Ravenport

Chapter 8 : Threads

We took the folder, locked the office behind us, and drove back to the precinct. The morning was slipping away, the gray sky promising more rain later. Back in the Cold Case office, Chen was waiting. Her face was pale, her eyes holding a deep, troubled sadness.

“The wife,” she began, her voice softer than usual, “Elena Mercer. She’s… shattered. But she was coherent. Leo was a good man. Quiet. A bit of a dreamer, she said. He loved his work, but lately he’d been… distracted. He’d come home late, spent hours in his study reading, taking notes. She thought it was a new business venture. Something he was excited about.”

“Did she know what it was?” I asked.

Chen shook her head. “He wouldn’t tell her. Said it was ‘special,’ that he needed to keep it confidential until things were finalized. Last week, he mentioned meeting with a scientist. A doctor. She didn’t catch the name.”

“Dr. Alistair Frost,” I supplied, placing the folder on my desk. “Leo had his name written down. Along with notes about light. Cold light.”

Chen’s eyes widened. “That’s a connection.”

“It’s a thread.” I turned to Donovan. “Liam, dig up everything you can on Dr. Alistair Frost. Any affiliations, publications, address. Use every database we have access to.”

Donovan nodded, already turning back to his computer, his fingers tapping keys with rapid, purposeful strokes.

Chen leaned against the edge of my desk. “Elena also said Leo had been… anxious. Not scared, but watchful. He’d check the locks twice at night. He’d sometimes stare out the window for long periods. She asked him about it, and he’d just say, ‘The world is full of wonders, and some of them are dark.’”

Wonders. The word felt grotesque juxtaposed with the image of his opened chest. “Did he have any enemies? Business disputes?”

“None she knew of. His business was small, niche. He wasn’t competitive enough to make enemies.”

I looked at the notes again. The sketch of the circles. ‘The source is internal. The display is external.’ It sounded like a philosophy. Or a methodology. “This isn’t a business dispute. This is ideological. Or experimental.”

Donovan’s computer chimed with a soft alert. He leaned forward, reading. “Got a hit. Alistair Frost. PhD in biophysics from Stanford. Published a series of papers about ten years ago on ‘non-thermal photonic emissions in biological tissue.’ Worked for a private research firm called ‘Helios Institute’ here in Ravenport. The institute shut down five years ago after… after some controversy.”

“Controversy?” Chen prompted.

“Funding issues. Ethical questions. Their research was into… light therapy. Using specific wavelengths to treat disease. But there were allegations of unauthorized human trials. Never proven. Institute dissolved. Frost disappeared from public records. No current address listed.”

“Human trials,” I repeated, the words tasting sour. “Leo Mercer wasn’t sick. Was he a volunteer? Or was he something else?”

“We need to find Frost,” Chen said decisively. “He’s the only link we have to Mercer’s secret project.”

“I’ll keep digging,” Donovan said. “Maybe there’s an old home address. A colleague who stayed in town.”

I stood up, my body feeling stiff, coiled. “We also need to revisit the scene. Without the body, we might see something we missed. And we need to track down that ‘cold light’ Ernie saw. Could be a piece of equipment Frost or someone else used.”

Chen checked her watch. “It’s almost noon. We should go now, while there’s daylight.”

“Agreed.” I grabbed my jacket. “Liam, keep working on Frost. Call us if you find anything solid.”

Donovan gave a thumbs-up, already engrossed in another database search.