by Jane Blythe
Fear crept into her face, and he wanted to say whatever it took to wipe it away. Instead, he said, “I can't discount the possibility.”
“Oh.” Her face fell, and she began to chew on her lower lip, a sure sign she was stressed and scared but trying not to show it.
“I don’t want you to worry. I’ll figure it out,” he assured her.
“Yeah, you will,” she said, a hint of sadness in her tone.
The sadness hit him harder than the fear. It was like no matter what he did, he caused her pain.
Just a job, he reminded himself, just a job.
When it was over, he could walk away just like he’d done before, then he would never hurt Hannah again.
* * * * *
3:19 P.M.
“Yes, ma’am, we can certainly call another store and see if they have this bangle in white gold.” Chloe smiled at the woman in front of her.
“And what about this one?” The woman pointed at another bracelet in the glass case. “Can I try it on, please?”
“Of course.”
As she opened the cabinet, Chloe let her mind wander. She really hoped this plan worked. They had to get these armed robbers off the street. Today was the day the gang usually hit so they were hoping that despite last night’s change in plans, they went back to their usual schedule and hit again. They had agents in all the stores they thought were viable targets, playing the roles of both employees and customers.
She had enthusiastically volunteered to take part. She didn't want to sit on the sidelines in one of the vans watching the streets outside the stores to keep watch for anyone who might be the men they were after. She wanted to be right in the thick of things.
Being an FBI agent was her dream job.
Ever since she was ten, Chloe had known this was what she wanted to do with her life. What she was meant to do with her life. That day had set the whole course of her life into motion, and now she was finally living her dream. She was here, on only her second case, working as a decoy, and anxiously hoping that if the robbers hit today, that it would be this store.
Nervous butterflies fluttered in her stomach. As much as she wanted to be here, and as much as she didn't think that the men they were looking for were going to hurt her or anyone else, adrenalin was still flying through her system.
Chloe agreed with her partner that it looked like they were after two different sets of criminals.
One that had committed the first four robberies. They’d gotten away with minimal jewelry and hadn’t done more than threaten customers and employees. They hadn’t physically hurt anyone, and they seemed to just get in and out and away as quickly as possible by grabbing whatever they could get their hands on in the glass showcases. They didn’t want to risk waiting until a silent alarm brought cops running.
And one who’d tried to play it big but ended up walking away with next to nothing.
She might agree with Tom on that, but she didn't agree that the robbery at his ex’s store was anything but a robbery. Sure, two robberies by two different perpetrators so close together was unusual, but it certainly wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
Although Chloe understood why her partner saw it differently. His judgment was clouded by his personal connection to the victim. She was intrigued by Tom’s past with Hannah, but was resisting the urge to go and look up the woman’s case to find out the details. She liked working with Tom, and she thought she could learn a lot from him, but not if she broke trust between them. They needed to trust one another; their lives might one day depend on it. Hopefully, once she and Tom got to know each other better, he would tell her about what had happened with his ex-wife himself.
A chime broke her train of thought, and her gaze snapped to the store’s door, half expecting to see three men in clown masks wielding guns come storming in.
Instead, it was a couple. A man and woman who were off-duty cops at the local precinct and playing the parts of a young couple choosing an engagement ring. While Chloe continued to deal with the cop pretending to be interested in a new gold and sapphire bracelet, a man—another special agent—went to show engagement rings to the couple.
This was exactly how she had imagined her job.
Being right in the thick of things.
She could get used to this buzz.
The fun of lying in wait to catch her prey.
The power rush knowing that the robbers were going to walk right into a perfectly crafted trap.
She didn't want to give this up for anything.
And yet . . .
There was a chance she would have to.
At least for a while.
Her hand strayed to her stomach where her baby was growing.
Getting pregnant had been a mistake. Well, not a mistake; more like a severe case of bad timing. She and her boyfriend had been together for almost two years, but she had just graduated from the FBI academy and started her dream job. Having to take time off now was not the optimum.
No one knew yet. She was only a month or so along, so she had a little bit of time before she had to start telling people. She hadn’t even told her boyfriend. She was on the pill, so it was going to come as a major shock to him. It had come as a major shock to her. It was the last thing she’d been expecting.
Now she didn't know what to do.
She loved her job and didn't want to have to give it up, even just for a few months. Once she got too far along, she would be relegated to a desk. That was her worst nightmare. She wanted to be out in the field, catching bad guys and helping people, not sitting in an office. And then when the baby came, it would be maternity leave, but she didn't want to spend her days stuck in the house changing diapers and preparing bottles.
But the only way to avoid both was dramatic and not something she even wanted to consider, although . . .
“Chloe.”
She started at her partner’s voice, and turned, expecting to see him standing behind her.
