19. Madeline

"You don't worry about a thing," Madeline said warmly, putting a light hand on Bella's back as she led her to the front of the salon. "I will bring the gown, dress you myself, and have anything you need for a perfect day. Well, anything your dress needs."

"Thank you." Bella sighed the words, then added a hug that should have made Madeline feel guilty for lying, but this lie was for the greater good. "I'm so glad you are the dressmaker, Madeline. So happy my mother lost the battle to go to New York or, God forbid, Paris for a dress. Nothing could be more beautiful than the one I just had on."

"Or fit more perfectly," Madeline added.

Bella eased back, her dark eyes glinting. "It does fit like a dream. Do not change a thing, Madeline. And I won't gain or lose an ounce."

Well, she would change one thing…

And that would happen the minute Bella walked out the door and disappeared down the street. Adam and an FBI colleague were waiting in her office with the wire device. Two more undercover agents were posted surreptitiously to watch both entrances of her shop to make sure no one surprised them.

"Go!" Madeline gave her a friendly push. "Be a happy bride. Tell your mother I said hello and I missed her today."

Bella rolled her eyes. "Please. It was the best fitting yet."

Flipping her bag on her shoulder, she headed down Wingate Way, right past the undercover FBI agent strolling down the street pretending to look at his phone.

Madeline closed the door, locked it, checked the "closed" sign, and hustled to the back office.

Since Madeline's idea for the "wired wedding dress," she and Adam had been to the FBI field office a few times, working with a small team to secure the proper warrants and surveillance approvals.

The process had been complicated and took a bit of time, but they were good to go, and today they'd embed the device into the dress.

As she locked the back exit, the door to the office opened, revealing Adam and a thirty-something tech nerd by the name of Gary Briggs.

With a quick greeting, she gestured for them to follow her upstairs. In the studio, Madeline locked them in and took a deep breath.

This was it. They were wiring a wedding dress.

"Ah, there it is," Gary said as he spied Bella's dress, hanging on the form again. Madeline had taken it to Jacksonville on their last visit to allow him to pick the proper-sized devices, which he'd brought today.

"It's ready to wear," Madeline said. "And probably still warm from Bella's last fitting."

Gary walked toward the dress with the speed and purpose of a man who loved what he was about to do, but Adam held back and touched Madeline's arm.

"You doing okay?" he asked, as he so frequently did.

"I'm fine," she assured him, taking his hand. "Any changes or problems?"

"Everything is lined up for next Saturday night. We just secured slips for several small pleasure craft that will be docked nearby, including one that I'll be on."

"I won't be able to talk to you that day, will I?"

"They'll likely take your phone, so no. We can't put a device in your ear and communicate. They'll wand you for weapons, we suspect, so we can't wire you."

"Will they check the dress?" she asked.

He and Gary shared a look.

"They will," Adam said quickly. "And it may give off an alert."

She recoiled. "Then what?"

"Don't worry, Maddie," Adam said. "Part of this process is to train you. That's what I'll be doing from now until the wedding day."

She walked over to the dress she'd just tucked and sewed in the fitting.

"Under that bow," she told Gary, "you'll find the deep pocket that looks like a fold in the back of the dress."

She showed him the invisible slot she'd tucked so far under the skirt that no one could see it. There, she could drop in the disk-sized recording device that Gary had shown her last week. "It can fit something the size of a quarter, you said."

"A dime," he corrected, holding a small flat disk. "There's only one catch."

She looked up, meeting his hazel eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. "Yes?"

"You have to press it right here, on this spot, at the very last possible moment. It has a one-hour battery life." He showed her a tiny dot on the recording device. "Press it with your nail and when you do, the clock starts ticking."

"It won't already be in the dress? Isn't that what we're doing today? I was going to sew it safe and shut."

He shook his head. "You have to be able to reach it, pull it out, power on the battery, and slide it back in without her seeing. Is that possible?"

"Eesh. I guess."

"What's the latest possible time you'll have access to the dress?" Adam asked.

"Based on the schedule she told me today?" Madeline narrowed her eyes, recalling her whole conversation with Bella over timing. "I'll button her up, which is probably twenty minutes or half an hour before the ceremony. If I press that button, do I have to worry about anything else?"

"You have to worry about everything else," Adam murmured and then held up his hand. "We'll go over all that. Show her the mic and let her sew that in, Gary."

