Alpha Squad

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Lucy looked up from her notebook. “Jenny Lee is.”

  Jenny Lee. Hell, whatever pain Blue was feeling at Gerry’s death, it surely was amplified hundreds of times over for poor Jenny Lee. Instead of marrying Gerry on Saturday, she was going to be burying him.

  “How’s Jenny holding up?”

  “As well as can be expected, I guess,” Lucy told him. As always, when Jenny Lee’s name came up, her dark eyes were guarded. The shadows were getting very long, and she turned, looking back down the beach in the direction they had come. “We’d better head back.”

  “This whole thing stinks,” Blue said in a low voice.

  Lucy glanced at him again, compassion in her eyes. “This must be hard for you,” she said. “Everyone has been so busy making accusations. No one has offered you condolences on your stepbrother’s death.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does,” Lucy said. “At times like this, you need to know that people care.”

  Blue smiled. “I know you care, Yankee,” he said. “And that’s all I need.”

  Chapter Six

  Lucy dropped Blue off at the Lighthouse Motel, then swung back onto Main Street, heading for the Grill. It was well past suppertime, and she was far too exhausted to cook. She pulled into a parking spot on the street in front of the tiny restaurant, dreaming about a cheeseburger and french fries and knowing that she’d end up ordering vegetable soup and a salad.

  She hadn’t been inside and sitting at a booth by the window of the crowded Grill for more than five minutes, when the door opened and Blue McCoy came in.

  All conversation stopped.

  Blue headed for the only empty table—the one next to Lucy’s. Giving Lucy a nod hello, he dropped his duffel bag on the floor and sat down. He glanced around the still-silent room, as if noticing for the first time that he was the center of attention. Some people were downright rude as they stared at him, hostility in their eyes.

  Iris came out to Blue’s table. The normally friendly waitress wasn’t smiling. In fact, she looked worried. “I’m sorry,” she said to Blue, and it was clear that she was. “But that table is reserved for someone else.”

  Lucy knew it damn well wasn’t. Tables at the Grill had always been, and would always be, first come, first served.

  Blue knew that, too, but he reached down under the table and picked up his duffel bag.

  “Why don’t you come sit with me, McCoy?” Lucy called out. “I’ve got this big booth all to myself.” She looked up at Iris challengingly. “Unless it’s suddenly reserved for someone else, too.”

  Iris flushed, but she faced Lucy and then Blue. “I feel real bad about this, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she said to Blue. “I can’t risk trouble getting stirred up inside my establishment, and you, sir, are trouble.”

  The crowd murmured its agreement. “Get him out of here,” said a voice, as Iris disappeared into the back.

  “Yeah.” Travis Southeby stood up, light glinting off his police badge. “Eating dinner with Gerry McCoy’s killer in the room is gonna give me gas.”

  Lucy raised her voice to be heard over the sudden din. “Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?” she asked, looking directly at Travis. “Blue McCoy hasn’t been convicted of any crimes—he hasn’t even been charged.”

  From the other side of the room, a chair scraped across the floor as it was pushed back from a table. Leroy Hurley stood up and Lucy’s heart sank.

  “Whatever happened to the good old days,” Leroy asked the crowd, “when a town didn’t have to pay millions of dollars to convict a cold-blooded killer? Anyone remember back then? My granddaddy used to tell me about those times. They didn’t need no judge or jury. No, sir. They just needed the townfolk, the guilty man and a sturdy length of rope.”

  Travis Southeby grinned. “It sure saved the taxpayers a heap of money.”

  As Blue watched, Lucy pushed herself to her feet. She was spitting mad. Her cheeks were flushed and her brown eyes were alight with an unholy flame. Her teeth were clenched and she had one hand on the handle of her sidearm. He was glad as hell that she was on his side.

