Above the Law

by Carsen Taite

  While Lindsey laughed off her embarrassment, she took a moment to reflect on Dale’s tone. Not an ounce of flirtation had accompanied any of her words. Too bad. She looked as handsome today as she had the day before. If she wasn’t considering Dale as the subject for her story, she might try to take advantage of the fact a bed was steps away, and it had been way too long since she had sex. She shoved away the thoughts before they went too far. “Come in, Agent. It’s nice to see you, although I’m sure you can tell, I wasn’t expecting company.” Dale strode into the room, and Lindsey watched her eyes track the entire suite.

  “Nice room. Big,” Dale said. “You having to bunk with anyone else?”

  “Uh, no, just me.” Lindsey pointed at the large desk in the living area. “I’ll be doing a lot of the work for the piece here, so I need the space.” She didn’t have a clue why she felt the need to justify the size of her suite, but she did. Before she could give it another thought, another knock sounded from the door. She glanced over at Dale, who was headed toward the desk where her laptop sat open, the results of her Google search on display. Thinking fast, she said, “Hey, do you mind getting the door? I’m going to change.”

  She didn’t wait for a response, instead making a beeline for the desk. Dale cocked her head, but headed back to the door. Lindsey closed her laptop, grabbed a pair of pants, and called out over her shoulder, “You can sign for me. Thanks.”

  She practically dove into the bathroom. Once there she took a minute to catch her breath. She probably thinks I’m insane. One look in the mirror confirmed it. She hadn’t bothered to brush her hair this morning, and it looked like small animals had burrowed a new home in her tangled waves. A closer look revealed a long sheet crease across her right cheek, evidence of a super sound night’s sleep. She brushed her hair because that was the only one of the two problems she could solve and tugged on a pair of pants. If she were going to look like she’d just rolled out of bed, at least she wouldn’t have bare legs.

  When she emerged from the bathroom, Dale was sitting at the desk, eating a piece of bacon. She looked up and met Lindsey’s eyes, but kept right on chewing as if daring Lindsey to say something.

  “I asked for crisp,” Lindsey said. “I hope it’s crisp.”

  “You got what you paid for. Pretty expensive.”

  “Room service always is, but it’s convenient. Maybe you can suggest some better places around here.”

  Dale finished off the slice of bacon and rubbed her hands on one of the cloth napkins. “You probably won’t be here long enough. I can’t imagine this story is going to take too much of your time. Are you ready to get started?”

  Sensing she was being rushed, Lindsey grappled for control of the situation. “Actually, I was planning to spend the morning doing some background research.” Suddenly, she was struck with a brilliant idea of how to spend some time with Dale and, hopefully, get her to open up about her work with the DEA. “But you can help with that. I’ve got a list of people I’ll need to talk to and places where we might film. If you could take me around to see the locations, we can talk about the people while we drive. I just need a quick shower and I’ll be good to go.”

  “What about the rest of your crew?”

  It would be normal for her to have Jed or Alice along so they could assess the locations for lighting and sound, but Lindsey wanted this first outing to be just her and Dale. After what she’d read this morning, she wanted a chance to study Dale one-on-one and decide if her instincts about making her the center of this piece were spot-on. “They’re working on some logistics this morning. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  Dale frowned, but said, “Okay. I’ll meet you downstairs in twenty minutes.” She didn’t wait for a response, and seconds later, was out the door. Lindsey grabbed one of the remaining pieces of bacon and contemplated her next move. She had twenty minutes to eat, shower, change, and explain to her crew that she was ditching them for the morning, but all she could think about was how fascinated she was with the enigmatic woman who’d just left her hotel room.

