Page 103 of The Session

Platelike crusts sat on the surface and between the fibers.

“Looks like this has spent some time in the ocean and then dried out. This is salt,” she observed.

She moved the mount, sliding the cord back through the display, then stopped again.

“More abrasion and salt. You can also see this is more faded from sun exposure,” she added.

“Do you think the first one was ever in the ocean at all?”

“No. I think it barely made it out of the package.” Holly turned to him. “What’s this all about?”

As much as he wanted to confide in her, he knew he couldn’t. He’d already seen her limited capacity for stress.

His theory had been just that, though he hadn’t expected this kind of confirmation. The clean cord came from Kevin’s kayak. Same with the worn one. Both had been sitting under the tarp since he’d died.

If the kayak had capsized like investigators claimed, the cord would have been saturated with salt water. Hell, even light use would soak the straps, top to bottom. But somehow the kayak’s rear cord had never seen use.

The only reasonable explanation Mark could think of was that the original cord had been replaced because it had broken or been lost when Kevin drowned. The strapping would be the first thing somebody trying to capsize the kayak—or trying to right it—would grasp. The fact that it had snapped or been removed suggested a violent interaction.

Moreover, someone had gone to the trouble to replace the missing or damaged strapping, which meant somebody had tried to cover it up.

It wasn’t hard for Mark to picture how it happened, and how the killer raced to replace the missing cord to hide the incident.

There were several shops on Eleuthera that sold sporting equipment as well as marine supplies. Finding a cord close enough in size wouldn’t have been that difficult.

“Are you okay, babe?” Holly asked.

Mark realized he’d been lost in thought. “Yeah. Sorry. Just thinking something over.”

“Um . . . is this something you need to go to the police about?”

“It’s complicated,” he said.

“Then tell me this. Did you come all the way out here for me to look at this for you?”

Her arms were crossed, and she was biting her lip—her tell for debating whether to raise her voice.

Mark placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “I came here because you’re the only person I can trust.”

“I need more than that,” she whispered. “You can still trust me, Mark. Just because . . .”

“I know. But that’s all I’ve got right now.”

“Then I guess we should be heading back to the airport.”

Detour

Summit Strategies had a private jet waiting for Mark by the time Holly dropped him off at the Albuquerque Executive Airport. He had made no secret of his trip to visit her in Santa Fe and didn’t see any reason to use commercial air travel to make his way back to Miami. He’d only flown commercial to hide his side trip in Eleuthera.

Lots to talk about when you get back, Tru texted as Mark got on the plane.

An hour into the flight, the pilot apologized that their satellite Wi-Fi wasn’t working. It didn’t bother Mark; he was dividing his time between studying for the exam and grabbing short naps.

He was starting to see a broader pattern in his father’s thinking that helped him understand—and predict—some of the sample questions in the workbook he’d been given. Lightman was intelligent but carried the arrogance of many self-taught men: He acted as if the things he didn’t know weren’t important, except when he learned them through some freewheeling experience. While he would humbly admit that he didn’t have all the answers, he was equally quick to disregard other fields that claimed they did.

A common theme in Lightman’s stories—whether he was meeting a group of scientists at MIT or being invited to a dinner party of Nobel Prize winners—was recounting the meeting in a way that left him with the upper hand, usually via a clever quip.

Underneath it all lay a deep insecurity. While he lauded Arnold Feingold’s academic success, he’d also dismiss it as a waste of Arnold’s time, paying his colleague a compliment while also suggesting that chasing the approval of academics was beneath him.