Chapter 9: The Notebook
Sarah was already reaching for her car keys before Agent Reeves finished speaking.
"My notebook."
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"I have to see the lab."
Reeves stepped between her and the apartment door.
"You will."
"But not alone."
"It could still be an active crime scene."
Sarah nodded, forcing herself to slow down.
Years of scientific training had taught her one painful lesson.
Panic destroys evidence.
Forty minutes later, three government vehicles rolled onto the nearly deserted campus.
Yellow crime-scene tape surrounded the neuroscience building.
Blue emergency lights reflected across the glass entrance.
The building that had been Sarah's second home suddenly looked unfamiliar.
A campus police officer met Reeves outside.
"Nothing else appears missing."
"No signs of vandalism."
"No expensive equipment touched."
Reeves frowned.
"So whoever entered knew exactly what they wanted."
"Looks that way."
Sarah waited until the forensic team finished photographing the laboratory.
Then Reeves finally nodded.
"You can come in."
The room looked almost untouched.
Microscopes remained perfectly aligned.
Chemical bottles stood exactly where they belonged.
Even the chairs hadn't been moved.
Only one thing was different.
The third drawer beneath Sarah's workstation stood open.
Empty.
She walked toward it slowly.
Her fingertips hovered over the drawer without touching it.
"It was here."
She whispered.
"My blue notebook."
Dr. Patricia Hendricks arrived moments later, still wearing the same navy suit from graduation.
She looked around the room.
"No broken windows."
"No damaged locks."
Campus security director Alan Pierce approached them.
"The electronic access logs are strange."
Reeves looked up.
"How so?"
"The door wasn't forced."
"It was opened with an authorized key card."
Sarah frowned.
"Whose?"
Pierce hesitated.
"That's the strange part."
He handed Reeves a printed report.
The card belonged to...
Sarah Elizabeth Thompson.
Sarah stared at the page.
"That's impossible."
"My card has been with me all day."
She reached into her graduation gown pocket and held it up.
The white plastic access card was still attached to her keychain.
Pierce nodded.
"I know."
"We checked."
"The card in your possession is genuine."
Reeves slowly folded the report.
"So someone cloned it."
Lisa Chen examined the drawer.
"No fingerprints."
"Professional."
She looked toward Sarah.
"Tell me about the notebook."
Sarah took a deep breath.
"It wasn't a lab notebook."
"What do you mean?"
"My official research was stored on secure university servers."
"The notebook was personal."
"What was inside?"
Sarah thought for a moment.
"Ideas."
"Hypotheses."
"Questions."
"Things I couldn't prove yet."
Dr. Hendricks quietly added,
"Some of them were brilliant."
Sarah looked embarrassed.
"Most were probably wrong."
Patricia smiled.
"The best scientists write down ideas that might be wrong."
Reeves opened his notebook.
"Was there anything commercially valuable?"
Sarah hesitated.
"I don't know."
Dr. Hendricks answered for her.
"There might have been."
Everyone turned toward her.
"Several months ago, Sarah proposed a completely different way of modeling protein misfolding."
Pierce looked confused.
"In English?"
Patricia smiled faintly.
"If she's right..."
"...drug development for several neurodegenerative diseases could become dramatically faster."
The room fell silent.
Lisa slowly looked back at the empty drawer.
"So this wasn't a random theft."
"No."
Dr. Hendricks answered.
"It never was."
Meanwhile, forensic technician Brian Keller called Reeves over.
"You need to see this."
He pointed toward the laboratory window.
"There are footprints."
Outside?
Brian nodded.
"Not coming in."
"Going out."
They followed the trail across damp soil behind the building.
The prints stopped beside a service road.
"There."
Brian pointed.
Fresh tire tracks.
Wide.
Deep.
"Delivery van?"
Reeves asked.
Brian shook his head.
"No."
"Luxury SUV."
At the Thompson family home, Marcus couldn't sleep.
His mind replayed the entire graduation ceremony over and over.
Every word.
Every expression.
Every lie.
He walked into the garage looking for an old toolbox.
Instead...
He noticed something odd.
His father's black SUV was covered with fresh mud.
Marcus frowned.
It hadn't rained near their house.
He crouched beside the rear tire.
Small pieces of reddish soil clung to the tread.
The same reddish soil found around the university's science buildings.
Marcus stood slowly.
His father had told everyone he drove straight home after graduation.
So why had his SUV been on campus again?
Back in the laboratory, Sarah sat quietly at her desk.
She kept staring at the empty drawer.
Then something occurred to her.
She opened another drawer.
Inside lay a stack of loose index cards.
She flipped through them quickly.
Her breathing slowed.
Dr. Hendricks noticed.
"What is it?"
Sarah smiled for the first time that evening.
"I remember now."
Everyone looked at her.
"I never trusted myself."
"What do you mean?"
She laughed softly.
"I was always afraid I'd lose the notebook."
"So..."
She reached beneath the desk.
Hidden with tape underneath the wooden frame was a thin flash drive.
She carefully removed it.
"I scanned every page."
Reeves raised an eyebrow.
"You made a backup."
Sarah nodded.
"About six months ago."
Dr. Hendricks laughed out loud.
"I taught you well."
Relief spread through the room.
The notebook was gone.
But its contents survived.
Lisa smiled.
"Then whoever stole it doesn't actually have anything unique."
Sarah's smile slowly faded.
"Not exactly."
"What?"
"The notebook had something else."
Reeves looked up.
"What?"
Sarah swallowed.
"I kept one page separate."
"A handwritten note."
"From my grandmother."
Dr. Hendricks frowned.
"I didn't know you still had that."
Sarah nodded.
"It was the last thing she ever wrote."
"My research wasn't what mattered."
She looked at the empty drawer.
"I wanted that page back."
Just then, Brian Keller called from outside again.
"Agent Reeves!"
Reeves hurried over.
"What now?"
Brian held up a small metallic object in an evidence bag.
"We found this near the tire tracks."
It was a silver cufflink.
Elegant.
Expensive.
Engraved with a single letter.
R.
Reeves stared at it.
"So did Richard Thompson return to campus..."
Lisa asked quietly.
"...or is someone trying to make it look that way?"
Before Reeves could answer, Sarah's phone buzzed.
Unknown Number.
Again.
This time there was no voice.
Only a text message.
May you like
"The notebook was never the target. You were."
End of Chapter 9
