WHAT IS LOVE?

Love…that for letter word, what is it? Is it an immense feeling of affection for someone or something as they say? Is it the greatest feeling all living things feel? Or is it a trick? Yes. A trick, is the best way to describe love. A trick so powerful that it has built and destroyed empires. But the best tricks all have one thing in common the art of deception, thus if love is a trick who is to blame for being deceived? Is it the illusionist who sinks deep into the victim’s mind, heart, and soul? Or is it the fool who allows all this to happen? Am getting way ahead of myself, you see to understand my frustrations (or is it my dilemma?) we need to go back…back to when I was a young man…back to when some might say I was the illusionist myself.

The year was January 1^st, 2000. We had done it, we had crossed over not only a new year but a new millennial; and despite all the shenanigans of the world ending at the stroke of midnight, we were all here alive and kicking, well most of us. You see some had been duped into believing the world was ending and as such, had quit their jobs, put their houses in order, and shipped off a big middle finger to (in their words) fat, quaky and annoying landlords.

But come the New Year, other than the mild showers that had graced the streets of New York City, there was no loud boom, neither did the earth crack into two. Don’t get me wrong, the skies did light up and people did scream… just not in the way some of them had expected, and when they realized that the Son of the Most High had no intentions of descending from His Fathers’ right hand, the ‘sons of men’ decided to ascend instead.

That was how my new year had begun, responding to a suicide on 941 Columbus Ave, New York “…this one outdid himself…suit and everything” I walked in as Riley our chief pathologist and medical examiner was explaining something to the rest of the team.

 “What do we have?”

 “Detective Shaw am surprised that you are still with, us I was expecting your body to appear somewhere in a ditch.”

 “If you were lying next to me I think, I can have that arranged”

 “In your dreams”

 “Your eyes tell a different story”

 “What story is that”

 “What do we have?”

 “Kevin Wood, 26, single, no job, gambling addiction”

 “Sounds like your type Riley”

 “Go to hell…and it’s Doctor Riley for you.”

 “Three-piece suit, shoes, watch, no suicide note…seems like a pretty dramatic way to go out don’t you think.”

 “Don’t think so boss, we’ve been getting calls like these since 4 a.m., people bought into that end of the world stuff.” That was Max fresh from the academy. He had barely been there for a month when my foolishness led not only to the loss of his life but many of those in my team. Despite the years and everything that had happened his and Riley’s death was the most painful thing, I had ever endured.

 “Not all maniacs are dead” Riley had said catching my gaze of the reflection on the window she was dusting for prints.

 “Witnesses?”

 “Just one… 26-year-old lady, didn’t get much from her, she’s pretty spooked,” Max said pointing to the lady in the other room. I turned around to get a look at the mystery woman, and that’s when our worlds collided. Unlike the Bible version of Lot and his wife, I was not transformed into a pillar of salt (boy how I wish that was the case) but life as I had known it was altered from that moment.

To say that the creature before me was Breath-taking would have been an underplay. From her dark locks to her chocolate skin to her earth-like eyes, all of which were carefully assembled in her athletic petite frame. To call her human would have been an insult of the highest order, this…this was a body of work. A body of work that some of the best and most renowned painters and sculptors would have gladly called their own. Yet beneath all the beauty and glamour, beneath all the fear and vulnerability she portrayed, there was something else about her, something I couldn’t (or rather did not want to) comprehend.

 “Excuse me, am Detective Adam Shaw, you have a lovely place.”

 “Thank you…how did you…?” she froze as our eyes locked for the first time, it was as if time stopped, for those few seconds nothing and no one else existed.

 “I… I never said I lived here.”

 “You didn’t have to, Kevin Wood over there had more issues than the price of that sofa you’re on. What exactly happened here?” she looked down “Was it your fault?” her eyes began to tear. “I need you to accompany me downtown.”

“Need any help?” Riley had asked half blocking the exit, she had a distrustful look in her eyes. “No, I got this, you are in charge make sure forensics cleans up this place.” “That isn’t our job!” came the sharp reply from one of her guys but Riley didn’t object, she knew exactly what I meant. “I could use some coffee, how about you?” I had asked once we were outside “Sure… I guess…”

They say New York is the city that never sleeps, and they were right. Despite it being 7a.m on New Year, the roads were jammed up. It had taken us nearly fifty minutes to arrive at a cafeteria a mile away. “Let’s start from the beginning, what happened?” she sipped her coffee. “OK… you know my name, what’s yours?” her head remained down as she played with her French toast. I could feel my blood boiling “Should we continue this at the station” my voice had gone up a decibel or two. “What do you do to maintain your physic?” she said staring me dead in the eyes. Her eyes, I could get lost and never be found in them, something was alluring about them…about her whole being. “Wha…excuse me…?” “You look like you work out often” “I do, it’s part of the job” “Weights?” “Calisthenics, you?” “I don’t exercise, I was just… born like this.” She said using the cup as a makeshift shield.

