Las Vistas Episode #6

***Author’s Note: Please refer to this post for background on the new character briefly mentioned in this piece.

Golden Coral Resort & Spa - Tahiti

Is that a grey hair, Eden thought to herself as she gently brushed a few stray tendrils from Cyrus’s face. She drew her hand back when he stirred slightly, but he didn’t wake up. She had been standing there for a while; long enough for her legs to feel numb, standing so long but still not ready to move. She held her breath for a moment and then released it so that she could breathe in tandem with him. She watched as her chest moved up and down right along with his. Two people, one breath, one life. Was that really their truth anymore?

They had always been in sync since the first day they met. They loved the same food, the same music; they both had the same strange sense of humor that no one else seemed to understand. They both had been focused on the same dream as well. Well, maybe that wasn’t completely true. She had had many other dreams for her life, but she hadn’t thought twice about putting them aside to help make his come true. His grades, his stats, his draft number, his team; everything in their life was him. The 10 year plan was coming to a close and every piece they had put in place had come together almost perfectly, but not once had any of their plans involved Cyrus getting injured, and from the way things had been since, it seemed as if his pride had been torn just as much as his tendons.

There was nothing specific she could put her finger on and that was the part that really got to her. He had been as sweet and as charming as ever to her -- as far as she could see, he had been taking everything in stride. Even when he had been benched for the rest of the season, he didn’t show one moment of irritation or annoyance. He had been cool, composed, and cooperative; none of which made sense to her given everything that was at stake. Their whole life was essentially hanging in the balance and he was “just fine” or so he said. But there was something else in the background, some invisible distance between them; a part of him that he wouldn’t let her see. It was nothing she could identify but it was there.

She first noticed it when Mackenzie had been born. He had come back to her and it scared her that she hadn’t realized how far away he had been. But preoccupation, even with a pregnancy, wasn’t enough of an excuse, which is why this time; she had seen it the moment it slipped through her fingers. He had become distant again, present but distant, attentive, but distance, always distant. So she was standing here trying to see him, trying to understand, trying to catch a moment of closeness.

Her heart jumped out of her chest when her cell phone started vibrating on the nightstand. She picked it up for the first time in hours and saw that Reese was calling and that she had 10 other missed calls. She eased away from the bed and out onto the balcony to take the call.

“Hey Reese what’s going on?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing. Thanks for letting me know you were leaving town. I had to pry it out of your housekeeper”

“I’m sorry; I was going to call you in the morning. Cyrus surprised me with a last minute trip and we were out sightseeing all day. Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know. Isabella called looking for you. She sounded upset, so I told her that I would track you down. I tried to check on her again, but I haven’t been able to get a hold of her.”

“Did she say what was wrong? Please tell me there isn’t another news scandal. Did she say anything about Nico?

Reese bit back the automatic response that came to mind at the mention of that name and opted for a more restrained approach. “No she didn’t say what was wrong and she definitely didn’t mention Nico. After everything that’s happened why would she? They’re over, or at least they sure as hell better be!”

“Reese -” Eden stopped before she started and let out a sigh. "What?!" he replied. “Thanks for calling me. I’m going to call Issy now. I’ll see you when I get back.”

Reese hung up, barely uttering a goodbye and immediately began dialing Isabella’s number again, but stopped himself. Eden could think or say what she wanted about Nico and Isabella, but there was another point of view, a sensible version of reality that spelled disaster where the two of them were concerned. He remembered the promise he had made to himself that he was going to make her understand that reality and show her how much he wanted to be a part of it, if only she would let him. He shoved his phone back in his pocket and hopped in his car. What he had to say needed to be heard in person; had needed to be said for a very long time, and was going to come out before the day was through. He started the engine, pulled out of the driveway and began the short journey to Isabella’s house.

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Las Vistas Episode #5

Las Vistas Police Headquarters - Downtown Las Vistas

“Who are you?” Reese said out loud to himself. His eyes moved back and forth, scanning the pictures of the three women whose murders still hadn’t been solved. They were all young, all brunette, beautiful and successful, and all of them had been strangled, left with a slit on each side of their face and a handwritten note slipped between their legs; a gruesome calling card from the serial killer he had absolutely no leads on. The man had left no physical evidence at all, not even so much as an eyelash, nothing for them to test or compare to anything they had on file. He was a ghost that had terrorized these women and then disappeared into thin air.

One thing was for sure, while it didn’t seem that he knew the women personally, he had studied them thoroughly before the attacks. His letters had included personal details about them: where they worked, places they frequented, names of friends and family. It was as if he had been dancing on the outskirts of their lives waiting for the perfect moment to catch them alone and have his way with them. They weren’t just random victims. They had been carefully watched and selected like a bottle of wine and from the caliber of the victims, this psycho had discriminating taste.

