A Thin Dark Line

31

"This is not one of my finer moments."

Annie sat on her knees in front of the toilet, propped up on one side by the old claw-foot bathtub. She felt like a withering husk, too drained for anything deeper than cursory embarrassment. "So much for my image as a lush."

"Did you get a look at the driver?" Fourcade asked, leaning a shoulder against the door frame.

"Just a glimpse. I think he was wearing a ski mask. It was dark. It was raining. Everything happened so fast. God," she complained in disgust. "I sound like every vic I've ever rolled my eyes at."

"Tags?"

She shook her head. "I was too busy trying to keep my ass out of the swamp.

"I don't know," she murmured. "I thought Renard staged the shooting just to get me over there, but maybe not. Maybe whoever took that shot hung around, watched the cops, watched me come and go."

"Why go after you? Why not wait 'til you're gone and take another crack at Renard?"

The answer might have made her throw up again if she hadn't already emptied her system. If the assailant was after Renard, it made no sense to go after her.

"You're probably right about the shooting," he said. "Renard, he wanted an excuse to call you. That story he gave you is lame as a three-legged dog."

Annie pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the tub. "If that's true, then Cadillac Man was there for one reason-me. He had to have followed me over there."

She looked up at Fourcade as he came into the room, half hoping he would tell her no just to ease her worry. He didn't, wouldn't, wasn't that kind of man. The facts were the facts, he would see no purpose in padding the truth to soften the blows.

With a dubious look he pulled the towel away from the ceramic grasping hand that stuck out from the wall and soaked one end of it with cold tap water.

"You manage to piss people off, 'Toinette," he said, taking a seat on the closed toilet.

"I don't mean to."

"You have to realize that's a good thing. But you're not paying attention. You act first and think later."

"Look who's talking."

She pressed the cold cloth to one cheek, then the other. He looked concerned rather than contrite. She would have been better off with the latter. She was safer thinking of him as a mentor than pondering the meaning of these odd moments when he seemed to be something else.

"Me, I always think first, chère. My logic is occasionally flawed, that's all," he said. "How you doing? You okay?"

He leaned forward and pushed a strand of hair off her cheek. His knee brushed against her thigh, and in spite of everything Annie felt a subtle charge of electricity.

"Sure. I'm swell. Thanks."

She pushed to her feet and went to the sink to brush her teeth.

"So, who wants you dead?"

"I don't know," she mumbled through a mouthful of foam.

"Sure you do. You just haven't put the pieces together yet."

She spat in the sink and glared at him out the corner of her eye. "God, that's annoying."

"Who might want you dead? Use your head."

Annie wiped her mouth. "You know, unlike you, I don't have a past chock-full of psychopaths and thugs."

"Your past isn't the issue," he said, following her to the living room. "What about that deputy-Mullen?"

"Mullen wants me off the job. I can't believe he'd try to kill me."

"Push any man far enough, you don't know what he might do."

"Is that the voice of experience?" she said caustically, wanting to lash out at somebody. Maybe if she took a few swipes at him she would be able to reestablish the boundaries that had blurred last night.

She paced the length of the alligator coffee table, nervous energy rising in a new wave. "What about you, Nick? I got you arrested. You could go down for a felony. Maybe you don't think you've got anything to lose getting rid of the only witness."

"I don't own a Cadillac," he said, his face stony.

"I gotta figure if you'd try to kill somebody, you probably wouldn't have any moral problem with stealing a car."

"Stop it."

"Why? You want me to use my head. You want me to be objective."

"So use your head. I was here waiting for you."

"I came up the levee. It's slower going. You could have ditched the Caddy and beat it over here in your truck."

"You're pissing me off, Broussard."

"Yeah? Well, I guess I do that to people. It's probably a wonder someone didn't kill me a long time ago."

He caught hold of her arm, and Annie jerked out of his grasp, tears stinging her eyes.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped. "I never said you could touch me! I don't know what you want from me. I don't know why you dragged me into this-"

"I didn't drag you. We're partners."

"Oh, yeah? Well, partner, why don't you tell me again why you went to Renard's home Saturday? Were you scoping out a good sniper's vantage point?"

"You think I took that shot?" he said, incredulous. "If I wanted Renard dead, sugar, he'd be in hell by now."

"Yeah, I know. I kind of interrupted that send-off once already."

