"Well...what if I've changed my mind?"
"What if you only think you've changed your mind?" she countered gently. "And what if I give up a great career move—something I've worked for and wanted for years— and your 'what if’ turns out to be wrong?"
He cleared his throat. "I was thinking, um, maybe you really could move in with me."
Syd couldn't believe it. Luke wanted her to move in with him? Mr. I'm-never-serious? For a nanosecond, she let herself believe it was possible.
But then he winced, giving himself away. He didn't really want her to move in with him. He just wasn't used to being the one in a relationship who got dumped. It was a competitive thing. He was grabbing on to anything—no matter how stupid an idea it was in reality—in order to keep her around temporarily, in order to win.
But once he had her, he'd soon tire of her. And she'd move out. Maybe not right away, but eventually. And then she'd be in Coronado without Luke.
The job in New York wouldn't keep her warm at night, but neither would Luke after they'd split up.
"I think," Syd said slowly, "that a decision of that magnitude deserves a massive amount of thought. On both our parts."
“I've thought about it some," Luke said, "and I know it's not... perfect, but—''
"Think again," Syd said, her heart aching. She couldn't believe she was the one who was turning him down, but what he was saying wasn't real, she told herself. It wasn't honest. "Think about it while I'm in Phoenix."
"New York," Lucky told Lucy McCoy as he sat beside her hospital bed. "The job's in New York. Syd's having the interview right now, this morning in Phoenix, and of course she's going to get this job. I mean, who wouldn't hire her? She's brilliant, she's funny, she's a great writer, she's...she's perfect."
Lucy was silent, her brain still securely locked shut by the coma.
Lucky lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Come on, Luce," he said. "Wake up. I could really use some advice."
Nothing.
He sighed. “I feel like a complete ass—both for letting her drive to Phoenix by herself in that crappy car of hers, and for—" He laughed. "God, Lucy, you're not going to believe what I did. I asked her to move in with me for real. What a jerk. I couldn't believe the words were actually coming out of my mouth. I mean, I felt so cheap, like why am I only doing this halfway?" He lowered his voice. "I love her. I do. I never really understood this thing you've got going with Blue. Or Joe with Ronnie. I mean, I could appreciate it, sure, but I didn't get it. Until I met Syd. And now it all makes sense. My entire life makes sense—except, for the fact that Syd is going to move to New York."
"So why don't you ask her to marry you?"
Lucky jumped, turning to see Veronica standing in the door. He swore. "Ron, are you taking lessons in stealth from the Captain? Jeez, way to give a guy a heart attack."
She came into the room, sat down on the other side of the bed, taking Lucy's other hand. "Hi, Lucy, I'm back." She looked up at Lucky and smiled. "Sorry for eavesdropping."
"Like hell you are."
"So why don't you ask Syd to marry you?"
He couldn't answer.
Veronica answered for him. "You're afraid."
Lucky gritted his teeth and answered honestly. "I'm scared she'll turn me down, and I'm scared that she won't."
"Well," Veronica said in her crisp British accent, "She'll do neither—and go to New York—unless you do something drastic."
There was a commotion out in the hall, and the door was pushed open. One of the younger nurses blocked the door way with her body. "I'm sorry, sir, but it might be best if you wait for the doctor to—"
"I talked to the doctor on the phone on my way over here from the airport." The voice from the hallway was soft but pure business, honeyed by a thick south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line drawl. "It's not best if I wait for the doctor. It's best if I go into that room and see my wife."
Blue McCoy.
Lucky stood up to see Lieutenant Commander Blue McCoy literally pick up the nurse and move her out of his way. And then he was in the room.
"Lucy." He didn't have eyes for anyone but the woman lying in the middle of that hospital bed.
Blue looked exhausted. He hadn't shaved in weeks, but his hair was wet as if he'd taken a short shower—no doubt for sanitary purposes—moments before he'd arrived. The look on his face was terrible as he gazed down at Lucy, as he took in her bruises and cuts and the stark white bandage around her head. He sat down on the edge of her bed and took her hand.
