“I want this place torn apart!” Liam shouted. “Find that basement entrance!”
SWAT and FBI were everywhere. Floorboards were being pulled up with crowbars. Walls axed into shreds. Carpet thrown into the yard. Chloe could hear the bathtub being hauled out from upstairs.
A burst of yelling and cheers came from overhead. “Found it! Found it!”
The house felt like it was being torn apart as the more than dozen agents scrambled down a secret staircase. The walls shook and rattled with their weight and the sound of running.
Not a minute later, Dale bounded into the living room. “Esposito!” he said, breathing heavy. “They were here. Gone now. But there are fuses and dynamite and timers everywhere. They’ve set a trap, we gotta get out of here.”
Chloe had never seen Liam so angry—and so terrified—in her life. Screaming like a mad man, he shouted, “Everybody out of the house! Now! Leave any evidence! Go!”
Liam jerked his head to look at Chloe. His eyes narrowed behind his goggles, his rifle cocked and ready. “Romano!” he barked. “You said there were boxes in the kitchen?”
“Yeah.” Then it hit Chloe. Fuses and explosives downstairs. Unidentified boxes of junk in the kitchen. Automatically she sniffed the air and lifted her face gear off for a moment. “Gas. I smell gas.”
They were sitting right inside a bomb.
“Where’s Jenna?” she yelled.
“In here!” she heard her friend say. From the interior of the kitchen. “I found something.”
“Get out!” Liam yelled again, starting to run from the living room down the hall toward Chloe, who stood between the kitchen and the utility room.
“Jenna, get out of there!” Liam screamed.
“Jenna! Go!”
That was the last thing Chloe yelled before she ran for the side door to the outside. Seconds later, the boxes of explosives went off, and the bomb lifted the roof off the house, sending a fireball of fury into the cold-night sky.
Chapter 15
Chloe found herself on her back, lying on the side porch steps, her legs bent at an awkward angle underneath her.
She couldn’t hear a single thing for several long moments. Had she gone deaf? The explosion had been big enough—as if the entire world had turned on its axis.
Moving gingerly, she tried to get to her feet, but her body wasn’t cooperating. It felt like she’d been hit by a Mack truck. She’d gone numb, and her head was reeling.
Jenna. That’s all she could think of.
Staggering to her feet, she pushed her palms against the snow-covered grass and rose to her feet, legs unsteady.
Flames were blowing out the side door of the house, the heat melting her skin off. At least that’s what it felt like. Crawling on her hands and knees she moved up the steps to the hole of the side door. The door itself was gone . . . somewhere.
The fire inside was a furnace of heat from the depths of hell. “Jenna!” she screamed, but her voice was raw and hoarse. “Liam!” she shouted next.
The night was complete chaos, and then she realized that the entire utility room was blown away, a jumble of timbers that had fallen in on itself. There was no way she could get to Jenna through there.
Gathering her strength, she ran around to the front of the house, slipping on the icy patches of old snow. Ambulance and fire engine sirens split the air. “Hurry, hurry,” she wailed, tears leaking down her face.
A moment later, Chloe spotted someone at the front entrance—where the door had been blown off, too. Racing up the steps, she saw Dale Holmes crawling through the entrance hall, singed and blackened; flames licking at his boots.
With strength she didn’t know she had, Chloe put her hands underneath the man’s armpits and dragged him the rest of the way out of the house, down the steps and onto the front lawn.
She bent over him while he tried to speak. “You’re okay, Dale, I’ve got you. You’re going to be fine.”
Quickly, she examined him. His clothing and gear had been scorched off in patches, but there didn’t seem to be any life-threatening injuries.
“Thanks, Romano,” Dale said wearily, closing his eyes.
Chloe knelt beside him. “Dale, do you know where Jenna is?”
“All I know is she was in the kitchen when the bomb went off. I’m sorry, Chloe.”
