Something crackled to Jasi's right. She ducked between some bushes, crouched low to the musty ground.
"The material is multi-layered," Natassia whispered. "It has, uh, a moisture barrier, thermal barrier and it's flame resistant."
Jasi flicked a watchful glance toward the road, barely listening to Natassia's report. Lowering her voice to a bare whisper she said, "Anything else?"
"Hold on. I'm still reading the report myself."
Jasi straightened and edged closer to the road. She was three feet away when she sensed someone close by. Ignoring Natassia's mutterings, she gripped the Beretta firmly in both hands and swept it slowly in front of her from left to right.
Cameron was close.
"Crap!" she heard Natassia exclaim. "Jasi, you're not going to believe this. That material you found? It's from a fire jack―"
Whack!
A solid mass ambushed her and connected with the back of Jasi's shoulder, forcing her to her knees. It happened so fast that she barely had time to register the importance of Natassia's words.
Her backpack went flying. The data-com that was clipped to her jacket was ripped away and thrown on the ground, while a strong arm clenched her tightly around the neck and a gloved hand effortlessly plucked the Beretta from her grip.
"Don't move!"
She felt the muzzle of a gun shoved into her back.
Shit! How could I have been so careless?
Jasi was dragged backward. Her muscles burned in retaliation. Stay calm, she reminded herself. Brandon was somewhere behind her.
As they reached the road, her captor chucked the Beretta into the grass. She was on her own―no weapon.
Things weren't looking good.
"You won't get away," she panted.
"I really didn't want to hurt you, Agent McLellan," a raspy voice cut her off. "You're as useless as tits on a bull."
Tits on a bull?
"Cameron, plea―"
Jasi was forcefully shoved to the ground.
She raised her hands defensively in front of her face and waited for the bullet.
Nothing happened.
"Did you call me Cameron?" a familiar voice asked shakily.
Slowly lifting her head, she recognized the face of her captor.
He wore a yellow firefighter's jacket with a shoulder patch that flapped loosely in the wind.
24
"R. J. Scott?" Jasi uttered in disbelief.
She stared in shock at the severely scarred face of the firefighter she had met the first time she had gone to Loon Lake. Steroid-man, she recalled. She remembered that he was a rookie, recently transferred in from Vancouver.
If he was an actual firefighter.
Scott stood over her, a brutal expression on his face. He held a gun aimed directly at her head.
"Scott ain't my real name," he muttered.
Jasi eyed the gun uneasily as the man crouched close.
"Why'd you call me Cameron?"
"I thought you were someone else," she murmured, scanning the bushes for signs of Brandon's presence.
Jasi was perplexed. Nothing made sense! Why the hell had this man gone after Baker and Gibney? Why had R. J. Scott killed Washburn and Charlotte Foreman?
Brandon, where are you?
She shifted forward slightly, inching her hands behind her back. She needed a weapon. If she only had her Beretta.
Lost in thoughts of escape she almost missed what the man said next.
"Had a sister named Cameron once. We were twins. She's dead though."
Scott's arm twitched and the gun swayed slightly.
Jasi was stunned. "You're Ronnie―Ronald Jones Scott?"
"Was," he admitted, eyeing her nervously. "A long time ago. Changed my name when I lived on the streets. Wanted my own identity, I guess. Too many bad memories growing up as Ronnie Jones."
Scott's voice was hoarse and raspy. Like his sister's.
Jasi recalled what Cameron had told her about her injured vocal chords. It only made sense that Cameron's brother would have suffered similar damage.
"Why did you say your sister is dead?" Jasi asked softly.
The man lowered the gun a couple of inches. "Cameron died in a car crash when she was eleven. After she was adopted."
Jasi gasped. "Who told you that―Charlotte Foreman?"
The murderous look in Scott's eyes paralyzed her, and her brain shifted into overdrive.
Each sibling had believed the other was dead.
Before she could correct him, Scott mumbled, "Alan Baker was my foster brother. Now it turns out he's my half-brother too. How's that for irony?" Sneering cynically, he gestured with the gun. "Get up!"
