Chapter 8
With time to reflect, and a steady diet of Morgan’s defense, Sarah’s sorrow, and Casey’s deeply disapproving glare, mostly everyone at the Buy More decided something more was going on. Not even Chuck Bartowski could clean out the whole store in one night, no matter how many larcenous hands he might employ. And where would a guy like Chuck Bartowski even find thieves on that magnitude? And then to have it all returned in the shadows? Just bizarre. Unexplainable.
And more than that, they all had their Chuck stories, and after the shock wore off, they started to tell them.
Chuck lent Porter money to fly home when Porter’s brother broke his leg in a car accident.
Chuck changed Bunny’s tire in the rain.
Chuck spent an afternoon at the Nerd Herd desk helping Shelly’s younger sister study for a trigonometry final.
Chuck played Mario Kart with Skip all night in the home theater room after Skip’s girlfriend moved to Phoenix.
Chuck drove over to Beverly Hills for a fancy box of cronuts on Big Mike’s 45th birthday.
Chuck was kind and patient and inarguably worked harder than anyone else in the store. These were not the actions of a dishonorable man.
Lester gradually backed off his conspiracy theories as Morgan and Casey guided the tide of opinion in the direction of Chuck’s innocence. Jeff had stayed quiet, caught between Lester’s ill-advised play for attention and the growing support for their missing team leader.
“Chuck worked an extra shift so Lester could stand in line for A-ha tickets,” Jeff finally contributed.
It was true. All of it. Lester gritted his teeth and nodded.
People gradually came to Sarah with regrets and words of comfort and support. There was a lot of hugging, some of it from people Sarah never thought to embrace. Morgan, Ellie and Awesome she knew to expect and had to admit, she needed. Every touch from Casey sharpened the ache in her chest. Big Mike caught her off guard. Jeff shocked her, mostly because nothing about it was inappropriate or awkward. Sarah put up with a few others for the show, but it wore away at her composure. Sarah was alone for a decade before Burbank, even when she wasn’t alone. This was different, to an agonizing degree. Feeling nothing at all had to be better than this.
Casey used his time after hours, with the bosses’ permission, to gradually dismantle the surveillance, first at the Weinerlicious, and then the plaza. The Buy More interior and Echo Park would come later, after Walker’s departure. He saw Ellie and Devon as they came and went at the apartment, but only Sarah spent any real time with them, and only in the company of Morgan.
The day Casey gave his two-weeks’ notice Big Mike sat in his chair across from the major and sincerely wept. Casey was so accustomed to other people’s tears by then that he carried a pocketful of paper towels from the break room everywhere he went. Mike accepted one from his hand and squeaked out a thank you in between sniffles. Casey would rather be taking fire in Anbar, but he sat in the office with his boss for a few minutes while Big Mike had a small meltdown.
The theater the agents engaged in to preserve Chuck’s reputation, and it seemed to help, kept Sarah in Los Angeles a little over three weeks. They played their parts faithfully. Casey stamped out innuendos left and right the Buy More and surrounding shops and Sarah clung to Morgan and teetered on the edge of a breakdown.
Sarah was so good at it, even she was convinced.
In the parking lot at Echo Park one morning, Casey caught Devon in an unexpected handshake hug. He broke the news on a whisper that Sarah had finally been ordered back to Washington, and he would surely follow.
Devon blinked back sudden tears. “Good to see you too, bro,” he said at a more normal volume. “Thanks for asking. We’re pretty friggin’ awful…but you know, trying to hang in there.”
Casey studiously ignored the ache that produced. Chuck’s family was getting too good at this. He shared a few more words with Devon and headed to the Crown Vic, feeling appropriately terrible.
Late the next morning, Sarah stopped short of Ellie’s front door, hoping for a couple of minutes to compose herself, but it wasn’t to be. Ellie spied on her doorstep and wordlessly admitted Chuck’s handler. Ellie knew Sarah was coming, and she knew why, and she dreaded this visit from the moment Sarah and John left the apartment that wretched first morning.
Ellie and Devon were acutely aware of the surveillance. John would not tell them where the cameras were located so they wouldn’t raise suspicion by avoiding them. In that environment, every moment in their own home for the last few weeks was curated to be seen, and Ellie was weary of feeling like she was performing her grief. At the door with Sarah, Ellie ignored the thought of surveillance and hugged her without calculation, longer and tighter than she imagined she would.
