by Amelia Autin
An idea occurred to him, and he moved toward Keira, who still held Danvers’s gun. A detached corner of his brain noted the way she held herself so straight and unyielding after what she’d just gone through. Any other woman would be shaking. But not his Keira. He was so damned proud of her, his heart came near to bursting from his chest.
He held out his hand for the gun, but she must have known what was in his mind, because as she handed it to him she said softly, “It’s a .357.”
Just as softly, he said, “There are bloodstains on some of the money in his wallet.”
“You think...?”
“It’s possible. We need to get the gun and the wallet to the lab as soon as we can.”
He went to the back of the truck, searched for and found evidence bags. He had just finished sealing each item up and marking the bags with his initials and the date when he stopped short, a realization sweeping over him.
His gaze moved to Keira, standing with her back to him. Maybe you don’t know it yet, sweetheart, he told her in his mind. But you trust me, all the way down to the soles of your feet. You knew I had a plan...and you trusted me to execute it with your help. Heart, mind, body and soul. She trusted him...the way he needed her to.
He headed toward her, intent on only one thing. Keira’s gaze traveled from the stranger’s face to Cody’s as he approached her, and she asked in a level tone, “Do you think we should carry him into the house?”
“No!” the man on the ground gasped before he could stop himself.
Cody froze, then turned and stared down at Danvers in sudden comprehension. Before he could say anything, Callahan put his forearm across the man’s throat...and pressed. “That’s my home, you bastard,” he said in a deadly voice. “If there’s something you want to tell me, you’ve got ten seconds to speak. Otherwise, we’ll tie you up, carry you inside and leave you there...alone.”
Cody remembered the firebombs that had almost taken the lives of Mandy and Callahan six years ago, the firebombs that had destroyed Mandy’s house, this very house that Callahan had rebuilt himself for Mandy and their children. If Cody and Keira hadn’t returned when they had, if they hadn’t accidentally prevented this man’s escape, Keira would have been inside...
Rage, burning hot and icy cold, flooded his body again, the same way it had when he’d seen Danvers with a gun to Keira’s head. “Don’t wait,” he told Callahan, matching his deadly tone. “Just do it.”
Callahan nodded and said, “There’s a rope in the back of my four-by-four, Walker.” Cody took two steps.
“No!” the man croaked from fear and the pressure across his throat, but managed to add, “Bomb! Beneath the house.”
Cody heard Keira’s quickly indrawn breath. Callahan rose, and stood looking down at the man, a cold and deadly expression on his face that Cody understood and agreed with completely. Before Callahan could do or say anything, Cody jerked the man to his feet in one powerful motion. “In that case, you’re going to crawl under there and pull it out.”
Terrified, his left arm hanging almost useless, Danvers looked from Cody to Callahan to McKinnon. All three faces wore the same implacable expression. The man swallowed hard, then glanced at Keira.
“I’ll get the rope,” she told Cody, heading for the four-by-four.
“No!” The hoarse cry stopped Keira in her tracks, but she didn’t turn around. “I’ll do it,” Danvers said. “Just let me go,” he told Cody desperately. “There’s not much time left.”
Cody drew his Glock. No way in hell was this man getting away...no matter what he had to do. “Don’t even think about running.”
Chapter 20
Three hours later they still didn’t have any answers. The ambulance had arrived shortly after the bomb had been removed from beneath Callahan’s house by Danvers and disarmed by McKinnon. Cody had been surprised at first.
“No big deal,” McKinnon had said, shrugging it off. “Piece of shit bomb like this is nothing compared to some I dealt with in Afghanistan.”
The siren sound of the ambulance had split the silence then, and Callahan had hurried around the side of the house, directing the ambulance toward the back. And the ambulance had been followed by two sedans of FBI agents.
The FBI had stepped in, Agent Holmes asserting jurisdiction over the attempted bombing, leaving Cody, Keira and McKinnon little choice but to back off...for now. The questions Cody had been burning to ask Danvers would have to wait. The FBI had taken official custody as well, taking over guard duties of the suspect on his way to the hospital in Sheridan, and one car of FBI agents had silently followed the ambulance.
