Page 61 of Open Season

“Am I? You know, when I first moved here, I rambled around a lot, learning the roads and the country, so I was in a lot of places where normally you wouldn’t expect to see Hillsboro’s chief. I was also paying a lot of attention to Hillsboro’s citizens, asking who people were and learning their faces, so I knew you by sight.”

“Your point?”

“My point is, if you’re posing as gay, when you check into a motel with a woman, you shouldn’t enter the room at the same time, and you really shouldn’t try to suck her tonsils out while you’re still trying to get the key card in the lock. Plays hell with the image. Want me to describe her?”

“Yes,” said Howard, fascinated.

“Never mind,” Todd said, his face suddenly impassive. “You get around to some out-of-the-way places, Chief.”

“Don’t I?” Jack agreed. “Let’s get back to my original question: What in hell are you doing with Daisy?”

“I can tell you what I’m doing,” said Howard. “I’m trying to make sure she doesn’t get hurt in any way. The nightclub scene can be rough on women.”

“Then why send her there? It’s like sending a kitten into a bear cage.”

“You make her sound totally helpless. She’s an intelligent, observant woman who just wants to dance and meet men.”

“Given what’s out there in the bar scene these days, even intelligent women are ending up raped, maybe just by one man, maybe by all of his buddies, too—and that’s if she’s lucky and doesn’t die. Did you warn Daisy about letting anyone buy her a drink? Or leaving a drink sitting on the table while she dances?”

Howard sighed. “That’s where I come in. I keep an eye on her, watch to see if anyone salts her drink with something.”

“So she’s never out of your sight, right? “You never go to the bathroom, or lose sight of her in the crowd.”

“I do the best I can.”

“Best isn’t good enough, not when you’re using her as some kind of shark bait.” He leveled a hard stare at Todd. “So let’s start hearing some details, and they’d better be good or you’re outted.”

Todd rubbed his jaw. “That threat usually works in reverse.”

Jack merely waited. He had stated his intentions, and where Daisy was concerned, he didn’t back down or negotiate. Her safety was too important.

Todd studied Jack’s expression, evidently reading his determination. “It’s personal, the reason I’ve been... working with Daisy.”

Jack said softly, “I’m taking the whole thing personally.”

“So she got to you, huh?” Todd smiled. “I knew, with just a little sprucing up, she’d turn heads. All she needed was a boost in her self-confidence. She’s so damned charming, with that sparkle in her eyes like a kid on a roller coaster, I figured all she needed was more flattering clothes to really pull in the men.”

“Let’s get to the facts,” Jack growled.

“Okay, in a nutshell: A friend of mine went to the Buffalo Club with a couple of friends. She was bummed out, not in the mood for dancing. While her friends were dancing, a guy came on to her, offered to buy her a drink. Because she was bummed out, she let him. The last thing she remembered is getting sleepy. She woke up the next morning in her own bed, naked, alone, and it was obvious something had happened. She’d been raped and sodomized. She did the smart thing, didn’t shower, called the cops, went to the hospital.

“From the evidence, at least six different men raped her. She had only a hazy memory of the guy who bought her the drink. The cops had nothing to go on but some blurry fingerprints in her apartment, none of which showed up in the files, so the men have no priors. Dead end. Unsolvable crime, unless one of the bastards is caught for the rape of another woman and his DNA matches the DNA in the evidence samples of semen.”

It was a far too familiar story. Date-rape cases were difficult to prosecute even when the victim knew her assailant. When it was a stranger whom she couldn’t remember because she’d been drugged, catching the bastards was almost impossible.

Rage had him grinding his teeth. “So you decided to try catching them yourselves, by using Daisy as bait. Don’t you think the cops could have handled it better, with a female police officer trained for such situations?”

“Sure, except they weren’t doing it. Budget limitations, low-priority case. You know how it works. There’s way too much crime and not enough money, not enough officers, not enough jails or prisons. Every department has to prioritize.”

“I’m tempted to really hurt you,” Jack said, keeping his voice even with an effort. “And I could, despite Howard here. What were you going to do if some ass-hole did drug Daisy? Go vigilante and shoot him in the parking lot?”

“The idea has merit.”

“What are the odds it would even be the same guy? There’s a lot of that shit out there.”

“I know it would be a long shot. But it would be a beginning. Someone to talk, name some names, who would name other names.” Todd spread his hands on the desk and stared at them, his face grim. “There’s more to the story. My friend was the same woman you saw me with that day. She was at the Buffalo Club in the first place because we’d quarreled. She wanted to get married, I told her I couldn’t because of . . . other things—”

“Like this assignment you’re working.”

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