Tyler's head went back and forth, as if he were at a tennis match, watching the progress of the bridge opening and then the van approaching. He was up and moving toward the road as the van smashed full speed into the right steel truss, moving so fast it actually slid up the truss about five feet before smashing back down and coming to a halt in the center of the bridge.

Tyler was still whistling as he hopped the railing and ran toward the van. Just before he reached the van, he glanced north and south, checking for lights. Nothing. He had thirty seconds, he estimated, in order to be safe. He hit the button and the bridge slowly began turning back to its normal position.

He reached the van and looked in the driver's window. The driver was wearing a seat belt, her body held upright in it. A woman. Dressed in black. Unconscious. Too bad that little snot with the binoculars was too young to drive. He'd snap her like a twig.

Tyler grabbed the woman's jaw, twisted her head, and checked the pulse in her neck. Faint but there. The distant sound of a car startled him. Glancing back, he saw headlights. He ran to the place where he had cut the wire and unpeeled the black tape, splicing the wires together and then wrapping the tape around them. He climbed over the railing and slid into the Savannah River. Then, as he heard a car pull up, brakes screaming, he began swimming with the current, away from the site of the wreck, toward the waiting warm beer and laptop with the DVD loaded in it. It was a damn good night.

Wilder had tried to be businesslike as they sped down Route 17. He was helping the boss find some missing equipment, that was all.

He stole a look at Lucy in the moonlight. She was staring straight ahead through the windshield, her long hair blowing back, un-braided, just the way he'd imagined it, except that instead of the desert they were driving across the lowlands of South Carolina and they had that dipshit Nash in the backseat. This fantasy needs work, he thought.

"If you'd just let me handle this," Nash said.

"You're never handling anything of mine ever again," Lucy said.

All right, Wilder thought, and felt much better about Nash being in the backseat.

Then Lucy leaned forward and yelled, "Stop," and Wilder saw it, too, Nash's van smashed in the middle of the bridge.

"What the fuck?" Nash said, finally sounding mad.

"Stephanie," Lucy said as Wilder braked at the last second, sliding the Jeep to a halt a few feet shy of the wreck.

"My van," Nash said, and then Lucy was out of the Jeep-Wilder following-afraid of what she'd find.

Chapter 13

Lucy saw Stephanie bloody behind the wheel, and said, "No!" She yanked open the door and then J.T. grabbed her.

"Don't touch her," he said, and Lucy stopped, knowing he was right.

He reached across Stephanie carefully, turned the engine off, and pulled out the keys, and Stephanie groaned and tried to straighten against the seat belt that held her.

"Stephanie, it's okay, we're here," Lucy said. "Where does it hurt? Can you move?"

J.T. was punching 911 into his cell phone, looking grim. Don't let her be dying, Lucy thought and put her hand gently on Stephanie's shoulder, barely touching her. "Stephanie?'

Stephanie turned her head, her face twisted, blood smeared on her mouth. "This is your fault," she said, her voice thick.

She coughed and then moaned, and Lucy said, "J.T.'s calling 911. Somebody will be here soon. Can I help-Is there anything-"

"Go away." Stephanie coughed, her head drooping, and Lucy stepped back, afraid to upset her more. "Nash. Is he-"

"Connor, get over here," Lucy yelled, and he came around the back of the van. "She's hurt and she wants you."

"Yeah, and whose fault is that?" Nash came up to the window. "You okay?" he said to Stephanie.

"I'm sorry," Stephanie said, pain slurring her voice. "But I had to stop you-"

"Where's my keys?" Nash reached past her and felt the empty ignition.

"Please," Stephanie said, as J.T. held out Nash's keys.

Nash grabbed them and took them to the back of the van, and Stephanie coughed and began to cry, moving her hand to hold her ribs.

"Damn it." Lucy went to the back of the van and grabbed Nash's arm. "Get up there and talk to her. She's more important than your damn van."

Nash shook himself free, unlocked the back, and opened it, and Lucy saw the stunt gun inside, racked and ready, the harnesses neatly coiled and stacked in their cages, everything secure, hardly disturbed by the accident.

Nash sighed in obvious relief. "Nothing's hurt," he said and got out his cell phone.

