Chapter 32

Jamie had just parked in the driveway of his parents' house when his mobile phone rang. He checked the number and said, "It's Bob. Hey, Bob; what's up?"

"Can you make it to West Point by two tomorrow afternoon?"

"Sure. What am I doing?"

"You're subbing for Bryan on that engagement picture shoot. He sprained his ankle playing handball tonight and he's laid up."

"Got it. Tell me again whom I'm meeting?"

"Lieutenant Chrissy Eldridge and Lieutenant Sean Seaton; they'll be in the main lobby of the Hotel Thayer at two, and they want a 'our memories of West Point' shoot, so you'll be doing a lot of walking up and down hills."

"I'll be there. J-Man out."

He disconnected and closed his phone.

"J-Man?" Abby asked, amused.

"It's what Bob calls me. Bryan Hathaway, the other photographer in the business, is 'Hatman'."

"I'm seeing a trend here."

"Yeah, well, that's Bob. I have to leave early tomorrow morning; Bob wants me at West Point to do an engagement photo shoot for a couple of young lieutenants up there."

"Two West Pointers getting married? I wonder how often that happens?"

"Probably fairly often, I'd guess. Anyway, I'm out the door at six tomorrow to make sure I get there on time. It will take me six hours if the traffic cooperates, and I still need to allow time for lunch and so on."

"Sure. And after that, you have that wedding on Saturday, and then it's back to work."

"Right."

"And I'm back to work tomorrow too."

"Yeah. It might be weeks before I can get down here again if things get busy, Princess."

"I know, but we can talk on the phone."

"Won't be the same, but yeah, we can."

"Do you need to go in so you can pack?"

"I guess so," he said, reluctant for the evening to end.

"We have time, Jamie. In fact, time is a good thing for us, so we can see if this is more than just a flash in the pan. I'll be up by six to make sure you eat breakfast."

"My mother will thank you, but you don't have to get up and cook breakfast for me."

"But if I do, I can kiss you goodbye."

"For that, I will gladly eat breakfast."

Since he was the principal photographer on the West Point shoot, not just one of Bob's minions, Jamie dressed more formally on Friday morning. 'More formally', in this case, meant a white dress shirt, open at the collar, another pair of the designer jeans that he lived in most of the time, and his Doc Martens. When he got closer to West Point, he'd add a sport coat, a hat, and the heavy black-framed glasses that turned James King, super spy, into James Bishop, nerdy photographer.

He came out of his room at five-thirty on Friday morning and followed his nose to the kitchen, where Abby was frying bacon and making waffles in Amanda's waffle iron.

"Bacon and… waffles? Really, Abigail?"

"Yup. I said breakfast and I meant breakfast, J-Man. No driving to New York on an empty stomach."

"My mother is definitely going to thank you. What are you going to do this weekend?"

"Finish the shorts set I started yesterday, go to church on Sunday, give Lee and Amanda a chance to go out to dinner or a movie without the kids tonight or tomorrow - things like that."

"Sounds good. Just be sure to take some time for yourself, all right?"

"Will you?"

"Sure; I'll sleep in on Sunday, read the papers, use the darkroom at the studio to develop the pictures I took here the last couple of days. Developing isn't work; I like seeing how my shots came out."

He poured a large cup of coffee into his travel mug and sat down when she put two plates of bacon and waffles on the table for him. He waited while she prayed and then dug into the waffles, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and drenched in butter and maple syrup.

He wanted to linger, but he had to leave. At five minutes to six, he came out of his room with his camera bags over his shoulder just as Amanda, in her robe, came out of the master bedroom.

"I smelled bacon all the way up here," she said. "Abby fixed breakfast for you, and she made sure you ate it."

"Bacon and waffles, and I ate it all, Mom. Gotta go."

He hugged her and went downstairs, where Abby was waiting with another cup of coffee. "Bless you," he said. He dropped a quick kiss on her sweet mouth and said, "Don't work too hard, Princess."

