by Mallory Kane
She washed it carefully and dried it. Stupid sentimentality! Well, if Cody wanted the worthless thing she’d mail it to him or something. She set it beside her purse.
Looking at the clock, she hurried into the bedroom and threw some clothes into a travel bag. She didn’t need anything fancy. She wasn’t going to see a soul.
She stepped into the bathroom to get her makeup and nearly tripped over the pile of bloody clothes and towels. With a grimace of distaste, she picked up the towels. Underneath was Cody’s leather jacket.
She picked it up half-reluctantly. The brown leather was creased and cracked, with scrapes and tears that Dana was sure Cody could identify without missing a one. She knew several of them herself.
That huge scrape on one shoulder was where he’d been thrown out of a car going about sixty miles an hour. The tear in the cuff—
“Stop!” Dana yelled out loud. She wasn’t going to get caught up in useless reminiscing. Without realizing it, she’d hugged the jacket to her breast. Deliberately catching it between finger and thumb like a dirty diaper, she went back into the kitchen.
There was no way Cody was going to insinuate himself back into her life. She didn’t care if he’d gotten himself shot again. She didn’t care if Fontenot was out of prison. Cody was wrong. It had nothing to do with her.
She avoided thinking about her earring.
She’d just take the cup and the jacket by his apartment on her way to the lake. That way he wouldn’t have any reason to contact her.
After making sure her apartment was secure, the coffeepot was turned off and the timer was set to turn the lights on at dusk, Dana grabbed her travel bag and Cody’s stuff and let herself out.
AFTER CODY HAD SATISFIED himself that he’d checked everything, he positioned his car at the corner of Dana’s street, where he could see her front door, but she’d have a hard time seeing him, then he dialed Dev’s cell phone.
“Dev, where y’at?”
“Trying to keep your sorry butt out of trouble, as usual. The captain’s hot. I convinced him to let you alone last night, but you’ve got to make a statement.”
“I know,” Cody acknowledged. “I’ll be there in about an hour. Just as soon as Dana leaves for work. I want to be sure she’s not followed.”
“Code, my man, this little booby trap here at your place is pretty slick.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you guys that Fontenot’s a freaking genius. What’d you find?”
“What you’d expect. Nothing. It’s a common .38 special. A street piece, no ID. We can run it through, but ten to one its pattern won’t be in our files.”
Cody shook his head. “Yeah, I know. And there are no fingerprints, and the cord was from my kitchen drawer.”
“You got it, my man.”
Cody flexed his shoulder and groaned. “Look, Dev, I’m headed to the doctor as soon as I make sure Dana gets to work okay. Then I’ll be on over. See if I can spot anything you guys missed.”
He held the phone away from his ear and grinned as Dev let loose with a string of colorful Cajun expletives that described in vivid detail what he thought about Cody finding anything he’d missed.
“Yeah, right. See you later.”
“Hey, buddy. The captain’s got a place on his wall where he’s planning to hang what’s left of your ass after he chews it. I’d get over here sooner, rather than later.”
“On my way.” Cody cut the connection, and briefly debated the advisability of taking the time to run to the doctor. His damn shoulder was throbbing like hell, and Dana was right, he probably did need stitches. He checked his watch. If Dana hadn’t changed her habits, she’d be leaving for work in a few minutes. And he had to get to his apartment before the captain had a stroke.
He knew Fontenot was no fool. He wouldn’t be within ten miles of Dana’s apartment this morning, and he sure wouldn’t go back to Cody’s. He wouldn’t take the risk of being caught at the scene of the crime.
Still, Cody didn’t like the idea of Dana going anywhere without protection, even work. He picked up his cell phone again, to call and arrange for someone to keep an eye on her, when the door to her house opened.
Dana came out, a bundle of something in one arm and her purse and a travel bag slung over her other shoulder. What was she doing? It was obvious she wasn’t going to work.
She hurried down the steps toward her car.
