Forever Blue

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Lucy sat up, her eyes narrowed slightly. "You, of course," she said, "having higher moral standards than those women, have never used another person in any way in your entire life. Every time you went home with a woman, you were searching for a meaningful relationship—something long-lasting, something special, right?"

  Blue bowed his head in mock surrender. "Your point is taken. It's just that Jenny Lee..." He interrupted himself. "Let's not talk about Jenny anymore."

  Good idea.

  Lucy looked up at him. "So tell me honestly," she said. "Do you know how to break a man's neck the way Gerry's was broken?"

  Blue nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

  She digested that information, still studying his face, her dark-brown eyes serious. "Have you..." She stopped herself. "Maybe I shouldn't ask you this."

  "Have I ever done it?" Blue asked the question for her. "I've been in plenty of combat or counterterrorist situations where the enemy has to be permanently neutralized, often silently. So, yeah, I have done it. It's effective and efficient,"

  Lucy's eyes narrowed again. "You're talking about killing another person."

  Blue shook his head. "A terrorist who kidnaps and tortures and murders a cruise ship full of civilians isn't a person to me."

  "But that's how you feel in the heat of battle, so to speak," Lucy said. "After it's over don't you wonder who they were? Don't you feel badly then?"

  "No," he said bluntly. "No guilt. No remorse. What good would feeling bad do me? The way I look at it is, I didn't kill them—they killed themselves by putting themselves in a situation where they'd have to go up against me."

  "But every life is sacred," Lucy argued.

  "You tell that to the terrorists," Blue said mildly. "If you can convince them of that fact, I'll be more than ready to agree. Until then, my job is to protect and defend—by deadly force, if necessary. I'm not an ambassador or a diplomat, Lucy. I'm a soldier. I'd far prefer it if the ambassadors and diplomats could get the job done. I'd be the first on my feet for a standing ovation if the entire world could live in perfect harmony. Hell, I'd gladly spend the rest of my life rescuing victims of natural disasters. But that's not the way it's gonna be anytime in the near future."

  "I know that," Lucy said with a sigh.

  "We're doing more research into weapons that aren't deadly," Blue said. "If there was some kind of stun gun or tranquilizer gun that guaranteed neutralization for a definite, extended period of time, we'd consider using it. In certain situations, when the terrorists are asleep, for instance, we do inject tranquilizers, using syringes. But tangos who aren't sleeping don't often sit still and wait for you to stick 'em with a needle. And with a gun, it's harder to be accurate.

  "And that makes it tough when you're in a life-and-death situation. Everything you do is focused on staying alive, on keeping your squad alive. If you only tranquilize Terrorist X instead of killing him, you're going to expend a certain amount of energy and brain power wondering if maybe you didn't do it right, and maybe he's going to pop back up and mow down half your squad with his HK-93. But dead is dead. You do it right, and you know it. Terrorist X doesn't pop back up and kill anyone after his neck has been broken."

  Lucy was still watching him. "I see your point of view," she said. She didn't necessarily agree with him, but it was clear that he'd given this a great deal of thought. He was a soldier. He had taken others' lives—not because he wanted to, but because he had to. She'd read about some Special Forces operators—Navy SEALs and Green Berets and others—who'd actually enjoyed the act of killing. Blue clearly wasn't one of them.

  But he also wasn't going to apologize for what he did. Protect and defend. Lucy knew he would give his life; he would die in order to get his job done.

  How many people did she know who could say the same?

  She glanced up at him. He was watching her. She could see in his eyes that he was waiting for her to make some kind of negative comment. He was bracing himself for her condemnation or disapproval.

  "You know, I really like you, Blue McCoy," Lucy said with a smile.

  Blue had to smile, too. Her comment was pure Lucy. She really liked him. It made him feel warm inside. Warm, but wistful, too. Was it possible he would have rather heard her tell him that she loved him?

  Mercy, the complications that that would bring were mind-boggling. But he wanted it, he realized. He wanted her to love him.