Then she remembered she was wearing an earpiece and her partner was in a van parked outside the store.
Resisting the urge to answer him, she smiled at the woman in front of her and set out another bracelet for her to try on.
“Three men approaching. One minute out. Could be our guys.”
Adrenalin surged.
This was it.
The first time she was ever going to be in a potentially dangerous situation. Chloe clung to her training. It had all boiled down to this one moment.
The door swung open.
Three men, with guns drawn and wearing clown masks, entered.
No one made a move yet.
They wanted to let the men make the first move, so there could be no doubt when this went to court that their intentions had been to rob the store. They didn't want the men arguing that it had just been some prank or some other ridiculous defense.
“No one move,” one ordered, crossing to the nearest counter, which just so happened to be the one she was standing behind.
Her stomach in knots, it took every ounce of self-restraint she possessed not to pull out her gun and badge and order the men down on the ground.
While one of the men remained at the door, the other two started to smash the glass cabinets and grab whatever they could get their hands on, stuffing it into bags.
In her earpiece, she heard someone count down.
“Three, two, one.”
At one, the officers who were waiting out of sight in the back room and the cops, including her partner, who were surrounding the building, all burst out, guns drawn.
“Down, down, down, on your knees!”
As orders were shouted out, the three men panicked.
Two obviously weighed up their options and decided the smartest course of action was to comply, discarding their weapons and dropping to the floor.
The third—the one standing just in front of her—remained on his feet.
She was about to order him down again, when suddenly he flew over the counter and presse
d his gun to her head. His arm across her chest pinned her firmly against him.
He yelled something to the rest of the cops, something she didn't hear but assumed was a threat that if they did anything he would blow her brains out.
There was no way Chloe was being the human shield this man used to walk out of here. Besides, she could handle this. She didn't need to wait for the others to try to talk him down.
When he started to pull her backward toward the office space at the back, she placed her hands on his forearm and pulled it a little farther from her neck so she could make her move. She slammed her head back, connecting squarely with the man’s nose, then without stopping, she lifted her foot and brought it down firmly on his. Then she dropped one hand and hit his groin, then rammed her elbow into his ribs and up into his jaw, before twisting out of his grip.
Caught off guard, he released her, and as she moved herself out of reach, he lashed out with his fist and connected firmly with her stomach.
As pain radiated out across her body, everything else but her baby fled from her mind.
* * * * *
3:52 P.M.
Images of Hannah with a gun held at her head flashed through his mind as one of the armed robbers launched across the glass cabinets and wrapped an arm around his partner, yanking her against his chest and shoving his gun to her temple.
Tom had to block those memories out so he could focus.
While a couple of officers cuffed the two other robbers, the rest of the agents and officers in the room focused on the hostage situation.
“Put your guns down or I shoot her,” the masked man screamed.
Not a single cop lowered their weapon.
You didn't have to be able to see the man’s face to know that he was panicked. He was in way over his head. What he had thought was going to be a simple grab-and-run robbery had suddenly escalated, and now he didn't know what to do. Tom prayed he played it smart.
“You’re not walking out of this building except in handcuffs,” he told the man, pleased when his voice came out strong and calm despite the near deafening sound of his pulse thumping in his ears.
The man inched his way backward toward the door that led through to the office and then out onto the street. “I’m not going back to prison.”
And no one in this room was letting him walk out of it holding an FBI special agent as a human shield.
Which only left death.
Tom hoped the man was smart enough not to take the suicide by cop route.
“Think about what you’re doing,” he urged the man who didn't sound much older than a kid. “So far, you haven't hurt anyone. You want to keep it that way. Release the woman and put your weapon down,” he ordered.
“No. No prison.” The kid sounded on the verge of tears.
Before Tom could say more, Chloe suddenly flung her head back into the man’s face and executed a self-defense move to free herself from the robber’s grip.
Startled, the man released her, but as she twisted away, he managed to get in a blow to her abdomen.
Several people lunged at the man, tackling him to the ground, while Tom darted forward, hooked an arm across Chloe’s chest and dragged her out of reach.
Was his partner insane?
What had possessed her to do that?
She could have gotten herself killed.
They would have talked the man down.
As he released her, Chloe rolled into a ball, her arms wrapped around her stomach. How badly was she hurt?
“I need medics,” he yelled over his shoulder. “Chloe,” he gently tugged on her shoulders until she lifted her head.
Her eyes had been closed but she opened them to stare up at him. “I’m pregnant. My baby.”
Pregnant?
Chloe was pregnant?
If he’d known that, he would never have allowed her to take part in the sting. He would have made sure she was safely in the van beside him. He was her supervising officer and he was responsible for her safety. Not only could she have been killed or seriously injured, but her unborn baby could have, as well.
