They were all confident that safety protocols were adequately being followed.
It was nearly 10:00 p.m. before Chaz had a chance to call his wife. During the time he’d been meeting with his team, she’d been cuddling and blabbering with her fast-crawling godson who’d been allowed a late nap so he could spend a longer evening with Stephanie. Even still, he’d been in bed for more than an hour and she’d started getting concerned about not having heard from Chaz.
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “We’ve been going over typical information on what to expect over the next few days. I would have called sooner, but . . .”
“I know,” she interrupted calmly. “You couldn’t.” The exchange reminded them of those nights early in their relationship where he’d had to leave her in order to do whatever the FBI was paying him to do.
They spent the next half an hour talking about unimportant things just to keep from hanging up. No one could have told either of them that they would’ve missed the other person more than when they’d lived in separate cities. Also disturbing to Stephanie was also the fact that she was just as nervous as she’d been the night a dream had revealed what was really going on at the pool hall. She had to keep reminding herself that there was no reason to worry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Karen had anticipated her friend’s anxiety and was going to do everything possible to keep Stephanie balanced. After Chaz’s morning phone call, the two women sat at the kitchen table having a breakfast of ginger cookies and drinking a special blend of teas.
“Where’s little Victor?” Stephanie asked after noticing that the house was quiet and it was well past nine o’clock.
“At the sitter’s. I figured we could get in some pampering today. Trust me, he’ll have plenty of smiles and energy for you when Victor brings him home.” She took a sip of tea, realized it had gotten cold and took both mugs to pop them in the microwave. “I thought we should start with massages and facials. I was also considering pedicures, but that’s only if you aren’t being bothered by the smell of nail polish. Stuff like that drove me crazy when I was pregnant.”
“Yes, I remember.” Stephanie nodded. “But I’m fine, so far. Nothing seems to upset me.”
“Except not sleeping next to Chaz.” Karen laughed lightly as she returned the steaming mugs to the counter. “You look a little tired.”
“I guess you’re right. Last night just felt really odd.” She stared at her friend. “I think about him every minute. Has it really only been a few months? I feel like he’s been a part of me forever.”
“Maybe he has. You know, some people believe that souls hang out together in heaven. It makes sense that if God created all life at the same time then we must be doing something while we’re waiting to be born, right? Well, maybe the two of you were best friends in heaven and were just meant to find the path back to each other.”
Stephanie thought about that while she took a sip of the reheated beverage.
“You might be right, Karen.” She shrugged. “All I know is that everything is moving really fast, but it feels right. I think Chaz and I are at the same place of being comfortable with what we have, now.”
“And you’re back to having dreams and déjà vu?”
She nodded. But she couldn’t bring herself to mention the latest dream, simply because she couldn’t remember anything specific and Chaz also didn’t know what it was about. Karen gave her a curious look but didn’t say anything. Maybe her friend could see something a little off in her answer.
“Well, let’s get moving.” Karen set her mug in the sink. “I made our appointments for one o’clock but I think we should do some power shopping and have lunch first. What do you think?”
“I think it sounds wonderful!” Stephanie’s grin and enthusiasm were real. “I’ve been looking forward to hanging out with you.” She rinsed her mug and gave her best friend a big hug.
It didn’t take long for the women to be totally in sync with one another. They were like teenagers: trying on clothes and shoes, making a special effort to find earrings, hanging out in a bookstore, and getting stuffed on soft tacos and strawberry-limeade before nearly getting lulled to sleep by the expert hands of the masseurs and soft oriental music at the day spa. Then, it was off to the grocery store. Stephanie wanted to cook the Mediterranean dish she’d tested on Chaz a few weeks earlier.
“I knew there was a reason I missed you,” Victor joked as they scraped the dinner plates. They’d always said she should give Karen a few cooking lessons. “We’ll finish in here; you go spend some time with your godson.”
Little Victor was a busy baby. He had the traditional stacking toys and large-wheel cars and rainbow-colored xylophone. But what he enjoyed most was crawling around at super speed giggling while his godmother pretended to chase him. When she would catch up with him, he’d grab onto both of her hands as she tickled him. Then they got his book with the story of the furry kittens and stroked the soft fur as Stephanie flipped the pages and read aloud. He sat so quietly in her lap that she wasn’t aware of when he actually dozed off.
“I think we have two sleepy-heads.” Karen lifted her son off her friend’s lap. “I know it’s early, but why don’t you take a quick nap, Steph? Chaz probably won’t call for another hour or two.”
She agreed and went down the hall to the guest room. She set her cell phone on the table beside the bed and stretched out. In just a few minutes, her breathing was soft and steady.
The dream was the same one she’d had before. It started with Chaz in a conference room and he was arguing with someone in a suit. Another man enters the room and tries to calm everything.
“We couldn’t tell you, Chaz,” the second man was saying in defense of the other.
“That’s bullshit, Steve. That cop was missing for over a week. Someone could have called the team to say we might be in danger.”