  *

  Dale paced the lobby of the hotel. Fifteen of the twenty minutes had passed, and she was growing more and more agitated. It had started the minute Lindsey answered her hotel room door. She probably should have called first, but she’d wanted to make it clear from the get-go they were going to work on her timeline. After seeing Lindsey in short-shorts, looking like she’d just rolled out of bed, she’d been hard-pressed to hide the mysterious effect Lindsey had on her. She’d written the feeling off to the fact she’d been forced into this duty and her quick glance at the browser history on Lindsey’s laptop revealed Lindsey had been reading up on her. She couldn’t wait to get this little tour over with so she could get back to real work. As soon as Miss Lindsey Ryan got her ass down here, she planned to let her know she didn’t have time to wait around.

  To pass the last few minutes, she pulled out her phone and dialed Peyton’s number. When she got her voice mail, she hung up and dialed Bianca who answered on the first ring. She didn’t wait for niceties. “Hey, Cruz, what’s going on over there?”

  “Dale?” Bianca’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know. Gellar asked for all our files on Cyrus Gantry, and Peyton’s been trying to get in to see him all morning, but she’s been tight-lipped about what’s going on. You have a clue?”

  “I do, but we should talk in person.” Dale mentally sorted through options of where the trusted members of the team could meet without raising suspicion. For the last couple of weeks, they’d been assembling at the Circle Six, but Neil Davis was back there now, and she was suspicious about his true allegiance. Still, she couldn’t come up with a better option. “The usual place, this afternoon. We may need to work off the books for a while. What time can you make it?”

  “I have a one o’clock docket, but it’ll be fairly quick. I’ll be there by four and I’ll let the others know.”

  Dale spotted Lindsey walking toward her. “Gotta go.” This version of Lindsey looked very different from the one she’d seen moments ago. Her tangled hair was brushed into smooth, shiny waves, and her jeans and blazer, while still sporty, were wrinkle free and not at all pajama-like. This Lindsey looked like the one she’d seen on TV, reporting from various hot spots around the world—the one who was here to do a story on the DEA and the one she’d have to avoid if she wanted to keep whatever they had planned for the task force secret. She chided herself for letting sleepy, rumpled, bare-legged Lindsey get under her skin.

  “You didn’t have to get off the phone on my account,” Lindsey said with a smile.

  “I didn’t. You ready to get going?” She didn’t wait for an answer before she started walking out of the lobby. Her truck was where she’d left it, right by the valet stand. She pulled the keys out of her pocket, unlocked the doors, and climbed into the driver’s seat. The truck was pretty tall and didn’t have rails, but Lindsey hopped inside easily. Dale mentally added a check in the plus column and drove out of the hotel parking lot.

  “You must be in good with the valet if they let you use their premium space. You have to flash your badge for that kind of treatment?”

  And just like that, Lindsey’s tally went negative. “I always park close to the door and I always keep my keys. If you ever need a quick response, you’ll be thankful I thought ahead.”

  “Duly noted.”

  Dale glanced over at Lindsey who was armed with a small messenger bag and what appeared to be a high-powered camera. “You plan to take pictures?”

  “If I see something I want to capture. Why?”

  “I guess I figured since your crew was filming you wouldn’t need to take still shots as well. Especially not you.”

  “Especially not me, huh?”

  She probably shouldn’t have said that last part out loud. “Isn’t one of the perks of being a big shot having other people do stuff for you?”

  “You think I’m a big shot?”

  Dale heard the flirtat
ious tone and did her best to ignore it. “I’m just repeating what I hear on TV.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Lindsey said. “I’ll admit, I’ll never win any awards for my photos, but I’m a pretty decent photographer, and seeing firsthand how best to frame a shot gives me valuable perspective when I’m reporting. Besides, there have been times when I didn’t have a crew and I took photos to help me preserve images of things I saw. It helped me when I started to write the story.”

  Okay, so she was intelligent and pretty. Well, pretty wasn’t the best word. Lindsey wasn’t all put-together, package-pretty. She was a dangerous, barely-tamed kind of beautiful. In that way, Lindsey reminded her of Maria.

