by Gray Gardner
“Every night I’m forced to go through part of it in my dreams! And I always end up out of breath, in a cold sweat, and usually on the floor!” she replied, holding out her arms as rain trickled down her face.
“You’re afraid,” he stated, turning his head. “Well so what? You can’t change what’s already happened, but if you can’t move on then everything you’ve accomplished is futile and you might as well just give up!”
Something inside of her burned and she quickly lost her temper.
“Get off that high horse and come down here with the rest of us!” she yelled, shaking her head. “You want to talk about moving on? How about leaving Gina behind and moving forward with us!”
“What’re you talking about?” he asked, as the lights flickered on around the base in the haze of the storm.
“Every time I want to talk about you and me, and where this might be going, or about what we’re doing might mean, you vanish; or you change the subject; or you bring home Gwinn! Face your fear about commitment, Connor! Tell me where you see us in a month, next summer, in a year…because unless I’m mistaken there’s something more here than just spanking and fucking!”
He stared down at her as she paced in front of him. She was right, though he didn’t want to admit it. She was trying to get the pressure off of herself, but it didn’t mean that what she was saying wasn’t true. Sighing and wiping the water off of his face as the rain drove down harder, he put his hands on his hips and looked at the ground. He couldn’t answer those questions at that moment.
They were going to the CIA in just days. The thought of losing her was damn near unbearable.
“What do you want me to say?”
She huffed a quick laugh and shook her head, walking past him towards the Hummer. “Nothing.”
Standing alone for a moment, and cursing himself for another, he finally ran to the Hummer and jumped in, wiping his wet hands on his jeans and starting it up.
“You’re going deep undercover,” he finally said, as they drove back to his house. “You’re going to train with the CIA in a week and then you’re going deep undercover.”
“Well, that’s why they picked me,” she spitefully replied, staring out of the window. “I’m the perfect candidate because I have no close ties. I have no one.”
“That’s not true.”
“Bull shit,” she interrupted, jumping out as he parked and running through the rain to his back door. She kicked off her muddy shoes and walked inside to the bedroom to get some dry clothes.
“Burton,” he said, following her. “I can’t.”
“It’s okay,” she smiled forcefully, pulling out a sweater and jeans. “Let’s just keep this simple.”
He sighed and folded his hands behind his head as she stood and stared at him. Nothing was popping into his head. Nothing charming, nothing funny…just nothing.
“Do you mind?” she asked, twirling her finger and indicating that he needed to turn around.
He couldn’t think of anything to say at the moment, so he turned and sat on the edge of the bed and began peeling off his socks. He had a lot to say, but he just couldn’t think of where to start.
“I’m afraid that watching you leave for this operation is going to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”
She continued changing on the opposite side of the room, completely livid as she kept glancing at him as he sat in complete silence. If there was anything that she wanted to hear, it was just a simple statement. Anything that let her know how he felt about her and how he would feel once she left for Russia. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. This was just another disappointment in a long line.
“I know that you’re supposed to keep an eye on me,” she began, pulling on a dry pink hoodie. “So I’ll come back, but right now I’d like to go and say goodbye to the girls.”
Connor stood up, still wet, and turned to look at her. He held out his hands and had everything on the tip of his tongue, but finally stood aside and nodded. Burton walked past him, giving him a wounded glance as she pulled on a raincoat and ran out into the stormy night. Connor wanted to throw his fist through the wall for the first time since Gina had left him. This time, though, he felt all of the responsibility weighed on him.
He immediately began planning what he was going to say when she returned. It was going to be good. Declarative. Epic, even.
“They’ve postponed our deployment,” Jennings sighed, as she and O’Malley sat on her trunk and talked to Burton.
“That’s awesome,” she grinned, pacing in the barracks, Nikes squeaking on the concrete floor.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” O’Malley asked.
“Huh? Yeah, I just have a lot on my mind,” she replied, rubbing her wet hair.
She had a job to do for her country. She needed to stop whining and just suck it up.
A more important revelation surfaced, though.
Connor was right. She had to face her past if she was ever going to have a future. She quickly stood and hugged them each tightly.
“If I believed in body art I’d get your names tattooed on my ass,” she grinned, holding their shoulders.
“If your ass ever gets big enough, I’ll hold you to that,” O’Malley grinned, as Burton backed away. It was hard for them to watch their friend walk away, but they were so elated that they were able to stay in the US a little longer that they let her go without a dramatic goodbye.
Burton walked out into the rain and pulled her hood over her head. Something had to change. She turned towards the Marina and began walking in the darkness. In order to move forward she had to go back.
Slinking along the tree line and avoiding every lamp post, she finally came upon the creaking docks of the marina. Gwinn’s boat had to be around there somewhere. She knew he was on the base for dinner and then heading over to see Connor. Yes, stealing a Coast Guard boat was a felony, but she really didn’t have that far to go by sea.
