“The missing person became a report of a dead body,” Annabella said. “We’ve got a homicide on our hands.”
Lucy sat up. “What?”
“Gerry McCoy is dead,” Annabella intoned. “He’s been murdered.”
4
Lucy rushed into the police station, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and trying to rein in her growing sense of dread. Gerry McCoy was dead, and Lucy was almost positive that the tragedy wasn’t over yet.
Officer Frank Redfield was behind the front desk, on the phone, but he nodded to her, holding up one finger, signaling her to wait.
“All right,” he said into the telephone. His thinning brown hair was standing up straight, as if he’d rolled directly out of bed. “I understand, Chief. I’ll get right on it.” He hung up the receiver and turned to Lucy. “Hell of a situation,” he said to her, taking a long swig of black coffee. “You been filled in on the specifics?”
“I’ve heard that Gerry McCoy’s body was found up off Gate’s Hill Road,” Lucy said, pouring her own mug of coffee from the urn in the lobby. “I don’t know any of the details. How did he die? Gunshot?” Nearly all the deaths in the county were gun related.
“Come on,” Frank said, gesturing for her to follow him. “I’ve got to put out an all-points bulletin, but I’ll try to bring you up to speed while I’m entering the info into the computer.”
Lucy hurried down the hall after him. Frank was about four inches shorter than she was, and thin as a rail. But what he lacked in weight, he made up for in speed and good nature. It certainly wasn’t his fault that, standing next to him, Lucy felt like some kind of Amazon. He was always friendly and respectful. In fact, Frank and his best friend, Tom Harper—tall and black and built like a defensive lineman—were the only men on the Hatboro Creek police force who hadn’t muttered and complained about Lucy joining their previously exclusively male organization.
“First of all,” Frank said in his thick South Carolina accent, “cause of death wasn’t gun related. Gerry McCoy died from a broken neck.”
“We’re certain it wasn’t accidental?” Lucy asked. “Sustained in a fall?”
“Gerry’s body was found in the middle of a clearing,” he said. “Unless he fell out of the sky, there was no way his injuries were accidental.” He sat down at the computer desk, glancing up at her and grimacing. “Doc Harrington reported that his neck was broke clean through. Snapped like a twig.” He shuddered. “Doc estimated time of death to be a little bit after eleven. We’ll get a more accurate time when the forensics guy gets out here in the morning.”
“Who’s the APB for?”
“The stepbrother,” Frank said, typing the information into the computer, fingers moving at his usual breathtaking speed.
Lucy’s dread deepened. “Blue McCoy.” Of course they were going to want to talk to Gerry’s stepbrother—particularly since Blue was seen publicly arguing with the deceased hours before the estimated time of death. Family members were always high on the suspect list early on in a murder investigation. Statistically, most murders were committed by someone near and dear to the victim. Yet Blue wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. He was a soldier, a warrior, but not a murderer.
Still, damn Gerry to hell, Blue had said. I should have wrung his neck while I had the chance.
Wrung his neck, he’d said. And now here Gerry was, dead—that very same neck snapped in two.
My God, was it possible…?
No, Lucy couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it.
“We want to bring him in for questioning,” Frank said.
“You don’t need an APB for that,” Lucy said. Questioning. Being brought in for questioning was marginally better than being brought in with charges already filed. “Blue McCoy is staying over at the Lighthouse Motel.”
“Not any more,” Frank said. “Chief just called in and reported that Gerry’s brother checked out of the motel at around 1 a.m. Jedd Southeby over at the Lighthouse said Blue paid his bill and just walked out of there with some kind of heavy duffel bag over his shoulder.” He looked up at Lucy. “In fact, now that you know as much as we know, you better get on the ball and join the search. A man on foot carrying a heavy load couldn’t have gotten far.”
What was it Blue had said as they were saying goodbye? I’m heading out on the next bus. I don’t care where it goes…
Lucy picked up the phone and dialed information. “Yeah, I need the number of the bus station in Georgetown.” She scribbled it on a piece of paper as Frank glanced over at her in barely concealed disbelief.
