Alpha Squad

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Lucy was watching him, her eyes nearly luminous in the porch light.

  He wanted to kiss her. Instead, he stood. “We start with me easing back a bit. We don’t want any spontaneous combustion,” he added. “Then we wake up tomorrow morning, bright and early, and work our butts off to find a way to eliminate me from the list of suspects. And tomorrow night…we can take it from the porch swing.”

  Lucy sighed, closing her eyes briefly. “I wish it were that simple.”

  Blue tossed his empty chowder bowl into the brown paper bag. “It is simple.”

  But Lucy didn’t look convinced. She looked tired and wistful and very weighed down by responsibility.

  Blue wanted to put his arms around her and ease her burden. But right now he knew that would only make it harder to bear.

  Chapter Seven

  Lucy’s alarm clock rang at 5:45, pulling her up and out of a deep, dreamless sleep. She’d finally fallen asleep sometime after midnight. Before that she’d lain awake in her bedroom, listening to the familiar quiet noises of her house, straining to hear any hint of Blue moving around upstairs in the guest bedroom.

  She’d heard the thump of the pipes as he turned on the shower, and the hum of the pump and the hissing of the water as it was pushed up from the deep well. Several minutes later, she’d heard another thump as the water was turned off, but then…nothing. Silence. No footsteps. No noise.

  Not that she’d expected to hear anything. Blue was Alpha Squad’s point man. She’d asked, and he’d told her that last night, after she’d shown him to the guest room and gotten several clean towels down from the linen closet.

  “I lead the squad in combat or clandestine situations,” he said.

  Blue didn’t know it, but Lucy already knew what a point man was. A point man could lead his team of SEALs silently right up to an enemy encampment without being discovered. A point man could lead his squad single file through a mine field without a single injury. A point man moved silently, carefully, always alert and watchful, responsible for the safety of his men.

  Lucy already knew all this because she’d read every book about SEALs that she could get her hands on. She’d read the first book in high school because she’d been thinking about Blue, and had heard through the local grapevine that he’d been accepted into the SEAL training program.

  She’d read the rest of the books not because of Blue, but because the first book had fascinated her so thoroughly. The concept of a Special Operations team like the SEALs intrigued her. They were unconventional in every sense of the word. They were trained as counterterrorists, taught to think and look and act, even smell, like the enemy. Due to the special skills of individual team members in areas such as language and cultural knowledge, they were able to lose themselves in any country and infiltrate any organization.

  They were tough, smart, mean and dedicated. They were a different kind of American hero.

  And Blue McCoy was one of them.

  Every man in a SEAL unit was an expert in half a dozen different fields, including computers, technical warfare, engine repair, piloting state-of-the-art helicopters and aircraft. Each SEAL in the elite Team Ten was an expert marksman, intimately familiar with all types of firearms. Each was an expert scuba diver and extensively trained in demolition techniques—both on land and underwater. Each could parachute out of nearly any type of aircraft at nearly any altitude.

  They seemed superhuman, strong and rugged and very, very dangerous.

  And Blue McCoy, already her hero, was one of them.

  She was attracted to him. There was no point in denying that. And Blue had made it quite clear that the feeling was mutual. He’d told her that he’d thought about her as he’d danced with Jenny Lee at the country club.

  That was a hard one to swallow—Blue McCoy thinking about Lucy Tait while he was dancing with Jenny Lee Beaumont.

  Still, he’d told the truth about his conversation with Jenny. Lucy had read Jenny Lee’s statement about the events leading up to the time of Gerry’s death. The statement had included a description of Jenny’s conversation with Blue at the country club. Jenny’s version was identical to Blue’s.

  But there was no way to verify exactly what Blue had been feeling when he’d danced with Jenny, holding her in his arms.

  Lucy knew that Blue wanted to make love to her. She saw that truth in his eyes every time he looked in her direction. The power of his desire was dizzying. But she was brought down to earth quickly enough by the thought that Blue probably only wanted her because Jenny Lee was not available.

