by Tami Hoag
Her headlights hit the sign. Nailed to the stump of a swamp oak that had been struck by lightning twenty years ago, the sign was a jagged piece of cypress plank, hand-lettered in blaze orange: keep out—trespasser will be ate.
Behind her the car was lurching around. Annie swung the Jeep onto the dirt path and hit the brakes. Ahead of her, water lay across the trail in a glossy black sheet dimpled by rain. Too late, she thought she might have been wiser to sprint the miles back to Renard's house to take refuge with one killer in order to escape another. But the car was barreling toward her now, taking advantage of her hesitation.
If she couldn't make it across to higher ground, she was his, whoever the hell he was, for whatever the hell he wanted. She'd have to go for the Sig in the duffel bag on the passenger's seat, and hold the son of a bitch off until help came along.
She gunned the engine as she let out the clutch. The Jeep hit the water, engine roaring, wheels churning. Churning and catching. Churning and sinking.
"Come on, come on, come on!" Annie chanted.
The back end of the Jeep twisted to the right as the back tire slid toward the edge of the submerged trail. The engine was screaming. Annie was screaming. In the mirror she caught a glimpse of the car pulling up on the road behind her.
Then the front tires caught hold of firmer ground, and the Jeep scrambled to safety.
"Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Oh, shit," Annie muttered as she sped down the twisting trail, branches slapping at the windshield.
Someone ran out of the shack where Clarence Gauthier kept his fighting dogs. Annie took a right before she got to the camp, and flinched at the sound of a shotgun going off in warning. Another half mile on the trail that was rapidly disintegrating to bog and she was finally able to climb up onto the levee road.
Clear of the woods, the rain closed around her like a liquid curtain. Only the lightning allowed her nightmare glimpses of the world beyond the beam of her headlights. Black, dead, not a living thing in sight.
She felt ill. She was shaking.
Somebody had just tried to. kill her.
The Corners' store was closed. The light in Sos and Fanchon's living room glowed amber through the gloom across the parking lot. Annie pulled the Jeep in close to the staircase on the south side of the building and ran up to her landing. Her hands were trembling as she worked the lock. She struggled to mentally talk her nerves into calming down. She was a cop, after all. That someone tried to kill her probably shouldn't have bothered her so much. Maybe next time she would shrug it off entirely. Par for the course. Just another day on the job. The hell it was. Once inside the entry, she shed her sneakers, dropped her gear bag, and went straight to the kitchen. She pulled a chair across the floor. A dusty bottle of Jack Daniel's sat in the cupboard over the refrigerator.
She thought of Mullen as she pulled the whiskey down and set it on the counter. He would have liked this moment on videotape—evidence of her sudden alcoholism. Son of a bitch. If she found out he'd been behind the wheel of that car tonight ... what? The consequences would go far beyond having him charged with a crime.
Life should have been so much simpler, Annie thought as she unscrewed the cap from the Jack and poured a double shot. She took a long sip, grimacing as the stuff slid down.
"You gonna offer me some of that?"
Heart in her throat, Annie bolted around. The glass hit the floor and shattered.
"I locked that door when I left," she said.
Fourcade shrugged. "And I told you before: It's not much of a lock."
"Where's your truck?"
"Out of sight."
Nick grabbed a dish towel and bent down to clean up the mess. "You're a mite on the edge tonight, 'Toinette."
He looked up at her standing beside the jaunty gator on her refrigerator. Her face was pale as death, her eyes shining like glass beads, her hair hanging in damp strings. He could feel the tension in her like the vibrations of a tuning fork.
"I suppose I am," she said. "Someone just tried to kill me."
"What?" He jerked upright and looked her over as if he expected to see blood.
"Someone tried to run me off the bayou road into the swamp. And he damn near succeeded."
Annie looked around her kitchen, at the old cupboards and the vintage fifties table, at the canisters on the counter and the ivy plant she had started from a sprig in Serena Doucet's bridal bouquet five years ago. She looked at the cat clock, watched its eyes and tail move with the passing seconds. Everything looked somehow different, as if she hadn't seen any of it in a very long time and now found none of it quite matched the images in her memory.
The whiskey boiled in her empty stomach like acid. She could still feel its path down the back of her throat.
