Chapter 24 #2
For years, Jordan had blamed himself for Ana’s death, shame grafting onto his soul like a succubus, and, by association, tainting the act of sex, twisting it into something sinful. Now, he realized, the revulsion he felt after having sex, no matter how amazing, stemmed from Ana’s needless death.
But Ana hadn’t died because she slept with him. She’d died because this bitch had ratted on him, and Bocharov was a vindictive bastard.
He thought about Daisy and her non-judgmental attitude toward sex and hoped, maybe, he could learn from her. Learn to forgive himself.
He took a careful step forward, feeling the weight of his weapon in a pancake holster at his back. The bathroom door was ajar, and he had to assume Alex was there to back him up. He needed to get Jenna to talk. He spotted her fake wedding band on the dresser. Put it on the tip of his finger.
“Put that down.” She vibrated with rage.
Huh.
“Charlie is a figment of your imagination, sweetheart.”
“You don’t know anything about Charlie!” Her finger tightened on the trigger.
Would she pull it?
He calmly held her gaze as he replaced the ring on the sideboard. “No records exist of you marrying anyone called Charlie.”
She waved that away. “Charlie is very real. She comes and goes as she pleases. She eschews traditional institutions like marriage, but it doesn’t mean we love each other any less.”
So Charlie was real, and Jenna cared about her. Or Jenna was a delusional, compulsive liar. Jordan wasn’t willing to rule out either scenario.
“If you love Charlie so much, why are you here trying to seduce me?”
Her expression crumpled for a moment. “I didn’t want to. I had to.”
“The way you had to betray me, betray my family so that they were burned alive?”
“I didn’t have a choice—”
“Oh, you had a fucking choice, Jenna.” His eyes smarted with tears he would not shed in front of this bitch. “You chose to betray your oath and sacrifice me and my family to the wolves.”
Jenna’s mouth went white. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“What do you mean it wasn’t your fault? Are you saying you didn’t tell Bocharov I was the FBI’s inside man? Did the money matter to you so much more than basic decency?” A knot of emotion wedged itself high in his throat. “To this day, I can still smell the burning stench of their bodies.”
She took a step backward toward the window. She shook her head, and her hair flew around her bare shoulders. “That wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault.”
“Tell me what happened, dammit.” Jordan edged closer. “If you’re going to shoot me at least have the decency to first tell me why you sacrificed my family to that monster.”
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t know he’d hurt them. I swear I didn’t know.”
He raised his chin. “You assumed he was going to kill me, right?”
Tears formed for a moment, but she blinked them away. “I told myself it didn’t matter. That you’d known the risks when you’d agreed to go undercover.”
“That I’d signed up for it.”
She nodded.
He had known the danger, but he hadn’t signed up to be betrayed by his own.
“What happened? Tell me what happened. I need to know, before…” Before she figured out the gun wasn’t loaded. Before the other Feds got a hold of her. Before he threw her out of that fucking window.
He clenched his hands into fists and held them against his sides.
Her hazel eyes were wide and uncertain, like a little girl’s.
“It wasn’t about the money. It was never about the money.
Two men were waiting for me inside my home the night before the fire.
Somehow, the Russians figured out the FBI had an undercover agent in Bocharov’s organization.
I don’t know how—maybe that spy they had at the Washington Field Office told them.
Our reports used your code name, but my real name was on the file.
” The gun barrel wobbled in her grip. “They threatened me. Hurt me.” Her voice cracked.
“Broke you.”
Her eyes flashed before she admitted defeat.
“I know I should have gone to my boss. Warned you. But they threatened my mother, who lived in assisted living at the time. As soon as she passed, I left the Bureau.” She shook her head.
Firmer now. “I never had a choice. You’d have done the same thing to protect your family. ”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
She looked annoyed at that.
“I can help you. Cut a deal.”
“There is no-one and nowhere these people can’t get to.”
“Bullshit.” Before she decided to shoot him, he added quickly. “Why are you here now? More money?”
“It was never about the money.”
“But the money didn’t hurt. Am I right?”
“I’m here for Charlie!”
“Charlie’s a Russian spy?”
“What? No. They took her. Told me they’ll release her after I find out everything you know and lure you to a specific location.”
Jordan cocked his head. “So they can kill me.”
“Probably.”
Zero remorse.
“Your girlfriend know what you did?”
“She didn’t know anything about what happened.” Her hand shook. “I never told her. It wasn’t my fault. They have her. I have to save her…”
“Who has her, Jenna?”
