Prejean pulled into a visitor's slot near the back entrance to the law enforcement center. Annie hoped it wasn't prophetic. Hooker scowled at her with suspicion as she limped past his desk, as if she had been revealed as an undercover spy on his shift. She received a variation on that same look from Myron as she passed the records counter. Valerie Comb in Noblier's outer office still looked at her as if she were a bad piece of meat.

The sheriff had put on his funeral suit for the day's media attentions, a charcoal pinstripe that didn't hang quite right on his big-boned frame. He'd already jerked his tie loose at the throat. He looked older than Annie remembered him a week ago.

"How you doing, Annie? You okay for this?"

Alarm struck a low, vibrating note in her gut. "That depends on what this is, sir."

"Have a seat," he offered, pointing to one of his visitor's chairs. "The doctor released you?"

"Yes, sir."

"He signed a release? You'll forgive my skepticism, but you've developed a bad habit of defying orders recently."

"They didn't give me a copy of it," Annie said, sucking a breath in through clenched teeth as she settled herself down on the edge of the chair. "They gave me a bill."

His point about her insubordination made, Noblier didn't press for the documentation. He settled into his own chair and looked at her hard for a moment. Annie returned his stare evenly.

"We executed a search warrant on the Renard home over the weekend," he began at last, opening the pencil drawer of his desk. "Among possessions found in Marcus Renard's workroom were items known to belong to Pam Bichon. We also found this."

He tossed the plastic dancing alligator across the desk. Annie picked it up, feeling a vague embarrassment at the silliness of the thing with its leering grin and red beret. Then feeling a creepy sense of violation. Renard had taken this innocent trinket from her as a token. He'd fondled it, held it, and thinking of her, tainted it.

"Deputy Prejean recognized it. Thought you might want it back."

"Thank you, sir." She slipped it into her jacket pocket, knowing she would throw it away the minute she left the room.

"Found in Doll Renard's bedroom was a nine-inch boning knife. Found it between her mattress and box spring," he went on. "Never found it before because the warrants never extended to Mrs. Renard's bedroom. The knife's been sent to the lab."

"Was it clean?"

Noblier weighed his answer for a moment, then decided she'd earned it. "No. It wasn't."

The idea turned Annie's stomach. Doll Renard had kept a bloody knife beneath her mattress so that she could take it out and remind herself of the atrocities she had committed in the name of motherhood. But she appreciated the evidence for what it would provide. Closure-for Pam, for her family, for the cops who had worked the case. "They'll be able to match blood and tissue."

"I expect so."

"Good."

The sheriff went silent again, watching her, frowning. A bad sign, she thought.

"I been giving a lot of thought to this over the last couple of days, Annie," he began. "I can't condone my deputies going off on their own, investigating cases they ain't assigned to."

"No, sir," Annie murmured.

"You always have been one to stick your nose in where it don't belong."

"Yes, sir."

"Nothing but trouble. Creates dissension. Undermines command."

Annie said nothing. She had a perverse need to relish the feel of her career slipping away.

"On the other hand, it shows initiative, guts, ambition," he said, taking the pendulum back to the high side. "Tell me this, Annie: Why'd you go after Fourcade that night?"

"Because it was the right thing to do."

"And why'd you go after Renard on your own?"

It was Annie's turn to weigh her answer. She could have said she hadn't trusted Stokes to do the job, but that wasn't it, not really. Not on a gut level. Not in her soul, where it counted most.

"Because I felt I owed it to Pam. I was the first person to see what her killer had done to her. There was something very… personal about that. I felt like I owed her. I found her body, I wanted to find her justice too."

Gus nodded his head, pursing his lips. "You haven't talked to the press."

"No, sir."

"At the press conference this afternoon I'll be telling them how you were working undercover to help crack this case. Your next paycheck will reflect your overtime."

Annie's eyes widened at what sounded for all intents and purposes to be a bribe.

Noblier read her face like a clock and narrowed his small eyes. "I won't have my authority undermined, Annie. My deputies work for me, not around me. The OT is a bonus- consider it hazard pay. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"You got a hell of a lot to learn about how the world works, Broussard." He had already begun his dismissal of her, his attention going to the notes he had scribbled for the press conference. "Report back to me when you come in off sick leave. We'll do the paperwork on your reassignment… Detective."

Detective Broussard. Annie tried the sound of it in her mind as she hobbled back down the hall. It sounded good. She pulled the plastic alligator from her pocket and tossed it in the trash as she passed the sergeant's desk.

Fourcade was waiting for her outside the door. He stood leaning against the building, his ankles crossed, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, concern in his eyes.

"Noblier made me a detective," she announced, hearing the ring of disbelief in her own voice.

"I know. I recommended you."

"Oh."

"It's where you belong, 'Toinette," he said. "You do good work. You dig hard. You believe in the job. You seek the truth, fight for justice-that's what it oughta be about."

Annie made a little shrug and glanced away, uncomfortable with his praise. "Yeah, well, I lose the cool uniform and the hot car."

He didn't smile. Big surprise. He straightened away from the wall and touched her cheek with a gentle hand. "How you doing, 'Toinette? You okay?"

The weight of it all pressed a sigh from her. "Not exactly."

She wanted to say she wasn't the same person she had been ten days ago, but she had the distinct feeling Nick would disagree with her. He would tell her she simply hadn't looked that deep inside before. She wondered what he saw when he looked that deeply within himself.

"Walk with me," she said. "Down to the bayou?"

Frowning, he looked across the parking lot to the strip of green boulevard fifty yards away. "You sure?"

"I've been in bed for two days. I need to move. Slowly, but I need to move."

She started without him. He fell in step beside her. Neither of them spoke as they crossed the distance. When they reached the bank, a small group of mallards started, then settled back onto the chocolate brown water, bobbing at the edge of the reeds like corks. Across the bayou, an old man was walking a dachshund.

Annie sat down gingerly on one end of a park bench, stretching her left leg carefully in front of her. Fourcade took the other end of the bench. The space between them was occupied by Marcus Renard.

"He was innocent, Nick," she said softly.

He could have argued. Marcus Renard's obsession with Pam had acted as the catalyst for his mother's violence. But that wasn't the point here, and he knew it. He had followed the trail back to Marcus, stopped there, and meted out his own punishment.

"Would it have made a difference if he'd been guilty?"

Annie thought about it for a moment. "It would have made it easier to rationalize, at least."

"C'est vrai," he murmured. "True enough. But he wasn't guilty. I screwed up. I lost perspective. I lost control. Wrong is wrong, and a man is dead because of it. Because of me. I'll have to carry that the rest of my life."