Chapter One

John Christian Harrow sent a narrow-eyed gaze from the Colorado woods toward the rambling, rustic, one-story house nestled on a bluff in a small clearing maybe twenty yards away. It might have been the idyllic home of a Waltons-esque happy family, and not a meth lab filled with dangerous felons.

A light was on in the living room at the front, another toward the back, either a bedroom or the kitchen. Harrow—J.C. to his friends (and the audience of UBC Network's top-rated reality television show, Crime Seen)—had no floor plan, so it was hard to know which.

Crime Seen's resident computer expert, petite blonde Jenny Blake, was ensconced in the show's mobile crime lab down the road, tracking the house's blueprints on the Internet. A tall order, but if anyone could make that happen, it was Jenny.

Right now, however, Harrow's earbud remained silent, and he wondered if for once Jenny might come up empty.

The night was surprisingly warm for early spring in the Rocky Mountains, the sky Coors-commercial clear, the quarter moon a sliver of silver, the stars as bright as they were countless. This felt akin to the Iowa night sky Harrow had grown up with, and far preferable to the smog-filled air over his adopted Los Angeles.

Beside Harrow stood Billy Choi of Crime Seen's forensic all-star team. Son of an Asian father and Caucasian mother, Choi—with his long black hair, chiseled good looks, and taekwondo-sculpted body—was a tool marks expert, firearms examiner, and door-kicking-in ace. His eyes followed his boss's to the house.

Like Harrow, Choi wore a b

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