"C'est assez!" he ordered, catching hold of her by both arms this time, hauling her up close.

"What're you gonna do, Nick? Beat me up?"

"What the hell's the matter with you?" he demanded. "Why are you busting my balls here? I didn't touch Renard Saturday, I didn't take a shot at him tonight, and I sure as hell didn't try to kill you!"

He wanted to shake her, he wanted to kiss her, anger and sexual aggression bleeding together in a dangerous mix. He forced himself to stand her back from him and walk away.

"If we're partners, we're partners," he said. "That means trust. You have to trust me, 'Toinette. More than you trust a damn killer, for Christ's sake."

He was amazed at the words that had come out of his mouth. He had never wanted a partner on the job, he didn't waste time trusting people. He wasn't even sure why he was angry with her. Her argument was logical. Of course she should consider him a suspect.

Annie blew out a breath. "I don't know what to believe.

I don't know who to believe. I never thought this would be so damn hard! I feel like I'm lost in a house of mirrors. I feel like I'm drowning. Someone tried to kill me! That doesn't happen to me every day. I'm sorry if I'm not reacting like an old pro."

They stood across the length of the room from each other. Whether it was the distance or the moment, she looked small and fragile. Nick felt a strange stirring of compassion, and an unwelcome twinge of guilt. He had doubted her motives from the start, questioned the source of her interest in the Bichon case, when she was exactly what she appeared to be: a good cop who wanted to be better, who wanted to find justice for a victim. Simple and straightforward, no ulterior motives, no hidden agenda.

"It wasn't me, 'Toinette," he murmured, closing the distance between them. "I don't think you believe that it was. You just don't wanna think more than one person in this world might want you gone from it, out? You don't wanna dig in that hole, do you, chère?"

"No," she whispered as the fight drained out of her. She shut her eyes as if she could wish it all away. "God, the things I get myself into."

"You're in this case for good reason," he said. "It's your challenge, your obligation. You're in over your head, but you know how to swim-suck in a breath and start kicking."

"Right now, I'd rather climb out of the water, thanks anyway."

"No. Seek the truth, 'Toinette. In all things, seek the truth. In the case. In me. In yourself. You're not a child and you're nobody's pawn. You proved that when you stopped me from pounding Renard into the here-fucking-after. You're in this case because you want to be. You'll stick it out because you know you have to. Hang on. Hang tough."

He raised a hand and touched her cheek, stroked his fingertips down her jaw. "You're stronger than you know."

"I'm scared, that's what I am," she whispered. "I hate being scared. It pisses me off."

Annie told herself to turn away from his touch, but she couldn't make herself do it. His show of tenderness was too unexpected and too needed. He was too strong and too near.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I was scared I'd lose my job. That was bad enough. Now I have to be scared I'll lose my life."

"And you're scared of me," he said, his fingers curling beneath her chin.

She looked up at him, at the battered face, at the eyes bright with the intensity that burned inside him. She had told him just last night that he frightened her, but the fear wasn't of him.

"No," she said softly. "Not that way. I don't believe you were in that car. I don't believe you took that shot. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

She murmured the words again and again as the trembling came back.

His embrace seemed to swallow her up. He stroked a hand over her hair and down her back. He kissed the side of her neck, her cheek. Blindly, she turned her mouth into his, and he kissed her with the kind of heat that flared instantly out of control.

She opened her mouth beneath his and felt a wild rush as his tongue touched hers. She ached and trembled with the sensations of life, too aware she could have been dead. Heat blushed just beneath her skin and pooled thick and liquid between her legs. She could taste the need-his and her own. She could feel it, wanted to give in to it and obliterate everything else from her mind. She didn't want thought or reason or logic. She wanted Fourcade.

His hands slipped beneath her T-shirt and skimmed up her back. The shirt came off as they sank to their knees on the rug. He discarded his own between kisses. They came together, fevered skin to fevered skin, mouths and hands exploring. Annie pulled him down with her, arched into the touch of his lips on her breast, moaned at the feel of his tongue rasping against her nipple.

She allowed awareness of nothing but his touch, the strength of him, the masculine scent of his skin. She gave herself over entirely to sensation-the texture of his chest hair, the smooth hardness of his stomach muscles, the feel of his erection in her hand.