“Bocharov. Bocharov has her. I don’t know where. I have to find out what you know and then take you to the place they’ll communicate to me, and they’ll let her go.”
“Communicate how?”
“They always find a way.”
“Did you see them take her? Can you ID them?”
She shook her head. “She was supposed to come home yesterday from a trip, but she didn’t arrive at the airport and wasn’t answering her cell. When I got to the house, I found a note on the dining table.”
“The FBI can help rescue her—”
“Don’t tell me the FBI can help! I was an FBI agent, and it didn’t help me!”
Because you were weak, and they knew it.
“I promise I will help get Charlie back. HRT, the Crisis Negotiation Unit—this is what we do. With your cooperation, we can find her. You don’t have to be their whipping boy any longer.
Turn the tables on them. They won’t expect it.
” He took another step. “Show me a photograph of Charlie. We can find her. Otherwise, they’ll play you like a marionette until they have what they want, and they’ll probably kill her anyway, if they haven’t already. ”
Her face lost all color. “Don’t say that. I have proof of life.” She groped in her clutch then pulled out her phone. She tossed the bag aside without dropping the nose of the gun away from his chest as she scrolled through her photos. “Here—”
The glass in the window exploded in all directions. Jenna toppled like a crumbling statue, half her face gone. Jordan threw himself beside the window as another bullet lodged itself in the door behind him.
“Alex!”
The other man yelled back. “Shooter was on the roof across the street.”
Jordan risked a peek out of the window, pulled out his phone and put in a call to the Capitol Police and told them there was an active shooter on the roof and an FBI agent in the hotel opposite being targeted. One victim. Deceased.
Alex came and crouched beside him and then motioned to the connecting door on their right. “I’m going to see if I can catch the bastard. Wait here.”
Jordan grabbed his arm. “Don’t bother. He’s long gone.”
This was a professional hit. Chances of spotting anyone was minimal.
If Bocharov had wanted him dead, he’d have been the first target.
No, Bocharov had other plans for him, he was sure of it.
The assassin wouldn’t be hanging around waiting for a second chance.
They’d have enacted their escape plan already.
“Cops are gonna lock this whole area down. You’ll end up detained with a weapon and no badge. ”
“I have a permit.”
Jordan huffed out a breath. “Killer is in the wind.”
He glanced at where Jenna Stork’s bloody remains lay on the hotel carpet. He noticed her cell.
“Fuck.” He stretched out his leg and hooked the device with his foot and brought it to them.
“Careful what you say. Her phone could be bugged.” Alex took a piece of tissue paper from inside a shopping bag from a boutique and used it to touch the cell.
“Don’t let that motherfucking thing shut down. We need to access everything on that cell, and there’s sure as hell no way we can unlock it with facial recognition now.”
Alex pulled out a keyring, like the one Jordan had and pressed a red button. “Signal blocker.”
Jordan nodded.
Alex quickly went into the cell’s settings and then pulled something out of his pocket. Inserted it into the charger portal. “Cloning device so we can leave this for the crime scene techs if you want. We’ll have all the information. They can run DNA and prints.”
Jordan stared at the background image on Jenna’s cell, the face of the woman in a loving embrace with Jenna Stork.
“Is that Charlie, do you think?” asked Alex
“I believe so.” Jordan nodded as a large stone settled in his gut. “She’s also the woman who sat beside me at the bar in Mexico the same night Tremblay fell out of the window.” He frowned at the image. “I don’t think she knew who I was. If she did, surely, she’d have told Bocharov?”
The sound of sirens filled the air.
“Think she was there under duress? Forced to meet someone?”
Jordan shrugged. “Maybe? They could have threatened to shoot her girlfriend if she didn’t do as they told her.” He frowned, remembering. “She seemed more sad than stressed.”
“Or she’s part of the whole thing. Spent the past few years keeping Jenna on a string, keeping an eye on her, manipulating her. The willing idiot.”
The bullet had come moments after he’d asked to see a photo of Charlie. “We need to figure out exactly who this person is.”
Alex pocketed the cloning device and tossed the cell back toward Jenna’s corpse.
Jordan climbed to his feet. Tried the door to the connecting room and found it locked. He kicked it open, thankful the room was empty as he strode through the darkness to the door. Alex followed.
Jordan called Mac from the stairwell. “Tell WFO that instead of questioning a suspect, they have a murder scene to process. Jenna Stork is dead, and someone tried to kill me.”