Travis smiled at the look on Blue's face. "That's right," he said. "Lucy Tait. And she'll be doubly valuable to the prosecution considering you've been shacking up with her for the past few days. Imagine how that'll look to the jury—
your own lover testifying against you." He made tsking sounds.
"Lucy would never do that," Blue said. He could feel anger starting inside him, burning hot and tightly contained.
"She will if she's subpoenaed," Travis said. "And she'll be subpoenaed. All she'll have to do is repeat what she said this morning down at the station,"
Blue got into the car. "Play your head games with someone else, Southeby," he said shortly. "I know for a fact that Lucy wasn't at the police station this morning."
"Well, I know for a fact that she was," Travis said, slamming the door behind Blue and climbing in behind the driver's wheel. He put his arm along the back of the front seat, twisting to look at Blue. "She came in to give you up. She provided us with that last bit of information we needed to come on out here and bring you in."
Blue just laughed and told Travis in quite specific language exactly what he could do with himself.
Travis turned to look at Tom, who'd climbed into the car and was fastening his seat belt. "McCoy thinks I'm telling tall tales," he said. "He thinks I'm making this all up. Isn't that exactly what happened this morning, Tom? Lucy Tait walked in, told the chief that McCoy had the martial-arts training needed to cleanly snap a man's neck, and five minutes later I was holding the warrant for McCoy's arrest in my hand."
Tom glanced at Blue, clearly sympathetic. "I don't know exactly how it happened," he said. "I didn't hear all of it, but Lucy was at the station this morning, and I did hear the chief ask her if you had the skill to break a man's neck. Right after that, we had the warrant."
Part of Blue up and died. Just like that. Sudden, instant, tragic death.
He stared out the window of the police car as Travis pulled out of Lucy's driveway. Summer had hit full stride, and the trees and meadows were bursting with life and color. Wildflowers were everywhere. A breeze ruffled the green leaves, making the trees seem like some giant, moving, liv ing thing. There was all that life out there, yet Blue felt dead inside. Dead and brown and dried up and broken.
So tell me honestly, Lucy had said to him last night, after they'd made love for the second—or was it the third?—time. Do you know how to break a man's neck the way Gerry's neck was broken? Their legs were still intertwined, and he had been running his fingers down her back, from her shoulder all the way to her thighs. Her skin was so soft and smooth he couldn't stop touching her..
They'd just talked about honesty, about how Lucy was the first woman Blue had known who hadn't had some sort of ulterior motive for being with him.
But she had. She'd had one hell of an ulterior motive, hadn't she? She'd used sex and the intimacy it created between them to get the information she'd needed to send him to jail.
He'd almost let himself love her. Damn, he was such a fool.
Blue was silent as Travis Southeby and Tom Harper led him into the station, silent as they took his fingerprints and mug shots, silent as they told him his bail would be set that afternoon, silent as they put him in the holding cell and locked the door.
It wasn't until Travis came back, telling him that Lucy Tait was outside, that she wanted to see him, that Blue spoke.
"I don't want to see her," he said, amazed that someone who felt so dead inside could still speak.
Lucy stared at Travis Southeby. "But..."
"He said he doesn't want to see you," Travis repeated. He smiled. "Can't say I blame him, seeing how you were the one who provided the final piece of evidence in the case against him. He wasn't too happy when I told him about that."
"You told him what?"
"Nothing but the truth," Travis said smugly. "You came in here to tell the chief that Blue McCoy had the ability to break a man's neck. Not everyone knew that he had that particular skill, you know. Your little tidbit of information proved vital in our case against him."
" You son of a bitch!"
Could Blue really believe that she would betray him that way? She wouldn't have thought so, but apparently he had.
"Watch your mouth, missy," Travis said primly.
Lucy took a deep breath. Slamming her fist into Travis's smug face wasn't going to do her—or Blue—any good. She forced herself to calm down. "I'm sorry." She took another deep breath. She'd gotten to her house too late. Blue was gone and Travis's patrol car was nowhere in sight. She'd turned right around and come back to the station. "Please, you've got to let me see him anyway."
