by E. C. Towers
Dalila knew she had fucked this case up before it even began by becoming so emotionally involved. Hell, she had fallen in love with the guy. Something she definitely hadn’t planned on, and something she had absolutely no control over once it happened. But she expertly hid it from her fellow detectives, lest they think of her as incompetent. She didn't want them to question her work, especially when she realized that it was Ricardo that they needed to take down, not Derek. Now the moment she had been dreading was finally here. After years of convincing the department to hold off on arresting Derek so they could build a stronger case for Ricardo, Chief Luna, who had grown increasingly impatient, ignored her pleas and made the arrest.
* * *
Today
She was pissed. Here she was, in his office for the upteenth time, trying to convince Officer Luna that they were accusing the wrong man. The rancid smell of burnt coffee was so strong that it felt like someone was choking her. Dalila had been sitting in Officer Luna's office for what seemed like hours. She knew that smell was going to cling on to her clothes after this visit. It didn't help that the air was thick with humidity. The combination of the stale air and the day-old coffee's bitter aroma gave her an intense feeling of claustrophobia.
"It doesn't matter if he isn't the ringleader, Dalila. Derek is still the part of the biggest cartel in Mexico, and there is a mountain of evidence to prove it. Are you suggesting, that we let him go?"
"Of course, I'm not suggesting that at all."
Although Chief Luna was the foot in the door that helped her get on the police force, he was also the first to challenge her every move. She sighed and sat back into her chair with defeat. Was this how it was always going to be? Did being a female officer mean that her judgment would always be questioned against those of her male co-workers? Her experience, her impeccable intuition, the high-profile bust she had been a part of; would all those accomplishments never be enough because she put on a bra in the morning?
"I'm merely suggesting that it's questionable to pursue him as if he's the ringleader when all our evidence clearly points to Ricardo. And mark my words, it will come out that Ricardo is the mastermind in all this. If we go around accusing Derek, we will all look like incapable, bumbling police idiots who have clearly been outmatched. If you want to take down the whole cartel, then it’s going to take some time. We can’t just start arresting people without all the proper evidence in place, otherwise all of our hard work will go straight down the shitter!"
All of HER hard work, she wanted to say as she bit her lip.
Dalila shot up out of the office chair in frustration, and it slammed violently into the wall behind her.
"Derek has more than enough lawyers. If we place the onus of charges on him, they'll easily find a way to get him off because he is not the head of the snake.
Officer Luna took a deep breath to debate with Dalila, but lost his steam before he could utter the first word. She did have a point. There was no harm in taking this slowly.
"You’d better be right, detective Aguirre."
"I know I’m right. Don't let Martinez question him. Please, let me do it."
Luna paused to let her know that he had genuinely reconsidered their plan of action. "Fine. Let's hope you ask the right questions, and that he works with us to take Ricardo down.”
She met his questionable confidence with a smug smile, thrilled to correct his skepticism and prove herself to him.
Again.
2
In Her Wake
Panting and dripping with sweat, Jacob slowed down as he ran up to the gate. He knocked frantically, hoping that Dalila was home and cursed at himself when he remembered all the events that had led him here. Of course, she wasn't home! She was probably at the police station dealing with Derek.
He didn't punish himself too much considering he had just escaped the clutches of a resurrected Tim, causing his brain to engage survival mode. Jacob was still in disbelief that Tim was alive and that just moments ago, he had been breathing is his stinky pot water breath.
"Where did she go?" Jacob got an unfortunate close-up view of his crooked, yellow teeth when Tim inched close to him and shoved a gun in his back, demanding to know where Linda was.
What happened next was far from what a heroic leading man would have done. Jacob caved immediately and told him about Linda leaving in her yacht and her plans to head back to Driftwood Cove. He was ashamed of it but reasoned with himself that he wouldn't let him get a chance to come after Linda because he was determined to stop Tim himself before he found her.
Right now, he just had to get out of his gun's way.
"When did she leave?"
"She left just 10 minutes ago; I bet if you walk down there right now, you'll still see her boat!" Jacob lied to get Tim to leave in a hurry before he got any ideas of making him a hostage. As planned, Tim ran off towards the dock, hoping to possibly catch Linda. Jacob bolted the other way to get help.
Now on the street, outside of Derek and Dalila's house, he was unsure what direction the police station was. He took a guess and kept running straight ahead towards downtown Puerto Vallarta.
* * *
Dalila and Derek stared at each other, adjusting to their new roles as good guy versus bad guy, instead of wife and husband.
He shook his head and smiled, "Man, you got me good. Here I thought you were in love with me. Damn," Derek exhaled, deliberately avoided her gaze and looked anywhere else but at her eyes.
He hated her for fooling him, but he knew he still loved her.
"Derek," she whispered, wanting badly to tell him that she indeed had truly fallen in love with him.
