Chapter 53

They climbed out of the huge dark SUV and skirted the residential area on foot, all three of them keeping to the shadows as they navigated back to the old warehouse lot where the tip had led them.

The building looked like shit from the outside – a 1970s industrial eyesore of concrete, wood, and glass. Steel posts from what had once been part of a chain-link fence poked out of the perimeter lot at various angles, not a single one of them straight, not that it mattered. The place had a derelict, keep-out quality about it, even amid the snowglobe flurries that were filling the night sky.

The men stepped onto the loose gravel of the empty lot, their boots' heels cushioned by the fresh fall of snow. As they neared the building, he spotted a dark ash trail on the ground. The large, irregular shape was still visible, still smoldering and hissing as the delicate white flakes fell on it and melted on contact. He gestured to the pile of disintegrating remains as Bryan and Leon cam