Annie bit her lip and looked to the left of his shoulder. She would have given anything to wriggle out of this, but she couldn't and she knew it. Better to run through the minefield now and get it over with, "A.J., we need to talk."
He sucked in a breath. "Yeah, I guess we do. Let's go upstairs."
Images of her apartment flashed through Annie's head- the kitchen table spread with files from the Bichon case, her sheets rumpled from sex with Fourcade. She felt cheap and mean, a scarlet woman, a kicker of puppies.
"No," she said, catching his hand. "I need to cool off. Let's go sit on a boat."
She chose the pontoon at the far end of the dock, grabbed a towel from the storage bin, and wiped the dew from the last aqua plastic bench seat. A.J. followed reluctantly, pausing to look at the tip box Sos had mounted near the gate-a white wooden cube with a window in front and a foot-long gator head fixed over the top hole, mouth open in a money-hungry pose. The hand-lettering on the side read: TIP'S (POURBOIRE) MERCI!
"Remember the time Uncle Sos pretended this gator bit his finger off and he had all us kids screaming?"
Annie smiled. " 'Cause your cousin Sonny tried to sneak a dollar out."
"Then old Benoit, he did the trick, only he really didn't have half his fingers. Sonny about wet himself."
He slid onto the bench a few feet from her and reached out to touch her hand. "We got a lotta good memories," he said quietly. "So why you shutting me out now, Annie? What's the deal here? You still mad at me about the Fourcade thing?"
"I'm not mad at you."
"Then, what? We're going along fine, then all of a sudden I'm persona non grata. What-"
"What do you mean, 'going along fine'?"
"Well, you know-" A.J. struggled, clueless as to what he'd said wrong. He shrugged. "I thought-"
"Thought what? That the last hundred times I told you we're just friends I was speaking in some kind of code?"
"Oh, come on," he said, scowling. "You know there's more between us-"
Annie pushed to her feet, gaping at him. "What part of no do you not understand? You spent seven years in higher education and you can't grasp the meaning of a one-syllable word?"
"Of course I can, I just don't see that it applies to us."
"Christ," she muttered, shaking her head. "You're as bad as Renard."
"What's that supposed to mean? You're calling me a stalker?"
"I'm saying Pam Bichon told him no eight ways from Sunday and he just heard what he wanted to hear. How is that different from what you're doing?"
"Well, for starters, I'm not an accused murderer."
"Don't be a smart-ass. I'm serious, A.J. I keep trying to tell you, you want something from me I can't give you! How much plainer can I make it?"
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."