For an instant, Cody thought about waylaying her, but he decided he’d just follow her. She must have decided to go to her sister’s after all. He’d just make sure she made it out of town safely, then he could get over to his apartment and see if there was anything he could spot that would connect Fontenot with his shooting.
As he shifted in the car seat, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt his shoulder, he studied his ex-wife. She hadn’t combed her hair or changed out of the faded jeans that hugged her shapely bottom so nicely. He squinted in the early morning sun. The bundle she carried was his leather jacket.
Cody raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten his jacket, but his mind had been on other things. He wondered what she was going to do with it. His mouth quirked in a mocking smile. Probably taking it to the cleaners. That would be just like her.
On her way out of town under threat from a dangerous criminal, Dana Charles Maxwell stopped at the cleaners to leave her ex-husband’s leather jacket to have the bloodstains removed.
He pulled out behind her, keeping a safe distance so she wouldn’t spot him, and at the same time watching to be sure nobody else was following either of them.
DANA PARKED IN FRONT of Cody’s Rue Royal apartment, trying her best not to feel nostalgic. They’d lived here together for the two years they’d been married. As she dashed up the stairs, she wondered why he’d kept it, after she moved out. Of course, he’d always loved the old place. She had too, back then.
Early on, she’d rushed home every evening, anticipation quickening her heart, knowing Cody would be there soon, knowing the evening would end in tender, urgent lovemaking.
But after he’d been shot the first time, the anticipation began to turn to apprehension. Reality washed with the color of Cody’s blood, slammed her in the face. Cody’s job would always be like the ultimate cops-and-robbers game to him. As she’d watched him take more and more chances, she’d accepted that one day he would end up dead.
So she’d begun to withdraw, and eventually, the thrill of being with him, the love they’d shared wasn’t enough to make up for the old, familiar fear that gnawed inside her every time he was late, or the phone rang at odd hours of the night. She knew how awful the silence of an endless night of waiting could be. Would she have married him if she’d known she was letting herself in for a replay of her early life, waiting for her father to come home?
As she got to the third floor, she saw the yellow Police Line tape across Cody’s door and the uniformed officers milling around.
Her heart slammed into her throat, and her knees buckled. She had to grab the stair rail to keep from falling.
“Oh, no!” she breathed. Cody!
The man crouched in front of the door looked up. It was Dev, Devereaux Gautier, Cody’s best friend and partner. His trademark scowl darkened his even features.
When he recognized her, the scowl deepened, and his black eyes flashed dangerously, then he stood and smiled, his white teeth shining behind the dark beard that shadowed his lean cheeks. “Dana! What are you doing here?” he said, his voice infused with false cheer. He walked toward her casually, but Dana wasn’t fooled. Dev was trying to shield the scene with his body.
She grabbed his muscular arm. “Dev? What is it? What’s happened? Where’s Cody?”
He didn’t answer, just put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her away from the door. The grimness behind his false smile sent terror streaking through her.
“Dev, answer me! Is it Cody? Is he…dead?” Dana stared up into Dev’s black eyes, praying he wouldn’t say what she
was deathly afraid of hearing, praying that Cody wasn’t lying inside that police barricade dead. He’d been in her apartment less than an hour ago.
“Cody’s okay. He’s been shot, but you know the tough guy, there ain’t no bullet that can bring him down. Bullets, they bounce off him.” Dev tossed his head. His longer-than-regulation black hair immediately settled down on his forehead again.
“Shot? You mean again?” Dana clutched Cody’s jacket in her fists, willing herself to be calm, not to care, but her heart didn’t listen. It beat so hard and fast it was painful to breathe.
Dev cocked his head and looked down at her. “So he told you about the booby trap? That surprises me.”
“Booby trap? What booby trap?” Dana scooted past Dev and looked in the door of the apartment. What she saw there stole the last dregs of her sanity. “Oh, my God…”
Right inside the front door was a chair with a revolver tied to its ladder-back. The cord coiled around the hammer and down to the trigger. More cord hung limply between the open door and the gun. Even more tangled piles of cord coiled around the chair legs. Dana looked down at the floor. Several black spots marred the wood finish. Cody’s blood.
