“No indication of where he was calling from?” Cody asked. Concerned, he shoved one arm and then the other into his jacket sleeves en route to the door. “Stew…”
“I’ve got it.” J.J. jogged back to turn off the stove half in, half out of her coat. She finished shrugging into it as she followed him outside. “The line is still open. Can your brother help us?”
He called out the number to Seth’s direct line as they headed to the Hummer through a snowstorm. Denise had been right. Efficiently J.J. dialed Seth, explained the situation, then told him what they needed, pausing only to ask Cody for Martin’s number so the sheriff’s office could use it to triangulate the active signal.
Driving was difficult. Snow swirled in every direction, creating a nearly consuming cloud of white flakes that enveloped the car and all but a few feet of the road ahead. Inching along only added to Cody’s sense of concern and frustration.
Assuming Martin had been heading back from Helena when the emergency happened, Cody steered toward town, where he could easily pick up the interstate.
It wasn’t necessary. They were maybe three-quarters of a mile from the cabin when they spotted the Marshal Service’s SUV on the side of the road and a blue sedan in a ditch, almost obscured by snow and the dense clump of trees. Denise was in the ditch, jumping up and down, frantically waving her gloved hands.
Because of the snowdrift, Cody had to park the Hummer with part of the vehicle still in the roadway. Jumping out of the car, he skidded over to Denise with J.J. right on his heels.
Martin was sitting in the ravine holding his scarf against the side of his head. The snow around him was stained red with blood.
“What happened?” Cody demanded as he slid down the embankment to reach Martin. Without glancing at Denise, he asked, “Did you call it in?”
“Ambulance on the way,” she confirmed.
J.J. crouched next to Martin, peeling back the scarf so they could examine the injury.
“You’ll live,” Cody said, relieved.
“We have tracks,” J.J. said, reaching out to grip Cody’s forearm.
Following her line of sight, he saw the fast-disappearing ruts that headed to the road and to the clump of trees. “Too trampled to do much good.”
“One set is mine,” Denise explained. “I wanted to make sure our perp wasn’t laying in wait. Found remnants of a small fire beyond the trees and another set of footprints doubling back toward town.”
Cody watched as J.J. stood and surveyed the scene, her hand shielding her eyes from the swirling snow. He could almost read her thoughts.
“Why would he risk walking back and forth enough times to make a trench in the snow? And how could the perp have known to wait in those trees for Martin?”
“Ice patch,” Martin explained, hooking his thumb over his shoulder. “All I know is I started a skid, ended up in a ditch and when I got out of the car, someone cleaned my clock but good.”
Cody and J.J. climbed back up the embankment and walked onto the road. Sure enough, with the toe of his boot he found a layer of ice hidden beneath the inch and a half of freshly fallen snow. Using his gloves, he swept the powdery flakes away to reveal a frozen strip. “This isn’t a natural patch of black ice.”
“No kidding,” J.J. commented, her brow deeply furrowed as she glanced around. “We need forensics on this. How many gallons of water would it have taken to rig the skid and—”
“Come on,” Cody interrupted, then pointed toward the trees. The snow continued to fall in earnest as they ran toward the heavy scent of pine mixed with the familiar smell of wood smoke.
As the wail of a distant siren split through the silence, Cody ducked beneath low branches, following the pungent smell, until he found the makeshift campsite.
“This guy knew what he was doing,” Cody explained when J.J. appeared a second behind him. Squatting back on his heels, he used a partially charred twig to point as he spoke. “The rut happened as he melted snow.” He pointed toward a patch of snowless ground near the fire. “He used the snowmelt to make the ice patch on the roadway.”
“And carried it in what?” J.J. asked.
Cody surveyed the area until he found a possible answer among the trash littered about. Reaching behind a tree trunk, he retrieved a bright red gas can. “I’m guessing this.”
“Doesn’t appear to have been out here long,” she observed. “No rust or dust. And hard to trace.”
He agreed. “It’s too generic, but maybe our perp left some prints.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, though he didn’t hear a lot of conviction in her words. “Ambulance is here.”
