"Look, I don't like where this is going." Chase talked on his cell-phone anxiously. "You said..."

"I know what I said!" The voice in the other end interrupted. "But if YOU hadn't screwed things up, everything would have gone the way we planned!"

Chase didn't reply.

"You thought she wouldn't notice or did you just forget to cover your tracks?"

"Look, ok, it was my bad..." Chase sighed. "But I fixed it right away, so I don't think that anyone else..."

"Fine, but this is the situation now and we'll have to work it from here. Listen up kid, I want you to handle her, you get it?"

"Yeah, I get it. But what about Michelle? I don't think she had time to..."

"She's been taken care of as we speak." The voice interrupted him again. The man on the other end sounded impatient.

"What do you mean.. But you promised..." Chase started knowing he sounded like an immature kid.

"Enough of that already! I told you to take care of Chloe the minute she started getting suspicious but because of your actions..."

"Stop!" Chase was getting nervous. "I'll handle things. But it's over then. By tomorrow I'll be out of here!"

"That was the plan, wasn't it?" the voice said calmly. "Just get your acts together and.."

Suddenly Chase heard a familiar voice behind him. "I gotta go now.."

"Chase, wait up!" Kim shouted as she saw Chase walking away from her. He was talking to his cell-phone. Chase stopped, put the phone away and turned around.

"What's the matter, Kim?" he asked.

Kim slowed down and started to walk towards him. She had packed her things and was ready to leave. "Nothing, I mean, I've been unable to find you all day. Where've you been? Who were you talking to?"

"What? No one... "Chase said trying not to sound uneasy. "I've been here all day, what do you mean?"

Kim noticed a weird expression on her boyfriend's face. "Oh.. Just.. Is everything ok? No one seemed to know where you were so I assumed..."

"You assume too much, sweetie." Chase kissed her sweetly reassuring her.

Kim smiled her widest smile: "I was worried, y'know?"

"Don't be, I'm a grown man and I can take care of myself" Chase stroked Kim's cheek. "What if you went home ahead and I'll catch you up later?"

"What? Why?"

"Tony asked me to do something and I wanna get it done tonight. Don't be mad?"

Kim was a bit disappointed but how could she ever be mad at Chase. She smiled and kissed him briefly. "I'll wait for you, don't be late."

Michelle lay silently on the ground and tried to breath. The air was filled with ash and smoke and she could taste the burning wood in her mouth. "Oh my God.." She cried to herself. The oak tree guarded her like there hadn't been an explosion at all. The house, or what used to be a house, was on fire. The upper storey had collapsed and there were only the southern walls of the house keeping it standing. The rubble of the chimney falling down had taken the other end with it. Her arm hurt badly as she tried to take cover behind the tree. Someone had blown their house up! She felt dizzy – her head was spinning. She didn't dare to stand up, but she managed to lean to the tree that had probably just saved her life by providing her some shelter from the blast. She closed her eyes - this was not happening to her!

Alex Peterson woke up from the sofa. The TV was on but that definitely wasn't the TV. It was like a thunderstorm trough a megaphone, better yet, it sounded like something had exploded. He walked to the front porch, but he wasn't the only one, suddenly everone was awake and outside staring at the sky. It was dark but he could see what the fuss was all about. A huge blaze told everybody the obvious: something was on fire. Alex changed quickly his jogging pants on and grabbed a coat from the rack. This was something worth seeing maybe even worth taking a few photos too, he thought taking his camera with him.

At first he considered walking but took the car instead. Luckily he had just left it on the driveway, instead of driving it to the garage, when he had dropped Margie and the kids at the airport. It was Aunt Julie's 60th birthday, he was glad he didn't have to attend there. He couldn't believe how some people could talk about their digestion for hours. She always made him feel uncomfortable so he had mumbled something about work and asked Margie to pass his congratulations to Julie. He turned the car to the street he believed the accident had happened. Nothing, and he really meant nothing, ever happened here and his heart was beating fast.

There it was: a huge fire ate the house, or the ruins of what used to be a house. He didn't want to park the car too close. He wanted to be sure he wouldn't be in the way when the police cars and the firemen started flooding to the scene. Alex took his camera and checked how many photos he'd still have left. Only four. "Damn those ducks", he thought. They'd been in the park last week and he'd taken at least twenty photos of some stupid ducks eating bread crumbs.

Alex took few cautious steps towards the burning house. It was funny really. He'd seen an exploded building before. That was when they lived in New York and the youth center Margie volunteered at was blown up in some stupid gang fights. That was one of the reasons why they had moved. This was nothing like that youth center. It was like all these other houses had a magic cover on them. He took a closer look on the adjacent houses. Apart from a broken window and ash-covered walls they were in excellent shape. You'd think that something had happened to them as well? "One damn lucky accident." He muttered.

