Cody Walker's Woman

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.