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, heading 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?
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?”