A Thin Dark Line

After slamming the door shut on the atrocity in her bedroom, she had gone back to the living room and sat down, trying to think what she should do. Call the SO? Bring Pitre back here and let him soak up the gory details to spread around the department at the shift change? What good would he do? None. She had called Fourcade instead, cursing him silently as his machine picked up again.

'Taking care of some business,' he said.

He stared at her as she paced back and forth along the coffee table with her arms banded around her. He took in everything about her-the disheveled hair, the dirty jeans and T-shirt. Reaching out as she came toward him, he plucked the Sig from her fingers and set it aside.

'Are you all right?'

'No!' she snapped. 'Someone tried to kill me. I think we've already established that I don't take that well. Then I find out someone came into my house, wrote on my wall in blood, and nailed a dead cat above my bed. I'm not okay with that either!'

From the corner of her eye she could see Fourcade watching her. He didn't seem to know what to do except fall back on the job, the routine. She was a victim-God, but she hated that label-and he was a detective.

'Tell me what happened from the time you parked the Jeep.'

She went through the story point by point, fact by fact, the way she had been trained to testify. The process calmed her somewhat, distanced her from the violation. In her mind, she tried to separate the victim in her from the cop. For the first time she told him about the skinned muskrat that had been left in her locker room, though she didn't put the two incidents on the same plane. It was one thing to play a nasty joke at work; breaking and entering was another matter. And what had been done in her bedroom seemed more threatening, more vile, more personal. Then again, if a deputy had been behind that rifle tonight, why not this too?

Nick listened, then headed toward the bedroom. Annie followed, reluctant to face it again.

'Did you touch anything?' he asked out of habit.

'No. God, I couldn't even bring myself to go in.'

He pushed the door open and stood there with his hands on his hips, a grimace twisting his lips. 'Mon Dieu.'

He left Annie at the door and went into the room, taking in the details with a clinical eye.

The blood had been brushed on the wall. No visible fingerprints. The word cunt had been chosen for what reason? As an opinion? To shock? Out of disrespect? Out of anger?

In his mind's eye he could see Keith Mullen, skinny and ugly, standing in his filthy kitchen just that morning. 'She don't know nothing about loyalty, turning on one of us. Cunt's got no business being in a uniform.'

Was the animal symbolic? An alley cat-sexually indiscriminate. Its guts spilled down onto the bed where Annie had made love with him just the night before.

And the positioning of its body, the nails through its forepaws, the evisceration-an obvious allusion to Pam Bichon. Meant to frighten or as a warning?

He thought of how close she had come to being shot and he wanted to hit something-someone-hard and repeatedly.

He worked to contain the rage even as he remembered Donnie Bichon's muddy boots. He set the thought aside for the moment.

'This cat-was she yours, Toinette?'

'No.'

'You talked to your tante and uncle 'bout did they see anyone around today?'

'We had that conversation when we were talking about who might want to shoot me. They were busy today. Tourists coming in early for Mardi Gras. They had to call in extra tour guides. They didn't have time to notice anyone special.'

'How'd anyone get in here? Were your doors locked when you came up?'

'Everything was locked up tight. You might be able to pick a lock to break in, but there's no locking these doors from the outside without a key.'

'So how did this creep get in?'

'There's only one other way.' She led him into the bathroom, to the door behind the old claw-foot tub. 'The stairs go down into the stockroom of the store.'

'Was it locked?'

'I don't know. I thought so. I usually keep it locked, but I went down this way Sunday night when the prowler was here. Maybe I forgot to lock it after.'

Nick stood in the tub and examined the locking mechanism in the doorknob, frowning disapproval. 'Ain't nothing but a button. Anybody could slip it with a credit card. How would anyone but family or employees know about these stairs?'

Annie shook her head. 'By luck. By chance. The rest rooms are across the hall at the bottom of the stairs. Someone going to use them might look through the stockroom and notice.'

He flicked on the light switch and descended the steep stairs, looking for any sign another person had been there-a footprint, a thread, a stray hair. There was nothing. The stockroom door stood open. Across the hall, he could see part of the door to the men's room.

'I'd say someone went out of their way to notice,' he murmured.

He went back up the steps and followed Annie to the living room. She curled herself into one corner of the sofa and rubbed her bare foot slowly back and forth under the jaw of her gator table. She looked small and forlorn.

'What d' you think, 'Toinette? You think the shooter and the cat killer are the same person?'

'I don't know,' Annie said. 'And don't try to tell me I do. Are the shooter and the cat killer one and the same? Is Renard's shooter my shooter too, or is Renard the shooter? Who hates me more: half the people I work with or half the people I work for? And what do they hate me for more: trying to solve this murder or preventing you from committing one?

'I'm so tired I can't see straight. I'm scared. I'm sick that someone would do that to that poor animal-'

Somehow, that was the last straw. Bad enough to have violence directed at her, but to have an innocent little animal killed and mutilated for the sole purpose of frightening her was too much. She pressed her fingertips against her lips and tried to will the moment to pass. Then Fourcade was beside her and she was in his arms, her face against his chest. The tears she had fought so hard to choke back soaked into his shirt.

Nick held her close, whispering softly to her in French, brushing his lips against her forehead. For a few moments he allowed the feelings free inside him-the need to protect her, to comfort her, the blind rage against whoever had terrorized her. She had been so brave, such a fighter through all of this mess.

He pressed his cheek against the top of her head and held her tighter. It had been too long since he'd had anything of himself worth giving to another person. The idea that he wanted to was terrifying.

Annie held tight to him, knowing tenderness didn't come to him easily. This small gift from him meant more to her than she should have let it. As the tears passed, she wiped them from her cheeks with the back of her hand and studied his face as he met her stare, wondering… and afraid to wonder.

Her gaze shifted to the gift box she had left on her coffee table. Inside the box lay a small, finely detailed antique cameo brooch. The note enclosed read: 'To my guardian angel. Love, Marcus.'

Revulsion shuddered down her back.

Fourcade picked up the box and card and studied the brooch.

'He gave Pam gifts,' he said soberly. 'And he slashed her tires and left a dead snake in her pencil drawer at work.'

'Jekyll and Hyde,' Annie murmured.

If Renard had indeed been Pam's stalker, as Pam had insisted, then he had alternated between secretly terrifying her and giving her presents; showing his concern for her, claiming to be her friend. The contrast in those actions had kept the cops from taking seriously Pam's charge that Renard was the one stalking her.

Across the room the phone rang. Automatically, Annie looked at the clock. Half past three in the morning. Fourcade said nothing as she let the machine pick up.

'Annie? It's Marcus. I wish you were there. Please call me when you can. Someone just threw a rock through one of our windows. Mother is beside herself. And Victor- And I-I wish you could come over, Annie. You're the only