"Cameron is alive!" Jasi blurted, rising unsteadily to her feet. "I've seen the scars on her arm…the cigarette burns."
"Liar!" Scott screamed.
Whack!
Sharp, penetrating pain coursed through her as the butt of the gun smashed down across her face. Faltering, she raised a trembling hand to her mouth. Blood trickled from a gash on her lower lip.
Peering into Scott's eyes, she recognized remorse, doubt…and certain death. She had to think fast. Cameron's brother was a time bomb ticking down, ready to explode.
"Your sister is Cameron Prescott," Jasi insisted, fighting back her fear. "The news reporter for CTBC News. You must have seen her on TV, Ronald. They told her you had drowned."
Scott's eyes flared angrily. "I faked my death. Allan and I went swimming and when he looked away, I took off down shore. Chucked one of my shoes by the water and threw in an old shirt. It had blood on it from that morning―when she burned me."
He paused, a faraway look in his eyes. "I just kept walking. I knew that was the only way to get away from her."
"Ronald, did Charlotte Foreman do that to your face?" Jasi asked hesitantly.
Scott glared at her, his mouth sputtering angry words that were barely discernable.
Then he raised the gun, waving it in the air.
"That bitch! She pushed my face into the fireplace, held me down."
Oh my God!
"And when I passed out from the pain, do you think she'd take me to the doctor?" he demanded furiously, his voice rising. "Oh, no! Not Nana!"
Jasi knew that she had to get the gun away from him.
"Ronald! If you end this now―"
Her eyes caught something moving in the shadows of the bushes. Brandon? She licked her lips, desperately wondering what to say next.
"We know what Charlotte Foreman did to you, Ronald. To you and your sister. We know about Washburn, Gibney and your birth mother." She kept her voice steady and calm. "Cameron will know everything too―eventually."
Scott gulped in a breath then hesitantly lowered the gun to his hip. "Nana told me Cameron was dead."
His eyes searched hers. "Is she really alive?"
Jasi was about to answer his question when a black mass leapt from the shadows. Brandon launched his body into the air, screaming at her to move.
Everything grew hazy, and Jasi sensed the sluggish passing of time―like a movie on slow motion. She heard a deafening blast and felt a streak of heat singe past her. Shaking off a piercing pain in her arm, she watched as Brandon's knee connected with Scott's ribcage. Legs flew in all directions while fists smacked into clothing and skin.
And grunts echoed in the dusky woods.
Scott's beefy fist made contact with the corner of Brandon's eye and Jasi watched in horror as he crashed to the ground, doubled over with pain.
"Brandon!" she shouted, running to his side. "Are you okay?"
"I think so," he answered, clenching his head.
Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw Scott dart down the road. Toward the vehicles.
"Stay here!" she told Brandon, reaching for the Beretta lying in the grass.
Hot on Scott's heels, Jasi heard an engine roar to life, and she scanned the shadows for a ride of her own. To her left was Natassia and Ben's rental. The Zen was too far down the road.
She grabbed the keys from her pocket, then jumped into Ben's car and jammed the key in the ignition. Pressing hard on the gas she gunned the engine and released the brake.
Following the streak of dust that trailed behind Martin Gibney's BMW, Jasi caught up to Scott and leaned on the horn. She rolled down her window and steered to the right of the sedan, forcing Scott to move over to the side of the gravel road. Then she eased forward until they were neck in neck.
Scott turned his head. His eyes were cool, determined.
"Pull over!" she yelled.
She held the Beretta in her right hand, crossing it in front of her while she gripped the steering wheel with her other hand.
"Pull the goddamn car over now!"
Ronald jerked the wheel and smashed into the side of the rental, and a high-pitched grating sound cut through the air. A second hit sent Jasi's vehicle flying forward.
