“Whatever you say, Officer.”
Like a magician trying to distract his audience with sleight of hand, Villalobos raised his left hand as if he meant to surrender, then jabbed the right in Luisa’s direction. The gun bucked in his hand. Luisa fired off a round of her own. Villalobos’s head snapped back and his lifeless body fell onto the bow of the boat, but Luisa didn’t get a chance to linger over the sight.
What felt like a sledgehammer hit her in the center of her chest. The impact knocked her off balance. She stumbled backward and fell overboard, her hands clawing at the air as she tried in vain to breathe.
She felt the water hit her in the back. Then she felt it surround her and swallow her whole. Her lungs burned, screaming for oxygen, but she was unable to fill them as she sank further and further into oblivion.
Her last thought was of Finn. Happy, smiling, and finally free.
❖
“Luisa!”
Finn watched helplessly as Luisa tumbled into the water and disappeared below the surface. One of the helicopters overhead shined a light on the spot where Luisa had gone under. Finn stared at the spot, waiting for Luisa to resurface, but Luisa didn’t come up for air.
Finn tugged at the restraint around her wrist but couldn’t pull herself free. Sliding her hand along the railing wasn’t an option either. The handcuff was cinched too tight to allow freedom of movement. Growing desperate, she kicked open a nearby storage compartment and peered inside, looking for something—anything—she could use. She spotted a utility knife, stretched to reach it with her free hand, and flicked it open. She placed the serrated blade between her wrist and the restraint and sawed frantically at the reinforced plastic strap.
She could feel the minutes ticking away. Along with Luisa’s chances of survival.
When the handcuff finally gave way, she tossed it aside and gathered her courage for what she knew she needed to do. She had never been especially fond of the open water and, thanks to an unpleasant encounter with a piranha in the muddy Amazon River, she absolutely loathed water she couldn’t see through.
Refusing to let her fear get the best of her, she threw herself headfirst into the inky depths, diving lower and lower as she searched for the woman who had saved her life by risking her own.
The helicopter’s spotlight penetrated only a few feet below the surface of the water. Finn opened her eyes wider, straining to see as the light began to fade. She spotted a shadow a few feet further down. Was it seaweed, a passing fish, the resort’s resident stingray, or a hand reaching out for hers?
She lurched toward it, and her fingers brushed against Luisa’s wrist. She latched on and pulled, kicking toward a surface that seemed much too far away.
Her heart, taxed by exertion, lack of oxygen, and fear, felt like it couldn’t take much more. Neither could she. The uncertainty she had felt during the past twelve hours paled in comparison to the uncertainty she felt now, her concerns for her own safety dwarfed by her concerns for Luisa’s well-being.
Finally, her head broke the surface. And she inhaled a lungful of the sweetest air she had ever tasted. She lay on her back and pulled Luisa on top of her, making sure to keep Luisa’s head above the water. Then she backstroked toward the undamaged speedboat Luisa had piloted. She was too tired and weak from her desperate dive to drag Luisa out of the water and into the boat itself, so she maneuvered Luisa’s limp body onto the small ledge on the back and tried to determine how badly she was wounded.
She had seen Javier take aim. She had watched as his shot had hit Luisa squarely in the chest. Had the bullet ripped through her heart, or had she been lucky enough to escape with only a flesh wound?
Finn felt something cold and hard when she tore at Luisa’s body armor. She tugged at the object and peered at a badly misshapen hollow point bullet. Figuring the police might need the bullet as evidence—or Luisa might want to keep it as a macabre souvenir—she shoved it in the back pocket of her sodden cargo shorts. Then she pulled off Luisa’s body armor, tossed it aside, and shoved her hand inside Luisa’s uniform shirt, feeling for blood. Her fingers came away clean, but Luisa’s chest was eerily still. Luisa’s body armor had prevented the bullet from penetrating her skin, but the force of the blow had stopped her heart.
Finn pulled herself up on the narrow ledge and straddled Luisa’s body.
“Come on, super cop,” she said as she placed her hands on Luisa’s chest and began gentle but forceful compressions. “Breathe.”
