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“God,” Luke breathed.
It was one thing to read about the victims. Even the horror of photographs was one step removed from the violence. But seeing this poor woman, a mere hour after the attack…
Syd knew the sight of that battered face had brought the reality of this situation home to the SEAL in a way nothing else could have.
“Let’s go inside, “she said.
Luke was still watching the victim as she was gently loaded into the ambulance. He turned his head toward Syd almost jerkily.
Uh-oh. “You okay?” she asked quietly.
“God,” he said again.
“It’s awful, isn’t it? That’s pretty much what Gina looked like,” she told him. “Like she’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight champ on speed. And what he did to her face is the least of it.”
He shook his head. “You know, I’ve seen guys who were injured. I’ve helped patch up guys who’ve been in combat. I’m not squeamish, really, but knowing that someone did that to her and got pleasure from it….” He took a deep breath and blew it out hard. “I’m feeling a little…sick.”
He’d gone completely pale beneath his tan. Oh, boy, unless she did something fast, the big tough warrior was going to keel over in a dead faint.
“I am, too,” Syd said. “Mind if we take a minute and sit down?” She took his arm and gently pulled him down next to her on the stairs that led to the front door, all but pushing his head down between his knees.
They sat there in silence for many long minutes after the ambulance pulled away. Syd carefully kept her eyes on the activity in the street—the neighbors who’d come out in their yards, the policemen keeping the more curious at a safe distance—looking anywhere but at Luke. She was aware of his breathing, aware that he’d dropped his head slightly in an attempt to fight his dizziness. She took many steadying breaths herself—but her own dizziness was more from her amazement that he could be affected this completely, this powerfully.
After what seemed like forever, she sensed more than saw Luke straighten up, heard him draw in one last deep breath and blow it out in a burst.
“Thanks,” he said.
Syd finally risked a glance at him. Most of the color had returned to his face. He reached for her hand, loosely lacing her fingers with his as he gave her a rueful smile. “That would’ve been really embarrassing if I’d fainted.”
“Oh,” she said innocently, “were you feeling faint, too? I know I’m not taking enough time to eat right these days, and that plus the lack of sleep….”
He gently squeezed her hand. “And thanks, also, for not rubbing in the fact that right now I’m the one slowing you down.”
“Well, now that you mention it….”
Luke laughed. God, he was good-looking when he laughed. Syd felt her hands start to sweat. If she hadn’t been light-headed before, she sure as hell was now.
“Let’s go inside,” Luke said. “Find out if this guy left a calling card this time.”
Syd gently pulled her hand free as she stood up. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“MARY BETH HOLLIS…” Detective Lucy McCoy told Syd over the phone “…is twenty-nine years old. She works in San Diego as an administrative assistant to a bank president.”
Syd was sitting in the airless office at the naval base, entering the information about the latest victim into the computer. “Single?” she asked.
“Recently married.”
Syd crossed her fingers. “Please tell me her husband works here at the base…” She had a theory about the victims, and she was hoping she was right.
But Lucy made the sound of the loser button. “Sorry,” she said. “He works in legal services at the same bank.”
“Her father?”
“Deceased. Her mother owns her own flower shop in Coronado.”
Syd didn’t give up. “Brothers?”
“She’s an only child.”
“How about her husband. Did he have any brothers or sisters in the Navy?”
Lucy knew where she was going. “I’m sorry, Syd, Mary Beth has no family ties to the base.”
Syd swore. That made her theory a lot less viable.
“But…” Lucy said.
Syd sat up. “What? You’ve got something?”
“Don’t get too excited. You know the official police and FInCOM position—”
“That the fact that eight out of twelve victims are connected to the base is mere coincidence?” Syd said a most indelicate word. “Where’s the connection with Mary Beth?”
“It’s a stretch,” Lucy admitted.
“Tell me.”
“Former boyfriend. And I mean former. As in nearly ancient history. Although Mary Beth just got married, she’s been living with her lawyer for close to four years. Way before that, she was hot and heavy with a captain who still works as a doctor at the military hospital. Captain Steven Horowitz.”
Syd sighed. Four years ago. That was a stretch.
“Still think there’s a connection?” Lucy asked.
“Yes.”
Lucky poked his head in the door. “Ready to go?”
Like Syd, he’d been working nonstop since last night’s late-night phone call about the most recent attack. But unlike Syd, he still looked crisp and fresh, as if he’d spent the afternoon napping rather than sifting through the remaining personnel files of the men on the naval base.
“I gotta run,” Syd told Lucy. “I’m going back to the hypnotist, see if I noticed any strange cars parked in front of my house on the night Gina was attacked. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” Lucy said. “If you could remember the license-plate number, I’d be most appreciative.”
