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Cody was surprised into asking, “How did you kn—”
“It’s my job to know everything,” D’Arcy replied. “You might not agree with it, but I also know you’ll follow it...if you have to. Go with your gut.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get going,” D’Arcy said. “You’ve got fifty-seven minutes.”
* * *
Cody’s team assembled in the ready room on the fifth floor, just down the hall from his office. He noted with approval that despite the late, or rather, early hour, both Keira and McKinnon were alert and sharp, as if they’d had eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. They were both dressed casually in jeans, sweaters and sturdy hiking boots, as he was, with the warm jackets they’d need in the mountains when they got close to Black Rock thrown over the backs of their chairs.
Both agents already had their Bluetooth earphones in place, and Cody fitted his in his ear as he briefed them quickly. He really didn’t have a lot that was new to share, other than Callahan’s warning and D’Arcy’s order, but he reiterated the plan they’d come up with earlier that afternoon, making one change.
“Two vehicles and three drivers means we can drive in shifts, and each of us can get a little sleep on the way,” Cody said. “McKinnon, you’ve got the GPS coordinates for my cabin already loaded?” McKinnon nodded. “I want to drive one of the vehicles on the last leg—I don’t care which one. Even with a GPS it won’t be easy finding the turnoff, so I might as well lead the way. You two sort out who drives when.”
They left just before two in the morning, Cody driving the SUV and McKinnon driving the pickup truck, with Keira trying to sleep in the cab of the truck her partner was driving. Cody had been very careful to make sure no one followed him from his apartment to the agency, and he did the same thing now, just in case. He drove with part of his mind on the road and making sure he had no tail, but another part wondering what could have happened to make Callahan call him in the middle of the night. And what did that mean for Mandy and their three children?
They stopped to switch drivers at a gas station about a half hour before Wheatland, Wyoming. McKinnon quickly downed a cup of black coffee and said, “I’m still good. I’ll sleep on the last leg, if that’s okay with the two of you.”
Cody nodded, finishing his own coffee and tossing the cup in the trash. Keira came over to the SUV and got into the driver’s seat. “You might want to stretch out in the back here,” she told Cody. “The truck’s not all that comfortable for sleeping.”
Cody did as Keira suggested, but found it impossible to sleep—his mind was still trying to analyze Callahan’s cryptic warning and plotting out ways and means; and the backseat of the SUV wasn’t wide enough to stretch out in, either, not for someone as tall as he was. And there was something else on his mind, too. After ten minutes he broke the silence. “I wanted to thank you,” he said.
“For what?” Keira glanced at the rearview mirror.
“For telling D’Arcy the whole story about what happened last Friday night,” he explained.
A long silence followed his words. “I owed it to you” was all she said finally.
“Maybe so, but I appreciate it. Not everyone would have done it.”
She seemed uncomfortable talking about the subject. “He told you, I take it?”
“Yeah.” Cody thought about his conversation with Nick D’Arcy, then added quietly, “He also said you offered to resign.”
“He told you that, too?” From the tight way the words came out, he knew she was embarrassed.
“Only in passing and only because I had to tell him Callahan knows about how you and I met.”
“Great.” The one word spoke volumes, her tone conveying not only embarrassment but deep humiliation.
Compassion for her welled in him. It can’t be easy for a woman in a man’s job, he thought. “I had to tell Callahan,” he explained. “It was the only way to convince him to keep you on the team.”
She didn’t respond right away, and when she did she said drily, “I would have thought telling him that story would have the opposite effect.”