"Somebody tried to kill me," she murmured again, amazed. Dizziness swept through her like a wave. With as much cool and dignity as she could muster, she looked at Nick and said, "Excuse me. I have to go throw up now."
31
"This is not one of my finer moments."
Annie sat on her knees in front of the toilet, propped up on one side by the old claw-foot bathtub. She felt like a withering husk, too drained for anything deeper than cursory embarrassment. "So much for my image as a lush."
"Did you get a look at the driver?" Fourcade asked, leaning a shoulder against the door frame.
"Just a glimpse. I think he was wearing a ski mask. It was dark. It was raining. Everything happened so fast. God," she complained in disgust. "I sound like every vic I've ever rolled my eyes at."
"Tags?"
She shook her head. "I was too busy trying to keep my ass out of the swamp.
"I don't know," she murmured. "I thought Renard staged the shooting just to get me over there, but maybe not. Maybe whoever took that shot hung around, watched the cops, watched me come and go."
"Why go after you? Why not wait 'til you're gone and take another crack at Renard?"
The answer might have made her throw up again if she hadn't already emptied her system. If the assailant was after Renard, it made no sense to go after her.
"You're probably right about the shooting," he said. "Renard, he wanted an excuse to call you. That story he gave you is lame as a three-legged dog."
Annie pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the tub. "If that's true, then Cadillac Man was there for one reason—me. He had to have followed me over there."
She looked up at Fourcade as he came into the room, half hoping he would tell her no just to ease her worry. He didn't, wouldn't, wasn't that kind of man. The facts were the facts, he would see no purpose in padding the truth to soften the blows.
With a dubious look he pulled the towel away from the ceramic grasping hand that stuck out from the wall and soaked one end of it with cold tap water.
"You manage to piss people off, 'Toinette," he said, taking a seat on the closed toilet.
"I don't mean to."
"You have to realize that's a good thing. But you're not paying attention. You act first and think later."
"Look who's talking."
She pressed the cold cloth to one cheek, then the other. He looked concerned rather than contrite. She would have been better off with the latter. She was safer thinking of him as a mentor than pondering the meaning of these odd moments when he seemed to be something else.
"Me, I always think first, chère. My logic is occasionally flawed, that's all," he said. "How you doing? You okay?"
He leaned forward and pushed a strand of hair off her cheek. His knee brushed against her thigh, and in spite of everything Annie felt a subtle charge of electricity.
"Sure. I'm swell. Thanks."
She pushed to her feet and went to the sink to brush her teeth.
"So, who wants you dead?"
"I don't know," she mumbled through a mouthful of foam.
"Sure you do. You just haven't put the pieces together yet."
She spat in the sink and glared at him out the corner of her eye. "God, that's annoying."
/> "Who might want you dead? Use your head."
Annie wiped her mouth. "You know, unlike you, I don't have a past chock-full of psychopaths and thugs."
"Your past isn't the issue," he said, following her to the living room. "What about that deputy—Mullen?"
"Mullen wants me off the job. I can't believe he'd try to kill me."
"Push any man far enough, you don't know what he might do."
"Is that the voice of experience?" she said caustically, wanting to lash out at somebody. Maybe if she took a few swipes at him she would be able to reestablish the boundaries that had blurred last night.
She paced the length of the alligator coffee table, nervous energy rising in a new wave. "What about you, Nick? I got you arrested. You could go down for a felony. Maybe you don't think you've got anything to lose getting rid of the only witness."
"I don't own a Cadillac," he said, his face stony.
"I gotta figure if you'd try to kill somebody, you probably wouldn't have any moral problem with stealing a car."
"Stop it."
"Why? You want me to use my head. You want me to be objective."
"So use your head. I was here waiting for you."
"I came up the levee. It's slower going. You could have ditched the Caddy and beat it over here in your truck."
"You're pissing me off, Broussard."
"Yeah? Well, I guess I do that to people. It's probably a wonder someone didn't kill me a long time ago."
He caught hold of her arm, and Annie jerked out of his grasp, tears stinging her eyes.
"Don't touch me!" she snapped. "I never said you could touch me! I don't know what you want from me. I don't know why you dragged me into this—"
"I didn't drag you. We're partners."
"Oh, yeah? Well, partner, why don't you tell me again why you went to Renard's home Saturday? Were you scoping out a good sniper's vantage point?"