She pinched Luisa’s nostrils shut, placed her mouth over hers, and forced air into her lungs. Then she sat back, waiting for Luisa’s chest to rise and fall on its own. Detecting no movement, she repeated the process. Again. And again. And again.
Finn tossed her hair out of her face, wondering if the salty liquid running down her face was seawater or tears. She caressed Luisa’s cheek, certain of the answer.
“We were supposed to tell each other all our secrets, not part ways with so many things left unsaid. This is not how this was supposed to end.”
Luisa coughed wetly, her shoulders bouncing with effort as her body tried to convince itself it was no longer drowning. She turned toward Finn with a faint smile on her face.
“Did you have something better in mind?” she asked, her voice raspy.
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
Finn’s tension melted away, replaced by an almost overwhelming sense of contentment. She didn’t feel aimless anymore. She was meant to be here. With this woman. Now. And forever. She kissed Luisa. Feeling the life flow back into her. Feeling it flow into herself.
“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I could use a vacation.”
“I know the perfect spot.”
Luisa opened her arms, inviting Finn to return to the best place she had ever been. The place she never intended to leave.
Finn placed her head on Luisa’s chest and listened to her heart beat as they waited for help to arrive. She had listened to bagpipers in Scotland, the Vienna Boys Choir in Austria, and an impromptu concert given by a trio of goat herders in the Maldives, but she had never heard such a beautiful sound.
“What word did you pick up from this trip?” Luisa asked wearily.
Finn could barely hear her over the sound of the rotors overhead.
“What?”
Luisa stroked Finn’s hair. Her hands were cold and wrinkled from the time she had spent in the water, but Finn didn’t mind. In fact, she had never felt so comforted. So safe. So loved.
“When we met, I said you must have picked up a lot of souvenirs over the years, but you said the only thing you like to bring back from a trip is a word deeply ingrained in the culture you’ve just visited but has no counterpart in English. What word did you pick up from my culture that has no counterpart in yours?”
Finn thought for a moment. But only a moment because she didn’t need a great deal of time to come up with the answer.
“Acceptance.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve always felt like people were judging me when it was often the other way around. I needed to learn to give people a chance to be accepting instead of assuming they wouldn’t and keeping part of my life—part of myself—secret from them. I learned how to do that this week.” The women of SOS Tours had accepted her without question. She had not only made several new friends. She had made a change. A change she hadn’t seen coming, though she welcomed its arrival. “I learned something else, too.”
“What’s that?”
Finn lifted her head so she could look Luisa in the eye. “I love you, super cop.”
Luisa kissed her. “I love you, too,
mariposa
.”
Finn grinned. The nickname could have held negative connotations for her because it was the same name as the hotel where she had just spent the worst night of her life, but her heart soared when she heard Luisa say it. Because now the name truly seemed to fit. She felt like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Thanks to the events of the past week, she would never be the same again. And she would never be alone.
Because no matter where she went, Luisa Moreno would always be by her side. And in her heart.
Luisa held Finn’s hand as they walked across the gangplank that led to the waiting cruise ship. Over a thousand other women—some in couples, some traveling in groups or on their own—had also gathered to make the journey.
To make up for the traumatic experience their guests had endured in Cancún, the management of SOS Tours had offered them free vacation vouchers for a trip for two to the destination of their choice. Understandably reluctant to take a chance on another resort trip, Finn had chosen to use her vouchers on a cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Half Moon Cay, Bahamas, with stops in Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, along the way. Now she and Luisa were cashing it in.
Luisa couldn’t wait to have some fun in the sun with Finn, along with all the umbrella drinks and overflowing buffets they could handle. They hadn’t had any real downtime since the incident at the Mariposa Resort. They had taken a few days off after the case was closed and before Finn returned to America, but neither had been able to completely put recent events out of her mind. Their time together had been spent recovering and reconnecting. Now it was time to start moving forward. To start building a future. What better way to do that than on vacation? When they could relax and be themselves without having to worry about deadline pressure or backlogged cases.