"Are you out of your mind? Stephanie is hurt."

"She's hurt because she stole my van." Nash began to punch numbers into his phone.

Lucy went cold. "What kind of a monster are you? My God, you were always a liar, but you had feelings. What happened to you?"

"You're being a little irrational, love," he told her as he listened to the phone ring.

"Irrational?" Lucy took a deep breath. "Expecting one human being to care about another is not irrational. Expecting you to be kind to a woman who loves you is not irrational. Expecting you to put your fucking phone down when somebody needs you is not irrational. "

He ignored her, and she ripped the phone out of his hand and slung it into the swamp, where it plopped and sank without a trace.

"What the fuck?" Nash said, rounding on her.

"That was irrational," Lucy said, and went back to J.T., who was talking softly to Stephanie.

"The rescue squad will be here any minute now," he was saying when Lucy reached him. "Can you move your legs?"

"They hurt," Stephanie sobbed.

"That's good," J.T. said. "You've got feeling in them. They might have been hurt when you hit the bridge, but broken bones heal. You-"

Lucy heard sirens, coming closer, coming faster, and J.T. smiled through the window at Stephanie.

"Just a minute, now. You're going to be fine. Just a minute."

Lucy leaned against the door, biting her lip, as Nash came around the van.

"Jesus, you're a crazy bitch," he said, and Lucy wasn't sure whether he meant her or Stephanie, but J.T. straightened. "I need your cell phone," Nash said to Lucy. "Now. "

"Fuck you," Lucy said and walked back to the Jeep as the ambulance pulled up.

"Lucy, I'm not kidding," Nash said from behind her.

Lucy got into the Jeep and looked back. J.T. was standing between her and Nash, blocking his way.

"I can go around you or through you, mate," Nash said.

"No, you really can't," J.T. said, and then the EMTs pushed past them, and Nash ran to close the back of the van.

Lucy's cell phone rang, and when she answered it, Finnegan said "Lucy?"

"What do you want?" she said, in no mood for his Irish brogue.

"Would Connor be standing by?"

"No," Lucy lied. She was not playing secretary for two sociopaths.

"Can you tell me if he recovered his van?" Finnegan said.

"Yes. It's smashed into a bridge, along with the woman who was driving it." She was shaking, she realized. She could feel the cell phone move against her cheek. There was blood on Stephanie's mouth. Did that mean internal injuries?

"We've had an accident?"

" We haven't," Lucy snapped. "We're not bleeding all over the pavement right now." Too many accidents, too much blood. "This stops now. I'm shutting down your damn movie. Fuck you and your four million dollars."

"Wait," 'Finnegan said. "Don't-"

"Forget it. Go play with your mole."

"I'll meet you- "Finnegan said, and Lucy clicked off the phone and watched the EMTs work on getting Stephanie from the van.

"I'll stay with her at the hospital," she told J.T. as he got into the driver's seat.

"No, you won't." He turned on the engine. "Fair or not, she's blaming you, and if she sees you, she'll get upset again."

He began to back the Jeep up, and Lucy said, "We should at least stay until-"

"Let Nash handle it." J.T. pulled back onto the road. "He's the one she wants, and if we're not there, he'll have to answer the questions. He's the one with answers anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that when I came out of the camper, I heard the noise of the van leaving, and he was mad but he wasn't chasing Stephanie, he was on the phone."

Lucy shook her head. "Still not following."

"Nash called somebody to stop her," J.T. said. "And that somebody caused the wreck."

Lucy swallowed. "He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't hurt…" I don't know that, she realized. I don't know him at all. He's not Connor anymore, he's some crazed bastard.

"You okay?" J.T. said.

"No," Lucy said. "Not even close."

Five minutes later, Wilder pulled up in front of Lucy's camper, not sure what to do for her. "Look, Stephanie's going to be all right. She was talking, her mind was clear, the EMTs were fast-"

"I know," Lucy said. "But there's something very wrong here and I don't know how to stop it."

"Hey," he said, feeling guilty about the CIA, and she turned and smiled at him, rueful in the base-camp lights.

"You, however, are very right. Thank you for everything, for being so good to Stephanie and for taking me there and for Pepper's gifts."

He shrugged, not sure what to say.