"I'm here, Yankee," he said, his voice breaking slightly. "I'm sorry it took me so long, but I'm here now." His eyes filled with tears at her complete lack of response. "Come on, Lucy, the doctor said you're going to be just fine—all you have to do is open your eyes."
Nothing.
"I know it's going to be hard. I know you must've gone through some kind of hell, and it's probably easier to stay asleep and just not have to face it, but I'm here, and I'll help you. Whatever you need," Blue told his wife. "It's going to be okay, I promise. Together we can make anything okay."
Blue's tears escaped, and Lucky took Veronica's arm and dragged her to the door.
Captain Catalanotto was in the hallway. Veronica launched herself at her husband. "Joe!"
Joe Cat was an enormous man, and he enfolded her easily in his arms and kissed her.
No, he inhaled her. What Joe gave to Veronica was beyond a kiss. Lucky turned away, feeling as if he'd already gotten a glimpse of something far too private.
But he couldn't help but overhear Joe's rough whisper. "Are you all right?"
"I am now," Veronica told him.
''Is Lucy...?"
"Still nothing," she told him. "No response."
"What does the doctor really say?" Joe asked. "Is there really a chance she'll just wake up?"
"I hope so," she told him.
Lucky had spoken to the doctor just a few hours earlier. He turned to tell Joe that but did a quick about-face. Big, bad Joe Cat was crying as he held on tightly to his wife.
"Everything's going to be okay," he heard Veronica tell Joe through her own tears. "Now that Blue's here, now that you're here...everything's going to be okay. I know it."
And Lucky knew then exactly what he wanted. He wanted what Lucy shared with Blue. He wanted what Joe and Veronica had found.
And for the first time in his life, he thought that maybe, just maybe he'd found it, too.
Because when Syd was around him, everything was okay.
He was definitely going to do it. He was going to ask Syd to marry him.
The door at the end of the corridor opened, and the rest of Alpha Squad came in. Harvard, Cowboy and Crash. And Mitch Shaw was back, too. Lucky walked down to greet them, shooting Mitch a quizzical look.
"By the time I found them," he explained, "they'd completed their mission and were on their way out of the mountains."
"How's Lucy?" Harvard asked. "We don't want to get too close—Blue and Joe were the only ones who had time to shower."
"Lucy's still in a coma," Lucky told them. "It's kind of now-or-never time, as far as coming out of it goes. Her doctors were hoping Blue's voice would help pull her back to our side." He took a step back from them. "Jeez, you guys are ripe." They smelled like a combination of unwashed dog and stale campfire smoke.
Stale smoke...
Lucky swore. And grabbed for his phone, punching in Syd's cell phone number. Please, God, don't let her be conserving her batteries....
She picked up after only one ring. "Hello?"
"Stale cigarette smoke," Lucky said. "That's what's wrong with this Martin Taus guy."
"I'm sorry," Syd said. "Who's calling? Could it possibly be my insane friend Luke O'Donlon? The man who starts conversations in the middle instead of at the beginning?"
"Syd," he said. "Yes, you're funny. Thank you. Listen to me—Martin Taus isn't our guy. He's not a smoker. I stood right next to him, remember? I knew something
was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it until two seconds ago. You said the man who nearly knocked you down the stairs smelled like Wes Skelly—like stale cigarette smoke, remember?"
There was a long silence. Then Syd laughed. "I could've been wrong. You could've been wrong."
"I could be," he agreed, "but I'm not. And you're not either. You need to be careful, Syd. You need to come right home." He corrected himself. "No, don't come home, come to the hospital. But don't get out of your car if the parking lot's deserted. Stay in your car, keep moving, call me on your cell phone and I'll come out to meet you, okay?
God, I can't believe you talked me into letting you drive to Phoenix!"
Another long pause. "Well," she said. "I'm sure you're dying to know—my interview went really, really well."
"To hell with your interview," Lucky said in complete exasperation. "You're driving me crazy. I need you back here, I need you safe. Get your butt home and, and...marry me, damn it."
He looked up and found Harvard, Cowboy, Mitch and Crash all staring at him.
