by Amelia Autin
“I know,” Keira said, but so low he had to strain to hear her. “It came to me in my dream last night.”
He frowned. “But you never said that this morning....”
Keira kept her head down, staring at the computer screen. “I might have been wrong,” she said in an undertone. “I didn’t want...” She drew a sharp breath. “Actually, when I was researching a link between the Praetor Corporation and that phrase two weeks ago, I came across a few references to an online video game by that name,” she confessed, as if she’d failed him somehow. “I just didn’t make the connection until last night.”
Cody reached down and turned her face so she had to look at him. “Don’t,” he said. “We’re a team. Don’t hold back when you have an idea just because you might be wrong. Hell, I’m wrong half the time myself,” he said, exaggerating to make his point.
She hesitated, then said, “You’re right. I should have trusted that you and Callahan wouldn’t hold it against me if my theory proved wrong.”
Cody realized Keira hadn’t included McKinnon in that statement, and another surge of jealousy rose in him. Apparently she trusted her partner more than she trusted him...and that bothered him. A lot. A hell of a lot more than just a lot, he acknowledged, trying to squelch his unreasonable jealousy of McKinnon. In some ways Keira still didn’t trust him, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it...not here...not now.
Chapter 19
They drove in silence to Callahan’s house with Tressler’s computer stowed in the back of the truck, the tonneau cover safely concealing it from curious eyes. Cody wondered what Keira was thinking but couldn’t bring himself to ask—he was still coming to terms with the wound she’d dealt him without realizing it. Keira’s lack of unquestioning belief sliced into Cody’s psyche in a way he hadn’t thought possible. “Trust me,” he’d told her that first night, and she’d answered, “I will.”
She trusted him with her body. Every step of the way in their one night together she had demonstrated her implicit faith that he would cherish the gift of her body in a way she had done with no other man.
She trusted him with her heart. That incandescent moment when she had cradled his face with her hands and whispered, “I love you, Cody,” would warm him until the day he died.
But she didn’t trust him the way he yearned for her to do—with every fiber of her being. McKinnon was more important to her than Cody was where her work was concerned. And her work was her life. Trust me in that, too, he wanted to plead, but he knew faith and reliance couldn’t be won that way—not with words. They had to be given freely; they had to come from the soul. And in her soul she didn’t trust him completely...not yet.
Just before the driveway leading to Callahan’s house, Cody noticed another car parked down a little way on the side of the road. It wasn’t the same one that had followed the four of them earlier, but it was too far away for him to make out the license plate or see if there was anyone in the car.
“No sense wondering,” he told Keira as he kept driving past the driveway. He pulled over on the other side of the road and rolled down his window. After a few seconds the window of the other car also rolled down, and Cody recognized FBI Agent Jeff Holmes in the driver’s seat.
“Good morning,” Cody said with a grin only partially concealed. “You’re up early.”
He could see the tightening jaw on the other man’s face. “So are you,” Holmes replied eventually. “So is Callahan.”
“Yeah. Things to do, you know.” He debated with himself for a minute, then said provocatively, “If you wanted to know what we were up to, you could have asked.” Not that we would have told you, he added silently, but...
“Right, Walker.”
Cody rolled up his window, chuckled to himself, and executed a U-turn.
For the first time Keira spoke. “Whatever happened to interagency cooperation?”
He glanced at her. “Right. And I suppose you’re going to tell him about the agency’s secret data link into the FBI’s computers in Washington?”
She laughed softly at the dryly teasing note in his voice. “Well, no, I wasn’t going to go that far. But I wouldn’t deliberately provoke rivalry, either. We are on the same side, after all. And he has his job to do, just as we have ours.”
“I know.” A tinge of contrition crept into his voice. “But they resent the hell out of us. And they don’t trust us, not where the job is concerned. They never have.” He took a deep breath. “Just like you don’t trust me.”
She cast him a look of shock. “I trust you,” she whispered.
“Not completely,” he told her. “In some ways you do, but...”
