by E. C. Towers
“Can I come over tonight?” he whispered in her ears, causing the tiny hairs on the back of Linda’s neck stand.
Linda knew that she would soon need to end things with Jacob, and she would be sure to do it slowly. No matter how hard he tried to act nonchalant, she saw a look in his eyes that suggested that he might not be able to keep his feelings at bay much longer. The more she waited, the harder it was going to be, and had he asked to come over before he kissed her, she might have turned him down. But unfortunately, along with his newfound sexual talents, Jacob was also becoming quite adept at using them to his advantage.
“Yeah, sure. I'll see you tonight.”
He put his warm wet lips on her neck and kissed right below her ear in appreciation. Jacob had also discovered precisely where to go to make her melt.
“See you soon,” Jacob winked at her before getting back on his bike and roaring away.
Linda was left completely aroused and counting down the hours until he came back to finish what he started.
* * *
“Wake up, Aguirre!”
Dalila’s eyes slowly opened, momentarily disoriented. Where the hell was she?
“Aguirre. Hello, over here.”
She rubbed her eyes and squinted against the harsh sun shining through the blinds of her office. Dalila looked towards the sound of the voice and saw Chief Luna standing over her desk.
“Dalila, we need to talk,” he sat on an uncomfortable metal chair.
“I’m sorry, Chief, I must have dozed off. I was just looking through Ricardo’s report...“
The Chief held up his hand and stopped her mid sentence.
“It's okay, Dalila, relax.”
She sat back in her chair, closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh. Here it comes.
“You need a break, Aguirre, and I'm going to give you one.”
His tone was both fatherly and condescending.
“I don't need a break, Chief. I'm fine. I just didn't get enough sleep last night and quite frankly reading Ricardo’s chicken scratches is exhausting.”
“Yeah, I sometimes think he writes with his feet,” Chief Luna chuckled. “But I'm not just talking about today, and I'm not just talking about you being physically tired,” he looked at her knowingly.
Dalila turned away from his gaze, embarrassed that her issues had become this transparent.
“I advise you to take a few weeks off, as your boss and your friend. No one's always on top of their game, Aguirre. Even you.”
She nodded in agreement, afraid that if she spoke she would break down and cry.
Chief Luna stood up to leave.
“Take as long as you need. Ricardo can take that case for himself. Looks to be just a drowning, anyway. We'll be here when you're ready to come back.”
He gave her a sad smile that made her feel utterly pathetic before shutting the door.
As soon as the chief left, Dalila locked up a few things in her office, grabbed her purse and left as if she was just going to lunch. She was sure everyone in the department would know by tomorrow that she'd been forced to take a vacation, and she didn't need any more fanfare or forced pep-talks from the guys. Dalila dropped off the keys to the undercover SUV on the chief's desk and headed out.
For the first few minutes, Dalila merely sat in her car wondering what to do next. For the first time in years, she had absolutely nothing to do and no one to see. After a few minutes, she started the car and headed downtown in search of a bar.
“Yeah. A couple weeks off. Great idea.” she grumbled under her breath.
* * *
It was time.
So much sweat had pooled on his palms that he almost dropped his phone. He switched it over to his other hand and wiped the perspiration off on his jeans. Why the fuck was he still so nervous? She deserves this, he thought. Linda needed to be held accountable for what she’s done. He believed that with all his heart, but despite the hatred he felt for Linda, his anger still wasn't enough to completely extinguish his desire to be with her. But it's never going to happen, he reminded himself. She's been careless with people's feelings for much too long. She needed to pay, and he was here to collect.
With dry palms and a steady resolve, he pressed the call button and waited for her to answer.
“Hello?”
His cock twitched at the sound of her voice on the other end, and he shoved his free hand down his shorts to encourage it.
“Hello?”
He stroked himself off to the sound of her voice, gripping his dick tightly, imagining himself inside her.
“Did you get any blood on your hands, Linda?” he asked, his voice was shaky with both anger and desire. He freed his cock from his shorts and jerked off even faster.
“Who is this!?” Linda’s angry voice shot out from the phone so loudly that he had to hold the phone back. Yes, get mad, bitch. It only served to turn him on even more.
“Blood... bloooood... on your hands... mmmm,” he whispered into the receiver as he thrust his cock into his hand, pleasure and anger fueling his frantic pace.
“Whoever you are, if you ever come near my property again…”
“I’m going to ruin you for what you did,” he interrupted her, keeping his voice low and calm, so she was forced to listen.
“What are you talking about!?”
“So, did you? Did you get blood on your hands, Linda? You should be used to that, right? Because you still have blood on your hands. And you’re going to pay for it.”
He hung up and tossed the phone aside. Thoughts of Linda's perfume swirled through his head as he jerked his rod up and down. He grunted angrily as he came all over himself. He knew he should have been satisfied, but he wasn’t. He knew his only satisfaction would come when he finally got his revenge on Linda.
