Whatever Your Heart Desires Part 5

"This is your husband?" she asked incredulously.

"Noooo," I responded with a grin, "this is my wife."

Dottie had just shaken her head and smiled bemusedly.

"OK," she sighed, "I see your point."

She admonished she would still have to interview Danni at the earliest possible time. He – she, Dottie had corrected herself – was still a material witness to a felony sexual assault. More to the point, she was in danger. If we had noticed her in those digital images, the perps would, too. I hadn't thought of that.

"I'm going to have a unit watch your house for a while," she instructed.

"They wouldn't come back again, would they?" I gasped. "I mean, I can't testify to anything other than they had been there and I had woken up the next morning with a headache and sore pussy."

"No, but Danni can," Dottie responded, "and they won't know she's gone. All they will know is she caught them in the act and would be able to testify against them. They might be tempted to come back to silence her – and you, too, if you were there at the time."

I hadn't thought of that, either. It was a chilling concept. So was my next thought.

"You are going to use us as bait, aren't you?"

Dottie smiled, but not convincingly.

"It might not come to that," she responded, "but we will be watching the house for now. Kristen, this is the biggest break we have had since this case was opened. I don't mean to leave you or Danni twisting in the wind, but if there is any chance we can draw these creeps out into the open, we need to take it."

The best way to put all this behind me was to immerse myself in my normal day-to-day routine. Harry, my boss, and the whole agency were solidly behind me. Harry couldn't understand how my husband could walk out on me after so traumatic an event. We hadn't told him about 'Danni', so I reiterated a sanitized version of the same explanation I had given the police. Beth, Jackie and Gwen were present – at my request – and backed me up. Harry understood, but still thought of Danny as "unmanly" for allowing it to happen in our marital bed in the first place. At the time, there was no way I could argue the point and win, so I let it drop.