Luke laughed softly. "I'm sorry, I'm just... being a jerk. I'm really anxious about where this is going, and I was just trying to..." he exhaled noisily. "Truth is, when you were doing that in Lana's office, it was really incredibly sexy. It was kind of hard to sit through."
She closed her eyes. "God, I'm sorry. I hope I didn't offend you."
"Yeah, right. It's always offensive to find out that the woman I'm going to be working closely with for the next few weeks is completely hot."
She snorted. "Yeah, right. That's me. One hot chick."
"You steam," he told her.
"And I suppose the fact that you now know I had sex with some guy about an hour after I met him had nothing to do with your decision to hit on me?"
"I hit on you before you were hypnotized."
He was right. That had happened the day before—on the first day they'd met. And after she'd been hypnotized...
"After the session with Lana Quinn," he said, "was when I asked you to join the team, as a team player, remember?"
Syd was completely confused. "I'm not even going to try to make any sense out of that."
"Just finish the story," he told her. "You told me and Lana that Kevin had one of his friends drive you back to your dorm, later that night."
"Yeah," she said. "He said he thought my staying all night would be bad for my reputation. Ha." She rested her chin on her knees, still holding on to herself tightly. "Okay. Next day. Act Two. It's Sunday. There's a big game. And me, I'm a genius. I'm thinking about the fact that thanks to the bottle of Jack Daniel's we put a solid dent in up in Kevin's room, I managed to leave without giving my new soul mate my telephone number. So I spend the morning
writing him a note. I think I went through about a hundred drafts before I got it right. 'Dear Kevin, Last night was truly wonderful...'"
She had to swallow to clear away the sudden, aching lump that formed in her throat. God, she was such a sap. All these years later, and Kevin Manse could still make her want to cry, damn him.
She felt Luke touch her, his fingers gentle in her hair, light against her back.
"You really don't have to tell me any more of this," he said quietly. "I already feel really bad, and if you want, right now I'll swear to you that I'll never do a one-nighter again. I mean, it's been years since I have anyway, and—"
"I went to the football game," she told him. "With my pathetic little note. And I sat there in the stands and I watched my lover from the night before play a perfect game. After it was over, I tried to get into the stadium locker rooms, but there were security guards who laughed at me when I told them I was Kevin's girlfriend. I didn't get upset. I just smiled. I figured they'd have plenty of time to get to know me—the season was just starting. They told me that Kevin always came out the south entrance after a game to greet his fans. They told me I should wait there if I wanted to see him. So I waited."
"Oh, God," Luke said. "I know exactly where this is going."
"I waited by the south gate, with a crowd of about fifty people, for over an hour," Syd continued.
She remembered the smell of the spilled beer, the sweat, and the humid afternoon heat. She remembered that nervous feeling in her stomach, that anticipation at the thought of seeing Kevin again. She'd stood there, fantasizing, wondering what he'd do when he saw her. Would he laugh and hold out his arms to her? Would he get that soft look in his eyes, just as he had the night before, when they'd done those things that still made her blush? Would he pick her
up and spin her around in a victory dance, and then kiss her? Syd remembered thinking that the crowd would cheer at that kiss, the way crowds always did at the end of romantic movies, when the hero and heroine were together at last.
"He finally came out," she told Luke, "and started signing autographs. It took me forever, but I made my way to the front of the crowd. And he turned to me and..."
The lump was back, damn it, and she had to clear it out of her throat.
"And he didn't remember me," she whispered. "He looked right into my eyes, and he didn't even recognize that I was the girl he'd had sex with the night before. He gave me his high-voltage, football-star smile, and took my note right out of my hand. He asked me what my name was, asked me how to spell it, and he signed his autograph on that piece of paper and gave it back to me. 'To Sydney— Stay happy, Kevin Manse.'"
Lucky sat in the sand and stared up at the now slightly hazy sky. "Can I try to find him?" he asked. "Can I track him down and beat the hell out of him?''
