A Thin Dark Line

dead prostitute? I was the only player in the game who gave a damn about that girl. I didn't want Marcotte's money, I wanted Marcotte, and most of all I wanted Zander. Marcotte snapped me like a twig, and I couldn't prove a goddamn thing. The more noise I made, the crazier I looked. The chief wanted my ass on a platter. The captain wanted me out on a psych charge. My lieutenant stuck his neck out and let me resign. I hear he's working security for some oil company in Houston now.'

Wincing, he leaned over and dug his cigarettes and lighter out of his discarded jacket. He shook one out and lit up.

'Duval Marcotte, he does something like that for a little nothing/nobody turd like Zander, what you think he'd do for someone like Vic DiMonti?'

Annie sat down on the edge of the tub and stared at her hands. Fourcade wasn't telling her he had crashed and burned in a big way. The rumors that had filtered out of New Orleans on the blue grapevine had whispered words like crazy, paranoid, drunk, violent. She thought of what he had said that night at Laveau's.

'You afraid of me?… You don't listen to gossip?'

'I take it for what it's worth. Half-truths, if that.'

'And how do you decide which half is true?'

'Do you believe me, 'Toinette?' he asked.

For a moment the only sound was the insect buzz of the fluorescent lights that flanked the medicine chest. It had been a long time since he'd cared if anyone believed him- not facts and evidence, him. He had put away that need, but now he felt the strange stirrings of hope in his chest, foreign fingers touching him in a way that was intrusive and seductive, and ultimately disturbing.

'It doesn't matter,' he said, stubbing his cigarette out on the rim of the sink.

'Yes, it does,' Annie corrected him. 'Of course it does.' She raked a hand back through her hair and exhaled. 'It must have been hell. I can't- No, I can imagine… a little bit. I've been learning lately about standing on the wrong side of an issue.'

'And I put you there, didn't I, chere?' He reached out to touch her chin. His smile was bitter and sad. 'What a helluva team we make, huh?'

She tried a smile to match his. 'Yeah. Who'd believe it?'

'No one. But it's right, you know. We want the same thing… need the same thing…'

His voice died to a whisper as he realized the conversation had shifted onto a new plane, that what was between them was attraction; that what he needed, what he wanted, was Annie. And she knew it. He could see it in her eyes- the surprise, apprehension, anticipation.

He slid his fingers into her hair, leaned forward, and touched his mouth to hers experimentally. A jolt went through him, a deep current that pulled at him, pulled him closer to her. He settled his mouth against hers and tasted her, whiskey warm and sweet with a kind of innocence he could barely remember. His hand cradled the back of her head and he kissed her deeply, without reserve, his tongue sliding against hers.

Annie sat frozen, paralyzed by the emotions and sensations unleashed by his kiss. Heat, fear, need, a dangerous excitement. It shocked her that she allowed him this intimacy, that she wanted it. That she wanted him. Her tongue moved against his and he groaned low in his throat.

The sense of power that rose within her, the passion that rose with it, terrified her. Fourcade was a man of dragons and deep secrets. If he wanted more than sex, he would want her soul.

She pulled away from the kiss, turned her face away, and felt his lips graze her cheek.

'I can't do this,' she whispered. 'You scare me, Nick.'

'What scares you? You think I'm crazy? You think I'm dangerous?'

'I don't know what to think.'

'Yes, you do,' he murmured. 'You're just afraid to admit it. I think, chere, you scare yourself.'

He touched her chin. 'Look at me. What do you see in me that scares you? You see in me what you're afraid to feel. You think if you go that deep you might drown, lose yourself… like me.'

A fine chill threaded through her. She pushed herself past it, pushed to her feet, kicked awake what wits hadn't gone entirely numb.

'You should be in bed-and not with me,' she said, letting the plug out of the sink. Her heart was beating too fast. She couldn't quite get her breath. She fumbled with the stopper and dropped it on the floor. 'Take some aspirin. Take a cold shower. You probably shouldn't drink too much in case you've got a-'

He caught hold of her wrist as if holding her physically could stop her from prattling on. Annie looked at him with suspicion. She had let him cross a barrier, and suddenly he could touch her. If he could touch her, he could pull her toward him, literally and figuratively. She told herself she didn't want that. She couldn't handle him, didn't know if she could trust him. She'd stood on the edge of a dark parking lot and watched him beat a suspect senseless.

'I need to go,' she said. 'After last night, God knows what might be on the agenda tonight.'

'What happened last night?' he asked, coming slowly to his feet.

Annie backed into the hall, trying to pass off a casual attitude she didn't feel. She told him in the briefest detail, the way she would write a report-without emotion. Nick propped himself up in the bathroom doorway, the near-empty glass of whiskey in his hand. He seemed to concentrate on every word she said.

'What did the lab say about the entrails?'

'Nothing yet. They'll call tomorrow. Pitre insisted it was pig intestines. It probably was. It was probably Mullen and his band of merry jerks just trying to rattle me, but…'

'But what?' Fourcade demanded. 'You got a feeling, 'Toinette, let's hear it. Speak your mind. Don't be shy.'

'Someone, presumably Renard, left a mutilated animal on Pam's doorstep back in October. Now I'm working the case and this happens.'

'You think it could have been Renard.'

'I don't know. Does that make sense? He didn't start harassing Pam until she'd rejected him. She rejected him, he punished her. He thinks I'm his champion. Why would he do something to jeopardize that?'

'Maybe punishment wasn't his goal with Pam,' Nick suggested. 'He was always quick enough to offer his concern after she had something bad happen.'

Annie nodded, considering. 'I know what it is to be persecuted,' Renard had said to her just yesterday. 'We have that in common.'

'Whoever did it-I'd like to wring their neck,' she muttered. 'It scared me. I hate being scared. It pisses me off.'

Nick almost smiled. She was working hard to be tough, to be a cop. But she'd never found herself involved in anything like this-not with the case, not with him. He'd seen the uncertainty in her eyes. He had to give her points for pushing past it.

'Call me when you get home,' he ordered. 'Partner.'

Annie looked up at his battered face and felt that strange pull toward him. It scared her. And it pissed her off. In ten days she would have to testify against him.

'I have to…' She moved her hand in the direction of the door.

He nodded slightly. 'I know.'

As she walked out of his house, she had the distinct feeling that their parting words hadn't been about leaving at all.

All she wanted was to do the job, to find some closure for Josie, for Pam. She had never meant to fall into this… this-God, what could she even call this thing with Fourcade? Attraction. It wasn't a relationship. She didn't want a relationship. She didn't want… to go that deep.

Shit.

There was still a light on in the store when she pulled in at the Corners, though closing had come and gone an hour ago. Sos had probably been regaling his cronies with the tale of the past night's adventure. But if he had had company, they'd gone home. There were no other cars in the lot. Down the way, the light burned low in the Doucets' living room. Tante Fanchon would be settling in for the news, soaking her bunions in the minispa foot bath Annie had given her for Christmas two years ago.