Snapped (20 page)

He nodded. "Because just the thought
of being with me after this is over makes you feel trapped."

He knew her so well already, after only a
few days. Then again, it had been an intense few days.

She expected him to argue with her, tell
her she was being ridiculous, but he just nodded again. "Right." Nothing
in his voice or his face indicated how he felt. His blank mask was in place
again.

Then it suddenly fell away and he leaned
forward. "Lucy, don't do this. We can take it slow." He caught her
hand in both of his. "As slow as you want. I'll give you as long as you
need—"

"Nick, stop, please." She
stood, pushing the chair back with a harsh scrape. "Just stop this. I
can't take this further. The sooner you understand that, the happier you'll
be." She watched him from the other side of the small kitchen. His face
crumpled around his mouth and eyes, then he looked away and she was staring at
his slightly rounded shoulders. "I can't do this anymore! Can you please
tell your Chief to get someone else to take over."

He took a long time to answer and he
seemed to be having trouble catching his breath. "Well, there's a slight
problem. Apart from Dave, I'm the only one the Chief can spare for his
job."

Lucy slumped back against the kitchen
bench. Caught between a rock and a hard place. "Maybe Dave would be
better."

He snorted a laugh. "You don't like
him."

"Exactly." The perfect
antidote. She laughed without humor. "You know, if you were more like him,
we wouldn't be in this mess."

He swung round. "What does that
mean?"

She straightened under his dark scrutiny,
squaring her shoulders. "At least Dave accepts me for who I am." It
was time to lay this on the line, tell him what really bothered her. Tell him
why she could never be with him. "He thinks I'm a slut, he calls me a
slut, but at the end of the day he doesn't try to change that."

"Lucy, you're not..."

"You've changed your tune
quickly." He flinched but didn't contradict her. "I know you hate my
history, Nick. I know you hate what I am, but that's too bad because I can't
change it. I don't want to. I like who I am. You don't. You want me to be the
nice, respectable girlfriend. Well, I never will be. I can't."

"Why?" he spat.

"Let me answer that with a question
of my own. Do you honestly believe that if we were a couple, I wouldn't cheat
on you? Isn't that what you're afraid of?" His face drained of color. "Admit
it, Nick, you have doubts. And if you have doubts now, imagine how magnified
they'd be in months to come. Your suspicion would eventually eat you up."

He pulled himself up to his full height,
an intimidation tactic he probably used on his suspects. It didn't work with
her. "This isn't about me. I trust you. This is about you. Why do you
think you'd cheat? Because you're afraid of making a commitment? Because you've
been burned before? Because your father left your mother?"

She clenched her fists. "This has
nothing to do with him."

"Are you sure?" He turned
around before she had a chance to answer. "Get over it, Lucy. Or you're
going to be one very unhappy woman."

She stood, speechless, rooted to the spot
as he stormed out. She heard the shower running and still she couldn't move. How
dare he judge her! He knew nothing about her, or about her father. And he
certainly had no right to tell her what was wrong with her life. Goddamn, she
shouldn't have let him get this close. She definitely shouldn't have slept with
him. Big mistake. Now he thinks he knows her, owns her.

The weight on her chest pressed harder,
making breathing difficult. She shook her head, trying to clear it, but it was a
jumble of unspoken accusations. When she could finally move, she stopped
outside the bathroom door and nearly opened it so she could fling some of those
accusations at him, but she bit her lip and kept walking until she got to her
room.

She gathered her clothes and shoved them
in her sports bag then went in search of Oscar. The traitor was asleep on
Nick's bed. She scooped him up and he meowed a protest but she cuddled him to
her and he settled against her breast.

"We gotta go, buddy. Before we make
any more mistakes like the one we made with Nick." The cat blinked back at
her. "Okay, the one
I
made with Nick."

She picked up her bag, thought about
leaving a note, but decided her absence would be self-explanatory. She shut the
door and got into her Honda still parked outside. Oscar settled into the
passenger seat and she threw her sports bag in the back.

She couldn't go home, or to her mother's
place. He'd find her there, and her life was still in danger from Mollino's
killer.

The only way she could get this over with
and get her life back to normal was find the killer herself. She didn't think
Nick would have left any stone unturned in his investigation, but her methods
would be different. Feminine wiles and intuition had got her just as far in her
business as her camera.

CHAPTER
13

Maybe Dave would be better. At least Dave
accepts me for who I am.

Nick couldn't get her words out of his
head. They sliced through him, ate at his gut and wouldn't leave him alone. He
stood under the shower, not moving, just letting the water flow over him. But
it didn't ease his tension.

Surely not... She wouldn't... She might,
if only to prove a point.

The insidious thought crept into his
brain as images of Donna and last partner returned to provoke him.

It was happening again.

But only if he let it.

He turned the water off and dried
quickly. He tied the towel around his hips and opened the bathroom door. "Lucy."
No answer. He went to the kitchen, checked her bedroom, but she wasn't there. Neither
was Oscar. And her clothes were gone.

"Lucy?" Where the hell was she?
He opened the front door and looked out to the street.

There was an empty space where her car had
been.

He stood there, stunned.

When his brain finally kicked in again,
he felt relieved knowing that she'd left on her own and was at least safe. If
the attacker had found her and taken her while he was in the shower, her
clothes and cat would still be in the house.

But that knowledge offered little
comfort.

Dave would be better.

Oh, Jeez Lucy, no. But it was the only
thing that made sense after their conversation.

