Stumbling on the Sand

by Jenna Rae

  Del let go of the thought. It was a distraction. She glanced at her watch as she headed back to the team, knowing that it didn’t help Mikey but still completing the new ritual: midnight meant Mikey had been dead for eighteen days. As soon as she decently could, she headed home to spend the next few hours detailing the life of Ernie White and wishing her efforts were worthwhile.

  * * *

  Saturday morning Del was leaving for work when Lola came tearing out of her front door. She raced toward Del’s truck, reaching the driver’s side door just ahead of her.

  “I know you’re busy, and I assume you’re working,” she said, breathless and flushed. “I wanted to apologize. I was a little cold to you when you showed up that morning. I was surprised and pretty tired. And—anyway, I just wanted you to know I love you. I still love you. That’s all.” She turned as if to go.

  “I love you too,” Del said, her voice catching. “I still love you too.”

  Lola responded with the same dazzling smile that had caught at her heart the first time they met.

  “You’re so amazing,” Del whispered, feeling an answering smile form on her face. “I can’t even breathe when you smile at me.”

  Their grins deepened into a shared laugh, and they stepped closer together. She could smell the coffee on Lola’s breath, the shampoo in her sleep-tousled hair, the clean and fresh and sweet smell that was uniquely Lola. She closed the narrowing gap between them and kissed Lola’s soft lips as gently as she could. She felt Lola trembling and broke the kiss, wishing she could spend the next forty or fifty years exploring that warm, sweet mouth.

  “Listen, I’m sorry, I gotta go. Phan’s waiting for me. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Lola nodded mutely, and Del hesitated.

  “Hey. Listen.” Del leaned against the truck. “You said we’d never been on a date, you’ve never been on a date with anyone.”

  “It’s weird.” Lola rolled her eyes. “I know it is. Would you have gotten involved with me if you’d realized how backward I am?”

  Del rubbed her stomach absently. “You don’t talk about your marriage, but I get the notion Beckett wasn’t exactly sweet to you. Or romantic or whatever. Then you got together with me, and I didn’t romance you either. I thought about that, a beautiful girl with no romance or sweetness in her life.”

  “You think I’m beautiful?”

  “Of-of course,” Del sputtered, her eyes wide. “Don’t you know—?”

  Lola’s frown darkened her eyes. “Do you hate that I was married to a man?”

  “What? No.” Del made a face. “I hate that you were married to an asshole who hurt you and scared you. I hate how he made you think you were nothing.”

  “Just like I hate,” Lola responded slowly, “the way Janet treated you.”

  There was a long pause, and the two shared wry smiles.

  “You know what I hate the most?” Del blew out a gust of hot air. “I hate talking.”

  “Me too.” Lola laughed.

  “Really?”

  “It’s awful. Talking about your feelings means having to think about them. It sucks.”

  “Ha.” Del snorted a laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before.”

  “What? ‘Sucks?’” Lola smiled. “I got it from you.”

  “Yeah?” Del reached out to take Lola’s hand.

  “Yeah.”

  Del rubbed her thumb in Lola’s soft, curved palm. “I don’t mean that I don’t want to, or that it isn’t worth trying. I want to work things out. If you’re willing.”

  “Yeah.” Lola nodded. “Okay.”

  “Good. Good.”

  “It’s not going to be easy.” Lola pulled away and hugged herself. “We don’t trust each other right now. I need to know that you’ll be able to actually trust me someday. I need you willing to be as vulnerable as I am.”

  “Vulnerable.” It was Del’s turn to nod. “Right. Got it.”

  “But I want to try.”

  “Okay.” Del smiled. “Can I kiss you again?”

  “Do you want to?” Lola asked coyly, grinning.

  Del answered so thoroughly they were both left breathless and laughing, clinging to each other there in the street next to the truck.

  “Come over for dinner tonight?”

  Del agreed and watched Lola trot over to her house.