  “Are you talking about a lynching?” Her voice was low and dangerous. She turned to glare at the stocky police officer. “Shame on you, Travis, for making light of this. You should know better than that.” She turned back to Leroy. “How about it, Hurley? Shall I run you in for attempting to incite a riot, or shall I charge you with attempted murder? Because times have changed since your dear old granddaddy was allowed to run amok in this town. These days we’ve got another name for a lynching, pal. It’s called first-degree murder.” She looked around the room. “Are you all clear on that? Does anyone have any questions? I wouldn’t want to leave anyone confused about this matter.”

  Leroy Hurley stomped out of the Grill, and the rest of the customers turned back to their food. Travis Southeby still stood, a pink tinge of anger on his puffy face.

  He gestured toward Blue. “If I was in charge of this investigation, he’d be locked up by now.”

  “Well, you’re not in charge,” Lucy said tartly. “So just sit down and finish your dinner, Travis. If you have any complaints, take them to Chief Bradley.”

  Travis threw down several dollar bills and left the Grill, his dinner barely touched.

  Before Lucy could sit down, Iris appeared from the kitchen, carrying a big paper bag. “It’s enough for both of you,” she said, looking from Lucy to Blue and back. “And it’s on the house.” She moved to the front door and opened it wide. “As long as you take it outside.”

  Lucy shook her head. “I’m disappointed in you,” she said to Iris.

  Blue silently slipped his duffel bag over his shoulder as Iris said, “Last time there was a fight in here, that big plateglass window broke. Insurance company wouldn’t cover it, and we were paying off the debt for three months straight. Billy Joe and me, we’ve got a kid in college now, Lucy. We can’t afford that again. You know that.”

  Blue went out the door first and Lucy followed. “I’m sorry,” Iris said again as she shut the door tightly behind them both.

  “I’m sorry about that, too,” Lucy said to Blue.

  “People get passionate,” he said quietly. “They don’t always stop to think.”

  She looked at the heavy bag he was still carrying over his shoulder. “Why didn’t you leave your stuff in the motel?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not staying over there.”

  “There’s nowhere else in town to stay,” Lucy said. “What are you going to do? Sleep outside?”

  Blue shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”

  She looked closely at him, her eyes narrowing. “What’s going on?”

  He gazed at her several long moments before answering. “Jedd Southeby informed me that there are no vacancies at the motel at this time,” Blue finally said.

  Lucy’s mouth got tight, and she flung open the driver’s-side door to her truck with more force than necessary. “Get in,” she said.

  Blue climbed into the truck and watched with interest as she jammed the key into the ignition, revved the motor much higher than necessary and threw the truck into reverse.

  “There are never no vacancies at the Lighthouse Motel,” she said grimly. “That’s total bull. I know for a fact that there are at least fifteen rooms unoccupied right this very moment.”

  It took less than a minute to drive to the motel. Lucy came to a halt with a squeal of tires.

  “Jedd Southeby, what is wrong with you?” she fumed, marching into the motel office lobby. “No vacancy, my foot!”

  Jedd didn’t even get out of his chair. “He’s not welcome here,” he said coldly, motioning to Blue with his chin. He was small and angular, in contrast to his brother Travis, who was small and beefy.

  “That’s illegal,” Lucy said, crossing her arms. “You can’t discriminate against—”

  “I most certainly can,” Jedd told her smugly. “I rese
rve the right to turn down any paying guest if I have justifiable reason to believe he will cause injury to my property, himself or my other paying guests. Considering Blue is suspected of killing his stepbrother, I’d have to say that I have a damned good justifiable reason, wouldn’t you?”

  Lucy was aghast. “So where is Blue supposed to stay?” She shook her head. “Chief Bradley told him not to leave town. If you won’t rent him a room…”

  “There’s room in the town jail,” Jedd said. He looked at Blue and smiled nastily. “You might as well get used to sleeping in a room with bars on the windows, McCoy.”

  Lucy took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Jedd.” She carefully kept her voice steady, reasonable. “Your own brother is on the police force. I’m sure he’s told you that no one gets any sleep at the station at night. The lights are always up, it’s noisy, the TV is on and—”

  “Blue shoulda thought of that before he killed Gerry, huh?”

