Snapped (18 page)

She groaned into her pillow. Why did it
hurt so much?

I wish I had a choice.
Meaning he if he did, he'd
choose not to be in love with her.

You have to change.
Not him, her.

I can overlook your past.
If he loved her, he should
accept her past. He should accept her.

But he couldn't and that meant she
couldn't make their relationship more permanent. Not with his words hanging
between them. He'd only come to see his mistake later.

And she'd had enough of non-committing
men in her life. She wasn't about to add another one, no matter how much it
hurt them both. Better to be hurt now than later when the pain would be ten
times worse.

Lucy tried to sleep but by midnight she
was starving and gave up. The pizza was cold but she ate it anyway and returned
the box to the kitchen. She fed Oscar who made his presence known at her
ankles, even though Nick might have already fed him. On the way back to her
bedroom she paused at Nick's closed door. Would he be sleeping peacefully or
tossing and turning like she'd been?

Her fingers twitched, wanting to push the
door open and find out but she resisted and returned to her own lonely bed. Hours
later, after staring at the ceiling, she fell asleep.

She was woken by a knock at her door.

"Nick?"

"It's time."

She got up, went to the bathroom and
showered. She put on her standard black pants, sweater and boots. She tried a
bra but the bruise was still too raw so she discarded it. Too bad if Nick
didn't like it.

She joined him in the kitchen where he
ate cereal and read the newspaper.

"The listening equipment's
ready," he said without looking up. "We'll call Thompson after you
eat breakfast."

She reached for the juice carton. "I'm
not hungry."

"Eat something, Lucy, you'll need
your strength."

His words sounded like he cared but his
tone was dispassionate, annoyed even. She made herself a bowl of cereal and ate
in awkward silence while he read the paper. Not once did he look up.

"Do you understand why?" she
asked finally.

He quickly glanced up then back to his
paper. "Drop it, Lucy. We've said everything we have to say to each
other."

"Have we? I don't know if I got my
message across." She leaned back in the chair and studied him. Finally, he
looked up again. "I don't like to be pushed, Nick, not into something
where I'm immediately on the back foot."

"I wasn't pushing you. And you
wouldn't be on the back foot."

"No? You said you had no choice. You
wished
you had. In other words, you wished you hadn't fallen for a woman
like me, a woman with a cloudy past you didn't like. Well, I feel sorry for
you," she bit out. "Sorry that you can't love me for who I am. Sorry
that I'm not good enough for you."

"Lucy, I—" But he broke off his
own sentence and looked away.

So it was true. "I won't change for
you, Nick, or anyone else. But that doesn't mean I'd cheat on a man I was in a
relationship with. The fact that you don't know that means you aren't the right
guy for me."

His jaw dropped. "Then,
why...?"

"Why won't I date you, like a real
girlfriend?" She laughed but there was no humor in it. "Jeez, you're
just like Dave. When it boils down to it, you both think I'm a slut, unworthy
of you."

"But—"

"Don't!" She turned away, tears
stinging her eyes. "At least with someone like Dave, I know where I stand
and he wouldn't expect me to be something I'm not. But you..." She looked
up at him and was shocked to see his face looking drawn and his body sagging
like a deflated sack in the chair. "You want to wipe my slate clean,
pretend it never happened. And then you want me to pretend something is there
when it's not. I don't love you, Nick. How can I when I don't believe in
it?"

She stood, collected her bowl and spoon
and dumped it in the sink without washing it. She'd never done that before. She
went into the living room and stopped near the couch. They were supposed to
call Mack now, but how could she go through the motions when she felt so
exposed? She'd just told a wonderful, caring, sexy man that she didn't love
him, never could. Abbey and her mother would tell her she was nuts. Maybe she
was.

But she didn't believe in love. Not the
husband-wife sort that lasted a lifetime. Name one couple where it had. She
couldn't. Even Abbey, as happy as she claimed to be, had only been with Spencer
for six months. Plenty of time for it to go wrong.

Lucy might have been standing there for
seconds or it could have been an hour when Nick appeared. The naked emotion on
his face had vanished, replaced with a blank mask like the one he'd worn when
they first met. So this was how he wanted to play it from now on. Fine with
her. It would make life easier to get through over the next few days.

"We need to call Mack
Thompson," he said quietly.

She nodded and followed him back into the
kitchen. She dialed the number on the piece of paper, not really sure what she
was going to say. An answering machine picked up. "This is Lucy
Hudson," she said. She gave the house's telephone number and hung up.

A few moments later it rang and she
picked up. "Hello?"

"Lucy? This is Mack Thompson. Thanks
for calling me." He didn't sound pleased. He sounded nervous. "Where
are you?"

"A friend's place. You?"

"It doesn’t matter. Can you meet me?
Today?"

She glanced at Nick. He nodded. "Yeah.
Can I bring my friend? He gets worried—"

"No! No one. Just you. I've got
something I want you to take care of for me."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you later. And don't
worry, I'll pay you well. Meet me in an hour at the Zoo."

He hung up before she could stall him
another hour. She turned to Nick who quickly looked away. "Oh good,"
she said. "I love the zoo."

The tech team arrived and wired her up as
Nick gave everyone instructions. He sent Dave, Tina and Gary onto the zoo in
advance. He'd travel in the tech van behind Lucy. She liked watching him work. He
was good at his job. Confident and efficient and the men seemed to like him
despite his gruff manner. Even Dave didn't mind taking orders.