Cody and Keira had been hard-pressed to avoid being taken in for questioning themselves, and Cody suspected Agent Holmes would have loved to do just that on whatever pretext he could find if Callahan hadn’t been there in his official capacity as Black Rock’s sheriff. While the FBI could stretch a point in trying to tie the latest bombing attempt to the killings on the East Coast, Cody’s attack on Danvers was clearly in Callahan’s jurisdiction. And it was also clearly a case of self-defense.
That didn’t mean the FBI had just let it go. Agent Holmes had insisted on being present as Callahan extensively and thoroughly questioned Cody and Keira separately. But their stories matched almost exactly, and nothing could shake them. So eventually the FBI had no choice but to leave, taking the disarmed bomb with them as evidence.
But Callahan had been adamant about not letting them take the stranger’s gun or wallet, which was evidence in the assault on Keira and Cody. And neither Cody nor Keira had mentioned the computer sitting on the kitchen table inside Callahan’s house. Callahan, after one meaningful glance from Cody, had refused to take the interrogation indoors. Callahan waited until Agent Holmes finally drove away, then asked Cody, “You want to tell me what really happened?”
Cody shook his head. “We already told you. Everything happened exactly as Keira and I described.”
“What did you leave out?”
Cody turned and headed toward the back of the truck. “Nothing,” he said over his shoulder. “Except Danvers’s gun is a .357, it looks like there are bloodstains on the money in his wallet, and, oh, yeah, we found Tressler’s computer at Betsy Duggan’s house.”
“I’ll be damned.” Callahan followed him.
Cody hefted the computer monitor in his arms. “Want to grab those evidence bags and close that for me?” he asked Callahan, and waited until he did so.
A short distance away Keira stood in earnest conversation with McKinnon, probably telling her partner the same things he was telling Callahan, and at first sight of them, Cody stiffened. It wasn’t an embrace, but the other man’s arm was around Keira’s shoulders, and Cody struggled with the fierce possessiveness he couldn’t prevent. He didn’t want McKinnon...he didn’t want any man touching Keira.
Then he remembered, and the possessiveness fell away, replaced by a secret exultation that raced through his blood. Keira trusted him the way he’d yearned just that morning for her to trust him—with every fiber of her being.
He didn’t need to feel threatened by her relationships with other men. Not anymore. She belonged to him in a way she would never belong to another man, and it didn’t have a damn thing to do with coercion on his part. It didn’t have a damn thing to do with making her his. She belonged to him in the only way that truly meant anything—she’d given herself to him, freely, honestly. Heart, mind, body and soul, she was his—and he would cherish the gift as well as the giver for the rest of his life.
His eyes met Callahan’s knowing ones, and he wondered just how much of his thoughts he’d revealed in the past few seconds. “Might as well tell the whole thing once,” he told Callahan lightly before calling Keira and McKinnon over.
* * *
They set up Tressler’s computer and hooked up the internet connection as Cody and Keira together told the story of what they’d discovered at Betsy Duggan’s house. When the computer was turned on and ready to go, Cody presse
d Keira into the chair. “You drive.”
“I’ve got a theory,” she said as her fingers typed in the password, and they waited for the desktop to come up. “But...”
“Let’s hear it.”
She glanced up at him. “I could be wrong.”
“So?”
The respect in his eyes warmed her, and she smiled at him. Cody was right this morning, she acknowledged. They were a team, just as she and Trace were a team. As a team they were stronger than either one alone, and there was truth in the old adage that two heads were better than one.
She double-clicked on the Veni, Vidi, Vici icon on the desktop, and the game opened. It defaulted to a username account, STRESSLER. “If he was smart, he’d have different passwords,” she said. “But most people aren’t that smart. They have one password they use for just about everything because it’s easy to remember.” Holding her breath, she again typed the password C-e-n-t-u-r-i-o-n.
