashioned battle. Men with shields and arrows stood facing another group with the same weaponry across a great divide. He wasn’t a big history buff and didn’t recognize the uniforms, if they could be called that, many of the soldiers bare-chested and wearing what appeared to be short skirt-type bottoms. Was it a historical Roman battle? Mark took a picture of it with his cell phone so he could look it up later.

He opened the top drawer and found it full of boxes of matches, lined up in two rows. The rest of the drawers held a few random clothing items, folded haphazardly. Mark closed the drawers, left the room, and returned to where Harper waited for him.

The rest of the information he needed would come from the crime lab. He hoped to God there was something for him to work from—a lead of some sort. He knew the department had thrown him this case because no one else had the desire to trek through the frigid wilderness in the middle of winter. And he didn’t either, but he was going to do his damnedest to work this case well. To settle into this job and this new life he and Laurie were trying to accept. Mostly separately.

Harper was standing by the door where she’d first walked in, her hands in her pockets again as if ready to leave as soon as possible. He didn’t blame her. There was something…depressing about this place. And not only that a murder had been committed there—though that would increase the dismal factor anywhere. No, the whole place felt oppressive and dark. He had the urge to fling open the door and escape outside, which was saying something since outside was a virtual icebox.

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