Red and white strobe lights decorated the snow as the E.M.T.s loaded Martin—who was protesting loudly—into the ambulance and whisked him off to the hospital.
Seth pulled up his Jeep and placed bright orange, reflective traffic cones around the site. Then he directed a tow truck driver to winch the sedan out of the ditch.
“Denise, go back and secure the cabin.” Cody had to yell to be heard above the monotonous warning beeps made by the truck as it moved into position. Turning to his brother, he said, “Let’s get in the Hummer. I don’t like having J.J. out here in the open so long.”
“I know, it doesn’t feel right.” Seth’s expression probably mirrored his own.
J.J. climbed into the passenger seat while Seth hoisted himself into the back. Cody slid behind the wheel, started the engine and blasted heat into the compartment. He ticked off the items he wanted preserved and collected as evidence.
J.J. thought for a minute before putting her two cents in. “Denise could have staged the whole thing.”
Cody shot her a withering look. Seth remained silent.
“Well,” J.J. argued, “it would account for her long absence today and the photograph Neal brought us. Maybe the envelope she was handing the guy was payment for setting up Martin’s ‘accident.’”
“No motive,” Cody stated.
“Want to fill me in?” Seth asked, diffusing some of the tension in the air.
Cody explained about the fire, the ice patch, the gas can and their theory on how Martin was ambushed.
“Creative,” Seth remarked, rubbing his chin before shoving the Stetson farther back on his head. “You think it was Denise?”
“Yes,” J.J. said.
“No,” Cody said.
The debate had to wait because the tow truck driver tapped on the window. “Found something you might want to see.”
J.J. followed the Landry brothers out into the blustery cold. A biting wind whipped the snow around in a series of flaky white tornadoes that made it hard to see much farther than a foot in front of her. The short walk took some doing, since the footing was dicey.
She started to slip and would have landed squarely on her tailbone had Cody not grabbed her arm and saved her from that humiliation. His strength was admirable. She was no lightweight and it was no small feat to keep her upright. “Thanks.”
“Hold on to me,” he suggested.
She did. Just touching him was enough to transform her from capable FBI agent into quivering, needy Hormone Girl. Instead of focusing on whatever the tow truck guy wanted them to see, she could only think of the fact that her fingertips fell well short of meeting as she encircled his impressive bicep. With each cautious step, their bodies brushed. No amount of layers could prevent her from feeling the electricity where they touched.
When they reached the edge of the roadway, she had to force herself to let go. Chilled and struggling to see through the haze of snowflakes, J.J. adjusted her scarf as she bent down to join the semicircle of men examining the object.
A blood-spattered baseball bat lay in the snow where the car had been. “Why leave the weapon here?” J.J. wondered aloud.
“Because walking down the road with a bloody club might attract attention?” Cody suggested.
“We need to talk to Martin,” she decided. “There’s something wrong about this.”
“I agree,” Seth stated.
“We’ll handle it,” Cody said, sending a you’re-a-traitor look his brother’s way. He held out his hand to her.
J.J. gladly accepted. It took twice the time it should have to work their way back to the Hummer.
“Maybe we should wait until the conditions improve,” she suggested, shaking snow from her boots and clothing before climbing into the warmth of the waiting vehicle.
“This is Montana,” he replied dryly. “Conditions don’t improve until spring.”
“Okay, then.” She buckled in for what she was sure would be a tricky ride.
Cody made it seem easy. He anticipated when to ease off the gas and how to manipulate the wheel to keep the Hummer in the lane. He could have hogged the road, because there weren’t any other cars between the accident site and the hospital.
“You made that seem like a cakewalk.”
“Practice,” he told her as he parked in the lot marked Physicians Only and cut the engine.
“This is illegal.”
Flashing a killer grin, he said, “Not really. This vehicle belongs to the ranch. Chance has an interest in the ranch. Ergo, this is Chance’s gas guzzling monster.”
“You went a long way to justify that one, Landry,” she joked before preparing to step out into what she would classify as a blizzard.
“Why do you call me Landry all the time?” he asked when they reached the hospital’s automatic door.
