A Thin Dark Line Read Free Page A

raped or murdered.
    Hidden in the brambles behind the dilapidated house sat a white Mustang convertible, top up. She recognized the car from the briefing, but ran it to be certain. The plates came back to Pamela K. Bichon, no wants, no warrants, reported missing two days previous. And in the dining room of the old house it was Pam Bichon she found . . . or what was left of her.
    She still saw the scene too often when she closed her eyes. The nails in her hands. The mutilation. The blood. The mask. The flashbacks still awakened her in the night, the images entwining with a nightmare four years old, forcing her to rush to the surface of consciousness like a swimmer coming up from the depths, running out of air. The smell still burned in her nostrils from time to time, when she least expected it. The putrid miasma of violent death. Cloying, choking, thick with the scent of fear.
    A chill ran through her now, twisting and coiling in the bottom of her stomach.
    The Baggie dribbled ice water down the back of her neck, and she flinched and swore under her breath.
    “Hey, Broussard.” Deputy Ossie Compton sucked in his stomach and sidled past her through the doorway to the break room. “I heard you were a cold one. How come that ice is melting?”
    Annie shot him a wry look. “Must be all your hot air, Compton.”
    He gave her a wink, his grin flashing white in his dark face. “My hot charm, you mean.”
    “Is that what you call it?” she teased. “Here I thought it was gas.”
    Laughter rolled behind her, Compton’s included.
    “You got him again, Annie,” Prejean said.
    “I quit keeping score,” she said, glancing back down the hall toward the sheriff’s office. “It got to where it was just cruel.”
    The shift would change in twenty minutes. Guys coming on for the evening wandered in to BS with the day shift before briefing. The Hunter Davidson incident was the hot topic of the day.
    “Man, you shoulda seen Fourcade!” Savoy said with a big grin. “He moves like a damn panther, him! Talk about!”
    “Yeah. He was on Davidson like that.” Prejean snapped his fingers. “And there’s women screaming and the gun going off and nine kinds of hell all at once. It was a regular goddamn circus.”
    “And where were you during all this, Broussard?” Chaz Stokes asked, turning his pale eyes on Annie.
    Tension instantly rose inside her as she returned the detective’s stare.
    “At the bottom of the pile,” Sticks Mullen snickered, flashing a small mouth overcrowded with yellow teeth. “Where a woman belongs.”
    “Yeah, like you’d know.” She tossed her dripping ice bag into the trash. “You read that in a book, Mullen?”
    “You think he can read?” Prejean said with mock astonishment.
    “Penthouse,”
someone suggested.
    “Naw,” Compton drawled, elbowing Savoy. “He just looks at the pictures and milks his lizard.”
    “Fuck you, Compton.” Mullen rose and headed for the candy machine, hitching up his pants on skinny hips and digging in his pocket for change.
    “Jesus, don’t fish it out here, Sticks!”
    “Christ,” Stokes muttered in disgust.
    He had the kind of looks that drew a woman’s eye. Tall, trim, athletic. An interesting combination of features hinted at his mixed family background—short dark hair curled tight to his head, skin that was just a shade more brown than white. He had a slim nose and a Dudley Do-Right mouth framed by a neat mustache and goatee.
    His face would have looked good on a recruiting poster with its square jaw and chin, the light turquoise eyes piercing out from beneath heavy black brows. But Stokes wasn’t the type in any other respect. He cultivated a laid-back, free-spirit image advertised by his unconventional clothing, which today consisted of baggy gray janitor’s pants and a square-bottomed shirt printed with bucking broncos, Indian tipis, and cacti. He pulled his black straw snap-brim down at an angle over one eye.
    “You steal that off Chi Chi