Chapter Fifteen – Jasper Avenue

 Edmonton’s air hit her like a slap when she stepped out of the terminal — raw, sharp, a cold that slid under her coat and needled her skin. Janet pulled her scarf tighter and scanned the pickup lane.

“Brown!”

Lorne Luft stood by a salt-streaked sedan, hands jammed into the pockets of his heavy parka. He was exactly as she remembered: husky, five-ten, fair-skinned, hair thinning but still thick at the sides, his posture a mix of weariness and stubborn grit. He hugged her quickly, then ushered her into the car.

“Good thing you came,” he said as they pulled onto the highway. “The cold keeps most sane people away.”

She smirked, rubbing her gloved hands together. “Minus thirty with windchill. It’s like being welcomed by a meat locker.”

“Welcome to Edmonton,” he said.

Downtown loomed ahead — squat towers, the river valley buried under snow. Lorne pulled up outside a tall glass-and-brick hotel on Jasper Avenue.

“The Marlboro,” he said. “Not glamorous, but central. Half the city’s stories have started in this bar.”

Janet checked in, dropped her bag in the sterile beige room, then met Lorne downstairs. The lounge was warm and dim, a few business travelers huddled over laptops. She ordered a whiskey, neat, while Lorne settled for beer.

“So,” she said, leaning across the small table, “what’s our plan?”

Lorne took a sip and wiped the foam from his lip. “You’ve got a victim — Evelyn Shaw — tied here. You’ve got the winter slip. She’s anchored in Edmonton. We need to dig around that first bank connection. Start with Evelyn’s branch, look for anyone who left suddenly fifteen years ago. HR stonewalled me, but maybe face-to-face we’ll get more. Edmonton’s a small town when it comes to gossip.”

Janet nodded. “That’s what’s been gnawing at me. She brags about quitting the bank. But people don’t just quit. Not when they’ve got access to accounts, customers, all that data. If she’s a thief, she probably started there — stealing from her own employer before she branched out.”

Lorne leaned back, nodding. “An inside job before she went freelance.”

“Exactly. Banks cover things up. They don’t want scandal, so they nudge people out the door quietly. If she siphoned data or skimmed funds, there’ll be whispers. We just need to find someone who remembers.”

Lorne scratched at his stubble. “So we go at it sideways. Old tellers, retired managers. People who aren’t shackled by privacy rules anymore. And we cross-reference. Who left the Jasper Avenue branch fifteen years ago? Who vanished without notice?”

Janet raised her glass. “That’s our crack. We find the bank’s dirty laundry, we find her first tracks.”

They clinked glasses, the ice in Janet’s whiskey chiming. For the first time since she boarded the plane, she felt a surge of purpose warming her through the prairie chill.

The room was warm, but Janet shivered anyway. She sat on the bed of her Jasper Avenue hotel, a whiskey bottle open on the nightstand, her laptop glowing on the desk. She’d promised herself one nightcap after meeting Lorne. One had become two, two had become four, and now she was drinking straight from the neck, the burn steadying her nerves.

At 9 p.m., her phone buzzed. The green dot blinked alive.

Unknown: Couldn’t stay away, could you?

Janet laughed bitterly, fingers slipping on the keys.

Janet Brown: You can’t help yourself, can you? Always gloating, always telling me how clever you are.

Unknown: That’s why you keep listening. Because you know I am clever.

Janet Brown: No. Because I need to hear just how despicable you are. You think it’s brilliance, but it’s rot.

There was a pause. Then the reply appeared.

Unknown: Despicable? Or just better than the fools who hand me their lives?

Janet’s hands trembled. She poured another shot into the hotel glass, then thought better of it and drank from the bottle.

Janet Brown: I just had supper. That’s why I can stomach this conversation.

The reply came fast.

Unknown: Supper? At this hour? Isn’t it close to midnight in Toronto?

Janet froze. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand: 9:07 p.m. local. In Toronto, it was 11:07.

Her heart lurched. She tried to backtrack, fingers clumsy with drink.

Janet Brown: I work late. Reporters don’t eat at normal hours. That’s all.

The green dot pulsed.

Unknown: Or maybe you’re not in Toronto at all. Maybe you’ve come closer.

Her vision blurred. Rage and fear surged together, loosening her tongue.

Janet Brown: Fuck off.

She slammed the laptop shut. The glow vanished. The silence that followed pressed against her ears, louder than the city outside.

Janet sat there with the bottle in her hand, pulse hammering. For the first time, she wasn’t the one in control of the conversation.