Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)(68)

He had messages on his answering machine. A lot from reporters. A few from his team. Bruni invited him to dinner again. Two guys from the EAU asked if he wanted to meet. Everyone calling to check up on the psycho shooter cop. He should be grateful, appreciative. Once on the team, always on the team, that's what they said.

He was resentful. He didn't want their calls, he didn't want their attention. Frankly, he didn't want to be the psycho shooter cop, the unfortunate sniper who'd discharged his weapon in the line of duty and now was screwed for the rest of his life. Fuck the team, f*ck camaraderie. None of the rest of them had their butts on the line.

Yeah, he was feeling good and sorry for himself now.

He thought about calling his brother in Florida. Hey, Georgie boy, it's been what, ten, fifteen years? Just thought I'd give you a ring. Oh yeah, I blew some guy away the other day and that reminded me of something. What exactly happened with Mom?

Or maybe he'd call Dr. Lane instead. Good news, I haven't had a drink today. Bad news, I f*cked up everything else. Say, if you have a chance to save yourself by ratting out someone else, should you do it? Or is that the kind of thing that'll just drive you insane?

He couldn't stand himself in this kind of mood, so edgy he felt as if he were going to burst out of his own skin, so ragged he could barely think. Honest to God, he needed to shoot something.

Instead, his phone rang. He picked it up and he wasn't even surprised anymore.

“This is Catherine,” a husky female voice whispered straight out of his dreams and into his ear. “Come over right away. I think someone's broken into my house. Please, Officer Dodge, I need you.”

Then the phone went click and the sound of dial tone filled Bobby's ear.

“Intruder, my ass,” Bobby muttered, but then he shrugged. The call solved one problem for him. Now he had an excuse to get his gun.




D RIVING BY THE Gagnon residence, Bobby expected to feel a creepy sense of déjà vu. He didn't. Thursday night it had been all lights, cameras, action. Now, nearly midnight on a school night, the dignified brick neighborhood was quiet, discreet, a proper lady gone to bed with curlers in her hair.

He looked around for a patrol car and was slightly surprised none were about. He would've bet money Copley was having the BPD keep close tabs on Mrs. Gagnon.

Bobby parked twelve blocks away, at the movie theater by Huntington Ave. He made a note of the late shows and when they started. The cool, detached part of his mind found it interesting that he was already building an alibi.

Making the dozen-block hike to Back Bay, the saner part of his mind tried to reason with him. What was he doing? What did he honestly think was going to happen? He didn't buy Catherine's intruder story for a minute. Instead, he was thinking of what Harris had told him. She's going to call you again. She's going to tell you that you're the only hope she has left. She's going to beg you to help her. It's what she does, Officer Dodge; she destroys men's lives.

Would she try to seduce him? Did he care if she did? His career was already in the toilet. He'd had his first drink in ten years and just this evening he'd officially ended things with the woman who was probably the best damn thing that had ever happened to him.

He was footloose and fancy-free. He was feeling reckless, and yeah, more than a little self-destructive. A sordid rendezvous sounded just about right. He could already recall the warm, cinnamony scent of her perfume. The way her fingernails had felt, raking lightly across his chest.

It didn't take too much for his mind to fill in the rest. Her long, pale legs wrapped around his waist. Her strong, lithe body writhing beneath his own. He bet she moved like a pro, moaned like a pro. He bet she was the type of woman who'd do just about anything.

So Harris had been right all along—Jimmy'd been dead only four days, and Bobby already couldn't wait to f*ck his wife.

He walked into the neighborhood, head down against the cold, hands thrust deep into the front pockets of his down jacket. A dozen bad seduction scenes ran through his mind, each more sordid than the last.

Then he looked up, saw the fourth-story window, and felt the air freeze in his chest.

Holy shit!

Bobby started to run.




C ATHERINE WAS DOWNSTAIRS in the lobby. She was curled up at the base of the townhouse's elevator, Nathan pressed tight against her chest, his face buried against her neck. Bobby barely had time to register the irony of it—that this is how Catherine and Nathan had looked on Thursday night, that every time he met this supposed child abuser, she was cradling her son—then he was vaulting for the stairs to her second-story unit, gun in hand.

“You hear gunshots, get out. Head straight for your neighbors', bang on the door, and tell them to call the cops.”

He didn't wait to see if she nodded, but bounded up the stairs.

Bursting low and fast through the open front door, he came to an immediate crouching halt beside a fake ficus tree, breathing hard, realizing he was moving too fast, too heedlessly, and now trying to regroup. Face-to-face confrontation was really no different than sniping. The winner was usually the guy who could control his adrenaline the best.

Bobby took another deep breath and steadied his nerves. He'd never been inside the Gagnons' townhouse. Four stories, he'd been told on Thursday night. The Gagnons occupied the top four stories of a five-level townhouse, with the top story being converted to cathedral ceilings.