All That Mattered, Ch. 04

Jamie slouched in his chair, picking at the chicken stir-fry Amanda had thrown together once she’d gotten Lee settled. He’d barely said anything throughout the whole meal. Joe and Carrie had kept looking over at him and then exchanging worried glances.

Any other time, she might have been amused at the evidence of their solidifying relationship. Or she’d have wondered if that’s what she and Lee looked like. Or both.

But not tonight.

“Jamie,” she finally said. “You’re excused.”

He kept staring at his plate. “Want me to do the dishes?”

She considered it, but over the past several weeks, Jamie had picked up his late brother’s bad habit of letting his emotional state affect the quality of his chore work. “No, sweetheart. We’ll get it. Go on upstairs and finish your homework.”

His chair scraped the floor as he pushed it back to exit. Once they’d heard the sound of his footsteps reaching the top of the townhouse stairs, Joe turned to Amanda. “We probably shouldn’t have been so hard on him.”

Standing up, she began collecting plates. “He’s thirteen, Joe. He knew better than to make major changes without asking.” Or, at least, he should have known.

“He was just overexcited, and he had no idea that Lee would object. None of us did.”

“Did you?” She turned away from the sink to look at them. “And how would you feel if someone came into your house while you were in the hospital and moved everything around? Especially if it was supposedly to ‘help’ them in ways they hadn’t even asked for?”

Carrie dropped her gaze.

“All right,” Amanda allowed. “I’m not going to punish him or anything like that. I’ll just talk to him once he’s in a better enough mood to listen to me.”

Joe stepped over to the counter to pick up a dishcloth. “We can help with the dishes, at least.”

“Put that down.” It came out more sharply than she’d meant it to. “Sweetheart, I know you’re trying to help, but you know what? You’re also being pretty impolite.”

“Impolite?” His voice went up.

“Yes. It’s presumptuous to just go in to someone’s house and start doing things without permission.”

“We didn’t know we didn’t — !”

“Did you ask?” It was an effort to keep from raising her voice. “Well, did you?”

Carrie still hadn’t looked up, but she shook her head. “We assumed —”

“That’s right,” Amanda told her. “You assumed. It never occurred to you that a thirteen-year-old child might not have thought everything through before suggesting something to you? Or that Lee might already be under stress before he ever even came through the door and that the last thing he needed was some big commotion?” She shook her head. “You’re supposed to be two of the adults here.”

“Now, wait a minute,” said Joe. “That’s not fair.”

“Neither is life!” Snatching the sponge from its place behind the sink, she started scrubbing furiously. “Listen, you’re family and that means you get special treatment, but at the end of the day this is our house and we will do things our way. Lee’s a big boy. He’ll tell me what he needs. Well, that, or he’ll show me.”

“Like he did on the stairs?”

“He figured that one out on his own!”

“Amanda,” said Carrie. “Lee’s not the only one under stress right now, and it seems like we’re just making things worse. Maybe we should just go.”

She blew her breath out. “Yeah. Maybe you should.”

“Can we come back tomorrow? When do you need more help?”

“I don’t know.” Now she could hear defeat and despair starting to creep in to her tone. “I just don’t know right now.”

---

Few people knew about this little restaurant, which made it that much more appealing in Nancy’s mind. It was only three bus stops away from the Agency headquarters — close enough to reach quickly, but far enough away for some breathing room. And she had needed that since she’d begun working with Francine on this case. If nothing else, it helped the two of them keep giving Mr. Melrose the plausible deniability he needed.

As she went back over her notes from this morning’s sojourn, she took another bite of the cucumber-and-lamb salad she had decided to try today. She’d finally, on this sixth try, hit paydirt; Jonathan had indeed used Dupont Circle Travel for his trip to Paris. Francine had been baffled when they found out he hadn’t used his usual travel agency, but the very nice front office clerk at Dupont Circle had suggested that it was because he’d wanted to arrange some sort of surprise.

Yeah, thought Nancy. Disappearing’s a surprise, all right. Just not the kind anyone wants.

They hadn’t allowed her to take anything with her, but they’d let her view his itinerary there in the office. As soon as she’d skimmed it, she’d caught the reason for the change of agency: Jonathan had included shopping trips to both Kilchberg, Switzerland, and Milan, Italy. Nothing on his shipment manifests had stood out from either location; they’d primarily been fashion and luggage items, which were best sourced in Paris itself.

After another bite of salad, she bracketed the city names and made a notation about finding out which companies might be headquartered there.

“Oh!” came a voice from behind her. “Nancy! Hi!”

She was so startled she nearly dropped her fork. Nice job with the situational awareness, Zeta.

But it was just Scotty, and he was sporting a huge grin above a double armful of cameras and equipment.

“Hi,” she said, hoping her quiet tone would serve as a hint.

No such luck. He noisily dropped his burdens next to her table. “I didn’t know you knew about this place.”

“I didn’t know you did.”

“Isn’t that awesome? Maybe that just means we like the same kinds of foods. Wait here a minute and watch my stuff, will you? I need to go up and order.”