He stroked his fingers down through the dark curls between her thighs and tested her readiness. And then he was inside her, filling her, stretching her. She dug her fingertips into his back, wrapped her legs around his hips, let the passion and the urgency of the act consume her. She let her orgasm blind her with a burst of intensity borne of fear and the need to reaffirm her own existence.

She cried out at the strength of it. She held tight to Nick as her body gripped his. His arms were banded around her. His voice was low and rough in her ear, a stream of hot, erotic French. He rode her harder, faster, bringing her to climax again and finding his own end as he drove deep within her. She felt him come, felt the sudden rigidity in the muscles of his back, heard him groan through his teeth. Then stillness… the only sound their ragged breathing. Neither of them moved.

Recriminations rose in Annie's mind like flotsam as the rush of physical sensation ebbed. Fourcade was the last man she should have allowed herself to want. Certainly one of the last she should have allowed herself to have. He was too complicated, too extreme. She had seen him commit a crime. She had questioned his motives, had questioned his sanity more than once. And yet she could find no genuine regret for crossing this particular line with him.

Maybe it was the stress of the situation. Maybe it was the inevitable eruption of the sexual tension that had pulled between them all along. Maybe she was losing her mind.

As she considered the last possibility, Nick raised his head and stared at her.

"Well, that took the edge off, c'est vrai," he growled, his arms tightening around her. "Now, let's go find a bed and get serious."

Midnight had ticked past when Annie slipped from the bed. As she belted her old flannel robe, she studied Fourcade in the soft glow of the bedside hula-dancer lamp, surprised that he didn't open his eyes and demand an explanation for her sudden departure from between the sheets. He slept lightly, like a cat, but he didn't stir. His breathing was deep and regular. He looked too good in her bed.

"What have you gotten yourself into now, Annie?" she muttered as she padded down the hall.

She had no answers, didn't have the energy to search for them. But that didn't stop the questions from swarming in her mind. Questions about the case, about Lindsay Faulkner and Renard and whoever had been behind the wheel of that Cadillac. Questions about herself and her judgment and her capabilities.

Nick said she was stronger than she realized. He had also said she was too afraid to go deep within herself. She supposed he was right on both counts.

Flipping on the kitchen light, she walked slowly around the table, looking at everything she had laid out there. She reached for the scarf, needing to touch it, repulsed that a killer might have held it in his hands first, sickened that it might have been a gift to a woman who had died a horrible, brutal death.

"Renard, he sent you that, no?"

She jerked around at the sound of his voice. He stood in the doorway in jeans that were zipped but not buttoned, his chest and feet bare.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't." He came forward, reaching for the strip of pale silk. "He gave you this?"

"Yes."

"Just like he did with Pam."

"I have a creepy feeling it might be the same scarf," Annie said. "Do you know?"

He shook his head. "I never saw the stuff. What he did with it after she gave it back to him is a mystery. Stokes might know if that's the one, but I doubt it. He'd have no reason to have taken note. It's not against the law to send a woman pretty things."

"White silk," she said. "Like the Bayou Strangler. Do you think that's intentional?"

"If it was important to him that way, then I think he would have killed her with it."

Shuddering a little at the thought, Annie hugged herself and wandered back into the living room. She hit the power button on her small stereo system in the bookcase, conjuring up a bluesy piano number. On the other side of the French doors the rain was still coming down. Softer, though. The bulk of the storm had moved on to Lafayette. Lightning ran across the northern sky in a neon web.

"Why did you go to Renard's Saturday, Nick?" she asked, watching his reflection in the glass. "He could have had you arrested. Why risk that?"

"I don't know."

"Sure you do." She glanced at him over her shoulder, surprised as always by the brilliance of his sudden smile.

"You're learning, 'tite fille," he said, wagging a finger at her as he came to stand beside her.

He pulled open one of the doors and breathed deeply of the cool air.

"I went to the house where Pam died," he said, sobering. "And then I went to see how her killer was living.

"Outrage is a voracious beast, you know. It needs to be fueled on a regular basis or eventually it dies out. I don't want it to die out. I want to hold it in my fist like a beating heart. I want to hate him. I want him punished."

"What if he didn't do it?"

"He did. You know he did. I know he did."

"I know he's guilty of something," Annie said. "I know he was obsessed with her. I believe he stalked her. His thought process frightens me-the way he justifies, rationalizes, turns things around. So subtle, so smooth most people would never even notice. I believe he could have killed her. I believe he probably killed her.

