Cody Walker's Woman (4 page)

D’Arcy nodded, acknowledging the truth of Cody’s statement as far as it went. “He might not like it, but there’s one thing he knows as well as I do—the New World Militia doesn’t recruit women. There’s not a chance in hell Special Agent Jones is a member.” He looked at the two men. “I can’t say that about either of you.”

Cody and Trace looked at each other. Glancing from one man to the other, Keira saw the sudden suspicion in both sets of eyes. “Stop it,” she said, “both of you. I
know
Trace,” she told Cody. “He’s been my partner for three years, ever since I joined the agency. I know him like I know myself.” She looked at Trace. “I don’t know Cody the way I know you, but I trust him with my life, the same way I trust you.”

Trace’s eyes narrowed again, and he looked as if he were going to demand further elucidation of her statement, but Nick D’Arcy preempted him. “That’s enough,” he said. “I just wanted to make a point. That’s why I’m sending Special Agent Jones as well as the two of you. Even though Callahan might not trust her, I do. End of discussion.”

It was a dismissal, and all three agents rose and filed out. Cody walked toward the elevator and punched the button, Keira and Trace right behind him.

“Wait up,” Keira said. “We need to talk about next steps.”

Cody glanced down at her and gave her an assessing look. “I’ve got to talk to Callahan, see what he says.”

“Shouldn’t we talk about it first, the three of us?”

“Look,” he said, “don’t take this the wrong way. But O’Neill is a tad, shall we say, old-school?”

“O’Neill?” She knew her face reflected her puzzlement. “I thought his name was Callahan.”

Cody rubbed the bridge of his nose, his lips pursing at his mistake. “It is. But when I first knew him, he was going by the name of Reilly O’Neill. Sometimes I still call him that out of habit.”

“Oh, I see.” She thought a moment. “What do you mean he’s a tad old-school?”

The elevator arrived, and they all crowded in. “What floor?” Cody asked.

“Twelve,” Trace volunteered.

Cody pushed the button for the twelfth floor as well as the fifth-floor button for his own office.

Keira reiterated her question. “What do you mean he’s a tad old-school?”

Cody looked at Trace. “You know him, too, McKinnon. Wouldn’t you say he’s a throwback?”

Trace laughed. “That’s an understatement.”

Cody grimaced. “There’s no easy way to tell you, but...Callahan won’t like it that a woman is involved in the investigation.”

“You’re kidding, right?” She glanced from Cody to her partner, then back again. Both faces had that expression men hid behind when they didn’t know what to say to a woman because no matter what they said, it was suicide one way or the other. “That’s not just old-school—he must be a dinosaur.”

Cody laughed but said, “I have to talk to him about this, get his okay before we plan anything. I don’t care what Baker Street says—if Callahan says no, it’s no.”

Keira opened her mouth, then closed it again. She made a sound of disbelief, but she didn’t know what to say. She turned accusatory eyes on her partner. “Is that how you feel, too?”

Trace had that “deer in the headlights” look, but all he said was “It’s not my call,” then added in an undertone, “thank God.”

“I don’t believe this,” Keira said to him, hurt battling anger for dominance as she confronted him. “We’ve been partners for three years. I thought you trusted me.”

“I do,” Trace reassured her. “But I’m not Callahan. I can’t speak for him.”

“Look,” Cody began. “It’s nothing against you personally....”

The elevator door opened on the twelfth floor and Trace made his escape, but Keira stayed right where she was. She put her arm across the elevator door, preventing it from closing again, and when she did, her sleeve pulled up, exposing an ugly green-and-yellow bruise that encircled her wrist.

“God,” Cody said, suddenly distressed. “Did I do that to you?” He reached out and touched her wrist with two fingers, brushing the bruise so lightly it didn’t hurt. He raised a troubled face to hers.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “It might have been you. Or it might have been one of the animals who jumped me.”

He moved closer and held the elevator door open with his shoulder while he fit his fingers around her wrist. They matched the bruise exactly. “I am so sorry,” he said. She saw him swallow hard. “I didn’t realize...” He reached for her other wrist and pushed the sleeve back before she could stop him, exposing an even uglier bruise. His face contracted as if the sight hurt him.