The rain lightened and she finally found the right boat. Quickly untying the large ropes attached to the pilings, she shoved off of the wet dock and started the engine. She was only a couple of hours south of DC by car, so as long as she hugged the coastline and found Chesapeake Bay, she should make it to the Potomac in no time. Then she could leave the boat in her family’s old slip at the Belle Haven Country Club’s Marina.
The waves crashed over her as the rain continued, but things lightened up when she saw the buoy and the open water to her west. Chesapeake Bay. The brightly lit yards of the homes along the water guided her way, and when she finally reached her old country club she even remembered the exact slip number where her parents kept their yacht. Her aunt had shipped it to England where it still lay in dry dock, which left Burton with a current place to keep her stolen federal property and sleep for a couple of hours.
When she woke up the sun was barely rising, and she knew she’d better hurry if she was going to cut across the golf course and beat the crack of dawn golfers. She jumped onto the dock and ran to shore, through the trees and bunkers of the golf course, and finally to some familiar streets. Everything suddenly came back to her as she walked through the old neighborhood. Her high school towered over her still, with a new gym and a parking garage where the old library used to be. Figured.
Cherry Blossom Boulevard hadn’t changed much. The enormous homes sat still and dark as the morning dew began to lift. Fathers walked out in their robes to get the newspaper, employees that arrived by bus walked along the sidewalks with Burton as she took in the scenery. She saw the colonial brick wall surrounding Russell’s old house. Ivy dangled off the eight-foot walls now, and cameras sat perched at twenty-foot intervals. They probably had them installed after her parents died.
A once quiet neighborhood turned upside down by an unsolved double murder.
She rounded the corner and paused as her stomach fell to her feet. The dark red brick home was exactly as she remembered it. She used to joke that her house was Soviet red, but now she didn’t t
hink it was funny anymore. The large front porch that encircled the house had a few vines growing up the columns, and the home looked completely vacant. Automatic payments kept the house in her possession, as well as its upkeep, but it was still vacant.
She walked up the long brick driveway and paused behind a now ancient black suburban. She pressed her face against the passenger window and looked inside. It hadn’t been driven since the last day she’d seen her parents. Her state of the art CD player still sat in the dash, with the face removed and in her console. Her stacks of notes for each exam lay on the passenger seat and all across the back bench seat, probably scattered around by investigators. Smiling, she walked towards the back and found her parents’ cars. Matching Buicks; they always bought American. Her father never did quite grasp economics the way her grandfather did.
She slowly walked up the steps to the back porch and paused at the door. She reached behind the old lawn jockey and actually found the old key. Hesitantly, she slipped the key into the lock and took a deep breath. It clicked and turned, much to her surprise, and the door creaked open. The alarm beeped a loud warning and she was forced to rush into the kitchen and dial in the security code. Surprisingly, it was the same; her birthday.
She glanced around the old kitchen, the same breakfast table in the bay window, the dark tile on the counter tops, her school picture on the ice box. She felt a little timid about touching anything, even though it was her own house.
Then she heard that familiar voice.
“Baylor, I’d like to see you for a moment.”
She turned at the request for her presence and answered, “Yes sir.”
Walking out of the kitchen and into the large living room, she glanced up at the two-story shelves that held her father’s book collections and the 5 x 12 painting of her grandfather above the enormous fireplace, though they never told anyone who the man in the painting was. Lenin was the recognized revolutionary. She passed by the leather sofas and finally paused outside of the study. Catching her breath, she walked in, but she soon felt like she was intruding on somebody else.
The desk was the same large mass in front of the huge window and dark green drapes. The stacks of books and filing cabinets were still in place along the walls. The old globe was still situated on its spindle in the corner. And her father was standing in front of his desk, talking down to a little girl in braces.
“I received this letter today. Do you know what it is?”
“No sir,” the little girl stoically replied. Burton sat perfectly still so as not to disturb the pair. There was something oddly familiar about the whole situation. The hardwood floor creaked under her shoes as she waited in anticipation to see what the letter was.
“It’s your PSAT scores, Baylor. You are in the top two percent and have been selected as a National Merit Scholar,” her father continued, folding up the letter and placing it on the desk top. He grabbed something else and turned back around. “I want you to know that your mother and I are very proud of you.”
Burton grinned as she watched the smile crack on her father’s face. She wondered why the little girl wasn’t smiling as well. This was a great moment.
“Thank you. May I go and finish my homework now?”
“Of course,” her father said, leaning over and holding out his fists. “But first, pick one.”
Now the little girl smiled. She grabbed one fist and he showed her it was empty. She quickly pointed to the other one and he also showed her an empty palm. Pressing her lips together and stomping her Cole Haan loafer, her father suddenly produced a coin from behind her ear. The adoring look on his face and the look of sheer joy on hers made Burton step forward and reach out. She wasn’t sure how it was possible, but it made her feel happy.
She remembered this day.
It was in ninth grade and she had received top scores on her PSAT, allowing her to be a National Merit Scholar and therefore on all the watch lists of all the top colleges.