It had been months since the last killing, which probably meant that the man had come to the end of victims on his list. He was in the screening process now; stalking new candidates to kill. It wouldn’t be long before he stuck again and Reese was hell bent on finding him before it was too late. “Think damn it, think!” he shouted to himself again, but he soon let out a frustrated breath and pushed away from his desk.

He never could focus when he was angry, and he was getting more pissed off by the minute as remnants of his argument with Nico kept flashing through his mind. Old friends made the worst enemies; they knew all your weaknesses and how to use them and Nico had hit a nerve he didn't’ realize was still so raw. But he had been right, which made the jab that much worse. As much as he had wanted to believe that his badge was enough to keep him on the right track he hadn’t been immune to the dangers of falling for the wrong woman.

Aside from Isabella, Nadia was the only woman he could truly say he had been in love with and it had been all wrong from the beginning. She was the ex-girlfriend of a drug dealer that had turned state’s evidence against him to save her own ass and Reese was a rookie cop that still believed that everyone had a good side, even criminals. Her beauty had certainly been a factor in his involvement with her, but it was the long hours of questioning her that led to real conversations, that led to more than talking, that eventually led to him completely loosing all objectivity where she was concerned. He had fallen so hard that he never saw what was right in front of him until he was staring down the barrel of the gun she had pointed at him.

Nico saved his life that night, so many years after their friendship had dissolved, after they had become different people on opposite sides of the law, what little connection remained between them had led him to save Reese rather than walk away. It was a favor that he was grateful for yet hated just the same. One he felt could never really be repaid which was the main reason why he looked out for Nico in his own way.

But things had gone too far this time. He had implicated and endangered an innocent person, someone that, despite his objections to the contrary, Reese cared deeply for, maybe more deeply than he should. And maybe he had been playing the hero, but this was the inevitable mess that he had tried to protect Isabella from in the first place. Surely now she had to realize that being with Nico was a wrong that would never be right. She deserved something better, she always had, and maybe now, after all of this, she would finally see that he was one of those better options.

Reese caught himself and instinctively began to shake off his wandering thoughts, but stopped himself. Why should he continue to deny what was in his heart? He still felt as strongly about Isabella as he had the day he stepped aside and let her go. And what good had come of it. She had made the wrong choice again. Why shouldn’t he be there for her to help her pick up the pieces? He was going to support her no matter what, above everything else he was her friend, but he wasn’t going to leave it at that. This time he was going to make damn sure she knew that he intended to be a whole lot more.

************************************************

Blair stepped off the elevator and onto level P2 of the parking garage attached to her office building. She raised her arm above her head, keys in hand, and pressed the panic button on her key fob. It was the only way she was going to find her car; she’d been working so hard and so long she could barely remember her name let alone where she’d parked that day. She hadn’t had any luck on P1 and was about to give up and go to P3 just as she moved a few feet further and pressed the button again. Suddenly the blaring sounds of her car alarm began to echo several yards ahead and she pushed the button again to disarm it and trudged forward.

A big fat ugly blur was the best way to describe the last week: non-stop phone calls, meeting after meeting, putting out one fire after another. She felt bad for what Isabella was going through, but another part of her wanted to slap her for being so careless and failing to disclose the fact that she was involved with a known criminal. But none of that mattered now, the damage was done and she had the lofty task of cleaning it all up.

A high profile case like this was what she and every one of her colleagues had dreamed of, she had worked her entire career for a chance like this. What she hadn’t thought about was the toll that being on top would take on her personal life. She wasn’t interested in dating--hadn’t had one in at least a year--but she did have family and friends she wanted to spend more time with or at the very least, have five minutes to breathe, or read a book, or take a long hot bubble bath. None of that had been a remote possibility since the day that she took the Monacco case and this latest scandal meant that it wouldn’t be a possibility in the near future either.

Her mind was racing with random thoughts of what she had on her “to do” list for the next day, but the sound of footsteps behind her caught her ear. She slowed down and held her jingling keys still to listen harder. She could still hear them faintly, clopping and shuffling softly in step with her own. She took a few more steps and then stopped short and spun around to see who was behind her. The sound had stopped and there was no one there that she could see. I’m just hearing things, she thought.

She began to move forward again, listening intently. She had definitely heard something or someone and the absence of the sound this time made her feel more uneasy than she had before. She quickly closed the gap between herself and her car, unlocked the doors, jumped in, and locked them immediately. She searched her back seat, something she should’ve done before getting in, and then looked around the half empty parking lot. Still she saw no one. “I must be loosing my mind,” she said to herself as she turned the ignition and pulled out of the garage.

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