Suzanne Brockmann - Team Ten 09 - Get Lucky

by Suzanne Brockmann -

  The list contained name, aliases, last-known address, and a short rap sheet of charges, convictions and jail time served—their criminal resume, so to speak.

  "I couldn't help but notice that Sydney came to work this morning wearing one of your Hawaiian shirts, sir," Rio continued. "I guess your little sleepover last night went... well."

  Lucky looked up to find Thomas and Bobby waiting for him to comment, too. Even Michael Lee had lifted his eyes from the computer screen. He laughed. "You guys are kidding, right? You know as well as I do that this is just a ruse to try to trap the rapist. Sure, Syd stayed over, but..." he shrugged, "...nothing happened. I mean, there's really nothing going on between us."

  "She is wearing one of your shirts," Bobby said.

  "Yeah, because last night, in a genius move, I insulted her wardrobe."

  He'd fallen asleep on the couch last night and woken to the scent of coffee brewing. He'd thrown off the blanket Syd must've put over him and staggered into the kitchen to find her already showered and dressed—and wearing one of his shirts. It was weird—and a little scary. It was his full-blown morning-after nightmare, in which a woman he barely knew and didn't particularly like would move in and make herself completely at home, right down to stealing from his closet. Except in this case, there had been no night before. And in this case, it wasn't a nightmare.

  The coffee smelled great, Syd looked amazing in his

  shirt, and, as she smiled at him, his stomach didn't twist with anxiety. It twisted, all right, but in anticipation.

  He liked her, liked having her in his house, liked having her be a part of his morning.

  And maybe, if he were really lucky, if he lived up to this nickname of his, he'd wake up tomorrow with her in his bed. Mike handed him three copies of the printed list, and he handed one to Bobby, the others to Thomas and Rio.

  Rio was now looking at him as if he were mentally challenged. “Let me get this straight. You had Syd alone. Syd. One of the most incredibly fascinating and sexy women in the world. And she's alone with you, all night. And instead of taking advantage of that incredible opportunity, you spent your time insulting her clothes?"

  "Hey, guys, I went to Starbuck's. Who wants coffee?"

  Syd breezed in carrying a cardboard tray filled with paper coffee cups before Lucky could tell Rio to mind his own business. "Oh, good, the list finally came in?"

  "Hot off the press," Lucky told her.

  She smiled as she set a cup down in front of him. "Special delivery. Extra sugar. I figured you could use it after last night."

  Rio cleared his throat pointedly. “Excuse me?''

  Syd smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "Don't you dare think that—that's not what I mean, dirt brain. Luke and I are friends. I kept him up all night talking. He fell asleep on the living-room couch at about :. He's running on way too little sleep and it's all my fault."

  Rio shot Lucky a disbelieving look. "You fell asleep on the living-room couch... ?"

  "Hey," Thomas said, "Here's a guy who got out of prison in Kentucky four weeks before the first attack was reported."

  "First known attack," Lucky reminded him, giving him a grateful look for changing the subject. He rolled his chair closer to the young ensign, to look over his shoulder at the

  list. "Kentucky's a stretch. He'd have to be motivated to reach San Diego with the amount of money he had on him."

  "Yeah, but check this out. He's already wanted again," Thomas said, "in connection with a liquor store robbery in Dallas. That happened a week after his release."

  Syd leaned over Lucky's shoulder. "Can a convict just leave the state like that? Doesn't he have to check in with a parole officer?"

  He turned his head to look at her and found himself eye to eye with her breasts. He looked away, his mind instantly blank. What was he just about to say?

  Bobby answered for him. "As far as I understand it, parole is for when a prisoner is released early. If he serves out his full sentence, there's usually no parole."

  "What's this guy's name?" Syd asked. "Where is he on the list?"

  "Owen Finn." Lucky pointed to the list and she leaned even closer to read the small print. She was wearing his deodorant. It smelled different on her. Delicate and femininely fresh.

