Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

"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 one who cares. I need you."

The flower woman was setting up at her station in the shade across the street from Our Lady, her pipe clenched between her teeth. The groundskeeper prowled the boulevard, a growling Weed Eater clutched in his hands.

"Here's the police gonna come arrest you, old witchy woman!" he screamed as Annie turned in the drive. He charged at the Jeep. "Police girl! You gonna get her dis time or what?"

"Not me!" Annie called, driving past.

She parked the Jeep and, with the scarf and brooch in her pocketbook, headed for the building. If Pam had shown Renard's gifts to anyone, it would have been Lindsay. Annie hoped she was improved enough to tell her whether or not the things Renard had given her were the same tokens of affection being recycled to a new object of fixation.

The hospital was bustling with morning rounds for meals and medications. The strange plastic smell of antiseptics commingled with toast and oatmeal. The clang of meal trays and bedpans accented the hushed conversations and occasional moans as Annie walked down the halls.

The long, sleepless night hung heavy on her shoulders. The day stretched out in front of her like eighty miles of bad road. She would have to face an interview with the detective assigned to her shooting incident, and had already concocted a worst-case scenario in which Chaz Stokes caught the case and she would have to go to the sheriff and ask Stokes to be removed because she not only believed he was a suspect, but she also thought he could be a rapist and a murderer. She wouldn't have to worry about Stokes or anyone else killing her. She'd never make it out of Gus Noblier's office alive.

For a second or two she tried again to imagine Stokes sneaking up to her apartment to nail a dead cat to her wall, but she couldn't see it. He might have had the temperament for it, but she couldn't believe he would take the risk. She couldn't imagine anyone in the SO would.

Who then? Who could have slipped into the store, found those stairs, made it up to her apartment and down again unnoticed?

Renard had been to the Corners to leave gifts for her- twice. Fanchon hadn't noticed him either time. If he had stalked Pam, he'd done so without detection.

Annie turned the corner to the ICU, and stepped directly into the path of Stokes.

His scowl was ferocious. He descended on her like a hawk, clamping a hand on her forearm and driving her away from the traffic flow in the hall.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Broussard?"

"Who put you in charge of visitors? I came to see my real estate agent."

"Oh, really?" he sneered. "Is she showing you something in a nice little two-bed room on the second floor?"

"She's an acquaintance and she's in the hospital. Why shouldn't I see her?" Annie challenged.

"Because I say so!" he barked. "Because I know you ain't nothing but trouble, Broussard. I told you to stay the hell away from my cases." His grip tightening on her arm, he pushed her another step toward the corner. "You think I just like to hear myself talk? You think I won't come down on you like a ton of bricks?"

"Don't threaten me, Stokes," Annie returned as she tried to wrench her arm free. "You're in no position to-"

Alarms sounded at the ICU desk.

"Oh, shit!" someone yelled. "She's seizing! Call Unser!"

Two nurses dashed for a room. Lindsay Faulkner's room.

Jerking free of Stokes, Annie rushed to the room and stared in horror at the scene. Faulkner's arms and legs were flailing, jerking like a marionette on the strings of a mad puppet master. A horrible, unearthly wail tore from her, accompanied by the shrieks of the monitors. Three nurses swarmed around her, trying to restrain her. One grabbed a padded tongue blade from the nurse server and worked to get it in Faulkner's mouth.

"Get an airway!"

"Got it!"

A doctor in blue scrubs burst past Annie into the room, calling, "Diazepam: 10-milligram IV push!"

"Jesus H.," Stokes breathed, pressing in close behind Annie. "Jesus Fucking Christ."

Annie glanced at him over her shoulder. His expression was likely no different from hers-shock, horror, anxious anticipation.

Another monitor began to bleat in warning and another round of expletives went up from the staff.

"She's in arrest!"

"Standard ACLS," Unser snapped, thumping the woman on the chest. "Phenytoin: 250 IV push. Phenobarbital: 55 IV push. I want a chem 7 and blood gases STAT! Tube and bag her!"

"She's in fine v-fib."

"Shit!"

"Charge it up!"

One of the nurses spun around, a tube of blood in her hands. "I'm sorry, we need you people out of here." She herded Annie and Stokes from the door. "Please go to the waiting area."

Stokes's face was chalky. He rubbed his goatee. "Jesus H.," he said again, pulling his porkpie hat off and crumpling it with his fingers.

Annie hit him in the chest with both hands. "What did you do to her?"

He looked as if she'd smacked him across the face with a dead carp. "What? Nothing!"

"You come out of her room and two minutes later this happens!"

"Keep your voice down!" he ordered, reaching for her arm.

She jerked away from him. What if Stokes was the rapist? What if he was something worse?

"I went in to talk to her," he said, as they entered the waiting area. "She wasn't awake. Ask the nurse."