  "We should try to sleep," Lucy said, lying back in the bed. "We've got a big day tomorrow."

  "Are we planning to crack the case?"

  Lucy sighed as he put his arms around her, pulling her so that her back fit snugly against his chest, "No," she said. "Tomorrow we're going to drive into Charleston and hire a private investigator—someone with more than six months' experience. He or she will crack the case."

  "Excuse me, Officer Tait...?"

  Lucy glanced up from filling her truck's gas tank to see a tired-looking woman on the other side of the self-serve pump, filling the tank in her own car.

  It was Darlene Parker, Matt's wife. Her old station wagon was loaded full to the top, and Tommy, her young son, sat in the front seat. Matt was nowhere in sight.

  "I was going to send this to you," Darlene said, handing Lucy an envelope, glancing furtively around to make sure no one was watching them, "but as long as you're right here, I figured I may as well risk hand-delivering it. Don't let anyone see."

  "Are you leaving town?" Lucy asked, folding it in two and putting it in the back pocket of her jeans.

  Darlene nodded. She seemed relieved that the envelope was out of sight. She lowered her voice even further, her thin face pinched and nervous. "I wrote to tell you what really happened the night Gerry McCoy died."

  Lucy felt a surge of hope. "You know who killed Gerry McCoy?"

  But Darlene shook her head as she finished filling the tank and replaced the gas cap. "No. But I know that Matthew was paid quite a bit of money to make up that story about seeing Blue up in the woods, arguing with his stepbrother. I know for a fact that Matt didn't see anything of the sort. He was with me that entire night. It's all in the letter. When you read it, you'll see."

  Darlene hurried to the gas-station office to pay. As Lucy watched through the window, Darlene quickly threw several bills onto the counter. She headed back to her car, but Lucy intercepted her.

  "If you leave town," Lucy said quietly, "you won't be able to make a statement about this to the police."

  Darlene was already shaking her head. "No," she said. "I'm not going to do that. I've already done more than I should. They killed Gerry McCoy. They won't think twice about killing again."

  "Who are 'they'?"

  "R.W. Fisher," Darlene whispered. "And the police. You're the only police officer I was absolutely certain wasn't involved."

  The police? And R.W. Fisher? Killed Gerry McCoy? Lucy's head was spinning.

  Darlene pushed past her and opened the door to her car. "I'm leaving with Tommy while I still can," she said. "Matt is gonna wind up with his own neck broken, but that's his own damn fault."

  She closed the door with a slam, then locked it. Lucy leaned in the open window. Tommy gazed sullenly at her from where he was sitting, surrounded by bags and unpacked things his mother had thrown, last minute, into the car.

  "How do you know about this?" she asked. "Darlene, I need to know where you got this information."

  Darlene started the car with a roar. "I've already told you too much."

  "At least give me your forwarding address, so that I can reach you in case—"

  "You're kidding, right?"

  Darlene put the car into gear and pressed the gas pedal. Lucy had to jump away to keep the rear tire from rolling over her boots.

  Darlene's reedy voice floated back through the open window. "If I were you, I'd get out of town before you end up like Gerry McCoy, too."

  Lucy pulled the envelope Darlene had given her out of her pocket. She dug in her other pocket for a pen and jotted down th
e station wagon's license-plate number. Just in case. She paid for her gas and got back into her truck before opening the envelope.

  It was a single-page, handwritten letter. Darlene's cursive writing was scratchy and hard to read.

  A glance told Lucy that the letter wasn't signed. Without Darlene around in person to back up the contents, it would do little to discredit Matt Parker's story. Still, she read it slowly, working through the nearly illegible words.

  Just as Darlene had said, she'd written that Matt had been home all evening on the night that Gerry McCoy had died. She said that after Matt had issued a statement that he'd seen Gerry and Blue near Gate's Hill Road that night, he suddenly had lots of money. When Darlene asked him about it, since he was currently unemployed, he told her to mind her own business.

  But later Matt had told her that he'd gotten the money from R.W. Fisher, and that in a few months, after the uproar died down, he was going to have a guaranteed job working for the Tobacco King.