Ellie finally let Sarah go and watched Chuck’s handler pan the room.
“No Devon?”
Ellie shook her head. “Called in.”
Sarah bit her lips and nodded. Ellie led her to the sofa, and they sat for a long moment, a couple of feet apart. Ellie watched Sarah and Sarah watched her shoes.
So awkward. So, so awfully, painfully, unbearably awkward. Just awful. Sarah’s chest felt tight.
Ellie offered tea, and even though she shouldn’t stay, Sarah said yes. Apparently, Ellie needed a minute to get her head together, too, and Sarah hesitated to rush Chuck’s sister more than necessary. Something non-tactical and human told her Ellie should set the agenda. So, Sarah sat alone and looked around the room one last time, at the knick knacks and throw pillows. A couple of plants Ellie had on the patio outside the glass doors. Ellie’s books and Devon’s dumbbells. A pair of Devon’s sneakers under the green chair. Chuck’s Blu-Ray collection and some DVDs on a shelf by the fireplace.
And pictures, a dozen at least, that Sarah had long since memorized. Much younger shots of Chuck, Ellie and Morgan. A grainy family photo with their parents, Stephen and Mary, when Chuck was six at the most, already gangly and thin. High school graduation photos, Devon and Ellie at work, hiking to the Hollywood sign, all of them on the beach. Signs of a life well lived with loved ones. A family, now irrecoverably broken.
Even though they borderline terrified her, Sarah was going to miss these kind, warm, welcoming people more than she ever imagined possible.
Sarah picked up a framed photo from that coffee table that Ellie normally kept on the bookshelf. Chuck leaned against the rail at the Santa Monica Pier, watching the sun fade over the water. Ellie captured him, at just right moment, just the right angle. In that light, his amber eyes were almost the same hue as he sunset.
He was beautiful.
Ellie returned, bringing peppermint tea with honey, instead of her usual green tea, because neither of them could sleep. They talked about the photo Sarah held. It was Ellie’s favorite, for obvious reasons; a good memory of a happy afternoon at the beach with Devon and Morgan, a couple of years ago. It was commercial and a little cheesy, but they had dinner at Bubba Gump, rode the Ferris wheel and had funnel cake and generally behaved like tourists for a day in the city where they lived. It was the most fun they’d had together in ages.
Sarah handed Ellie the picture frame and Ellie looked down at it.
“You know what…” Ellie didn’t finish her sentence but instead went to the bookshelf and pulled down a photo album and brought it back to the sofa. She flipped through the pages. “I liked that one so well I printed the extra copy to frame.” Ellie pulled back the cellophane cover sheet and removed the same photo from the album. “I…” Ellie had to clear her throat. “I have the digital copy, too, so you should keep this.”
Sarah reached for it hesitantly. Graham would expect her to turn over everything, her phone, laptop, her copy of the Comic Con photo and the one they took in Chuck’s room during the Halloween party. He would likely watch this meeting with Ellie and want the pier photo, too; every scrap of anything with Chuck’s likeness, even voicemail messages and emails, anything she might be tempted to keep from Chuck, the director would see destroyed.
Sarah already stopped at a walk-in photo place on Ventura to make duplicate copies of the pictures she had and went so far as to park and walk and leave her phone to avoid being tracked. She’d have to find a way to copy this photo before she met with her boss. At the very least, she could snap a picture of it with the pocket-sized digital camera in her suitcase; it was hers and not the agency’s, and even if Graham took a deep dive on all of her electronics, she had a spare memory card. She could hide it. Sarah wanted that photo.
“Thank you.” Sarah traced a finger over the image and smiled faintly, for just a moment, and blew out a careful breath. “Ellie…I uhm…I need to—”
“This is goodbye, isn’t it?”
Sarah looked up in surprise.
Ellie swiped at her cheek but spoke calmly. “You’ve been quiet, quieter than normal for a couple of days. I can feel you pulling away.” Ellie squeezed her hands together so she wouldn’t reach out. “This…it feels like a-a goodbye.”
Sarah pressed her hand to her chest. Of all the possibilities, she didn’t expect Ellie to help. Not now. A flare of resentment would make sense. Waiting for Sarah to do the hard part, at least. Even though they had worked together for three weeks to sell this lie, some pushback would be natural, understandable.
