“Savich and Sherlock are in the same unit, and they do, I imagine, a great deal more than mere socializing.”

It was the strangest thing, but her heart speeded up, and out of her mouth came, “You want to get me alone so you can jump me, right?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What a thing to say. It’d only be our first date.”

Her heart thudded to her feet, and her voice flattened. “Oh, I see. You want to talk to me some more about what I’m—feeling.”

He lifted his hand, touched his fingers to her cheek, then dropped his arm. His eyes roved over her face. “Do you know, I happen to find myself worrying about you at the oddest times—like when I’m shaving or drinking nonfat milk out of the carton or singing in the shower, and wondering how we’d sound in a duet? The thing is, Lucy, I want to get to know you better, and talking isn’t such a bad idea, now, is it?”

She laughed, thrumming with energy. “Okay, then, but all I’ve got to look forward to is talking?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then you might as well think about what you’d like to sing with me in the shower, too.”

He tapped his fingertips to her chin. “I’ll think about that, too, although that’s an awful lot of thinking.”

Lucy tossed him a little wave and got in her car.

Coop was whistling when he followed her onto 95 south and back to Washington. Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” would make a fine duet for the shower.

Lucy wanted very much to have dinner with Coop, Szechuan or not. She had gone to sleep thinking about what he’d said the previous night at the hospital. She knew he cared about her, and that was the rub. Whatever she told him or didn’t tell him about the ring, she wasn’t going to let the blasted thing take over her life, or keep her from being as close as she wished to people she could love. She refused to choose between telling someone about the ring and loving them, or not loving them at all. Besides, how could a girl turn down a Chinese dinner with a hunky guy like Coop?

As she wove through thickening traffic, she felt the pull of fatigue—far too little sleep, and too much excitement. She turned on the radio to a soft-rock station and sang along, hoping to wake up. The traffic on 95 got messy around Peterborough, so she turned off onto 35, a nice two-lane country road that led west, made a couple of turns, and headed back again south, roughly parallel to 95. This lovely country road was her own private find, a road few people knew about, and a straight shot to Chevy Chase. From there she’d follow her usual commute to the Hoover Building. She hadn’t seen Coop turn off. Had he gotten ahead of her?

She rolled down the window and let the chill air blow over her, hoping the blast of cold would get her to full alert. There was not much out there to help her focus, mostly green pastures, some horses and cows, and lots of trees with scattered houses interspersed. An occasional car heading north passed her by.

She glanced back in her rearview mirror, hoping to see Coop’s Corvette, but she saw only a white commercial van about the size of a FedEx truck behind her, and there was only the driver. She noticed the van was holding steady behind her, neither speeding up nor turning off. She slowed down to see if he wanted to pass, but the van kept the same distance between them for several minutes. She wondered if the driver had gotten himself off 95, as she had, and was content to enjoy the quiet ride into Chevy Chase.

The van behind her speeded up, closing to within about twenty yards of her Range Rover. She looked up, saw another white van that looked identical to the one behind her pulling out about a hundred yards ahead. Only thing was, he was driving backward, the driver hanging his head out the window, his dark hair blowing as he looked at her. She felt a spurt of adrenaline as her heartbeat spiked. She drew a breath, kept her own speed steady. She pulled her SIG from her waist clip and put it under her leg.

What on earth was the guy doing? Was he going to smash into her with his rear bumper so he wouldn’t get hurt himself? Then she realized they wanted to smash her between them.

She speed-dialed Coop’s number.

“Yeah? Lucy, what’s up?”

The van behind her was coming closer. She yelled, “Coop, I’m on Country Route Thirty-five, south of the Peterborough exit off Ninety-five. Two white vans have got me between them, and they’re going to try to smash me. I think they want to kill me!”

A bullet slammed into the Range Rover’s back window, shattering the glass.

She heard Coop yelling her name, heard the screech of his tires. She swerved into the oncoming lane, but the van in front swung over with her, keeping her trapped behind him, while the van behind moved closer. There was no one else on the road, not a vehicle in sight except the vans. More shots crashed through the car’s shattered back window, the bullets slamming into the back of the front passenger seat, shredding it. There was no doubt they were trying to kill her.