Chapter Five #2
Dakota rang Jasper back. “Damn, they seized fifty plates, three machines, over a million in counterfeit bills, and they cut off the head of the chicken, leaving the group leaderless.”
“A good day. If the airport doesn’t pan out, you’re back in the office?” Jasper asked.
“Yeah, right after lunch. We’re just going to the deli down the way. You want me to bring you something back?”
“Me? I’m good. I brought my lunch. I’m putting you on speaker phone. Benny, hey, Dakota’s grabbing a bite at the deli. You want something?”
“Nah, this heartburn’s still terrible. I’ll be drinking the pink bottle for lunch. It’s my fault for all the pizza. I was watching basketball and got overexcited. Sometimes you gotta pay the fiddler.”
“All right. Just text if you guys change your mind. Out.” Dakota checked the time and slid his phone into his pocket, picking up the pace to make sure Rose wasn’t waiting in the cold.
Arriving at Rose’s building, he moved to the alcove out of the wind and waited between the medical office and the florists.
In the window, beautiful bouquets were on display.
Considering them, Dakota wondered if he should buy one for Rose.
She’d been in a funk this last week, and flowers might cheer her up.
The roses would be a no-go. Rose hated roses; every man in her life leaned into the play on her name, and she announced straight off that she thought that was low-energy and lacked creativity or a sign of genuine interest.
Noted.
But the bouquet next to the roses was tropical and unusual, with bright, upbeat colors. Maybe those?
His cell rang again. And he put his phone to his ear. “Yeah, man. You change your mind about lunch?”
“Kumar’s back with the search warrant in hand.” Jasper’s voice rang with excitement. “The search covers anyone on the flight, but our target is WorldCares.”
“They have their directors’ suite up right up the street near Lafayette. That’s convenient if there’s an investigation.”
“And who doesn’t love convenience? They’ve got their team coming in on a direct flight, landing at two, but it looks like they’re delayed an hour. Can you get Tank and get in place? I’ll meet you over there.”
“WorldCares. We need to tread lightly, there. They’re an internationally renowned, a world leader in disaster relief with an impeccable reputation,” Dakota said. “They have tight control over their accounting. I guarantee it. And we need to make sure we’re not somehow getting them bad press.”
“I’m not accusing them of anything. We don’t suspect the WorldCares workers. We’re simply trying to prove a theory. Kumar has the search warrants in case our 'please' and 'thank you' aren’t enough for those folks.”
“Putting pins into a corkboard?”
“Exactly,” Jasper said. “Kumar’s tracking natural disasters, and which NGOs,” Jasper used the acronym for non-profit organizations that operated independently from the government, “might have come into contact with counterfeit bills. It’s worth a look-see.
And you said you needed a real-world field operation for Tank.
That’s what I came up with. I agree with you.
There’s little chance Tank will get a hit. But it’s something.”
“Appreciate it. We’d need to be there in advance, so meet by two?” Dakota asked. “Now that I have the time frame, I’ll call over to Cerberus and see if that works on their end. Reaper wants to come along and observe to refine my techniques.”
“Give him a call. With or without Tank, I want you there too. You have the best eye for Colombian-produced counterfeit currency.”
“Yup. I’m on it. Text me a meet-up site, and I’ll catch up with you there.” Dakota pressed the button to end the call and looked up at the office building.
Rose was late.
His next call was to Reaper, who was jazzed about the idea of a real-world scenario and was en route.
Dakota checked the time. He could have a quick meal, explain that duty called, take a cab to his condo, get his car, and head to the airport.
Could he do it all? Calculating for traffic?
Possibly.
But a stressful lunch with his mind elsewhere wasn’t good.
He glanced at the florists and hustled through the door, dragging his credit card from his pants pocket. “Hey, quick sale, please. I need this bouquet in the window, please.”
The woman bustled over, pulled the flowers from the bucket, and took the credit card Dakota extended out.
“A choice of ribbon, sir?” She pushed the flowers into a helper’s hands, and the helper was tearing paper and folding it neatly.
“Whatever you think would be nice.”
“A note?”
“I’ll say it in person,” Dakota said. He was terrible at finding the right written words to express his sentiments. “Sorry for your gray mood,” seemed like a bad idea.
When Dakota had said ‘quick’, these women took it to heart, and he was out the door moments later, bouquet in hand.
He planned to apologize for breaking their date, hand Rose the flowers, tell her about the lunches he’d ordered and paid for waiting for her, and ask to talk to her that evening.
She just needed to show up.
Rose was sometimes late if they got behind with the patients. She must be having a hard day.
Still, Dakota felt the pressure of time and decided to give her a call.
“Dakota.”
“You sound bad,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Not bad. Just … look, I’m not coming down. Last night, my ex and I had a long talk about the kids and us. We decided we’re going to make a go of it because it’s too hard to do alone. Too expensive. Too exhausting.”
“That’s great for you, Rose. I hope it works out the way you want it to.”