Tony gathered the papers on his desk and handed them over to the new girl he'd been helping all day. "Ok, so have a look on these and go them through, will ya?"

"Sure, Tony, I'm on it!"

Tony looked the clock which was ticking on his office wall: 00:25. "No don't, they're not that important." Kathy's enthusiasm was annoying Tony a bit, but he was glad that someone managed to maintain a happy face all day long. "Just go home and get some sleep. You can do 'em first thing tomorrow."

"Ok." Kathy smiled and pointed the clock. "Technically I'd go through them first thing today."

"You're right. Yeah.. Better get some sleep myself!" Tony forced himself to smile. He couldn't wait to get home. He felt so bad for being such an idiot earlier and letting Michelle leave like that. Maybe he'd even pop in a flowershop and surprise her with roses. He still didn't feel that tired though. "Must be due to that coffee", he thought, but he knew he'd need some sleep. He couldn't wait to tuck in next to his beautiful wife. The new shift was already working full speed when he took his jacket, wallet and the car keys and closed the door to his office.

Chloe finished her curry as she watched George playing with his own tail. She laughed at him. Her mom had been right, a cat did cheer her up. At least there was someone who was always happy to see her when she came home. She threw the cardboard-boxes to the trash. She thanked God that there was an Indian restaurant downstairs open 24/7.

"Come here George, come here!" She tried to lure the cat to her by using a sock as a toy, but George just ignored her. "Fine, play with your tail then!"

She couldn't believe she'd almost forgotten about the cat today. She was having such a crappy day at work, again. She was working on this trail she'd found from the database that had gotten her eye. It was something that led to the Warner Industries' log files, and it seemed there was something fishy there. The problem was she didn't know who to turn to. She had somehow found Chase's name there and didn't know if he was involved in this.. Whatever it was she had come across. But if Chase was in it, maybe Kim was too and she didn't know how Jack would react if she went to his office accusing his daughter's boyfriend and possibly his daughter of something that could turn out to be completely harmless.

"Not a wise career move." Chloe thought. So instead she had complained about a flaw in the database and Jack had promised to have Michelle go through the files. Chloe was reliefed that Michelle was going to check the files, she of all people would notice the same thing she had found. Although Chloe felt a bit guilty for piling more work onto Michelle's desk, when she had enough to do with her own tasks and with Tony storming in and out of the office. Chloe didn't really get along with Tony for some reason, so she avoided any unnecessary contact with him. Michelle had reluctantly checked the files, but found nothing.

"Maybe it's nothing then." She had thought, but there was still something she couldn't really put her finger on. She knew she'd always get in trouble for ignoring the line of command, but she really needed to get this thing off her chest. So she had called Chappelle, who had calmed her down and promised to check the problem, if there even was one. She felt a bit stupid for going over Jack and Tony and disturbing Chappelle over a small, perhaps even futile matter. She had pulled some satellite photos from a warehouse that had been on the files, but before she had had time to go through them any further she had remembered George who was probably tearing down the wallpaper and sharpening his claws to the furniture. She had given the photos over to Kathy, who was new, but yet, or maybe because of it, always up for work.

George had stopped playing and was looking for a perfect place to sleep.

"You can sleep next to me!" Chloe laughed and grapped the kitten and carried him to the bedroom. Suddenly she heard a knock on the door. It was way past midnight and she got a bit spooked. She put George onto the bed and walked to the door.

"Who is it?" she yelled through the door.

"It's just me, Chase. I'm sorry to disturb you and I'm sorry if I woke you up, but there's something urgent I need to talk to you about!"

Chloe was taken aback. What was Chase doing here? How did he know where she lived?

She opened the door: "What in the name of God are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry for being rude to you earlier today."

He did look genuinely sorry, Chloe thought. "You could've just called, you know?"

"Well, um.. I was on my way home and I knew you had left earlier so I thought I'd drop by... As I was in the neighborhood anyway... Besides I wanted to give you these." Chase handed over a bunch of flowers. Chloe looked at him astonished. What was going on? Maybe she had hit her head or something. Maybe HE had hit HIS head! Chase was bringing her flowers? She had absolutely no idea what to say. The man was bringing her flowers at almost 1 a.m! She was more than puzzled.

"Um.. How.. Nice." She managed to smile. "I'll just put them into water." She turned around and walked towards the kitchen.

"I'm sorry..." Chase started as he walked inside.

"Yeah.. You said that already." Chloe muttered. She looked at him through the hall-mirror just in time to see him pull out his gun, aim and shoot. The flowers flew through the air landing just on top of her dead body.