Developing emotional attachments was one of the perils of working undercover and prohibited, but Dalila's feelings for him went far beyond even those simple boundaries. Still, she couldn't tell him here in a cold, sterile interrogation room, while her superiors watched every moment of the exchange.
"Derek, please, look at me," she pleaded.
Urging him to look at her was the only way left for Dalila to convey her feelings to him without speaking a word.
He did as he was told and let himself get lost in the beauty of expression. Her eyes were glistening and filled with emotion. She hadn't looked at him this way in months, and he understood why.
"It's okay," he said. "You don't have to. I know."
It was Dalila's turn to look away and compose herself. She willed the tears that had pooled heavily in her eyes to disappear, and when she turned around to face him again, Dalila was back on the job.
Dalila and Derek played off each other for the following hour. She asked him the perfect questions, and he responded with the perfect answer, each response leading to another question until he had given enough detail of the criminal trail he walked, such that no question could be left as to Ricardo's superior value to the officers.
After it was over, they quietly smiled at each other with their eyes over a job well done. Dalila was relieved knowing that Derek and his lawyers could easily get him off with a plea bargain and a light sentence. The door opened, and the guards pulled Derek up from his chair. She watched as they walked him in handcuffs toward the holding cells in the back of the building.
After a brief meeting with Chief Luna, who less reluctantly agreed let her proceed with the investigation, Dalila found Derek's holding cell, making sure none of the other officers would notice her approach. After she let a moment of recognition pass between the bars, Dalila unlocked the door to his cell and let herself in.
Derek laid down on the rock hard cot with his arms extended over his face to block the garish lamp above.
"A personal visit from Detective Aguirre, I feel so special," he stated, not bothering to look up as she walked in.
"How did you know it was me?"
"Because you smell like burnt coffee.”
She knew it.
"I swear that fucking guy hasn't turned his coffee maker off since 1985."
Derek laughed, sat up an
d looked surprisingly chipper.
"Bravo on leading the questioning," he said.
"Bravo on following with the right answers," she replied, smiling.
She had come in here to apologize to him and to clarify things between them. She wanted to reassure him that their marriage was not all a sham and that much of the marriage were some of the best times of her life. At one point, Derek had become her world. But with a smile and a shrug, Derek managed to take the wind out her sails, acknowledging, 'Hey, I'm fine. No apologies necessary."
Dalila exhaled with relief and refrained from hugging him.
"I'll leave you alone now," she nodded and made her way back out the room.
"Wait," he stopped her, "we need to talk about Linda. Where did she go?"
"She left. I chased her out of the hotel, and she took off in a taxi. I assume she returned to her yacht and left."
"Did she take off with that guy?" he asked with a hateful tone, bordering on disgust. There was something about that guy that just didn't sit right with him.
"Why does that matter?" she asked, surprised at the jealousy that arose within her at the sound of his question.
"You have to help her, D," he pleaded with her, ignoring her question.
"Help her with what? It's over. She left. How she deals with her problems are on her, now."
He detected a sadness in her tone that she seemed to be unaware of.
"She's your friend. You have to see if you can help her, even if you don't think she needs you. She might be wrong. In fact, I know she's wrong." Derek played on Dalila's natural instinct to do what was right. He used to find it one of her oddest traits because her sense of responsibility bordered on maniacal. Now, looking at her in all her detective glory, it finally made sense.
She was a cop. How had he not seen what was completely obvious?
Dalila sat down next to him, and he took advantage of the view of a nice, full cleavage that two undone buttons at the top of her blouse afforded him. Those were one of the blinders he had been happily wearing throughout their marriage, joyfully preventing him from seeing Dalila in her true light.
"I think I'm done helping her for now. I just…" her heart swelled with grief at the thought of not seeing Linda.
Before Derek could put two and two together about the women, Dalila rose and walked to the door, pausing only before opening it.
"I know you already know this. But I did love you, Derek. You're an amazing man, and I will miss you. I will miss us."
"Me too," he mumbled through his tight, trembling lips. "I love you, D."
"Love you back, D," she smiled.
Dalila left, locking the door behind her, resisting the urge to look back at him again. She held herself together until she found the privacy of her office, where she crumbled onto the floor and sobbed, grieving the death of a marriage and the premature death of a love that could have been.
* * *
When Jacob found the police station, he remained standing in the parking lot, at a loss for what to do next. He had no idea if Dalila was inside, or what her car looked like if she even had a car parked in the lot. He considered going inside and just asking for her by name but quickly thought against that simple folly. Jacob was unsure if his involvement with Linda, being in Derek's home and knowing about the smuggling tunnel would somehow get him arrested for some random charge. He had no clue about the law or the gravity of the situation he had walked into, but he couldn't change it now. At the very least, they could arrest him for breaking and entering. Jacob didn't even know how Dalila was going to react when she saw him. So how could he believe she would help him try to apprehend Tim?
Before he could finish the thought, Dalila walked out of the building and spotted him.
"Hey!" she yelled at him from across the parking lot.
