A Thin Dark Line

by Tami Hoag

  "I wanted to hear you beg me for your life, the way Pam must have begged. Did she call for me when she was dying?" Davidson asked in a tortured voice. Tears as big as raindrops spilled down his ruddy cheeks. "Did she call for her mama?"

  "I don't know," Marcus murmured.

  "I hear her. Every night. I hear her calling for us, calling for me to save her, and there's not a damn thing I can do! She's gone. She's gone forever!"

  He stood no more than two feet away now. The hand that held the gun was as big as a bear's paw, white-knuckled, trembling.

  "You should die like that," he whispered bitterly. "But I didn't come here for revenge. I came for justice."

  The gun barked twice. Marcus's eyes widened in surprise as the force of the bullets knocked him backward. He felt nothing. Even as he fell into his drawing table, then to the floor, the back of his head bouncing off the hardwood, he felt nothing. His body jumped again and again as Davidson fired into him. Marcus felt as if he were watching the scene on a movie screen.

  He was dying. Another irony. He would have taken his own life tonight. He would have ended his mother's quiet, twisted tyranny. He would have spared Victor a future without protection. Instead, he would die here on the floor, killed for a crime he didn't commit, a failure even in death.

  "They'll think Mmmmarrcus did it," Annie said.

  "No, they won't," Doll corrected her. "They'll know exactly who did it: you. Get up."

  Bracing herself against the Cadillac, Annie rose slowly, awkwardly.

  Think. Try to think. Need a plan.

  Thinking was as tiring and difficult as swimming upstream against a strong current. Thinking and walking simultaneously was nearly impossible. The ground rose and fell erratically beneath her feet. The house shimmered like a mirage in the glare of the headlights. Her breathing was becoming labored. She could feel her heartbeat slowing like the ticking of a clock winding down to a stop. It would be only a matter of time before the drugs pulled her under entirely, then Doll would stick the Sig in her mouth and pull the trigger. Suicide.

  Her career had been in trouble. She'd been having difficulties with her co-workers. A number of people had reported she had recently developed a drinking problem. Would it be a stretch to believe she'd gone out to the house where she had found Pam Bichon's mutilated remains, taken a handful of downers, and blown her brains out with her service weapon?

  "But hooow did I ... get here?" she asked, pausing at the foot of the porch steps.

  "Shut up!" Doll snapped, jabbing her in the back with the Sig. "Get inside."

  The vehicle was just a minor snag, Annie supposed, as she staggered up the steps onto the porch. Doll Renard was an old hand at murder. She'd gotten away with it twice already.

  The door stood open, as if someone had been expecting them. Annie stepped into the entry, her footfalls echoing in the empty hall. The beam of a portable lantern cut through the gloom, lighting the way to her death. The floor was thick with dust. Cobwebs festooned the doorways. The nose of the Sig jabbed into her back. Annie moved down the hall, her left hand against the wall, feeling her way like a blind person.

  "How many ... will youuu kill?" she mumbled. "Hoow long before Marcus ... knows? He'll hate you."

  "He's my son. My sons love me. My sons need me. No one will ever take them from me." The vehemence in Doll's tone sounded practiced, as if she'd chanted those words over and over and over for years and years and years.

  "Who tried to take them?" Annie asked. Her legs felt like rubber. Her body wanted to sink to the floor and succumb.

  She stepped through a doorway and found herself in the dining room. The beam of the lantern swept across the floor as Doll set it down, illuminating the hasty retreat of a long black indigo snake across the dirty old cypress planks. For an instant she saw Pam lying there, arms outstretched, her body savaged. The head lifted and the decaying face turned toward her, mouth moving.

  "You are me. Help me. Help me. Help me!" The words turned to a shriek that pierced through Annie's brain from ear to ear.

  Help me, she thought, knowing no one would, knowing help was too much to hope for. Time was running out.

  She bent over at the waist, leaning her right shoulder against the wall, trying to marshal what strength she had left. Doll stood two feet in front of her. The doorway to the hall was immediately to the right of Doll, with the stairs to the second floor right there, leading up into darkness. She needed a plan. She needed a weapon.