“We didn’t know that until this morning. He’s not FBI; the state police didn’t share the information right away. He didn’t show up for our prosecutor’s briefing last week; that’s when we started trying to find him and sent you the affidavits to look over when we weren’t successful. We knew that he was undercover on another case and wasn’t sure he could be pulled out to testify. The police had found his body over the previous weekend but just now made the connection to our case.” He studied Chaz before asking the first man to leave the room.
“What’s going on, Chaz? We don’t have any way of knowing why, and we definitely don’t know whether, Moseley had anything to do with this. I’ve never seen you react this way.”
“Everything is different.” Stephanie could feel the fear bubbling in Chaz. She was sure her heart was pounding as hard as his seemed to be.
The other man, Steve, was silent. He simply waited for Chaz to elaborate.
“Stephanie is with me,” he finally admitted. “We got married and she’s visiting friends. If I had known about Flowers, there was no way I’d have let her come.” He locked his fingers behind his neck and started pacing. Eventually, he glared at the other man with more anger than Stephanie had ever seen and his hands curled into fists at his sides. “You’re not sure the case is intact or whether any of us is safe. Well, I don’t know whether my wife is safe or how I’m supposed to protect her. Nothing is more important than my family, Steve—not even this trial.”
“You said it before—Stephanie can’t be linked to anything that happened.”
“But now she can be linked to me. If my identity is compromised then she could be in danger. It just depends on how far Moseley or even Watkins is willing to go to derail our case.”
“Calm down, Chaz.” Steve stared at his colleague. “Only the FBI and prosecutor know your real last name: the dead cop couldn’t have exposed you. But, still, once we find out what’s going on, we’ll protect her if that’s necessary.”
“It’s my job to protect her!” Chaz barely managed to avoid shouting.
Stephanie woke up. She was trembling and felt s
ick to her stomach. She snatched her cell phone off the nightstand and hit the speed dial number for her husband. Eight forty-two. Please let him answer, she pleaded silently.
The phone rang twice before going to voice mail. She didn’t leave a message. Stephanie sat on the bed hugging her knees and wondering what to do.
Her phone rang.
“Chaz?”
“What’s wrong?” But even as he asked the question, he knew she must have had another dream. She wouldn’t have called, otherwise. He listened while she calmly told him everything she’d seen.
“What did you feel, Stephanie? Don’t think about what I was feeling. Was there any other impression you got from the dream?” He waited through a long silence.
“Yes,” she eventually said. “I felt that the other man, Steve, was right and that he’s someone you can trust to always be honest with you. He can help you, Chaz. He can protect you.”
“Don’t worry about me, sweetheart. Just know that I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promised.
“What about you, Chaz? Will you keep yourself safe?”
“Definitely.” He said that he needed to get off the phone and that he’d call her once he got finished at the prosecutor’s office. “It might take another few hours,” he warned. “Everything will be okay, Stephanie.”
As soon as he ended the call, he turned to Steve. Chaz told him about the dream, that Stephanie must have been seeing it as it was happening, and demanded he do everything possible to find out what was going on.
“I can’t testify if it’ll put her in danger,” Chaz said seriously.
“You’re a federal agent: you have to. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
~ ~ ~
While Chaz was having that conversation, Stephanie was in Karen’s kitchen fixing a cup of instant coffee.
“Don’t drink that,” Victor commanded as he entered the room. He took the mug and added cream for himself. “Caffeine isn’t good for pregnant women,” he explained with a frown. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Chaz might be in danger.” She explained the dream.
“You might be in danger, too, but I doubt it.” He gave his friend a hug. “Most criminals aren’t dumb enough to target federal officers, and I doubt anyone has had time to find out that Chaz is married. Besides, didn’t the other guy say that the state police don’t know the real names of the FBI agents?”
“Yes, but in the dream, Chaz was still scared.”
“That’s because he loves you so much he’s not thinking straight.”
Those words did little to calm Stephanie’s nerves. She kept reminding herself of the promise to not overreact and that she and Chaz were partners in whatever was happening. She’d done all right with not letting him know how scared she was, but really being okay with everything was proving much more difficult. It wasn’t until Karen made a batch of the special tea that was similar to what Phailin had prepared that the pregnant woman began to relax. Still, waiting for her husband to call was nerve-wracking.
Nearly four hours passed.
“I couldn’t call any sooner; we were making adjustments to the testimonies to account for the other officer no longer being able to testify.” Chaz’s voice was weary and frustrated but also relieved. “The state police don’t think his murder had anything to do with our investigation. He’d been getting threats on a drug case, but even then, no one seemed to think he was a cop. The state police think he got trapped when three gang members were executed. All of the bodies were found within eight hours of each other.”
“So, that means you’re safe?” It was all Stephanie cared about.
“I’m safe. And so are you.” And that was all Chaz cared about. “This won’t happen again,” he assured her. “It was my last undercover case, remember?”
