Tough Customer

'Let me work on Crystal, see what I can do.'

Dodge seized upon the additional risk. By taking on the responsibility of going into Franklin Albright's lair, he was raising the stakes for himself. But the reward would be greater, too. If he came through, and delivered Franklin Albright, he'd get that detective's badge he so wanted.

Several nights later, he returned home particularly tired after a long, grinding day. Caroline met him at the door and hugged him close. He leaned in to kiss her, but she pushed him away and sniffed his shirtfront. 'Is that Tabu?'

'What?'

'The fragrance.'

And he thought,

Oh, shit. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his tire plant shirt, then pulled it over his head. He held it to his nose and took a deep breath. 'Sorry. I didn't realize it was so strong.'

He went to the closet that housed the washer and dryer and tossed the offending shirt into the hamper. When he came back around, Caroline was staring at him, her head angled, waiting for an explanation.

'A woman at the ... at work. At Marvin's workplace. She hugged him today.'

'She hugged you?'

'She hugged Marvin. It had nothing to do with me.' He went to the refrigerator and got a beer. He opened it and took a long swallow. Caroline was still looking at him, obviously waiting for further explanation. 'I can't discuss it, Caroline.'

'What does she look like?'

'I can't discuss it.'

'Why were the two of you hugging at work?'

He gave her a look that warned her to stop with the questions. But either she didn't recognize the look or she defied it. 'This is one of those situations that Jimmy referred to, isn't it?'

'That Jimmy referred to? Jimmy Gonzales?'

'The night he came to dinner.'

Shortly after Dodge had brought her from the hospital to his place, but before they'd become a couple, she had urged him to invite his partner to dinner. 'Officer Gonzales has been very kind to me on several occasions. I'd like to repay him by cooking him a meal.'

So, on his next night off, Jimmy had come to dinner. He arrived before Dodge got home. When he got there, Jimmy and Caroline had been companionably chatting.

Now, he asked her warily, 'What did Jimmy tell you?'

'He must have assumed that we were already sleeping together, because he told me that you'd been smitten with me from the get-go.'

'Which came as no surprise to you.'

'But then he said, 'I guess he'll be relinquishing his title of department Romeo.' When I asked him what he meant, he rapidly backpedaled. But the gist of it was that you have a reputation for easily getting information out of women.' Caroline forced him to look her in the eye. 'Is that true? Were you,

are you, the police department's Romeo?'

'Guys talk, Caroline. Mostly it's bullshit.'

'Mostly?'

She continued to look at him levelly, and he knew she would persist until he gave her something.

'Okay, I'll tell you this much. The girl at work was upset over something her boyfriend did. I'm her pal. I extended her a listening ear, a kind word, a shoulder to cry on. She expressed her gratitude by hugging me. That's all it amounted to, and that's all I can tell you.'

She appeared to be mollified, but even if she wasn't, that was all he was going to tell her. He wasn't about to give her a physical description of Crystal and start her thinking that he was interested in the girl for any reason except as a means of trapping Albright. He wouldn't tell Caroline about the threat Albright posed, either. He'd minimized the danger of the undercover work in order to prevent her from worrying every time he left the house.

He excused himself and went to take a shower. Although the heady scent of Tabu no longer lingered, Caroline was abnormally quiet over supper, and later, when they went to bed, they lay with their backs to each other.

After an hour of tense wakefulness, Dodge knew she was still awake, too. He turned onto his side, so that he was addressing her back. 'Everything I do, I'm doing for us.'

She said nothing.

He placed his hand on her shoulder. 'I'm trying to make detective, Caroline. If I do a good job on this special assignment, I'll have a much better shot at getting the promotion. It would mean a pay increase. I wouldn't be patrolling a beat. And, besides all that, it's what I've wanted since I signed on with the department. Before that. Since I was a kid.'

She turned to him then and laid her hand on his cheek. 'I know you want that, Dodge. And I understand why you can't talk about the case. I do.'

'But?'

'But I wouldn't be a woman if I didn't question your coming home smelling of drugstore cologne.'

He could think of a thousand ways in which she was all woman, but he knew better than to begin listing them. She wasn't in the mood to be charmed. 'Everything I do now is for us. You, me, the baby.'

'Hugging the Tabu woman?'

'Part of the job. I swear.'

She thought it over for several moments, then said, 'You're her pal? That's all?'

'That's it.'

'She has a boyfriend?'

'Yes. And so do you.' His hand moved to her breast and caressed it lovingly.

'I feel fat and ugly. Don't laugh!'

He pecked her lips with his. 'You're pregnant, not fat. And you couldn't be ugly, no matter what.'

'You still love me?'

'You have to ask?'

The discussion ended there, and for seventy-two hours nothing more was said about Crystal.

Then he came home one night looking like an extra from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Twelve hours earlier that day, during their morning coffee break, he'd caught Crystal chatting with one of the other women who worked in payroll. 'He's an asshole,' Dodge overheard her say.

'Not me, I hope.'

She smiled up at him. 'Hey, Marvin. No, you're not the asshole.'

'Let me guess. The chief among them. None other than Franklin Albright. What's he done now?'

'The kitchen sink has been clogged up for a week, and he's promised to fix it. But