Was she testing him? No, if she thought his recital was a fake, she"d never take so open a chance as this.

So, it could only mean one thing: She trusts me.

If she didn"t trust me, if she even suspected for a minute that I was really still a cop, there"s no way in h.e.l.l she"d be doing something like this.

In the moonlight, he couldn"t see much, but he could see enough. The purse contained the typical provisions of a prost.i.tute: lipstick, eyeliner, a small pack of tissues, and, of course, condoms. He also noticed a small amount of cash. But from beneath it all, she extracted the tiny gla.s.s vial...

No, she"d never be snorting c.o.ke in front of me if she thought I was working undercover...

"You want some?" she distractedly offered.

"Naw. That stuff makes me break out in hives. Like I said, dust"s my bag."

A tiny silver spoon and chain depended from the vial. With expert quickness, she sniffed two shots out of the spoon, and then the stuff was all back in her purse before either of them could so much as blink.

"Jesus," she whispered.

I guess that says it all, Phil thought. She rested back against the bench seat, her eyes closed. Her chest, arousing in the tight halter, rose and fell. And the look on her face...

He"d seen it a million times. The source of the habit didn"t matter in the least (cocaine, PCP, crystal meth, heroin), the expression was always the same. There was no pleasure in it, but an articulate and very abstract intertwining of relief, disgust, and self-capitulation.

All addicts had it. It was the look of someone who had surrendered to their own slavery.

The night"s stillness enveloped them. The high, two o"clock moon cast shadows about the car. Lightning bugs shifted in legion, and the trill of crickets throbbed hypnotically.

Vicki fidgeted a moment, and sighed.

Hitting her up now with questions about her source-would be the worst thing he could do. As with Eagle, he knew he"d have to walk on eggsh.e.l.ls a day at a time. He must prove to her that he was one of her ilk, that his life had turned to garbage just as quickly as hers had.

"Maybe it"s all for the best," she said with a grim joke in her words. "You"re on dust, I"m on c.o.ke... Not what you would call model cops."

Phil laughed. "You got that right." Then he shrugged as though it didn"t mean much. "Guess we just weren"t cut out for it. Big deal, you know? I was a s.h.i.tty cop anyway."

"I don"t miss the job, either. It got too scary."

"Scary? What could be scary about driving a beat in Crick City?"

"You don"t know the half of it, Phil." Lethargically, she lit a menthol cigarette and watched the smoke drift out the open window. "Let"s just say you got out of town at the right time. Remember Adams and North?"

"Yeah. Town boys. I never knew "em, but I"d seen them around. They worked for Mullins too, didn"t they?"

"Um-hmm. After I got fired, some pretty serious s.h.i.t started to go down around here."

"Like what?"

"Never mind what. Just take my word for it, it was hairy. Mullins had Adams and North working on it, though."

Phil could guess what she was talking about: Natter"s PCP operation, but of course he couldn"t let on that he knew about that, at least not yet.

"All right," he said. "But what about Adams and North?"

"They disappeared," Vicki said.

Disappeared. It took a moment for the word to sink in. Mullins had told him that Adams and North had merely left the department for better-paying jobs elsewhere. Fairfax and Montgomery County, he thought. And as he recalled, they were decent guys and fairly tough customers.

"There were some murders," Vicki finally admitted. "Drug dealers from out of town, PCP guys mostly. It was really gross; they were mutilated. It looked like..."

Phil"s patience ticked. He didn"t want to push her, but he did want to know what she was talking about. He let a few more seconds pa.s.s, then: "It looked like what, Vicki?"

She was clearly distressed, but was it the c.o.ke or something else?

"These cowboys they found dead?" Her voice lowered to a dusky croak. "It looked like they"d been...skinned."

Skinned. His pause burgeoned. Just like that cowboy we found, Rhodes. He was a dust dealer from out of town. And he"d been skinned.

"I heard they found a dozen bodies at least," she went on. "Same m.o. each time. Mullins had Adams and North investigating. Then one day-four or five months ago, I guess-both of them just disappeared."

Phil chewed the inside of his cheek. Disappeared, huh? This was the second time she told him something that directly refuted Mullins. And when they"d found Rhodes" body? Mullins had seemed genuinely shaken, but he"d also seemed...

Well, Phil wasn"t quite sure what. But he didn"t like it. Why would Vicki make something like this up? And if it were true, why wouldn"t Mullins have told him about it.

Whatever it is, he declared to himself, I"m going to find out.

He got back on track. "So what exactly happened? I mean, to Adams and North?"

That somber croak came back to her voice. "n.o.body knows."

Phil ran a hand across his cheek, scruffing stubble. "Okay. But what do you think happened to them?"

Her brow rose wide. "Me? I think they got killed by the same people who did the job on those dealers. They"re probably at the bottom of one of the swamps, chained to a couple of manhole covers. You ask me, they got too close, so they got offed."

"Yeah, Vicki, but what did they get too close to?"

"I don"t know," she wavered.

I know, Phil thought. They got too close to your Creeker hubbie"s angel dust bizz. That"s what they got too close to. So he murdered them. I gotta funny feeling you know that, Vicki. But you"re not gonna say it because you"re covering for your husband. The same guy who"s using you for a piece of meat to show off to his dope friends. The same slimy, ugly motherf.u.c.ker who strung you out on cocaine and has you turning tricks at a low-rent strip joint.