“Yeah, what are the odds of that? I don’t even know my own plate number. Later, Lucy.” Syd hung up the phone, saved her computer file and stood, trying to stretch the kinks out of her back.
“Anything new turn up?” Lucky asked as they started down the hall.
“Four years ago, Mary Beth Hollis—victim twelve—used to date a Captain Horowitz.”
“Used to date,” he repeated. He gave her a sidelong glance. “You’re working hard to keep your theory alive, eh?”
“Don’t even think of teasing me about this,” Syd countered. “Considering all the women who lived in San Felipe and Coronado, it couldn’t be coincidence that nine out of twelve victims were related to someone who worked at the base. There’s a connection between these women and the base, I’m sure of it. However, what that connection is…” She shook her head in frustration. “It’s there—I just can’t see it. Yet,” she added. “I know I’m close. I have this feeling in my…” She broke off, realizing how ridiculous she sounded. She had a feeling….
“In your gut?” he finished for her.
“Okay.” She was resigned. “Go ahead. Laugh at me. I know. It’s just a crazy hunch.”
“Why should I laugh at you,” Luke said, “when I believe that you’re probably on to something?” He snorted. “Hell, I’d trust your hunches over FInCOM’s any day.”
He wasn’t laughing. He actually believed her.
As Syd followed Lieutenant Lucky O’Donlon out into the brilliant afternoon, she realized that over the past few days, something most unlikely had occurred.
She and Navy Ken had actually started to become friends.
SYD OPENED HER EYES and found herself gazing up at an unfamiliar ceiling in a darkened room. She was lying on her back on a couch and…
She turned her head and saw Dr. Lana Quinn’s gentle smile.
“How’d I do?” she asked.
Lana made a slight face and shook her head. “A ‘dark, old-model sedan’ was the best you could come up with. When I asked you what make or model, you said ugly. You didn’t see the plates—not that anyone expected you to—but I have to confess I’d hoped.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Syd tiredly pulled herself up into a sitting position. “I’m not a car person. I’m sorry—” She looked around. “Where’s Luke?”
“Waiting room,” Lana said as she pulled open the curtains, brightening up the room. “He fell asleep while he was out there—while I was putting you under. He looked so completely wiped out, I couldn’t bring myself to wake him.”
“It’s been a tough couple of days,” Syd told the doctor.
“I heard another woman was attacked last night.”
“It’s been frustrating,” Syd admitted. “Particularly for Luke. We haven’t had a whole lot of clues to go on. There’s not much to do besides wait for this guy to screw up. I think if Luke had the manpower, he’d put every woman in both of these cities in protective custody. I keep expecting him to start driving around with a bullhorn warning women to leave town.”
“Quinn’s in DC this week,” Lana said. “He’s worried, too. He actually asked Wes Skelly to check up on me. I left for work earlier than usual this morning, and Wes was sitting in his truck in front of my house. It’s crazy.”
“Luke keeps trying to get me to stay overnight at the base,” Syd told her, “and for the first time in his life, it’s for platonic reasons.”
Lana laughed as she opened the door to the waiting room. “I’m sorry to have to kick you out so soon, but I’ve got another patient.”
“No problem. Dark, old-model sedan,” Syd repeated. “Thanks again.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
Syd went into the waiting room, where a painfully thin woman sat as far away as possible from Luke, who lay sprawled on the couch, still fast asleep.
He was adorable when he slept—completely, utterly, disgustingly adorable.
The skinny woman went into Lana’s office, closing the door tightly behind her as Syd approached Luke.
“Time to go,” she announced briskly.
No response.
“O’Donlon.”
He didn’t even twitch. His eyes remained shut, his lashes about a mile long, thick and dark against his perfect, tanned cheeks.
No way was she going to touch him. She’d read far too many books where professional soldiers nearly killed the hapless fool who tried to shake them awake.
She clapped her hands, and still he slept on. “Damn it, Luke, wake up.”
Nothing. Not that she blamed him. She was exhausted, too.
All right. She wasn’t going to touch him, but she was going to poke him from a safe distance. She took the copy of Psychology Today that was on the end table, rolled it up and, trying to stay as far back from him as possible, jabbed him in the ribs.
It happened so fast, she wasn’t completely sure she even saw him move. One moment, his eyes were closed, the next he had her pinned to the waiting-room floor, one hand holding both of her wrists above her head, his other forearm heavy against her throat.
The eyes that gazed into hers were those of an animal—soulless and fierce. The face those eyes belonged to was hard and severe and completely deadly, his mouth a taut line, his teeth slightly bared.
But then he blinked and turned back into Luke O’Donlon, aka Lucky, aka her own living Navy Ken.
“Jeez.” He lifted his arm from her throat so that she could breathe again. “What the hell were you trying to do?”
