Page 13 of The Grave Artist

She started at the voice, not having noticed Heron slip behind her to read over her shoulder.

He continued, “I mean, hard under any circumstances, but particularly now—that you know he was forced to write it.”

While he was facing his own death.

Yes, it was hard.

No denying that. Carmen Sanchez was a human being and moved by loss like anyone else.

But she was also a law enforcement officer, and it was impossible for her to shut out completely doing the “cop stuff” coldly and objectively.

In an instant, with the abruptness of a finger snap, a thought struck her.

Heron noticed. “What, Sanchez? You’re onto something.”

Maybe . . .

She moved slightly to give Heron a better view of the screen. “Those goddesses, that reference? Our dad read Greek and Roman myths to Selina and me a lot, but he never called us his goddesses. Why say that?”

“And why underline his middle name?” Heron asked. “Is that something he usually did?”

She found it odd that he noticed something that had made her wonder as well. “No. It’s a strange thing for him to do, but then again, I’m sure he was under an incredible amount of pressure.”

The kind of pressure few people would ever know.

Heron tapped the lower-right corner of the screen with a pen. “What’s that?”

She squinted at the area and saw some nearly indistinguishable marks. “Looks like the crime scene tech cut off a fraction of the bottom edge of the note.”

The original had been collected by forensic techs, so the detectives had shown Carmen only a copy when they interviewed her shortly after her father’s death. She had never seen the entire page before.

“Is there another image?”

Of course there was. CSI took a hundred photos when ten would do. She scrolled through the other images until she found one that included the tiny writing scrawled at the bottom corner. “Can you zoom in?” Heron asked.

She used her index finger and thumb to expand the view.

Δ:ΙΘ

“I would say it’s Greek to me,” Heron said, “but I think it really is.”

He was right. Her father hadn’t only read them mythology but taught his daughters a bit of Greek history, including some of the language.

“It is. Ancient. But I don’t know what it means.”

She maximized the image until it pixelated but saw nothing that would explain the strange characters. She thought for a moment and then typed some keystrokes. “I’m sending it to my sister. See if she has any ideas.”

Selina called back almost immediately and said, “You got the file?” Her voice was filled with excitement.

“Yes, everything. You’re on speaker with Heron.”

“Hey, Jake.”

“Hi, Selina.”

Carmen asked, “Do you know what the reference to goddesses is about? I don’t remember him ever calling us that.”

A pause. “No. He never did.”