"I won't. Be safe, SuperSpy."

"Always."

Kendra was eating breakfast with her grandparents on Friday morning before she took them to National to catch their flight back to Tucson when the phone rang. Bob Davis reached behind and picked up the receiver. "Davis residence."

"Hi, Dad," Matt said. "I need Kenleigh to run an errand for her mom."

"Sure, Son, she's right here."

Bob handed the phone to Kendra, who said, "Hi, Daddy. How is the Cumberland?"

"Fabulous. We are very glad that Lee pulled whatever strings he had to pull to get us in on such short notice. Honey, after you drop Poppy and Nana off at National, could you go over to the guest house for us? We packed so fast that Mom accidentally left some things in the bathroom – a gown and a robe, she says. They're hanging on the back of the door."

"Sure, Daddy, I can do that."

"Thanks. Can you hand the phone to Poppy?"

"Sure."

Bob talked to Matt briefly and hung up. "He just wanted to wish us a good flight," he said.

"Sure. I'll clean up here while you and Nana finish packing, and then we'll go to the airport."

Unlike the previous day, the elder Davises flight was on schedule; Kendra said goodbye to them and returned to her car, which she'd put in short-term parking. She drove across the Potomac to Georgetown, parked in front of the guest house, and went across the street. The receptionist recognized her, but she showed her badge anyway. "I just need to ask Amanda Stetson a quick question," she said. "I can do it over the phone, but I didn't want to use an open line."

"Of course, Ms. Davis." The receptionist dialed Amanda's extension, said, 'I have Kendra Davis in the foyer for you, Amanda. She says she just has a question."

She handed the phone to Kendra. "Hi, Amanda. How are you today?"

"I'm fine, Kendra. Did you get your grandparents off all right?"

"Oh, yes, the flight was on time today. Amanda, Mom accidentally left some things in the guest house, and I need to go pick them up. I wasn't sure about the entry code, and I needed to let someone know I was going in there anyway."

"Of course. The code changes every Friday, so the one Lee gave Matt wouldn't work anyway. This week, it's 7-6-7-7-1-4. Extra brownie points if you can figure out what the Codes and Ciphers crew are trying to commemorate."

"Well, tomorrow is the 14th, the 14th is Flag Day, so… ROSS14, for Betsy Ross."

"Give the agent a double fudge brownie."

"While I'm over there, may I stay and look around for a bit?"

"Of course; you're Agency now, Kendra; look all you like."

Kendra thanked the receptionist, crossed the street, and coded herself into the house. She went upstairs first, found the clothes her mother had left behind, made sure there was nothing else that belonged to her parents, and then gave herself a tour of the house. She studied a map of Georgetown that dated to 1860 that had been framed and hung on the wall and noticed that many of the street names had changed when the town, which predated the establishment of the District of Columbia, had been fully absorbed into Washington, so that it became just another part of the capital city. "So Wisconsin Ave was the High Street, Bridge Street became the extension of M Street, and this house was on First Street, between Potomac and the High Street, but now it's on O Street."

The kitchen was very modern, with all the labor-saving devices available to the late twentieth-century consumer, but she tried to imagine what it would have been like to cook over a wood-fired stove, to have to heat water on the stove every time someone wanted to take a bath, and the sheer amount of work involved in doing something like laundry.

"I'm glad I live when I do," she thought. "If I want a hot shower – did they even have showers back then, I wonder – all I have to do is turn on the tap and it falls down out of the pipe. And of course, there were no flush toilets, either."

She went into the room that had been set aside as an office and library and looked at the shelves of books. One in particular caught her eye; entitled Georgetown: A City Divided, it was an account of the city during the Civil War.

A scrap of paper tucked into the pages as a sort of marker caught Kendra's eye, and she opened to that part of the book. In faded writing she read the words, "Account of former owners of this house." She sat down in a comfortable chair and began to read.