"Can't do that."
The front doors opened, and Lucy turned to see Jenny Lee Beaumont walk into the police-station lobby. She was wearing a rose-colored suit with a frilly white blouse. The frills made her generous bosom look even larger. Her hair was up in an elegant bun and she had high heels on her tiny feet, pushing her height up to a full five foot three.
Travis moved toward her. "Ms. Beaumont," he said. "What can I do for you, ma'am?"
Jenny took off her sunglasses. Her eyes still looked smudged and bruised from grieving. "I received a call from Blue McCoy," she said in her breathy Southern accent. "I'm here to see him."
Travis nodded. "Right this way, ma'am."
As Lucy watched, Jenny turned back to Annabella, who was sitting at the dispatcher's desk. "My lawyer should be arriving soon. Will you please bring her back to us when she comes?"
Lucy watched as Jenny Lee Beaumont was ushered down the hall, toward the holding cells. Blue had called Jenny Lee. Jenny's lawyer was coming to help him. He trusted Jenny, not Lucy....
But Jenny didn't know that some—if not all—of the police officers on the Hatboro Creek force were involved in the cover-up of Gerry's death. And Jenny didn't know that R. W. Fisher had allegedly paid Matt Parker large sums of money to make up his story about seeing Blue in the woods with Gerry on the night of his death.
And Jenny didn't love Blue.
Lucy did.
And somehow Lucy was going to find Gerry's killer. Somehow she was going to prove Blue's innocence. Somehow she was going to prove to him that she didn't betray him.
Or she was going to die trying.
"Bail is set... for five-hundred-thousand dollars."
A murmur went through the courtroom. Half a million dollars. Lucy's stomach clenched. Where was Blue going to get half a million dollars?
"Can the defendant make bail?"
As Lucy watched, Blue turned and glanced at his lawyer, who turned and looked back at Jenny Lee. Jenny shook her head. "Not at this time, Your Honor," the lawyer said. She stood up. "Your Honor, my client is a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. A navy attorney will be arriving sometime next week. May I suggest my client remain in custody in Hatboro Creek until that time?"
The judge shook his head. "Those facilities aren't adequate," he said. "The defendant will be transferred immediately to the correctional institution at Northgate."
Several armed guards approached Blue. He stood up and let them lead him away. He had to know Lucy was there, in the back of the room, but he didn't look up. He didn't even glance in her direction.
Blue hated Northgate prison. He hated the feeling of being locked up. He hated being stripped of his clothes and forced to wear ill-fitting blue jeans, and a white T-shirt, and sneakers on his feet. He particularly hated the sneakers.
He stood in the courtyard alone, watching from the corners of his eyes as a large group of men gathered, then approached him. They were clearly the prison's movers and shakers—among the inmates, they were the ones in charge. They surrounded him, their body language threatening.
He ignored them. It wasn't until one of the men got right in his face that Blue even looked up.
"You Popeye the sailor man?" the inmate asked, grinning at his own clever humor.
"No," Blue said. "I'm Blue McCoy, the Navy SEAL."
At least
one person in the crowd knew what that meant, and as Blue stood there, a murmur spread from man to man. He couldn't hear the words, but he knew what was being said. A Navy SEAL. A snake eater. One of the toughest sons of bitches in the military.
Like magic, the crowd disappeared. No one wanted to pick a fight with a man they couldn't possibly beat.
Blue was almost disappointed. He could have used a good brawl to get this pain out of his system, this heartache of knowing that Lucy had used and then betrayed him.
She was so damn good—he hadn't suspected a thing. Her sunny smile had been genuine. Her kisses had been so sincere. How had she done it? How had she looked at him with all that emotion in her eyes without feeling a thing?
Blue wanted to be out of this prison. He wanted to be far away from South Carolina and Lucy Tait. Damn, he never wanted to see her again.
He wanted to take a sailboat out onto the ocean, out of sight of land, and just be one with the water and sky. He wanted to erase Lucy's face from his memory.