“He hit my stomach, am I bleeding? What if he hurt the baby?” Tears were brimming in her brown eyes, and her bottom lip wobbled.
“How far along are you?”
“A month.”
Tom relaxed. “Then the baby should be fine. In the first trimester, the uterus isn’t exposed. It’s still protected by the pelvis, the chances of a blow to your stomach harming the fetus are low.”
“How do you know that?” she asked warily.
“Sister’s an OB-GYN,” he replied. He knew more about pregnancies and childbirth than most fathers with several kids.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive, but we’ll get you checked out to confirm that the baby is okay.”
Chloe relaxed and sank back against the floor, releasing the death grip she’d had on her stomach. He suspected she had been more afraid than she had been in pain.
As his partner relaxed, Tom felt his blood pressure rise.
She had endangered herself and her child. While her little self-defense stunt had worked, it could just as easily not have.
“Did they get him?” Chloe sat up and turned her attention to where the man who’d held her at gunpoint was being cuffed and dragged to his feet. Someone had removed his mask, and she said, “He looks so young. Probably still a teenager.”
How could she act like nothing had happened?
If she had been seriously hurt or killed, or if she had miscarried her baby, he would never have forgiven himself for putting her in a potentially dangerous situation.
His fear and guilt channeled themselves into anger. “What were you thinking? You don’t ever do something that reckless! What if his finger had tightened on the trigger when you hit him? He would have fired. The bullet would have gone straight through that thick head of yours. If you hadn’t been so stubborn and too busy thinking that you’re bulletproof, you could have waited while we talked him down and got you safely away from him.”
Chloe’s eyes grew wide. “Everything worked out fine.”
But it might not have.
He remembered back when he had first started his career in the FBI. He had been just like Chloe—young, enthusiastic, eager, bulletproof. Back then everything had seemed so simple. Catch the bad guys. That was all he’d wanted to do, and he had been prepared to do whatever it took to do it.
Then that night had happened, and his life had changed.
In one instant, he had learned that sometimes the bad guys won.
When he had watched his wife be gang raped, believing that when they were finished torturing her they were going to kill her and then him, his world had ceased to be simple.
Now he was careful, weighing the risks and the pros and cons of every situation before making a move. Now he didn't take unnecessary risks. He knew just how fragile life truly was.
One day, Chloe would learn that, too.
He just prayed it wasn't in such a tragic way as he had learned the lesson.
“I don’t know why you’re being so melodramatic.” His partner was looking at him like he’d suddenly grown two heads. “I thought the purpose of learning those self-defense skills was to use them in situations such as someone holding a gun to your head. We all know no one was letting him walk out of here with me. And no one really wanted to shoot him. He’s just a kid, and he most likely never physically hurt anyone. I saved anyone from having to shoot him. Everything worked out fine, Tom; there’s no need to stress.”
Stress was a natural part of his life now.
Born that night, it grew as he watched Hannah struggle to deal with what had happened to her. Now it was as much a part of him as breathing.
Chloe’s blasé attitude didn't fool him. He saw the flicker of fear in her eyes. No one could have a gun held to their head and not be at least a little moved by the vivid confrontation of their own mortality. Hopefully that was as close as she ever got to thinking she w
ould die until she was an old woman who had lived her life to the fullest.
Still, Chloe seemed to be holding it together. She was calm and in control, although he suspected a lot of that was keeping up appearances in front of their colleagues. But she was right; she was fine, uninjured, although he would make sure paramedics checked her out to determine she and her baby were okay.
He needed to calm himself down.
This situation with Hannah had him more stressed out than usual.
Now, at least, they could get some answers. They had the robbers, and once they interviewed them, they’d be able to confirm that these three kids had not held his ex at gunpoint and shot her employee. Then, once they knew that, they could start going through Hannah’s life and those of the two men there with her that night, to see whether any of them could be the target.
Tom already knew the answer, though. He felt it in his bones. This was about Hannah, and he would do whatever it took to make sure she didn't end up with another gun held at her head.
DECEMBER 20th
8:33 A.M.
“How’re you doing this morning?” Tom asked Chloe as she set her bag down on her desk.
“I’m fine.” She gave him a small frown as she unwound her scarf and shrugged out of her coat.
“No nightmares?”
“No.”
“Did you have trouble sleeping?”
“No.”
“Any issues with coming to work this morning?”
“No, Tom.” She sounded exasperated.
“Did you make an appointment to see the department counselor?” he asked, undaunted by Chloe’s unwillingness to talk about what had happened yesterday.
“Yes, I did. Now, stop grilling me. It’s none of your business. I'm not your ex.”
“No, you're not,” he agreed calmly, refusing to be baited into a conversation about Hannah. “You're my partner. The person I have to trust to have my back. I'm not grilling you to annoy you. I'm grilling you because I care.”