  “What if it rains tonight?” Lucy asked, slapping her hand down on the counter as she lost her cool. “Are you going to sit there and tell me that you’re going to make this man—who, I might point out, has not been accused of any crime—sleep out in the rain?”

  “I don’t give a flying fig where he sleeps.” Jedd turned back to his television set.

  “Dammit!” Lucy turned away, pushing open the glass door and stepping out into the muggy heat of the night. Giving in to her urge to slap Jedd Southeby’s smug smile off his face wouldn’t do Blue or her career any good. “Dammit!”

  “I’m a SEAL. I’ve slept in the rain before,” Blue said calmly. He looked up at the sky. “Besides, it’s not gonna rain.”

  “Get in the truck,” Lucy fumed, climbing back into the driver’s seat of her Ford.

  Blue looked at her through the open passenger-side window. “Where are we going?” he asked. “Because I’d honestly rather sleep out in the rain than spend the night in the Hatboro Creek jail house.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not taking you to the jail,” she said. She took in a deep breath, then let it slowly out in an attempt to calm herself down. This was not the best solution, but it was the only one she could think of at the moment. “You can spend the night at my house.”

  Blue opened the door and climbed into the truck. “That sounds like the best idea anyone has had all day.”

  Lucy shot him a dangerous look. “In one of the spare bedrooms.”

  He smiled back at her. “Whatever you say.”

  Lucy’s house was a great big, rambling old thing on top of the hill off Fox Run Road. It had been built sometime around the turn of the century, Blue guessed. He knew that it had stood empty for a few years before the Taits had moved into town. No one had wanted to buy it—it would have cost way too much to keep up—and Lucy’s mother had gotten it for a song. Of course, the Taits had spent every weekend and most weekday evenings scraping paint and sanding and painting and repairing the old monster. When they finished with the inside, they started in on the outside.

  Even in the eerie glow of twilight, Blue could see that all their hard work had paid off. The big, old house was gorgeous. They’d painted it white, with dark green shutters and trim. It looked clean and fresh and as if it might even glow in the dark.

  “Place looks great,” Blue said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Still as big as ever.”

  “Yep. Too big since my mom died.” She snorted. “Too big before that, too.”

  “Maybe you should sell it,” Blue said.

  Lucy looked up at the house as she climbed out of the truck. “I could. Betty Stedman over at the real-estate agency makes me an offer on the place every few months or so. It’s just…It’s the reason I’m still here in town,” she admitted. “If I sold it, I’d have to find someplace else to go.”

  “There are about a million choices out there,” Blue said dryly, pushing himself up so that he was sitting on the hood of her truck, “and in my opinion just about every one of ’em is better than Hatboro Creek.”

  “You were in a big hurry to get out of this town, weren’t you?” Lucy asked, gazing up at him.

  “I made a promise I’d get my high-school diploma. I knew I needed it to get where I wanted to go in the navy,” Blue said, “or I would’ve left town the day I turned sixteen.”

  “If you had, I never would’ve met you,” Lucy mused. “I would’ve had the devil kicked out of me, or worse—remember that day the boys from the baseball team tried to beat me up?”

  Blue nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He leaned forward slightly to see her face in the darkening twilight. “What do you mean, ‘or worse’?”

  “Nothing really.” Lucy hefted the paper bag that Iris had handed her. “What do you say we sit on the porch and eat some of this food?”

  Blue slid down off the hood of the truck, following her up the path to the house. “You wouldn’t have said ‘or worse’ if you meant nothing.” He caught her arm before she went up the stairs. “Lucy, what did those boys do to you? Did they ever come near you again?”

  Her eyes were wide as she looked down at where he was holding on to her arm, but he wouldn’t let go.

  “They just…” She sighed. “They were jerks. They told me that if I stayed on the baseball team they’d take me out in the woods and show me the only thing a girl was good for—and I don’t think they had cooking and cleaning in mind. I was too embarrassed to tell you—or anyone—about their threats.”