  Damn, he was nuts. He should have at least said something to Syd last night. So, hey, like, what do you say we get it on? Well, maybe not that. But certainly something in between that and the great big nothing he'd uttered. Because what if this attraction was mutual? What if she'd spent all night wishing they could get physical, too? What could it hurt to be honest?

  They were, after all, friends—by her own admission. As his friend, she would appreciate his honesty.

  Wouldn't she?

  "Finn was convicted of burglary," Syd said, straightening up. "I thought we were looking for someone with a record of sexual assault or some other violent crime."

  "Finn," Bobby reported from the Navy Computer's personnel files. "Owen Franklin. Son of a medal of honor

  winner, entered the U.S. Naval Academy even though his grades weren't quite up to par. Rang out of BUD/S in ', given a dishonorable discharge four months later, charged and convicted of theft. Yeah, this guy definitely has sticky fingers. No mention of violence, though."

  "How about this one?" Thomas pointed to the list, and Syd leaned over Lucky again. "Martin Taus. Charged with four counts of sexual assault but never convicted. Got off on a technicality. Never served time but paid fines and did community service for damage done in a street fight back in '. His last-known address is a post-office box in San Diego."

  "How do we find these guys?" Syd asked. "Can't we just bring in everyone on this list?''

  She sat down next to him, and he resisted the urge to put his arm around her. If they were out in public, he could've gotten away with it. But here in the office they didn't need to play the girlfriend game.

  It was too bad.

  "Most of them aren't local," Lucky told her. "And their last-known addresses are probably out of date. But FInCOM's definitely looking to have them all brought in for questioning."

  "Some of them aren't going to be easy to find," Thomas pointed out. "Like this Owen Finn who's wanted in Texas, He's clearly on the move."

  “When are we going to start dangling me out there as bait?" Syd asked. "We need to establish a pattern of time that I'm home alone."

  "We'll start tonight," Lucky told her. "I spoke to Frisco this morning. The phase-one SEAL candidates are going to be doing a series of night swims over the next week. I'm going to be visible at the base from the time the exercise starts at about twenty-three hundred, right up until the point I put on my gear. Then one of the other instructors will take over for me—masked and suited up, anyone who's

  watching won't know it's not me. I'll leave the base covertly and join Bobby and our junior frogmen, who will have concealed themselves strategically around the outside of our house. My house," he quickly corrected himself.

  Alan Francisco had been disappointed—he'd said as much—when Lucky'd admitted his relationship with Syd was just an act. But he didn't say anything more, except that he was there to talk, if Lucky wanted someone to talk to. About what, Lucky'd asked. Yeah, he was a little worried about Syd putting herself in danger, but this way at least he could keep an eye on her. Everything was cool. There was nothing to talk about.

  “I’ll be going over to Luke's in about an hour to set up interior microphones," Bobby said.

  "So, I'm going to be alone in the house starting at about seven until...two or three in the morning?" she guessed.

  "No, we'll have time before the exercise starts," Lucky told her. "We can have dinner downtown. We'll leave here together at about eighteen hundred—six o'clock. After dinner, we'll go to my place, and around twenty-two-thirty, after Bobby and the guys have moved into position, I'll make a big show of kissing you goodbye, and I'll come here. You'll be alone from then until around oh-two-hundred. About three and a half hours."
>
  Syd nodded. "Maybe if we're lucky, FlnCOM will round up most of the suspects on our list before tonight. And if we're really lucky, one of them will be our guy."

  Lucky nodded, hoping the golden luck for which he'd been nicknamed would, indeed, shine through.

  Chapter

  The meltingly perfect lobster and the hundred-dollar bottle of wine had been completely wasted on Syd.

  What with the blazing sunset, the incredible outdoor patio, the million-dollar view of the Pacific, and—last but certainly not least—the glowing golden good looks of the man sitting across the restaurant table from her, Syd had barely noticed the gourmet food or drink.

  It might as well have been peanut butter sandwiches and grape juice for all the attention she gave to it.