  At the station, she ordered roses to be delivered to Lola at four that afternoon—along with never taking her out to dinner, Del had also failed to ever get her flowers. How, she wondered, had she managed to hold on to the woman for as long as she had? And was it really not too late? She felt hope bubbling up inside her and fought the urge to tamp it down before she really started to believe in it and count on it. What if it didn’t work out? What if it was too late? What if she did everything perfectly—and what were the odds of that—and it still didn’t work out? Del took a deep breath and counted herself lucky she had her work, where at least she understood the rules.

  Chapter Ten

  By five thirty Saturday evening, San Francisco was adorned in November’s most audaciously foggy weather. Everything beautiful in the city was hidden behind a veil of obscurity. Del couldn’t stop picturing the fog as an evil, insidious predator attacking the very life force of the colorful, magical city and its inhabitants.

  Nor could she block out thoughts of tiny, vulnerable, painfully young Leslie Thorne. She and Phan had spent a good part of the day taking their turn going through the victim’s apartment. They’d noted the evidence of a young life lived well, for too short a time. There’d been plenty of evidence of loving parents and nice friends and a devoted boyfriend and a sensible car. They’d seen the organic food and the vitamins and the carefully compiled lecture notes sitting alongside the selectively highlighted textbooks. They’d exchanged glances over the neatly folded clothing and the tidy closet and the expiration dates written in permanent ink on her refrigerated food and the neatly arranged rows of her favorite canned foods—turkey chili and lentil soup and black olives and albacore tuna—in the pantry. Their victim had been careful, conscientious, deliberate, organized. A nice kid, just like they’d both thought right from the start. She’d done everything she could to make her life orderly and productive and safe.

  All of that had been useless when young Leslie had been heading home on a foggy November night, probably shivering even in her oversized coat, maybe working not to twist an ankle in the platform heels designed to make her appear taller. Had she been afraid? Had she been thinking about a hot cup of tea and a warm bath and a steaming bowl of her favorite lentil soup? Had she been distracted, thinking about the essays she needed to write for her history and sociology classes? She’d been in a lab for her biology class just that morning. Had she been worrying about her lab notes? Leslie Thorne had been detail-oriented. She’d rewritten her notes two or three times, getting them neater and clearer and more cogent each time but keeping the older versions, presumably just in case she’d missed something. Del hoped she’d been thinking about her class notes, too distracted to be scared of a madman lunging at her from out of the unreadable nothing that was the foggy nighttime world.

  The Feds had initially laughed off Del’s suggestion that the kidnapper was attacking during heavy fog. No one had been surprised, though, when they subsequently agreed to a new program of sending out decoys on particularly foggy nights. They only shared their plans insofar as was necessary to keep local officers from blundering into the way. SFPD’s parallel effort, Operation Foghead, was taken from the municipal Mission station and put under the purview of a Special Investigations team. Once again they had been sidelined.

  Left out in the cold, Del and Phan decided to take a little field trip before going home. They’d tried to develop insight based on victimology and now wanted to further develop their understanding of the geographical profile of the bad guy’s territory. They cruised around the neighborhood with some vague hope they would stumble across some insight. It was Phan’s turn
to drive, and Del examined a series of crime maps to look for patterns.

  “Okay, let’s review it again. He dumped her in Golden Gate Park,” Phan noted as they drove slowly past Mission Dolores Park. “This one would have been more central to his comfort zone.”

  “Agreed.” Del tried to peer through the wall of droplets that hid the park from view. “We think he’s smart. Maybe he wanted to cross jurisdictions. Which worked. Now it’s in the hands of two new teams that haven’t been on it from the first. I wonder if he could have any law enforcement background.”

  “I don’t even want to consider it without a good reason,” Phan murmured. “We don’t have any evidence of that.”

  “I know.” Del peered at the blankness. “What if there are two guys, Phan? What if the peeper, Teager or someone else, lives in the Mission, and the kidnapper lives somewhere else, maybe north of the Mission? Closer to where he dumped Leslie Thorne?”