“I remember.” She wished he could see her smile. He had given up that type of work to protect her, physically and psychically. Deep inside, she knew there was a possibility that he’d change his mind, but she would go with the flow for the moment. “I love you. Will you call me in the morning?”
“Yes. Goodnight sweetheart.”
“Goodnight.”
Chaz hung up the phone and slid it into his jacket pocket. He and Steve were alone in the conference room and were looking at photos of the dead bodies and cursory case files on Flowers’ assignment. Normally, he wouldn’t have access to the state police’s files, but Steve had made a special request and the information was delivered about half an hour earlier.
What Chaz had told Stephanie was true. The execution was related to the other case. But both he and Steve wanted to be absolutely sure that none of the known characters were involved in both cases. Steve sat opposite his fellow agent and read through status reports. Chaz thought of the faith his wife had in the other man. He trusted Steve, too, and believed the man would never deliberately mislead him or let him down. The fact that he was making such a special effort and taking so much time to allay Chaz’s concerns spoke volumes for his character. It showed a level of professional competence that wasn’t easily duplicated in addition to the level of personal concern.
“I don’t see anything that indicates Flowers suspected his identity had been uncovered.” Steve was saying. “But this other check-in was a couple of days late with no explanation. Maybe he suspected he was in trouble. If so, it’s not noted in this file.”
“And here’s a check-in that seems inconsistent. Do you see any references to an informant named Jerome?”
Steve skimmed the pages before saying that he didn’t.
“There’s a question mark next to his name. It’s odd that two months into the operation, Flowers would follow a tip by some unknown who just shows up. If none of the other cops knew him before Flowers went under, who is this guy?” Chaz skimmed some more. “Do you think two investigations bumped heads?”
“It’s possible. There’s a note here that the gang Flowers identified was also suspected of swapping guns. Maybe ATF accidently stepped on the state’s investigation, or vice-versa.”
“And no one would have divulged Flowers’ role to the ATF without special authorization.” Chaz shook his head. “I hope a fed wasn’t accidentally responsible for a state cop getting killed.”
“I hate to say it, but if one was, that eliminates our concerns.” Steve frowned.
They finished reviewing the documents in silence. Eventually, satisfied that none of the suspects that were identified in the reports was a part of their investigation, the men closed the files and returned them to the Sergeant who’d been tasked to assure the details remained confidential. Steve made a suggestion that someone should inquire with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as to whether it had an operation targeting the same gangs. He’d pass along the request to FBI personnel as well.
They left the prosecutor’s office and headed out of the building through the maze of corridors designated to protect the identities of agents, cops, and confidential informants.
“Even after I saw you in Cincy, I wasn’t sure whether you were serious about leaving undercover work,” Steve commented as they climbed into the government-issued SUV with tinted windows. “It’s too bad. I always enjoy working with you, but on a personal note, I’m glad Stephanie Ballard was much more than just a distraction.” He laughed.
Chaz smiled. Yes, she was much more than that. And he missed being with her.
The next day, Chaz was cross-examined about specific elements of the affidavits that had been accepted in lieu of direct testimony. He was grilled by the defense attorneys for most of the afternoon. Afterwards, the team spent hours at the prosecutor’s office preparing for the next day. Chaz would be recalled to clarify material the defense team was trying to discredit.
On Thursday afternoon, Chaz was dismissed as a witness. In the privacy of the underground parking for the safe house, he loaded his suitcase into his car and headed to Karen’s house. He was there before dinnertime. An excited wife nearly ran down the stai
rs to get to him when she heard his voice in the living room.
“Four nights apart was a long time.” Stephanie touched the side of her husband’s face, smiled into his eyes, and slid her arms around his neck. His eyes said he felt the same and also hinted that he couldn’t wait to get her alone. She would never get enough of the way he looked at her.
“Incredibly long.” He kissed her cheek, forehead, other cheek, and neck. His hands ran along her shoulders and across her back. Her body felt good.
“I felt lost, Chaz.”
“Me too.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I used to look forward to testifying; it brought the final satisfaction to each case. But, this time, I just wanted to be done—I was ready to come back to you and our child and our future.” He placed both hands on her waist. “I still like my job, but it will never be the most important part of my life again.”
“Can you tell me what was going on that made my dreams relevant?”
“I can only say that you were right, and that what you said about Steve calmed me. It allowed me to trust him completely and focus on the effort he was making to resolve the possibility of us being in danger. You helped me to remember what a good man and good agent he is and how fortunate I was to be assigned to his team.”
“Is he someone you’d work with again?”
“If I go undercover, you mean?” He watched her nod. “Yes. He’s probably the only person I would want to work with that closely, although those things are not usually the field agent’s decision. But, we don’t have to worry about that right now. All I want to do is take you home and get back to creating a life where you and our child will be happy and safe.”
Premonitions: Dream Catcher Series ~ Book 1 Page 16