She didn’t answer, and Cody knew she was thinking...really thinking about what he’d said, trying to decide if it was true. That was one of the wonderful things about her—she didn’t automatically leap to her own defense. And she could admit her own failings. Not everyone could do that.
Cody pulled the truck up in back of Callahan’s house, turned off the ignition, and waited. And waited. He watched her profile, saw the delicate color come into her cheeks as she realized he was watching her. She glanced away, staring out the window at the back porch, but he knew she wasn’t really seeing it any more than he was.
After a couple of minutes, Keira turned, and her eyes met his. “What do you want from me?” she asked in a low tone.
“Everything.” Her eyes widened, and her face took on a startled expression. He smiled faintly, then reached over and brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. “Heart, mind, body and soul. I’m thirty-seven, Keira,” he confessed. “I’ve waited too long to settle for anything less. I can’t...I won’t.”
“Do you know what you’re asking?”
He was gambling everything on one roll of the dice. “I want you—you know that. But I want all of you. I want to go to sleep at night with you in my arms, and I want to wake up the same way. But that’s not enough. Not for me...not for us. I also need to know that you trust me...in every way there is. Not just with your body. Not just with your heart.”
“You’re asking the impossible.”
“I know.” His voice was husky. “But it’s all or nothing.”
“I can’t...it’s not that easy...I...”
Cody unbuckled his seat belt and took the keys out of the ignition. “I’m not asking you to decide right this second,” he said. “But I thought you should know how I feel.” He opened the truck door and changed the subject. “Come on, let’s get that computer inside and hook it up to the internet, see what else we can find out.”
She caught his arm, and he turned back. “Wait, Cody. I...”
His heart melted at the confusion on her face. He knew he’d sprung this on her with little or no warning, and maybe it wasn’t fair. Some people might say they barely knew each other, and maybe Keira was thinking that, too. But he knew everything important there was to know about her. And he hoped...prayed, really, that she would realize she already knew everything important there was to know about him, too.
He leaned toward her, hesitating just a little, then brushed his lips against hers in a kiss unlike any other he’d ever given her. He fought back the possessive passion that surged through his body unexpectedly at the touch of her lips. The alpha male side of him—the side he’d only recently acknowledged after all these years—wanted to deepen the kiss, to swamp her senses, to sway her with sensual promises. But instinctively he knew that wasn’t what she needed right now. She needed to know she was safe with him. In every way. And only when she knew it was safe to trust him would she do so.
Trust. It was such a little word, but it meant everything.
His lips moved slowly, kissing her eyes closed. She caught her breath when he tucked a curl behind her ear, and his lips tugged at her earlobe. One hand clenched his arm, and Cody struggled not to pull her into his embrace. “Heart, mind, body and soul,” he whispered. “That’s all I want.”
He didn’t wait for a response, just drew away f
rom her and exited the truck quickly before he could change his mind and tell her that whatever she wanted to give him was enough. It wasn’t. It might be enough for today, for a week, for a month. But not for a lifetime. And that’s what he wanted. A lifetime. His...and hers.
He went around the back and unlocked the tonneau cover. Keira was still sitting where he’d left her in the cab of the truck, and he smiled ruefully. He’d obviously taken her by surprise, and he’d given her a lot to think about. I just hope she won’t need to think too long.
He grabbed the computer, hefted it under one arm, and strode purposefully toward the back porch, taking the stairs two at a time. He unlocked the door with the key Callahan had given him, and went inside. He came out a minute later for the computer monitor, and froze as soon as he pushed the door open. Keira was standing at the back of the truck, but she wasn’t alone. A bearded stranger stood beside her, a gun pointed at her head.
“Stop right there,” the man told Cody, moving quickly to shield himself behind Keira, wrapping his left arm around her throat for more control. “I know you’re armed. Take the gun out real slow, and place it on the floor.”
“Cody, no—” Keira gasped before the stranger’s hand closed around her mouth.