Hovering her foot over the brake, she hesitated for a second. Then she slammed her foot down. Scott drove the BMW directly into the backend of her car, and the impact snapped the seatbelt against her, fracturing one of her ribs and knocking the air from her lungs.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of metal behind her. With Scott trapped inside, Gibney's sedan flipped and sailed into the trees. Then it crashed to the ground with a horrendous thud and a screeching of metal.
Finally, there was blessed silence.
Jasi faded in and out of consciousness―until she smelled gasoline.
"Move it, Jasmine!" she groaned, dazed and lightheaded.
Wrestling with the seatbelt, she managed to crawl from the vehicle. When she staggered to her feet, she winced in agony. Her ankle ached with every step, her ribs were on fire and her arm throbbed mercilessly.
She leaned against a tree, surveying Ben's car in the moonlight. No gas leak, she thought.
Then she turned slowly.
Ronald Scott was slouched over the steering wheel of what remained of Martin Gibney's car. The airbag had exploded, sending white powder everywhere.
When she inched closer, Scott sat up. His eyes followed her unsteady progress.
Swallowing hard, she leveled her gun at him. "Get out of the car, Ronald!"
Scott shook his head. "It's gone too far. Don't you understand, Agent McLellan? Cameron and I were innocent children."
"Like Samantha Davis―the little girl you murdered?" Jasi asked in a deadly voice.
"That was an accident. She was in the wrong place at the―"
"Wrong time," Jasi finished for him.
"But I freed Samantha, from a childhood of pain!" he shouted defiantly. "You have no idea what that bitch did to her. To all of us! She'd starve us―chain us to the wall like animals, hang us like slabs of gutted beef. And if Nana was in a good mood, we'd play games. She had her own version of Survivor. But in her version? You didn't get booted off the island―you got burned! That's how Cameron got the scars on her arm. That's how I got this!"
Scott wrenched back the hair from his face, exposing the vicious-looking scar.
Then his eyes clashed with hers.
"I couldn't protect her! My own sister, my twin."
Jasi stood dead still.
The Beretta in her hand quivered slightly.
And then a waft of gas fumes assaulted her.
Wrenching a piece of metal away from the car door, she noticed a thin stream of gas pouring from the ruptured fuel tank of the sedan. And a puff of smoke trailed from the engine.
"Come on, Ronald! Get out!"
Remaining inside the battered car, a slow smile crossed the shadows of the man's scarred face. Scott's eyes locked onto hers, daring her to shoot. Daring her to put him out of his misery.
Jasi began to panic.
Smoke sizzled from somewhere underneath the car and she was afraid that her senses would be triggered. Her shoulder throbbed and a shooting pain sliced down her arm.
Brandon! Where are you? I need you!
"Do the time, Ronald," she begged, motioning him to get out of the car. "Then you can start over."
Scott laughed derisively. "Start over? With a face like this? I've been scarred for life, Agent McLellan."
In more ways than one, she thought.
Scott slowly raised a closed fist.
When he opened his hand, moonlight bounced off a small cylindrical shape in his palm.
Shivers of dread pulsated down Jasi's spine.
"Don't!" she whispered.
Scott flicked the lighter.
Raising her gun, she aimed between his eyes. She fingered the trigger but was unable to squeeze it. When she peered down the gun barrel, she saw an innocent, tortured little boy who had been tossed away―unloved.
Scott held up a folded piece of paper.
"I don't need my list anymore."
He twisted the paper and she froze, helpless, as he held it to the flame. Fire erupted and curled around the paper like a serpent, deadly and sly.
"No!" she screamed, taking a few steps forward.
"Stay back, Agent McLellan." Scott's eyes were glazed, lost. "Enough people have died. Justice has been served."
"Let me bring you in, Ronald. Please!"
"It's too late for me. Tell Cameron…tell her, I'm sorry."
He held the burning paper out the window.
Then he let it go.
Jasi whipped around and started to run when a massive blast shook the ground, drowning out her scream. The impact of the explosion propelled her forward―away from the car―and she hit the ground, face-first and hard.
Gasping for breath, she weakly pushed herself to her knees and flipped over on her back, her eyes drifting over the inferno. Smoke billowed from the burning wreck, pouring over her, coating her.