Chloe tried not to think about what that could mean. Jenna had to be okay. She had to be alive. She was supposed to get married in a week! “Where’s Liam, I haven’t seen him either.”
“Last I saw him, he was crawling out one of the rear windows of the house.”
“Did he have Jenna with him?”
The undercover agent shook his head, his eyelids fluttering. “No,” he whispered just as two paramedics ran up to take over. Gratefully, Chloe staggered to her feet again.
She had to find Jenna. And Liam.
The heat was so intense, the first burning like a chimney gone insane. Every time she attempted to breach the front door, she had to retreat.
It wasn’t long before the entire block was swarming with more FBI, Baltimore police, SWAT, fire engines, a bomb team, and a dozen ambulances.
The blazing lights hurt Chloe’s smoke-filled eyes, and the sirens were deafening.
Jenna had been left inside, was all Chloe could think of. The words running on repeat in her crazed mind.
Jenna had been left inside.
Why didn’t Liam go get her? Why didn’t he rescue her? He was the closest to her. Chloe’s entrance back into the house had been blocked. She had assumed Liam had gotten her, but there was no sign of either of them.
It was as though her entire world was crumbling right in front of her eyes. This wasn’t happening.
“How could everything have gone so horribly wrong?” Chloe whispered.
This night had become her worst nightmare.
She attempted one last time to get back inside the house, but the roof was now collapsing, falling into itself, the bricks of the chimney rolling off the edges of the roof and crashing onto the front yard. Another twenty minutes and the house had completely burned down to its studs.
Staggering back to the curb, a paramedic insisted she sit down and be looked at. The entire block was a parking lot of police and emergency vehicles. Several ambulances had already left, with screaming sirens, to the hospital.
“Let me take a look at you, Agent,” a woman paramedic said. “Got some scratches, but nothing serious.”
“I—can you tell me if everybody got out of the house in time?” Chloe said, the words scorching her throat as surely as if she had swallowed a burning match.
The medic gave her a bottle of water and tended a cut on her jawline, dabbing it with alcohol and then putting a bandage on it. “You should come to the hospital and be checked for smoke inhalation.”
Chloe shook her head. “I was blown out of the house when the bomb went off.”
“Bet you’re going to have some good bruises then. If you have any trouble with sprains or nasty bruises showing up over the next few days, get yourself to your doctor or a hospital to be treated.”
Chloe nodded numbly. She couldn’t seem to think straight, but she was upright and walking. Going to the hospital sounded good, if only to see who had been admitted.
“I’ll go to the hospital right now,” Chloe mumbled. “I have to see if my partners are there.”
The paramedic shook her head. “I suggest you go home. Take a shower. Tend to your bandages. Soak in a hot tub. Take some extra strength meds for pain, and sleep for the next twelve hours.”
Fresh FBI Agents were there within minutes of the blast. They advised Chloe to go home as well and come into the field office to debrief the next afternoon.
Chloe finally obeyed, feeling like a zombie. It was nearly impossible to enter her apartment without Jenna. The place was like a tomb. She was not staying here tonight.
After a hot shower and fresh street clothes, she got into her car and drove to Johns Hopkins Hospital do
wntown. After a few phone calls, she discovered that’s where they had taken Jenna. Which meant Jenna was alive.
Silent tears trickled down Chloe’s face all the way there. She parked and went through the Emergency Entrance since it was after hours.
When she arrived at the correct room number, Jenna’s mother and her fiancé, Frank, were already there. “Chloe,” Mrs. Fielding choked out, rising from her vigil at the bed to sweep her up in her arms.
They embraced for several long moments, and then Chloe hugged Frank.
“Where is she?” Chloe immediately asked.
“In surgery. She’s—she’s—” Mrs. Fielding tried to speak but broke down.
Frank took over, his face attempting to remain stoic, but his eyes were red and his voice unsteady. “Jenna was badly burned. At the moment, they’re doing burn treatments and putting her in full-body bandages. Later, they hope to do skin grafts, but that’s down the road.”