“There’s no way in hell the stepbrother could’ve gone to Georgetown,” he said. “It’s nearly fifteen miles away. Use your head, Luce. This time of night the roads are quiet. He couldn’t even get there by hitching. Nobody is around to pick him up.”
“Georgetown has the nearest all-night bus station,” Lucy said, dialing the number she was given. “And fifteen miles is an after-dinner stroll to a Navy SEAL.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Frank said in a singsong voice.
After nearly seventeen rings, the phone at the Georgetown bus station was picked up. Lucy identified herself and was forwarded to the manager. “I need the schedule of all buses that have left or are leaving your terminal, starting at 3:00 a.m.,” she said. It was unlikely that Blue had arrived in Georgetown that early, but she wanted to be safe.
“No buses left between 2:00 a.m. and 3:55,” the bus station manager told her. “At 3:55, we had a departure for Columbia and Greenville. At 4:20, just a few minutes ago, a bus left for Charleston, and the next bus…Let’s see—”
“Isn’t there a naval base in Charleston?” Lucy asked Frank.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s the bus,” Lucy said. It had to be the one Blue would take. He’d ride the bus to Charleston, and at the naval base he’d catch the next flight out of state, probably back to California. “Is there any way to contact the bus driver?”
“Not short of chasing him and flagging him down. The local buses aren’t equipped with radios,” the manager told her. “We can contact the bus depot in Charleston, but that’s about it.”
“What time does that bus get in?”
“It’s not an express,” the manager said, “so it stops in nearly every town along Route 17 from here to Charleston. It won’t arrive at the final destination until 6:45 p.m. That’s if they’re running on time.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said, hanging up the phone. “I’m going to Charleston,” she said to Frank.
“What you’re going on is a wild-goose chase,” he told her.
“Aren’t my orders to join in the search to find Blue McCoy?” Lucy asked.
“Well, yeah, but—”
“I’m joining in,” Lucy said, heading for the door.
“Chief is gonna get riled—”
“Tell the chief,” Lucy said, “that I’ll be back before eight o’clock—with Blue McCoy.”
Blue was drifting in and out of sleep. It seemed incredible that he had spent most of last night hiking to the bus station in Georgetown. It seemed amazing that he had worked so hard just to get on this crummy old bus.
It seemed particularly incredible that he had worked so hard to leave Hatboro Creek, because for the first time in his life, Hatboro Creek was precisely where he wanted to be.
Because a woman named Lucy Tait was there, and try as he might, he couldn’t get her off his mind.
She still lived in the same big, old house that she’d shared with her mother back when Blue had been in high school. Unable to sleep, he’d gone for a walk last night and found himself standing and staring at her darkened windows, wanting to go up to her door and knowing that he shouldn’t.
He could have rung her doorbell, finagled an invitation inside. Once in Lucy’s living room, it wouldn’t have taken much to seduce her. He already knew that she found the attraction between them nearly impossible to resist.
He’d forced himself to turn around,
to turn his back on the paradise that making love to Lucy Tait would bring. Why? He didn’t know for sure, but he suspected his motivation was due to wariness. There was something inside that warned him that maybe, just maybe, this Lucy Tait was someone special. And Blue knew, plain as day, that he had no room in his life for anyone, particularly not someone who was special.
He knew from watching Joe Catalanotto, the commander of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad and Blue’s closest friend, that finding someone special wasn’t all hearts and flowers. Yeah, Joe seemed happy most of the time. Yeah, in general he smiled more and got irritated and frustrated less. But during the times when Alpha Squad was on a mission, when it had been weeks since Joe had seen his wife, Veronica, and weeks, possibly even months, until he’d get a chance to see her again, Joe would grow quieter and quieter. Joe never complained, never spoke about it, but Blue knew his friend. He knew that Joe missed the woman he loved, and that he worried about her when he was gone for so long.
Blue didn’t want that, didn’t need that. No, sir—no, thanks.
