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.