Chloe closed her eyes, stumbling into a chair. “Will she be okay?”
“We don’t know,” Mrs. Fielding said, openly weeping while they waited for news.
For the next three days, Chloe sat vigil with Jenna’s mother and Frank—who paced the floors so much, he wore the linoleum down.
Johns Hopkins was the best place for burn patients, but Jenna was put into an induced coma due to the excruciating pain she was in. Forty percent of her body had been burned, and it was taking a toll on her heart too.
Her team of doctors said it was extremely serious, but patients did survive although recovery would be years of surgeries and skin grafts with risk of infection.
When Jenna’s mother heard that, she nearly fainted with grief from the overwhelming news. “The wedding—” Mrs. Fielding said, choking on the words, tears streaming down her face as she left the room.
Frank sat in a corner chair, his face down while he stared at the floor. Chloe sat next to him and gripped his hand in hers. “She’ll be okay; we have to have faith.”
“I can’t lose her. I keep wanting to wake up from this nightmare.”
Chloe could only nod.
Her own world had turned upside down. She was put on paid leave pending the investigation of the raid.
She hadn’t seen Liam at all. Not a word. Not a phone call, nothing. Nobody seemed to know where he was, and the rest of the injures from the night of the explosion were’t as serious as Jenna’s—so they were at other hospitals around the city.
Chloe hadn’t seen anyone because the FBI and SWAT teams were put on administrative leave to rest and recover.
Dale Holmes telephoned to see how she was doing and to check on Jenna. After Chloe relayed the news—the waiting game until Jenna could undergo surgery—she asked Agent Holmes about Liam, frantic for details. “Have you seen him? Have you talked to him? Who got Jenna out that night? Tell me what you know, Dale!”
“It was one of the SWAT guys that got Jenna out. I haven’t seen or talked to Liam. I heard that he’s on leave like the rest of us, and he’s in shock, like we all are, too. He, um, doesn’t want to talk to anyone. But I actually heard that from somebody else although the dude isn’t answering his phone. I’m sorry, Chloe. You two had a thing for each other if my instincts are correct—and my instincts are usually correct.”
Chloe tried to laugh at that, but it was hard to speak in a cheerful voice.
“So, Liam has just disappeared . . .” her voice trailed off. Why hadn’t he called her? Where was he? The questions ran around her brain like a mouse on a wheel. It didn’t make sense.
But Liam hadn’t tried to get Jenna even though he’d told Chloe he was going to rescue her.
The next several days were spent sitting beside Mrs. Fielding, Jenna’s sister, her father, and Frank at the hospital. She brought them bottled water and meals and ran errands while they waited for the doctors to bring Jenna out of the coma to assess the next step of her recovery. Or, even better, to see if Jenna could wake up on her own.
To watch Jenna lying there so completely still, bandaged like a mummy, was the hardest thing she’d ever done. This was her dearest best friend; the person she’d known her entire life.
After another two days of pacing the hospital floors and emotional anguish, Jenna quietly slipped away one night. Her injuries were too severe and had finally overcome her. She was gone.
Chloe didn’t leave her apartment bedroom for three days. The grief was overwhelming. The nightmare of the drug raid had intensified. Nothing seemed real. Nothing seemed to matter. Jenna was gone forever, the person she had confided everything to since they were in kindergarten. The person she had always admired and counted on.
When Chloe saw the date, she realized that it was January 2. Her friend who was supposed to be getting married today in the most beautiful gown in the world—with Chloe by her side in her lovely maroon bridesmaid dress.
Scrolling through the photos on her cell phone, Chloe found the ones she’d taken at the beautiful old mansion house months ago during the bridal shoot. Jenna was stunning, but that one particular picture stuck out all over again.
Jenna’s mysterious, cryptic expression. No smile. Just a sober, impassive face with her secret thoughts. Now Chloe wondered if Jenna had been having one of her premonitions. A premonition that she would never wear that wedding dress again.