“Not this,” Syd said, clearing her throat, her head starting to throb from where it had made hard contact with the floor. “In fact, I was trying to do the exact opposite of this. But I couldn’t wake you up.”
“Oh, man, I must’ve…” He shook his head, still groggy. “Usually I can take a combat nap and wake up at the least little noise.”
“Not this time.”
“Sometimes, if I’m really tired, and if I know I’m in a safe place, my body takes over and I go into a deep sleep and—” his eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re supposed to be hypnotized,” he remembered. “How come you’re not hypnotized?”
As Syd stared up into the perfect blueness of his eyes, she wasn’t sure she wasn’t hypnotized. Why else would she just lie here on the floor with the full weight of his body pressing down on top of her without protesting even a little?
Maybe she’d gotten a concussion.
Maybe that was what had rendered her so completely stupid.
But maybe not. Her head hurt, but not that much. Maybe her stupidity was from more natural causes.
“Dark, old-model sedan,” she told him. “Lana didn’t want to wake you, and it’s just as well. I’m an idiot when it comes to cars. That and calling it ugly was the best I could do.”
Was he never going to get off her ever again? She could feel the muscular tautness of his thigh pressed between her legs. She could feel…Oh, God.
“Are you okay?” he asked, rolling away from her. “Last time you were hypnotized it was something of an emotional roller coaster. I’m sorry I fell asleep. I really wanted to be there, in case…” He laughed sheepishly, giving her what she thought of as his best Harrison Ford self-deprecating smile. It was as charming on Luke as it was on Harrison. “Well, this sounds really presumptuous, but I wanted to be there in case you needed me.”
She would have found his words impossibly sweet—if she were the type to be swayed by sweet words. And she would’ve missed the warmth of his body if she were the type to long for strong arms to hold her. And if she were the type to wish he’d pull her close again and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her…
But she wasn’t. She wasn’t.
Having a man around was nice, but not a necessity.
Besides, she never took matters of the heart and all of their physical, sexual trappings lightly. Sex was a serious thing, and Luke, with his completely unplastic, extremely warm body, didn’t do serious. He’d told her that himself.
“I was okay,” she said, desperately trying to bring them back to a familiar place she could handle—that irreverent place of friendly insults and challenges, “until you hit me with a World Wrestling Federation-quality body slam, Earthquake McGoon.”
“Ho,” he said, almost as if he were relieved to be done with the dangerously sweet words and their accompanying illusion of intimacy himself, as if he were as eager to follow her back to the outlined safety of their completely platonic friendship. “You’re a fine one to complain, genius, considering you woke me up by sticking a gun barrel into my ribs.”
“A gun barrel!” She laughed her disbelief. “Get real!”
“What the hell was that, anyway?”
Syd picked up the magazine and tightly rolled it, showing him.
“It felt like a gun barrel.” He pulled himself to his feet and held out his hand to help Syd up. “Next time you want to wake me, and calling my name won’t do it,” he said, “think Sleeping Beauty. A kiss’ll do the trick every time.”
Yeah, right. Like she’d ever try to kiss Luke O’Donlon awake. He’d probably grab her and throw her down and…
And kiss her until the room spun, until she surrendered her clothes, her pride, her identity, her very soul. And probably her heart, as well.
“Maybe we shouldn’t leave,” she said tartly, as she followed Luke out the door. “It seems to me that the safest place for a Navy SEAL who fantasizes that he’s Sleeping Beauty is right here, in a psychologist’s waiting room.”
“Ha,” Luke said, “ha.”
“WHAT’S ON THE SCHEDULE for this afternoon?” Syd asked as Luke pulled his truck into the parking lot by the administration building.
“I’m going to start hanging out in bars,” Luke told her. “The seedier the better.”
She turned to look at him. “Well, that’s productive. Drinking yourself into oblivion while the rest of us sweat away in the office?”
He turned off the engine but didn’t move to get out of the truck. “You know as well as I do that I have no intention of partying.”
“You think you’ll single-handedly find this guy by going to bar after bar?” she asked. “You don’t even know what he looks like.”
He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Syd, I’ve got to do something before he hurts someone else.”
“His pattern is four to seven days between attacks.”
Luke snorted. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” He swore, hitting the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “I feel like I’m sitting on a time bomb. What if this guy goes after Veronica Catalanotto next? She’s home all alone, with only a toddler in her house. Melody Jones is out of town with her baby, thank God.” He ticked them off on his fingers—the wives of his teammates in Alpha Squad. “Nell Hawken lives over in San Diego. She’s safe—at least until this bastard decides to widen his target area. PJ Becker works for FInCOM. Both she and Lucy are best qualified to deal with this. They’re both tough but, hell, no one’s invincible. And there’s you.”
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