"You think I took that shot?" he said, incredulous. "If I wanted Renard dead, sugar, he'd be in hell by now."
"Yeah, I know. I kind of interrupted that send-off once already."
"C'est assez!" he ordered, catching hold of her by both arms this time, hauling her up close.
"What're you gonna do, Nick? Beat me up?"
"What the hell's the matter with you?" he demanded. "Why are you busting my balls here? I didn't touch Renard Saturday, I didn't take a shot at him tonight, and I sure as hell didn't try to kill you!"
He wanted to shake her, he wanted to kiss her, anger and sexual aggression bleeding together in a dangerous mix. He forced himself to stand her back from him and walk away.
"If we're partners, we're partners," he said. "That means trust. You have to trust me, 'Toinette. More than you trust a damn killer, for Christ's sake."
He was amazed at the words that had come out of his mouth. He had never wanted a partner on the job, he didn't waste time trusting people. He wasn't even sure why he was angry with her. Her argument was logical. Of course she should consider him a suspect.
Annie blew out a breath. "I don't know what to believe.
I don't know who to believe. I never thought this would be so damn hard! I feel like I'm lost in a house of mirrors. I feel like I'm drowning. Someone tried to kill me! That doesn't happen to me every day. I'm sorry if I'm not reacting like an old pro."
They stood across the length of the room from each other. Whether it was the distance or the moment, she looked small and fragile. Nick felt a strange stirring of compassion, and an unwelcome twinge of guilt. He had doubted her motives from the start, questioned the source of her interest in the Bichon case, when she was exactly what she appeared to be: a good cop who wanted to be better, who wanted to find justice for a victim. Simple and straightforward, no ulterior motives, no hidden agenda.
"It wasn't me, 'Toinette," he murmured, closing the distance between them. "I don't think you believe that it was. You just don't wanna think more than one person in this world might want you gone from it, out? You don't wanna dig in that hole, do you, chère?"
"No," she whispered as the fight drained out of her. She shut her eyes as if she could wish it all away. "God, the things I get myself into."
"You're in this case for good reason," he said. "It's your challenge, your obligation. You're in over your head, but you know how to swim—suck in a breath and start kicking."
"Right now, I'd rather climb out of the water, thanks anyway."
"No. Seek the truth, 'Toinette. In all things, seek the truth. In the case. In me. In yourself. You're not a child and you're nobody's pawn. You proved that when you stopped me from pounding Renard into the here-fucking-after. You're in this case because you want to be. You'll stick it out because you know you have to. Hang on. Hang tough."
He raised a hand and touched her cheek, stroked his fingertips down her jaw. "You're stronger than you know."
"I'm scared, that's what I am," she whispered. "I hate being scared. It pisses me off."
Annie told herself to turn away from his touch, but she couldn't make herself do it. His show of tenderness was too unexpected and too needed. He was too strong and too near.
"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I was scared I'd lose my job. That was bad enough. Now I have to be scared I'll lose my life."
"And you're scared of me," he said, his fingers curling beneath her chin.
She looked up at him, at the battered face, at the eyes bright with the intensity that burned inside him. She had told him just last night that he frightened her, but the fear wasn't of him.
"No," she said softly. "Not that way. I don't believe you were in that car. I don't believe you took that shot. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
She murmured the words again and again as the trembling came back.
His embrace seemed to swallow her up. He stroked a hand over her hair and down her back. He kissed the side of her neck, her cheek. Blindly, she turned her mouth into his, and he kissed her with the kind of heat that flared instantly out of control.
She opened her mouth beneath his and felt a wild rush as his tongue touched hers. She ached and trembled with the sensations of life, too aware she could have been dead. Heat blushed just beneath her skin and pooled thick and liquid between her legs. She could taste the need—his and her own. She could feel it, wanted to give in to it and obliterate everything else from her mind. She didn't want thought or reason or logic. She wanted Fourcade.
His hands slipped beneath her T-shirt and skimmed up her back. The shirt came off as they sank to their knees on the rug. He discarded his own between kisses. They came together, fevered skin to fevered skin, mouths 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 s
hould 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, c'est vrai," he growled, his arms tightening around her. "Now, let's go find a bed and get serious."
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?"