was the giant orange curve of the sun, just beginning to rise over a distant horizon. She was…outdoors. On the shore of the ocean. She was grasping handfuls of sand and shells in search of blankets.
Waves whispered soothing sounds as they whooshed up over the sand, then burbled back out again. The wind smelled like seaweed and brine. She brushed off her hand, rubbing it against her shirt, then paused, because she was wearing clothes. A pair of jeans that were a size too big, and a white button-down shirt. A man’s shirt, she thought. Sitting up, she pushed a hand through her hair, which felt vaguely like a rat’s nest, and tried to remember how she’d ended up here. The last thing she remembered…
They’d fed her. She had supposed that was a plus, even if the food was tepid and sticky, and almost certainly prepared by peeling back the plastic and nuking for five minutes on high. Meat loaf with gravy, soupy mashed potatoes, green beans that tasted the way she thought paint would taste and some kind of cherry dessert that was so tart it made her pucker. About two tablespoons of each, whether she needed it or not.
Famished, she’d wolfed the food down so fast there hadn’t been time to ponder the taste overly much. A blessing in itself.
Or not. Because she didn’t remember anything else. Nothing at all. Apparently they had tranquilized her with something. It hadn’t hit her with the potency of the first injection, in the ambulance, and it didn’t have her spilling her guts on any subject they broached, like the one they must have given her just before starting their interrogation. And she didn’t have any doubt that was exactly what it had been. An interrogation by some secret government agency that wanted to know how much she knew about the murders of Lester Folsom and Will Waters.
Only that wasn’t what they’d questioned her about, was it? They’d seemed far more interested in what she knew about her angel. Her savior. That beautiful man who’d saved her.
Or had it all been some kind of a dream?
Maybe. Or maybe not. She couldn’t be sure, because she didn’t know anything for sure anymore. Except that there was someone walking toward her now, along the sand. Walking at a brisk but unhurried pace. She blinked, but her eyes were so unfocused that it was as if she were peering through a dirty window. She squinted, thought she saw a baby-blue car on the side of the road, some distance beyond him, then shifted her focus right back to him again. Yes, him. Definitely male, tall. And as he drew nearer there was something…
It was him!
She scrambled to her feet, forgetting all about the lingering effects of whatever dope they’d used to season her food. Unconsciously, she pushed one hand through her hair, even as she backed up a step, wobbled, then caught her balance again. Her brain was still foggy, her equilibrium off-kilter. Should she stand there, waiting, or run away? She didn’t know whether she was afraid of this guy or not. She didn’t know anything about him, except that he’d been leaning over her after she’d been shot down on the street outside Studio Three. And that she’d felt as if she knew him from somewhere. And that it had seemed as if he had…helped her. Healed her. Saved her.
On the one hand, if he’d helped her then, maybe he wanted to help her now, too.
On the other, if he were involved in any of that violence that had unfolded back there last night—God, had it only been last night?—then she wanted no part of him.
He stopped walking, maybe sensing her distress as she stood there with one hand trying to hold her wild tangles of hair to the back of her head and the other arm wrapped around her own waist, as if she could somehow protect her vital organs simply by covering them with a forearm.
He wore a tan, short-sleeved shirt with the top several buttons undone, khaki trousers, rolled up a little, and his feet were bare and sinking into the sand. Bare feet. That made him seem less scary, somehow.
“It’s all right, Lucy. It’s me. I’m the one who helped you, after—”
“I remember.”
He tipped his head to one side. “You look as if you’ve had a rough night.”
She blinked. “Rough? I witnessed a double execution, ran for my life, was shot in the back and somehow yanked from the