  Doll has the Sig. Doll has the Sig.

  Her baton was gone. Her fingers tightened on the slim canister in her palm. She tried to breathe, tried to think, stared at her black cop shoes.

  Stupid simple.

  "Claude would have," Doll said. "He betrayed us. He would have taken my boys away from me, I couldn't let that happen."

  "Your ... husband?"

  "He forced me to it. He betrayed us. He got what he deserved. I told him so," she said. "Right before. I killed him."

  Doll came forward a step. "It's time for you to lie down, Deputy."

  "Why the ... mask on Pam?" Annie asked, ignoring the dictate. "It led strraight ... to youuu."

  "I don't know anything about that mask," she said impatiently, gesturing with the gun for Annie to move. "Over there, Deputy. Where that other cunt died."

  "I don't think I ... can move," Annie said, watching Doll's feet as the sensible matron shoes came another step closer.

  "I told you to move," she said with authority. "Move!"

  Annie took the command as her signal, calling on the last of her reserves. With her left hand, she batted the Sig to one side. The gun barked, spitting a shot into the ceiling. At the same time, Annie brought up her right hand with the can of Mace and sprayed.

  Doll screamed as the pepper spray caught her in the right eye. She stumbled back, clawing at her face with her free hand, swinging the gun back into position with the other. The Sig cracked off another round, the bullet hitting Annie low in the chest, knocking her into the wall. The impact of the slug against her ballistic vest knocked the breath from her lungs, but there was no time to recover. She had to move. Now.

  Doubled over, she rushed for the stairs and threw herself up into the darkness as the gun fired again. Arms and legs flailing clumsily, she scrambled for the second floor, slipping, falling, hitting her knee, cracking her elbow. The drug had destroyed her sense of equilibrium. She couldn't tell up from down from flat. When she hit the landing on the second floor, she sprawled on her face. The sound of her chin hitting the wood was almost as sharp as the sound of the shot Doll fired at her from below—but not nearly as sharp as the searing pain of the bullet tearing through the front of her left thigh and exiting through the back.

  Scuttling on her belly like a gator, Annie propelled herself through the nearest doorway. Coughing at the dust she'd raised, fighting the sobs of pain, she tipped herself upright with her back against the wall behind the door. She felt for the entrance and exit wounds, her hand coming away wet with blood, but there was no arterial bleeding—a small favor. It would take her longer to die. The dizziness wobbled her like a top. The blackness added to the sense of vertigo. The only light in the room came through a single window, faint and gray.

  Time was running out. She tore at the cuff of her uniform trousers. Her fingers felt as huge and unwieldy as sausages. She thought she could hear Doll coming up the steps, the sound of footfalls alternating with the pounding of her puke in her ears.

  She pushed herself to her feet with her back against the wall for balance and waited. Her left leg was deadweight, unable to support her at all. The rush of adrenaline and the drag of narcotics fought a tug-of-war within her. Her chest felt as if someone had hit her with a forty-pound hammer. She wondered if the force of the first bullet had cracked a rib and knew it wouldn't matter if she were dead.

  The Sig reported a fraction of a second before the shot splintered through the door, six inches in front of Annie's face. Biting back the cry of surprise, she f
lattened herself against the wall and held her breath. Her hands were sweating, her grip unsure. She said a quick prayer and promised to go to confession more often. The inevitable bargain with God. But if God hadn't listened to Pam Bichon's cries while Doll Renard had tortured and killed her, then why would He listen now?

  Somewhere across the hall she could hear the scratching of rats or coons or some other animal squatters. The Sig cracked off another round in that direction, away from the room where Annie stood. She held her position, hidden by the partially opened door, the window across the room giving her enough light to make out shapes, at least.

  She would have one solid chance. She could hold herself together long enough for one chance. And if she didn't make good on it, she'd be dead.

  Nick put his foot to the floor and ran the truck wide open down the straight sections of road. Woods and swamp flashed past in a blur. He was outrunning the reach of his headlights but not of his imagination.

