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Sheridan snaps photos of the books before putting them all in a garbage bag to take with us. Maybe we’ll get lucky and learn Clint was part of a domestic terrorism book club.
Tracking a loner is the worst way to start an investigation, but no one is a complete island. Someone knows something about Clint Cross. Maybe that someone is only the guy who made his sandwiches or the woman who spied on what music and podcasts he listened to on the Metro every day. He existed in this world, and he left footprints. Now we find them and we run him down.
We toss his apartment, emptying every cupboard, flipping every pile of clothes. We cut into the beanbag and lift the carpet to search the floorboards before pulling each baseboard from the walls. I unscrew the pipes under the sinks and search the traps. We drain the toilet, empty the tank, and rip the pedestal from the floor.
Ahn calls me as Sheridan is wrestling the toilet into the bathtub. They’ve transported Brennan’s SUV to the lab at headquarters. “I’m about to start on the recovered remains,” she says. “I should have something in an hour.”
I empty the fridge and freezer—mustard, Mountain Dew, and frozen burritos—as Sheridan sticks his hand down the disposal. It’s the last place to check before we book it. Liu left around dawn.
Sheridan flinches, forearm-deep. He pulls out his hand—covered in black sludge and food particles—and holds out a balled-up piece of soaked paper.
It’s too waterlogged to unroll without destroying it. We’ll have to dry it out.
“There’s always something,” I say to Sheridan.
People think they’re clever when they try to throw evidence away. Disposals and toilets are favorite places, but a disposal isn’t a paper shredder, and this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten lucky down there.
There’s an empty burrito wrapper on the counter, and I grab it for Sheridan to drop the mess into.
He washes his hands three times before we leave. Our soot-stained SUV, which we left half on the curb, has a parking ticket on the windshield. I crumple it and toss it on the back seat as Sheridan loads in Clint’s books. The burrito wrapper is safe inside the inner pocket of his suit jacket.
“Text Marshall,” I say as I pull into traffic, cutting off an Audi and getting the middle finger from a man on his cell phone. “Tell him we tossed Clint’s apartment.”
Sheridan makes a face, but he pulls out the burner phone. “Do I tell him what we found?”
“The books, sure. We don’t know what we found in the disposal yet.”
He doesn’t answer me, and I don’t read over his shoulder as he types out a message to the vice president. When he’s done, he powers down the phone and shoves it into his pocket.
“Sheridan, you need to come out of this on your feet. If you need to cut me loose—”
“Stop,” he growls.
“Sheridan—”
“Sir.” I’ve never heard this tone from him. He’s gruff, hard, and angry. No, he’s furious. “I’m not abandoning you.”
I turn onto Connecticut and head back toward downtown.
Neither of us says another word.