Dev put his arm loosely around her shoulders. “Gruesome, eh?” he remarked, indicating the booby trap with his expressive hands. “He must have pushed the door open and felt the resistance, then thrown himself sideways.”
Dana looked at the intricate setup, and knew the terror Cody must have known when he opened the door and realized he’d stepped into a booby trap.
“Too slow,” she whispered in shock, looking back at the drops of blood on the floor. She could see it in her mind’s eye as if it were happening right in front of her in slow motion—the bullet traveling through the air, tearing into his arm, then bursting out through the skin on the other side. She lifted a trembling hand to her mouth.
“You got that right,” Dev said, shaking his head. “The tough guy should have beat that bullet, I guarantee. Must have had something on his mind.”
“Something on his mind,” she repeated, and a hollow laugh escaped her lips.
Dev looked at her strangely.
Her earring. “He was thinking about me.” That was why his reflexes had been too slow to dodge the bullet. Her stomach heaved alarmingly and she grabbed at Dev as she swayed.
“Dana? Here, why don’t you sit yourself down.” Dev gently tried to push her down to the floor.
“No,” she said, licking dry lips. “I don’t want to sit down. I knew Cody was shot. He came to my apartment last night. But he didn’t tell me about the booby trap.”
“So he’s on his way over here?”
Dana shook her head, staring at the gun barrel. “I don’t know. He didn’t say where he was going.” The black hole from which the bullet had emerged looked bottomless. She turned around slowly.
“Dana? You okay?”
“Cody said he heard the bullet hit the wall behind him,” she muttered. Sure enough, imbedded in the wall was a bloodstained bullet. Dana’s legs almost gave way again. She leaned on Dev.
“Olsen, get over here,” Dev yelled. He nodded toward the wall. “There’s your bullet,” he said coldly.
The other officer turned pink, then took his knife and dug into the wall.
Dev turned his attention back to Dana. “You and Cody spent the night together?” His black eyes held amusement and affection.
She shook her head. “It’s not what you think. He left this morning, furious.”
Dev shook his head in wonder. “When are you two going to quit fighting and get back to loving? You’re perfect for each other, you know.”
“Don’t, Dev, please.” Dana swallowed, fear and heartache tasting like acid in her mouth. “Do you…?”
Dev raised his brows.
She tried again. “Do you think Fontenot did this?”
Dev’s black gaze held hers for a long heartbeat. “Cody thinks so.” He shrugged. “So that’s good enough for me.”
Dana laid a hand on the big detective’s forearm. “Help him, Dev. Help him catch that bastard. Don’t let Fontenot kill him.”
“Hey, now…” Dev pulled her into the circle of his arm and gave her a quick hug. “Me, I care about the guy, too.”
She didn’t even protest the implication behind the word “too.” She just squeezed her eyes shut and accepted his comfort. “It’s just that…he thinks he’s invulnerable, you know? I’m so scared that one day…”
“Don’t worry, sugar. I swear I’ll—” He paused and looked past her down the hall.
“There’s the man now. Where y’at, Cody?” he called out in a broad Cajun accent.
Dana looked up to see Cody striding toward her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he barked.
She flushed and pulled away from Dev’s reassuring strength, and thrust the jacket toward Cody, feeling a bewildering mixture of fury and relief to see him whole, or nearly so, after her imagination had run wild.
“Here,” she said shortly. “All I wanted to do was give you your jacket back. I didn’t know I’d be treated to the spectacle of how Cody Maxwell, defender of the universe, got himself all shot up!” She licked her lips and swallowed hard.
“I see now why you didn’t want to tell me. My God, Cody, if you’d been a split second slower, the bullet would have caught you right in the chest….” She’d started out accusing him, but saying it somehow made it more real, and the edge of her vision turned black. Her fingers tingled, grew numb. The sounds around her turned to a soft buzz, fading in and out as the room began to whirl.
