Dodge thought he might get lucky after all.
It had seemed like the longest of long shots, but Tess McCallum seemed to have bought the industrial-size bag of bullshit he was selling. He’d thought federal agents were supposed to be worldly-wise and cynical, but McCallum was a babe in the fucking woods.
By the end of the night he would have pinned the blame on Winston, and McCallum would be abjectly apologetic for all the nasty things she’d said about him.
Was there any way she could make it up to him?
Dodge smiled.
He could think of a way. A few dozen ways.
He turned into the driveway of his house, a bungalow dating from the 1930s, perched at the edge of a hillside. He hadn’t lied about the view. From the front of the house he could see the full expanse of LA, from the dark rim of desert on the east to the infinite Pacific on the west. If there was any poetry in his soul, it was aroused by that view, at night, under a swollen moon.
Adjacent to the bungalow was a carport. He parked inside, killing his lights and motor.
As he got out of the car, he was thinking of Tess McCallum and what he might be able to do with her in a very short time. Guilt was a powerful emotion, or so he had been told-he had never been much prone to guilt himself-and he intended to have McCallum feeling very fucking guilty before long.
Thing was, he didn’t even care that much about her personally. There were women in his little black book who had her beat in the looks department. But he’d never bagged a federal agent. He wanted a taste of that certified U.S. Prime pussy. It was the kind of memory he could take with him into his old age.
Smiling, he stepped out of the carport, then heard a footstep behind him.
He pivoted, his hand sliding inside his jacket to unholster his Smith. 38, and there was a flicker of motion on the margin of his sight, and crashing pain and the million lights of the city exploding before his eyes, weakness in his knees, numbness and confusion and roaring darkness, and he fell on his face and twitched and lay still.