It opened on a release of air and her lungs filled with the antiseptic smell of the place. Muffled voices, crying children and static from the intercom system all converged at once. The place was mobbed. No matter how experienced a driver was, in this kind of weather accidents happened.
“Habit, probably,” she admitted.
“I’m a habit now?” he joked, winking as they walked and shed layers of coats, gloves and scarves.
“Work habit,” she clarified, using her fingers to try to fluff some volume into her hair. A wasted effort. Catching her reflection in the metal doors ahead, she admitted she had a serious case of hat hair. Her cheeks were red and raw from the cold, which only highlighted the yellowish taint of the bruise still on her right cheek. “Do deputy marshals call each other by their first names?”
“Yes. I guess we aren’t as anal as the feebs.”
“We aren’t anal, we’re professionals,” she joked.
He stopped at the nursing station and, thanks to a gushing, buxom brunette, they learned that Martin was in X-ray and would be given a room shortly.
Spying a row of upholstered chairs, Cody led her to them. Piling their coats on the seat next to them, he stretched out his long legs, then crossed them at the ankles.
“So, why J.J.? I think Juliette is a pretty name.”
She cringed. “Juliette is a prom queen name and I was never big on tiaras. Did you read that in my file?”
“Yep.”
“Not very interesting reading. You must’ve been bored. What else were you privy to?”
He shrugged and closed his eyes, leaning his dark head against the smoothly tiled wall. “Juliette Joanna Barnes. Born June 3, 1969, in Marietta, Georgia, to Ester and Jacob Barnes. Attended John F. Kennedy Elementary School where you were a straight A student with a penchant for activism.”
J.J. grinned at the memory. “My school—in complete violation of Title IX—would not allow me to play on the boys’ basketball team even though they didn’t have a girls’ team.”
“And you showed them,” he teased. “But don’t you think writing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court at the age of nine was a little excessive?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Too bad I didn’t know there had to be a case before the court before you could file a brief. But it made the papers and the point.”
“Yeah.” He sighed loudly. “Your school put you on the team, but the coach only let you play a total of seven minutes all season.”
“But I played.”
“Won the battle and lost the war, if you ask me.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re a man. You have no clue what it’s like to have to prove yourself every inch of every step of the way. Especially if you happen to take a path that is outside the comfort zone of traditional expectation.”
“That explains your activities in high school. As I recall—” he peeked at her from the corner of one eye, his mouth twitching with amusement “—you demanded the school board remove any gender-specific references from standardized testing.”
“Which was done.”
“Five years after you graduated.” He chuckled. “Hardly helpful to you.”
“But helpful to others,” she said tartly. “Sometimes change takes time.”
“Sometimes change is pointless. Does it change the answer to a word problem by neutralizing all the pronouns? You still have to do the algebra to figure out when the train will arrive in Newark even if it is, thanks to you, loaded with hermaphrodites.”
“You’re mocking me, Landry.” Before she realized what she was doing, she found herself reaching up and brushing the dark hair off his forehead.
The busy hospital setting evaporated and it seemed as if they were the only people on the planet. Her ears no longer heard anything but his even breathing. She smelled nothing but his faint cologne. She saw only him.
“This is getting to be a problem, isn’t it?” he asked in a near whisper that managed to set her heart pounding.
“Mmm-hmm.”
He reached out and cupped her cheek in his warm palm. Reflexively she leaned into it, resting her head in the cradle of his touch.
“Half of my team is here in the hospital and all I can think about is kissing you.”
A thrill danced the length of her spine. “It’s good to have priorities.”
The pad of his thumb went to her lower lip, applying sweet pleasure that sent sparks through her system. His eyes lowered, following the movement of his thumb. She watched as his pupils became pinpoints and his mouth drew into a tight, purposeful line.
“We need to get—”
“A room,” Dr. Chance Landry announced cheerfully as he joined them.
J.J. flew bolt upright. She felt her face warm with a blush as she did her best to offer the doctor a guilt-tainted smile.