So why was he sitting here on this bus, dozing and fantasizing about Lucy Tait, as if he could conjure her up just by wishing and wanting? When he pulled into Charleston, he’d look up one of the women he knew from back when he’d been stationed at the naval base, and…
“What the hell…?” he heard someone say. “Why are we pulling over here?”
“This stop ain’t on the route,” another voice said.
Blue opened his eyes. Sure enough, the bus was moving to the side of the road. Two men in work clothes, sitting across the aisle and several seats toward the front, were the only ones on the sparsely filled bus who were talking.
“Aw, hell,” the first man said. “Driver must’ve been speeding. We’re getting pulled over by a cop.”
“If I don’t get to Charleston by 7:00, I’m going to lose my job,” the second voice complained. “I’ve been late too many times before.”
Blue tried to see out of his window, but couldn’t see a police cruiser, couldn’t see anything, so he closed his eyes again. It didn’t matter to him if this took five minutes or an hour. He’d get to Charleston when he got there.
He heard the hiss as the driver opened the door, heard the murmur of voices from the front of the bus.
“Oh, sugar,” the first man said. “Come and arrest me.”
“Where do I sign up to get frisked?” the other man asked with a giggle.
“I’ve heard that one before,” a third voice said, “so unless you can come up with something original, why don’t you just keep your mouths shut?”
Lucy?
Blue opened his eyes, and sure enough, there she was, standing in the aisle, looking down at him.
“McCoy, you’ve got to grab your stuff and come off the bus with me,” she said.
She looked tired, and her face had been wiped clean of last night’s makeup. Her hair was up in a utilitarian ponytail, and her uniform shirt hid the soft curves of her body. Still, she looked damn good and Blue felt his mouth curve up into a smile of pleasure.
“Hey,” he said, his voice rusty from sleep. He cleared his throat. “Yankee. Didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“Come on, we’re holding these people up,” Lucy said.
She wouldn’t look him in the eye, as if she were afraid of the inferno of attraction he knew was burning there.
“Am I under arrest?” he teased, tilting his head so that she was forced to meet his gaze.
But she didn’t smile. “No,” she said. “Not yet.”
Blue felt his own smile fade as he searched her eyes. She wasn’t kidding when she’d said “not yet.” Whatever Lucy was doing here, it wasn’t gonna be good. “What happened?” he asked, suddenly concerned. Clearly she hadn’t followed him halfway to Charleston because of their unconsummated, sizzling attraction to each other. “Something happened, didn’t it?”
She gestured with her head toward the front of the bus. “Get off the bus and I’ll fill you in.”
Blue stood up and swung his duffel bag down from the overhead rack. He followed Lucy down the aisle and out the narrow stairs onto the dusty road. Something was going on here. Something bad.
As the bus pulled back onto Route 17, he dropped his duffel bag onto the street. “Spill it.”
“Why don’t you get into the car?” she suggested.
Blue didn’t move. “Don’t play games, Lucy. It’s not your style. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“I’ve got bad news,” she said tightly. “I’d like you to sit down.”
Bad news.
Bad news meant death or the equivalent.
Last time Blue got “bad news,” he’d been in the hospital, waiting with the rest of Alpha Squad for word about Frisco. For hours, they didn’t know if he was going to live or die. And I’ve got bad news was what the doctor had said when he’d come out of surgery. Frisco was going to live, but he wasn’t going to walk ever again.
That doctor knew about Navy SEALs. He knew that losing mobility, losing the ability to run and jump and even walk, was bad news akin to death.
And in a way, Frisco had died in Baghdad. The unsmiling man lying in that hospital bed with lines of pain around his eyes and mouth was nothing like the laughing, upbeat SEAL Blue had once known.
Bad news.
Someone had died. He could see it in Lucy’s eyes. But who? Blue didn’t want to guess. He just wanted her to tell him.
Lucy felt a rush of relief as she looked at Blue. He was gazing into her eyes as if he were trying to read her mind. He honestly didn’t know what she was about to tell him. He didn’t know—he honestly didn’t know that Gerry was dead. He couldn’t possibly be the killer. No one was that good a liar.