  R.W. Fisher.

  It seemed ludicrous. The wealthiest, most successful man in town involved in murder?

  And the police were supposedly involved, too. Darlene didn't say why she thought that was true or who had given her that information. She just stated that the police couldn't be trusted.

  Lucy looked up from the letter, staring sightlessly at the morning sky. Blue had seen Fisher deep in discussion with Gerry at the country club on the night Gerry had been killed.

  She'd wanted to go and talk to R.W. Fisher in connection to the autopsy report's odd findings about Gerry's blood-alcohol levels at the time of his death. She'd wanted to ask Fisher if he'd thought that Gerry was drunk prior to the dance-floor altercation with Blue and Jenny.

  She'd told Chief Bradley about wanting to talk to Fisher...

  And he'd responded not just by taking her off the case, but by suspending her from the police force and telling her to get out of town.

  What if Darlene was right and the police—including Sheldon Bradley—were involved in some sort of conspiracy?

  And what if, by wanting to talk to Fisher, she'd been getting too close to the real truth?

  Whatever had come in with the morning mail was causing quite a stir in Chief Bradley's office. Despite that, Annabella stopped Lucy as she was heading past her desk.

  "I thought you got axed," the older woman said with her usual sensitivity, lighting a cigarette with a snap of a match.

  "I'm just getting... something from my locker," Lucy said. "Packing up some of my stuff." Curiosity got the better of her, and she motioned toward the commotion..."What's going on?"

  "Blue McCoy's military records just arrived," the raspy-voiced dispatcher told her, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Did you know that he's got some kind of expert status in martial arts-style hand-to-hand combat?"

  "Well, yeah, umm... actually, I did," Lucy said.

  Lucy couldn't quite believe she'd dared to come inside the police station. The normally bland beige walls seemed to be dripping with conspiracy. The familiar faces of her co-workers seemed suddenly sinister.

  She was probably overreacting. She was going on the unsubstantiated statement of Darlene Parker—a woman who, for all Lucy knew, could have paranoid delusions. If R.W. Fisher and the entire police department had killed Gerry McCoy, there had to be some kind of reason, some sort of motive. Darlene hadn't provided her with one of those, and Lucy was having a hard time coming up with one of her own.

  But she couldn't totally discount what Darlene had told her. In fact, Lucy took Darlene's warnings seriously enough to want to be armed. Of course, she'd turned in her police-issue weapon when she'd had it out with Chief Bradley two days ago. But she had a personal license for a smaller gun—which happened to be inconveniently stored in her locker in the basement of the police station.

  This entire day wasn't going at all the way she'd planned. She'd awakened alone again and had a moment of frustration until she caught the fragrant smell of coffee and frying pancakes floating up from the kitchen. When she went downstairs she found Blue cooking breakfast. He'd greeted her with a smile and a maple syrup-flavored kiss. That was nice—she couldn't complain about that.

  But after breakfast, Lucy had left the house alone, intending to drive into town to the library to photocopy the Yellow Pages listings of private investigators from the Charleston phone book. Today she had intended to seek professional assistance in this murder investigation.

  Instead, here she was, spooked by Darlene Parker's crazy suspicions, creeping down the police-station stairs, hoping she'd get to her locker, get her gun and get the hell out of there before anyone besides Annabella noticed her.

  Not a chance.

  Chief Bradley stopped her in the hall on her way back to the door.

  Lucy kept her face carefully expressionless, hoping the fact that she suspected him to be part of some wild, murderous townwide conspiracy didn't show in her eyes.

  But he didn't ask her what she was doing there. He glared at her and said, "You knew Blue McCoy had extensive martial-arts training?"

  Lucy looked down toward Annabella's desk, where the dispatcher was smoking yet another cigarette, watching with unabashed curiosity.

  "All Navy SEALs do," she said evenly. "I'm surprised you didn't know that."