It wasn't going to happen.
He wanted to stop thinking about her, but she followed him everywhere, filling his mind, overwhelming him with her presence.
Why had she done it? How could she have done it? It didn't make sense. Did she really think he'd killed Gerry? Or worse, could she possibly be part of some conspiracy against him?
It didn't make sense.
It didn't make any sense at all.
He closed his eyes, and she was there, in his mind, arms crossed, mouth tight, glaring at him with barely concealed impatience.
"Why?" he asked, speaking the word aloud, causing some of the inmates to look curiously at him and then to move farther away.
Blue needed to know why. Of course, Lucy couldn't answer.
Lucy sat outside the gates of R. W. Fisher's plantation-style mansion, slumped in the front seat of Sarah's car. She'd borrowed her friend's shiny black Honda because she knew her own battered truck would stand out on this well-manicured street like a sore thumb. She had also borrowed a microcassette recorder from Sarah's husband's office, and she'd dug up a pair of binoculars from her own attic.
The night was endlessly long. It was only 3 a.m. and she felt as if she'd been sitting out here for half an eternity instead of eight hours. She'd followed R. W. Fisher home from his office at a little after seven. He'd gone inside and hadn't come out since.
The binoculars weren't much use. The house was dark, and through the binoculars it was simply larger and dark.
The microcassette recorder wasn't much use, either. Lucy managed to amuse herself for about five minutes by recording her voice as she sang the latest country hits, and then playing back the tape. But since most of the popular songs were about heartache and love gone wrong, she quickly stopped.
She forced herself to stay awake by chewing some caf-feinated gum that she'd picked up at a truck stop. She didn't dare drink any of the coffee she'd brought, for fear she'd have to leave her stakeout to find a bathroom.
The night was sticky and hot, but she didn't turn the car on and sit in air-conditioned comfort; she was afraid a neighbor would notice the running car engine and call the police.
The very same police who were somehow involved in a murderous plot with R. W. Fisher.
So Lucy just sat. And sweated. And wished that Blue hadn't been so quick to doubt her. She wondered if North-gate was as awful as she had heard. She wondered where Blue was, if he was sleeping or still awake. She prayed that he was safe.
At 5:57 a.m., Fisher's gate swung open. Lucy sat up straight, then scrunched down even farther in her seat to hide. Fisher appeared, driving a big, off-road vehicle with oversized tires. Lucy would have bet both her house and the computer software company she owned in Charleston that the tread on those big tires was nearly brand-new. And she would have gone double or nothing on those tires being the same ones that had left those tracks Blue found in the woods near where Gerry's body was discovered.
As she watched, Fisher turned to the right out of his driveway and moved swiftly down the street.
She started Sarah's car, waiting until he was some distance away before pulling out after him.
He didn't go far. He made a right into the parking lot of the middle school and stopped.
Lucy drove past without even braking, but quickly pulled off the road several hundred yards farther down. She grabbed the microcassette recorder—-just in case—and scrambled out of the car, backtracking on foot through the woods.
Fisher stood near his truck, one foot on the bumper as he tightened the laces of his sneakers. He was wearing running shorts and a T-shirt, and for someone pushing seventy, he was in outrageously good shape.
He did several more stretches, adjusted his headphones and Walkman, then started running along the edge of the middle-school playing field. Lucy followed, running a parallel course through some impossibly dense woods.
He was in hideously good shape, she realized when she was out of breath after only a short distance. Of course, Fisher wasn't running in long jeans and cowboy boots, leaping over roots and rocks and getting smacked in the face with tree branches and vines. She saw that she was losing him and she pushed herself harder, faster.
He reached the corner edge of the field and took a trail that led into the woods. He slowed his pace slightly, but not much.
Lucy was glad for the headphones Fisher was wearing, glad he couldn't hear her. She was making more noise than a herd of wild elephants. She remembered the way Blue had been able to run silently through the woods. And tirelessly, too. As a particularly thick branch smacked her square in the forehead, she wished that he were there with her. But he wasn't. If she wanted to keep up with Fisher, she was going to have to do it on her own.