On the other end of the phone, Syd was equally silent.
"Wow," Lucky said. "That didn't come out quite the way I'd hoped it would."
Cowboy started to laugh, but when Harvard elbowed him hard in the chest, he fell instantly silent.
Lucky closed his eyes and turned away. "Syd, will you please come back here so we can talk?"
"Talk." Her voice sounded weak. She cleared her throat. "Yeah, that sounds smart. You're in luck. I'm nearly halfway home."
Chapter 15
Fight, flee, hide, submit.
Hide was definitely not a working option in this scenario.
Please be there, please be there, please be there, Syd silently chanted as she dialed Lucky's number on her cell phone.
She held the steering wheel with one hand, her phone with the other as she drove. Her map was spread out on the seat beside her.
"O'Donlon."
"Luke, thank God!"
"I'm sorry, who's this?" Luke shouted. "I'm having a little trouble hearing—there's a lot of noise over here. Hang on, let me move into..." There was a pause, and then he was back, normal-voiced. "Sorry about that. Let's start over. O'Donlon."
"Luke, it's Syd. I have a little problem."
He didn't hear her. He spoke over her words as soon as he heard her voice. "Hey, excellent timing! I was just about to call you. I have some great news. Lucy's back! She opened her eyes about an hour after Blue arrived, and—get this! She looks at him and she goes, ‘I’m bald. They had to shave my head.' Her first words after being in a coma for all that time. Typical woman—she nearly died and she's worrying about her hair. And it kills me that she knew. She must've been able to hear everything that was going on last week, because how else would she have known?"
"Luke."
"And Blue goes, 'I've always thought you'd look damn good in a crew cut, Yankee,' and it was all over. There were seven of us here—all SEALs, all crying like babies and—"
"Luke."
"I'm sorry. I'm nervous. I'm talking because I'm nervous, because I'm scared to death that you called me back to tell me to go to hell."
Syd waited for a few seconds to make sure he was finally done. "I called you," she said, glancing into her rearview mirror, "because I've got a little problem. I'm out here, in the middle of nowhere, and I'm...I'm pretty sure that I'm being followed."
Lucky's heart stopped. "This is real, right?" he said. "Not just some make-believe scenario game you're playing?"
"It's real. I noticed the car behind me about fifteen miles ago." Over the telephone, Syd's voice sounded very small. "When I slow down, he slows down. When I speed up, he speeds up. And now that I'm thinking about it, I saw this car back at the gas station, last time I stopped."
"Where are you?" he asked. His heart had started up again, but now it was lodged securely in his throat. He stuck his head out of the men's room, braving the noise out in the hospital cafeteria, waving until he caught Frisco's attention. He gestured for his swim buddy to follow him into the men's as Syd answered him.
"Route ," she was telling him. "Just inside the California state line. I'm about forty miles south of Route , heading for Route . There's nothing out here, Luke. Not even another car, not for miles. As far as I can tell from the map, the next town isn't for another thirty miles. I tried calling the local police, but I couldn't get through. I'm not even sure what I'd say— Hi, I'm out here on the state road and there's a car behind me...? Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe..."
"Whatever you do," Lucky said, "don't stop. Don't pull over. Keep your car moving, Syd."
Frisco came into the men's room, curiosity on his face.
"I need the captain and the senior chief and a state map," Lucky told him. "I think Syd's being followed by the guy who put Lucy into this hospital."
Frisco had been at Chief Zale's press conference—the one in which the SFPD and FInCOM had announced that the San Felipe Rapist had been apprehended. But Frisco didn't ask any questions. He didn't waste any time. He nodded and went to get the other two men.
"Syd, I'm going to figure out a way to get to you," Luke told her. "Just keep heading south and west, okay? Stay on Route , okay?"
Syd took a deep breath. "Okay."
"Tell me about the car behind you." He sounded so calm, so solid.
She looked in the rearview mirror. "It's dark blue. Ugly. One of those big old sedans from the late seventies and..." She realized what she was saying. Dark-colored, old-model sedan. Ugly. That was how she'd described that unfamiliar car that had been parked on her street on the night Gina was attacked.