  She spent most of the meal wishing Luke would hold her hand. And when he finally did, reaching across the table to intertwine their fingers, she spent the rest of the meal wishing he'd kiss her again.

  He'd kissed her outside the restaurant after giving the valet his keys. Slow, lingering kisses that rendered her speechless.

  He'd kissed her in the bar, too, as they'd waited for a table. Delicate kisses. Elegant kisses. Five-star restaurant kisses.

  She wasn't dressed for this place, but no one besides her seemed to care. The maitre d' was attentive, the waiters were respectful, and Luke...

  Well, he'd nearly had her believing they were completely, totally, thrillingly in love.

  "You're so quiet," he said now, his thumb tracing circles on the palm of her hand as they waited for the waiter to return with Luke's credit card, sitting beneath that perfect, color-streaked sky. The way he was looking at her, the quiet timbre of his voice—his behavior was completely that of an attentive lover. He was remarkably good at playing this part. "What are you thinking about?"

  "Kissing you," she admitted.

  For an eighth of a second, his guard dropped, his thumb stopped moving and she saw real surprise in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but the waiter returned. And all Luke did was laugh as he gently reclaimed his fingers and signed the bill. He pocketed his receipt and stood, holding out his hand to her.

  "Let's walk on the beach."

  They went down the wooden steps hand in hand, and when they reached the bottom, he knelt in the sand and took off her sandals, then carried them for her, along with his own shoes. The sand was sensuously cool between her toes.

  They walked in silence for about a minute, then Luke cleared his throat. "So, when you were thinking about kissing me, was it a good thought or...?"

  "It was more of an amused thought," she admitted. "Like, here I am, with the best-looking man in the state of California, and oh, just in case that's not thrilling enough, he's going to kiss me a few dozen more times before the night is through. You kiss like a dream, you know? Of course you know."

  "You're pretty good at it yourself."

  "I'm an amateur compared to you. I can't seem to do

  that thing you do with your eyes. And that little ‘I’m going to kiss you now' smile. Only someone with a face like yours can pull that off."

  His laughter sounded embarrassed. "Oh, come on. I'm not—"

  "Don't be coy," she reprimanded him. "You know what you look like. All you need to do is smile, and every woman within a hundred feet goes into heavy fantasy mode. Walk into any room and flash those teeth, and women start lining up for a chance to go home with you."

  "Gee, if I'd only known that was all it would take..." He gave her his best smile.

  She yawned. "Doesn't work on me. Not since I heard you snore last night."

  "I do not snore."

  Syd just smiled.

  "I don't."

  "Okay," she said, clearly just humoring him.

  "You try to pick fights," he said, realization in his voice, "even these silly, teasing ones, because you're afraid to have a serious conversation with me."

  That was so not true. "We had a very serious conversation last night," she argued.

  “Yeah, but I did most of the talking. That was my serious conversation."

  "I told you about my family," she protested.

  "Barely."

  "Well, they're boring. None of them have run off to Tibet. I mean, if anyone's Tibet-bound, it's probably me."

  "There you go," he said. "Trying to get me to argue with you about whether you would or wouldn't actually go to Tibet if you had the cash."

  Tibet no, but New York, yes. Or Boston or Philly. She wanted to return to the east coast, she reminded herself. That's what all this was about. It was about helping catch a serial rapist, and then writing the best, most detailed, most

  emotionally connected yet factual article about a city-wide task force ever written.

  She wasn't here simply to kiss this man in the moonlight.

  The last of the dusk was fading fast, and the moon was just a sliver in the sky. Syd could hear the party sounds from the Surf Club farther down the beach—the echo of laughter and distant rock and roll.

  Luke's face was entirely in shadow. "I like you, Syd," he told her softly. "You make me laugh. But I want to know you. I want to know what you want, who you really are. I want to know where you see yourself in fifty years. I want to..." He laughed, and she could've sworn it was self-consciously, that is, if it was possible that Luke O'Donlon could be self-conscious. "I want to know about Kevin Manse. I want to know if you're still in love with him, if you still measure every man you bump into against him."

