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,
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,
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,