“Come on chère, sit down,” a voice was coaxing her, buzzing in her ear like a pesky bee. She waved at it, trying to frighten it away.
“Sit down, Dana. Lean your head down. That’s good.” The voice continued, soothing, calming, as familiar, beloved hands cradled her forehead. “Now take a deep breath. Good. Okay. Just keep breathing deeply. This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d just get all upset.”
Dana’s head slowly cleared and the debilitating nausea and dizziness faded. She swallowed, then took another deep breath. That breath was easier, then the next one was easier still.
Finally she felt as if she could raise her head without throwing up. She pushed his hands away and wiped sweat-dampened hair off her forehead and cheeks.
Cody stared down at her, his face closed and grim.
“This is all your fault, you know,” she said.
He nodded and half smiled, a pale phantom of his usual flippant grin. “I know. So did you call your sister? Are you going to stay with her like I suggested?”
She glared at him, still trying to regain her dignity after her ridiculous display of weakness. “I told you, I have plans,” she croaked. “You could have told me what happened here. You were right about Fontenot, weren’t you? This is his work.”
“I shouldn’t have gotten myself shot. Now, where are you going? To your sister’s, I hope.” He put his arm around her shoulders and prepared to help her up.
Dana stiffened and scrunched her shoulders, and Cody backed off. He leaned against the wall.
“My man, you look like a zombie,” Dev said, peering at Cody closely. “How bad are you shot?”
Cody shrugged and winced. “I told you, Dev, it’s just a flesh wound. No problem.”
“Oh, yeah? Then why does your face look like a green tomato?”
Dana looked up. Cody did look sick, as sick as she had felt just a few minutes ago. She opened her mouth to say so, when a booming voice cut off her thoughts.
“Maxwell! What the hell are you doing?”
Cody turned and stood up straight, although Dana could see the effort it cost him.
“Captain, sir. I’m just—I was just about to take my wife home.”
“Ex-wife,” Dana muttered, but nobody paid any attention to her.
“You want to tell me why you left the scene of a crime, for starters?”
“My wife was in danger,
sir.”
“Ex-wife,” she mumbled again, and heard a suspiciously amused snort coming from behind her, where Dev stood.
Captain Hamilton spared her a glance, then turned back to Cody. Dana saw the indulgent affection on the captain’s florid face before he frowned again. “I’d suggest you and your wife get down to the station before I decide to arrest you for interfering with an investigation.”
Dana opened her mouth to protest, but Captain Hamilton glared at her.
“Yes, sir,” Cody said, and moved to stand next to her.
Dana stood, swallowing against a last dreg of nausea, and lifted her chin. “I’m ready,” she said as the captain turned on his heel and headed back down the stairs with not so much as a glance at the crime scene.
“Come on,” Cody said. “We’ll go in my car.”
“No!” Dana stopped.
“Dana, please. You’re in no condition to drive.”
“Well neither are you. I’ll drive my own car. I don’t want to be stranded on the other side of Canal Street with only you to depend on to get me back to my car.”
“Fine.” Cody headed down the stairs.
Captain Hamilton stepped around her. “Ms. Maxwell, if you insist on driving your own car, you stick close to your husband.” He followed Cody down the stairs.
Dana raised a hand. “Ex…” she started, then gave up and let her arm drop. “Yes, sir,” she said dryly to the closed stairwell door.
Chapter Five
Fontenot sat in the bar on St. Peter, drinking coffee and holding a newspaper. He turned the page and folded the paper, then took another sip of the strong, sweet coffee.
The tools he’d needed to install his latest creation weighed down his jacket pocket, and the heft was comforting. His lips twitched as a movement at the entryway to Maxwell’s apartment caught his attention. He raised his eyes without moving his head.
The excitement began to build within him. He’d been right again. Maxwell and his wife both showed up at the crime scene this morning. His instincts were as razor sharp as ever. Now, in just a few moments, the next step in his plan would be executed. He savored the heady anticipation that flowed through his veins like a drug.