  She gently pulled free from his grasp and went up the stairs and onto the porch.

  “Did they…?” He could hardly get even that much of the question out as she sat down on a porch swing.

  “They never touched me again,” Lucy said. “Not after you did your superhero imitation. They thought I was high up on your list of friends.” She glanced up at him, a smile playing about the corners of her mouth. “Of course, I helped perpetuate that myth by telling them how Blue McCoy was going to take me fishing, or how I was helping Blue McCoy fix up his boat…I had quite the little fantasy world going, and they bought into every word of it.”

  When Lucy smiled at him like that, Blue forgot about everything—about Gerry’s untimely and tragic death, about the murder charges looming over him, about how the people in this town had turned their backs on him yet again. He could only think about Lucy—about the way she’d had that same sparkling smile back when she was a high-school freshman, back when she’d had a crush on him.

  If he had known then what he knew now, things would have been mighty different for him. He probably wouldn’t have left town with his heart stomped into a thousand pieces. No, he would have left Lucy with her young heart trashed and broken, instead. But that really wasn’t more appealing than the way things had worked out. Of course…maybe…if Lucy Tait had been his girlfriend back in high school, Blue wouldn’t have left town at all.

  Now, where the hell had that thought come from? Blue had wanted to leave Hatboro Creek from the first moment he’d pulled into town at the tender age of five. Even if things had turned out differently between Blue and Jenny Lee, even if she had truly loved him rather than tried to use him to reach Gerry, he still wouldn’t have stayed in town. And if Jenny Lee Beaumont, with her considerable charms, couldn’t keep Blue from leaving town, what made him think Lucy Tait could have done otherwise?

  “It looks like Iris packed a couple of burgers, a vegetable soup, some of her fish chowder, two turkeys on whole wheat, an order of fries and some onion rings,” Lucy said, spreading the feast out on the porch railing. “There are even plastic spoons. I’ve got dibs on the veggie soup, but everything else is up for grabs.”

  Blue picked up the waxed cardboard soup bowl that held the fish chowder and pried off the lid. He gave the fragrant soup a stir with one of Iris’s plastic spoons, then sat down next to Lucy on the porch swing. He sensed her stiffen, and knew the words were coming before she even spoke.

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t sit quite so close.”

 
“Come on, Yankee. You know you’ve got to have two on one of these swings to get the proper balance.”

  Lucy didn’t look up at him. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. She just stared down into her vegetable soup as if it held the answers to all the questions in the universe.

  And when she finally did speak, she surprised him again with her frankness. “I know you’re probably thinking about me as a sure thing,” Lucy said. When he started to protest, she held up one hand, stopping him, her dark eyes serious. “I mean, here we are at my house. I brought you home to spend the night, right? Sure, I said you’d have to sleep in the spare bedroom, but you’re figuring I probably didn’t mean it. How could I mean it after last night? We nearly went all the way on the patio outside the country club. And if we had gone straight to your motel room from that patio, things would have turned out really different than they did.”

  She set her soup down on the railing and turned to face him. “Yes,” she continued. “In some ways you’re right. Yes, we came very close to having sex last night. You wanted to. I wanted to. And if we’d been anywhere but out in public, we most likely would have. Even though it’s not something I’m comfortable admitting, and even though I’ve never done anything so reckless in my life before last night, I can’t deny that.

  “It puts a very odd spin on our relationship today—because today if there is one thing that I absolutely, positively cannot do, it’s engage in sexual activity with you. I’m the investigator. You’re the suspect. If I were to allow us to have sex, I’d be breaking every rule in the book and then some.”

  She took a deep breath. “So there, I’ve said it.”

  Blue nodded, trying to hide his smile. Damn, but he liked this girl. She didn’t play games. She just laid the facts out straight, just lined ’em all up on the table in full view. “No chance of changing your mind?” he asked.

  She didn’t realize he was kidding. She shook her head. “No way. I’d lose my job. And my self-respect.”

  “Well, all right,” Blue said. “I guess there’s only one thing we can do.”