Syd managed a shaky laugh.
He wanted to touch her again, to put his arms around her and hold her close, but it seemed like the wrong thing to do, given the circumstances.
"I'm so sorry," he said, and his words seemed so inadequate.
Especially since he'd spent nearly all of dinner planning exactly how he was going to talk Syd into his bed tonight. Late tonight. After oh-two-hundred. In the small hours of the night, when she would be at her most vulnerable. He'd turn off the microphones, send the rest of his team home. And in the privacy of his living room...
He'd told himself that it would be good for him to be honest with her. To tell her he was attracted, admit that he was having trouble thinking about much else besides the
fact that he wanted her. He was planning to move closer and closer as they sat on the couch, closing in on her until she was in his arms. He was planning to kiss her until she lost all sense of direction. He was planning to kiss her until she surrendered.
But in truth, he wasn't really being honest. He was merely calculating that this feigned honesty would get him some.
He hadn't given much thought at all to tomorrow. He hadn't considered Syd's feelings. Or her expectations.
Just like Kevin Manse, he'd thought only about his own immediate gratification. God, he was such a jerk.
Syd drew in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “We should probably go. It's getting late. You have to head over to the base, and I've...I've got to go tattoo the word victim on my forehead, just to be sure our bad guy gets the right idea."
She stood up and stretched, then turned and offered Lucky a hand. He took it, and she helped him up. He'd known all along that she was strong, but she was much, much stronger than he'd ever imagined.
He held on to her hand, suddenly afraid that she didn't really like him, afraid that she was simply enduring his company, afraid of what she'd write about him in her article after this was all over. And, he was afraid that after it was over, he'd never see her again. "Syd, do you hate me?"
She turned toward him and touched his face, her fingers cool against his cheek. "Are you kidding?" Her husky voice was filled with amusement and something else. Something warm that wrapped around him and brought him more than mere relief. "I know it sounds crazy, but I think you're probably the best friend I've ever had."
Chapter
Syd woke to the shrill sound of the telephone ringing.
The clock on the bedside table in Luke's guest room read :. It was nearly four in the morning. Who could possibly be calling now?
She knew instantly, sitting up, her heart pounding.
The rapist hadn't taken the bait. Instead, some other poor woman had been attacked.
She could hear the low murmur of Luke's voice from the other room.
His voice got louder, and, although she couldn't make out the words, she could pick up his anger loud and clear. No, this wasn't good news, that was for sure.
Luke had come home just after two. He'd been unnaturally quiet, almost pensive, and very, very tired. He'd made a quick circuit of the house, making sure all the doors and windows were securely locked, and then he'd gone into his bedroom and shut the door.
Syd had climbed into the narrow bed in this room that
had probably once been Luke's sister's, and had tried to sleep.
Tried and failed. It seemed as if she'd just drifted off when the sound of the phone jerked her back to consciousness.
From the other side of
the wall, she heard a crash from Luke's room as something was noisily knocked over. She stood up, uncertain as to whether she should go make sure he was all right, when her door opened with a bang.
Luke stood there, wearing only a pair of boxers, breathing hard, backlit by the light from the hallway. “Get your clothes on. Fast. We're going to the hospital." His voice was harsh, his face grim. "Lucy McCoy's been attacked."
Syd had to run to keep up with Luke as she followed him down the hospital corridor.
Lucy McCoy. God, not Lucy....
Whoever had called Luke to give him the news hadn't known any details. How badly had she been hurt? Was she even alive?
Bobby appeared at the end of the hallway, and Luke moved even faster.
"Sit-rep," he ordered the chief as soon as they were close enough to talk without shouting.
Bobby's face was somber. "She's alive and she wasn't raped," he told them as they continued down the hall. "But that's where the good news ends. They've got her in ICU— intensive care. I...persuaded a doctor to talk to me, and he used words like massive head injury and coma. She's got a broken collarbone, broken arm, and a broken rib that punctured her lung, as well."
