AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"You can't be sure."
"Shh. This crying can't be good for you or the baby."
"I'm scared."
He kissed her hair. "You don't need to be scared."
She set herself away from him and looked up into his swelling eyes. "What good will making detective do you if you're dead?"
He chuckled at her logic, but it hurt all over when he laughed. "I know how to take care of myself."
"I know that. I saw what you did to Roger that night outside his gym. You could have defended yourself tonight, but you didn't."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I've gotta be convincing in my role. A lot is riding on it."
"Getting detective."
"And getting the bad guy."
"One and the same thing."
"Right. So this is a small price to pay."
"Not so small, Dodge," she cried. "Look at you!"
He dropped his flippancy and cradled her face between his hands. All seriousness, he said, "You gave up a rich guy for me, Caroline. I gotta do this and I gotta do it right. I can't let you down."
"Or Jimmy Gonzales."
He said nothing.
"I know this is important to you," she said in a quavering voice. "How important, Dodge?"
Matching her tone, he said, "This isn't just important. This is everything."
Dodge was sore, swollen, and bruised for days after Albright's attack.
However, the discomfort was worth the reward.
The mission hadn't been as successful as it would have been if he'd been able to get into the attached apartment and discovered what Albright was hiding. But while Crystal had been getting their two beers from the fridge, Dodge had successfully planted a listening device, courtesy of Doris, on the underside of the kitchen table.
Even on short notice, Doris had provided him a whole setup. He'd had with him several more bugs, which he'd hoped to put in key areas of the duplex, but having successfully placed one was better than nothing.
The surveillance had not been sanctioned by his superiors. Officially, their strong hunch that Albright was their culprit didn't amount to "just cause." Not yet. But it was enough for Dodge. If anyone found out that he'd planted a bug without authorization, he would be removed from the task force, if not drummed out of the Houston PD altogether. But if it paid off the way he predicted it would, it was worth the risk.
The day following the beating, he called in sick at the tire plant. As soon as Caroline left for work, he drove to within a block of Crystal and Albright's duplex and gave the equipment a test run. He was able to pick up snatches of their breakfast conversation. Most of it consisted of his yelling at her and calling her ugly names. Crystal tearfully denied that anything sexual had transpired between her and Marvin.
Dodge couldn't catch all of Albright's response to that, but he picked up the word eunuch, which pissed him off. He lived for the day when the ex-con realized he'd been had, not by the nerd infatuated with his girlfriend but by Dodge Hanley.
When he returned to work at the tire plant, his brutalized appearance shocked co-workers. He fielded questions about what had happened to him and created a fender bender, saying it had been severe enough to push his face into his windshield and teach him a hard lesson about wearing his seat belt.
Crystal avoided him. At lunch, she joined a table of other women, and, after giving him one shamefaced, sympathetic smile, she steered clear. It went on like that each following day. They made eye contact, but she never gave him an opportunity to get close to her.
His captain was on his ass about it. Other cops on the task force considered his attempted penetration of Albright's duplex a complete bust.
