Chapter 10: The Unknown Caller
The microwave beeped, a shrill alarm in the quiet. Jennifer didn’t move. “Who is this?”
“A friend. Or at least, someone who isn’t your enemy.” The voice was calm, measured, with a slight East Coast clip. “I understand you’ve been asking questions about Praetor Dynamics. And The Aerie.”
Every muscle in Jennifer’s body went tight. She put the phone on speaker, set it on the counter, and slowly reached for her service weapon in its holster on the kitchen chair. “I’m a detective. I ask questions about a lot of things. You’ll need to be more specific.”
“The polymer fiber. Nylon-6,12 with the polyethylene terephthalate core. The UV flaw.” The woman’s words were a quiet recitation of facts that should have existed only in an evidence log and Sam Weaver’s lab. “I have context. Information about its procurement and its use. I’m willing to share it.”
“Why?” Jennifer’s mind raced. A trap was the obvious answer. A lure to pull her out into the open. But the details were too precise, too inside. This wasn’t a blind hook; it was a targeted spear. “And why call me?”
“Because you have the fiber. And because you went to the desert. That was… admirably stupid. It shows you’re not just filing paperwork.” A pause, the soft sound of a breath. “I was a logistics coordinator for Praetor for eighteen months. I left six weeks ago. I took things with me. Insurance.”
“You have a name?”
“Not over the phone. But I’ll give you a face. One hour. The Constellation Diner on Western, in Koreatown. Sit at the counter. Order the lemon meringue pie. I’ll find you.”
“That’s a scene from a bad movie.”
“It’s a public place with good sigh lines and three exits. It’s practical. One hour, Detective Wu. Come alone. If I see any black-and-whites, or your ginger friend from the morgue, I vanish. And you go back to guessing.”
The line went dead.
Jennifer stared at the phone. Her reflection in the dark window looked back, pale and serious. Every instinct, every lesson from fifteen years on the job, screamed that this was a spectacularly bad idea. Walking into a blind meet with a source who knew tactical details of an active homicide? Ruiz would bench her for a month.
But Ruiz wasn’t here. And the FedEx slip in her pocket was a dead-end without a map.
She ate the burrito in four savage bites, the flavors of processed beans and cheese barely registering. Fuel. She checked her Glock, ejected the magazine, slapped it back home with a solid thwack. She shoved her badge and a backup mag into her jacket pocket. She left the main light on, the TV playing to an empty couch.
The night air outside was cooler now, smelling of jasmine and distant traffic. She took her personal car, an older Honda Civic that blended into the asphalt. Koreatown at night was a neon symphony, glowing hangul signs advertising karaoke bars, barbecue, and 24-hour spas. The Constellation Diner was a wedge of chrome and faded pink neon at the edge of it all, a relic from a different era.
She pushed through the glass door, a bell jingling overhead. The air was thick with the smell of fried onions, coffee, and lemon-scented cleaner. A few late-night patrons were scattered in red vinyl booths: a couple arguing in hushed tones, an old man nursing a cup of coffee, two kids sharing a plate of fries, their faces illuminated by their phones.
She took a stool at the counter, her back to the wall, giving her a view of the door and the long mirror behind the pie carousel. A tired-looking waiter with a grease-stained apron slid a menu toward her. “Coffee?”
“Please. And a slice of the lemon meringue.”
He nodded, shuffling away. Her skin felt electric, hyper-aware of every movement. The bell on the door jingled again. Her hand drifted under her jacket, resting on the butt of her Glock.
A woman walked in. Mid-forties, sharp brunette bob, wearing a nondescript navy blazer over a white t-shirt and jeans. She carried no purse. Her eyes scanned the room, passed over Jennifer without a flicker of recognition, and she took a booth in the corner, facing the entrance.
Not her. A decoy? A player?
The waiter brought Jennifer’s coffee and pie. The meringue was improbably tall, lightly browned. She took a forkful, the tartness making her jaw clench. She watched the woman in the booth. The woman ordered tea. She didn’t look at her phone. She just sat, waiting.
Five minutes passed. The diner’s clock ticked loudly. Then the kitchen door, the one marked ‘STAFF ONLY’ next to the cash register, swung open. A different woman emerged, dressed in kitchen whites—a stained apron, a cook’s shirt. She had blonde hair tied in a severe bun and wire-rimmed glasses. She walked straight to the counter, refilled Jennifer’s coffee pot from a brewer behind the counter, and as she leaned in, she spoke without looking at her.