"On the other hand, someone tried to kill Lindsay Faulkner the very night she called to tell me something that might be pertinent to the case. And now someone's tried to kill me, and it wasn't Renard."

"Keep the threads separate or you end up with a knot, 'Toinette," Nick said sharply. "One: You got a rapist running around loose. He chose Faulkner because she fit his pattern. Two: You've got a personal enemy in Mullen. He wants to scare you, maybe hurt you a little. Say he follows you over to Renard's and this gets him crazy-you not only turned on one of your own, you're consorting with the enemy. It pushed him over the line."

"Maybe," Annie conceded. "Or maybe I'm making somebody nervous, poking around this case. Maybe Lindsay remembered something about Donnie and those land deals. You're the one who drew the possible connection between Donnie and Marcotte," she reminded him. "You're willing to look at that, but only in how it relates after the murder. Leave yourself open to possibilities, Detective, or you might shut the door on a killer."

"I've considered the possibilities. I still believe Renard killed her."

"Of course you do, because if Renard isn't the killer, then what does that make you? An avenging angel without motive is just a thug. Justice dispensed on an innocent man is injustice. If Renard isn't a criminal, then you are."

The same line of thinking had drawn through Nick's mind as he drove back from New Orleans, aching from the beating DiMonti's goons had given him. What if the focus he had directed at Renard prevented him from seeing other possibilities? What did that make him, indeed?

"Is that what you think of me, Toinette? You think I'm a criminal?"

Annie sighed. "I believe what you did to Renard was wrong. I've always wanted to believe in the rules, but I see them getting bent every day, and sometimes I think it's bad and sometimes I think it's fine-as long as I like the outcome. So what does that make me?"

"Human," he said, staring out at the night. "The rain's stopped."

He went out onto the balcony. Annie followed, bare feet on the cool wet planks. To the north the sky was opaque with storm clouds. To the south, starlight studded the Gulf sky like diamonds.

"What are you gonna do about the Cadillac Man?" Nick asked. "You didn't call it in."

"I have a feeling I'd be wasting my time." Annie swept water off the railing, pushed up the sleeves of her robe, and rested her forearms on the damp wood. "No one in the department wants to rush to my aid these days. I'm not saying they're all against me, but I'd get apathy at best. Besides, I don't have a tag number on the car. I'm not sure about the make. I can't describe the driver.

"I'll file a report in the morning and call around to the body shops myself, see if I can find a big car with half my paint job on the side. I could probably get better odds on the Saints winning the Super Bowl."

"I'll check out Mullen's alibi," Nick offered. "It's time I had a little chat with him, anyhow."

"Thanks."

"I saw Stokes tonight. He says the Faulkner woman is stable but still unconscious."

Annie nodded. "She saw him over lunch yesterday. Did he say anything about that?"

"No."

"Did he say anything about me?"

"That you're a pain in the ass. Same old, same old. Do you think she might have said something to him about you digging around?"

"I don't see why she wouldn't have. When I saw her Sunday, she told me she'd sooner deal with Stokes. She wasn't happy about me saving Renard's hide. So she sees Stokes over lunch, presumably to tell him something about Pam. Then she calls me that night: apologetic, wants to get together."

"Why the change of heart?"

"I don't know. Maybe Stokes didn't think what she had to say was important. But if she did mention me, why didn't he call me on it?" she asked. "I don't get that. This afternoon he told me to stay away from his cases, but why wouldn't he go to the sheriff? He knows I'm already in trouble. He might have a chance of getting me suspended. Why wouldn't he go for it?"

"But if he tells Noblier, that opens a can of worms for him too, sugar," Nick said. "If it looks like he's not working the case hard enough, maybe Gus takes it away from him- especially now that Stokes has the rape task force. He doesn't want to give up the Bichon homicide any more than I did."

"Yeah… I guess that makes sense." She tried to shrug off her uneasiness. "Maybe Lindsay didn't say anything. I guess I won't know 'til she comes around. If she comes around. I hope she comes around. I wish I knew what she wanted to tell me."

The sounds of the night settled around them-wind in the trees, a splash in the water, the staccato quock of a black-crowned night heron out on one of the willow islands. The air was ripe with the smell of green growth and fish and mud.

