Tough Customer (33 page)

Caroline looked up at him through the dark lenses of her sunglasses. "I called a taxi."

"I gave the driver ten bucks for his trouble. I'm taking you home."

His voice brooked no argument. He motioned the nurse to roll the chair to his car. Hesitantly, she said, "Ms. King?" and waited for Caroline's nod before complying with Dodge.

Caroline was leaving in the clothes she'd had on when she was admitted three days earlier. She had nothing with her except her handbag. Dodge took it off her lap and placed it in the backseat of his car, then offered her his hand and helped her out of the wheelchair. She thanked the nurse for her assistance. The nurse wished her good luck and good health before wheeling the chair around and heading back into the building.

Dodge asked Caroline if she wanted to lie down in the backseat.

"No, I'll ride up front."

He looked like he might argue, especially when he noticed how stiff and tentative her movements were, but he helped her get situated as comfortably as possible, then went around and got in the driver's side. They covered three blocks without either of them saying anything.

When he stopped for a traffic light, he turned toward her. "How do you feel?"

"Weak. Like I've been lying in bed for three days."

"They didn't feed you?"

"I didn't have much appetite."

"Can't blame you." He made a face. "Hospital food."

"When were you in the hospital?"

"Never. But I've heard."

She smiled, but her lips were tremulous, and he noticed.

He asked, "Does it hurt?"

"Not as bad as it looks like it should. It looks pretty awful. One of the nurses felt sorry for me, I guess. She brought me the sunglasses."

He was trying to see past the opaque lenses so he could assess the damage, but the driver behind him tooted his horn when the light turned green, forcing him to return his attention to driving.

"How did you find out?" she asked.

"Jimmy Gonzales."

"He wasn't one of the responders."

"His night off. But it's still his beat. He heard about it the next morning. I've been out of touch the last couple of days, so he didn't reach me till late last night. I called the hospital this morning and was told they were releasing you."

"Don't you have to work today?"

"I called in sick."

They rode in silence for a time, then she said, "Did you go after Roger?"

"I wanted to. Still do. I'd like to kill him." His fingers were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel the skin had turned white. "But I won't."

She said nothing, waiting for him to finish.

Finally he braked for another traffic light and turned his head. "The only reason I haven't killed him is because you begged me not to. That means more to me than the promise I made him the night I beat him up."

Nothing more was said until they reached her house. He assisted her up the front walkway to the door. She went in. He followed. A broken vase and dying roses were lying on the living room floor. The water had left a damp stain on the carpet. A picture on the wall was hanging askew. A floor lamp had been overturned, the lampshade was dented.

These mute testimonies of Roger's violence no longer embarrassed her. They made her furious. But she was just as furious with herself for excusing his abuse for as long as she had, which had been way too long. Feeling in defiance of it now, she removed her sunglasses, exposing her eyes to Dodge.

He clenched his jaw and rocked slowly back and forth on the balls of his feet as though he could barely contain the wrath that surged through him. "I might change my mind about killing him."

"Don't. He's not worth it." He seemed on the verge of saying something but didn't. She said, "I appreciate the ride home. Thank you."

"You're welcome. I'll wait while you throw some things together."

"What things?"

"Your things. Whatever you want to take. You're staying at my place for a while. It's no palace, but--"

"What are you talking about? I can't stay with you."

"Can and will."

"Forget it."

"Get your stuff."

"What entitles you to order me around?" she asked angrily. "Your policeman's badge? Being right about Roger's true spots? You accused me of staying with him out of stubbornness. Well,

fine.
I concede. I should have ended the relationship long ago, but out of pride, I didn't. I didn't want to admit how mistaken I'd been about his true character. So, okay, you were right. That doesn't give you license to take over where Roger left off."

She drew herself up to her full height, which was still far beneath his. "I've been bullied for the last time, Dodge. I won't be pushed around again, emotionally or physically or any other way."

He expelled a short breath. "Look, when it comes to expressing myself, I'm crap. I always sound like I'm bullying even when I'm not. And I'm not. I swear. I'm trying to be nice ... a friend. You need a hand, I'm offering one. But no matter how I put it, or how deep you dig your heels in, the fact is that I'm not leaving you here alone. End of discussion."

"That sounds like bullying."

"Sue me."

She smiled, but it wavered after a moment. "I'll be perfectly safe. Roger's in jail."

"He got out. Last night. His family posted bail."

"He won't be coming back to me."

"How do you know?"

"He told me so. He was livid. He said he was done with me."

"He'll change his mind, and I don't want you here when he does. In fact, you should relocate. You're a realtor. Put this house on the market. Find a new place."

She laughed without humor. "That would be poetic justice."

"What do you mean?"

"That's what set him off. I was excited over a pending contract. If it closes, it will be my largest sale to date. I was babbling on about it, then Roger said he hoped for me that it would close before I had to quit.

"I thought I'd misunderstood, but when I asked him what he meant by that, he stated unequivocally that I would no longer be 'a working girl' when I became Mrs. Roger Campton. It just wouldn't do for us to be a two-income family. What would people think? That he couldn't support his wife? I would have plenty to do, he said, taking care of him. He promised to keep me busy.

"I actually laughed. I told him that he'd taken leave of his senses if he thought for one moment that I planned to quit my job, forfeit my career, just because I was getting married." She raised her hands at her sides, adding sarcastically, "That didn't sit too well."

"The son of a bitch nearly knocked your eye out."

It had felt as though he had. The ophthalmologist who was summoned to the emergency room told her later that she was lucky her vision hadn't been impaired by one vicious blow.

Dodge said, "Gonzales told me the cops who responded to your call said you couldn't even stand upright."