“The pie any good?”
“It’s pie,” Jennifer said, her voice steady.
The woman—Elena, she had to be—gave a thin, fleeting smile. “My friend in the booth is a courtesy. In case you were followed. She’ll leave in two minutes. You should leave five minutes after that. Check the napkin holder.”
She turned and walked back into the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind her.
Jennifer didn’t turn. She took another bite of pie, her heart hammering against her ribs. In the mirror, she saw the woman in the booth stand up, drop a few bills on the table, and walk out into the night. Two minutes. She counted them down, sipping the bitter coffee.
When she stood, she tossed a twenty on the counter. She picked up the red plastic napkin holder, a cheap, gravity-fed thing. Beneath the stack of napkins was a small, black USB drive. She palmed it, the plastic cool against her skin, and walked out.
The drive felt like a live wire in her pocket the whole drive home. She took a circuitous route, watching her mirrors, seeing nothing but normal headlights in the rain-smeared night. Back in her apartment, the familiar surroundings felt different, violated by the possibility that someone knew she’d been there, knew about her case.
She deadbolted the door, pulled the curtains closed. She dug an old, air-gapped laptop out of a closet, one she used for nothing personal. She booted it up, the fan whirring loudly. When the desktop finally glowed to life, she inserted the USB.
A single folder appeared, labeled “LOGISTICS.” Inside were spreadsheets, PDFs, and a handful of video files with numerical names.
She opened the first spreadsheet. It was a shipping manifest. Column after column of purchase orders, dates, destination codes. Her eyes skimmed down, looking for the polymer spec. There. Multiple entries for “NY-612-PET Core (Lot D7-F).” The destination code was consistently “AER.” The Aerie. The client code column simply read “PDX.” Not Praetor. Something else.
Another column listed “TRAINING MODULE.” Next to the polymer shipments were codes like “RT-1,” “SILO-3,” “CLEAN-7.”
She opened a PDF. It was a protocol, written in dry, technical language. “Subject Restraint and Positioning for Optimal Terminal Ballistic Outcomes.” It included diagrams. One showed a figure in a chair, one wrist loosely tethered to an armrest. The text noted the advantages of partial restraint: “limits defensive reflex without inciting panic, ensures cooperative posture for precise anatomical targeting.”
Jennifer’s stomach turned. She was reading the instruction manual for the senator’s murder.
She opened a video file. The time stamp was from eight months ago. The footage was grainy, taken from a high angle, likely a security camera. It showed a warehouse space, mats on the floor. Two figures in tactical gear practiced a fluid, brutal drill. One approached a seated mannequin, secured its wrist with a swift motion, drew a pistol from a hip holster, and fired a single round into its chest. The entire sequence took less than four seconds. The practitioner then checked the mannequin, retrieved the tether with a small, hooked tool, and placed both the tool and the spent casing into a sealed bag.
The efficiency was chilling. It was a martial art of assassination.
The last file was a client list. It wasn’t long. Coded names, but with dollar amounts attached. Retainers. She recognized one code: “MD-SEC.” The retainer was substantial, paid in quarterly installments from an account numbered in the Bahamas. The last payment was dated three weeks before the senator’s death.
Senator Mark Delgado hadn’t just been a target. He’d been a client.
The revelation landed like a physical blow. She leaned back, the office chair groaning. The pieces spun and re-ordered themselves. The lack of forced entry. The disarmed alarm. The compliant restraint. He’d let them in. He’d known them. Or he’d known the service they represented. He’d paid for a security detail, for training, for something. And then they’d turned it on him.
Why?
The USB held the ‘how’ in clinical detail. It didn’t touch the ‘why.’ But it gave her a new target: PDX. She did a quick search on the air-gapped machine. PDX could be a location code—Portland. Or it could be an acronym.
Her personal phone buzzed on the desk, making her jump. A text from Sam.
> You alive? Or did the desert claim you?
She stared at the phone, then at the damning files on the screen. She couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not over text. Bringing him in now would just pull him into the crosshairs. She typed back, her fingers feeling thick and clumsy.
> Alive. Got a lead. Need to run it down alone for now.
His reply was almost immediate.