Sarah was abandoning her and Ellie was going to help her do it.
“I uhm…I think…” Tears sprang to Sarah’s eyes, and she took another deep breath. The tightness just wouldn’t quit. “When I got to L.A. it was supposed to be temporary. I was going to try a few places out, you know, before I made any decisions…put down roots. But…I ended up staying.”
“Because of Chuck,” Ellie said sadly.
“Yes,” Sarah said. “Chuck’s the kind of guy you stay for.” She smiled faintly and wiped under her eyes. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to stay here and see him…everywhere.”
Ellie knew Sarah was saying what she had to, but that stung. There would be no walking away for her or Devon or Morgan.
“Does Morgan know?” Ellie asked.
Sarah’s cheeks burned with shame because she knew how it would look. Graham’s assistant texted a little after 9 a.m. to inform Sarah that the flight she booked for 7:45 p.m. had been rebooked at 1:55 p.m. at the director’s request. With that alteration Sarah had time for packing and Ellie and traffic and nothing else.
Sarah was already leaving, the ticket was bought, and Graham had her flight moved up for no strategic reason. He was just sick of waiting. Graham was out of patience, and Sarah was out of time.
“I know I should tell him. I…don’t think I can do this twice.” Sarah pulled a folded sheet of paper from her purse and placed it on the coffee table.
Ellie touched Morgan’s name, written across the paper in Sarah’s hand. Her jaw clenched briefly, and Sarah saw it and winced.
“I know it’s wrong,” Sarah said quietly. “I know.”
Sarah was leaving and nothing Ellie did was going to change it or change how she did it. They both knew someone was watching, and Ellie didn’t argue beyond a look that said leaving Morgan a note was low, and by Sarah’s expression, she agreed.
Ellie blew out a long breath. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
Sarah worried her lip between her teeth and gave half a nod. “I uh, I…think I’m going to go spend some time with my dad. After that…I don’t really know. I should have thought a little harder before I quit like I did. They have other stores, but Scooter wouldn’t let me back in the building for a million dollars now, so I can’t even talk to him about a transfer.”
Everyone at the Buy More knew Sarah had been ducking work and after she quit the Weinerlicious, word got around about the unhinged nature of her resignation. Morgan quietly pulled Ellie aside one night after dinner to tell her about it. Scooter was going to have fast food PTSD over it. So that at least, was partially true.
As for her father, Sarah wrote the odd letter to her him, but she never visited him at the penitentiary, and she would not be doing that now. But it sounded like something a normal person from a normal family would say. Ellie knew enough to not ask about it. And Ellie also knew all about emotions run riot. She had been granted a short leave of absence from work, because she couldn’t consult with patients when she was crying before she ever entered the room. But the clock was ticking on Westside’s compassionate leave. Ellie had until Monday to figure out how to talk to patients and coworkers like her heart wasn’t a smoking ruin.
“John, he’s been talking to Devon, some? I dunno, checking in on us, I guess,” Ellie said quietly. “He told Devon he saw a lot of messed up things in the gulf, but not many that that confused or upset him as much as this.”
Sarah had a couple of similar conversations with her partner. “He said something like that to me, too…only with a lot more swearing.”
Ellie nodded and took a sip of her tea. “He’s so grumbly and standoffish.” Ellie wiped a tear escaping down her cheek. “I never expected him to be kind.”
It was likely just Sarah’s frame of mind. Ellie was a nice woman, considerate, not usually looking to land a jab, but Sarah heard a condemnation in it. Why would Ellie expect anyone tied up in this mess from the government’s side of the equation to be anything but heartless? Sarah spent a lot of time lately swamped by a long list of things she could have done better or done at all. At the same time Casey was in her ear, trying to keep her moving, keep her head in the game. It was exhausting, feeling so much and hating herself for being a part of it.
It was easier before when her assets were compromised people up to their ears in wrongdoing, or at least those who consented to it by inaction and omission. The ones who profited by association and turned a blind eye. And those few who just got pulled in, the wrong place, wrong time people, the ones who bothered her so much more; at least those she didn’t know beyond passing acquaintance. Never one whose eyes saw through her and wanted to be close anyway, whose hands touched like she was worthy of care. Not a man for whom decency was the default setting.
