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think Monk is still alive?”
    “I…I don’t know.”
    “And you can live with that?”
    Gray met his gaze, unflinching. “I’ll have to.”
    Painter nodded, satisfied. “Then let’s talk about this coin.”
    Gray reached out and took the coin from the desktop. Turning it in his fingers, he examined its freshly cleaned surfaces. “Were you able to determine much about it?”
    “Quite a bit. It’s a Roman coin minted during the second century. Take a look at the woman’s portrait on the back. That’s Faustina the Elder, wife of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius. She was a patron of orphanedgirls and sponsored many women’s charities. She also had a fascination with a sisterhood of sibyls, prophetic women from a temple in Greece.”
    Painter waved for Gray to turn the coin over. “That’s the temple on the other side. The temple of Delphi.”
    “As in the Oracle of Delphi? The female prophets?”
    “The same.”
    The coin’s report on Painter’s desk included a historical sheet about the Oracle, detailing how these women would inhale hallucinogenic fumes and answer questions of the future from supplicants. But their prophecies were more than just fortune-telling, for these women had a great impact on the ancient world. Over the course of a millennium, the Oracle’s prophecies played a role in freeing thousands of slaves, setting the seeds of Western democracy, and elevating the sanctity of human life. Some claimed their words were pivotal at lifting Greece out from barbarism and toward modern civilization.
    “But what about the big E in the center of the temple?” Gray asked. “I assume the letter is Greek, too. Epsilon.”
    “Yes. That’s also from the Oracle’s temple. There were a couple cryptic inscriptions in the temple: Gnothi seauton, which translates—”
    “Know thyself,” Gray answered.
    Painter nodded. He had to remind himself that Gray was well versed in ancient philosophies. When Painter had first recruited him out of Leavenworth prison, Gray had been studying both advanced chemistry and Taoism. It was this very uniqueness of his mind that had intrigued Painter from the start. But such distinctiveness came with a price. Gray did not always play well with others, as he had demonstrated amply these past weeks. It was good to see him focusing on the here and now again.
    “Then there was that mysterious E ,” Painter continued, nodding to the coin. “It lay carved in the temple’s inner sanctum.”
    “But what does it mean?”
    Painter shrugged. “No one knows. Not even the Greeks. Historians going all the way back to the ancient Greek scholar Plutarch have speculated at its significance. The current thought among modern historians isthat there used to be two letters. A G and an E , representing the Earth goddess, Gaia. The earliest temple at Delphi was built to worship Gaia.”
    “Still, if the meaning is so mysterious, why depict it on the coin?”
    Painter slid the report across his desk toward Gray. “You can read more about it in here. Over time, the Oracle’s E became a symbol for a cult of prophecy. It’s depicted in paintings throughout the ages, including Nicolas Poussin’s Ordination, where it’s inscribed above Christ’s head as he hands the keys of heaven to Peter. The symbol is supposed to mark a time of great and fundamental change in the world, usually brought about by a single individual, whether that be the Oracle of Delphi or Jesus of Nazareth.”
    Gray left the papers on the desk and shook his head. “But what does all this have to do with the dead man?” Gray lifted the silver coin. “Was this valuable? Worth killing over?”
    Painter shook his head. “Not especially. It’s of moderate value, but nothing spectacular.”
    “Then what—?”
    The intercom’s buzz cut him off. “Director Crowe, I’m sorry to interrupt,” his assistant said over the speaker.
    “What is it, Brant?”
    “I have an urgent call from Dr. Jennings down in the pathology lab.