“Check please.” I said half-standing “He was my boyfriend, we met in college, he had issues…but I loved him.” “That wasn’t hard, now was it? When did the rain start beating?”

 “You know about his gambling addiction?” I nodded an acknowledgment “I had tried several times to get him into rehab without avail. Each time he came up with an excuse, each time I sided with him. Am a coder I work as a freelancer, the money is good so I opted to support him. It wasn’t always like this, no…in college, he was focussed, determined, driven, he had a life ahead of him. I think that was what attracted me the most.”

 “What happened?”

 “After our graduation, I had taken him out to celebrate at Gunslinger”

Gunslinger was where the devil came to shake hands with mortal men. After we realized that it was also being used as a front for drug dealing and money laundering, I had personally overseen the mission to take it down. The operation was a success, as not only did we take down the club but also brought down Sandstorm, head of the largest drug syndicate in NYC at the time. 

 “Gunslinger had introduced Woodie to a life he was not ready for. What started as a small bet, morphed into an addition, from cards to sports to lottery, he gambled in everything and lost. When he got a job he wasted all his salary on gambling, things hit the fan when he started stealing money from the bank he worked in to finance his addiction. It almost lead him to jail.”

 “It wasn’t your fault, you…”

 “What the hell do you care, huh, to you he’s just another dead guy, he was my…everything,” she said not bothering to wipe the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I just wish I hadn’t yelled at him”

 “What do you mean?”  

 “On Christmas eve I had given him my credit card to go do some shopping as I wasn’t feeling too well. I got a call from the precinct in Brooklyn around six in the evening, it was Woodie, he had been mugged, or that’s what he told me. I found out from the police that he had gone to a casino in the area cashing out using my credit card…he squandered all of it. We had a big fight and I kicked him out. Flash-forward to New Year’s Eve I had gone to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Towers with some of my colleagues to watch the fireworks. He tracked me down and tried to apologize…he looked so handsome in a suit, he always did, however, I was still angry and I had had one too many. You know what I told him?” she was now on her seventh tissue. “Go hang…not I love you or will talk about it tomorrow…I told him to go hang! He’s dead because of me…I killed him.” she was crying her heart out at this point. Despite being thirty I had never truly experienced love, well at least not the kind this lady felt for her, now deceased, boyfriend. I slid over and consoled her as she wept in my arms. At that moment I had unknowingly, slid directly into her trap.

Our moment (or rather my moment) of paradise was interrupted by a call from Max, I excused myself before answering it “This guy is clean…way to clean if you ask me.” “Am not in the mood for theatrics boy” “Jeez what’s up with you? Anyway, Riley did some asking around apparently some commotion was heard between our dead guy and the lady you left with plus we found a photo of her in his pocket looks like they were dating.”

 “Anything else?”

 “No, but, something ain’t adding up boss, I just have this gut fee…” “To hell with your gut” I had said clicking off, how I wish I had listened, how I wish I hadn’t let my emotions cloud my judgment, perhaps things would have turned out differently, perhaps they would still be alive…perhaps.

When I returned to the table, she was gone…I looked everywhere, eventually finding her trying desperately to flag a cab. “We aren’t finished” “Look mister, to hell with you and your questions, you either arrest me or let me go”

 “Where are you going?”

 “Home!”

 “Your apartment is still a crime scene they won’t let you in”

 “THEN I’LL GO TO A HOTEL JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” I slowly took off my coat and place it over her shoulders, she was trying her best to look turf but her eyes told a different story, she was scared…no, she was terrified. Life had just smacked her in the face “It’s wasn’t your fault, and he isn’t just some died guy, I know that now.” I whispered trying to calm her down “You can stay with me while everything cools down” she looked up perplexed “Isn’t it illegal for you to harbour a criminal?”

 “Am not harbouring anyone and you are not a criminal, the way I see it this is a closed case, I doubt that you will be in our books for long, and besides it’s not like am letting you walk away, you’ll still be under my watch.”