When her microphone was installed beneath
her sweater—by a female officer as ordered by Nick—she picked up her jacket and
backpack.

"Ready?" She sounded chirpier
than she felt. Probably a good thing. It wouldn't be a good idea to let Nick
know how scared she felt.

"You going to be okay?" he
asked softly as they stepped outside into a dull winter's day.

For a moment she thought he would call
the whole thing off, tell her to get back inside and he'd do it himself, but
apparently his duty to his Chief was more important than his protective
instincts, towards her at least, because he moved away without a second glance.

She got in her Honda which had been
brought to the house by somebody. The cops piled into a black van and followed
a few cars behind her all the way to the zoo. She found a parking spot, but
didn't get out straight away.

Don't stuff this up, Lucy.

She scanned the parking lot. Which was
Mack's car? And where were Dave and the others? She glanced towards the van and
smiled. She knew Nick would be watching. Was he worried?

"Let's go," she said through
the mike. "The sooner we get this over with the better." She couldn't
share a house with him anymore. Not when her hormones screamed at her to take
him up on his offer every time he was near.

CHAPTER
12

Nick twisted on the bench seat in the
back of the van. Another damn surveillance job where his legs were too long. This
time he had listening equipment and two other guys in the back of the van with
him to keep quarters cramped. He desperately wanted to be outside and not just
because he needed to stretch his legs.

He wanted to go find Lucy. Not that she'd
need reassuring, but because
he
did. He needed to know she was safe. Hearing
her through his headphones wasn't enough.

But he'd never be close enough to her
now.

Damn, he'd handled everything so badly. But
what else could he have done? Tell her she can sleep with whomever she wanted? No
way.

Over breakfast, she'd accused him of not
wanting to fall in love with her. Well, in a way she was right. Why the hell
would any guy want to fall in love with a woman who had so much power to hurt
him? If she cheated on him it would feel nothing like when Donna had slept with
his partner. It would feel so much worse because his feelings for Lucy were so
much more powerful.

"I see him." Lucy's voice
crackled in his ear. He could hear the nervousness in the slight waver of her
words. He doubted the two guys on the tech team listening with him had picked
it up. Only someone who knew her intimately would know.

He touched his headphones, wanting to
reach through to her, calm her. If only he could speak to her, remind her he
was still there, always would be...

"Show time."

Nick rubbed his palms on his trousers and
strained to hear Mack Thompson's voice. They'd given Lucy a thorough
description of him before she set off. Six foot and powerfully built, he would
be so much bigger than Lucy. If she got into trouble...

He wiped his hands again and focused on
the conversation taking place on the caged walkway above the lion enclosure.

"Are you alone?" Mack asked.

"Yes."

"Good. I want you to tell the cops
something for me." There was a pause, perhaps someone passing them. "I
didn't do it. I'm not involved. Got that?"

"Yeah." She sounded more
relaxed now, her voice cocky again.

Good on you, Babe, don't let him get to
you.

"But I think I know who is."

Nick sat up straight, his feet planted
firmly on the van floor ready to leap up at the merest hint of a problem.

"The Mollino Corporation had been
losing money for a while, due to some poor investments. Until a few months ago
when everything miraculously turned around. There was a huge injection of cash
which I was told to put through using some creative accounting
techniques." Another pause, then, "Rocco was the one who asked me to
do it. Not John. I refused at first but he got nasty and I gave in."

"Wow," said Lucy. "Money
laundering through Mollino Corporation."

"Yeah," said Mack. "I
don't know how they got the cash but I guess that's why the Fraud squad's
investigating him. You know what it's about?"

"No," said Lucy, "haven't
got a clue."

Good girl.

"But if you're the innocent party
here," she said, "why can't you tell the cops this yourself? It would
be easier than contacting me and going through all this."

"I have my reasons."

"Which are?"

Don't push him, Lucy. Just get out of
there.

A long hesitation. "Which are my own
business. Now don't ask any more questions and just get out of here."

"Sure thing. But one thing I want to
know first. Why pick me?"

Mack laughed. "Because you're not a
cop and you're not part of the Mollino family but you're involved whether you
like it or not. That means I can trust you. Besides," another pause,
"you're cute."

Lucy laughed and Nick's gut churned. She
couldn't resist flirting, even with a suspect.

"Thanks for the complement,"
she said, "but if you've got nothing else to tell me, I have to go. I've
got a hair appointment in twenty minutes."

Five minutes later, Lucy was back in her
Honda and heading out of the parking lot, the surveillance van on her tail. The
car with Dave, Tina and Gary followed Mack to find out where he was holed up. When
they turned into the St Jude street, Nick finally let out a breath he'd been
holding for too long.

This was the last time he'd ever involve
Lucy in something as dangerous as that. His heart couldn't take any more strain.

Except it wasn't over. He didn't think
Mack Thompson was the man who'd left the threat on her answering machine. So
who tried to kill her by running her off the road?

While they were gone, the department had
sent someone out to fix the heating and the temperature was almost back to
normal winter levels. One of the surveillance team helped Lucy out of her
equipment, then gathered everything up and left. Nick was alone with her again.

"How are you feeling?" he
asked.

She headed for the kitchen and cast a glance
over her shoulder. "Fine. Thanks."

So, she was going to play it formal. Fine
by him. For now. "You did a good job. Very convincing."

She nodded and opened the fridge. "He's
not the one after me."