Unfinished Business in Lanzarote: Trust and Betrayal in a Tangled Past

Some journeys begin with the weight of unanswered questions, the kind that have pressed quietly against the heart for years. For Marjorie Pierce, the decision to fly to Lanzarote is less about sun-drenched beaches and more about confronting a wound that never quite healed. Decades earlier, Billy Mackenzie was not only her trusted informer—he was the pivot on which her career balanced, and eventually, the stone that toppled it. Now, with age and distance between them, she comes seeking an explanation, perhaps even an apology, though she suspects that the truth may sting as much as the betrayal itself.

But the past, especially in the world of crime and old grudges, is rarely buried. On the island’s volcanic soil, where the wind can whip secrets into the air as easily as it carries sand, danger surfaces in the form of Eric and Mick Maloney—names Marjorie knows all too well. Their arrival turns Lanzarote’s quiet streets into a hunting ground, and time into a narrowing corridor. She must find Billy before the brothers do, but even as she searches, the question lingers: in this small, watchful community, who is a friend, who is an enemy, and who is merely playing both sides?

Lanzarote itself becomes an accomplice to the drama—its stark beauty and treacherous isolation echoing the tension in Marjorie’s hunt. The barren lava fields and silent golf courses mask the undercurrents of fear that ripple through its expatriate corners. Every shadow could hide an observer, every conversation a half-truth. As Marjorie tails strangers and pieces together fragments of gossip and sightings, the island’s charm takes on a dangerous edge.

Trust is the currency in short supply. The old bonds between officer and informer are frayed, but not entirely severed, and Marjorie wrestles with the uncomfortable truth that the answers she seeks might upend her understanding of loyalty altogether. Betrayal, after all, is not always the clean cut of a knife—it can be the slow erosion of belief, the steady wearing away of trust until nothing solid remains.

In the end, the pursuit is as much inward as outward. Marjorie’s journey forces her to weigh what matters more: uncovering the truth about the man who cost her everything, or protecting him from a fate he might well deserve. The island offers no easy resolutions, only the chance to confront the ghosts that still linger, and perhaps, in their acknowledgment, to find a fragile kind of peace.