  “Could be, I guess. We don’t have a lot of hard evidence of anything.”

  “Yeah. Hey, let me out here,” she hissed, hushed by the world of white that surrounded the car. As soon as the car was stopped she ducked out. “Be right back. I just want to see what it feels like.”

  “Don’t go far,” he warned.

  She waved her agreement, realizing too late he probably hadn’t been able to see it.

  Mere seconds later, Del stood encased in invisibility. The fog was more than blinding. It was disorienting, nauseating. Del felt almost drunk. The air was heavy with water. She couldn’t see the ground beneath her. She couldn’t even see her own feet. The voices of the city were muffled and impossible to place. The only smell was dankness. She heard a dog bark, and the sound could have come from ten feet or a block away. She looked into the blankness that covered the world. It was an enemy dangerous in and of itself. It was a monster trying to drown her and pull her down. Del suddenly remembered the feeling of being drugged by Janet, the sensation of falling into unconsciousness. She had to hold herself very still, momentarily convinced that moving would mean dissolving.

  “Done playing around, Mason?”

  With a shake of her head, Del recalled herself to the moment. Phan couldn’t have been more than a dozen feet away, but she couldn’t see him or determine where his voice had come from. She took a few seconds to clear her mind and headed back to the car, eleven feet to her right, three steps left. Of course she’d counted, without even realizing she was doing so. Tracking her location was the habit of a lifetime.

  “It’s just fog, you idiot.”

  “You say something, Mason?”

  Del tried not to grab at the door handle like a drowning victim. She opened the car door with mindful care and watched the darkness swallow the feeble light from the domed fixture inside the department vehicle. She shook her head as she sat. “I’m spooked. It’s ridiculous. Not by the asshole. By the fog.”

  “Any insights?”

  “They weren’t wearing shoes,” she murmured. “They were naked. I don’t remember seeing abrasions on their feet, though.”

  “What?”

  “I was wondering if he scared them, got them to run in the direction he wanted. Hunters will work together. One of them will scare the prey so it runs toward the other hunter. But the victims didn’t have damage to their feet or twisted ankles or anything like that.”

  “We’ll get him,” Phan muttered with a distinct lack of conviction. “Does this feel as useless to you as it does to me?”

  “At least.”

  * * *

  “Sorry for showing up so late,” Del offered lamely. She wished she’d taken the time to change out of her damp clothes. She felt stiff and heavy in her fog-speckled brown chinos and blue oxford. She ran a stiff hand through her clammy, messy curls. They were tickling her ears and neck, and she needed a haircut.

  Lola smiled. “No problem. Thank you for the roses, by the way. They came this afternoon. They were a nice surprise.”

  “You said once no one had ever—”

  “It was very thoughtful—”

  “It was nothing. Long overdue. I wish—”

  “I really appreciate—”

  They both stopped, smiling lamely at each other.

  “You look lovely.”

  Lola looked down at the flattering blue wrap dress she wore. “Thanks. It’s a nice shape, isn’t it? Marco picked it. He keeps telling me to wear blue, and I think he’s right. I never know what looks good on me. I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

  Del grinned. “We’re nervous.”

  “Well, this feels important, doesn’t it? We’re trying to—God, I’m going to keep babbling if you let me. Please say something so I’ll shut up.”

  “I like how your dress is so feminine and your hair is so short. I’ve always thought that was a particularly fetching look. Sexy. And on you—”

  Lola flushed, waving away Del’s words. “Oh, no, you’re embarrassing me, please stop. I mean, thank you, I appreciate it, but I’m already so self-conscious and—”

  “All right.” Del wanted to touch Lola’s soft skin and silky dress and smooth cap of hair, but she wasn’t sure Lola would welcome such overtures.

  Lola waved vaguely at the stove.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Del shook her head. But she was, she realized. She nodded, and again they smiled awkwardly.