She was reaching into her purse again, repeating the phantom ritual of her curse. Two minute scoops of the white powder disappeared from the spoon up her nose, and again Phil felt torn between two opposing poles. The part of himself that still cared about her, and then the other part, the cop part, the part that knew if he objected, he"d be letting personal feelings obstruct the integrity of the case.

Holy s.h.i.t, he thought very slowly. What am I going to do?

The c.o.ke was wiring her up now. Her face flushed. She was breathing faster, she seemed antsy. She kept sniffing at nothing but the air, and was rubbing her hands unconsciously up and down her nearly bare white thighs. That must be some first-cla.s.s blow he"s feeding you, Phil thought. Probably pure. The purer the better, right, Vicki? The easier to keep you in line, to keep you destroying yourself for his wallet and status. Then the saddest reflection of all hit him in the head...

c.o.ke addicts never lasted long. They used themselves up. What would Natter do when there was nothing left of her?

The same thing he probably f.u.c.king did to Adams and North and Rhodes and all those other people...

That"s the way it worked. Eventually c.o.ke-queens outlived their usefulness. Then they became a liability.

A guy like Natter? He"d toss her out like next week"s garbage.

This was hard. This was a woman he used to be in love with, and here he was sitting in a car with her, watching her c.o.ke herself to oblivion. And knowing there was nothing he could do about it made him feel even worse.

But what could he do? Spill it all? Reveal the entire undercover operation to her? She"d squeal in a heartbeat. Or what else? Quit the department, drag her into the county rehab program knowing there was only a ten-percent success rate?

All I can do right now, he commiserated, is play the game.

"Phil?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

He supposed he should have known this was coming. Why hadn"t he foreseen it? She was wired now, c.o.ked to the gills, and even though she had undergone a catastrophic change since their relationship had ended, her feelings for him probably hadn"t changed. I"m the only reminder she has that her life hasn"t always been the h.e.l.l it is now, he figured.

Her hand was on his leg. He could feel its subtle heat.

"How did things get so screwed up?" she asked in the most forlorn voice he ever heard.

"I don"t know," he said.

Her hand slid up. Her body slid closer. "Why don"t we, like, pretend...that nothing bad ever happened to either of us?"

An impulse reached him, like an alarm. The urge to push her hand away, to berate her, to tell her there was no going back. But instead, he did nothing to dissuade her.

He made no reply at all.

Which, in this particular circ.u.mstance, was the same thing as a clear consent.

There was no rebreaking of any old ice. Instead, some weird, inexplicable current in the air drew them closer...

The night joined them.

She was kissing him immediately. Her slender bare arms at once slid about his neck. I cannot do this! he ordered himself. This is crazy! I"m a cop! I"m on a case!

Her tongue licked across his lips.

No more! This is where it ends! I"m going to stop this right now!

She untied her halter, slipped it off...

No! Phil thought.

She slipped off her shorts- No.

-then her panties.

Nnnnnnn...

Phil"s resolve died flat, like a machine whose tank had just run dry. His eyes opened on her. His heart surged. She sat facing him, her back against the pa.s.senger door. The soft moonlight buffed her marble skin; her perfect body glowed.

"You used to say I was beautiful."

"You still are," he replied with no forethought at all. The words didn"t even sound like his own. "More than I ever remember."

She came over to him again, sliding along in the moonlit darkness. Her mouth opened over his, and all he could do was lie back as if comatose. The moon seemed to peer at him, either as an accuser or the very face of his id.

Her warm hands roved all over him, gradually in their travels unbuckling his belt, unfastening his pants, lowering his zipper.

Their tongues slid together.

Her large b.r.e.a.s.t.s slid against his chest.

Into his ear she whispered, "I still love you."

Aw, G.o.d, no, don"t say that. Say anything, but don"t say that...

"I-I never stopped," she finished.

Her hands found his waistbelt, and began to work at getting his pants off.

I can"t be doing this, his thoughts made one last waning effort. Then the effort flitted away, like the fireflies outside.

No, he knew he shouldn"t be doing this, but by this point he knew he was going to do it anyway.

Seventeen.

Phil parked behind the local Qwik-Stop, about a half-mile away, then cut through the woods up to the station. It was perhaps an extreme precaution but a worthwhile one. Now that Phil was insinuating himself among the locals, he couldn"t take the chance of letting his car be seen anywhere near the station. True, he could"ve called Mullins on the phone, but- Not good enough, he thought, hoofing it past the old lockup and across the back lot.

This has got to be face-to-face.

Phil didn"t like loose ends.

It was just past 9 a.m. when he slipped in through the back door. Mullins, as usual, was pouring himself an acrid cup of coffee and chewing tobacco at the same time.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in." Mullins chuckled. "Ya know somethin", Phil? You"re startin" to look like a pure-bred redneck. Maybe this plainclothes business is bringing out the real you."

"I hope to Christ not," Phil said, but he knew what Mullins meant. Boots, old jeans, flannel shirt, plus he hadn"t shaved in two days. To play the part, he had to look the part.

"How come I can always tell when you"re p.i.s.sed off?" Mullins asked. "You don"t even have to say nothin". I can tell just by lookin" at ya."

Phil sat down. "You know what I did this morning, Chief?"