Cody did exactly as he was bid. As if she’d screamed the words at him, the expression in her eyes told him not to, told him to keep his Glock and dash back inside the house where he’d be safe. And though his eyes answered, Not a chance, sweetheart. I’m not leaving you out here alone, a disconnected part of his brain registered that she was putting him first as he’d long dreamed. That she would rather die herself than risk him. Can’t think about that now, he warned himself as he thrust the thought aside.
“Step down, away from the gun,” the man ordered him, and again Cody obeyed. Time slowed to a crawl as his mind processed with incredible speed the data it had to work with, the same way it had when Keira had been dragged into the shack the first night he’d seen her. He knew instantly he had only one chance to rescue both of them, just as he’d known it then. It was a risk, but he’d taken bigger risks in his life before. This time, though, he wasn’t just risking his own life.
Then from nowhere a certainty settled over him, and he knew...knew...Keira would tell him to take the risk. He knew that her mind was working feverishly, too, weighing each option just as he was. And he knew they were on the same wavelength.
Patience, he told her silently. Patience. If he could get the man to shift the gun into his left hand, and point it in his direction instead of at Keira’s head... At the bottom of the porch steps Cody stopped. “She’s armed, too,” he said calmly. “Shoulder holster under her left arm.”
She knows, he told himself when Keira’s eyes didn’t accuse him of betrayal, just stared unwaveringly at him. But not by the flicker of an eyelash did he acknowledge that anything was coming.
A look of suspicion passed over the man’s face, and he hesitated, his eyes darting left and right as if he feared some kind of trap. Come on, you son of a bitch, Cody thought, easing imperceptibly forward on his toes. Come on.
The seconds ticked away. Then the man’s left hand slid away from Keira’s mouth, across her breast, and under her arm. Cody could see the expression on the man’s face change the instant he felt the lump beneath Keira’s arm, could see the fear change to triumph, and then to frustration when he realized the angle of the holster containing Keira’s gun wouldn’t allow him to remove it with his left hand...not from behind Keira. Exactly as Cody had already known.
“Damn!” the man muttered. He backed away from Cody, dragging Keira with him, obviously wanting the safety of distance between them before attempting anything more. The man came to an abrupt stop thirty feet away and stared at Cody for a breathless minute. But Cody’s passive stance must have convinced the stranger he was no threat, not without a gun. Slowly, his eyes never leaving Cody’s face, the man shifted his own gun to his left hand, pointing it threateningly toward Cody. His right arm came around Keira, stretching awkwardly for the gun beneath her left arm.
“Now!” Cody shouted, and as if they’d rehearsed it in advance Keira jabbed her left elbow behind her, tearing herself away from the man’s grasp and swinging around behind him, her right hand reaching for her Glock.
Cody hit the ground in a controlled roll, simultaneously reaching for the knife in his boot. The stranger fired, but with the gun in his left hand the shot went wide. Before he could shift the gun back into his right hand, a flash of silver was winging its way through the air faster than the eye could follow, thudding into the brachial plexus region of the man’s left shoulder—precisely where Cody had been aiming.
The bearded stranger staggered back, the gun dropping helplessly from his suddenly nerveless left hand as he fell to his knees, his right hand scrabbling futilely at the blade embedded in his body. Then he pitched forward.
Her own gun drawn, Keira scooped up the stranger’s gun, then whirled to confront him. But Cody was there before her. Only then did Cody allow his rage to sweep aside every other consideration. He ruthlessly flipped the man over on to his back and put a knee on his chest, then dragged the knife out and held the blade to the man’s throat. Adrenaline pulsed through his body. A savage desire to slit the throat of the scum who had dared to hold a gun to Keira’s head swept through him, and he fought it until his muscles screamed.
Keira put a hand on his arm. “No,” she said breathlessly.
“You okay?” he asked her roughly without taking his eyes off the bearded face below him. The man was still breathing, but now that the blade had been withdrawn, blood seeped slowly high up on his left shoulder, staining the long-sleeved flannel shirt he wore. And his breath rasped in his throat. “Don’t even think of moving,” Cody told him in a voice like death.