With a sigh, she closed her notebook and stowed it in her purse. Scotty likely knew enough about the Agency to keep his eyes to himself, but she had no idea what his actual clearance level was — and she didn’t want to find out the hard way.

“Man, oh, man, is that stuff heavy.” Scotty’s tray clattered as he put it down across from her. He’d opted for something on skewers. “I don’t even understand why they’re still using it.”

“Using what? Your equipment?” It had just looked like cameras and assorted paraphernalia to her.

“Not my equipment. IFF’s. I like to use a Super-8, ’cause that’s easy to manage and small enough to hold in one hand, and you can just drop your spare cassettes in your pocket or something. But this B-roll I’m finishing’s on 16mm so I have to use one of these old Steenbecks.” She hadn’t seen him stop for breath or take a bite, but part of one kebab had already disappeared. “I mean, look at it! It’s green. But I guess they still have to use them if they’re shooting in Europe or something.”

“Europe?” she asked despite her earlier resolve not to engage.

“Yeah. First part of the roll’s stuff from Paris, and I think there might be some stuff from Italy on there too.”

“Paris?” She bobbled her fork again. “And Italy? From how long ago?”

“Not long, probably just in the last week or two. Maybe a month.”

“I, ah…” How could she word this? “You said it’s B-roll, right? That’s the stuff you guys shoot for atmosphere, right? Nothing staged?”

He gave her a curious look. “Yeah, that’s what B-roll’s for.”

“Would that include people on it?”

“If they were shooting in public places? Probably.”

Nancy’s mind was racing. “Could I get — when you develop this, could you look and see if you see any shots with people in them? Especially if you can see their faces?” It was a shot in the dark, but she might just get lucky enough to spot Jonathan Stone.

“Why?”

“Um, ah.” Darn it. She’d gotten over-enthusiastic again. “It’s — I’m trying to put together a dossier, and it might help if I had some pictures. I mean, not movies, but — you guys can process stills from the film reels, can’t you?”

“Sure we can. But there’s loads of B-roll from France and Italy already on file.”

“It’s, ah, it’s dated,” she managed. “I’m looking for something as recent as I can get it.”

“Oh, I see. Yeah, I’ll pull you some stills. I mean, there’s no work order or anything, but it’s just a few shots, right?” At any other time, she might have found his smile almost infectious. “I’d just need a day or two.”

“Great!” she told him, forgetting to pipe down again, but then she took a breath. “Great. Thank you, Scotty. I’d really appreciate that.”

“No problem. Anything for you. Hey, are you busy for dinner tonight?”

Nancy sighed inwardly. It was going to take at least five more minutes to extricate herself from this conversation before she could get back to work. But, she decided, it was worth it. This time, anyway.

---

Lee grinned to himself as he got to the top of the stairs. He was exhausted — it was his fifth trip of the day — but the practice had been worth it, as he’d managed to get himself up without any wobbling or false starts this time. He’d been on crutches before, but it had always been when he was living in a flat. He’d never realized it was actually easier to go down stairs on crutches than it was to go up; the risk of falling meant that it seemed like it was the other way around.

Making his way into the bedroom, he sank gratefully down onto the bed. So far, things were going well now that he’d been home from the hospital for nearly a week. Amanda had stayed home with him for a few days, and she’d been making some of her more elaborate meals. Since those took longer to cook, they ordinarily were reserved for special occasions or holidays. Tonight, it had been steak roulade in a homemade sauce, and everyone had gone back for seconds.

With a satiated groan, he reached down to take off his shoes and socks. Well, shoe and sock, anyway. It still felt unusual to use the singular terms. At the moment, his right foot was still wrapped in gauze and elastic, with strict instructions for keeping it elevated.

He’d mostly managed to do as he’d been told. He’d even managed to be pleasantly surprised when Jamie, after watching him fumble with bags and cups the past few days, had put together a contraption made out of a bicycle basket and two belts.

It’s kind of like a reverse backpack, his stepson had explained. See? You put things in and out of the basket without taking it off. Then they just hang there, safe, when you’re on the crutches.

Lee had initially accepted it in an effort to be nice, but it began proving surprisingly useful almost immediately. By the time they’d gotten through with dinner, he wasn’t feigning being impressed.

His nose wrinkled as he unbuckled the basket before pulling the sweatshirt over his head. He was sweating as though he’d been through an all-day workout. I probably smell like it, too, he realized. He hadn’t had a proper shower since the morning he’d had his accident. Since then, it had been sponge baths in the hospital or Amanda assisting him in their bathtub. They’d put a plastic stool in there so he could sit down.

And since I can reach the faucet from the stool, why not take a shower?

It took much longer than he expected to undress, pull a plastic bag over his foot, and get into the bathtub. That’s all right. I’m not in a hurry. Jamie was doing homework, and Amanda was still cleaning up downstairs. She’d mentioned she wanted to spend some time practicing Arabic afterward; she’d switched from Russian this past summer, after one of their cases made it clear Moscow wasn’t the only threat in the world anymore. Lee agreed; they’d be a far stronger team if she spoke languages he didn’t. Well, they would be once he was back at work.

