He looked away as if she'd slapped him, the muscles in his jaw flexing. "I guess that's as plain as it gets."

Annie sank back down on the bench. "I don't want to hurt you, A.J.," she said softly. "That's the last thing I want to do. I love you-"

He barked a laugh.

"-just not in the way you need me to," she finished.

"But see," he said, "we've been through this cycle before, and you come around or I come around, and then-"

Annie cut him off with a shake of her head. "I can't do this, A.J. Not now. There's too much going on."

"Which you won't tell me about."

"I can't."

"You can't tell me? Why? What's going on?"

"I can't do this," she whispered, hating the need to keep things from him, to lie to him. Better to push him away so that he wouldn't want to know.

"I'm not the enemy, Annie!" he exploded. "We're on the same side, for crying out loud! Why can't you tell me? What can't you tell me?"

She dropped her face into her hands. Allying herself with Fourcade, investigating on her own, trying to get Renard to fixate on her so she could trick him into showing the ugly truth that lay beneath his bland mask-she could no more tell A.J. any of it than she could tell Sheriff Noblier. They may all have wanted the same outcome, but they weren't all on the same side.

"Oh," he said suddenly, as if an internal lightbulb just went on in his head, bright enough to hurt. "Maybe you didn't mean the job. Jesus." He huffed out a breath and looked at her sideways. "Is there someone else? Is that where you've been lately-with some other guy?"

Annie held her breath. There was Nick, but one night did not a relationship make, and she couldn't see much hope in it lasting.

"Annie? Is that it? Is there someone else?"

"Maybe," she hedged. "But that's not it. That's not… I'm so sorry," she said, weary of the fight. "You can't know how much I wish I felt differently, how much I wish this could be what you want it to be, A.J. But wishing can't make it so."

"Do I know him?"

"Oh, A.J., don't go there."

He stood with his hands on his hips, looking away from her, his pride smarting, his logical mind working to make sense of feelings that seldom bent to the will of reason. He wasn't so different from Fourcade that way-too analytical, too rational, confounded by the vagaries of human nature. Annie wanted to put her arms around him, to offer him comfort as a friend, but knew he wouldn't allow it now. The feeling of loss was a physical pain in the center of her chest.

"I know what you want," she murmured. "You want a wife. You want a family. I want you to have those things, A.J., and I'm not ready to be the person to give them to you. I don't know that I'll ever be."

He rubbed a hand across his jaw, blinked hard, checked his watch. "You know-" He stopped to clear his throat. "I don't have time for this conversation right now. I have to be in court this morning. I'll-ah-I'll call you later."

"A.J.-"

"Oh-ah-Pritchett wants you in his office this afternoon. Maybe I'll see you there."

Annie watched him walk away, stuffing a five in the alligator's mouth as he passed the tip box, her heart as heavy as a stone in her chest.

An old groundskeeper was scrubbing the toes of the Virgin Mary with a toothbrush when Annie wheeled into Our Lady of Mercy. Across the street, a woman smoking a pipe was selling cut flowers out of the back of a rusty Toyota pickup. Annie parked in the visitors' lot and climbed across the passenger's seat to let herself out of the Jeep. "The Heap" she had decided to call it, trashed as it was. The impact of one of the collisions had jammed the driver's door shut.

"Dat ol' woman, she steal dem flowers," the grounds-keeper said, shaking the toothbrush at Annie as she passed. "She steal 'em right out the garden at the Vet'rans Park. Me, I seen her do it. Why you don't arrest her?"

"You'll have to call the police, sir."

His dark face squeezed tight, making his eyes pop out like Ping-Pong balls. "You is the police!"

"No, sir, I'm with the sheriff's office."

"Bah! Dogs is all dogs when you calls 'em for supper!"

"Yes, sir. Whatever that means," Annie muttered as the doors whooshed open in front of her.

The ICU was quiet except for the sound of machines. A woman with cornrows and purple-framed glasses sat behind the desk, watching the monitors and talking on the phone. She barely glanced up as Annie passed. There was no guard at the door to Lindsay Faulkner's room. Good news, bad news, Annie thought. She didn't have to get past a uniform… and neither did anyone else.

Faulkner lay in her bed in the ICU looking like a science experiment gone wrong. Her head and face were swathed mummy-like in bandages. Tubes fed into her and out of her. Monitors and machines of mysterious purpose blinked and cheeped, their display screens filled with glowing medical hieroglyphics. The redhead with the expired license plates rose from her chair beside the bed as Annie approached.

"How's she doing?" Annie asked.

"Better, actually," she said in a hushed tone. "She's out of the coma. She's been in and out of consciousness. She's said a few words."

"Does she know who did this to her?"

"No. She doesn't remember anything about the attack. Not yet, anyway. The other detective was already here and asked."

Two miracles in one morning: Lindsay Faulkner conscious and Chaz Stokes out of bed before eight A.M. Maybe he was making an effort after all. Maybe the spotlight of the task force would bring out some ambition in him.

"Has she had many visitors?"

"They only allow family up here," the redhead said. "We haven't been able to reach her parents. They're traveling in China. Until we can get them here, the hospital has agreed to make exceptions to the rule. Belle Davidson has been in, Grace from the realty, me."

"She'll need y'all to help her through this," Annie said. "She's got a long road ahead of her."

"Don't talk… about me… like I'm not… here."

At the sound of the weak voice, the redhead turned toward the bed, smiling. "You weren't here a minute ago."

"Ms. Faulkner, it's Annie Broussard," Annie said, leaning down. "I came to see how you're doing."

"You… found me… after…"

"Yes, I did."

"Thank… you."

"I wish I could have done more," Annie said. "There's a whole task force looking for the guy who did this to you."

"You… on it?"

"No. I've been reassigned. Detective Stokes is in charge. I hear you had lunch with him the other day. Did you have something to tell him about Pam? Was that why you called me Monday?"

The silence stretched so long Annie thought perhaps consciousness had ebbed away from her again. The sounds of the monitors filled the cubicle. Annie started to draw back from the bed.

"Donnie," Faulkner whispered.

"What about Donnie?"

"Jealous."

"Jealous of who?" Annie asked, bending close.

"Stupid… It wasn't anything."

She was slipping away. Annie touched Faulkner's arm in an attempt to maintain her connection to the waking world.

"Who was Donnie jealous of, Lindsay?"

The silence hung again, like a cold breath in the air.

"Detective Stokes."