Chance didn’t seem the least bit fazed at catching them in such an intimate breech of professional decorum. Nor, she noted with more than just a bit of envy and annoyance, did Cody.
“You paying?” Cody teased, shifting the coats so his brother could join them.
“No. And neither are you. She’s on the Do Not Disturb list, dear bro.”
“She is sitting right here,” J.J. tersely reminded both of them. Did everyone have to know her personal business? And did they have to chat about it like they were discussing the flaming weather?
“Sorry, J.J., how are you feeling?”
Humiliated. “Great.”
“No complications?”
“No.” She planted a saccharine smile on her face. “No doctor-patient confidentiality, either.”
Chance cocked his head and tried to look repentant. “Should I pretend that Cody hasn’t peppered me with questions he would only know to ask if you’d confided in him?”
“Um…yes.”
He laughed. “I’ll make you a deal. You come to my office in the next couple of days for that follow-up and I’ll forgive you for not keeping in contact like you promised.”
“There’s nothing to follow up,” she argued. “I feel perfectly fine. Completely back to normal.”
“That’s the problem,” Chance said, his tone suddenly more serious. “You may feel fine and have no residual symptoms, but you aren’t fine yet.” He turned to Cody and added, “And my brother should keep that in mind at all times.”
Cody raised his hands in mock surrender. “I get it, I get it. Move along, you’re making her blush.”
Oh, she was beyond mere blush. She was definitely ready for the floor to open and swallow her whole.
Chance flipped open the metal file and thumbed efficiently through the quarter inch of pages. “Martin’s gash didn’t need sutures.”
“Stitches.” Cody groaned, turning to her in order to add, “He only uses those words because he likes to think he’s smarter than the rest of us.”
“I am.” Chance sighed heavily. “I got all the brains in the family. But back to Martin, he’s got a concussion and I’m keeping him overnight because of the loss of consciousness.”
“He blacked out?” J.J. questioned.
Chance nodded and read from the notes, “Patient reports brief period of unconsciousness lasting less than five minutes in duration.” He closed the chart. “He’s alert and responsive, so it really is just a precautionary measure.”
“Can we talk to him?” Cody asked.
“Sure. I’m having him put in the room next to Deputy Selznick.” In a brotherly dig, he added, “I’ll keep two more rooms open on that floor in case the rest of your detail needs a place to mend.”
“Kiss my—”
“This is a public place, Cody,” Chance warned. “See you tomorrow at the day-before-the-wedding breakfast?”
“Maybe,” Cody hedged. It earned him a stern look from his brother. “What am I supposed to do? Leave J.J. with Den—leave her insufficiently protected?”
“Bring her along,” Chance suggested. “It’s adult only at the house. Chandler’s orders. Seth should be able to arrange to secure the ranch for a few hours.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose,” J.J. injected, terrified at the prospect of entering Landry Land. There was something really he’s-my-boyfriend about that.
He wasn’t her boyfriend. He was more like her…what? The line between protector and protectee had been so blurred that it no longer existed. And she’d also erased him as a suspect. If the FBI knew that, she’d sure lose her job because, God knew, her conclusion wasn’t based on any tangible fact. No, she’d excluded him on instinct alone.
“We’d love to have you,” Chance insisted. “Especially since it will prevent Cody from having an excuse to leave when the rest of us are trapped in Wedding Hell with no way out. I was going to arrange to have myself paged until Val threatened me with bodily harm if I didn’t cooperate.”
“As well you should,” J.J. insisted. “But it’s a family thing and I’m—”
“Going,” Cody announced, taking her by the hand and urging her to her feet. “Third floor?” he asked his brother.
“Yep. See you in the morning, J.J.,” Chance called.
“I really don’t think it’s appropriate for me to go to a family function,” she argued as Cody pressed the elevator call button.
“It’s my family, J.J., not a firing squad,” he teased. “Besides, the alternative is to leave you with Denise.”
She arched one brow as she examined his unreadable expression. “You think she…that she’s the leak?”
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, with obvious and pained reluctance, he asked, “Are you telling me that whole scene back there made sense to you?”