A thirty-minute drive to the west took him to the cliffs of West End, and to more tourists than he cared to see in a lifetime. But there was an establishment there called Rick’s Café and it was the only place Walt could find Hampden Estate rum—other than visiting the distillery itself, a massive compound located in Trelawny where the rum was distilled in giant pot stills. Walt had visited the distillery several times and had become close friends with the owner. His fondness for the rum made him trek to Rick’s Café a couple of times each week when he had a taste for the good stuff.
The ice rattled in his glass as Walt walked to the front porch of his house. He sat in the rocker and stared out at the horizon. It had been his nightly ritual for as long as he’d been here in Jamaica. Situated deep in the forests of Negril, the sunsets from his front porch were not as spectacular as when he ventured to the coast, but they were still worthy of thirty minutes of quiet solitude. Instead of sinking into the Atlantic, here on his porch the sun simply dipped beneath the branches of palm trees and mangroves, silhouetting them black against the cherry-stained sky.
He sipped rum until the sun was gone and the stars took over the sky. It was quiet here, very different from his old life back in New York. The occasional bark from a stray dog replaced the constant blaring of horns, and he had never once been awakened by the screaming siren of an ambulance or fire truck while here in Jamaica. During his first week at the house, one of those strays had wandered onto Walt’s porch and sat down next to the rocker. Walt scratched behind the dog’s ear and brought him a bowl of water and beef jerky. The dog never left. Walt named him Bureau and a friendship was born.
Bureau sat at Walt’s feet now as he clicked on the porch light and pulled the book he was reading onto his lap. There was a television in the house, but it picked up only local stations and offered little in the way of sports. He’d turned it on once during his first week in Jamaica but hadn’t bothered with it since. Three years later, he wasn’t sure it still worked. He read the local paper, and followed the Yankees and other events related to home on his iPhone. It was a device meant for communication, but Walt couldn’t remember the last time he’d used it to place a call. It had been longer yet since the damn thing had rung.
He took another sip of rum and opened his book, the latest John Grisham he’d been using as a distraction from thinking too much about his upcoming trip. As soon as he opened the book, though, his self-sabotaging ways prevented the diversion he was hoping to find in the pages. The chapter where he’d left off was kept by an American Airlines reservation he had printed the day before. He was headed back to New York, and the sight of the reservation stirred anxiety in his chest. He took another sip of rum, his self-prescribed antidote to such uneasiness, while cursing the subliminal workings of his brain that had caused him to place the ticket in a spot where he’d never miss it, and admiring the move at the same time. In his previous life he was a surveillance agent with the FBI. He worked on the fringes, never in the spotlight, and his actions had always been hidden and inconspicuous. He was glad to know that this many years removed from the Bureau he hadn’t lost his touch, even if tonight he was his own target.
He moved the reservation to the back of the book and began reading. The words, though, were lost on him. While his eyes blindly skimmed the pages, his mind was already running through the details of his upcoming trip, what he would say, and how he would handle seeing her again after so long.
Love or the law, man’s only two problems in this world.
CHAPTER 7
Los Angeles, CA Wednesday, June 16, 2021
THE RED RANGE ROVER WAS THE PERFECT CRUISING VEHICLE FOR Avery’s cross-country journey. With the cruise control pegged at eighty mph and nothing in front of her but open road and an entire country to conquer, the Range Rover nearly drove itself. She’d purchased it a year ago after signing on as temporary host of American Events. It was the first time in her adult life that Avery Mason had made any real money of her own. She’d spent an obnoxious amount of money for four wheels and a souped-up engine, but there was some part of her psyche—perhaps the unbreakable link to her past life—that made it an easy purchase. Maybe she had more of her father’s blood in her than she cared to admit. The difference, Avery never stopped reminding herself, was that her status in the world had been earned honestly, and legally. The same certainly could not be said of her father.
She was headed to New York by way of Wisconsin, a journey that would cover more than three thousand miles. The airlines were faster and easier but were out of the question. As was rail travel or the thought of renting a car to avoid putting thousands of miles on her Range Rover. Airline reservations, train tickets, and rental car receipts left paper and digital trails. Avery wanted to make as few footprints as possible while she tiptoed across the country. She had business in New York and would do her best to conduct it under the radar. No one was watching her, she had convinced herself, and hitting the road rather than taking to the air was pure paranoia. Still, the fewer tracks she left, the better.