“I’m sorry, Dakota. You’re a really nice guy. I’ve enjoyed knowing you.”
“Nope, not at all. I wish you well. Good luck.” He slid his phone in his pocket as he stepped to the curb, scanning for a taxi.
Okay, that was that. Dakota could trust his instincts; it was the conversation he’d felt looming.
He looked down at the flowers.
How did he feel about the end of his knowing Rose?
He enjoyed her company, and he was going to miss that.
But there was always a barrier she set: this much and no more.
She wasn’t inviting him into her life. When his couple-friends started talking about their different love languages, Benny winked at his wife, Martha, and said, “Physical touch, that’s mine. ”
And she’d countered with “You mean quality time.”
“Yeah, that one.” Benny chuckled. “Same thing, right? Tomato—tomahto?”
Martha gave him the stink face, then turned to Dakota. “And yours?”
Dakota’s way of showing love—love for a woman, a friend, the community at large—was through acts of service. He felt happiest when he knew that his actions were making someone’s life better, that he’d relieved a burden, taken something onerous off the table.
Rose hadn’t allowed that.
He was all for strong, independent women.
If he had a type, that was what he found attractive.
But that didn’t mean there weren’t ways to help.
For one woman he dated, she despised pumping gas.
So he made sure that when she was driving them, they stopped by the gas station so he could do it for her.
Same with coffee, she didn’t hate making coffee, but when he was over at her house, he’d set up the coffee pot for the next morning, so it was ready when she woke up.
She said that gesture had made her feel cared for.
Big was good; little was just as good. Dakota liked the settled, happy feeling that came from an act of service.
The only time Rose allowed that was when her kids' rabbit died. It had been a beautiful lop-eared bunny named Lollipop. She told him how the kids would sit on the couch after a day of overstimulation at their day care and pet the bunny to calm their bodies and help them settle down for their night routine. When the bunny died, Rose, even though she was a nurse, couldn’t make herself reach into the cage and take out the dead rabbit.
She called him, sobbing into the phone. He’d had to wait long minutes while she just cried before she could explain the situation and ask if he could get rid of the dead bunny before the kids came back from their dad’s house.
Dakota had been out training with Tank, and they were miles from the car. The window to get in and out without the kids seeing him was tight. To Tank’s delight, they’d sprinted the whole way back to the parking lot.
It was the first time Rose had asked him for something; there was no way he’d let her down.
And apparently, it was also the last time she’d ask.
Dakota was genuinely hopeful for her. She had those two little kids, and if she loved their dad and wanted to work on that, more power to them.
But now he had a fist full of flowers, and he was on his way to the airport.
A taxi turned the corner, and Dakota lifted his free hand to signal it.
As the cab pulled up to the open space on the curb, Dakota put his hand on the back handle. Movement in his peripheral caught his attention.
A woman sprang through the doors at the medical building. The wind whipped her long brown hair across her face.
Her body language was pure fury.
As she pulled the hair from her eyes, she spotted the taxi and jogged forward, her eye on the driver. It seemed she missed Dakota standing there holding the door handle.
The taxi driver shifted his glance from the woman to him, looking like he didn’t want a fight. Dakota sent him a wink to let him know it was okay. This woman obviously was going through something, and she’d just run out of a medical building. She could have just received a terrible diagnosis.
Dakota pulled the door open for her.
“Here you go,” he managed. It was her, the woman from the race. Different clothes, Makeup today. But he’d recognize her anywhere. It was her. How crazy was that?
Dakota’s face flamed red, and his body did that same odd atomic particle dance it had at the finish line of the mud race.
He really couldn’t say that his body was reacting to the stranger.
Correlation was not causation, after all.
He mentioned the doctor to Benny that morning, but maybe he was the one who needed a once-over. What the hell was wrong with him?
As she climbed into the cab, her eyes changed from anger to fatigue in a flash. “I’m sorry. Were you … That was … I didn’t …”
He sent her a warm smile. “You’re fine.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. It looked like she was struggling, and Dakota took the gesture as a thank-you.
Dakota bent, handed the woman his flowers, and shut the door.
He watched her until the cab disappeared in the traffic.
He was a controlled, steady man. And he wasn’t down with these wild sensations that made him feel disorganized on a cellular level. Yeah, he needed to pull himself back together.
And just as suddenly as the sensation came on, Dakota felt normal again.
His recovery this time was much faster than last time. Still, it was such a crazy, disorienting sensation that he stood there waiting for his brain to kick in and tell him what to do next.
There was no next. Not with this brown-haired lady anyway.
The goal, he reminded himself, was to get to the airport in time to test Tank’s sniffer as the Colombian flight disembarked.
This could go badly if, search warrant in hand, they found nothing or worse, a false positive, on the folks coming through.
Then it would be back to the drawing board, training Tank.
Maybe it was anxiety that made him buzz like that.
Yeah, maybe that was it.
Dakota’s hand shot up to signal for a different cab.