Luisa had been on a ship before, if a day trip on a casino boat to celebrate her cousin’s thirtieth birthday counted, but she had never been on a cruise before. And she had definitely never taken a trip with so many glamorous stops along the route. Her family’s idea of vacation was packing up the car and driving to a relative’s house for a few days or spending a long weekend at the beach. With Finn in her life, however, she knew some things were about to change.
Some things already had.
She still loved her job and was as dedicated to eradicating crime as she ever was, but she didn’t take the same risks she used to take when she first joined the force. She couldn’t afford to be as reckless as she once was now that she had someone to come home to. Technically. She and Finn didn’t live in the same city yet, but that was just a matter of time. She knew they would end up together. The only question was where. Mexico City? Dallas? Cancún? San Francisco? Perhaps they should throw a dart at a map and make a life wherever it landed. Because it didn’t matter where they ended up as long as they were together.
“What do you want to do first?” Finn asked after a steward showed them to their room, a small cabin just above the water line.
Luisa turned away from the view of the pier outside the porthole window and steered Finn toward the bed.
“I can think of one thing.”
“We have eight days and seven nights for that,” Finn said with a playful grin. “Why don’t we unpack our bags and take a look around the ship so we can get our bearings before the kick-off concert starts? We’ll need to decorate our door at some point, but that can wait until tomorrow. After we find out where everything is and see how many of our friends are on board, we can spend the rest of the afternoon in bed.”
The social anxiety Finn had struggled with for so long finally seemed to be a thing of the past. She made friends easily, primarily because she had learned to let people in instead of holding them at arm’s length. People gravitated to her. And rightfully so. She was smart, funny, and filled with dozens of stories culled from her travels around the world. Who could resist her?
Luisa loved seeing Finn like this: engaged and happy. At the moment, though, she wanted to see her in a much different way: naked and wanting.
“There’s no time like the present, I always say.”
She pulled the suitcase from Finn’s hand and let it fall to the carpeted floor. Then she pushed Finn onto the bed, lay on top of her, and claimed her lips in a kiss. She didn’t want to see the ship. Not when everything she wanted to explore was right here in this room. Finn evidently felt the same way. She moaned deep in her throat and rubbed the sole of her foot against the back of Luisa’s leg.
“I like the way you think, super cop.”
“And I like the way you feel.” Luisa pulled Finn’s Intellectual Badass T-shirt over her head and ran a hand over the exposed skin. “Though I sometimes question your taste in fashion accessories.”
A spent bullet hung from a chain around Finn’s neck. Luisa fingered the misshapen projectile that had almost taken her life.
“Why did you keep it?” she asked.
“I wanted something to remember you by.”
“No, really.”
Finn covered her hand with hers. “Maybe I wanted something to remind me how close I once came to losing you.”
“You almost lost me,” Luisa said, “but you also brought me back.” She still had the occasional nightmare about the night she had helped to bring Javier Villalobos and the rest of the Jaguars down, but the bad memories were more than offset by the good ones she was creating with Finn. “Now you’re stuck with me.”
Finn smiled. “That works both ways, you know.”
Luisa caressed Finn’s cheek as the ship’s horn sounded and the massive craft slowly pulled away from shore. “I can live with that if you can.”
Finn smiled up at her. “If I have to.”
Luisa kissed her again. She sighed when Finn unbuttoned her shirt and slid her hands across her skin. Whenever Finn touched her, it always felt like the first time. Yet each time was better than the last.
She unbuckled Finn’s bra and cupped her breasts in her hands. Finn arched her back, rising to meet her.
“Okay,” Finn said, pulling her closer, “maybe sightseeing can wait an hour.”
Luisa grazed her teeth along the side of Finn’s neck.
“Just one hour? Are you sure that’s going to be long enough?”
Finn hissed with pleasure when Luisa gently pinched her nipples.
“Okay, maybe two.”
Finn flipped Luisa onto her back and finished undressing her. Luisa loved the constant shift in power between them. Neither of them ever had the upper hand for long. Unless, of course, that hand was doing something that felt incredibly good at the time.