Which, if he could manage this shower, would be sooner rather than later.

It was a bit of a balancing act to sit on the stool with his leg over the side of the bathtub, and the stretch to reach the faucet was awkward. He made it, though, successfully managing to get the water to the right temperature before pulling the shower knob. That was when he realized that the soap and shampoo, stored in a niche that was convenient when standing, were totally out of reach.

Okay, he told himself. All I have to do is stand up for a second and then I can sit back down. I don’t need a crutch for that.

When he pushed up, his arms windmilled as he tipped wildly, thanks to having one foot in the tub and one foot out of it. Lee grabbed at the wall, but of course, it was slippery from the steam. There was nothing to prevent him from crashing down into the tub, taking the shower curtain and rod with him…

…and lying with his feet at the end with the faucet, which was still running.

The bathroom door flew open. “Lee! What are you doing?”

He still couldn’t find any purchase.

Amanda came in and turned the shower off, dodging around the pools of water that had formed on the bathroom floor. “Sweetheart, you should have told me.”

“Help me up, damn it! Since when do I have to check in with you to take a damn shower, anyway?” He was fuming, and there were new bruises forming on his knees, back, and elbows. Somehow his bandages had gotten wet, too, which meant they were going to have to redo them. Great.

His wife picked her way over to him. “Um, sweetheart…”

“What?” Couldn’t she see he was still in an uncomfortable position?

She sighed again. “I’m not strong enough to lift you up and over the side of the tub.”

“You’re not…” he trailed off. He hadn’t considered that.

“I’m going to have to go get Jamie.”

“I’m buck naked!”

She produced a towel to cover his privates. “Or possibly even call Joe.”

“Amanda!” How could she even think something like that?

The skin around her eyes tightened. “We’ll also need to call Dr. Thomas. You hit your head.”

“I can see just fine.”

“He told you to call right away if something like that happened, regardless of how you felt.” She paused. “I know. I know, Lee. But look at it this way: at least nothing happened from lack of trying.”

Lee closed his eyes, feeling shame burning behind them. At least his face was still wet, so if anything leaked out, nobody would be able to tell. The thought brought him no comfort at all.

---

The last time Billy had faced the files in the Q-Bureau had been after Larry Crawford had left a disgusting mess. Lee and Amanda were comparatively neater, but that was no comfort. Especially since he needed to do this himself instead of foisting it off on someone else.

Amanda’s desk was, of course, neat as a pin, and Billy had no trouble identifying which files were active and which were just waiting on final paperwork. Lee’s wasn’t quite as tidy, but he was confident it was only paper — no plugs of used chewing gum, or used underwear, or anything else like he’d read about in Francine’s and Amanda’s cleanup report from two-and-a-half years ago. And after ten or fifteen minutes of making piles, Billy was able to figure out some method to the madness. He’d long since figured out that Lee wasn’t as disorganized as he pretended to be.

“All right,” he told the stacks when he was done neatening them. “Who’s going to get you?”

Since Amanda was coming back to work, albeit half-time, he only needed to make sure she wasn’t overloaded. It was the work of a few minutes to pull off the easier two-thirds of cases for reassignment to Duffy. They were fairly routine, and that freed Amanda to focus on the ones where she was too far into the weeds for a quick hand-off.

At Lee’s desk, he opened a drawer and found two more files. These had deliberately been kept segregated from the others, and he was going to have to take them for himself. The only other agent with a high enough clearance — and no conflicts of interest — was Francine.

Francine.

Billy sighed, ignoring the familiar warning twinge in his gut. What was he going to do about Francine?

She was trying to hide it, but he knew better. She was barely managing to keep up with her caseload. He was positive that there were at least three cases where Francine couldn’t have given him a verbal status report at all; Zeta was handling all the particulars, even the parts that shouldn’t have fallen to her. Not to mention that Zeta’s ins and outs suggested she was supporting Francine’s private inquiry on at least a superficial level.

He hadn’t had a chance to check with the younger agent to see if Francine was ready to accept the conclusion he himself had already drawn: Jonathan Stone was only coming back in a body bag.

Shaking his head, he evenly re-allocated the cases almost at random, to be handed off to Jenkins and Beaman. But when he got to the last one, the odd one out, he wasn’t sure which way to go. Opening the file, he skimmed through and noted that it seemed to have something to do with cryptology and computer systems.

Trent kept making a point of mentioning he was a computer systems expert.

“Okay then,” he said. “Let’s see how he does with you.”

Looking at the distribution of folders and documents, he nodded, satisfied. Jenkins and Beaman would complain, but it likely would only be half-hearted. And if Trent did the same, he’d just offer him two or three — or five — more cases instead of giving them to the other agents.

That resolved the issue of the cases in the Q-Bureau, without pushing Francine any further past her limit. Two birds with one stone.

Well, he thought as his stomach churned again, one-and-a-half, anyway. It was only going to be a matter of time before his second-in-command broke. He could only hope that it wouldn’t be a bad break. Or a permanent one.