The other man stepped around to the front of the dress form. "Where we decided? Here in this scoop?"

"Yes. Let me open up the bodice." She undid the last of the buttons to loosen the top, then pulled down the whole bodice, currently lined with satin for a smooth feel against Bella's body. "We can slide it into the piping."

He opened a cloth bag and pulled out a copper wire not much thicker than a forty-weight thread.

"Meet the MEMS," he said with an air of pride. "That stands for Microelectromechanical System that provides noise suppression, echo cancellation, and a sensitivity to sound frequencies…meaning it can pick up the breathiest whisper and transmit it directly to the tiny disk hidden in the back of this dress."

Madeline bit her lip and shook her head. "Amazing."

"Can you open that piping?" Gary asked. "Let me insert it and we'll test."

Madeline grabbed her tiniest, sharpest seam ripper, and very gently tugged at the threads that held it in place. Then she peeled open the piping and Gary laid the wire into the thin tube of rolled fabric.

It took a few minutes to complete the job, but after he embedded the tiny wire, she stitched the material, noticing that Adam had gone to the window, looked out, and checked his phone a few times.

"All set." She clipped the end of the thread and pressed the fabric into place, a move her fingers had done a billion times—only she'd never slid a MEMS into a dress.

"Now we test," Gary said, going around the dress again to remove the recording device. "Fast, because I don't want to waste a second of battery." He tapped it then nodded to her. "Speak very quietly."

"Hello," she said in the softest whisper. "Can I be heard?"

Gary took out a cell phone, pressed a button, and her words played back.

"Oh. But you can't hear what's happening in real-time?"

"No, that's not how this works. The disk records and you get it out from the dress after the wedding is over. That's when we'll hear what was said."

Dang. She kind of hoped they'd at least be monitoring the situation. She sure would be isolated on that boat, which Bella said would be well down the Amelia River, cruising during the ceremony.

"You just have to get that battery turned on and hope it's a short ceremony," Gary said, as if her assignment was simple.

After a bit more conversation, Adam walked Gary out and stayed downstairs long enough for her to imagine they were having an FBI powwow in the parking lot. She took a quick look at her email—realizing she'd let lots of clients and bills and calls fall through the cracks these past few weeks—then dropped onto the settee to stare at the dress.

She could get caught. Heck, she could get killed. But if she didn't do this, who could? No one. And then—

"Hey." Adam stepped into the studio, wearing a dour expression.

"Did you can the whole thing?" she guessed, only half joking.

"I wish."

"Adam." She stood and walked to him, arms out. "It's going to be okay."

"But what if it isn't?" The question was soft, barely audible, but she sure could hear the ache in his voice. "What if something goes wrong? You're not a professional, Maddie, and I still can't believe I got roped—"

"Hush." She put her finger on his lips. "You didn't get roped into anything. I wouldn't do this if I didn't think it will be…well, not easy, but doable. I want to help. I want to do this. I really, really want to make a difference and use my dressmaking powers for good." She added a sly smile, but her humor didn't crack his expression.

He just stared at her, his eyes a storm of doubt and worry.

"Maddie, I love you so much. More than…" He shook his head. "More than I've ever loved anyone. More than I thought was possible. More than…anything."

She nearly melted at the words and the sincere look in his eyes as he spoke them. "I love you, too."

"I don't want you to get the undercover bug, either," he added dryly. "I cannot stand risking you."

"I won't," she promised him. "Unless more crime comes to Amelia Island. Other than that, I will do nothing but sew dresses that don't record anything."

He looked at her for a long time, then drew her into him, so tight she could feel his heart pounding.

"I just found you again and I don't want to lose you."

She let out a little moan and pulled back. "Is what I'm about to do that dangerous? Is there a risk of getting caught? I mean, a very high risk?"

He searched her eyes and let out an exhale. "Hell, yeah. There's always a risk."

Her heart tightened and for one crazy moment, she considered that maybe she should say no. But then he held her again and as she rested her head against his shoulder, she had a perfect view out the large floor-to-ceiling windows.

Through the glass, she could see the whole second floor of Wingate Properties, which could burn to the ground if the restaurant behind it was on fire. Nico Cassano was a scourge on her town, and she owed it to her friends, family, and neighbors to take a risk to keep it safe.

He just squeezed her, kissed her head, and they stayed silent for a long, long time.