  Syd was so completely surprised, it very nearly qualified as stunned. Kevin Manse? What the...? She wished she could see Luke's eyes in the darkness. "What do...how do you know about Kevin Manse?"

  He cleared his throat. “He, um, came up in some detail when Lana Quinn first hypnotized you."

  "Some detail...?"

  "You, um, flashed back to the first time you, uh, met him."

  Syd said a very impolite word. "Flashed back? What do you mean, flashed back?"

  "Um, I guess relived is more accurate."

  "Relived?" Her voice went up several octaves. "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "You, um, partly told us what happened, partly talked to Kevin as if he were in the room. You told us you bumped into him on the stairs at some frat party, and that he took you up to his room. We kind of tried to rush through the 'oh, Kevin, yes, Kevin' part, but—"

  Syd said another equally impolite word and sat down in the sand, covering her face with her hands. God, how mortifying. "I suppose you also heard how that pitiful story ended?"

  "Actually, no, I don't know how it ended." She felt more than heard Luke sit down beside her. "Syd, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to embarrass you. I was just... I've been thinking about it a lot lately, wondering..."

  She peeked out at him through her fingers. He didn't know how the story ended. She was saved from complete and total mortification.

  "Do you, um, still love him?"

  Syd laughed. She laughed and laughed and laughed, lying back on the sand, staring up at the vastness of the sky and gasping for air.

  She laughed, because if she didn't laugh, she'd cry. And there was no way she would ever cry in front of this man. Not if she could help it.

  Luke laughed, too, mostly because laughter was contagious, partly because he was confused. "I didn't mean for that to be such a funny question."

  "No," she said when she finally could talk, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a shudder of air. "No, I definitely don't still love him. In fact, I never loved him."

  "You said you did. While you were hypnotized."

  "I was eighteen," she said. "I lost my virginity to the bastard. I temporarily confused sex with love."

  As she gazed at the sky, the stars slowly appeared.

  He sighed. "It was only a one-nighter, huh?"

  Syd turned her head to look at him, a darker lump of a shadow against the darkness of the night. "A one-night stand. How many times have you done that?"

  He answered honestly. "T
oo many."

  "You're probably someone's Kevin Manse," she said.

  He was silent.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "That was harsh."

  "But probably true. I've tried to stay away from the eighteen-year-old virgins, though."

  "Oh," Syd said. "Well. Then that makes it all better."

  Luke laughed ruefully. "Man, you are unmerciful."

  "I'll cut you down, but not yet—I like seeing you twisting in the wind, baby." Syd laughed. "You want serious? I'll give you the whole pathetic story—that'll really make you squirm. But if you repeat it to anyone, our friendship is over, do you understand?"

  "I'm going to hate this, aren't I?"

  "It's pretty hateful." Syd sat up and looked out over the water. "I've never told this to anyone. Not my college roommate, not my sister, not my mother, not anyone. But I'm going to tell you, because we're friends, and maybe you'll learn something from it."

  "I feel like I'm approaching a car wreck. I'm horrified at the thought of the carnage, but unable to turn away."

  She laughed. "It's not that bad."

  "No?"

  "Well, maybe it was at the time." She hugged her knees close to her chest and sighed. Where to start...? "Kevin was a big football star."

  "Yeah," Luke said. "You mentioned that. You said he was a scholar, too. Smart as hell. And probably handsome."

  "On a scale from one to ten..." Syd squinted as she thought about it. "A twelve."

  "Whoa!"

  On that same scale, Luke was a fifty. But she wasn't going to tell him that.

  "So I ran into him, the big, famous football hero, on the stairs of this frat-house party," she said, "and—"

  "Yeah," he interrupted. "I know that part. You went upstairs with him, and I know that part, too. That's the part where you started going 'oh, Kevin, yes, Kevin—'"

  "Wow, you are really the funniest man in the world. Oh, wait—no, you're not! You just think you are."