The Jerusalem Creed: A Sean Wyatt Thriller by Ernest Dempsey

missed anything?”
    Tommy had drifted over to a desk in the corner. It was void of anything. The paperwork, pens, stationery, and everything else that belonged to it had been cast onto the floor in the hurried search. The drawers had been pulled out and thrown into the pile too. The only drawer that remained was the center one over the chair space.
    He’d worked with Sean enough to know where to look when other people thought they’d searched everywhere. While the men who took Nehem might have scoured his research, torn through his furniture, and believed they found what they were looking for or not, Tommy and Sean knew that the cleverest people in the world always found a way to hide their most important information. Usually, it was right under the searcher’s nose.
    “Nehem knew I would come here,” Tommy said, interrupting the other two and their argument about calling the police. “He knew I would come to Israel, looking for him. He was afraid. I thought when I read his email that was maybe the case. His typing seemed hurried, his tone concerned. If he knew someone was coming for him, he wouldn’t have just sent the photos of the tablet to me. There was something else.”
    He scratched his head and sat down in the humble wooden chair near the desk. He pulled out the center drawer and felt underneath it, on the bottom of the workstation’s surface. His fingers ran along the smooth wood but found nothing. Tommy had hoped there would be something taped to the underside of the desktop. Unfortunately, his guess was wrong.
    He didn’t give up. He stood and stepped over to the back of the desk that was flush against the wall. Pressing his back against the wall, he leveraged his weight and moved the workstation back six inches so he could see the front panel. As the surface was exposed to more light, he saw that there was nothing there.
    Tommy sighed but tried to keep the disappointment from creeping into his thoughts. “Guys, flip over that sofa, and see if you can find anything underneath it.”
    Sean nodded and motioned for Karem to help. The Israeli was indignant at first but surrendered and bent down as Sean stepped around to the other side and lifted the heavy piece. The two men tipped it over, revealing the woven polyester underside. Otherwise, there was nothing helpful to be found.
    Tommy sat down in the desk chair and let out a long sigh. Whoever had come here before them had cleaned the place out. If there was a clue as to what it was Nehem was working on or who might have taken him, it was long gone by now.
    Sean scratched the back of his head as he surveyed their surroundings. “I’m going to check the bathroom and the bedroom. Come with me,” he said to Karem.
    Despite what he thought was best, Karem obeyed and followed Sean to the back of the apartment and into a bedroom that couldn’t have been more than twelve feet square. There was a small master bathroom attached to it with what looked like the cheapest faucet and sink the largest wholesaler had to offer.
    Sean scanned the wrecked bedroom for clues. The cotton had been ripped out of the pillows and tossed aside. The mattress was removed from the box spring and lay at an angle over the edge of the latter.
    The nightstand’s drawers were pulled out and emptied onto the floor. A few notepads, pens, and some prescription pill bottles were all that the act had produced. Sean looked over at a nearly empty closet. The clothes had been searched and dropped on the floor. He could almost see the invaders going through the process in his imagination.
    “Well?” Karem asked. “See anything?”
    Sean shook his head, perplexed. “No. They’ve been through all of this.”
    Back in the other room, Tommy sat in the chair, with his head in his hands. To the untrained eye, he would have appeared distraught. The fact of the matter was that he was thinking hard about the situation. Nehem would have left a clue in a place that no one else would have