Amelia Autin - Cody Walker's Woman

* * *

Mandy Callahan had just laid her sleeping daughter in her crib when she heard the front doorbell ring, and then ring again. She glanced at her watch as she went to answer it, wondering who could be stopping by way out here at this time of night. The hallway light was out, and she didn’t bother turning it on. But the living room was also shrouded in darkness when she entered, and her brows wrinkled into a puzzled frown. I thought Ryan was in here reading the paper. I wonder where he—

A hand closed over her mouth, and her husband’s arm encircled her waist. “Shh,” he mouthed against her ear. “Stay here and don’t move.”

Mandy froze. No! she thought as her pulse began to race, memories of six years ago as fresh in her mind as if they had occurred yesterday—firebombs ripping her world apart, vengeful murderers after her husband. Not again. Her thoughts flew to the bedroom she’d just left, where her innocent daughter, Abby, lay sleeping; and the bedroom next to it, where her two sons, five-year-old Reilly and little Ryan, only three, were asleep in their bunk beds. My babies, she thought frantically, wanting to run back to protect them, to throw her body over them and shield them from whatever danger threatened, but she knew better than to disobey her husband when his voice sounded the way it had.

His body pressed against hers for a second more, and Mandy could tell her husband was already strapped—the leather holster and the gun it contained had once been Ryan’s constant companions. But it had been years since he’d felt it necessary to be armed to the teeth in their home.

Mandy swallowed hard. She wanted to ask him why, but she was afraid she already knew the answer. Ryan hadn’t said anything, but something had been weighing on his mind this past week. She’d just been so tired and distracted trying to wean Abby, she hadn’t taken the time she normally would to demand he tell her what was going on. And now...now it might be too late....

Her husband took her right hand and wrapped it around something cold and hard—the butt of a pistol. “Use it if you need to,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back.” With that, he was gone, moving down the hallway like a shadow, slipping out the back door into the night.

Her eyes flickering every which way, straining against the darkness and starting at every creak, she waited for Ryan’s return. Not my husband, God, she prayed as she waited. And not my babies. Please, don’t let anything happen to them. Please.

She sensed more than heard movement on the front porch, and her heart began hammering in her breast. Then she heard a low, pained moan, and she almost screamed, thinking it could be her husband making that sound. She darted to the front door, stopping herself just in time as she remembered what Ryan had long ago trained her to do. She flattened herself against the wall beside the door but not too close to it, then waited, gun hand up and ready, counting seconds.

“It’s okay, Mandy,” she heard Ryan call softly. “Open the door.”

She twitched the dead-bolt lock and threw the door open. A large shadow walked through carrying something even larger in its arms. “Shut the door and lock it,” her husband said. She did as he bade her, then followed him as he carried his burden through the dark hallway into their lamp-lit bedroom and gently lowered it onto the bed.

“Oh, my God!” Mandy covered her mouth with one hand to prevent herself from saying anything more. She barely recognized the young man bleeding on their bed as Steve Tressler, their nearest neighbor. His face was a bloody mask, as if it had taken a terrible beating. And there were three wounds she recognized as gunshots tracing across his chest.

She dropped the gun she was holding onto the bed and stumbled to the bathroom, grabbing towels off the shelf and knocking a couple onto the floor in her haste. When she got back to the bedroom, Steve had a death grip on Ryan’s shirt. Ryan was bent over, Steve’s other hand in his and his ear pressed to Steve’s lips, which were moving between gasps for air. And then she saw it—one long, shuddering breath, and Steve’s body went limp.

“No!” she whispered, appalled.

Ryan stood up, his face hard, cold and deadly, the way she’d seen him look six years before. Blood stained his shirt where Steve had gripped it, and he slid something into his jeans pocket, but she couldn’t see what it was.

“Pack some clothes and things for the kids,” Ryan ordered in a voice she hadn’t heard in six years, and it sent icicles down her spine. “You’ve got ten minutes.”

Mandy didn’t hesitate. She’d been there when her home had been turned into a raging inferno by members of the New World Militia. She’d been there when Ryan and Cody had confronted and killed David Pennington, the militia’s founder. And she knew when Ryan looked and sounded like that, questions—and answers—would have to wait.

* * *

They drove through the stillness of the night, the children fast asleep in their car seats. “Where are we going?” she asked finally.

“Walker’s cabin.”

“Why there? Why not Sheridan or Buffalo?”

Ryan didn’t answer at first. Then he said, “Because I need to get you and the kids out of harm’s way. And because Walker will be there tomorrow, with a couple of other agents.”

Mandy felt the stirrings of anger. “How do you know that?” she asked, trying to keep a lid on her temper. “What haven’t you told me?”

Ryan’s voice was harsh in the darkness. “I called him this afternoon and asked him to come up here.”

She breathed deeply. The fear-induced adrenaline that had kept her going at fever pitch for the past hour had finally drained away, and she felt weak and shaky. But not too weak to remind her husband, “Six years ago you swore you’d never keep secrets from me again. So you’d better start talking—fast.”

* * *

Cody jolted awake when the phone rang beside his bed. He fumbled the receiver to his ear and darted a quick look at his alarm clock. After midnight, he thought. Who could be call—

A deep growl sounded in his ear. “DEFCON One.” A click at the other end told him the caller had hung up. But he knew that voice. And he was pretty sure he knew what the code phrase meant.

He bunched a pillow behind him and lay back against it, staring at the phone in his hand, deeply perturbed. Callahan wouldn’t call him at this time of night unless something had happened, something deadly important he needed to warn Cody about.

Cody looked at the phone in his hand, then punched in a number every agent in the agency had memorized, but which few had ever been called upon to use. Cody never had, either, until now.

The phone rang for a few seconds before it was answered by a crisp voice, unmuffled by the dregs of sleep. “D’Arcy.”

“It’s Special Agent Walker, sir. Sorry to wake you, but you did say to keep you posted, and something has come up.”

“That’s okay. What is it?”

“Callahan just called me. He said two words— DEFCON One —then hung up.”

There was a distinct growl at the other end. “How soon can you get up there?”

“It’s a six-hour drive, but we don’t have everything we requisitioned yet. I was told we’d have it first thing in the—”

“Get your team mobilized and be at the agency in one hour. I’ll make a call—if everything you need will be ready in the morning, it can be ready and waiting for you now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m also going to send up two more teams—one to Buffalo and one to Sheridan—as backup, just in case. They’ll be a few hours behind you, so I don’t want you to wait for them, but don’t hesitate to call for help if you need it.”