Just that easily they had accessed Tressler’s persona in the video game.
“This might take some time,” she explained. “If this were a real video game, I might have to access level by level, but I don’t think... There!” she said suddenly. She clicked on a series of shortcuts that looked incomprehensible to the men standing behind her until she reached a flashing bar that said “Password Protected Area!”
She turned toward Callahan. “Didn’t you say Tressler accidentally came across that elimination list?”
“Yeah. But he wouldn’t tell me anything about how he found it or who had it.”
“I don’t think it was a person. I think this is it. Tressler was probably like a lot of guys who’re hooked on these online games—like a lot of hackers, too—he couldn’t stand not being able to get into a password-protected area. So when he came across it, he tried to guess the password. And once he did...”
She turned to look at Cody standing on her other side. “I think Tressler just happened to have the same password for his personal use that was set up to unlock this area of Veni, Vidi, Vici.”
“Look,” she said, scrolling the mouse until it pointed to the copyright notice at the bottom of the page. The word Copyright was followed by the copyright symbol, a year, the letters NWM, Inc. and All rights reserved.
“NWM,” she said. “New World Militia? I think this video game is one of their recruitment tools. I also think it’s how they communicate with certain operatives within the organization.” She clicked on the flashing bar, then her fingers moved to the keyboard and quickly typed C-e-n-t-u-r-i-o-n.
The browser window went blank. At first nothing happened, but after a few seconds the browser window came to life again, and when it did, a list suddenly appeared. Six names, each one indicating a link. Every name on the list known to the four people whose eyes were glued to the computer monitor. And one date, the Thursday before, followed by the letters RIP.
“Requiescat in pace,” Keira whispered to herself. “Rest in peace.”
All three men swore under their breath.
Keira double-clicked on the first name on the list, and a new browser window opened. Pictures of Callahan over the years lined up across the screen, from his official rookie photo with the NYPD to a recent unposed one of him in his Black Rock sheriff’s uniform. His home address was also there, along with pertinent facts, including his weapon of choice, as well as the names of Mandy and their three children.
Callahan growled when he read the last part, but Keira ignored him and quickly saved the web page, then converted it into a pdf file for insurance. She returned to the original browser window and clicked on the second name on the list, already knowing what she’d find. But that didn’t stop her heart skipping a beat when pictures of Cody appeared in the new browser window.
“So, that’s why I was being followed,” Cody murmured under his breath, stating what they had all been thinking.
His voice jumbled around inside her, and it was all Keira could do to save that web page and convert it also. She started to click on the third name, but then as suddenly as if someone had pulled the plug, the browser window went blank, and it stayed blank no matter how she tried to refresh it. Keira opened a new browser window and tried double-clicking on the Veni, Vidi, Vici icon on the desktop, but to no avail. They couldn’t access the video game’s website.
“Could be the internet connection,” she muttered to herself. She double-clicked on the link to another online video game, and that one came up immediately, as did the next one she tried. She attempted to access Veni, Vidi, Vici again, both via the link and by typing in the web address, but nothing.
Keira suddenly felt cold. “Someone blocked our IP address.”
“What’s that?” Callahan asked.
McKinnon answered. “Internet protocol address. It’s how data is sent from one computer to another over the internet, and uniquely identifies a specific computer. Kind of like the computer’s fingerprint.”
She glanced up at Cody. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to access the password-protected area.”
“It’s okay,” he reassured her. “There are four of us to testify to what we saw, and you managed to save two of the web pages.”
“Yes, but...now someone knows we used Tressler’s account to access the site. Maybe even the people who killed him.” Her eyes held regret as well as concern. “They know he’s dead, so they know it can’t be him. They have to know we’re on their trail now.”
Cody didn’t say anything at first. Then he looked at Callahan. “I shouldn’t have let the FBI take custody of Danvers. I should have insisted on questioning him when we had him.”
“It’s not too late.” Callahan glanced at his watch. “We can be in Sheridan in less than an hour.”