> That’s what you said before breaking into a terrorist summer camp. “Alone” is becoming your favorite word.
> It’s quieter that way.
> It’s dumber that way. Call if you need a cleanup crew. Or a witty epitaph.
She put the phone down, face up. She saved copies of the USB files onto an encrypted drive, then meticulously wiped the laptop. She removed the USB, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. This was probable cause. This was a breakthrough. This was also stolen property, obtained through an illicit meet, and it pointed to a sitting U.S. senator being involved with his own killers. The political fallout would be a thermonuclear device.
She needed to get this to Ruiz. But she needed to understand it first. PDX. The client code. The money trail.
A soft click from her hallway.
Not the building settling. Not the fridge. It was the distinct, muffled sound of the deadbolt on her front door turning, defeated by a key that wasn’t hers.
Jennifer was moving before her mind fully processed the sound. She slammed the laptop shut, yanked the encrypted drive from the port, and swept the USB into her hand. In one fluid motion, she stood, kicked the chair back, and drew her Glock, flicking the safety off.
The front door began to swing open, silently, on well-oiled hinges.
She didn’t wait to see who was there. She turned and bolted for the sliding glass door to her small balcony, two stories up. Her fingers found the latch, shoved it. The door rattled but didn’t open. The lock was engaged.
Behind her, a figure stepped into the living room, backlit by the hallway light. Broad-shouldered, moving with a controlled, predatory grace. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
Jennifer threw her weight against the sliding door’s handle. The plastic latch snapped with a sound like a gunshot. She shoved the door open, the night air rushing in.
A suppressed phut sound, and a spider-web of cracks exploded in the glass pane next to her head. Silenced round.
She was already over the railing, not climbing down, just dropping. She hit the damp grass of the courtyard below, the impact jolting up through her ankles, buckling her knees. She rolled, came up in a crouch, the gun up, scanning her own balcony.
The figure was there, looking down. He didn’t fire. He just watched.
Then he melted back into her apartment.
Jennifer ran, not toward the street, but into the labyrinthine walkways of her apartment complex, the encrypted drive and the USB drive clenched in her fist, her other hand holding the Glock tight against her thigh. Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs. They weren’t just cleaning up loose ends.
They were here. And they’d just walked into her home.
The damp grass soaked through the knees of her jeans as she pressed her back against the rough stucco wall of the adjacent building. Her breath came in ragged, sharp gasps that she fought to silence. Every shadow in the complex’s courtyard seemed to hold a shape, every rustle of a palm frond a footstep.
Above, the light in her apartment went out. They’re clearing the scene. The thought was cold, professional, and utterly terrifying. Her sanctuary was now a crime scene she couldn’t report. Her ankle throbbed where she’d landed, a hot, promising pain that would blossom into a limp soon. She closed her eyes for a second, forcing the panic down into a tight, hard ball in her gut. When she opened them, her vision had cleared, adjusting to the deeper darkness between the pools of security light.
She had the drives. That was all that mattered. The rest was just stuff. She could hear the faintest sound of her sliding door being quietly closed. They were leaving the way she had, avoiding the front. They’d be coming down.
Pushing off the wall, she stayed low, moving along the planting beds, using the tall sago palms as cover. The gate to the street was too exposed, a funnel. Instead, she went for the narrow gap between the trash enclosures and the property wall, a route she’d only ever seen the feral cats use. It stank of rotten food and urine. She squeezed through, the brick scraping her jacket.
The alley on the other side was dark, strewn with broken glass and the skeletons of shopping carts. A single flickering bulb above a back door provided the only light, casting long, dancing shadows. Every nerve screamed at her to run flat out, but running draws the eye. Instead, she moved with a swift, controlled urgency, her shoes scraping softly on the asphalt.
At the alley’s mouth, she paused, peering around the corner onto the side street. A dark SUV with tinted windows was parked halfway up the block, right next to a fire hydrant. Its engine was off. No interior light. As she watched, the driver’s door opened and a figure got out, unfolding to an imposing height. He didn’t look toward her alley. He looked up, toward the roofline of her apartment building. Waiting.
For the one from her apartment to come down, or for her to emerge from the front. A coordinated team. This wasn’t a panic response to her desert trip. This was a planned containment operation. They were waiting for me to come home.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, a muffled thunderclap in the quiet. She flinched, clawing it out. Sam. She swiped to answer, cupping her hand around the receiver and her mouth. “Weaver,” she breathed, the word barely audible.