Dalila immediately saw his blazing red hair from the distance, a stark contrast from the dark-haired native pedestrians milling around him. He raised his arm and waved as if he had been expecting her.
Well, too late, Jacob thought. There was no way around this now. He struck his warmest smile as she walked closer to him, hoping for the best.
"What are you doing here? I thought you'd be smart enough to go back where you came from. Clearly, I overestimated your intelligence," she crossed her arms, waiting for him to explain himself.
Jacob struggled to find his words, puzzled as to why this little woman's presence intimidated the hell out of him.
"Listen, I need your help," he admitted, ditching the speech he had prepared for her in his head. "Actually, I don't need your help, but Linda does."
Dalila sighed and rolled her eyes. It was as if these men had never met Linda. Were they so blinded by her beauty? Could they not see past her beautiful face to find the woman who was perfectly capable of managing herself?
"Linda doesn't need my help or anyone else's. I think she's made it clear to both of us that she wants to handle things on her own. I, for one, am going to respect her wishes, regardless of my opinions. I would advise you to do the same." The events of the past few days had drained Dalila, and she just wanted to go home and be miserable on her sofa.
“But you don’t understand..” Jacob stammered but Dalila interrupted him before he could go on.
“Leave me and Linda alone. Go back home. Your days as James Bond are over.”
3
Home
Linda remembered a time when familiarity was just her everyday life. She grew up in a typical small town where everyone knew everyone, and her comfort developed in that routine. It didn't last long, as Linda's ambitions eventually grew too large for her small town. However, she never outgrew her love for the comfort of familiarity, a feeling she thought she would feel again once she returned to the warm, familiar embrace of Driftwood Cove.
But it had been three weeks since she had found her place again in the beautiful little seaside town and Linda still felt herself in a strange land. Everything was familiar, but nothing was comforting. She even attempted to host a party upon her return only to wrap it up after barely an hour passed because she just wanted to go to sleep. Linda had watched couples fucking right in front of her and couldn't bring herself to feel anything. I'm over these parties, she thought. Linda guessed that perhaps the novelty had worn out for her. What Linda did feel was broken inside, as if she was a spiritual entity inhabiting a body that wasn't hers.
Linda threw herself back into her various business ventures. She filled her days with work meetings or flying to New York for matters that could've easily been handled by email or Skype. When she ran out of excuses to leave town for business, she immersed herself in intense extracurricular activities. Mountains were climbed, planes were piloted, and hours of Bikram yoga were sweated through to ensure she would be too exhausted to think about anything when she finally arrived back on her yacht.
No matter what she did, Linda couldn't shake the general unease she had about the town. Was it because Hardy and Jessica weren't living in Driftwood anymore? She hadn't known either of them very long and doubted that their moving away was the reason for her discomfort in a town she had lived and worked in for over 20 years. She had expected their marriage engagement long before they had announced it, though she feigned surprise at the news. And while she was genuinely pleased for them, she was also relieved that along with their engagement came the announcement that they would be moving to San Francisco for a job opportunity that Jessica couldn't pass up. It had worked out perfectly and was for the best for each of them. Had they stayed, Linda's memories of their short-lived thruple were bound to turn awkward, or worse leave her feeling neglected. She would rather they disappear from her life with fond memories than to stick around and sully them by trying to continue a relationship that no longer served a purpose.
Linda sipped her scalding hot coffee with unfocused courage and stared blankly at her iPad, propped in front of her at the corner booth of the local bakery. The smell of fresh beignets filled the air as the baker pulled them
out of the fryer. She briefly entertained the thought of getting one to celebrate what promised to be a zero-fucks day, changing her mind only when her phone cruelly announced the Bikram Yoga class scheduled to begin one hour later. Fried dough and Downward Dog was the perfect recipe for an accident.
She sighed, hating this free time she had before class. It gifted her too many opportunities to think about her uneasy relationship with Driftwood Cove. It's been three months, she thought, why do I still feel like a stranger in her my home?
You're lonely, a voice inside her whispered.
The thought suddenly struck her without warning. Is that what this was? Loneliness? She had felt lonely before in childhood, but she hadn't the faculties to genuinely acknowledge the feeling. When loneliness set in, Linda did as she had always done and was doing now, keep herself busy until it was eventually forgotten. To Linda, loneliness signified weakness, a sign that meant something was lacking in her if she couldn't function without another human being next to her. Now she began to wonder if that way of thinking was somewhat antiquated. Linda had nothing to prove to anyone anymore, so wasn't she allowed to feel lonely? After all, wanting to be loved by someone isn't weakness, it's a central human need. Everyone wants to be loved, she thought. Why should I be the exception?
Linda finished her coffee and decided to go for a walk before her class started. It was a coolly overcast morning, the perfect weather to get in a brisk walk and find a clear head. Linda zipped up her hoodie and walked out into the chilly morning, deciding to head over to the pier before the loud rumble of a motorcycle engine broke the calm of her morning.