Without the reaction that this man was causing or anything like it.
This was bad. Very bad.
“Sleep,” she said, her voice tight.
His eyes were already closed. “Thonc to thu,” he muttered.
She fled.
Lucy took her mind off her charge and their situation by getting their bag in from the car and exploring the boat. Jake had provisioned it down to the last piece of silverware. The cupboards held everything from noodles and vacuum-sealed entrées to powdered milk and coffee. Cans of juice filled one whole cupboard. No scurvy on this command. Soap, shampoo, cleaning supplies; the boat had it all, including a ham radio and two small high-def flat screens, one in the aft cabin and one in the salon on the cockpit wall that could be seen from the dining table and the sofa across from it—even from the little galley across the bar from the dining table. Strange of Jake to have left the televisions. She wasn’t even sure he had one in his apartment. She turned one on. It worked. Maybe if you were on the run or there’d been some kind of disaster newscasts were handy. She’d seen the little satellite discs provided by the marina on the lampposts by the fence. The boat also had no GPS, no computer, and no phone hookup. Guess those would be too easy to trace. Jeez. Was she beginning to think like Jake?
She climbed outside and hooked the boat up to the power box with the heavy cord provided by the marina. At least they wouldn’t have to run the generator. She hung Jake’s loaned shirts in the locker and hid the money and the diamond in a narrow space she found behind the trash compactor in the galley. But where to put the gun? She couldn’t imagine sleeping with it under her pillow. She decided on a drawer in the galley with the knives where it was handy to the ladder down from the hatch. Like that would make a difference if some of Casey’s friends came to get them. And as for the sword Jake had given Galen—that she did put under her mattress. There was no way she wanted a Viking lurking around with a sword. And maybe it would be protection, in case someone came into her cabin in the night. Like the Viking. Could she hack at him? Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Just brandish it . . . maybe.
And then . . . then there was nothing left to do. She pulled off her flats. Her flippy knit skirt had seen better days. She smelled like blood. Too bad Jake didn’t have any clothes she could borrow. Macy’s in Novato tomorrow. Or maybe Target. Target was one-stop shopping. Definitely good. But first she’d rest. She lay back on her bunk. Just for a few minutes . . .
Chapter 6
Brad stood looking up at the impossible. The machine that had become the center of his life over the last year gleamed in the artificial light of the lowest level of the parking structure outside San Francisco General Hospital. Relief washed over him.
The last four months had been a nightmare. Jensen and Casey had made Brad’s life miserable. It wasn’t just the endless speeches berating him. No, Brad’s downward spiral was rooted in the feeling that his future had been ripped away, the knowledge that an opportunity that only comes once in life was squandered. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t run or play tennis or date anyone. The pitying or revolted looks from his peers hadn’t helped.
Lucy made him crazy. He thought about her constantly. Could she be the wily spy who played him like Casey said? Could Brad have been wrong about her growing to love him the way he had always loved her? Casey searched her apartment, her store. Confiscated everything and went through her life with a fine-tooth comb. Brad had given Casey one of the hundreds of photographs he’d taken of her to show around. But Casey and his shadowy friends never found anything to suggest she wasn't what she seemed. And Brad was left in doubt, his purest longing for her polluted. But now the machine was back. Had she come back with it, or had it come back alone? And why to a hospital? Maybe she was hurt, dying. His panic surged.
“Get it back to the lab, pronto.” Casey had come up behind him.
Brad started. The guy was quiet on his feet. “We’ll need a crane.”
“So? And for God’s sake cover it up. Preserve some secrecy. Not that half the hospital staff wasn’t out here gaping before we cordoned off the parking structure.” Casey sounded bitter.
“I’ve got a tarp coming from the lab. We’ll have to cut major sections of concrete out of the entry and prop up the outside wall with girders to get it out.”
“Can’t just take it apart?”
Brad gave him a withering look over his shoulder. “Maybe if I had the book to show how to put it back together. But you told Lucy to take that with her.”
“So disassemble the parking structure. I’ll get in the Corps of Engineers.”
“Going to cost an arm and a leg. Jensen will freak.”
“Money is not a problem. Get back to the lab. The Corps will take care of everything.”
“I don’t want to go back to the lab.” Brad stared down Casey’s dismissive glance. “And right now I get to do anything I want. Notice anything about the machine?”
Casey jerked his focus to the glowing golden gears. “Shit.” He broke into a run. Brad followed, watching him look around frantically for the diamond.
“It’s not here. And just so you know, the power source is damaged, too.”
Casey squatted to peer at the box that had occupied Brad’s thoughts for nearly two years. His shoulders slumped. “Can you fix it?”
“Maybe. Without the diamond it’s no good, of course.”
“I’ll take care of getting the diamond.” Casey’s voice was as hard as the subject of his sentence. “Your girlfriend has it.”
Girlfriend. He liked the sound of that. “Any sign of Lucy?”
“Oh yeah. Everybody who saw her remembers the red braid.”
“Was she hurt? Sick?” That had to be why she hadn’t called him right away.
“She had a guy with her.”
“What?” Brad turned on Casey.
“Apparently a strapping specimen. Spoke some Nordic or Germanic language. Guy was cut up pretty good. Big sword. Chain mail. My men think the clothes they cut off him are from the Middle Ages. She used her credit cards to pay for his surgery. Said he was her cousin from Denmark or sometimes Finland. Left business cards all over the hospital. Stupid bitch.”
Lucy came back with a man from the past? Brad’s brain reeled. What the hell had she been doing back in time for four months? A feeling of betrayal circled in his gut. Had Casey been right about her? Had she been playing Brad all along? “We’ve got to find her. Them.” And get rid of this guy, whoever he was. It made Brad . . . angry. So angry he felt nauseous.
“Check. I’d like to have a little talk with both of them.”
Brad started pacing. “If your guys had been watching the credit cards twenty-four/seven like they did in the first days, we’d have gotten her.” He was tired of Casey pushing him around.
“We’re only a couple of hours behind her and she’s got a wounded guy with her just out of surgery. They gave him transfusions, but he’s still weak. She needs to go to ground.”
Had Lucy . . . had she done it with this guy? The f word inserted itself in that thought. Brad knew he was spiraling out of control here. He never used the f word.
“My guys are checking her apartment, the shop, even though she can’t get in. Not sure her shop assistant would take her in with a medieval warrior in tow, but we’ll check. Hotels, too.”
“She can’t use credit cards.” Brad thought frantically. “She never carried much cash.”