Free A Thin Dark Line by Tami Hoag Page B

ready to unlock the door quickly or to be used as a weapon if an attacker jumped up from the honeysuckle bush that struggled to live beside her stoop.
    A lamp burned in the living room to give the impression someone was home all evening. After locking the door behind her, Jennifer hung her jacket on the coatrack and grabbed a towel off the kitchen counter to dab at her rain-wet red hair as she moved through the trailer, turning on more lights. She was careful not to step into a room until the light was on and she could see. She checked the spare bedroom; the bathroom. Her bedroom was at the end of the narrow hall. Nothing had been disturbed, no one was in the closet. A can of Aqua Net hair spray sat on the nightstand. She would use it like Mace if someone broke in during the night.
    With the knowledge of safety, the tension began to subside, letting fatigue settle in. Too many nights with too little sleep, the hassle with her supervisor over the length of her coffee breaks, the past-due balance on her phone bill—each worry weighed down on her. Depressed, she brushed her teeth, took off her jeans, and climbed into bed in the T-shirt she’d worn all day. I ’ M WITH STUPID , it read, and an arrow pointed to the empty space in the bed beside her. She was with no one. Until 1:57 A . M .
    Jennifer Nolan woke with a start. A gloved hand struck her hard across the face as she struggled to sit up and opened her mouth to scream. The back of her skull smacked against the headboard. She tried again to lurch forward, stopped this time by the feel of a blade at her throat. Her bladder released and tears welled in her eyes.
    But even through the blur she could see her attacker. His image was illuminated by the green glow of the alarm clock and by the light that seeped in around the edges of the cheap miniblinds. He seemed huge as he loomed over her, the vision of doom. Terrified, she fixed on his face—a face half hidden by a feathered Mardi Gras mask.

7
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    R ichard Kudrow was dying. The Crohn’s disease that had besieged his intestinal tract for the last five years of his life had been joined in the last few months by a voracious cancer. Despite the efforts of medical science, his body was virtually devouring itself.
    He had been told to quit his practice and devote his time to the hopeless task of treatment, but he didn’t see the point. He knew his demise was inevitable. Work was all that kept him going. Anger and adrenaline fueled his weakened system. The focus on justice—an attainable goal—gave him a greater sense of purpose than the pursuit of a cure—an unattainable goal. In defying his doctors and his disease, he had already managed to live past all expectations.
    His enemies said he was too damned mean to die. He figured the beating of Marcus Renard was going to give him another six or eight months’ worth of fury to live on.
    “My client was beat to within an inch of his life by your detective, Noblier. What kind of bullshit will you attempt to spread over that plain truth?”
    Gus pressed his lips together. His eyes narrowed to the size of beads as he glared at Kudrow sitting across from him, gray and withering like a rotting pecan husk in his wrinkled brown suit.
    “You’re the bullshit expert, Kudrow. I’m supposed to swallow the rantings of your sociopathic homicidal pervert client?”
    “He didn’t break his own nose. He didn’t break his own jaw. He did not break his own teeth out of his head. Ask your Deputy Broussard. Better yet,
I’ll
ask your Deputy Broussard,” Kudrow said, pressing up out of the chair. “I sure as hell don’t trust you any farther than I could throw a grown hog.”
    Gus rose with energy and thrust a finger at the lawyer. “You stay the hell away from my people, Kudrow.”
    Kudrow waved him off. “Broussard is a material witness and Fourcade is a thug. He was a thug on the NOPD and you knew it when you hired him. That makes you culpable in the civil suit, Noblier, and, by