The girl continued smiling as she turned and bounced out of the office. Burton’s stomach lurched as she followed. They walked through the dark wood paneled hallways to the winding staircase in the foyer, up the stairs, down the long hallway, and into the English rose garden room. Her bedroom. The antique white furniture looked exactly the same, her bed, her desk, her chest of drawers. Burton watched as the girl took a frame off of the wall and carefully lay it on the bed’s soft comforter.
It was her coin collection. Every time she did something extraordinary in her life, her father gave her a rare Russian coin. She coveted her collection, partially for its historical value, but mostly because she liked to be able to have tangible evidence of her father’s affection. The girl removed the back and placed the coin in its slot, then replaced the back and skipped out of the room. She was going to her own study across the hall, where she spent hours perfecting her notes and homework.
Burton felt hot tears in her eyes as she reached down to the rose embroidered comforter on the bed to touch the coin collection. It had twenty slots, and only nine coins. There were only nine times in the seventeen years her father had known her that he was truly proud of her. She sat on the edge of the four-poster bed and held the wooden framed coins in her arms. She could recall each time she’d received a coin.
She was the youngest girl to ever play Clara Stahlbaum in the city’s ballet performance of The Nutcracker.
Her gold medal in a local gymnastics meet won her another coin.
The rest of her accomplishments were school related. Each time she performed extraordinarily according to her father’s standards, she got another Romanov Kopeck coin, or a Soviet coin, and the final one was a silver wire denga from Ivan the Terrible’s reign, which made it almost five hundred years old.
She stared at the empty slots and wondered what she was supposed to have done to earn 11 more positive appraisals from him. She lay back on the bed and clutched the coins as she wondered.
Hometown Receptions and Intimate Affection
“Are you sure she would have come here?”
Agent Ferguson stared at the Captain. He knew he’d grudgingly called for help.
“Connor, I know her better than anybody, and I know that she would have to physically go somewhere to face her past. It doesn’t get much worse than this place. Her house. And the fucking Coast Guard boat the little felon stole is in her family’s boat slip at her country club.”
Connor took a deep breath as he looked over at the agent. He really didn’t want to get him involved, but when he couldn’t find Baylor after searching all night and with Eubanks and Payne breathing down his neck, he had no other choice. He’d called Ferguson and surprisingly, or maybe not, the British agent had known exactly what to do.
“I just really didn’t think she would desert,” Connor sighed, glancing back outside.
“Well maybe if you two weren’t playing footsie and concentrating on the op she wouldn’t have deserted,” Ferguson sneered.
“Are you really qualified to give this lecture?”
“Look,” Ferguson sighed, raising a brow. “You have seventy-two hours to get her to Langley. I suggest you use that time to work out your issues with her, not with me.”
Connor nodded and grabbed his bag, exiting the car and standing in front of the enormous house. Taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out, he walked along the brick driveway, a long way. The house towered over him as he made his way around to the back porch. He tried to imagine what it would have been like to grow up there. It was a far cry from his parent’s two thousand square foot house in Arlington.
He paused as he reached behind the old lawn jockey and found nothing. Ferguson had assured him that there would be a key behind the little lantern, and that he’d have to press the code 1115 into the alarm keypad once inside. The door was unlocked, however, and nothing was beeping at him.
He dropped his bag in the sparsely decorated kitchen and made his way to the living room. For being vacant for ten years, the home was certainly wel
l kept. Large white sheets covered book cases and sofas in the huge room. Even an old painting above the mantle was covered. He wondered what such a large painting would behold. He checked each room, each having the same undisturbed white sheets covering everything.
Then he found what must have been the study. A sheet covered it, but he knew the enormous piece of furniture under the closed dark drapes was a desk. A globe in the corner and file cabinets along the wall, he drew the curtains and found a garden in the neighbor’s yard, across a decorative iron fence. The nosey bitch next door, Mrs. Cohen.
He proceeded down another long hallway and found the foyer. Walking up the imposing staircase, he imagined how lonely it must have been growing up as an only child in such a big place. Checking each bedroom along the icy blue hallway with white paneling, he finally found an open door.
And there was Burton. The air escaped his lungs in a rush of relief.
She was in the room with wallpaper that looked like an English rose garden, just like Ferguson had described. Everything in the room was covered in white canvas sheets, including the bed, but she still lay on top, curled up in a ball and clutching something very tightly. He stayed in the doorway for a moment, more certain of his next move than the last time they were together.
“Baylor,” he quietly said, sitting on the pink trunk at the end of the bed and gently holding her arms.
She jumped and looked up at him, eyes watery and cheeks pink from crying. She seemed confused to see him, but when she looked down at what she was holding she suddenly seemed to come up to speed.
“Connor,” she choked, putting the coin collection down and sitting up. She quickly wiped her eyes and looked up at him, speechless.
“Why did you come back here?” he asked, still holding her arm. “I was so worried. You never came back to my house. You were just… gone.”
She swallowed and replied, “I, I don’t know why I had to come back here. But look. Look what I found.”
Her face changed to a hopeful grin as he held the framed coins in his hand.