“I don’t need to sit down to get bad news,” Blue said in his soft drawl.
Lucy knew that she was just supposed to tell him that his stepbrother was dead. That way she could gauge his reaction, further verify that he didn’t know anything about the killing. But it seemed so cruel, so heartless. Although recently Blue and Gerry hadn’t been on the best of terms, they had been friends in their youth.
“Come on, Yankee,” Blue said softly. “If it’s gonna hurt, do it fast, get it over with.”
Lucy nodded, moistening her lips. “Gerry is dead.”
Blue squinted slightly, as if the sun were suddenly too bright for him. “Gerry,” he said, looking out over the farmland that stretched into the distance as the muscle in his jaw clenched again and again. “Dear God. How?”
“He was killed sometime last night,” Lucy said.
Blue turned to look sharply at her, his blue eyes neon and intense in the morning light. “Killed,” he repeated. “As in…murdered?”
Lucy nodded. “His neck was broken.”
Blue swore under his breath. “Who would’ve done that to him—three days before his wedding?”
“We don’t know yet. The homicide investigation has just started.”
Something changed in his eyes and his entire body became stiffer, more tense. “Am I a suspect?”
“Right now everyone in town is a suspect,” Lucy told him. “As a family member, you just happen to be up a little higher on the list.”
“I can’t believe he’s dead.” Blue shook his head. “Gerry. When I was a kid, I thought he was immortal. One of the gods.” He laughed, but it held no humor. “The last thing I said to him I said in anger, and now he’s dead.” He fixed Lucy with his brilliant blue gaze, and she caught her breath at the depth of the pain she saw in his eyes.
“I loved him,” Blue said simply. “He was my brother. I wouldn’t kill my brother.”
5
“I believe him,” Lucy said.
Sarah gazed back at her silently for several long moments from her prone position on the couch. “Richard told me that Gerry’s neck was broken cleanly,” Sarah said. “He said that in order to do that, a man either had to be a martial-arts expert or have extreme upper-body strength.” She pa
used for a moment, pushing herself up on one elbow to take a cooling sip from a tall glass of orange juice. “Speaking of upper-body strength, didn’t you tell me something about Navy SEALs being able to bench-press three or four hundred pounds or something like that?”
Lucy shook her head. “I know what you’re getting at,” she said. “Yes, you’re right. Blue McCoy probably has the strength and ability to break a man’s neck the way Gerry’s was broken. But I don’t think he did it.”
“Have they arrested him?” Sarah asked, her hazel eyes sympathetic.
“No,” Lucy said. “They don’t have enough to hold him. The fact that he was—quote, unquote—‘fleeing the scene of the crime’ is only circumstantial evidence.”
The phone rang jarringly loudly, disrupting the calm of Sarah’s living room. Lucy jumped and Sarah winced, making a face in apology. “Richard got a ring amplifier for the phone,” she explained. “He was afraid he’d sleep straight through some medical emergency because he wouldn’t hear the phone ringing in the middle of the night. I tell you, it’s tough being married to a small-town doctor.” Her smile turned impish. “Or maybe it’s just tough being married to Richard. Excuse me for a sec.” Sarah reached out and took the cordless phone from its resting place on the coffee table in front of her. “Hello?”
Lucy gazed around Sarah’s living room. It wasn’t until the baby was well on its way that Sarah and Richard had gotten around to furnishing their new house. For nearly a year, there had been almost nothing in the living room. But now everything was finally out of boxes. The house was filled with furniture that was toddler friendly. There were no sharp edges or breakable surfaces; everything was softly rounded, designed for being bumped by small heads and grabbed by tiny fingers. Yet despite its functional furnishings, the living room was tastefully decorated. Sarah wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“No,” she was saying into the phone. “I’m still waiting for this baby to decide that it’s time to be born.” She laughed. “Don’t worry, you’ll get a call.” She paused, glancing up at Lucy. “Yes, she’s here. Do you want to talk to her?”
Tall, Dark and Dangerous Part 1 Page 32