  Lucy moved quietly into her bathroom and took a quick shower before pulling on a clean uniform. She brushed out her hair, leaving it down as it dried, grabbed an apple from the kitchen and left the house. She’d be back before Blue even woke up.

  Blue saw Lucy’s truck pull away from the house as he finished his morning run.

  He’d slept only two hours last night. He’d gotten up well before sunrise, wide awake and alert, filled with a restless kind of energy and anticipation he’d felt in the past before going into combat situations. This time, however, it was laced with an undercurrent of sexual tension that sharpened the feeling of anticipation, giving it a knifelike edge.

  He had run five miles before dawn, another five as the sun rose, and still the edginess wouldn’t go away.

  He watched the dust rise as Lucy’s truck pulled out of the driveway. She looked as if she had on her uniform, and he was willing to bet she was heading down to the police station. She was probably going to fill the chief in on all that Blue had told her yesterday and find out if anything new had come in from the autopsy report.

  Blue climbed the stairs to the porch and tried the kitchen door. It was locked. He’d left his bedroom window open all the way up on the third floor. He knew he could get in that way; still, there was bound to be another window open a bit closer to the ground.

  The ground-floor window over the kitchen sink was open, but the sill was lined with plants being rooted in jars of water. He spotted an open window on the second floor, recognizing it instantly as Lucy’s room by its location.

  He climbed easily up the side of the porch and was outside the window in a matter of moments. There was nothing to knock over inside, just a filmy white curtain blowing gently in the morning breeze.

  He unfastened the screen and slipped into the house.

  Lucy’s room was big—at one time it had no doubt been a front parlor or a sitting room. She’d put her bed in an offset area, surrounded on almost three sides by big bay windows. Her bed was unmade, her sheets a bold pattern of dark blues and reds and greens. A white bedspread had been pushed off the bed onto the highly polished hardwood floor. A white throw rug was spread on the floor. It was unnecessary in the summer heat, but it would be nice in the winter when the bare floors would be cold.

  The walls were white, with a collection of framed water-colors breaking up the monotony. The pictures were mostly seascapes with bright-colored sailboats out on the water or beach scenes. There were only two framed photographs, and they sat on a dresser. Blue recognized Lucy’s mother in one, smiling through a hole in the half-finished wall of the kitchen. The other was a photo of Lucy, her arms around a tall, thin man he didn’t recognize. The man had his arms around Lucy’s shoulders, and the two of them were laughing into the camera.

  Who the hell was he? What did he mean to Lucy that she should keep this picture in her bedroom? Was he a former lover? A current lover? If so, where was he? Did he live across the street, or across the country?

  Lucy hadn’t mentioned having a boyfriend. She hadn’t acted as if she had one, either. But on the other hand, Blue had no right to feel these pangs of jealousy. He wasn’t looking for commitment, just a night or two of great sex. If Lucy had some kind of steady thing going on the side, that was her problem, not his.

  So why did the thought of Lucy laughing like this as she leaned forward to kiss this other man leave such a bad taste in Blue’s mouth? Why did he have
this compelling urge to tear this photograph in two?

  Blue headed for the door, suddenly very aware that he was invading Lucy’s privacy. But he turned and looked back over his shoulder before he headed for the stairs up to his bedroom and the third-floor shower.

  It was a nice room, a pleasant room, spacious and as uncluttered as the rest of the house. Lucy wasn’t the sort of person who had to fill every available space with doodads and souvenirs. She wasn’t afraid of a clean surface or an empty wall. Yeah, he liked this room. He hoped he had a chance to see it again—from the perspective of Lucy’s bed.

  “Lucy!”

  Lucy turned to see Chief Bradley jogging down the corridor toward her.

  “Hey, glad I caught you, darlin’,” he said, out of breath. “I see you picked up a copy of the autopsy report. Good. Good. Did you also get the message from Travis Southeby? He just happened to be talking to Andy Hayes over at the Rebel Yell last night and found out that Andy saw Blue McCoy leave his motel room at about ten o’clock on the night of Gerry’s murder.”