Behind her, the car started to speed up. The driver pulled into the oncoming lane.
"He's going to pass me," Syd told Luke, filled with a flash of relief.
The dark sedan was moving faster now, moving up alongside of her.
"God, this was just my imagination," she said. "I'm so sorry, I feel so stupid and—"
The sedan was keeping pace with her. She could see the driver through the window. He was big, broad, built like a football player. His hair was short and brownish blond, worn in a crew cut.
And he had a pair of feature-distorting panty hose over his face.
Syd screamed and hit the gas, dropping the phone as her car surged forward.
"Sit-rep," Lucky shouted into his cell phone. Damn, she probably didn't remember what sit-rep was. "Syd! What's happening, damn it?"
Joe Cat and Harvard pushed their way into the men's room, their faces grim. Harvard had a map, bless him.
Lucky's voice shook as he briefly outlined the situation, as he took the map from Harvard's hands and opened it. "She's heading south on ." He swore as he found it on the map. "What the hell is she doing on route ? Why not ? Why didn't she cut over to Route closer to Phoenix? Why—" He took a deep breath. "Okay. I want to intercept. Fast. What are my options?" He was praying that he wasn't already too late.
The phone line was still open, and he thought he heard the sound of Syd's car's noisy engine. Please, God...
Joe Cat looked at Harvard. "The Black Hawk that brought us here is probably still on the roof. It had more than enough fuel..."
Harvard kicked into action. "I'll round up the team."
"Come on, Syd," Lucky said into his phone as he started for the roof. "Get back on the phone and tell me you're all right."
The car was starting to shudder and shake. It wasn't made to travel at seventy miles per hour for more than short bursts.
Syd had managed to pull out in front of the other car, but she needed both hands on the steering wheel to control the shaking. She could see her phone bumping around on the passenger's-side floor, next to her Club steering wheel lock. The phone wasn't that far away. If she could just take one hand off the wheel for a few seconds and...
She grabbed for it.
And missed.
Lucky took a quick head count as the Black Hawk helicopter rocketed east. Joe Cat,
Harvard, Cowboy, Crash, Mitch. Also Thomas King, Rio Rosetti and Mike Lee— they'd been coming into the hospital, bringing flowers to Lucy when Harvard had grabbed them and dragged them to the roof. Nine men and...one woman? FInCOM agent PJ Becker, who hated to fly in anything smaller than a , was here, too. God bless her.
Her voice came through loud and clear over the radio headset Lucky had slipped on. “As Navy SEALs, you have no authority here," she told them. "So if anyone asks, this is a FInCOM operation, you got it? I'm the Officer in Charge, and you're—just think of yourselves as my posse. But that's just if anyone asks. This is your op, O'Donlon."
Lucky looked at the captain. ' 'What weapons do we have on board, sir?"
“Considering that we pretty much came straight from a mission that called for full battle dress, we've got enough to outfit a small army."
"If this guy so much as touches Syd..." Lucky couldn't go on.
But Joe Cat knew what he was saying. And he nodded. "It finally happened to you, huh, O'Donlon? This woman got under your skin."
"She's irreplaceable," Lucky admitted.
Syd rode the clutch, trying to push a little extra power into her car's top speed. It was working, but for how long?
The temperature gauge was rising. It wasn't going to be long until she was out of time.
She had to get her phone off the floor. It had been at least ten minutes since she'd dropped it—Luke had to be going nuts. She had to talk to him. She had to tell him... what?
That she loved him, that she was sorry, that she wished it might've all turned out differently.
With a herculean effort, she reached for the phone and...
This time her hand connected with it. This time, her fingers scraped along the gritty floor mat. This time, she got it!
But the effort made her swerve, and she fought to control the car with only one hand.
Maybe it would be better if she died in a crash....
The thought was a wild one, and Syd rejected it instantly. That would be surrender of a permanent kind. And she'd never been fond of the surrender or submit solution to any "what if scenario. If she were going to die, she would die fighting, damn it.
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