"I don't."
"Okay," she said, clearly just humoring him.
"You try to pick fights," he said, realization in his voice, "even these silly, teasing ones, because you're afraid to have a serious conversation with me."
That was so not true. "We had a very serious conversation last night," she argued.
“Yeah, but I did most of the talking. That was my serious conversation."
"I told you about my family," she protested.
"Barely."
"Well, they're boring. None of them have run off to Tibet. I mean, if anyone's Tibet-bound, it's probably me."
"There you go," he said. "Trying to get me to argue with you about whether you would or wouldn't actually go to Tibet if you had the cash."
Tibet no, but New York, yes. Or Boston or Philly. She wanted to return to the east coast, she reminded herself. That's what all this was about. It was about helping catch a serial rapist, and then writing the best, most detailed, most emotionally connected yet factual article about a city-wide task force ever written.
She wasn't here simply to kiss this man in the moonlight.
The last of the dusk was fading fast, and the moon was just a sliver in the sky. Syd could hear the party sounds from the Surf Club farther down the beach—the echo of laughter and distant rock and roll.
Luke's face was entirely in shadow. "I like you, Syd," he told her softly. "You make me laugh. But I want to know you. I want to know what you want, who you really are. I want to know where you see yourself in fifty years. I want to..." He laughed, and she could've sworn it was self-consciously, that is, if it was possible that Luke O'Donlon could be self-conscious. "I want to know about Kevin Manse. I want to know if you're still in love with him, if you still measure every man you bump into against him."
Syd was so completely surprised, it very nearly qualified as stunned. Kevin Manse? What the...? She wished she could see Luke's eyes in the darkness. "What do...how do you know about Kevin Manse?"
He cleared his throat. “He, um, came up in some detail when Lana Quinn first hypnotized you."
"Some detail...?"
"You, um, flashed back to the first time you, uh, met him."
Syd said a very impolite word. "Flashed back? What do you mean, flashed back?"
"Um, I guess relived is more accurate."
"Relived?" Her voice went up several octaves. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"You, um, partly told us what happened, partly talked to Kevin as if he were in the room. You told us you bumped into him on the stairs at some frat party, and that he took you up to his room. We kind of tried to rush through the 'oh, Kevin, yes, Kevin' part, but—"
Syd said another equally impolite word and sat down in the sand, covering her face with her hands. God, how mortifying. "I suppose you also heard how that pitiful story ended?"
"Actually, no, I don't know how it ended." She felt more than heard Luke sit down beside her. "Syd, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to embarrass you. I was just... I've been thinking about it a lot lately, wondering..."
She peeked out at him through her fingers. He didn't know how the story ended. She was saved from complete and total mortification.
"Do you, um, still love him?"
Syd laughed. She laughed and laughed and laughed, lying back on the sand, staring up at the vastness of the sky and gasping for air.
She laughed, because if she didn't laugh, she'd cry. And there was no way she would ever cry in front of this man. Not if she could help it.
Luke laughed, too, mostly because laughter was contagious, partly because he was confused. "I didn't mean for that to be such a funny question."
"No," she said when she finally could talk, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a shudder of air. "No, I definitely don't still love him. In fact, I never loved him."
"You said you did. While you were hypnotized."
"I was eighteen," she said. "I lost my virginity to the bastard. I temporarily confused sex with love."
As she gazed at the sky, the stars slowly appeared.
He sighed. "It was only a one-nighter, huh?"
Syd turned her head to look at him, a darker lump of a shadow against the darkness of the night. "A one-night stand. How many times have you done that?"
He answered honestly. "Too many."
"You're probably someone's Kevin Manse," she said.
He was silent.
"I'm sorry," she said. "That was harsh."
"But probably true. I've tried to stay away from the eighteen-year-old virgins, though."
"Oh," Syd said. "Well. Then that makes it all better."
Luke laughed ruefully. "Man, you are unmerciful."
"I'll cut you down, but not yet—I like seeing you twisting in the wind, baby." Syd laughed. "You want serious? I'll give you the whole pathetic story—that'll really make you squirm. But if you repeat it to anyone, our friendship is over, do you understand?"
"I'm going to hate this, aren't I?"
"It's pretty hateful." Syd sat up and looked out over the water. "I've never told this to anyone. Not my college roommate, not my sister, not my mother, not anyone. But I'm going to tell you, because we're friends, and maybe you'll learn something from it."
"I feel like I'm approaching a car wreck. I'm horrified at the thought of the carnage, but unable to turn away."
She laughed. "It's not that bad."
"No?"
"Well, maybe it was at the time." She hugged her knees close to her chest and sighed. Where to start...? "Kevin was a big football star."
"Yeah," Luke said. "You mentioned that. You said he was a scholar, too. Smart as hell. And probably handsome."
"On a scale from one to ten..." Syd squinted as she thought about it. "A twelve."
"Whoa!"
On that same scale, Luke was a fifty. But she wasn't going to tell him that.
"So I ran into him, the big, famous football hero, on the stairs of this frat-house party," she said, "and—"
"Yeah," he interrupted. "I know that part. You went upstairs with him, and I know that part, too. That's the part where you started going 'oh, Kevin, yes, Kevin—'"
"Wow, you are really the funniest man in the world. Oh, wait—no, you're not! You just think you are."
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 11
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.<
br />
"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.
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