Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets (23 page)

He still needs her help.

“What’s going on?” Dodge asks.

The cop nods to Jaime.

They know each other
, Dodge realizes.

He frowns
as he returns his gaze to Dodge, holding a photo up to him.  “You know this woman?” he asks.

He doesn’t.  The woman in the photo looks like a heavy, not so pretty
,
Jaime.

“Why do you want to know?” Dodge asks, holding off on giving any kind of answer.

“We found her body this morning, not far from a bar called Checkpoint Chili’s,” the cop explains.  “Ever been there?”

“So you think it’s me?” Dodge asks, incredulous. 

He has a biting intuition that he doesn’t want to give them any answers right away, unt
il he knows more.  I
t seems obviou
s he should tell the truth -
he’s never seen this woman or even heard of that bar. 
But he doesn’t trust obvious things right now.

“Am I the only murde
r suspect in this town or something?” he snaps at the cop.

He’s buying time, trying to drag out some more details.

“You are when your credit card was used not long before the time of death at Checkpoint Chili’s.”

Dodge can sense Jaime stiffen in the car seat just out of his view.  He works hard to keep relaxed, but his brain is racing
with the information.  I
t doesn’t take long to reach the conclusion. 

Mr. Chuck still has his credit card. 
Dead girls in Amsterdam.  A dead girl at Checkpoint Chili’s.  His credit card at both.  Jesus Christ.  Mr. Chuck appears pretty unhing
ed, but this is worse than he could have imagined
.

Jaime pops her door open, starts to c
limb out of her car.  Dodge
knows she
just
put it together too.  She no longer seems so drunk.

The cop drops his hand to his pistol when Jaime moves.  It’s an instinct, though - he doesn’t thi
nk Jaime’s coming out firing.  He d
rops his hand.

This is a rookie mistake, Dodge thinks.  They could really be adulterous, murderous lovers, willing to do anything to get away with their crimes.  This cop can’t know they aren’t.

“Maybe I’ve been there, maybe I haven’t,” Dodge says slowly, now simply trying to buy time to think what to do.  He doesn’t want to admit his credit card was stolen.  It could jeopardize his alibi.  But he doesn’t exactly want to be implicated in s
omething he
had nothing to do with.

That sick bastard.

“Thing is,” the cop says, tension mounting.  “We know you weren’t there.”

Dodge processes this, but doesn’t know what to say.

“We got you under surveillance,” the rookie explains.

Of course.

“I got to take you in,” he tells Dodge.  He’s polite, sensitive - probably for Jaime’s benefit.  “Just for questioni
ng, though. 
Sheriff Broonzy wants to talk to you.”

Dodge doesn’t want to go anywhere near the police station.

He’s afraid he’ll never get to leave.

“Evan,” Jaime says, stepping gently toward the cop, su
mmoning a sense of familiarity. 
“Something’s going on here,” she tells him.  “I know it doesn’t look that way,
but Dodge is innocent here.  S
omeone is setting him up.” 

She plead
s
with him
with her eyes
. 

“You’ve got to give us a chance to figure this out.  Just give us a head start, a couple of hours,” she begs.

“
Miss Tu,” he starts, groaning at the
dilemma.

“Did you call this in, Evan?”
she asks him, direct,
turning on all of her charm.

“Ah, no,” he stammers, admits.

Rookie
.

“Then you can give us a chance,” she insists.  “That’s all I’m asking
.  A chance. 
Wouldn’t you like a chance?” she ask
s him, practically purring.

Jaime is mesmerizing
.  There’s no way of ever knowing what she means when she says things like that, it’s just a soothing siren’s call that simply stops Evan’s brain from working.

“Fine,” he sighs.  “Jesus Christ
.  Be back at Dodge’s in two hours.”

And just like that Jaime
turns away from him, pulling
Dodge toward her car.  “Come on,” she says.  “We’ve got to find Mr
. Chuck.”

“Let’s take my car,” he says, dragging her instead toward the Crown Vic.

People will get out of the way faster.

*****

Chuck is not at the office, but it’s clear he’s been here, a lot.  Dodge and Jaime hit the mail room first, and it’s a mess.  It looks like he’s been living here - clothes, empty Chinese food containers, a makeshift bed.

“Jaime, look,” Dodge directs her, scanning some printouts of photos taped to the wall.  “Is that you?”

“Ugh,” she answers simply.  “That’s my high school yearbook photo.  I hate that picture.”

“Really?” Dodge asks.  “
Wow, you were pretty cute
.”

Not that she looks much differe
nt now; it was barely a few years ago.

She just sneers a little, trying to suppress the smile that also creeps up.  “Well don’t get too excited, perv.  I’m not even eighteen in that photo yet.”

“Well, I’d have asked you to the prom,” he assures her.

“Whatever,” she chides.  “
I’ve been throwing myself at you for months and you barely even acknowledge it
.”

Except for once, of course.

“Jaime,” he say
s, slowly, feeling guilty over his one indiscretion. 

And
how he denied all the
promise
of that moment since
,
and let it fizzle away. 

He knows he hurt her,
that i
t was more than just a moment of indiscretion
for her.  And
maybe
it wasn’t for him either, but he couldn’t treat it any other way. 

Not without betraying
Siobhan
even more
, destroying everything they had built together
.
 

He should never have let that one time
happen. 

She should never have made it happen. 

It’s not like she isn’t complicit in all of this - she knows he was married, and happy with Siobhan.  She knew Siobhan, worked for
Siobhan, only met Dodge because of
Siobhan.
 

Jaime pursued
Dodge - there is no doubt bet
ween them that she seduced him -
and has been trying, ever since, even if not so aggressively, to do it again.

And now, Siobhan is gone.

And at the root of this whole, wicked, evil tragedy, Dodge knows, is his one moment of weakness, his adultery, his infidelity, kick-starting a series of events that ended in two brutal
murders.

Siobhan’s murder.

Dressler.

And now,
perhaps even more.

And this is what keeps Dodge and Jaime
apart right now.

She
knows this, too.

So she just cuts Dodge off before he says whatever he is going to say.

“I know, Dodge,” she says, laying her hand gently on his arm.

They hold each other’s eyes for a moment, and allow themselves, despite the wall of guilt between them, a moment of tenderness
. 

Which itself is
enough
to make him just want to grab her now.

That he knows she won’t stop him only makes it worse.

But he’s glad when she does st
op him, simply by looking away
.

She lifts
her trem
bling hand from his shaking arm, and the spell is broken.

“I think he’s gone
,” Dodge says, trying to change the topic.  “Something just feels abandoned here.”

“I think you’re right,” Jaime says, relieved to feel the tension dissipate.  She’s amazed at her own r
estraint.
She doesn’t want to hook up with him too soon, and
raise suspicions
that
they
ha
ve been having an affair.  It will m
ake Dodge look guilty
. 

Or guiltier, she should say. 

“Let’s go check the credit card bill,” he suggests.  “See where he’s blowing my money.”

Jaime takes over Siobhan’s computer while Dodge watches over her shoulder, his eyes resting on a framed picture of Siobhan and him on the desk.  The glass is crack
ed, like someone slammed it
down.