A Thin Dark Line

'If you weren't a cop, you wouldn't get to drive that hot car,' Nick murmured.

The humor was unexpected and welcome. Annie looked at his rugged face, the eyes that had seen too much. Logic told her to stay away from him, but the temptation to feel something other than uncertainty and apprehension was strong. He had the power to sweep it all away for a few hours, to blind her to everything but passion and raw need. A brief interlude of oblivion and obsession.

Obsession didn't seem like such a good thing to succumb to, considering where it had gotten Fourcade. But was it obsession she was afraid of or Fourcade or herself?

Annie forced herself to go to the board of crime scene photos and look at what had been left of Pam Bichon. A shudder of revulsion went through her, as sobering as a dousing of ice water.

Could Stokes have done this? With what motive? Lindsay Faulkner said he had flirted with Pam, that Donnie had been jealous. She never said that Pam had objected to Stokes's attentions. If Pam had put him off because she feared repercussions from Donnie, he had only to bide his time until the divorce went through. But Chaz Stokes was not a patient man, and not always a rational one. In a moment of blind fury could he have crossed the line?

It sounded weak to her. Maybe she wanted to look at Stokes only because he yanked her chain or because she knew he was a lazy cop.

Could Donnie have done this? In her mind's eye she could see him in the intimate light of his office, standing too close to her, that strange look of false remembrance and regret hanging crooked on his face. In a fit of anger, jealousy pushing him far beyond his limits, could he have butchered the mother of his child?

He had been drinking the night of the murder, as he had been tonight. Liquor was the key that opened the floodgates on ugly emotions. She'd seen it happen time and again. But to this level of brutality?

'You were in it from the start,' she said to Nick. 'Did you ever think Donnie could have done it?'

He joined her at the table. 'I've seen people driven to all manner of atrocities. I've seen parents kill their children, children kill their parents, husbands kill their wives, wives set their husbands on fire while they're passed out drunk. But this? I never believed he had the stomach for it. Motive, maybe, but the rest… no, I never believed it.

'I talked to the bartender who served Donnie at the Voodoo Lounge that night.' He shook a cigarette out of the pack on the table and played with it between his fingers. 'He swore Donnie had more than his share.'

'I know. I read the statement. But it was Friday night,' Annie reminded him. 'They were busy. Can he be sure Donnie drank everything he was served? And even if he drank it, how do we know he didn't just go in the men's room and puke it all up? If he's capable of doing this to a woman, then he's clever enough to build himself an alibi.'

'There's one big stumbling block, chere. Il a pas d'esprit. Donnie, he's not clever at all,' he said. 'He's a whiner not a doer, and a screwup to boot. There's no way in hell Donnie Bichon commits a crime like this and he doesn't fuck up somewhere along the way. Fingerprints, fibers, skin under her fingernails, semen, something. There was damn near nothing at that crime scene-on or around the body. He consented to a search of his town house-nothing. No bloody clothes, no bloody towels, no bloody footprints in the garage, no traces of blood anywhere in the house.'

'What about this possible connection to Marcotte and Marcotte's connection to DiMonti?'

'That's no mob hit,' he said. 'Mob wants somebody dead, they take 'em out in the swamp and shoot 'em. They wrap eighty pounds of chain around the body and throw it in the Atchafalaya. Bump 'em and dump 'em. No boss would have this kind of psycho on his payroll. Killer like this, he's too unpredictable, he's a risk. I've said it all along and I say it again: This was personal.'

Annie turned her back to the photos and rubbed her hands over her face. 'My brain hurts.'

'Keep your eyes on the prize, 'Toinette. Don't turn your back on Renard just because you see other possibilities. He's calling you, sending you presents-same as he did with Pam. Same as he did with that gal up in Baton Rouge. There's two dead women in his wake. You leave Donnie and Marcotte to me. Renard is your focus. You got him on the hook, 'tite fille. Reel him in.'

And then what? she thought, but she didn't ask the question. She simply let the silence settle between them, too hot and too tired to go any further with it tonight. The loft was warm and stuffy, the unexpected heat of the day having risen up into the rafters. The ceiling fans only stirred it around.

'Had enough for one day?' Nick asked. He brought the cigarette to his lips, then pulled it away and tossed it on the table beside the pack.

Annie nodded, following the move with her eyes. She wondered if he had changed his mind or if he had set it aside because he knew she didn't like it. Dangerous thinking. Foolish thinking. Fourcade did what he wanted.

'Stay the night,' he said. As if he had flipped a switch, the energy he radiated became instantly sexual. She felt it touch her, felt her own body stir in response.

'I can't,' she said softly. 'With everything that's gone on lately, Sos and Fanchon worry. I need to be home.'

'Then stay awhile,' he said, tilting her chin up. 'I want you, 'Toinette,' he murmured, lowering his head. 'I want you in my bed.'

'I wish it were that simple.'

'No, you don't. Because then it would be only sex, and you'd feel cheap and cheated and used. That's not what you want.'

'What is it, then, if it's not just sex?' Annie asked, surprised at his allusion to something more. He struck her as the kind of man who would want uncomplicated affairs, straightforward sex, no gray areas, no untidy emotions.

He stroked her cheekbone with his thumb, his expression pensive. 'It is what it is,' he whispered, touching his mouth to hers. If the answer was there, he didn't want to see it or wasn't ready to see it any more than she was ready to put a label on it.

'Stay and we can explore the possibilities,' he said against her lips.

He opened her mouth with his, touched his tongue to hers. A shiver ran through her like quicksilver.

'I want you,' he murmured, moving his hands down her back. 'You want me, yes?'

'Yes,' she admitted.

His gaze held hers. 'Don't be afraid of it, 'Toinette. Come deeper with me, chere.'

Deeper. Into the black water, the unknown. Sink or swim. She thought of A.J.'s accusation that she was pushing him away because he knew her too well, and Nick's assertion that she was afraid to know herself, afraid of what might lie beneath the surface. She thought of the sense of expectation she'd been feeling for weeks, the sense that she was treading water, waiting for something.

Fourcade was reaching out to her. The unknown was whether she would buoy him or he would pull her down into his darkness so deep she would drown.

He waited. Silent. Still and as taut as a clenched fist.

'I'll stay awhile,' she said.

He swept her off her feet and carried her to the bed. They stood beside it and undressed each other, fingers hurrying, fumbling at buttons. The heat of the room pressed in on them. Skin went slick with the heat of desire. Their bodies kissed, hot and wet, flesh to flesh, man to woman. His hands explored her: the soft fullness of a breast, the pearled tip of a nipple, the moist lips of femininity. She touched everything male about him: the hard- ridged muscles of his belly, the crisp dark hair that matted his chest, the shaft of his erection, as smooth and hard as a column of marble.

They fell across the crisp sheets, a tangle of limbs, her dark hair spilling across the pillow. She arched her body into the touch of his mouth as he kissed the beads of sweat from between her breasts and followed the trail down her belly to the point of her hip, the crease of her thigh, the back of her knee. She opened herself to the touch of his hand. He took her to the brink of fulfillment and left her hanging there, aching with the need to join her body with his.

He pulled a foil packet from the drawer of the nightstand. Annie took it from his fingers. Nick sat back against the headboard and held himself still against the exquisite torture of her small hands fitting the condom over his shaft. She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her mouth swollen and cherry red from his kisses. She looked both wanton and hesitant. He had never wanted a woman more-this woman who held sway over the fate of his career.