He shut the door and closed his eyes. He
slumped against the wall, deflated and empty. He should call the Chief and let
him know Lucy was missing. But he didn't. He didn't want the guys to know
anything until he'd spoken to her first. He needed to let her know how he felt.
She needed to know he loved her.

He couldn't remember saying those words
to her. Maybe it would make a difference. Then again...

He shoved that thought aside as he
dressed. He grabbed the car keys and locked up the house. His heart hammered
into his ribs, reminding him what an idiot he'd been. He should've tried harder
to convince her that her history didn't matter.

He thumped the steering wheel with his
fist. The fact was, it
did
matter. It mattered even more that she could
be with Dave right now, laughing about him.

He drove all the way to Richmond and her
small office, but she wasn't there. He went to her apartment next, letting
himself in when no one answered. It was breaking and entering but this was an
emergency. It was empty. Not even Oscar greeted him at the door.

Where the hell was she?

A friend's place? Ex boyfriend's? Dave's?
He ignored the stab of jealousy and checked all the rooms of the tiny
apartment. No sign she'd been there.

Damn. He sat heavily on a stool at the
kitchen bench and pushed a hand through his hair. The flashing light on her
answering machine caught his attention but he ignored it. He didn't want to
stoop to that level.

But he did want to contact someone she
was close to. Her mother or her friend Abbey in Stanton. Maybe she'd called one
of them or even gone to stay.

He found an address book beside the phone
and told himself he was doing this for her own good. Her life was in danger—he
needed to find her. He flipped to the Hs, located her mother's number and
dialed.

"Mrs. Hudson? This is," he
paused, "Nick Dante, a friend of Lucy's." No need to add the
Detective in front of his name. No point worrying her at this stage. She didn't
know her daughter was helping them out and people often didn't like talking to
cops. As a friend, he might be able to find out more.

"Nick?" A long pause. "She
hasn't mentioned you before. Are you new?"

New? "Ah, I guess. She's been
staying with me the last couple of days. We've become quite ... close."

"Oh? That's wonderful. Fantastic."
The well-spoken voice bubbled with enthusiasm. "Do you think this might
become permanent?" When Nick hesitated, she added, "How serious are
you?"

"Very. Only, I'm not sure she sees
it that way."

"Silly girl," she muttered. "Look,
Nick, if you like her, I mean really like her, don't give up. So how can I help
you?"

"Actually, I'm looking for her. You
haven't seen her, have you?"

"Not since her accident. She called
me from your place yesterday and she sounded like she was having a great
time."

Yeah, a wonderful time making him fall in
love with her. He swore then apologized.

"That's okay. You must be
frustrated. But I'm sure she'll turn up. She always does."

"Yeah, it's just that we didn't part
on great terms, and I kind of want to apologize."

"Oh? Say something you shouldn't
have?"

The Hudson women were mind readers. "Kind
of."

"Typical man."

Nick felt like apologizing but refrained.
"If you hear from her, tell her I want to speak to her. It's really
important."

"I will, don't worry. And Nick, I'm
glad you're trying to make a go if it with her. If you love her, stay in game,
even if she gives you the brush off. Lucy's a great girl but she's just a
little lost right now."

"How do you mean?"

Mrs. Hudson sighed down the phone. "I
probably shouldn't mention it, but since you've been so persistent, and you
obviously like her..."

Nick bit his lip to stop from telling her
to hurry up.

"...she hasn't been the same since
her friend Abbey got married and moved to Stanton."

"Oh." Is that it?

"It was quite a significant event
for Lucy. She lost her best friend, and to a man no less. You see, Lucy doesn't
believe in love so it was a shock when Abbey fell head over heels. Lucy had to
rethink everything. It rocked her. And just between you and me," she
lowered her voice, "I think you're the first guy she's had S E X with
since then."

The first? "How long ago did Abbey
get married?"

"Six months."

The first in six months? Lucy Hudson
definitely wasn't the woman he thought she was. Not recently anyway. The more
he learned about her, the less he really knew. And he wanted to know everything.
"That's, um, interesting, Mrs. Hudson. But why didn't Lucy believe in
love? Has she been burned before?"

"Yes. By her father. He left when
she was ten. We had no word from him until recently. He wants to meet her and
talk. He really wants to get to know her again but she won't hear of it. She
won't even return his calls."

When Nick hung up, he didn't move off the
stool for a long time. He was no closer to finding Lucy but he was closer to
understanding her. Her fear of commitment had stemmed from her father's
desertion—that he'd already guessed. But his sudden reappearance after all
these years must have shaken her. Coupled with Abbey's blissful happiness,
Lucy's unsentimental world had quickly changed to one full of doubts and
emotions she'd never known she had.

No way would she have gone to Dave. He
laughed. How the hell could he have even thought it? She couldn't stand the
little jerk and she had more sense than to make him jealous by going off with
his partner.

No, the thought would never even have
entered her head. God, he didn't deserve her. He'd got her all wrong, right
from the beginning. She wasn't a sleaze. Even if she had been once, she wasn't
now, and that's what mattered.

What mattered more, was that she'd wanted
him
. She could have had any guy but none had interested her anymore
except him.

He felt honored. But guilty as sin. He
might have destroyed something wonderful, something special, by accusing her of
being—he swallowed hard—a slut.

He stood, feeling like he'd been given a
second chance. But where did that leave him now?

With an aching heart and so many things
to say and no one to say them to. He needed to find her. Needed to
tell
her.