"Who's with her?" Luke's voice was tight.
"Wes and Mia," Bobby reported. "Frisco's taking care of the paperwork."
"Has someone tried to reach Blue?"
"Yeah, I've tried, Frisco's tried, but we're both getting a lot of static. Wherever Alpha Squad is, they're in deep. I can't even get anyone to tell me which hemisphere they're on."
"Call Admiral Robinson," Luke ordered as they stopped outside the entrance to the intensive care unit. "If anyone can get word to Alpha Squad, he can."
Bobby moved briskly off as Mia Francisco pushed open the door and stepped out of ICU.
"I thought I heard your voice." She gave Luke a hug, her eyes red from crying.
"Should you be here?" Luke asked her, putting a hand on her enormous belly.
Mia hugged Syd, too. "How could I not be here?" she said. Her lip trembled. "The doctor says the next few hours are critical. If she makes it through the night—" Her voice broke.
"Oh, God," Syd said. "It's that bad?"
Mia nodded.
"Can I see her?" Luke asked.
Mia nodded again. "She's in room four. There's usually a family-members-only rule with patients in ICU, but with Blue out of the country, the doctors and nurses are letting us sit with her. I called Veronica and Melody. They're both flying in in the morning. And Nell and Becca should be here in about an hour. PJ's already over at the crime scene."
Luke pushed open the door to the intensive care wing, and Syd followed him in.
Nighttime didn't exist in ICU. It was as brightly lit and as filled with busy doctors and nurses as if it were high noon.
Luke stopped outside room four, just looking in. Syd took his hand.
Lucy looked impossibly small and fragile lying in that hospital bed. She was hooked up to all kinds of machines
and monitors. Her head was swathed in bandages, her face pale—except for where it was savagely bruised. She had an angry-looking row of stitches above her left eyebrow, and her mouth looked scraped and raw, her lips swollen and split. Her left eye was purple and yellow and completely swollen shut.
Wes sat next to her bed, head bowed as he held her hand.
He looked up as Luke slowly went into the room, Syd following him to the foot of Lucy's bed.
Wes's eyes were as red as Mia's had been. He was crying.
Wes—whom Syd still thought of as a potential suspect. God, wasn't that an awful thought? Was it possible Wes could have done this to Lucy and then come here to sit by her bed—to make sure that she died? It was like something out of a bad movie.
"Hey, Luce," Luke said, trying his best to sound cheerful, but barely able to do more than whisper. "I don't suppose you want to wake up and tell me what happened, huh?"
Lucy didn't move. On the wall, the screen monitoring her heart continued its steady beeping.
Wes gave no guilty starts. His eyes didn't move shiftily. He didn't start to sweat or shake at the thought of Lucy opening her eyes and giving out information. He just sat there, crying, holding Lucy's hand, occasionally wiping his eyes with his T-shirt sleeve.
"Well, you know what?" Luke said to her. "I'm going to come back later and we can talk then, okay?"
Nothing.
Luke was holding Syd's hand so tightly, her fingers were starting to ache from lack of blood.
"Just...hang on, Lucy," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Blue will be here soon, I promise. Just...hang on."
* * *
Lucky stood in Blue and Lucy McCoy's second-floor bedroom, grimly taking in the crushed and twisted lamps, the knocked-over rocking chair, the mattress half off its frame, the blood smeared on the sheets and the pale yellow wall, and the broken bay window that had looked out over the McCoys' flower-filled backyard.
Dawn was sending delicate, fairy-like light into the yard and, as he stepped closer to the window, the bits and pieces of broken glass glittered prettily on the grass below.
Syd stood quietly by the door. He'd heard her slip into the bathroom after they'd first arrived and seen the evidence of the violent and bloody fight that had taken place in this very room. He'd heard her get sick. But she'd come out almost right away. Pale and shaking but unwilling to leave.