"Roger hit me in the ribs, too. I thought some were cracked. They turned out not to be, but the bruise was very painful. Still is when I move too quickly or take a deep breath."

"Jesus," Dodge whispered. "That guy..." He placed his hands on his hips and walked a tight circle in the center of the room, again looking like a man who wanted to throttle somebody. When he came back around to her, he said shortly, "Pack your things."

"All right. I'll pack. You can drive me somewhere. But be reasonable, Dodge. I can't stay with you."

"How come?"

"We barely know each other."

He dismissed that. "We'll get to know each other. If you're afraid I'll cross a line--"

"I'm not."

"Well, good. But if you are, you can always call Jimmy Gonzales. If I laid a hand on you, he'd have my ass."

"I could go to ... to ... a friend's house."

"Doesn't Roger know who your friends are? You don't think he'll look for you among them? I'll bet you haven't shared with them that he hits. You'd have to explain your bruises. Besides, you know the downside of that plan or you would have already called a friend, and you wouldn't have stammered when you suggested it."

"An extended-stay motel then."

He folded his arms across his chest, considering it. "I've made plenty of arrests at those places. They're for shiftless transients. Whores. Drug dealers. Fences."

"Not all of them are disreputable. Some are actually very nice."

"Okay. Say you got into a good one with a decent clientele. It would require a lot of wear and tear."

"Wear and tear?"

"On me. I'd be going back and forth, checking on you several times a day, making sure you were all right."

"I wouldn't require that."

"
I
would. And who's to say Campton wouldn't hunt you down until he found you?"

"He could find me at your place."

"Yeah, but he'd have to kill me to get to you. Now," he said,"we've wasted enough time arguing over it. Go get your things."

He lived in a condo, one of a unit of four, in a complex made up of ten identical units. These were connected by landscaped grounds and lighted walkways. There was a common swimming pool, a tennis court, and a clubhouse for owners' use. It was a place where single professionals resided, not people who were investing their time, labor, and money creating a lasting home.

Before leaving for the hospital, Dodge had cleared out two bureau drawers and half his closet for her, much more space than she required. "I won't need any work clothes," she'd told him when he commented on how little she was taking from her house.

"Yeah, what about that?"

"I talked to Mr. Malone from my hospital bed the day after the incident. I hinted that I'd suffered some minor female ailment that required surgery. He didn't ask for details, which I knew he wouldn't. I asked for a month off to give myself time to recover and regain my strength. He told me to take all the time I needed."

"You need a
month
? Your injuries must be more serious than you've led me to believe."

"I won't need that long to recover. As I told you before, I bruise easily and deeply. This," she said, pointing to her eye, "will take weeks to fade. It'll go through a spectrum of colors. To avoid questions from clients and co-workers, I don't want to go back until it's completely gone."

Her explanation relieved his alarm, but he was a little jealous of the glowing terms in which she referred to her mentor, Jim Malone. At the same time, he was glad she wasn't working for a demanding, impatient asshole who was stingy with sick leave.

After her things had been put away, he forced her to eat some mashed potatoes, which he made himself from scratch. He admitted that he wasn't a gourmet but told her he hadn't starved, and he wasn't going to let her starve, either, even though she was already well on her way to emaciation.

After she'd eaten all she could hold, she took one of her pain pills, and he tucked her into bed. She slept for sixteen hours, waking the following morning barely in time to see him off to the tire plant.

"Marvin?" she asked, squinting at the embroidered patch on his shirt.

He frowned. "Believe me, you don't want to know."

He told her to keep the doors locked, not to leave, to stay in bed all day if she felt like it, and she promised she would. He told her to keep his pager number handy and to page him if she needed anything. He said he would avoid calling for fear of disturbing her rest, but if he did, he would call and let it ring once, then call back. That way she would know it was him.

Despite these safety precautions, he left her reluctantly.

After his shift at the plant, he went to the daily meeting of the task force. He reported that there was still no love lost between him and Franklin Albright. Albright had punctured one of his tires. "Stupid thing to do since my car was in the parking lot of a tire plant, for crissake." He'd had the tire replaced in no time.

He couldn't be sure Albright was the culprit, but he didn't have any other enemies at the plant, and Albright had given him a smirking grin when he reclaimed Crystal as she and Dodge came through the exit together after their shift. And Dodge knew about Albright's fondness for his knife.

Playing nerdy whipping boy to the violent ex-con was getting real old, real quick, but this was the role he'd started with, so it was the one he had to stick to. In the meantime, Crystal was becoming more affectionate. Recently she'd stroked his hand and wistfully told him she wished she'd met him first.

Dodge had told her it was too bad she didn't know something about Franklin that would land him back in the penitentiary for a long, long time and save her the hassle of having to break up with him so she and he--Marvin--could be together.

Her smile had faltered, and she'd quickly changed the subject. Her reaction raised Dodge's suspicion that something about Albright definitely made her uneasy, but she was a long way from blurting out that he was planning an armed bank robbery.

Dodge felt like he was marking time while accomplishing nothing, but no one else on the task force had anything cooking, so he had to keep his janitorial job and continue putting the make on Crystal in the hope of either getting something on Albright that would identify him as their robber or eliminating him from the suspect roster. And in the process, to avoid getting murdered by Franklin Albright, jealous lover. Staying alive was now a top priority with Dodge. He really wanted to live.

With Caroline.

When he got home that first evening, he caught her napping on the sofa. Embarrassed, she sat up, clasping and unclasping her hands self-consciously, apologizing for her tousled hair and disheveled clothing. Her shy uncertainty made his heart do cartwheels.

"How was your day?" he asked.

"Lazy."

"Perfect."