8:49 p.m.
Special Agent Cruz stood in the shower. As the hot water pelted her head and cascaded down her back, her mind wandered. She had put in a long day at work. Since her meeting with the reporter, she had worked another eight hours and was physically and emotionally tired. All she wanted to do was unwind and get some sleep.
A few moments later, she felt a few tears mixing in with the droplets on her face. Long days like today brought her to the brink of exhaustion and she was too tired to fight her feelings of loneliness. She allowed herself to fantasize about what it would have been like to have someone to come home to, someone she could talk to about her day. At times like these, the solitude that came from living alone seemed to permeate every pore of her body.
At twenty-nine years of age, Cruz was by no means old, but she was approaching thirty, a number that had forced her to think about her life and what she wanted. When she was younger, she focused on her career, telling herself there would be time for a family later. She had dated a few men, but the relationships fizzled. Once they realized that beneath her good looks lay an intelligent and competent person with a strong drive for excellence, they became intimidated and fled. Rinsing the shampoo from her hair, she tried to remember the last time she was on an actual date. Unable to answer her question, she chuckled. Has it really been that long?
Cruz threw the shower handle to the right and stepped out of the tub, her feet landing on a soft floor mat. She yanked a towel off the rack near the shower and patted her hair. She was an extremely attractive woman. Her slim, but well-toned five-foot, eight-inch body was the envy of women ten years younger. Her dark brown hair fell well below her shoulders, paired with an equally beautiful set of dark brown eyes. She had a long face with high cheekbones and a flawless complexion. Having competed in beauty pageants since she was a teenager, winning her state competition and placing second in the Miss America Pageant, she had always taken care of herself.
After drying her body and blow-drying her hair, she took a black satin teddy off the hook on the back of the bathroom door. Raising the slinky garment above her head, she let it slide over her body. As the spaghetti straps touched her shoulders, the hem of the teddy came to rest above the knee. She picked up her hairbrush, shut off the light and shuffled into the bedroom.
Approaching her bed, she ran the brush through the full length of her hair several times before gathering her hair into a ponytail and securing it with a pink elastic ribbon.
Setting the hairbrush on the nightstand, she knelt by her bed, put her elbows on the mattress and folded her hands. She always prayed this way before going to bed. She knew it was childish, but this was how her mother had taught her. Mentally exhausted, she was not able to find the words she wanted. She made the sign of the cross by touching her forehead, chest, left and right shoulder with the fingers of her right hand and prayed, “Our Father, Who art in heaven…” After a few seconds of reciting the prayer in her head, she concluded aloud, “Deliver us from evil. Amen.” Again, she made the sign of the cross and stood.
Throwing back the bed covers, she climbed into bed and slid back against the headboard of the bed. She propped her pillow behind her before reaching to her right for a book on the nightstand—a romance novel.
Cruz’s job required her to be around many tough men. Most of them had military experience. If she wanted their respect, she had to be tough as well, oftentimes going toe to toe with men twice her size. She never wanted her toughness, however, to consume her femininity. When she was on her own time, she could let her hair down, literally and figuratively. Reading romance novels, as cliché as it sounded, allowed her to get away from her life as an FBI agent and get lost in another world, another life. It also allowed her to dream of a life, one day, with a man who saw her true self and loved her for who she was as a person.
Reading only a couple of pages, her eyelids drooped and she found herself re-reading the same sentence two and three times. She placed the book on the nightstand on the other side of her badge and holstered Glock 23 handgun. She pulled the chain on the bedside lamp and the whole room was dark, except for a faint light coming through the window from a full moon outside. Cruz slid her body further under the covers and plopped her head onto the pillow. After a few minutes of watching the moon cast shadows of swaying tree branches on her bedroom wall, she fell asleep.
…………………………
Two hours later, Cruz’s eyes fluttered. In the distance, she heard an intermittent buzzing sound, but could not place the source. She had been in a deep sleep and was not sure if she was dreaming. The buzzing sound stopped. She closed her eyes. Seconds later, the sound returned. Rotating her head to the right, she located the origin of the noise. She dropped a lazy left arm over her body and fumbled for the phone. Her hand came to rest on the holstered Glock. She slid her hand off the weapon, picked up the phone and swiped a finger across the screen. “This is Cruz.” Her voice was barely audible and slightly raspy.
“Cruz, its Harper. Where are you?” Agent Christopher Harper was five-feet, ten inches tall with an average build and rugged facial features, sporting a nicely trimmed goatee mustache. He was a recent graduate of the FBI Academy at Quantico. The director assigned him to be Cruz’s partner. He was five years younger than she was, but he brought a level of maturity to the partnership that made up for the age difference. They had only been working together for a couple of months, but they had formed a good working relationship. Their skills complemented each other well.
Looking at the clock on her nightstand—11:23—Cruz was going to tell her partner how stupid his question was, but she bit her tongue. Before she could answer, Harper continued.
“There’s been an explosion. Preliminary evidence says it may be terrorism. The director wants all hands on deck on this one.”
Hearing the words ‘explosion’ and ‘terrorism’, Cruz propped herself onto her elbow. “Where was the explosion?” She leaned to her right and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger.
“A restaurant in the Downtown District…Everyone in the place was killed, except for one person. He’s been taken to the hospital. The director wants us there when he wakes up to have him answer some questions.”
“Which hospital,” asked Cruz, throwing the covers off and swinging her legs over the side of the bed?
“Washington…I’m almost to your place. Are you ready?”
Standing, she lifted the hem of her teddy with her free hand. “I’ll be out in five minutes.”