  Lucy nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said. “That fits with what Blue told me as to his whereabouts that evening.”

  Sheldon Bradley nodded, running his fingers through his thinning gray hair. “Did he also mention that Matt Parker was just in, not more than a few minutes ago, saying how he thought he saw someone who looked just like Blue McCoy arguing with Gerry at around 11 p.m., up in the woods near where the body was found? He saw them there just twenty minutes before the established time of death.”

  “Matt thought he saw someone who looked like Blue?” Lucy allowed her skepticism to show. “No, I didn’t get that message. I’ll make a point to go over and talk to both Matt and Andy this afternoon.”

  “Let me know what else you come up with,” the chief said.

  “I’ll have another report typed up and on your desk by the end of the day,” Lucy told him. She opened the door, but again Bradley stopped her.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” he said. “Leroy Hurley mentioned that he saw Blue McCoy here in town with an automatic weapon.”

  “Chief, it wasn’t a real—”

  He held up his hand. “As a result, it came to my attention that as of yet no one has confiscated whatever weapons McCoy might have—and I’ve heard some of those Special Forces types walk around carrying an arsenal.”

  “It’s Special Operations. And without a warrant, I’m not sure we have the right to—”

  “Actually, we do,” Bradley told her. “It’s an old town law, dates back from Reconstruction, from when folks ran a little wild. The Hatboro Creek peacekeeping officers have the right to gain possession of any individual’s personal weapons until that individual crosses back over the town line. We never did get around to amending that law. It was brought up at a meeting a few years back, but then Hurricane Rosie came through, knocked it off the town agenda.”

  “I’ll ask him if he has any weapons—”

  “You’ll search the son of a bitch,” the chief told her. “Or you’ll bring him down here so that we can search him, if you’re not up to it.”

  Lucy lifted her chin. “I’m up to it. But you should know that the gun Hurley saw him with was just a plastic toy.”

  “Either way, I won’t have him running around my town with an Uzi or the likes,” Bradley said. “Whatever he’s got, I want it locked up in my safe by noon, is that clear?”

  Lucy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “And get a move on with this investigation,” Bradley added, heading back down the hallway. “I want Blue McCoy locked up, too, before sundown tomorrow.”

  Lucy pulled her truck into her driveway, unable to shake the feeling of dread in her stomach, dread that had started with the chief’s news that someone had allegedly seen Blue arguing with Gerry near the murder site. Matt Parker. He was an upstanding citizen. He’d recently had his share of bad luck, though. He’d even been the cause of one of Annabella’s 415 dispatches earlier in the summer when he and his wife got to fighting about his recent unemployment just a little too loudly. But other than that, he wasn’t one of the town troublemakers or one of Leroy Hurley’s wild friends. Parker stayed mostly to himself, kept up his house and yard and showed up at church every Sunday without fail.

  Why would Parker lie about what he’d seen the night of Gerry’s murder?”

  And if he wasn’t lying, did that mean Blue was?

  No. Blue had looked her in the eye and told her that he wasn’t the one who had killed his stepbrother. Lucy believed him. He wasn’t lying. The air of calm that seemed to surround him, his definite tone of voice, his steady eye contact all reinforced her belief.

  Lucy got out of the truck and walked up the path to the house. It was only 9:30 in the morning, and already she felt as if she couldn’t wait for the day to end.

  She had to search Blue McCoy for concealed weapons. That was going to be fun. Lucy rolled her eyes. She couldn’t get within three feet of the man without risking third-degree burns. How on earth was she supposed to search him? She was going to have to make him assume the classic body-search position, arms stretched out in front of him, legs spread, hands against the wall. Because God help her, if he simply held out his arms while she patted him down and she happened to glance up and into his eyes…What was it that Blue had said last night? Spontaneous combustion. It was an accurate description of the way she’d felt at the country club when he’d held her in his arms and she’d kissed him. What a kiss that had been.

  God, maybe she should take Blue down to the station, let Frank Redfield or Tom Harper search him. But that would be admitting that she wasn’t “up to it,” as Chief Bradley had said.

