managing to sound very small and pitiful. “Are you there?”
No response. The answering machine beeped, cutting her off.
Okay. Okay. As long as she kept moving, she’d be okay.
And chances were, if she pulled into the brightly lit police-station parking lot, whoever was following her would drive away.
But what a missed opportunity that would be. If this were the rapist behind her, they could catch him. Right now. Tonight.
She pressed one of the other speed-dial numbers she’d programmed into her phone. Detective Lucy McCoy’s home number.
One ring. Two rings. Three…
“‘Lo?” Lucy sounded as if she’d already been asleep.
“Lucy, it’s Syd.” She gave a quick rundown of the situation, and Lucy snapped instantly awake.
“Stay on Pacific,” Lucy ordered. “What’s your license plate number?”
“God, I don’t know. My car’s a little black Civic. The truck’s one of those full-size ones—I haven’t been able to see what color—something dark. And he’s hanging too far back for me to see his plate number.”
“Just keep driving,” Lucy said. “Slow and steady. I’m calling in as many cars as possible to intercept.”
Slow and steady.
Syd used her cell phone and tried calling Lucky one more time.
Nothing.
Slow and steady.
She was heading north on Pacific. She could just follow the road all the way up to San Francisco, slowly and steadily. Provided the truck behind her let her stop for gas. She was running low. Of course a little car like this could go for miles on a sixteenth of a tank. She had no reason to be afraid. At any minute, the San Felipe police were going to come to the rescue.
Any minute. Any. Minute.
She heard it then—sirens in the distance, getting louder and deafeningly louder as the police cars moved closer.
Three of them came from behind. She watched in her rear-view mirror as they surrounded the truck, their lights flashing.
She slowed to a stop at the side of the road as the truck did the same, twisting to look back through her rear window as the police officers approached, their weapons drawn, bright searchlights aimed at the truck.
She could see the shadow of the man in the cab. He had both hands on his head in a position of surrender. The police pulled open the truck’s door, pulled him out alongside the truck where he braced himself, assuming the position for a full-body search.
Syd turned off the ignition and got out, wanting to get closer now that she knew the man following her wasn’t armed, wanting to hear what he was saying, wanting to get a good look at him—see if he was the same man who’d nearly knocked her down the stairs after attacking her neighbor.
The man was talking. She could see from the police officers standing around him that he was keeping up a steady stream of conversation. Explanation, no doubt, for why he was out driving around so late at night. Following someone? Officer, that was just an unfortunate coincidence. I was going to the supermarket to pick up some ice cream.
Yeah, right.
As Syd moved closer, one of the police officers approached her.
“Sydney Jameson?” he called.
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you for responding so quickly to Detective McCoy’s call. Does this guy have identification?”
“He does,” the officer said. “He also says he knows you—and that you know him.”
What? Sydney moved closer, but the man who’d been following her was still surrounded by the police and she couldn’t see his face.
The police officer continued. “He also claims you’re both part of a working police task force…?”
Sydney could see in the dim streetlights that the truck was red. Red.
As if on cue, the police officers parted, the man turned his face toward her and…
It was. Luke O’Donlon.
“Why the hell were you following me?” All of her emotions sparked into anger. “You scared me to death, damn it!”
He himself wasn’t too happy about having been frisked by six unfriendly policemen. He was still standing in the undignified search position—legs spread, palms against the side of his truck, and he sounded just as indignant as she did. Maybe even more indignant. “I was following you home. You were supposed to go home, not halfway across the state. Jeez, I was just trying to make sure you were safe.”
“What about Heather?” The words popped out before Sydney could stop herself.
But Luke didn’t even seem to hear her question. He had turned back to the police officers. “Are you guys satisfied? I’m who I say I am, all right? Can I please stand up?”
The police officer who seemed to be in charge looked to Syd.
“No,” she said, nodding yes. “I think you should make him stay like that for about two hours as punishment.”
“Punishment?” Luke let out a stream of sailor’s language as he straightened up. “For doing something nice? For worrying so much about you and Lucy going home from that bar alone that I dropped Heather off at her apartment and came straight back to make sure you’d be okay?”
He hadn’t gone home with Miss Ventura County. He’d given up a night of steamy, mindless, emotionless sex because he had been worried about her.
Syd didn’t know whether to laugh or hit him.
“Heather wasn’t happy,” he told her. “That’s your answer for ‘what about Heather?’” He smiled ruefully. “I don’t think she’s ever been turned down before.”
He had heard her question.
She’d spent most of the past hour trying her hardest not to imagine his long, muscular legs entangled with Heather’s, his skin slick and his hair damp with perspiration as he…
She’d tried her hardest, but she’d always had a very good imagination.
It was stupid. She’d told herself that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t matter. She didn’t even like him. But now here he was, standing in front of her, gazing at her with those impossibly blue eyes, with that twenty-four-carat sun-gilded hair curling in his face from the ocean’s humidity.
“You scared me,” she said again.
“You?” He laughed. “Something tells me you’re unscareable.” He looked around them at the three police cars, lights still spinning, the officers talking on their radios. He shook his head with what looked an awful lot like admiration. “You actually had the presence of mind to call the police from your cell phone, huh? That was good, Jameson. I’m impressed.”
Syd shrugged. “It wasn’t that big a deal. But I guess you just don’t spend that much time with smart women.”
Lucky laughed. “Ouch. Poor Heather. She’s not even here to defend herself. She’s not that bad, you know. A little heartless and consumed by her career, but that’s not so different from most people.”
“How could you be willing to settle for ‘not that bad?’” Syd countered. “You could have just about anyone you wanted. Why not choose someone with a heart?”
“That assumes,” he said, “that I’d even want someone’s heart.”
“Ah,” she said, turning back to her car. “My mistake.”
“Syd.”
She