Guilty By Association

Chapter 10 - Alex Diaz

Chapter 10 – Alex Diaz

After Kelsey and Kara left from his office, Alex was flooded with thoughts. The key one being why had so willingly Kara come to him?

Surely, she would have known that Alex could arrest her, if he wanted. He’d already tried to arrest Kelsey. He could have done the same to her and she’d given him the opportunity to.

Alex had never dealt with a case that had twins involved, and this particular first one was turning out to be quite a pain in the ass.

Then again, there were several other technicalities that Alex didn’t understand. Why did Kara and Kelsey both ignite different reactions in him? They were identical. If it was lust, then surely he should have felt something for Kara, too, but he didn’t. The whole time he was in the interrogation room with her, his mind kept shifting back to Kelsey, who he knew was in his office.

Then, he remembered the way Dylan and Kelsey had been flirting when he’d entered the break room. They’d barely acknowledged his presence until he’d spoken. Even Shay didn’t look up. That irked him the most.

He knew Dylan was handsome and he was expressing an interest in Kelsey. Alex could hardly tell him to back away, so he’d settled for telling Dylan that he couldn’t get involved with a probably suspect. Alex knew that Kelsey wasn’t a suspect but if that bit of information kept Dylan away from Kelsey, so be it.

Alex had never been so wound up because of a girl, before. He was completely dedicated to his work. That must be it, he decided. He must have somehow associated Kelsey with the Caleb Rocha case, a case he’d put his all into. Catching Caleb Rocha was a dream to Alex, something he wanted more than anything and by associating Kelsey to it…it made him want her, too.

Alex shook his head. He was being ridiculous. He was being foolish. When he wasn’t thinking about his unfamiliar feelings, he was thinking about why they were there, when he actually should have been doing something to catch Caleb Rocha.

Slouching back into his chair, he opened up Caleb Rocha’s file, something he read countless times, yet never tired of it. Rocha fascinated him.

There’s no record anywhere of him ever leaving the city, but there’s also no record of where he might be inside of the city, either. He’s been untraceable for nearly fourteen years and Alex had been in-charge of his case for nearly two years. There were times when Alex felt like he’d caught him, only to later realize that he’d been led on a wild goose chase.

He had basically become a walking talking Caleb Rocha encyclopedia. And Rocha was a very interesting character.

When Caleb was five, his father lost his job and took to drinking. That was also when Francis Rocha started partaking in criminal activities, a small gang in the neighborhood they lived in. Over time, as he got more and more involved in his gang, he also got more abusive towards his son. His mother had always been a housewife who became a druggie, squandering whatever money they had.

At sixteen, Caleb got his first job, working behind the counter in a local movie theater. He hadn’t been able to keep it, as his attendance was very poor. At seventeen, he got a speeding ticket, his first real encounter with law. Before that point, Caleb Rocha didn't even exist in the eyes of law. At eighteen, he fought back to his father and killed him. His father’s body was discovered, oozing blood out with a broken beer bottle in his abdomen. The cause of death had been loss of blood due to the injury. Rocha was arrested.

While in custody, several brutal injuries were discovered on his body, suggesting that perhaps there was child abuse going on. He was released due to lack of evidence the very next morning. The only fingerprints on the beer bottle had belonged to Francis Rocha. His mother, Jennifer, committed suicide the next day, by slitting her wrists in the bathtub. She was discovered by a neighbor who had come to check on her. The bathtub had been full of water, mixed with her blood.