  Lucy unlocked the kitchen door. She’d picked up a bag of doughnuts and two cups of coffee at the bakery in town, and she put them on the table. The house was quiet. Was it possible Blue was still asleep?

  Then she saw it. There was a note on the kitchen table. Blue had written a message to her on a paper napkin. He’d taken care to write neatly, printing in clear block letters: “Seven a.m. Went to scout out woods off Gate’s Hill Road. C.M.”

  C.M.?

  It took Lucy a moment to realize that C.M. were Blue’s initials. His real, given name was Carter McCoy. Why hadn’t he signed the note Blue? Did he think of himself as Carter? Or was he just so used to initialing Navy paperwork that the C.M. had come out automatically?

  Either way, he was already up and out, doing her job. Lucy grabbed the doughnuts and coffee, locked the kitchen door behind her and went back to her truck.

  Chapter Eight

  Lucy didn’t find Blue up in the woods by Gate’s Hill Road. Blue found Lucy.

  He just sort of appeared next to her. One minute she was alone at the edge of the clearing where Gerry’s body had been discovered, and the next Blue was standing right beside her.

  She’d been expecting him to do something like that, so she didn’t jump. At least not too high. She handed him a paper cup of coffee, instead.

  “Hope you like it black,” she said.

  He nodded, sunlight glinting off his golden hair. “Thanks.”

  The day was promising to be another hot, muggy one. Blue was still wearing his army fatigue shirt with the sleeves cut off, but he had it unbuttoned most of the way, allowing Lucy tantalizing glimpses of his rock-solid, tanned chest.

  She handed him the doughnut bag. “I also hope you like jelly doughnuts,” she said, wishing that it were winter and thirty degrees so he’d have to wear a parka zipped up to his chin. “I ate all the honey glazed. That’s what you get for coming out here without me.”

  Blue smiled. “Serves me right. What’s the latest news down at the station?”

  “The autopsy report is in.” Lucy took a sip of her own coffee, leaning back against a tree as she gazed at him. His blue eyes were clear, his face unmarked by fatigue. He’d probably gotten eight hours of dreamless, perfect sleep, damn him. He didn’t look as if he’d tossed and turned for one moment last night, distracted not
a whit by the thought of her sleeping several rooms away.

  Lucy had tossed and turned enough for both of them.

  “The cause of Gerry’s death was definitely a broken neck,” she continued, “but we already knew that. It was a clean break, though, and the medical examiner found some slight bruising on his head and neck, indicating some kind of stranglehold. Whoever killed him knew what he was doing. It wasn’t accidental, and apparently the bruising wasn’t severe enough to indicate a long, passionate struggle. The killer knew exactly what he intended to do before he even got his hands on Gerry.”

  Blue looked away, swearing softly.

  “The good news is that Gerry didn’t feel it,” Lucy said quietly. “He probably didn’t even know.”

  “Yeah, I know that.” His mouth was tight as he looked up at Lucy again. “What else was in the report?”

  She shook her head. “I just skimmed the first few paragraphs. I’ll read it more thoroughly later. You can look at it, too, if you want.” She sighed, knowing that she had to tell him about what Matt Parker allegedly saw.

  “You’ve got more bad news,” Blue said, reading her face. “What is it?”

  “A couple of witnesses have surfaced,” Lucy said. “One of them places you up here, arguing with Gerry, about twenty minutes before his established time of death.”

  Blue didn’t say a word. His lips just got tighter.

  “Either this witness is lying,” Lucy continued, “or he saw someone or something up here that could give us a lead to finding out what really happened.”

  “Someone was up here, all right,” Blue said. He set his coffee cup and the bag of doughnuts down on a rock and headed out into the center of the clearing, motioning for Lucy to follow.

  “Gerry’s body was found right about here,” he told her, pointing at an area where the weeds were trampled flat. “I didn’t expect to find anything new. Too many people, both police and paramedics, added their footprints before a proper investigation could be made.” He straightened up. “What I did this morning was search the clearing and the woods, moving out in circles away from the place where Gerry was found.”