  Dale shook her head. Would she always compare every woman she met to the one she’d lost? Probably. And why not? Maria had been her everything. They’d shared a lifetime of precious moments compressed into a short span of time together. They’d shared love of country, justice, and a willingness to sacrifice everything for the things they believed in, yet they had found time to nurture their love for each other as well. The hard work that often drove couples apart, brought them together until it demanded the ultimate sacrifice. Why did she ever bother comparing anyone else to Maria when she knew the result in advance?

  “Did I bore you with my talk of photography?”

  Dale snapped back into the present and took a deep breath. Her hands were clenching the steering wheel like it was a lifeline, and a trail of sweat trickled down the back of her neck. Praying Lindsey hadn’t noticed her break with the present, she tried for levity. “Not as much as I’m about to bore you with the details of the Take-Back program.” She pointed to Dallas City Hall. “There’s where it’s all going down. Right there on the front lawn. See, they even have banners up. Bring your old antibiotics and help save the world.”

  Dale turned down the next street and drove into a parking garage. The lot was pretty full and she had to park on the outskirts. “Damn, where’s the cop-kissing valet when you need him?” she said. “Guess we’ll have to walk a bit.” She started to open her door, but noticed Lindsey hadn’t made a move to take off her seat belt and she was staring straight ahead at the building. “You coming?”

  Lindsey turned her head slowly and asked, “Mind if we sit here for a minute?”

  Dale made a show of looking at her watch. “Sure. It’s your time. You can use it however you like.”

  “Good. Let’s talk. Tell me why this program is worthy of a news story.”

  Dale narrowed her eyes. “What are you getting at?”

  “It’s pretty clear you think it’s silly. Why don’t you tell me why you think so?”

  Dale held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Hold on now. I never said that. I was just joking around.”

  “Okaaay.”

  Lindsey drew out the word, making it clear she wasn’t buying it, but Dale wasn’t about to confide her thoughts about the PR stunt her boss’s bosses had dreamed up to deflect from the recent scandals that had plagued their department. Operation Discreet had gone down in flames when several congressmen on Ways and Means discovered agents had hired expensive prostitutes to work as confidential informants. DEA agents had provided top tier members of the Sinaloa Cartel with high dollar hookers, relying on the women to infiltrate the inner circle and report back. The plan had devolved when way more money was spent on “entertainment” than intelligence gathered. In addition, several of the women had been killed, their violently defiled bodies found by local police, and responsibility for their deaths disavowed by anyone in the agency. When a congressional staffer discovered what was going on, hearings were promptly scheduled, and heads rolled. The area director had been served up as a token to the torch-bearing legislators who’d threatened to withhold funding for any of the more worthy projects the agency had planned.

  Months later, some of the heat had died down, but the rest of the agents were still paying the price for the harm done by the few. Hard-to-get resources, constant scrutiny, and other annoyances plagued the division, and someone had decided to make a big deal of the tenth Take-Back Initiative, complete with speeches and educating schoolchildren, as a way to distract the media.

  She thought it was a colossal waste of time, but it wouldn’t do her or any of the other agents any good to give Lindsey an angle to the story that would only distract from the agency’s attempt to make a comeback. She measured her words. “It’s a good program. Any time we can get drugs off the street, it’s a good thing.” She pointed at the building. “Now, would you like to take a look around?”

  Lindsey read Dale’s body language—the set jaw, the averted eyes, the folded arms. She knew she wasn’t going to get any more information about how Dale really felt about this project. Not now anyway. That’s okay. She could wait. She opened her door. “I would. Thanks. I know you probably have way more important things to do than tour me around town.”

  Dale shook her head. “Right now, this is the most important thing I could possibly be doing,” she said and motioned for her to follow. There wasn’t a detectable ounce of sarcasm in Dale’s voice, but as Lindsey walked behind her into the building, she was certain Dale’s words were laced with some double meaning.