 “I don’t know, the love of my life just killed himself… what will people say when they see me in another man’s house”

 “We are not moving in together am just giving you a roof until yours’ stops leaking. It’s only ten hours into the New Year and your life is already in the mud, let me help you until this cloud passes, and then your free to go.” She slowly nodded.

The day passed without much to do, I had retrieved her clothes from her house much to the dismay of Riley “This goes against every rule in the book Shaw.” “You are neither my mum nor my pastor I don’t need a lecture.”

 “This isn’t going to end well, we have protocols to follow, there is a reason the Bureau always vets our counter-parts, or have you forgotten what we do for a living.”

 “Am not marrying her, it’s just temporarily until we clear her, plus we can’t charge her for anything, or have you forgotten that this is a suicide.”

 “Max has his doubt he thinks…”

 “For hell’s sake, we are not having this conversation.”

 “OK fine, I’ll stay with her”

 “Come again”

 “You’re blinded by her, and all she needs is a warm bed and some food right, I’ll stay with her.”

 “Huh, remind me again, what’s your job description?”

 “What does that have to do with this?”

 “You’ve forgotten who’s in charge, this is my case and I make the decisions now get the hell out of my sight.” That was our last conversation before she was killed, we had joined the academy at the same time, and had always had each other’s backs. In a ruthless world and job filled with dangers, she had been more than my best friend, more than my sister. Riley Shaw had been the only family I had ever known, and that’s how our last conversation ended.

“Don’t get any ideas Detective.” She said as she caught me staring at her while we prepared the guest room. “What ideas?”

 “I’ve seen, heard, and read this script several times; grieving girl, takes refuge in a man’s arms and wakes up beside him in bed, let me just say that nothing is going to happen between us.”

 “I didn’t expect anything less. Goodnight.”   

 “Loren”

 “What was that?”

 “Loren Lace…that’s my name, I just realized that I didn’t tell you…but my friends call me Lola.”

 “Friends? Are we friends?”

 “Yeah…is that OK with you?”

 “Yeah, well goodnight…Lola.” And with that, I sank into her illusion. So deep was I that I allowed her to stay long after the investigation was closed, Lola was perfect in every way, she seemed heaven-sent. I integrated her into my life, what was mine was hers and what was hers ‘seemed’ to be mine.

I say seemed because as I sit here reminiscing about everything, I realize that despite what she had told me in that cafeteria, I knew next to nothing about her, one thing was clear though, I loved her, I had loved her from the word go. She was the first thing I wanted to see in the morning and was the sedative that put me to sleep. Lola…sweet thing, she was everything…everything, and more.

In Lola, I had not only found a confidant, but someone I saw building a future with, it seemed that our story had been written in the stars, it seemed we were meant for each other. She had my heart in her palms or better yet, I had given her my heart for safekeeping. She…Lola, sweet thing…she was the one.

They say fairy tales only exist in stories, I learned this the hard way. The flood gates had opened on that fateful day, as it had rained the whole day. I arrived home to find Lola in a stunning red dress, candle-lit dinner ready, Backstreet boys playing in the background.

 “Long day my love?” she asked, graciously and slowly walking towards me

 “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

 “Am glad…you’ll never guess what I have in store for you.” She was whispering at this point, for some strange reason my gut told me to run, but my heart wouldn’t be swayed, and how could when the person holding it looked like an angel. She edged closer and closer, her lavender scent aroused parts in me that were supposed to be asleep.

Tenderly and gently like a mother’s touch, she placed her warm palms on my cheeks, on her toes she rose, inching closer and closer, till finally, our lips locked. Warm, soft, tender lips caressed my cheeks and neck before landing close to my ear.

 “Sandstorm sends his regards” I never saw it nor expected it…the knife plunged deep into my stomach, not once, nor twice but thrice. I fell to the floor gasping for air, losing consciousness. Lola knelt beside me, not bothering to steer clear from the pool of blood beneath me, and placed another kiss on my lips “Buen Viaje” was her departing message, her face was what I saw as I lost consciousness.

Her face is what I see when I remember Max and Riley who were also murdered that same night together with eleven members of my team, it had all been a setup. The suicide, the fake story, everything had been orchestrated by Sandstorm as revenge.

What about me you ask? I survived…a blessing or a curse, you be the judge. I lost everything, my job, my friends, my reputation all because I was blinded…

They say love is blind, they say it knows no borders, they say it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, but I dare to ask… what is love?