  Annie wasn't in her unit. Her Jeep sat in the parking lot behind the station. Her stuff was in her locker. She'd called in sick, Hooker had said. What the hell did that mean? Had Renard grabbed her and forced her to call in with a gun to her head? Had she wanted to get free of duty to check something out? Nick had no way of knowing. He knew only that he had a fist of apprehension in his gut and another one had him by the throat.

  He hit the brakes and skidded past Renard's driveway, slammed the transmission into reverse and roared backward. Without a thought to the restraining order against him, he turned in the Renard drive and gunned it.

  Lights glowed on the first floor toward the back of the house. Only one upstairs window was lit. Renard's Volvo sat at a cockeyed angle near the front veranda, the dome light on. It struck Nick as odd. Renard was as anal retentive as they came. To leave anything crooked or ajar was out of character.

  He killed the truck's lights and engine, and climbed out. He had thought finding Renard at home would lessen his fears for Annie. Surely Renard would never bring her here. But the night air hung thick and heavy with tension around the old house. The quiet was the unnatural quiet of a world holding its breath.

  And then came the shots.

  The footsteps came nearer. Annie gulped a breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist. Dizzy. Sick. Weaker and weaker. Her vision was blurring. Time was running out.

  "You'll die tonight one way or another." Doll's voice sounded in the hall.

  She was crying, cursing. The Mace had to be burning like a hot poker in her eye.

  "You'll die, you'll die," she promised over and over.

  The footsteps shuffled nearer.

  Annie could feel her on the other side of the door. And before her Pam suddenly appeared, her rotting corpse standing upright, glowing like a holy vision. Her mouth fell open and a single word spilled out on a tide of blood—justice.

  Doll passed the door and turned, stepping into the vision. In that moment it seemed to Annie as if she had a spotlight turned on her. Doll's eyes bugged wide. Her mouth tore open. She raised the gun in slow motion.

  And Annie pulled the trigger.

  The nine-millimeter Kurz Back-Up bucked in her hands and Doll Renard's face shattered like glass. The force knocked her backward across the room. She was dead before she hit the floor.

  Annie went limp against the wall, her head swimming, her vision fuzzing out. She blinked hard and watched as the apparition of Pam shot straight up through the ceiling and was gone.

  Justice. She'd come into this looking for justice—for Pam, for Josie.

  Let justice be done.

  Too weak to return the Kurz to her ankle holster, she stuck the gun in the waistband of her pants, then tried to find within herself the strength to keep from dying.

  48

  "He killed my baby girl," Hunter Davidson mumbled. "He killed my baby."

  He sat on his knees on the floor of Marcus Renard's studio, drenched in sweat, pale and trembling. He looked up at Nick, the pain in his eyes as wretched as anything Nick had ever seen.

  "You understand, don't you?" Davidson said. "I had to. He killed my girl."

  Nick kept his gun at his side, approaching the man cautious step by cautious step. A .45 hung limp in the big man's left hand, resting on his thigh. Marcus Renard lay on the floor, arms flung wide, his eyes half-open and sightless.

  "Why you don't set that gun on the floor and slide it toward me, Mr. Davidson?" Nick said.

  Hunter Davidson just sat there, his gaze on the man he had killed. Slowly, Nick bent down, took the .45 away from him, and stuck it in the back waistband of his jeans. He holstered his own weapon, then gently coaxed Davidson up from the floor and moved him away from the body.

  "You have the right to remain silent, Mr. Davidson," he began.

  "I had to do it," Davidson murmured more to himself than to Nick. "He had to pay. We deserved justice."

  The system hadn't given it to him quickly enough. And now the justice meted out would be against him. The tragedy of Pam's death had just extended out another ring in the pond.

  Nick looked from Renard's lifeless body to Pam's father and felt nothing but deep and profound sadness.

  Victor held himself perfectly still outside the door to Marcus's Own Space. Marcus had given him a job to do. He tried always to please Marcus, even though Victor didn't fully understand what it meant to be pleased. Pleased was a white feeling—he knew that. But the sounds had driven him from his room before he could complete his counting task. The voices had come up through the floor—very red.

