A Thin Dark Line

dizziness spun her brain around and around. The car's headlights provided the only illumination, but it was enough. Tipping and spinning in front of her vision was a house, run-down, with broken windows gaping like toothless spots in an old crone's smile.

They were on Pony Bayou. This was the house where Pam Bichon had had her life cut out of her.

'I didn't kill Pam,' Marcus said softly.

Hunter Davidson's broad face twisted with disgust. 'Don't stand there and lie to me. There's no judge here but God. There's no technicalities, no loopholes for you and your damn lawyer to jump through.'

'I loved her,' Marcus whispered, tears coming again to stream down his cheeks.

'Loved her?' Davidson's big body quivered with rage. Sweat ringed the underarms of his shirt. His thin hair was dark and shiny-wet. 'You don't know what love is. I made her! My wife bore her! She was our child! You don't know a damn thing about that kind of love. She was our baby, and you took her away from us!'

The irony, Marcus thought, was that he knew all about that kind of love. He had been caught in a sick mutation of it his whole life. Tonight he would have ended it. Now Pam's father would end it for him.

'You can't know how many times I've killed you,' Davidson said softly, moving forward. His eyes were glassy with the fever of hate. 'I dreamed of nailing you down and putting you through the hell my baby went through.'

'No,' Marcus whispered, crying harder now with fear. Spittle bubbled between his lips and dribbled down his chin. Against his will, his gaze darted to the big wooden table where his utility and X-Acto knives were laid out like surgical instruments. He shook his head. 'Please, no.'

'I wanted to hear you beg me for your life, the way Pam must have begged. Did she call for me when she was dying?' Davidson asked in a tortured voice. Tears as big as raindrops spilled down his ruddy cheeks. 'Did she call for her mama?'

'I don't know,' Marcus murmured.

'I hear her. Every night. I hear her calling for us, calling for me to save her, and there's not a damn thing I can do! She's gone. She's gone forever!'

He stood no more than two feet away now. The hand that held the gun was as big as a bear's paw, white- knuckled, trembling.

'You should die like that,' he whispered bitterly. 'But I didn't come here for revenge. I came for justice.'

The gun barked twice. Marcus's eyes widened in surprise as the force of the bullets knocked him backward. He felt nothing. Even as he fell into his drawing table, then to the floor, the back of his head bouncing off the hardwood, he felt nothing. His body jumped again and again as Davidson fired into him. Marcus felt as if he were watching the scene on a movie screen.

He was dying. Another irony. He would have taken his own life tonight. He would have ended his mother's quiet, twisted tyranny. He would have spared Victor a future without protection. Instead, he would die here on the floor, killed for a crime he didn't commit, a failure even in death.

'They'll think Mmmmarrcus did it,' Annie said.

'No, they won't,' Doll corrected her. 'They'll know exactly who did it: you. Get up.'

Bracing herself against the Cadillac, Annie rose slowly, awkwardly.

Think. Try to think. Need a plan.

Thinking was as tiring and difficult as swimming upstream against a strong current. Thinking and walking simultaneously was nearly impossible. The ground rose and fell erratically beneath her feet. The house shimmered like a mirage in the glare of the headlights. Her breathing was becoming labored. She could feel her heartbeat slowing like the ticking of a clock winding down to a stop. It would be only a matter of time before the drugs pulled her under entirely, then Doll would stick the Sig in her mouth and pull the trigger. Suicide.

Her career had been in trouble. She'd been having difficulties with her co-workers. A number of people had reported she had recently developed a drinking problem. Would it be a stretch to believe she'd gone out to the house where she had found Pam Bichon's mutilated remains, taken a handful of downers, and blown her brains out with her service weapon?

'But hooow did I… get here?' she asked, pausing at the foot of the porch steps.

'Shut up!' Doll snapped, jabbing her in the back with the Sig. 'Get inside.'

The vehicle was just a minor snag, Annie supposed, as she staggered up the steps onto the porch. Doll Renard was an old hand at murder. She'd gotten away with it twice already.

The door stood open, as if someone had been expecting them. Annie stepped into the entry, her footfalls echoing in the empty hall. The beam of a portable lantern cut through the gloom, lighting the way to her death. The floor was thick with dust. Cobwebs festooned the doorways. The nose of the Sig jabbed into her back. Annie moved down the hall, her left hand against the wall, feeling her way like a blind person.

'How many… will youuu kill?' she mumbled. 'Hoow long before Marcus… knows? He'll hate you.'

'He's my son. My sons love me. My sons need me. No one will ever take them from me.' The vehemence in Doll's tone sounded practiced, as if she'd chanted those words over and over and over for years and years and years.

'Who tried to take them?' Annie asked. Her legs felt like rubber. Her body wanted to sink to the floor and succumb.

She stepped through a doorway and found herself in the dining room. The beam of the lantern swept across the floor as Doll set it down, illuminating the hasty retreat of a long black indigo snake across the dirty old cypress planks. For an instant she saw Pam lying there, arms outstretched, her body savaged. The head lifted and the decaying face turned toward her, mouth moving.

'You are me. Help me. Help me. Help me!' The words turned to a shriek that pierced through Annie's brain from ear to ear.

Help me, she thought, knowing no one would, knowing help was too much to hope for. Time was running out.

She bent over at the waist, leaning her right shoulder against the wall, trying to marshal what strength she had left. Doll stood two feet in front of her. The doorway to the hall was immediately to the right of Doll, with the stairs to the second floor right there, leading up into darkness. She needed a plan. She needed a weapon.

Doll has the Sig. Doll has the Sig.

Her baton was gone. Her fingers tightened on the slim canister in her palm. She tried to breathe, tried to think, stared at her black cop shoes.

Stupid simple.

'Claude would have,' Doll said. 'He betrayed us. He would have taken my boys away from me, I couldn't let that happen.'

'Your… husband?'

'He forced me to it. He betrayed us. He got what he deserved. I told him so,' she said. 'Right before. I killed him.'

Doll came forward a step. 'It's time for you to lie down, Deputy.'

'Why the… mask on Pam?' Annie asked, ignoring the dictate. 'It led strraight… to youuu.'

'I don't know anything about that mask,' she said impatiently, gesturing with the gun for Annie to move. 'Over there, Deputy. Where that other cunt died.'

'I don't think I… can move,' Annie said, watching Doll's feet as the sensible matron shoes came another step closer.

'I told you to move,' she said with authority. 'Move!'

Annie took the command as her signal, calling on the last of her reserves. With her left hand, she batted the Sig to one side. The gun barked, spitting a shot into the ceiling. At the same time, Annie brought up her right hand with the can of Mace and sprayed.

Doll screamed as the pepper spray caught her in the right eye. She stumbled back, clawing at her face with her free hand, swinging the gun back into position with the other. The Sig cracked off another round, the bullet hitting Annie low in the chest, knocking her into the wall. The impact of the slug against her ballistic vest knocked