Erica Orloff - The Golden Girl

At the register, John took out two twenties and paid for their purchases, then the two of them left the supermarket.

Suddenly, a huge explosion rocked the entire block. Madison fell backward into a pile of newspapers delivered for the morning, and John hit the sidewalk, smashing his elbow.

Debris rained down, ash and dust, and an acrid smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

With tears in her eyes, Madison looked across the street. Where her beloved limo driver had been parked with her limousine now stood the flaming wreckage of a car.

Chapter 19

Thinking fast, Madison grabbed John’s hand. “Let’s go!”

“What? We’ve got to wait for the police,” he said, his voice raspy with the smoke around them.

“Trust me,” she begged and pulled him around the block and then down the street to a subway station. In the distance, they heard sirens.

“Are you crazy, Madison? Someone wanted you dead. We’ve got to talk to the police.”

Teeth chattering from shock, Madison knew she had to think clearly. She shook her head from side to side, fighting tears, trying to breathe deeply and collect herself, squeezing her eyes shut to try to stave off the vision of the burning car that she was certain was now forever etched in her mind.

“John…we’ve got to get to your place. Fast.” She pulled him down the steep staircase into the suffocating air of the subway station. The smell of urine and stale, unmoving grimy air assaulted their nostrils.

“Give me a few dollars,” she urged him. Taking the bills he handed her, she bought a Metrocard and led him through the turnstiles.

Maddie kept looking over her shoulder, moving farther down the platform. A few minutes later, she could hear a subway car in the distance, its lights a glow down the tunnel. Finally, a subway car rattled to a stop, and its doors opened with a swooshing sound.

“Come on,” she urged.

Shaking his head, he nonetheless followed her. “You’re in shock, Maddie. We need to go back. We’re witnesses.”

They hopped on the subway car. Its doors whooshed shut, and it pulled out of the station and into the dark of the tunnels.

“Where is this car headed?” she whispered.

“Not sure.”

“Let’s ride it for a couple of stops, get off and hail a cab to your place.”

“Madison…”

“Shh…” She squeezed his hand, teeth still chattering.

Three stops later, they found themselves within thirty blocks of John’s town house. They hailed a cab and were dropped off. Madison looked at her watch. It was just before midnight.

They let themselves into John’s apartment, but she stopped him before he turned on the lights.

“Wait! They could be watching us.”

“Who’s they? Madison…what is going on?”

“You have to trust me. I need to call the FBI. Remember that man I was seen with in the Rubi Cho column?”

He nodded. “How could I not remember? I was so jealous.”

“He’s an FBI agent.”

She conveniently left out that she was undercover, too.

Using her cell phone, she dialed Troy, gave him her location and told him she was safe.

“Whoever did this thinks I’m dead, Troy, and that’s a good thing. I need you to do one more thing before you come here.”

“What?”

“I need you to use your FBI credentials to get into my office. In the upper-left drawer of the credenza against the far windows is a locked briefcase. I need you to bring it.”

“Okay. Hang in there.”

“Trying to.”

“I won’t be able to get there for a little while. I’ll need to gather together a team. Give me a couple hours.”

“Won’t matter. Not like I’m going to get any sleep anyway.”

She hung up and then John came behind her in the dark.

“Let’s get out of these clothes and take a hot shower. I want to get the smell of smoke and street off of me.”

She nodded and allowed him to lead her into the bathroom. They took off their evening clothes. Compared to her apartment, John’s little bathroom was cramped, and the two of them barely fit in the shower stall, wedged together, their bodies close.

He turned on the hot water, still without the lights on, and pulled her to his chest. As the water enveloped them, followed by the steam, Maddie finally allowed herself to absorb—even partially—what had just happened. Great wracking sobs escaped from her mouth and she put both of her arms around John’s neck, clinging to him the way a drowning person clings to a life preserver. What if he had been killed? At the thought of the explosion, she felt a pain in her heart.

Charlie was like family to her. He had guarded her with his life…had paid the ultimate price for being part of her world. Guilt consumed her, and she laid her head against John’s chest and allowed the water to cascade over her, washing away some of the pain as he just held her.

After the hot water began to run lukewarm, John turned off the shower and helped her from the stall, wrapping her in a big well-worn towel. He led her into the bedroom and dug through his drawers—still in the dark, his room only illuminated by a single night-light—until he found a pair of sweatpants for her and a big sweatshirt. He donned the same—sweats and a T-shirt, then a zippered sweatshirt he sometimes wore for his morning run.

“Want a cup of tea, angel?”

Madison still had the sniffles from her crying jag. “Kind of, yeah.”

She followed him into the kitchen as he readied a kettle of boiling water, his profile illuminated in the moonlight coming in through the kitchen window. Then he poured her a cup of peppermint tea and made himself one.

“I keep this tea for when I have a cold. Drink it down…. Come on, let’s go to the couch.”

Madison sat down. He went to get the comforter from his bed and wrapped it around her, then sat down next to her. For a long while, he didn’t say anything, just pulled her against him and stroked her damp hair. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“I need to ask…Why are you involved with the FBI, Madison?”

She knew Troy would never reveal her status as an undercover operative. So she told John pretty much the rest of the story, leaving out her own involvement—Claire’s death, her father, rumors of offshore accounts and the mob.

“Basically, Claire was onto something. I really can’t be one hundred percent sure of what, but I have a really good theory I’ve been developing all week.”

“So you think whoever’s behind this was who ran us off the road—or tried to—at West Point.”

Madison nodded, feeling almost robotic, numb.

“Can’t the FBI and police protect you?”

“Yes, but until all the pieces to this puzzle are solved and the people responsible are arrested, I can only be but so safe.”

John rubbed his eyes with weariness, worry. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Neither do I…and every time I think about Charlie, I want to just curl into a fetal position and cry. But I’d rather get mad. I’d rather get these bastards once and for all.”

In the dark, she couldn’t see John’s face. She curled against him and he stroked her face.

“I love you, Madison,” he whispered almost inaudibly.

Madison had never really said the words to a lover. She had never even thought them about anyone else. She was too busy. Her BlackBerry was jammed full, her voice mail always overloaded, her e-mail overflowing. Love would have just been another inconvenience to fit into her schedule—right there wedged between a meeting with the board of directors and dinner with the head of the zoning commission. But this felt right.

“I love you, too.”

Around three in the morning, she and John were dozing, when there was a knock on the door. John startled awake, stood and went to his peephole.