You gotta want it badly enough. The words of Blue's SEAL training instructor flashed in her mind. She did. She wanted it. Badly. She wanted a happy ending to this nightmare. She wanted to find the proof that would free Blue from jail. She wanted him to walk out of the county prison and into her arms. And as long as she was making up happy endings, she wanted him to kiss her and tell her that he loved her. She wanted to marry him and live happily ever after.
God, she was stupid. It wasn't going to happen that way. Even if she didn't get herself killed, even if she succeeded in getting Blue out of jail, he was going to ride off into the sunset with perfect, pink, frilly Jenny Lee Beaumont.
Lucy cursed as she tripped over a root and fell, tearing a hole in the knee of her jeans. She ignored the pain, ignored the scrape and the blood, and picked herself up and ran.
R. W. Fisher was way ahead of her along the trail.
Of course, if Fisher really was just out for a morning run, Lucy was going to feel pretty idiotic. She was praying that he was meeting someone, praying that something would happen to—
Lucy stopped suddenly, dropping down into the underbrush.
Fisher had stopped running. He stood now in the middle of the trail, catching his breath, headphones off, leaning against a huge boulder. He hadn't heard or seen her, thank God.
Slowly, carefully, trying her hardest not to make a sound, Lucy crept forward.
Please, she was praying in rhythm with her pounding
heart. Please, please, please, please, let him be meeting
someone, please, please, please Then she heard it. The sound of a dirt bike coming along the trail. She used the cover of its engine to creep even closer and to take out the microcassette recorder.
But then Lucy realized it was not one dirt bike she'd heard but two. The riders braked to a stop and cut the engines. They were both wearing helmets, and as she watched, they pulled them off.
Travis Southeby. And... Frank Redfield? Oh, my God, if kind, gentlemanly Frank was involved in this, maybe Tom Harper was, also. And Chief Bradley—why not him, too?
"What are we going to do about McCoy?" Fisher asked.
His voice carried clearly to Lucy. She quickly switched on the recorder and pushed the microphone le
vel up to high.
Fisher shook his head in disbelief. "Jesus, didn't I just ask that same question a week ago? Didn't we just have this conversation?"
"This time it's a different McCoy," Travis said. "But I don't think we have a problem, Mr. Fisher. Blue McCoy is in Northgate prison, and he's gonna stay there. There's no way in hell he can make that bail."
"Seems he's got some special navy lawyer flying in," Fisher said. "When I heard about that, I came very close to calling New York and-—"
"Snake doesn't want to get involved," Travis said. "He did his bit-"
"By breaking Gerry's neck?" scoffed Fisher. "He should've made it look like some kind of accident. But a broken neck... ? That was asinine."
"Blue was easy to frame," Travis said, "He'll take the fall."
"But what about this navy lawyer?" . "It's not a problem," Frank interjected. "McCoy is up at Northgate, right? There's going to be a fight in the cafeteria at noon. Blue McCoy is not going to survive. I can guarantee it."
Lucy stopped breathing. Blue McCoy was not going to survive? Not as long as she was alive and kicking.
Fisher nodded, his well-lined face looking suddenly tired and old. "All right."
"What I'm interested in knowing is how you plan to fill the gap that Gerry's death left," Travis said. "How thehell are we going to get that money into the system and back to New York by the syndicate's deadline?"
"Matt Parker," Fisher said. "He's been willing to help up until now. I'm sure he'll be happy to continue our relationship. I'll arrange a loan with the bank. Nothing that draws attention in our direction, of course. But it'll enable Matt to purchase a suitable business—maybe even McCoy's construction company. Construction was the perfect way to launder the money."
"Too bad Gerry chickened out," Travis said.
New York syndicate. Launder money. My God, that was what this was all about. Someone named "Snake," probably from that same New York syndicate, had broken Gerry's neck because Gerry hadn't wanted to play along.
"We'll be rich yet, gentlemen," Frank said, putting his helmet back on. "Next year at this time, we'll be rolling in money."
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