Odd, Annie thought as she watched Fourcade watch the night, these brief stretches of calm quiet that sometimes lay between them, as if they were old partners, old friends. Other moments the air around them crackled with electricity, sexuality, temper, suspicion. Volatile, unstable, like the atmosphere in a newly forming world. The description fit both Fourcade and whatever was growing between them.

"This is where you grew up," he said.

"Yeah. Once, when I was eight, I tied a rope to that corner post and tried to rappel down to the ground. I kicked in a screen down below and landed smack in the middle of a table of tourists from France."

He chuckled. "Destined for trouble from an early age."

His words brought an unexpected image of her mother, coming here alone and pregnant, never revealing to anyone the father of her child. She had been trouble from conception, apparently. Every once in a while she felt a pinch of guilt for that, even though she'd had no say in the matter. The pain bloomed quick and bright, like a drop of blood from the prick of a thorn.

Nick watched as melancholy came over her like a veil and wondered at its source, wondered if that source was the reason she preferred the surface to the depths of life. He felt a sadness at the sudden absence of her usual spark. Was it that surface light in her that attracted him or the reserves of strength she had yet to tap?

"Me, I grew up out that way," he said, pointing off to the southeast. "The middle of nowhere was the center of my world. At least until I was twelve."

Annie was surprised that he had offered the information. She tried to picture him as a carefree swamp kid, but couldn't.

"How did you go from there to here?" she asked.

The expression in his eyes turned remote and reflective. His voice sounded road-weary. "The long way."

"I actually thought you might have died last night," she admitted belatedly.

"Disappointed?"

"No."

"Some folks would be. Marcotte, Renard, Smith Pritchett." He thought back to the comment Stokes had made that afternoon. "What about Mr. Doucet with the DA's office?"

"A.J.?" she said, looking puzzled. "What's he got to do with you?"

"What's he got to do with you?" Nick asked. "Rumor has it you're an item, you and Mr. Deputy DA."

"Oh, that," Annie said, cringing inwardly. "He'd blow a gasket if he knew you were here."

"Because of what I did to Renard? Or because of what I did with you?"

"Both."

"And on the second count: Does he have cause?"

"He would say yes."

"I'm asking you," Nick said, holding his breath as he waited for her answer.

"No," she said softly. "I'm not sleeping with him, if that's what you're asking."

"That's what I'm asking, 'Toinette," he said. "Me, I don't like to share."

"That's not to say I think this is such a great idea, Nick," Annie admitted. "I'm not saying I regret tonight. I don't. I should." She sighed and tried again. "It's just that… Look at the situation we're in. It's complicated enough, and-and- I don't just do this kind of thing, you know-"

"I know." He stepped closer, settling his hands on her hips, wanting to touch her, to lay claim in a basic way. "Neither do I."

"I sure as hell shouldn't be doing it with you. I-"

He pressed a forefinger to her lips, silencing her. "This isn't about the case. This has nothing to do with what happened with Renard. Understand?"

"But-"

"It's about attraction, need, desire. You felt it that night at Laveau's. So did I. Before any of the rest of this ever started. It's a separate issue. It has to make its own sense outside the context of the situation we're in. You can accept it or you can say no. What do you want, 'Toinette?"

Annie moved away from him. "It must be nice to be so sure of everything," she said. "Who's guilty. Who's innocent. What you want. What I know. Aren't you ever confused, Nick? Aren't you ever uncertain? I am. You were right-I'm in over my head, and if one more thing weighs me down, I'll never come up for air."

She looked for a reaction but his face was as impassive as granite.

"You want me to go?" he asked.

"I think what I want and what's best are two different things."

"You want me to go."

"No," she said in exasperation. "That's not what I want."

He came toward her then, serious, purposeful, predatory. "Then we'll deal with the rest later because I'm telling you, chère, I know what I want."

Then he kissed her, and Annie let his certainty sweep them both away. He carried her back inside, back to bed, leaving the balcony an empty stage with an audience of one shrouded in shadows of midnight.

"I saw her with him. Touching him. Kissing him. THE WHORE.

She has no loyalty. Just like before. It made me wish I had killed her. Love.

Passion.

Greed.

Anger.

Hatred.

Around and around the feelings spin, a red blur. You know, sometimes I can't tell one from the other. I have no power over them. They have all power over me. I wait for their verdict.

Only time will tell."