Agent Jasi McLellan awoke from her nightmare screaming and drenched in sweat. Irritated by a piercing sound, she turned her pounding head and glanced at the wall beside her.
A technologically advanced video-screened wall, or vid-wall, had recently been added to her daunting security system. The wall was divided into four monitors—each coded for different activities.
The message screen flashed brightly.
Someone was trying to contact her.
“Receive message,” she croaked.
She was rewarded with silence.
Jasi eyed the clock. 5:30 in the goddamn morning. Who the hell would be calling her this early on her day off?
Glaring words flashed across the monitor followed by a voice, deep and urgent. “Jasi, we need you! Ben.”
She was suddenly wide awake.
“Message for Ben.”
When the system connected with Ben’s data-communicator, she said, “Give me fifteen minutes. End message.”
She glanced at the words on the screen and realized her holiday was over. She wondered for a moment what was so important that Ben had to interrupt her downtime. With two days left, she had hoped to catch up on some much-needed rest.
Crawling from beneath the sweat-soaked sheets, she crouched on the edge of the bed and reached for her portable data-com.
She checked the calendar.
A black X was scribbled over the date.
“Oh God,” she moaned.
Today was her twenty-sixth birthday.
Jasi hated birthdays.
She pushed herself off her bed. In the dark, her toe connected sharply with the corner of the dresser and she let out a startled yelp.
“Ensuite lights on, low!”
Her Home Security & Environmental Control System immediately raised the lighting to a soft muted glow. Some days she was very thankful she had allowed Ben to install H-SECS in her new apartment. Of course, on the days when she couldn’t remember a command or the security code to her weapons safe, Ben would get an earful.
Limping to the bathroom, Jasi shook her head.
Could this day possibly get any worse? Maybe I should go back to bed… wake up tomorrow.
She hugged her arms close to her chest and stepped into the ensuite bathroom. Parking her butt on the toilet, she stared at her throbbing toe. Scowling, she stood up, leaned tiredly against the sink and examined her reflection.
That’s when she remembered her recurring nightmare.
“Why can’t you leave me alone?” she whispered to a dead girl who wasn’t there.
Frowning at her puffy, shadowed green eyes, Jasi splashed cool water on her face and rested her elbows on the edge of the sink. She traced a finger over the small scar that ran down the left side of her chin. It was barely noticeable, except to her.
Spurring herself into action, she cast a self-deprecating glance at her hazy image and then headed for the shower.
“Shower on, massage, 110 degrees,” she commanded as she removed her panties and nightshirt. “Radio on, volume 7.”
Music from her favorite rock station pounded in through the ceiling speakers as she stumbled into the large shower stall. Stretching hesitantly, she relaxed her tense muscles and breathed a sigh of relief when the steamy water sent thoughts of a dead girl swirling down the drain.
Jasi lathered her long auburn hair and stood under the spray, allowing the water to massage her scalp. Grimacing, she slid a wide-toothed comb through the tangled mess of wavy locks. Her hair had a mind of its own. More than once Jasi had threatened to chop it off but she was afraid she’d end up with a ’fro.
Couldn’t have that. No one would take her seriously.
Her central data-com beeped suddenly.
Her fifteen minutes were up.
Cursing under her breath, she spit toothpaste into the sink, barely missing the soap dispenser.
“Data-com on!”
“Hey there, sunshine!” a male voice boomed. “You miss us?” Benjamin Roberts, her friend and partner, didn’t wait for a response. “Divine has issued a Command Meet. He says he’s sorry to cut your downtime short but we need you.”
His voice followed Jasi as she returned to her bedroom and ordered the lights on full.
She sighed loudly. “It’s not like I have anything better to do today. Like relax, go to a movie, or hook up with a handsome stranger for a night of passion.”
She eyed the closet nervously, then whipped the door open and stepped back, unsure of what or who might emerge.
No one was there.
“Hey, am I interrupting something?”
She grabbed some clothes, slamming the door quickly.
“I wish! What’s up, Ben?”
Stepping into a pair of casual slacks and a light blouse, she waited for her partner’s answer.
“You still in the shower, Jasi? Maybe you should put up the vid-wall.” She heard him snicker.
“Yeah right!”
“We caught a case near Kelowna—a fire.” Ben’s voice grew serious. “One victim, Dr. Norman Washburn, ER doc at Kelowna General.”
Jasi frowned, and strapped on a shoulder harness.
Kelowna.
She hadn’t been there in years. Not since the disastrous Okanagan Mountain forest fires of 2003. Now, nine years later, she would be returning. She’d have to take some precautions, prepare herself.
“Why’d they call us?”
“Sorry, Jasi. I know you’re still officially on downtime, but this one is bad. They found a link to another fire. Two victims—a mother and child in Victoria. Unsolved.”
There was a long silence.
“Ben?”
She heard a soft chuckle on the other end. “By the way, Jasi, Happy Birthday.”
“How’d they link that one to the doctor?” she asked, ignoring the reference to her birthday.
When he told her what the crime scene investigators had found at the scene, Jasi grabbed her 9-millimeter Beretta, checked the safety and jammed it into the holster. Then she dashed from the apartment—a shadow hot on her heels.
A cab dropped her off at an isolated address in the West End. On the roof of a seedy-looking warehouse, a helicopter waited, its engine camouflaged by the busy drone of the streets below. Vancouver was a city in perpetual motion. A city that never slept.
Hiking her handbag over one shoulder, Jasi keyed in her security access code and spoke her name into the VR box. The Voice Recognition program was the latest addition to security.
When the door opened, she stepped inside a small airlock. A man in army greens and a brush-cut greeted her. He was loosely carrying a rifle in one hand.
“Hey, Thomas,” she waved.
The weapons tech was tall and muscular, with a face like a pit-bull. Recognizing her, he cracked what was his idea of a smile. “Agent McLellan. Good to see you back.”
Jasi removed the Beretta from her pocket and laid it in a clear plastic tray. The tray was carried on a conveyor into a hole in the wall where the gun was scanned and the registration was recorded.
Thomas buzzed her through.
She followed a short hallway that opened to a large room filled with computers and electronic equipment. Another guard escorted her through a body scan, metal and powder detector and a fingerprint analyzer.
The last stage was the Retinal Scanner Device.
“I spy with my little eye,” the RSD tech, Vanda, greeted her cheerfully.
“Eyes that are puffy and bagged… and belong to a sixty-year-old,” Jasi muttered when the RSD clicked off and Vanda waved her on.
“For a sixty-year-old, you’re lookin’ pretty damned good, girl,” the woman teased.