11
Four-Letter Words
The drinks were overpriced, but luckily Dalila was a light weight and had already begun to feel the effects of her first shot before downing the second. She enjoyed the familiar numbness that spread over her head as she sat at the end of the bar that faced the street and watched the cruise ship crowd shuffle their way from one tourist trap to another. In the first few days of her "vacation," she had purposely gone to tourist bars so she wouldn't accidentally bump into anyone from the department at the local joints by her house. For all anyone knew, she could easily be one of these tourists enjoying a drink on her vacation.
“Scotch, please,” she told the bartender when she eventually flagged him down from the other end where he was flirting with some young women.
The bartender gave her an impatient look as he served her.
“You might want to slow down,” he said as he handed Dalila her scotch.
“You might want to mind your own business,” she snapped back at him.
“Suit yourself, but I'm not going to over-serve you, and no one's going to carry you back to the boat if you're too drunk to walk back. Don’t say you weren't warned.”
Dalila rolled her eyes and fought the urge to down the scotch with one drink. The bartender shrugged his shoulders and walked back to the girls at the end of the bar.
Asshole. So many fucking know-it-all assholes.
“Ah, so here you are," a woman's smart-alecky voice spoke to her from behind. "A cruise for your vacation is a great idea, only you have to get on the boat and go somewhere other than the bar for it to count.”
She wasn’t surprised to see Detective Molina sitting on the stool beside her when she looked up.
“What the hell do you want, Molina? How did you even find me?”
She was the last person Dalila wanted to see. Suzanne Molina was the only other woman on the force who became part of the team just a year ago, and in the short time they had known each other, she had become somewhat of a mentor to Susie. But this was definitely not going to be a teachable moment.
“We’re detectives, D. It wasn’t hard to find you. Once I realized you weren’t home, I planned on checking the local bars,
which I assumed you wouldn’t be in, to avoid being recognized. Still, I checked a few bars downtown and here you are paying for overpriced drinks in exchange for a little privacy.”
She pulled up a seat next to her and waved the bartender down.
“Can I also get a scotch, please?”
“You know me too well.”
“Nah. It’s what I would have done, too.”
Susie took a drink of her scotch and grimaced.
“Damn, that is not an 11:00 a.m. type of cocktail.”
“So, out with it. Why are you looking for me? I doubt you needed a drinking buddy this early in the day. In fact, judging from your face, I don’t think you’ve ever drunk scotch before.”
Dalila swallowed most her glass with ease.
“I’ve had Scotch before, just... not this early.”
“Yeah. I’m a drunk. I get it. Now, what do you want from me?”
Dalila was starting to get annoyed. Susie finding the bar was killing the good buzz she had found, and she didn’t intend to keep drinking with her around. Dalila couldn't help see herself through Susie’s eyes and just how pathetic she must have looked, drinking alone in the early afternoon surrounded by fake palm trees and a sea of fanny packs. Dalila had the sudden urge to leave.
“How about we finish our drinks first and go somewhere else to talk?” Susie said, reading her mind.
They clinked glasses and downed their drinks. Sam slapped some cash on the table for the bartender who looked relieved that they were leaving.
“That’s for her drinks and mine. Keep the change.”
“Don’t tip that asshole.” she said loud enough for him to hear.
Susie winked at her as they headed out the bar and whispered, “Don’t worry. I don’t think he’ll do much with one dollar.”
* * *
Jacob pushed his hard cock deep inside her, but it wasn’t enough. “More,” she grumbled. Linda reached around and pulled at his thighs, encouraging him to give it to her harder than he already had. The phone call that afternoon had shook her to the core. She was legitimately scared but too stubborn to call her security and didn’t feel as if Jacob needed to know. She was so tired of running to someone for help, first Derrick, then Dalila, Jacob; Linda was determined to figure this out herself. But after spending all day, making sure her alarms were in good working order, checking on her surveillance cams and pondering on who might have been on the other line, she just wanted to stop thinking about it for a moment. When Jacob roared up her driveway, Linda didn’t even give him a chance to say one word before she was on him.
“Whoa..whoa, Linda,” Jacob attempted to slow down their pace.
“Shh, please. Don’t talk. Please, just fuck me... please.”
Jacob obliged, grasping a handful of her hair with one hand, grabbed her waist and followed orders, pounding himself deep into her. She let out a small gasp and moaned as she took him in completely and got lost in her ecstasy. Jacob flipped her around and buried his face between her legs and sucked on the wetness between, sending her to climax again.
It was a sort of a marathon night, with Jacob fucking her just about everywhere in the house until they both threw in the towel in the dark early morning hours.
“That was amazing. Wow. What's with you tonight?” Jacob asked her as he finished his shower and emerged from the bathroom with a towel around his waist. His cheeks were still flushed from their lovemaking. A few droplets of water fell from his face and rolled onto his chest, clinging to his nipple momentarily before starting the slow descent to his abs.
Linda’s appetite for him was insatiable, and tonight she used him over and over again, like a drug that could relieve any of her problems. Unfortunately, the effects were only temporary. Despite all their lovemaking, she still couldn’t get her mind off of the threats she received.