  An hour later, Lindsey emerged from the building. Dale had stepped out a few minutes before to take a call, leaving her to listen to the endless prattling of Harold Carter, the city employee who was in charge of the logistics of the event. In addition to walking her around the area outside where the stage would be erected, he’d given her a tour of city hall, including the alternate, but less desirable space they would use in the event of rain. While she pretended to listen to the boring recitation of detail, Lindsey’s mind wandered to her companion for the day. Dale had patiently answered every question about the setup for the event and the logistics of collecting and disposing of all the drugs, but she could tell by the number of times Dale had glanced at her watch, she would rather be doing anything else. She couldn’t blame her since she felt exactly the same way.

  Damn Larry and Susan for sending her across the country to chase a silly story. She’d been in the business long enough to know how it would go down. In the few weeks before the story aired, the network would fill the airwaves with promo spots promising a tantalizing story about the DEA. They’d use her name to give viewers the expectation the story would be an expose. When the story finally aired, everyone would tune in, waiting and hoping for the twist that would never come. Ratings would be through the roof, making the sponsors and whoever else this story was designed to please happy—her own reputation for ruthless reporting be damned.

  Truth was, her reputation was strong enough to survive, but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy caving to the pressure. Maybe instead of trying to get Dale to play along, she’d see if Dale would give her a different story, one with more substance. She’d much rather be her ally than her adversary. She spotted Dale with her back to her, and headed her way, getting within a few feet before realizing Dale was still on the phone. She started to backtrack, but a few choice phrases piqued her curiosity and kept her in place. We should talk in person. We may just need to work off the books on this one. I’ll do whatever I have to.

  She didn’t have a chance to process what she was hearing before Dale shoved her phone in her pocket and turned toward her. She didn’t miss a beat. “You get everything you needed in there?”

  Despite Dale’s quick reaction, Lindsey thought she spied a hint of suspicion in Dale’s eyes. She wasn’t about to confess she’d been eavesdropping, but this might be the perfect moment to engage Dale about how this little project they’d both been assigned to was a colossal waste of time. “Can I be honest with you?”

  Dale looked into her eyes and her mouth slid into a lazy smile. “Honesty is always welcome.”

  “I’m not even sure why I’m here. I mean next on my list is to ask you to introduce me to everyone who will be working the event, including the local cops. I get the impression all the people I
meet are going to tell me what a great project this is and how it’s a huge benefit to the local community and a valiant effort in the war on drugs.” She paused and Dale raised her eyebrows and nodded for her to continue. “But you and I both know this project isn’t going to make a real difference in anyone’s life, and you’re probably going to end up with buckets full of old antibiotics and expired ointment, but not much in the way of drugs that have any real street value.”

  She paused again, hoping Dale would riff off of her words and offer her own opinion about the negligible effect of the program, but Dale merely said, “If there’s a question in there, I’m not sure what it was.”

  “I guess I’m wondering if you can think of something more worthy of an hour of prime time on a Friday night. I mean if you had the chance to reach twenty million viewers, what story would you tell?”

  For a brief moment, Dale’s eyes were bright and her expression was eager, but just as quickly, the mask of nonchalance returned. She turned the key in the ignition. “I don’t have any stories to tell. If you’re not interested in this project, maybe you should fly back to New York and I can get back to the cases waiting on my desk.”

  The words were delivered in a flat tone without a trace of malice, but the message was clear: Dale wanted her to know she didn’t care if she stayed or left. Lindsey’s instincts told her there was more to it than that. She replayed the words she’d heard earlier: We should talk in person. We may need to work off the books for a while. What Dale really wanted was for her to report this silly story and get the hell out of her way for something way more interesting. The resistance only made her more curious about what Dale was up to and more determined to find out.

  *

  Later that afternoon, Dale knocked on Peyton’s office door. She’d rushed over to the federal building as soon as she ditched Lindsey back at her hotel, and as much as she dreaded hearing the upshot of Peyton’s meeting with Gellar, she was relieved to escape Lindsey’s probing questions.