Searing pain had Special Agent Cynthia Deming's blue eyes opened and wide as she bolted upright in bed, her blond hair draped over half her face. Heart racing, vision blurred, she threw her legs over the mattress's edge, suffering nausea and a headache that left her gasping. She touched the back of her head and felt matted, sticky hair around a clotted cut. When her vision cleared, she studied the resultant blood smears on her manicured fingertips, on her expensive gray pantsuit, on the worn and ugly bedspread.

Wait. Not her bed, or her bedroom.

"Well, this can't be good." Her voice came out raspy. What the hell happened last night? Fully dressed, injured, in a stranger's bed? This was an unwelcome first.

The stale air did seem familiar, however, as did the brown drapes pulled closed over windows. The bedroom was innocuous, its furnishings dated and worn. Maybe a cheap motel? Bare beige walls, fragrance of carpet cleaner, and a television against the wall did hint at a rented room, but there was no desk, phone, or tiny refrigerator — things that would indicate a motel.

She struggled to her feet, swayed, and felt dizzy. A heavy object fell to the floor. A gun. Cynthia's hand palmed her hip holster and found it empty. No small beans. She didn't remember removing it from her holster. Definitely not good. Cynthia retrieved it from the floor too quickly, inviting more nausea and spiking head pain, forcing her to sit again as panic teased the edges of her composure.

She couldn't remember. Not how she'd arrived here, or even where here was.

Pulling back the gun's slide, she noted the bullet chambered, checked the magazine, counted rounds, and found six missing. A sniff told her it had been discharged recently.

"Well, shit." Bad news was piling up, and it was beginning to feel personal.

Cynthia struggled to her feet. She had to take a moment to find her balance, so it felt like an accomplishment when she'd made her way to the heavily draped window. She nudged aside the curtain, winced as morning sunlight irritated her eyes, and felt relieved to recognize the view.

Chinatown, Boston. She was at a federal safe house she'd used three weeks prior for a case now closed. Why was she here? Injured, with gun drawn, red flags flapping in the breeze. From her vantage point, she could see her black Lexus parked at the curb across the street, indicating she'd driven here. A quick press of her palm to her pants pocket and she found her car keys, which eased her mind enough to holster her gun. There was no sign of her iPhone, or wallet, suggesting she'd been robbed. But then what?

She couldn't remember.

Whatever had happened had prompted her to seek shelter at the safe house. Not the worst decision she'd ever made. An active safe house had on-site personnel who could help her, and fill in some blanks. Hope spiked as she hurried out of the room, and it grew as she continued to recognize familiar wall-to-wall rugs, worn to the backing in places, dingy beige drywall, the dark hallway, the smell of cigarettes and air freshener. She might have lost time, but she remembered these details.

The safe house had a hollow feel, and it surrounded her in silence. Calling out, searching every room, she continued to hope someone was there, until the last room was searched. Nothing and nobody. Not unusual, just damned inconvenient. When not staffed, the safe house was locked up tighter than a tick, heavily alarmed to protect its expensive surveillance tech. So how'd she get in?

The security cameras would have the video. Cynthia hurried back to the surveillance room on the first floor, in the back near the kitchen. It was hard to focus past the stabbing pain in her head and the accompanying nausea, but she did, punching in the door's code with trembling fingers. Afraid the code might have been changed since she'd last been here, she waited nervously, and then enjoyed a wave of relief when the door clicked open. She stepped inside to view a wall-to-wall display of monitors, each screen dedicated to a different live security camera: the building's two entrances, all abutting streets, and the roof. A long desk in the middle of the room was covered with electronics, hard drives, and keyboards.

Cynthia sat at the desk, logged in using her FBI security clearance, and pulled up archived digital video, searching for last night's time stamp.

The desk's phone caught her eye as she scrolled through the video, keeping her finger on the keyboard's down arrow button. It nudged her conscience. Her team leader, FBI Special Agent Jack Benton, would be wondering why she hadn't arrived at work yet. Eight AM. He'd want her absence explained. He'd have questions, deserved answers, and she'd have none.

She'd look like a fool.

Cynthia's heart sank as she thought of the many ways her team would spank her over this bizarre turn of events, but when she factored in the safe house's phone protocols — three levels of security on all incoming and outgoing calls — it had her hesitating to broaden the scope of who knew of her troubles. Staff, rightly, would require explanations regarding a federal agent's unauthorized use of a secret safe house, and her blackout would produce incomplete answers, suspicion, and be noted in her personnel file — a high cost for a potentially benign reason for waking, injured, in a Chinatown safe house.

"Ugh." A lifetime of following rules could not be ignored. She grabbed the phone, and then her image appeared on the monitor's screen, distracting her enough to place the receiver back on its cradle. Digital time stamp: 10:30 PM. Cynthia's image staggered down the center of the street, just outside of the safe house, gun drawn and hanging at her side. Drunk? Cynthia refused to believe her eyes. Then her image moved and a streetlight illuminated her face. She froze the image, zoomed in, and recognized pain — not inebriation — contorting her face.

She'd arrived at the safe house injured. Good to know.

Rummaging in a desk drawer, she found a flash drive, inserted it into the computer's port, and watched as her image progressed past her parked Lexus to the safe house's stairs, and then its stoop. Whatever her level of impaired cognition last night, she'd been clear-headed enough to punch in the door's security code, but not clear-headed enough to drive. Cynthia paused the video, clicking appropriate pulldown menus, and copied, then downloaded, the time-stamped video footage.

Benton would have questions, and this video was all Cynthia had to offer.

She clicked "copy," and flinched as pain flared behind her eyes. It blinded her for a moment, forcing her to breathe through the nausea. Her stomach lurched without warning, forcing Cynthia to lean over a waste bin as she emptied her stomach. Shaken, blinking past watering eyes, she struggled to read the screen, clicking a message panel she assumed said "download complete." Tucking the flash drive into her pocket, she managed to breathe past the worst of her stomach's spasms, and finally her vision cleared.

The screen's pop-up message box stated, "File deleted."

"No!" Cynthia hit the computer's power button, hoping to hard boot the system, maybe activate an auto-recovery program. The computer didn't respond. The screens remained unchanged as the words "File deleted" stared back at her. She hit the power button again. Still nothing. In full panic mode,...