Cody started forward, his hand outstretched. “Good to see you, McKinnon,” he said. Then he stopped as abruptly as if he’d been shot. Following McKinnon into the room was the woman with the mop of red-gold curls no comb could tame. The woman he’d blown his assignment to rescue. The woman he couldn’t get out of his mind.
Keira.
“Special Agent Keira Jones,” Nick D’Arcy was saying. “I think you know Special Agent Cody Walker, don’t you?”
Keira held out her hand to Cody. “Good to see you again” was all she said as she shook his hand.
“Same here,” Cody told her.
Cody threw a sideways questioning glance at D’Arcy, which Keira caught, but he didn’t say anything. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her partner stiffen and his eyes narrow, and she knew she’d made a mistake admitting she knew Cody. She wondered if Trace was making the connection.
She’d told him the bare bones about her kidnapping and near-miraculous escape, but hadn’t given any specifics. And she hadn’t told him the name of her rescuer for a very good reason—she’d recognized Cody’s name as soon as he said it, had known he worked for the same agency as she did, and had hoped and prayed the story wouldn’t make the rounds of the office.
It was hard enough even now for a woman to make a career in a job that had traditionally been a man’s world, especially within the agency; she didn’t want to become the butt of office laughter over allowing herself to be kidnapped in that fashion and needing to be rescued by a fellow agent. A male agent.
She hadn’t recognized him that night. She and Cody had never met before; they didn’t work in the same division and their case loads hadn’t overlapped. But she’d heard the name Cody Walker when he’d received an agency commendation the year before, and Cody was an unusual name. When they’d made it to his car, breathless and panting after running through the night, he’d introduced himself almost as an afterthought.
She’d known then who he was, but she’d only told him her name was Keira. The Jones part would probably have been safe enough, but...she didn’t want to risk it.
They’d driven in silence for a few minutes before she’d even thought to say thanks. That was when he’d apologized for manhandling her, and she’d apologized for scratching him. But when he’d tried to take her to the hospital, she’d adamantly refused. The same for going to the police.
She’d asked him to drop her at her car instead, and he’d reluctantly agreed. When they’d reached her car, he’d insisted on finishing changing the tire for her and then had followed her all the way to I-70 to make sure she got back safely on the road to Denver.
She’d reported the incident, of course. Even though she hadn’t been working when she’d been kidnapped, once she’d made the connection between her rescuer and a fellow agent, she’d realized he had probably been on an undercover operation himself. If so, his cover had been blown, and she owed it to him to make sure he didn’t suffer any disagreeable consequences as a result.
But she hadn’t reported it up the chain of command. She couldn’t bring herself to do that; it would have been too humiliating. Instead, she’d made an appointment to see Baker Street himself—Nick D’Arcy—first thing Monday morning and had confessed everything. While McKinnon and Walker exchanged a few words, her thoughts winged back to that stark interview.
* * *
D’Arcy listened in silence until she was done, then asked a few questions. She tried to keep emotion out of her responses, as if she were merely an agent reporting to a superior officer regarding an assignment.
“You weren’t raped? You can tell me the truth.”
She flinched but answered him honestly. “No, sir. But I would have been, probably killed, too, if not for Walker.”
“You didn’t lose your service weapon?”
“No, sir. I wasn’t carrying it. I was on mandatory use-it-or-lose-it vacation.”
“What were you doing out there?”
“My family has a cabin near Dillon Reservoir, closer to Keystone than to Silverthorne. My partner called me Friday afternoon, asked me to come back early from vacation because he had a hot lead on one of the cases we’re working and wanted my assistance following up on it. He knows me, knows I’d want to be involved if... Well, anyway, he wanted us to get together early Saturday. I was driving home to Denver Friday evening when I had a flat tire on Loveland Pass Road. I was in the middle of changing the flat when a car pulled up behind me. The driver got out and asked if I needed help. I told him no, thanks, but then...the other two men got out of the car.”
She hesitated, knowing she could never tell D’Arcy the fear that had gripped her in that instant...and the despair. Fear and despair she’d refused to give in to, but which she would remember forever. “I do have a carry permit for a personal weapon, sir, but the gun was locked in my glove compartment. Maybe I should have had it handy, but it’s not as if Loveland Pass is deserted—cars pass there all the time. I didn’t think...just changing a tire... And it wasn’t even dark yet at that point...”
“They didn’t get your gun?”
“No, sir. They didn’t touch my car. Not even to get my wallet. Just me.”
“How did you recover your car?”
“Walker dropped me there. He didn’t want to, but I insisted. He followed me all the way to the highway to make sure I was okay.”
D’Arcy sat in silence for a few minutes, digesting her answers. “Thank you for telling me this,” he said finally.
In a small voice, Keira said, “I realize it doesn’t reflect well on the agency, sir, or on me. If you think I should resign, I will.”
He frowned. “I don’t think that’s necessary. We all make mistakes. And you weren’t even on duty at the time.”
“No, but—”
“No,” he said. “It’s not a mistake you’ll repeat. And the fact that you’ve reported it to me is a plus. It says a lot about you.”
“I just didn’t want Walker to get into trouble,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right—not after he saved my life.” She glanced down at her hands, saw the bruises around her wrists that her long-sleeved blouse didn’t cover and surreptitiously pulled down her cuffs.
But she wasn’t fast enough, and D’Arcy said, “Have you seen a doctor?”
She nodded. “Walker wanted to take me to the hospital Friday night, but I wouldn’t let him. And I wouldn’t let him take me to file a police report, either. I figured his cover had been blown, but I didn’t know what else his operation had entailed. I didn’t want to draw police attention to that area, just in case there was something else going down. But I did see my own doctor first thing Saturday morning, before I met my partner.” Her lips tightened, then she added as if she couldn’t help herself, “Trace and I closed that case yesterday, sir.” It wasn’t much compared to how she felt about botching Walker’s operation, but it was something positive at least.
D’Arcy rubbed his chin with his long fingers, then said, “Okay, then.” He smiled encouragingly at her. “You’ve done the right thing by telling me, but that’s as far as it goes. Don’t be afraid it will get out—I’m not even going to put a notation in your jacket,” he said. “You’re an excellent agent and you’ve done some outstanding work for this agency. I don’t want to lose you. And don’t brood about it. Take a lesson from it and move on.”
* * *
Now, in Nick D’Arcy’s office for the second time in a week,