“Yeah, but I should have followed up right away. How did he get here? Earlier I was theorizing he came through the woods because there was no car, but he didn’t walk here from Buffalo. He either left his car somewhere, in which case we should be able to find it, or he had an accomplice who is long gone by now.”
Callahan thought for a moment. “How big would you say Danvers is?”
“Five-nine, five-ten at the most, a hundred sixty, maybe a hundred seventy pounds. Why?”
Callahan smiled coldly. “Steve Tressler was a big teddy bear of a guy—six-two, easily two hundred pounds. No way Danvers could have roughed him up on his own. If Danvers is the one who shot him, he wasn’t alone. He had help.”
“Let’s make sure,” Cody said. “Want to take a ride?”
“You read my mind.” Callahan dug his hand into his pocket for keys.
Cody turned to Keira and McKinnon. “While we check it out, why don’t you see if you can uncover anything on Ted Danvers? And while you’re at it, call the agency, bring Baker Street up to speed, set things in motion.” He knew he didn’t need to be more specific.
* * *
Keira started digging even before Cody and Callahan left. She heard Trace on the phone with D’Arcy, but she wasn’t really listening. She dragged her laptop out of the spare bedroom, hooked it up to the internet connection and accessed the agency’s secure website via its virtual private network.
She blocked Trace’s voice out as she concentrated on her assignment—learn everything she could about Ted Danvers before Cody returned. “It’s too bad I can’t access the FBI’s files from here,” she muttered to herself, but she didn’t waste any time bemoaning that fact.
Fifteen minutes later she realized Trace was standing next to her, looking over her shoulder. She glanced up and saw he had two plates in his hands, one with a single sandwich and the other with two. He tried to hand her the single sandwich plate. “Eat,” he said.
Her fingers kept flying over the keyboard, and her eyes returned to the monitor. “Not hungry.”
He put the plate down on the keyboard, forcing her to stop. “You always say that,” he said. “But we didn’t have breakfast, and one cup of coffee won’t cut it.” He wolfed down half a sandwich in two bites, and Keira gr
inned up at him before taking a bite of her sandwich.
“Mmm, ham and cheese,” she mumbled, realizing suddenly that she was hungry after all. “Thanks.”
“What are partners for?” Trace said as he sat on the sofa. They ate in silence for a minute, then Trace said, “So, are you going to tell me? Or leave me to guess?”
“Tell you what?” She gave him an innocent look she knew didn’t fool him.
“Walker was the one who rescued you before, right?”
Keira thought about it, then realized there was no reason not to tell him, and nodded.
A muscle twitched in Trace’s jaw, but all he said was, “I’m glad he was there. I would have hated losing the best partner I ever had.”
Keira felt a lump in her throat and a prickling at the back of her eyes. She waited until both subsided before saying, “I’ve only had one partner, so saying you’re the best partner I ever had doesn’t say much.” She blinked rapidly as the prickling at the back of her eyes returned. “But I hope you know how I feel about you—I couldn’t have had a better partner...or teacher. I owe you a lot, more than I can ever tell you.”
“Thanks.” He polished off the last of his sandwiches, then took her empty plate with his into the kitchen. He came back with a couple of freshly washed apples and handed one to her. “So, are you in love with him?”
“What?” she gasped.
Trace’s teeth bit into his apple with a crunching sound. “You heard me,” he said. “So, are you in love with Walker?”
Keira looked at her apple, then at Trace. “Yes,” she said in a breath of a whisper.
“Well that’s good, since the poor guy is hopelessly in love with you.”
“How do you know that?”
Trace chuckled. “I’ve got eyes in my head. I don’t need any special training to see it, either. He tries to hide it, just as you do, but...”
“Does everyone know?” she asked in dismay.
“Callahan knows, if that’s who you mean. And Baker Street. I’ve known Nick D’Arcy a long time, and I’m sure he knows. But if you’re worried about office gossip, forget it. Only people who know the two of you, who have seen you together, would ever figure it out.” He finished the apple, then contemplated the apple core and asked casually, “So, are you sleeping with him?”