PJ Becker came into the room, followed by one of the FInCOM agents who'd been assigned to the task force. PJ's recent promotion had pushed her way high up in FInCOM's chain of command, and the agent who was with her looked a little dazed at her presence.
"Dave, you already know Lieutenant O'Donlon and Sydney Jameson. Lieutenant, Dave Sudenberg's one of our top forensics experts," PJ said. "I thought you'd be interested in hearing his take on what happened here last night, since Detective McCoy's not yet able to give us a statement."
Lucky nodded and Dave Sudenberg cleared his throat. "As far as I can tell, the perpetrator entered the premises through a downstairs window," he told them. "He managed to bypass a portion of the security system without shutting the whole thing down, which was good, since the system's lights and alarms later played a large part in saving the detective's life."
He pointed to the door that Syd was still standing near. "He entered this room through that door, and from the pattern of blood on the sheets, we can assume that Lucy was in bed at the time, and probably asleep when he landed
the first blow—probably the one that broke her nose. He struck her with his fists—there would have been far more blood had he used something other than his hands.
"Lucy came up swinging. She was probably trying to get to the weapon she kept just under the bed, but he wouldn't let her near it. She hit him with this lamp," he said, pointing to the twisted wreckage of what had once been a tall, freestanding halogen. "Preliminary tests already show that the blood on this thing isn't Lucy's.
"So she clobbers him, and he goes ballistic, throws her against this wall, battering the hell out of her, and delivering what I believe was the worst of Lucy's head injuries, and wrapping his hands around her neck. But somehow, she breaks free. Somehow she doesn't lose consciousness right away. And she does the one thing that I think saved her life. She dives out the window, right through the glass, setting off the alarm system, waking the neighbors. Perp runs, and the police come and find her, half dead in the backyard."
Lucky met Syd's eyes. Dear God, now he was going to be sick. Lucy had to have known that a fall like that could have killed her. Had she thought she'd have zero chance of survival by staying in the room with the attacker? Fight or submit. Had she believed either would have gotten her killed, and opted to flee, despite the health risks of jumping out a second-story window?
There was a real chance he'd never find out, that Lucy wouldn't live through the night, or that, even if she did, she'd never awaken from the coma she'd slipped into.
There was a real chance Blue would come home to bury
his wife.
PJ moved to the window and looked all the way down at the yard below. "Dave thinks her broken collarbone and arm were from the dive she took out the window," she said grimly. "But the broken rib, broken nose, bruised throat and near-fatal head injuries were from your guy."
"We've got enough of his DNA to see if it matches the semen and skin samples he left behind with his other victims," Sudenberg told them. "I've already sent samples to the lab."
"What's it gonna take," Lucky asked, his chest and his throat both feeling so tight he had to push to squeeze his voice out, "to get the police or FInCOM to actually pick up the likely suspects on the list Lucy helped compile?"
"It's getting done, but these things take time," PJ told him as she headed for the door. She motioned for Sudenberg to follow her. "I'll see that you're given updated status reports as they come in."
Lucky nodded. "Thanks."
"See you back at the hospital," PJ said.
Lucky stood in his kitchen, his vision blurring as he stared out the window over the sink.
Lucy had made it through the night but still showed no signs of waking.
Blue could not be reached, not even with the help of Admiral Robinson. The admiral had known where Alpha Squad was though, and had been willing to break radio silence to contact them, but the mountains and rocky terrain were playing havoc with the signal. Lieutenant Mitch Shaw, one of the Admiral's Gray Group operatives, had volunteered to go in after them. To find Blue, to send him back out and to take his place on this critical mission.
Best-case scenario had Shaw taking a record four days to walk into the hostile and nearly impenetrable countryside and find Alpha Squad almost right away—another highly unlikely possibility. Another four days for Blue to get out. Best-case scenario didn't have him reaching his wife's side in fewer than nine or ten days.
Nine or ten days.
Suzanne Brockmann - Team Ten 09 - Get Lucky Page 16