“You’re breathing heavy. Please tell me you’re at the gym and not in mortal peril.” His voice was all forced levity, a thin veneer over real concern.
“My apartment. Two of them. One inside, one in a car on Willow.” She kept her eyes locked on the SUV. The driver lit a cigarette, the match flaring briefly in the gloom. “They had a key.”
All pretense of humor vanished from his tone. “Are you clear?”
“For the moment. I’ve got the stuff. I can’t go back there.” A wave of hollow nausea hit her—the violation of her space, the loss of the mundane safety of her own toothbrush and her own bed. It was a profound, personal fury.
“Give me the address of the SUV. Plate if you can.”
She recited it, squinting at the plate in the poor light. “California, 8HT… Yours? I can’t see the last two.”
“Got it. Don’t go to the precinct. Don’t go anywhere they’d expect.” She could hear his keyboard clacking. “Where are you now?”
“Alley off Willow. About to be very exposed.” The driver finished his cigarette, crushed it under his heel, and looked directly down the street toward her position. It was casual, a scan, but it felt like a searchlight.
“Move.Now. I’ll run the plate. Call you back.” He hung up.
She ducked back into the deeper darkness of the alley. The direct route was blocked. She needed distance and a hole to crawl into. Cutting back through the complex was suicide. She turned and ran deeper into the alley network, a maze of service roads behind restaurants and stores. The throbbing in her ankle settled into a sharp, insistent sting with every footfall.
After six turns, the sounds of the main streets faded. She was in a canyon of dumpsters and stained concrete. She slowed, her lungs burning. A recessed delivery doorway offered a slab of pure black shadow. She slid into it, pressing herself against the cold metal door. The smell of old grease and mildew filled her nose.
She was utterly still. Listening. The distant hum of a refrigerator compressor. A dog barking streets away. Her own heartbeat, loud in her ears. No pursuing footsteps. For now.
SHE HIDES IN SHADOWS. They are not just a tactical advantage; they are her only skin. The night air chills the sweat on her back. The plastic edges of the USB and the encrypted drive dig into her clenched palm, tiny anchors to reality. Every car engine that approaches is a threat, every distant shout a command. She is a predator turned prey, compressed into a slice of darkness, knowing the light beyond her hiding place is no longer illumination but exposure. She waits, not breathing, a secret the city has yet to give up.
She waits, not breathing, a secret the city has yet to give up. The cold from the metal door seeped through her jacket, a welcome anchor against the panic trying to climb her throat. Her phone buzzed against her leg, a muted tremor.
She fumbled it, almost dropping it. “Weaver.”
“The plate comes back to a rental. Gold Coast Limo and Executive Services.” His keyboard clicks were rapid-fire in her ear. “It was picked up from a downtown garage this afternoon. Fake ID, paid in cash. They’re ghosts, Jen.”
“Professional ghosts with my home address.” She peeked around the doorway’s edge. The alley mouth remained empty, a rectangle of distant street light. “I need a hole. Somewhere they won’t look.”
“You’re asking a coroner for safe houses. Think about how that sounds.” He paused. “There’s a place. It’s not nice. My cousin manages extended-stay apartments near the bus depot. It’s where people go when they’ve exhausted every other option. He’ll ask zero questions.”
“I’m exhausting options right now. Text me the address.”
“Already did. Unit 214, key will be under a loose brick left of the stairs. He’s night auditing at a hotel in Long Beach, so don’t call him.” Another pause, heavier. “Your ankle. You’re favoring it. I heard it in your voice when you ran.”
“It’s fine.”
The lie was transparent, even over the phone. “Right. Just stay in the shadows. I’m on my way.”
“Sam, no. Meeting me puts a target on you.”
“And you bleeding out in a bus depot stairwell puts a body on my table. I’m in the car. See you in twenty.” The line went dead before she could argue further.
She pushed the phone back into her pocket, the weight of his decision settling beside the drives. Moving from the doorway, she began a slow, painful pilgrimage through the city’s back channels. She avoided main arteries, sticking to residential streets where the glow of television screens flickered behind curtains. Every headlight caused her muscles to coil. Every person walking a dog was a potential scout. The bus depot area unfolded in a bleak panorama of pawn shops, greasy spoons, and faded signage. The apartment building was a three-story stucco box the color of weathered bone.