Stunned and battered, she faded in and out of consciousness, barely aware of the blazing car. Dark clouds sailed over the night sky, making it difficult for her to count the stars.
Frowning, she wondered why the universe was so hazy. How could she see a shooting star when there were so many clouds?
"Jasi…"
Someone called her name.
She knew she should recognize the voice, but the clouds were getting in the way. Smoke clung to her mouth, her nose. Every inch of her skin was painted with it. It sucked at her, its tentacles gripping her firmly and pulling.
Where am I?
Lost in the clouds, she searched blindly for a way out. Stumbling in the darkness of her vision, she jabbed her hands in the air, anxious to connect with something solid.
"She's over here!" a disembodied voice called from somewhere.
Lost in the dark. No escape.
Unresisting, Jasi connected with Ronald Scott and slipped into his mind…
I freed Samantha Davis from a childhood of suffering―the kind of pain that torments the body, the mind and spirit. Allan Baker got off easy. He was only there in that house of torture for a few weeks. Then he got out and started over.
No one knows what my sister and I went through. Our own father tried to kill us shortly after birth. He murdered our mother, then paid a sick, disgusting woman to abuse us…to keep us under control.
Nana was pure evil.
She'd drag my sister and I inside that shed, bind our wrists, and then hang us from iron hooks while she tortured our bodies with a lighter. Sometimes she'd take us to Dr. Gibney's, threatening to kill one of us if we told.
Dr. Gibney ignored our cries, our pain and our agony.
And then he'd send us back to her.
We were punished if Nana forgot something, punished if we ate too much, punished if we cried. And each time we were punished, she told us the same thing.
It was always our fault.
A child can only survive for so long, being made to feel worthless.
To Nana, we were nothing!
Cameron, my sister―my other half.
The good part of me.
I often sensed your presence. I think I always knew that you were still alive.
Somewh
ere.
I just couldn't find you.
So, I tried to find…myself.
Blinking back tears of grief, Jasi awoke and found herself cradled in Brandon's arms. They were sitting on the ground a few feet from the smoldering ruins of Gibney's car.
And Ronald Scott's body, she reminded herself.
Ben hovered anxiously nearby.
"Here," Brandon insisted, handing her a can of OxyBlast.
Putting the bottle to her mouth, she inhaled deeply.
"I'll be fine. Just give me a few minutes to clear my head."
Stubbornly, she tried to roll away from him and gasped when an excruciating pain raced through her left arm.
"Relax," Brandon told her, trapping her firmly against him. "Don't move."
"Jesus, Walsh!" she snarled sharply. "Will you stop babying me?" She elbowed him in the ribs and was rewarded with a sharp grunt.
"Just lie still and wait for the chopper," Ben ordered, hovering above her.
Jasi eyed both men suspiciously.
Brandon was holding her tightly, caressing her face. Ben paced in front of her while ripping a piece of cloth into strips.
Why are they acting so strange?
Angry, she flicked Brandon's hand away. "Where's Natassia?"
"She's with Baker and Gibney. Baker's okay, but Gibney…" Brandon paused, glanced at Ben, then said, "He might not make it."
"If you let me up, I'll go stay with them."
Brandon shook his head, reaching for the cloth strips.
"You've lost a lot of blood, Jasi."
"I'm okay," she scoffed. "Just a few scratch―"
"No, you're not okay," he growled fiercely, his eyes flashing darkly.
Brandon shone a flashlight on her arm and her eyes followed the path of light. Something dark and wet stained the sleeve. Then she saw something peculiar.
Uncomprehending, she stared at a bloody, gaping hole in the sleeve of her jacket.
Then it hit her.
Ronald Scott had shot her when Brandon had jumped him.
Judging from the position of the bullet hole, the slug had just missed the kevlar vest. But it hadn't missed her arm. She vaguely recalled the stinging sensation that had rippled through her arm. The residue from the fire had blocked her pain receptors.
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