  "No, I did not know that," Bradley fumed. "Just now Annabella told me you knew about McCoy's martial-arts training. And I happened to be talking to Doc Harrington's pretty little wife yesterday, and she mentioned the fact that you're some kind of walking fountain of information about the military's Special Forces divisions."

  "Sarah was exaggerating. I don't know that much—"

  "What I want to know is why the hell didn't any of that information bubble over onto my desk?"

  "I didn't think—"

  Bradley shoved several pieces of paper into Lucy's hands. It appeared to be pages photocopied from Blue's personnel file. Much of the text was blacked out, censored no doubt for security reasons. But there was a full listing of the areas in which Blue held expert-level-or higher-status. Martial arts and hand-to-hand combat were high on the list.

  Lucy flipped the page, fascinated despite the fact that this was Blue's private file, despite the fact that she was surrounded by people who were allegedly involved in Gerry McCoy's death.

  She skimmed the brief psychological evaluation that was written at the bottom of the second page. "Carter McCoy is a perfect candidate for the SEAL program," she said. "He is a tenacious, usually steady, thoughtful individual who is not afraid to take action. Negatively, his temper can be volatile at times. He also is very much of a loner, unwilling or unable to share his thoughts and feelings with anyone other than his very closest friends, if even them. Carter McCoy is—"

  "You look at that file," Chief Bradley interrupted her, "and you tell me if you think McCoy has the skill and training necessary for him to be able to snap a man's neck."

  Lucy gazed up at him. She didn't want to answer that. She couldn't answer that, not without damning Blue. But if she refused to answer, Bradley would assume she was hiding the truth.

  "Blue McCoy is a lieutenant in the Navy SEALs," she told the chief. "He's the executive officer of SEAL Team Ten's Alpha Squad." She slapped the papers against her hand. "According to this, he's won countless medals for bravery—"

  "I didn't ask you for a background sketch of the man," Bradley said. "I asked if Blue McCoy has the skill and training to kill in that manner—"

  "He'd never do such a thing," Lucy protested.

  "It's a yes or no question, Tait. Does he or does he not have the skill and training to break a man's neck?"

  Bradley was watching her. Annabella was watching her. Farther down the hall, Travis Southeby and Tom Harper were watching her. They were all waiting for her answer.

  "All SEALs do—"

  But Chief Bradley wasn't listening any longer. "That sounded like a yes to me. Run next door to the judge's chambers," he said to Travis. "Let's get a warrant and bring that s
on of a bitch in. We got motive and now we've got means."

  "Motive?" Lucy asked, following Bradley down the hall, back toward his office. "What motive did Blue McCoy have for killing his brother?"

  Bradley stopped and looked at her as if she were first cousin to the village idiot. "Jenny Lee Beaumont," he said. "She's motive enough for damn near any man."

  "That's ridiculous—"

  "You got a better motive?" Bradley said, turning back to glare at her. "Or maybe you've got an entirely different suspect in mind?"

  They killed Gerry McCoy, Darlene Parker had said ominously. They won't think twice about killing again.

  Lucy shook her head, backing slowly away. "No," she said. "No, I don't." She gazed into the chief's eyes, trying to see if he was capable of murder. As much as she disliked the man, she found it hard to believe. But she'd been wrong about a lot of things before.

  "Got the warrant, Chief," Travis called.

  "Take Tom and go pick up McCoy," Bradley said to Travis. He turned to Lucy. "He still staying out at your place?" He smiled knowingly. "In the guest bedroom?"

  Lucy's stomach was in a knot. They were going to arrest Blue. They were going to bring him in, charge him with murdering his stepbrother. Or maybe they weren't going to bring him in. Maybe they were simply going to kill him, instead, claiming he resisted arrest.

  "Let me go along," she said to Bradley, her mind going a mile a minute as she searched for a way out. "I can talk him into coming in quietly."

  "Yeah, or you can tip him off—warn him so that he gets away. You don't work for me anymore, remember?" Bradley said. He nodded to Travis, who headed for the door, Tom Harper one step behind. "No, I want you to sit down right here in my office and stay until I receive word that McCoy is behind bars."