  The house was quiet now, but the silence didn't give him a white feeling as it usually did. The Controllers in his head were frowning. Red seeped around the edges of his brain like bacteria. Then and now. Like before. Victor knew this feeling. He raised his hands to touch his special mask. The feel of the feathers against his fingertips was soft, white, like running water. And yet, he could feel the heavy redness all around. He could taste it in the air, feel it against his skin, pressing in on him, touching each individual hair on his body, reaching into his ears—a sound that was not a sound. Tension. Sound and silence.

  Mother was not asleep, as Marcus thought. Then and now. Like before. She was gone. Enter out. Very red. She was their mother, but not their mother sometimes. Mask, no mask. Mask equaled change, and sometimes deception. Victor had tried to tell, but Marcus didn't hear him. Marcus saw only one of Mother's faces, and he never heard The Voice. Sound and silence.

  Victor stood just outside the door, staring in. He felt time pass, felt the earth move in minute increments beneath his feet. Marcus lay on the floor near the Secret Door. Asleep, but not asleep. Marcus had ceased to exist. His eyes were open, but he didn't see Victor. His shirt was red with blood. Very red.

  Hesitant, Victor moved into the room, not looking at the other people. He kneeled down beside Marcus and touched the blood, though he didn't touch the holes. Holes were always bad. Bacteria and germs. Red holes were very bad.

  "Not now, Marcus," he said softly. "Not now enter out."

  Marcus didn't move. Victor had tried to tell him about Mother and the Face Women—Elaine and Pam and Annie —but Marcus didn't hear him. He had tried to tell him about the Waiting Man tonight, but Marcus didn't hear him. Very, very red.

  Victor touched his brother's forehead with his bloody fingers and began to rock himself. He knew he wouldn't like for Marcus to not exist forever. He knew he didn't like the way his brother's face had changed. The Controllers frowned in his mind.

  "Not now, Marcus," he whispered. "Not now enter out."

  Slowly he reached up and slipped the feather mask from his own face and placed it over his brother's.

  Nick watched the strange, sad little ritual with a heavy heart. He wondered for the first time where Renard's mother was, why she hadn't come running at the sound of trouble. Then the roar of a big car engine cut into his thoughts, and he started for the front of the house, breaking into a run at the sound of metal hitting metal.r />
  At the side of the house a Cadillac had broadsided Renard's Volvo. As Nick stepped out onto the veranda, the car's door opened and the driver fell out onto the lawn. Nick jumped down to the ground and jogged closer, that old hand of dread grabbing hold of him hard as he saw the uniform and the mop of dark hair.

  "'Toinette!" he shouted, sprinting the last few yards.

  He dropped to the ground beside her, his trembling hands framing her face. He slid two fingers down the side of her throat to search for a pulse, praying, pleading.

  Annie opened her eyes and looked up at him. Nick. It was nice to see him one last time, whether his image was real or not.

  "Doll," she murmured dreamily, a shudder quaking through her body. "Doll killed Pam. And she killed me too."

  49

  The edge of death was a place of darkness and light, sound and silence. She hovered there, slipping from one world into the next and back again.

  The ambulance, the urgency of the EMTs, the lights, the sirens.

  Utter stillness, a sense of calm and resignation.

  The noise and motion of the ER.

  The eerie peace of nonexistence.

  Annie saw the landscape as bleak and still, a battlefield in the aftermath, bodies scattered across the ground, the sky hanging heavy and leaden, everything cast in the twilight colors of nightmares. Pam was there. And Doll Renard. And Marcus. Their souls rose from them like smoke from a dying fire and drifted just above the bloody ground. She stood on the sidelines and watched.

  "It's cold here, no?" Fourcade whispered.

  "Where?"

  He raised his left hand, fingers spread, and reached out, not quite touching her. Slowly he passed his hand before her eyes, skimmed it around the side of her head, just brushing his fingertips against her hair.