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I bruise easily. You did what you had to do to save me. I don’t blame you. I...” He was brushing his fingers lightly over the bruise, back and forth, as if he could erase it that way, and the touch of his fingers was somehow erotic. She drew her hand away and pulled down the sleeve. “I’d far rather have the bruises than what else might have happened to me.” Her chin tilted up.

There was just a second when she saw something in his eyes—a look of admiration tinged with frank, male appreciation—but it was gone so quickly she thought she must have imagined it.

“Besides,” she added, pointing to the faint scratch marks on his left cheek. “I hurt you, too.”

His hand rose involuntarily, as if he’d forgotten all about the marks she’d left on him. But then she could see him remembering what he’d done to her to make her scratch him so violently, and remorse filled his face.

“Don’t think about that,” Keira said swiftly, and repeated, “You did what you had to do, and—” she made each of her next words a separate sentence for emphasis “—I. Don’t. Blame. You.”

“I didn’t mean to be so...brutal.”

“What you did was nothing compared to what they had in mind,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, but...”

“But nothing,” she said firmly. “Forget about it. I have,” she lied.

He didn’t say anything, just looked at her in a way that reminded her of the moment when he’d told her to tie up her shirt that first night, and she felt her cheeks grow warm. That was the worst thing about having the pale skin that accompanied her red hair; any change in coloration was noticeable.

Two people approached the elevator, glancing curiously at Cody and Keira talking so intently. Keira brushed past the other two agents, and Cody followed her out. The elevator doors slid closed behind them.

“Wait,” he said. “We’re not quite finished.”

She turned around, darting a quick look around to see if anyone was watching them, then asked, “What is it?”

“I started to say it’s nothing against you personally why O’Ne—I mean Callahan probably won’t want to include you.” He punched the elevator button again. “It’s a long story, and maybe I’ll tell you sometime, but I’ve got a bullet hole in me because Callahan didn’t even trust the woman he eventually married with the truth.”

Keira shook her head in puzzlement. “I don’t get it. If he didn’t trust her, why did he marry her?”

Cody chuckled. “Good question. Seriously, though, by the time he married her, he
did
trust her. But it wasn’t easy for him.” The elevator doors swooshed open, and he stepped inside, holding the door for a minute while he finished. “Callahan doesn’t trust many people, and I’d say Mandy’s probably the only woman he does trust.”

The elevator doors closed, and Keira stood there for a moment, staring blankly at the brushed metal, her sixth sense humming. There was something in the way Cody had said Mandy’s name. Most people probably wouldn’t have noticed. But then most people didn’t work for the agency, either. It was just the slightest softening when he spoke her name. A certain inflection. And Keira knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mandy, whoever she was, had once meant something special to Cody. Maybe still did.

She turned and walked down the hall toward her office. Without realizing it, her right hand touched her left wrist and felt the bruise there. She looked down at both wrists, thinking absently about the other bruises on her body hidden beneath her clothes that no one but she—and her doctor—had seen. Including the imprint of four fingers and a thumb on one still-tender breast.

Keira walked into her office and sat at her desk. She knew she should be upset that she might be unfairly excluded from this investigation because Callahan was a throwback to the bad old days and didn’t think women were up to the job. She knew she could prove him wrong—if she got the chance. She’d been fighting her whole life to be taken seriously, and she wasn’t ready to give up; not by a long shot.

But she wasn’t thinking about that at this moment. She wasn’t thinking about proving herself to Callahan. It made absolutely no sense to her because she’d never allowed her personal feelings to infringe on her work before, but all she could think about in that instant were the marks Cody had left on her body—and the way he’d said Mandy’s name.

Chapter 3

C
ody stood at a pay phone ten blocks from the agency’s complex, dropping quarters into the slot. It was a good thing he had enough change on him—who carried much cash anymore in this day of plastic?

It also hadn’t been easy even finding a pay phone—almost everyone had a cell phone these days, so a lot of the pay phones had been removed because they no longer generated enough income to make them worthwhile—and he’d almost given up before he found one that was still functional...ten blocks away.

He’d noted the location without drawing attention to it, then had walked several more blocks in a random pattern, “checking six” every so often to make sure he wasn’t being tailed. When he’d been sure he was clear, he’d doubled back to the pay phone and dialed the number he’d memorized earlier.