  They sat at the table, and Del chewed on pasta she didn’t taste. She had the feeling something had gone wrong between their kisses that morning and her late evening arrival. The vase of flowers stood between them, and Lola eased it to the side, nearly toppling the display. Del reached out to right the vase, and their hands touched. Lola pulled her hand back and Del grimaced. The smell of the roses was oppressive rather than perfumed, and Del regretted making the silly gesture. What did sending the flowers mean, if she wasn’t any good at showing her love for Lola in ways that actually changed anything?

  She shook her head. “I wish I knew how to do this.”

  “I don’t know how either.” Lola picked up a petal that had fallen to the table and rubbed it against her cheek. The deep red made her pale skin look even lighter, almost ghostly. Her smile was wistful.

  Del looked away. “What if we went to therapy?”

  “You said you didn’t want to.” Lola held the petal in her open palm and gazed at her with wide, unreadable eyes.

  “We could try it.”

  “Really?” Lola almost seemed more surprised than pleased, and Del wondered what this meant.

  “Okay.” Del reached out and almost took Lola’s other hand but didn’t. “Just tell me the door’s not closed. Just tell me there’s a chance?”

  “I’ll set it up.”

  “If you’re not sure you want to—I just think we should try before we give up on each other, you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you still want to. Something—can you tell me what you’re thinking?”

  Lola sat back, her shoulders slumped and her eyes heavy-lidded. “I almost wish I could just walk away from you. Because I think we’re going to end up back together. And I’ll start to feel safe and trust you and let myself feel happy. Like today. This morning we were kissing and laughing, and I felt so close to you. You got me flowers! I was so excited. Then I called to thank you for the flowers, and you never called me back. I texted you. Nothing. You didn’t tell me when you’d come over for dinner. You just showed up, expecting me to be ready whenever. No consideration of what else I might want or need to do besides wait for you. So my feelings were hurt, but I told myself I was being too sensitive. I didn’t want to complain or make demands on you, because you’re already halfway ready to give up on us. And, as usual, even when you’re here you’re focused on a case.”

  Del blinked.

  “This is what always happens, Del. I tell myself your work is really important and that it’s selfish to want more of you than I have. I ignore things that hurt my feelings and hope you’ll return my love when you can. When you do, it
’s amazing. But I spend a lot of time waiting for that. Then, every time we’re getting really close, something happens that I don’t even understand. You just drift away and leave me more and more alone until you’re all the way gone. I don’t know where I stand with you. I don’t know how you feel about me. I’m not sure you know how you feel about me. You wander in and out of my life like I’m a way station, and I deserve better than that. So I cut ties with you and then I’m even more lonely. One of these days we’ll just be all the way apart for good, and I won’t be able to live without you. It’ll kill me.”

  She stood up, her chair scraping the floor. Del felt helpless, watching her.

  “That’s what I think is gonna happen.”

  She walked out and plodded noisily up the stairs, and Del sat alone at the table for a few minutes trying to think of a response. Another petal dropped to the table, and Del thought about how strange a practice it was, buying moribund plants and forcing the woman you loved to watch them die and decompose.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was Sunday and theoretically the weekend, but Del and Phan were working. They used much of the day to follow up again on every detail of Mikey’s life and death, and each was still going nowhere.

  Del watched her partner cross out a dozen items on a handwritten list. He pressed the pen so hard that it tore through the paper in places. She that saw his face was bright red and that his whole body was tense. She’d been working on her own list of follow-up calls and emails and hadn’t noticed Phan’s silent distress. She watched him slam closed a file, shove a pile of papers into a folder, and jam a pen into a drawer.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.”

  Del tried to lighten the mood with a teasing tone. “Don’t try to bullshit me, partner.”

  “I’m tired of watching you play hide-and-seek with this guy, partner,” Phan blurted.

  “You’re lying.”

  This pronouncement prompted a long, silent impasse, and the pair sat staring silently at each other for two full minutes.