“Nothing’s with me," she replied defensively, “are you truly complaining about having sex all night?”
“Oh, no. I’m not complaining at all. I just wanted to know if there’s anything I can do tomorrow so we can have sex all day,” he grinned at her as he took his towel off, crawled into bed and topped her like a tiger ready to devour his prey.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a long passionate kiss, feeling a few droplets of cold water fall from his body sprinkle onto hers. Though she didn't intend on letting Jacob know what had been going on, him being with her, at least, made her feel safer.
“Let’s go to bed,” she whispered, “that way you can be well-rested for Round Two.”
Jacob’s eyes twinkled at the thought.
“Yes ma’am,” he said, kissing her one last time before they both fell asleep.
* * *
“LINDA!”
A voice from outside cut through Linda’s slumber and she open her eyes slowly, not wanting to get up. The bright rays of sunlight attempting to squeeze through the cracks of her curtain suggested that it was probably almost noon.
The door to the bedroom suddenly burst open.
“Linda, get up. There’s something outside...the roses...they’'re…," Jacob stammered until finally giving up. “Just come on.”
Her heart weighed heavily with dread as the tone of his voice and the look of confusion on his face suggested that what he wanted to show her wasn't an elegant deer standing in her yard.
She leapt out of bed to grab her robe to follow Jacob to the front yard. Her fears were immediately confirmed as she stepped outside. The rose bushes that she had planted all around the house had been cut up. The roses that had been full, red and blooming with glory yesterday had all been cut off and strewn onto the yard. The red petals had been methodically gathered and used to spell out “S-L-U-T” from one end of the lawn to the other.
She and Jacob looked at each other in silence, not quite knowing what to make of it. This was clearly not a random prank, it was a personal threat, and the situation had become more dangerous than she'd allowed herself to believe.
“Check what the video caught last night. I'll clean this up,” Jacob suggested. “But first, “ he pulled out his phone and took a picture.
“What the hell are you doing?” she reacted angrily.
“For the police. Linda, you have to report this,” he replied as he took pictures of the shorn rose bushes.
“Stop taking pictures, goddamn it,” Linda reached over and grabbed the phone away from him. “And don't tell me what I have to do, okay?”
Jacob was astonished by her reaction but second-guessed his instinct.
“Okay, okay..” he acquiesced, holding up his hands and walking toward the garage. “I'll just clean it up.”
She stomped off inside the house with his phone still in her hand and fired up her computer monitor. She checked the surveillance stream from last night and saw absolutely nothing caught on tape. Baffled, she ran a few tests and checked to see if any of the cameras had been tampered with, but couldn't find anything.
Jacob came in a few minutes later.
“Anything on the camera?”
“No,” she answered dejectedly.
Her mind was swirling about who it could have possibly been. The muffled voice from that last phone call talked about having blood on her hands. She briefly considered that it might be related to Tim, but who would be trying to avenge his death? He no longer had any connections to Driftwood Cove since his mother had moved shortly after he disappeared. As far as she knew, he didn't have a lot of friends, and she was almost positive that none of his bonehead stoner clients cared enough about him to get up off the couch, let alone go to this extreme for some revenge.
“Linda, you have to tell me what's going on. I know you're keeping something from me, and you have to tell me what it is. You could convince me the blood was a prank, but not that out there,” Jacob urged as he handed her a cup of coffee.
She eagerly took it from him hoping a little caffeine would give her more clarity about the situation.
“There is more. I just didn't
want you to have to get involved, and I honestly didn't think it was anything.”
She took a much-needed sip of coffee. After what happened this morning, she had no other choice but to get Jake involved. At the very least he could offer some ideas as to who this was.
“Besides this and the bag of blood, I also received phone calls.”
“Who called you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. The voice sounded... far away, like there's something strange about the phone. He might be using a modulator to cover up his voice, because I’d otherwise recognize it? I expect it’s someone I know.”
Linda pressed her fingers to her temples to ward away a dull pain that she feared was going to turn into a migraine.
“A man? What did he say?”
Jacob sat down beside her and put his arm around Linda’s shoulders, which she immediately shrugged off.
“Stop, I don’t need comforting. I need you to help me find out who it is.”
She knew he had only good intentions, but he had quite a knack for making her feel like a damsel in distress.
“Sorry. That was just…”
Linda sighed, “No. I’m sorry. I don't mean to take my stress out on you.”
She put her head on his shoulder.
“It's okay,” Jacob kissed her on the forehead. “Now, tell me, what did this guy say to you on the phone?”
She sat up straight and tried to recall the details.
“He said something about having blood on my hands and how I should be used to it.”
“Blood on your hands? Well, that explains the bag thrown at your window.”
“They pretty much admitted to doing it. And whoever it was said he was going to ruin me for what I did, before hanging up.”
Linda suddenly jumped as a crow squawked loudly outside and spilled some coffee on her shirt.
“Dammit!”
She slammed the coffee cup down on the table and tried to calm herself down.
“I’m on edge already; I shouldn’t be drinking that.”