Finding the loose brick was easy. The key beneath it was cold. Unit 214 smelled of stale cigarettes, cheap pine cleaner, and the underlying, ineradicable scent of despair. The room held a sagging bed, a laminate table, and a curtainless window overlooking a flickering neon sign for a 24-hour tax service. She deadbolted the door, shoved the table against it, and finally let out the breath she felt she’d been holding for miles.
She sank onto the edge of the bed, her ankle now a persistent, hot ache. She placed the two drives on the scratchy bedspread, tiny monoliths containing a conspiracy.
Twenty-three minutes later, a soft, patterned knock came at the door. Shave-and-a-haircut. She limped over, moved the table, and peered through the peephole. Sam stood there, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, his face unreadable in the poor hall light. She opened the door.
He slipped inside, his eyes doing a quick, professional sweep of the room before landing on her. “Charming. Very noir.”
“It’s a hole. But it’s a hole they don’t know about.” She re-secured the door.
He dropped his bag. “Let me see the ankle.”
“It’s sprained, not shot. I’m fine.” She hobbled back to the bed.
“You’re a terrible patient.” He crouched in front of her anyway, his hands surprisingly gentle as he probed the swelling above her boot. “You need to ice this. Which, given the amenities, might mean holding a can of cheap beer against it.”
“Later.” She nudged him away and picked up the drives. “This is the package. From the meet. And my copy. It’s everything. Protocols, training videos, financials. Delgado was a client, Sam. He paid them.”
Sam rose, sitting beside her on the bed, the mattress dipping. He took the drives, turning them over in his fingers. “So it wasn’t a hit. It was a client termination. A breach of contract.”
“Or a silencing. He knew something. He was part of something, and then he became a liability.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “I can’t walk into the precinct with this. Ruiz would have to act immediately, and the second he does, every corrupt layer between here and that Cayman trust goes into lockdown. And the people who just tried to box me in my apartment will be ordered to clean house permanently.”
“You can’t just sit on it,” Sam stated, his tone flat.
“I know. But if I deliver it, I’m a flashbulb—I illuminate everything for a second and then I’m burned out. Probably literally.” She looked at him, the fluorescent light buzzing overhead highlighting the tired lines around his eyes. “Someone else needs to take it to Ruiz. Someone not directly on the case. Someone he’ll believe.”
Sam’s gaze shifted from the drives to her face.He understood. “You mean me.”
“It’s the only play. You’re the source of the fiber analysis. You can say you received an anonymous package at the lab, linked to your casework. It’s plausible. It gets the evidence into the system without my name attached to the delivery.” She hated asking him. “It’s a risk. If they’re watching the precinct, watching Ruiz…”
“I’m used to examining bodies, Wu, not becoming one.” He said it with a wry half-smile, the gallows humor a thin armor. “But fine. Okay. I’ll do it. Tomorrow morning.”
The relief was a physical unclenching in her shoulders. “Thank you.” The words felt inadequate. Before she could second-guess the impulse, she leaned over and kissed him hard on the cheek, her lips pressing against the slight stubble.
He went very still, a flush of pink visible above his beard line. He blinked, momentarily thrown.
She leaned back, chuckling softly at his expression. “Don’t read too much into it. That’s just for not being a total pain in my ass about this.”
“Right. Just professional gratitude.” He cleared his throat, the moment stretching awkwardly before he gestured to his duffel. “I brought supplies. Actual ice packs. And a frozen pizza. Because I’m a visionary.”
She insisted he stay, at least to eat. He fired up the tiny oven, and they ate pizza off paper towels on the laminate table, the conversation shifting to the logistical details of his drop-off to Ruiz. The mundanity of the meal in the grim safehouse was surreal, a pocket of strange calm.
Afterwards, as she bent over to retrieve some printed notes from her bag near the bed, the worn denim of her jeans pulling tight, Sam’s eyes unconsciously followed the curve of her ass. The look was fleeting, instinctive, a spark of pure male appreciation in the midst of the chaos.
He stood up too quickly from the table, turning to say something, and collided directly with her as she straightened.
The impact was off-balance. He stumbled, his arms pinwheeling, and they went down together in a clumsy tangle of limbs. He landed on top of her, his weight driving the air from her lungs with a soft oof. They were nose to nose on the thin, scratchy carpet.
