Page 54 of Dead Drift

Though, since being reunited with Katie, he was a new believer in mental anguish being equal to, if not harsher than, physical pain. Physical pain healed. If his relationship with Katie did not—and it was a long shot, at best—he doubted that the raw, pulsating inner agony would ever abate.

Declan’s team infiltrated the warehouse, and as soon as Luke was cleared to proceed, they walked inside together.

“Anything?” he asked as Declan met him at the door.

“How’s your arm?”

Seriously. It’s just a flesh wound, people. “Fine. And the warehouse?”

“It’s been cleared, but it’s going to take a while to comb through.”

Luke exhaled. “We were too late.”

Declan’s head dipped in affirmation.

Frustration flared inside of Luke. Ebeid had once again slipped through his grasp.

As Luke followed Declan through the warehouse, he was impressed. It had been transformed into three sections. There was storage—at least that was what the shelves and few remaining boxes attested to—living quarters, no doubt Bedan’s, and most terrifying, Bedan’s laboratory.

Declan insisted they await the hazmat team’s clearance before entering the glass-walled storage container functioning as Bedan’s lab.

Luke moved through the living quarters while he awaited the hazmat team’s go-ahead, praying that, in the rush to flee, something, anything had been left behind to give them a fresh lead.

Ebeid had set up a comfortable environment for Bedan, probably knowing the more comfortable the scientist was, the better his work would be.

There was a galley-style kitchen, which still held a good amount of food. Closing the fridge door, he surveyed the cabinets and then continued moving through the space into the living room. There was a sofa, reclining chair, a couple accessory tables, and a TV mounted on the wall. Though, based on the impressive amount of reading material stacked on the side table, Bedan was not a TV enthusiast.

Luke scanned the book titles, careful not to touch anything until it was all properly processed, despite the gloves he had on. He knew Parker would step in for the still-recuperating Avery and photograph everything as it was found before anything was moved. Then the agents would spend hours, possibly days, cataloging and bagging every item.

With a sigh, Luke straightened and shook his head at the titles he’d just read. They were chasing a man with frightening knowledge and ability.

“Find something of interest?” Declan asked, entering the space.

Luke indicated the stack of books.

“Let me guess. Terrifying topics?”

Luke raked a gloved hand through his hair. “Extremely.”

“So is this,” Declan said, holding up a bagged sheet of paper with mathematical and scientific notations on it.

Luke’s curiosity sped.

“The hazmat team found it behind one of the counters in the lab. Must have slipped behind during the rush to move out. From the state we found things in, along with the number of items they had time to move, I’d wager they discovered the GPS trackers in the truck early this morning, soon after they took Hank out.”

“Which gave them several hours’ head start on us.”

Declan rubbed the back of his neck with a sigh. “I’m afraid so. On the plus side, they probably don’t know how closely we were behind them, and they made a few significant mistakes, like leaving this”—he jiggled the paper again—“behind.”

“And what is it, exactly?”

“I know it deals with chemical agents that bond with anthrax and sarin gas, but that’s the extent of my mathematical and scientific expertise.” He handed it to Luke.

Luke studied the page through the plastic evidence bag. “It looks like the notes around the edges are in some sort of mathematical shorthand.”

“That would explain why I had no clue what it meant,” Declan said.

“I think”—Luke’s mind tracked back—“I’ve seen this before. . . .”