Betrayal of the Dove - By Capri Montgomery Page 0,60

was talking with another one of the detectives and he gave him a subtle head nod, as if he needed to go hear what she had to say; so he did.

She made sure they were down the hall, closer to the door to the store before she spoke again. “Detective Burns tells me they released Gregory earlier this morning.”

“What? He confessed.”

“No, he didn’t.” She looked back down the hall as if checking to make sure nobody was coming. “When Burns was questioning me about the attack I told him that I thought it could be Gregory Dumas, but that Officer Davis had told me he was behind bars already, and Burns told me he wasn’t. They had to release him this morning.”

“I don’t understand. Craig lied?”

“I’m not sure it was intentional. He may have just heard the first report that they caught the guy, and not the second report that they hadn’t. Apparently Gregory says he received a call to come to the location late last night, not super early this morning, and he thought somebody was finally going to give him a job.” She held up her hand before he could utter his next words. “I know,” she shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t understand it either. So I told Burns that Officer Davis had told me he confessed. Burns told me he didn’t. What Gregory said was, “oh so you think she cut off my balls with rejection and I went back to show her I still had some;” He did not say he actually did it.”

“That’s a far cry from what Craig said.”

“I know. That’s what I said. That’s when Burns told me that Officer Davis is still a patrol cop because he has been denied every promotion he’s tried for. They say he’s kind of a…loose cannon I guess. He rushes to conclusions that usually turn out to not be true.” She sighed. “I seem to attract the dishonest lunatics,” she laughed sarcastically.

“I’m neither of those things, Alyssa.”

She placed her hand over his heart. “I know.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m telling you all this because it could be that whoever attacked me has nothing to do with your issue after all. I just thought you should know that in case you were still beating yourself up about it.”

“I wasn’t beating myself up,” but in reality he was.

“Yes you were. It’s why you weren’t able to control yourself up there—barely able to control yourself,” she amended her statement probably realizing that he had, indeed, controlled at least some of his rage impulse. “Don’t take the blame for somebody else’s actions, Shane. Just figure out how to stop him, or maybe both of them.”

He nodded his understanding. She needed him alert, not stuck in some self deprecating stupor.

Chapter Eleven

Alyssa propped up on her elbow, pulling the soft cotton sheets over her breasts as she looked down into Shane’s eyes. “Tell me,” she said. He was an enigma at times. At some moments he seemed so sure of himself, so sure of his abilities that he was on the verge of the kind of cocky confidence she knew led to trouble. At other times, he seemed so vulnerable, like a wounded child who refused to cry. She wanted to be there for him, to help him deal with whatever demons were haunting him, but she could only do it if he talked to her. He had got her back to his place, fixed her something to eat and then taken her to bed, where they spent the entire afternoon, well into the evening hours, getting to know each other a lot better; yet he seemed to shut down when it came to talking about his personal life.

Oh, sure, he was willing to talk about what he could share with her from his military career, but family seemed to be a forbidden topic with him. Leo was staying in the attached guesthouse so they had privacy. He was also working an angle trying to get more information on the murder of two of Shane’s friends. Leo had, probably because he knew Shane needed it, told him to take the day to get his head together before he went on the hunt. She was thankful for the extra voice of reason because she thought Shane needed it right now. He was dealing with so much, and she wondered how he did it alone. When he was military there was always a team of men and women who could understand and