Why didn’t Jenna have a premonition about the bomb? Why hadn’t she refused to go into that evil house? Why?
Chloe already knew the answer. Because Jenna would do her duty. She would never shirk her responsibilities or turn away from helping others.
Flying to Charleston for Jenna’s memorial service a week later, Chloe helped Mrs. Fielding make the phone calls to plan the service—which was beautiful and overflowing with friends and neighbors and school friends.
Then Jenna’s mother retreated into her own cocoon to heal.
Chloe’s mother took time off from her own work as governor’s wife to pamper her and hold her and cook for her. “When do you need to return to work?” she asked after two weeks went by.
“I’m off at least a month, Mom. More if I want it, or need it.”
Her dad came up behind her on the sofa and stroked her hair. “Do you want me to take care of the apartment up in Baltimore? Pack up your things and bring them here?”
She nodded, meeting her dad’s gray eyes that were filled with empathy. “I suppose I need to take care of the apartment before I get evicted, although at the moment I couldn’t care less.”
“The raid was an incredibly traumatic event. Losing Jenna on top of it just multiplies everything ten times over. Take as much time as you need, but not too much. It’s best to get busy again. Go back to work. Throw yourself into what you do best—your computer analytics and spying.” He gave a wan smile. “Or whatever you call it.”
“Oh, Daddy, I’m not a spy. You’ve been watching too much James Bond.”
“James Bond can take your mind off things. At least for a little while. I’m traveling the state starting next week. Meeting with the mayors, several industry leaders before starting my reelection campaign. Want to come with me?”
Chloe was tempted, but she finally shook her head. “I need to take care of a few things too.”
Liam had disappeared on her. And now, after a month, Chloe knew he wasn’t going to. She refused to take phone calls from the agents at the field office in Baltimore. It was obviously too late for her and Liam—and none of the phone numbers were from Liam’s phone.
The man she thought she was in love with had betrayed Jenna—and betrayed her. He’d promised to save Jenna in the aftermath of the bomb, and he deserted them all.
Life didn’t make sense any longer. There was no way she could return to Baltimore and her work in the bureau. It was over, done.
Chloe finally had to admit that she’d lost her heart for FBI work. She could never go through a raid like the one that killed Jenna ever again. Or lose her heart to a man that shred it into a thousand pieces.
As much
as she’d loved the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and as much as Chloe had excelled in every area, that world had now turned to dust.
Chloe’s Epilogue
March 8
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Baltimore Field Office
Maryland
Dear Sirs,
With all due respect and gratitude to my trainers and fellow agents, I regret to inform you that as of the date of this letter, I am resigning my position at the field office in Baltimore. I officially resign from the FBI and have enclosed my badge herein. It was a privilege to serve my country and the people of this great nation.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Chloe Romano, Special Agent in Cyber Security
The letter wasn’t that difficult to write, although she had paused at the slot at the local post office before taking the plunge and pushing the envelope through.
The hardest part was placing that beautiful gold, shimmering FBI badge she’d worked so hard for inside the package, knowing she’d never see it, or wear it, again.
Two weeks later, Chloe announced to her parents that she had decided to start her own business called The Undercover Bridesmaid, Inc. She’d been setting up a website. Her previous stints of being a bridesmaid, during her college years, had always been jovial and enjoyable, so why not do it full-time?
Her parents were more than a little shocked. “But why?” her mother asked. “It’s 180 degrees away from being an FBI agent.”
“I want to be in a field of work that brings happiness to others in a whole new way,” Chloe said, turning her laptop around to show off the colorful new website filled with pictures of gowns and flowers and cakes. “Weddings are happy. They’re fun. I’ve built this website in memory of Jenna—who was the last bride I helped choose a bridal gown, take pictures, and offered advice. I want to keep all the good memories. I want to help other women get their dream wedding.”
The FBI Bride: Prequel to The Undercover Bridesmaid (An Undercover Bridesmaid Romance) Page 12
