Bear Claw Conspiracy. Jessica Andersen

a layer of folded laundry, suggesting it wasn’t used all that often. Making a mental note to see if Jack wanted her to bring it down to the P.D. for the techies to look at, she took a quick rifle through Tanya’s bathroom stuff and then flipped through the books.

      A folded piece of paper fluttered from one of the field guides, slipping from between a couple of pages at the back before she could catch it, or see what it had marked.

      It proved to be another sketch: a quick pencil study of a dark-haired man in his mid-twenties, long-nosed and serious-eyed, sitting on an oblong boulder that jutted out across the impressive backdrop of a huge waterfall. The paper was soft with age and worn along the fold line, and the man looked oddly familiar, though she couldn’t immediately place him.

      Did he look like someone a girl would disappear into the backcountry to forget?

      Instincts humming, she secured the picture in one of the evidence bags she had brought with her, and tucked it into an inner pocket of her windbreaker. She thought about bagging the field guide, but decided to come back for it later if the picture turned out to be important. Tanya’s things weren’t going anywhere, and for all she knew, the guy was a family member, the waterfall far away.

      That was the tricky part about victimology: it wasn’t always clear how the puzzle fit together until long after the fact, if at all.

      And there weren’t any big-foam-finger clues here, at least not that she could tell at this point. Which meant it was time to head back down to the city and hit the lab.

      Letting herself out of Tanya’s room, she stepped into the hallway. She heard radio traffic from the main room, and raised her voice to call, “Hey Bert, can you—”

      Movement flashed in her peripheral vision and a heavy blow slammed into her from behind, driving her to her knees. Ambush!

      Panic flared at the sight of a man dressed in dark clothes standing over her, his face obscured by shadows.

      Part of her recorded details—six foot, shaved head, athletic—while another had her shouting, “Help! They’re in the station!”

      Her body reacting more from training than thought, she tucked and rolled, then lashed out with a foot. She connected and her attacker fell back with a curse. But before she could follow up, the lights went out, plunging the hallway into pitch darkness.

      “Come on!” a voice called from farther down the hall. “Forget about the stuff. The fire’ll take care of these two, along with everything else.”

      Fire? Heart hammering with new terror, Gigi screamed, “Bert? Help!”

      It was a mistake; her attacker oriented and slammed her aside. She swung another kick, but didn’t connect with anything, and moments later feet pounded away from her.

      A door slammed, and then there were two dull thuds. Seconds later, she heard the crash of breaking glass on either side of her, behind several of the closed bunkroom doors, one of them Tanya’s.

      Then there was an ominous whoomping sound that had her instincts sparking with terror as she identified the sounds: the man had thrown Molotov cocktails into the dorm rooms!

      Worse, she could see the orange glow through the exit-door windows, smell it on the thickening air.

      Atavistic fear flared and she froze in place, blanking on everything except the insidious crackle and yellow-orange glow. Her brain jammed, and all she could think was: impossible.