“Yeah?” Callahan’s gritty voice sounded in his ear.

“It’s me.” Cody knew he didn’t have to identify himself. “D’Arcy gave me the green light, but there’s one small problem.”

“What’s that?”

Cody watched the passersby carefully without letting on he was doing it, making sure no one was evincing interest in his conversation or got close enough to hear him. “He’s sending three of us to Black Rock.”

“No.”

“Just wait,” Cody said. “Don’t say no until you know who.”

“Okay,” Callahan said. “Tell me who, so I can tell you no.”

Cody laughed and shook his head. “Damn, you haven’t changed.”

“I’m alive.” Callahan seemed to think that was explanation enough.

“Besides me, D’Arcy wants to send Trace McKinnon.”

A short pause was followed by a reluctant “I guess I’m okay with that. McKinnon can probably be trusted, especially if D’Arcy says so.” His voice sharpened. “That’s two. Who’s the third?”

“Keira Jones, McKinnon’s partner. You don’t know her, but—”

“No.”

“Just hear me out,” Cody said. “D’Arcy already had them working on this investigation weeks before you called, so they’re two steps ahead of me. I told D’Arcy you wouldn’t like having a woman involved—”

“Damn straight.”

“But he said,” Cody continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “there’s one thing you know as well as he does—the organization doesn’t recruit women.”

There was a long pause. “He’s got a point,” Callahan finally acknowledged grudgingly. “But I don’t know her. Do you?”

Cody rapidly reviewed his meager options. He could stretch the truth—lie, in essence, which he really didn’t want to do to Callahan—or he could come clean and play the odds. “I’ve known her less than a week,” he admitted, deciding only the truth would serve. “Before you say no,” he rushed to add, “let me tell you how I met her.”

He related the whole story in a few brief sentences, knowing he didn’t have to paint the entire picture for Callahan to get the point. “Physically she’s no match for a man,” he concluded, “but she’s got guts and brains. And she’ll fight to the death, if that’s what it takes. You can’t ask for much more than that.”

Cody heard Callahan breathe deeply on the other end of the line and knew the decision was hanging in the balance. He played his trump card. “She reminds me a lot of Mandy—she’d shoot me if she had to.”

Callahan laughed, and Cody knew he’d won this round. “Okay,” said the voice on the other end. “How soon can you get here?”

“I’m not sure. There aren’t a lot of flights to either Sheridan or Buffalo. It might be easier, and maybe even faster, if we drove, especially since we’ll need reliable transportation while we’re there. We can drive up in six hours, but I don’t know how soon we can leave.”

“Let me know. We’ll need to set up a place to meet.”
Where we can’t be seen,
he didn’t have to add.

“What about my cabin near Granite Pass?” Cody offered as the idea occurred to him. “I haven’t been up there in six weeks, but I assume it’s still standing. I figure you’d have said something before now if it wasn’t.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Callahan said slowly.

“The three of us could stay there, too. Then no one would know we were even near Black Rock,” Cody said. “If things are as dicey as you intimated earlier...”

Callahan chuckled, but there was little humor in it. “You know, Walker, for an amateur you’re not half-bad.”

“Thanks,” Cody said drily. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Both men hung up, and Cody laughed softly to himself. “Amateur,” he said and laughed again.

He walked back to the office listing in his mind all the things they needed to do before they left for Black Rock.
D’Arcy and Callahan are right,
he thought.
We need to move on this fast.
But he wasn’t so lost in thought he didn’t take every opportunity to check to see if he was being followed. And when he turned a corner two blocks before the outer gate of the agency’s complex, he let his gaze swing wide in the direction from which he’d just come, out of habit more than anything else. That was when he spotted him.

The man looked no different from anyone else on the street. He blended in—almost too well. There wasn’t a single thing that made him stand out from the crowd. Cody couldn’t have said what it was about him, but there was
something
...and he knew he was being tailed.

He didn’t let on he’d marked the tail, just kept heading toward the agency’s front gate. While he walked, he reviewed the scene at the pay phone in his mind, and his first spurt of adrenaline subsided. This man had not been there; Cody was sure of it. Or if he had, he hadn’t been close enough to hear Cody’s side of the conversation.