For a suspended second, neither moved. The shock in his green eyes melted into something warmer, more focused. She could feel the solid heat of him, the quickening of his breath. Her own heart stuttered, not from the fall. He leaned in slowly, closing the small space between them.
An amused eyebrow arched on her face. Internally, a warning klaxon sounded. Here we go again. Marcus Cole. David Paqueta. Stop getting involved with men you work with.
Their lips were an inch apart, a magnetic gap humming with the unspoken. His gaze dropped to her mouth.
His phone buzzed violently in his pocket, the sound harsh and intrusive against the quiet.
The spell shattered. He froze, then rolled off her with a muttered curse, fumbling for the device. He glanced at the screen, his expression shifting to professional concern. “It’s the lab. They’ve got a priority one coming in. Multi-victim. I… I have to go.”
They both stood, brushing themselves off, the air thick with awkwardness and interrupted momentum. “Right,” Jennifer said, her voice regaining its usual grounded tone. “The dead wait for no one.”
“We’ll talk tomorrow. After I see Ruiz.” He grabbed his jacket, heading for the door. He paused, hand on the knob. “Lock this after me. And for God’s sake, keep the weight on that ankle.”
He left, the door clicking shut with finality. She slid the deadbolt home, the metallic scrape loud in the sudden silence. She leaned her forehead against the cool wood, listening to his footsteps fade down the hall. The ghost of his weight still pressed against her, and the space where his lips almost touched hers felt charged and empty. Tomorrow was a cliff edge. But for tonight, she was alone with the evidence, the ache in her ankle, and the lingering, complicated warmth of a near-miss.
She decided to go to bed and ponder the day’s events. She also felt conflicted about her feelings for Sam—gentle, protective Sam who recoiled from the heat between them like a man stepping on hot pavement.
She peeled off her jacket, letting it drop over the back of the rickety chair. The ice pack Sam had brought long ago had melted into a sad puddle of water on the nightstand tray. The frozen pizza box hung open, crusts curling at the edges like the petals of some sad, half-eaten flower. She scooped up the trash and dumped it into the mini bin beneath the sink, the motion jerking her ankle and sending a sharp spike of pain up her calf. She bit her lip against it and hobbled back to the bed, pulling off her boots one at a time with a soft groan.
The second one landed on the floor with a thud, and she slumped against the pillow, fully clothed, the drives still clutched in her hand. The room spun just a little, a slow whirl of exhaustion and adrenaline crash. She stared at the ceiling, the flickering neon from the tax service sign bleeding into the darkness above her like ink in water.
Her phone buzzed again on the nightstand – an unknown number. She hesitated, then swiped to answer.
“Wu.”
“Detective.” The voice was smooth, male, with a velvety roughness that suggested age and confidence. Not the kind of voice that belonged in a diner or on a burner phone.
It slid through the air like a gloved hand around the nape of her neck—familiar, yet wrong. She knew she’d heard it before. Not in person. On a recording. A press conference last year? A Senate hearing? The pieces clicked fast, ugly and heavy.
“Senator Mark Delgado,” the voice said, “is dead. So are you.”
Jennifer sat up too fast. The pain in her ankle lanced up her calf, a hot wire. She gritted her teeth, forcing her voice steady. “I’m talking to someone who wants to stay on my shit list.
Why don’t you tell me who you really are before I start deciding which of my bullets fits you best?” Jennifer’s voice cut through the static like a blade slipping between the ribs of a lie.
A low chuckle rumbled through the receiver. The senator’s voice—if that’s what it was—held a smirk in every syllable. “Oh, Detective Wu. Twelve years on the force and still talking like a bad action-movie monologue. You’d think the Academy would at least teach you how to be subtle.”
The line hummed with silence, thick as the Los Angeles smog. She gripped the phone tighter, the plastic biting into her palm.
The voice on the other end had shifted—subtle, almost playful, like a man savoring the last bite of a meal he knows is poisoned.
“You always were the dramatic one,” the voice continued. “That’s why I chose you.”
Jennifer’s pulse hammered in her throat. “Chose me for what?”
A dry chuckle. “To deliver a message. You’re resourceful. Persistent. And you’ve got a habit of poking bears just to see what happens.”