Sarah did a lot of looking down, around, anywhere but directly at Ellie. She took a deep breath and lightly touched the back of Ellie’s hand, and the engagement ring. “I’m so glad for that,” she said. “Chuck wants that for you.”
It was almost the first thing Devon did after Sarah and John left the apartment that morning. He knew the cameras would roll again very soon, so he gave Ellie a hand up, held her close and pressed his lips to the crown of her head.
“This changes nothing for me,” he said, barely a whisper. “I loved you yesterday, and I love you today, and I will love you fifty years from now. You’re far too precious to me for anything less than forever, Eleanor Faye Bartowski. If you will have me, I want to marry you, and we’ll figure out how to do this together. Chuck already gave me his blessing. There’s no way I’m letting either of you down. I know this is the worst possible timing, but please say you’ll be my wife.”
Devon had no ring to slip on Ellie’s finger, so he kissed the fourth finger on her left hand and Ellie whispered her choked assent into his ear.
In a manner of minutes, Ellie would need to wake up to the news that Chuck never came home. Devon kissed her once, the way he wanted to kiss the woman he’d asked to be his wife, and they went back to the sofa to begin the rest of their life together by pretending ignorance to the government that stole her brother.
Ellie bit her lips and nodded at Sarah. “I never imagined Chuck wouldn’t be here for my wedding.”
“I know,” Sarah whispered and swallowed around the burning in her throat. “He’d love it, every minute of it. Nothing would make him happier.”
Ellie nodded but the smile that should have followed didn’t quite form up. She and Sarah visited quietly for a while longer but eventually their words petered under the weight of it all and Sarah looked down into her mug. No more tea. No more time.
Sarah cast a pained look at the front door. “I uh…I should…”
Ellie closed her eyes for a moment and nodded. It was time.
“Right.” Ellie took their mugs to the kitchen and returned to find Sarah standing by the door.
“I’m really sorry I missed Devon.”
“Me, too,” Ellie murmured. “He was upset that they called him in.”
Sarah couldn’t make her face or her voice do anything she wanted them to do, so she turned the handle and stepped into the courtyard. Ellie walked with Sarah to her car in the back lot, not away from the cameras, but at least away from the microphones. She watched Sarah open the door and throw her purse and phone in the passenger seat and close the door again. Ellie realized it was a means of putting her phone away without appearing too obvious about it. Ellie’s phone was on the coffee table inside for the same reason.
The notion that they were surveilling Sarah, too, struck Ellie hard. That there was so little trust, not just where Chuck’s family was concerned, but from the people in charge toward their own staff. Ellie had the firm impression that the higher ups didn’t trust anyone, Sarah included. Maybe even Sarah, particularly.
The thread of mutual misery over losing Chuck pulled a little tighter. Ellie gathered Sarah into a hug.
“My boss moved up my flight,” Sarah whispered. “I was supposed to have time for Morgan. I didn’t want to leave you with that.”
A muted sound, somewhere between a sob and a growl sounded in Ellie’s throat. “I hate them,” Ellie hissed. “That’s a new feeling for me. I’m not in the habit of doing that, just…hating people.” Her voice broke but she kept going, because she was sure Sarah needed to hear this. “I hate the people who hunted Chuck, and I hate the people who took him away.” Chuck’s sister squeezed Sarah even harder. “But I don’t hate John, and I definitely don’t hate you, Sarah,” Ellie whispered. “Tell me you understand that.”
What Sarah needed to hear and what she could allow herself to believe were at loggerheads. That Ellie would have an ounce of will, in the middle of her own grief, to attempt to make Sarah feel better, was more than the agent could handle.
Sarah pushed back and held Ellie at arm’s length, looking mostly at the ground. “I…I have to go, Ellie. I’m sorry.” She said it again, in a strangled whisper, blinking back tears. “I’m so sorry.”
Sarah left Ellie crying in the parking lot.
Graham had denied Sarah’s request to drive back to D.C., so she left her Porsche in LAX long-term parking for a CIA minion to ship back to Washington. An hour later, the gate agent scanned her ticket, and Sarah walked down the jetway with nothing but destruction in her wake.
It might not be her fault, but it felt like her responsibility and Sarah’s heart wouldn’t believe otherwise.