“I’m fine,” Keira said. As if she knew the impulse he was fighting, she said, “Don’t, Cody. I’m fine.” She didn’t say anything more, just holstered her own weapon and moved quickly toward the porch to retrieve Cody’s Glock. She held it out to him with her left hand, her right hand still holding the stranger’s gun.
Dare to move, Cody told the man in his mind as he changed the hand holding the knife to allow him to holster his gun with his right hand. Come on, you son of a bitch, he urged silently. Give me a reason. But the man didn’t even twitch a muscle.
“We need an ambulance,” Keira said after a minute, reaching for her cell phone. “We don’t want him to die.”
Yes, we do, Cody thought, but he didn’t voice it because in the rational part of his brain he knew she was right. They needed this guy alive—able to answer questions—more than the short-lived satisfaction his death would give Cody. But that didn’t mean it was easy. Not by a long shot.
Cody’s jaw clenched. It’s my fault, he told himself ruthlessly. I should have expected something like this. I should have been on my guard. He’d let himself be distracted for those few minutes when he was talking to Keira, and she had almost paid the price of his carelessness.
How did he get here? Cody wondered. He couldn’t have driven up after they had—no way the man could have gotten past the FBI agents at the base of the driveway, and besides, he or Keira would have heard a vehicle drive up and been alerted to his presence. He must have come through the woods before we arrived and was waiting his chance. That’s the only possibility.
Keira was talking into her cell phone, giving precise directions to the emergency operator, when Cody heard the sound of gravel crunching beneath tires. He glanced up fleetingly and saw Callahan’s four-by-four whispering to a stop in front of the truck, before he returned his attention to the stranger.
Guns drawn, Callahan and McKinnon were suddenly there beside him. “What the hell happened?” Callahan growled.
“Ambulance is on its way,” Keira told them. “But it will take a while—we should see what we can do to stop the bleeding in the meantime.”
“I’ve got a first-aid kit in the house,” Callahan told her, headi
ng for the back door. He returned in a minute. “Let him go, Walker,” he said in a deep voice that expressed understanding of the complex emotions driving Cody as well as concern for the wounded man. “I’ve got to see how badly he’s hurt.”
Cody drew a ragged breath. “He’ll live.” He abruptly pulled the blade away from the man’s throat. “I didn’t hit anything vital.” But he might never use that arm again. The thought bothered him not at all. Cody looked down, saw the stranger’s blood on his knife, and wiped it off on the man’s shirt before yielding his place to Callahan. “Watch him, McKinnon,” he said softly. “He had a gun to Keira’s head five minutes ago.”
McKinnon’s eyes changed from questioning concern to cold anger that came close to mirroring Cody’s own feelings. “That was his first mistake.” His SIG SAUER pointed at the man’s head. “Maybe he’ll make another one.” The threat...and the wish...were unmistakable.
Callahan was already unbuttoning the man’s shirt and pulling it open to reveal an ugly gash that still bled sluggishly. He whistled tunelessly between his teeth. “I think you’re right,” he told Cody. “It’s nasty, but it doesn’t look life-threatening.”
Cody bent and slid his knife into the sheath in his boot, then reached beneath the stranger, looking for identification. He found a wallet in a back pocket and, after a little difficulty, managed to extract it without interrupting Callahan’s work.
“Ted Danvers,” he read from the driver’s license, along with a Buffalo address. “Either one mean anything to you?” he asked Callahan, who already had a pressure bandage in place.
“No.” Callahan applied another strip of tape.
Cody rifled through the other items in the wallet: a couple of credit cards in the same name and some gas receipts. And almost four thousand dollars in cash—mostly large bills. Cody went through each bill carefully, making sure there wasn’t a piece of paper hidden between the bills. There wasn’t, but he noticed a couple of the hundreds had reddish-brown stains. Blood?
