Amelia Autin - Cody Walker's Woman

He didn’t waste any seconds on small talk. As soon as he closed the door, he said, “I talked to Callahan. He’s fine with McKinnon. I also convinced him we need Jones in on this, but it wasn’t easy.”

D’Arcy flashed his teeth in a smile. “I figured you’d manage somehow. How’d you swing it?”

“I reminded him of what you said—that she couldn’t possibly be in the organization.” He hesitated, then added, “And I told him how I met her. That I—”

D’Arcy frowned and interrupted him. “Was that absolutely necessary?”

Cody made a face of regret, but nodded. “He needed to understand the kind of woman she is.” He stopped short as he realized the other man knew how he’d met Keira. Then he remembered D’Arcy’s curious comment earlier, that Keira already knew Cody. “How do you know how I met her? I never said...”

“It’s my business to know everything,” D’Arcy said with a faint smile. Then he stated unequivocally, “I told her the story wouldn’t get out.”

“She told you what happened?” Cody was surprised.

“She came to me Monday morning. Said she felt she owed it to you to see that you didn’t get into trouble over blowing your cover. She even offered me her resignation, which I obviously didn’t accept.”

“I don’t follow you.” Cody’s brows knit in puzzlement. “How did she know I was a fellow agent?”

“She recognized your name when you introduced yourself afterward. Said she knew then who you were, that you had to be undercover. Said she wouldn’t let you take her to the hospital or to the police because she didn’t want to compromise whatever operation was in play any more than she already had.”

“Damn,” Cody said. “I wish I’d known.” He drew a quick breath. “But even if I had, I would still have needed leverage to convince Callahan.” He chuckled ruefully. “I told him Keira reminded me of his wife, that she would shoot me if necessary.”

D’Arcy was forced to laugh. He’d been there in the aftermath of what had gone down six years ago, when Mandy had shot Cody through a tragic misunderstanding. And he also knew there was no surer way to Callahan’s trust than to compare someone to the wife who would have killed her childhood friend to protect him.

Cody added, “I don’t need to tell you Callahan won’t reveal a word of this to anyone. Keira doesn’t have to worry about the story getting around.”

The phone buzzed, and D’Arcy hit the intercom button. “Yes?”

“Five minutes, sir.”

“Right.” D’Arcy hit the disconnect button and smiled at Cody. “I run this branch of the agency, but she runs me, ” he joked.

“There’s one more thing,” Cody said quickly. “I’m being tailed.”

D’Arcy’s smile vanished as if it had never been there. “You’re sure?” he asked softly.

“Dead sure. I made him just now, on the way back to the agency from calling Callahan. And I’ve seen him before.”

“How long?”

Cody had already cast his mind back over the past weeks, then months, but couldn’t remember catching even a whiff of having been tailed until now, and he quickly recounted what little he knew.

D’Arcy assimilated this unwelcome news, trying to fit this puzzle piece in place with all the other little bits and pieces. He held out his hand, and Cody shook it. “I don’t need to tell you to be careful,” he told Cody. “Just remember one thing—Callahan was running the show six years ago, but this is your case now. The extent of his involvement is at your discretion.”

“Yes, sir,” Cody said.

“Keep me posted. If there’s anything you need, you have the full resources of this agency at your disposal. Just ask.” His eyes turned cold, and he added even more softly but with deadly intent, “I don’t need to remind you what the New World Militia was capable of six years ago. If they’ve really been resurrected as the same organization, all the agency’s special rules apply, especially seven and eight.”

* * *

Cody pressed the button for the fifth floor and rode down in the elevator lost in thought. Special rules seven and eight. He knew what they were—every agent in the agency knew all eight of the special rules by heart—but he’d never had special rule eight apply to a case he was working before. It was too broad, too open to interpretation, and he didn’t agree with the basic concept.

And there was a part of him that didn’t agree with special rule seven, either—the part of him that had once sworn to uphold and enforce the law as a sheriff back in Wyoming. The part of him that had once bluntly told Ryan Callahan, aka Reilly O’Neill, there were other ways of taking David Pennington down...without killing him.

In the end it hadn’t been possible—he and Callahan had killed Pennington together. Whether Ryan Callahan’s .45 had done the deed or whether it had been the knife Cody had thrown while clinging to the side of a building nearly bleeding to death, neither of them knew, nor cared. They’d both been trying to save Mandy, held hostage by Pennington with a gun to her head and murder in his heart. The fact that Pennington had been the one to end up in the morgue rather than Mandy or Callahan was all they’d cared about in the heat of the moment.

But that didn’t mean Cody was happy how things had ended, even though Pennington’s death made a lot of good things possible. Cody would have preferred to go by the book: arrest, prosecution and incarceration. Long, long incarceration. It just hadn’t been in the cards that night.

Deal with it, Callahan had told Cody when Cody had expressed regret about the outcome. Cody could still hear him saying it in that disconcertingly direct way he had. Callahan had been visiting Cody in the hospital while he recovered from the gunshot wound that had nearly taken his life. You can’t ever second-guess yourself, Callahan had advised him. Not if you want to stay alive. If you do, you’ll be frozen with indecision when the chips are down. That’s the quickest way I know to end up dead. Even worse, someone who doesn’t deserve to die might pay the price for your screwup.

Cody had taken that advice to heart. He’d never allowed himself to second-guess his actions in all the years since. Not until today. Not until he’d seen the bruises he’d inflicted on Keira.

She doesn’t blame you, he reminded himself. She said it herself—you did what you had to do to save her. But after seeing the bruises on her pale, delicate skin, the reminder was cold comfort.

* * *

Cody checked the agency’s intranet listing for McKinnon’s phone number and picked up the phone. Then he changed his mind and looked up another number instead.

He heard a crisp “Keira Jones” in his ear, but for some reason he couldn’t help remembering those two words she’d spoken to him the night they met— I will. He pushed the memory ruthlessly to one side and told her, “You’re in.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, and he heard the little edge of excitement she couldn’t suppress in her voice. “I thought you were sure Callahan would refuse.”

“He’s not unreasonable, just stubborn—I should have remembered that. If you get to know him the way I do, you’ll realize unpredictability could be defined by watching him.”

“Is he really that good? What I mean is,” she explained, “the way you and Trace and D’Arcy talk about him makes me wonder why he’s not working for the agency.”

Despite everything Cody was worried about, he laughed. “If you ever meet his wife, you wouldn’t ask that question. Mandy is...” Pictures of Mandy flashed through his mind, from when they’d been toddlers together, through their high school years, to the last time he’d seen her after the birth of her third child, the daughter she and Callahan had been hoping for. “Let’s just say any man married to Mandy could be forgiven for wanting a job that kept him home nights.”