The roadway between Jasper and the Lucky 7 ranch was a glistening black ribbon edged by several feet of mounded snow. As improbable as it seemed, plows had already cleared what would have taken the better part of a week to handle back east.
J.J. was distracted by the blinding reflection of the sun off the vast, pristine landscape almost as much as the jumble of thoughts twisting around in her head.
Turning her whole body in the passenger seat, she studied Cody’s profile for a moment. Not because she didn’t have it memorized, but because he simply took her breath away. Quite an accomplishment since she wasn’t exactly the swooning type. No, while she appreciated beauty as much as the next girl, it never had this kind of effect on her.
Until now.
Until her stomach fluttered just breathing in the familiar scent of him. Until her pulse raced just remembering the feel of his kiss. Until she had to admit that Cody Landry wasn’t just a passing fancy. This wasn’t casual interest. This wasn’t lust. Nope, this was something more. Something bigger.
Love.
Saying the word in her head caused a dozen different reactions to tingle through her system. Aside from the worst possible timing in the history of male-female interaction, how could this happen? To her? With him? Now?
“Nervous about meeting my family?” he asked.
“Kinda,” she lied. Actually, Cody, I’m a tad on edge because I think I’m falling in love with you. I know this is sudden, but…but what? her brain screamed. Marry me?
She gulped. The “M” word scared her almost as much as the Visnopovs did.
His palm closed over her knee and he gave a squeeze that was probably supposed to be reassuring. It wasn’t. It was just another reminder that she’d seriously gone around the bend. This was the twenty-first century! They hadn’t so much as gone on a date. So how can I even think I’m falling in love with him?
He flashed that comfortably sexy grin at her, then asked, “I could tell you embarrassing stories about my brothers if it would put you at ease.”
“I’d rather get my mind off the meet-the-brothers moment. Why don’t we start by you telling me why we aren’t questioning Denise or Lara.”
The smile slipped as his expression hardened slightly. Seeing the flicker of sadness in his chocolate eyes, J.J. experienced a pang of guilt. Sometimes it was hard to remember that these people were his friends. Betrayal was the worst.
“I’m waiting on the LUDs from Lara’s hospital phone and her cell,” Cody explained. “If she is the leak, I want to make sure we have enough evidence to fry her.”
Remind me not to get on his bad side. “And Denise?”
“Seth is pulling everything he can on the name Stephenson faxed over this morning. He’s bringing it to the ranch. We’ll go from there.”
She slipped her hand over his where it rested on her knee. It looked ridiculously small and pale against the tanned breadth of his. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to simply confront them?”
“I can’t go off half-cocked on this, J.J. I talked to Martin this morning and he agreed. Slow and deliberate. I can’t afford to get this wrong.”
“How’s he doing?”
She was pleased to see Cody’s expression lighten. “Champing at the bit to be released from the hospital.”
“Did you tell him about the notepad from Lara’s room?”
He nodded. “CLS meant nothing to him right off the bat, but he’s going to work on it.”
“As soon as we get to the ranch, I’ll call Stephenson and see if I can’t light a fire under him,” J.J. promised.
One dark eyebrow arched in her direction. “Is that so you’ll have an excuse not to participate in the final wedding strategy session?”
She offered a guilty smile. “Of course. Besides, I’d only be in the way. You make sure to have fun, though.”
“You can be cruel, Agent Barnes.”
“So I’ve been told.”
IT SHOULD BE illegal to have so many Landrys in one place. They were loud, boisterous and in serious need of a professional wedding planner. From her seat in the roomy kitchen, J.J. could hear lively debates over everything from the seating chart for the reception to whether it was too late to change the nail polish requirements for the bridal attendants.
So how come I’m envious? J.J. wondered as she dialed the Helena field office and asked to be put through to Stephenson.
“Stephenson.”
“Barnes here,” J.J. said, using her most professional tone. “You sent a fax to the town sheriff?”
“Only because I didn’t know your location,” Stephenson returned quickly. “You never checked in, Barnes. I forwarded that to your superiors in Washington.”
Weasel. “What do you have for me?” Besides guaranteeing a Letter of Reprimand.
“Who do you want first?”
“Cod—Landry,” she said, glad she caught herself in time.
J.J. got up to help herself to coffee as she listened to Stephenson shuffle papers, then begin to speak. “He was careful, but I managed to trace several bank withdrawals over the last few months. All cash, and I can’t account for any of it.”
I can, you ferret. He was using the money to pay a P.I. to hunt for his folks. “Keep digging,” she instructed, enjoying the fantasy of Stephenson hunched over a computer, hunting for something he’d never trace. Cody was too smart for that. Stephenson, apparently, was not.
“Since you’re in Montana, we sent field agents in California, Seattle and Miami to do interviews on Howard, Newell and Selznick.”
J.J. groaned. “They aren’t supposed to know we’re investigating them.”
“They don’t,” Stephenson insisted. “Just because I’m not from the D.C. or New York office doesn’t mean I’m incompetent, Barnes. The field agents are conducting interviews with friends and family under the guise of routine security background checks. You gotta love The Patriot Act.”
“Anything turn up?” She sipped her coffee, then sat down again at the large oak table to listen to the report.
“Denise Howard’s husband, Greg, was really, really nervous, according to the report. He answered all the questions put to him, but the field agent noted he was sweating bullets the whole time and it had nothing to do with the sunny California weather. They’re canvassing the neighborhood today to see if anything turns up.
“The agent who went to the Newells’ apartment in Seattle bombed out. Mrs. Newell wasn’t home and she wasn’t at work. Co-worker said she had a doctor’s appointment this morning, so they’re going back this afternoon.”
“Is she sick?”
“Maybe,” Stephenson supplied. “One of her coworkers let it slip that Mrs. Newell has been having some female problems. She’s in her forties. Isn’t that about the time you ladies start to break down?”
“It’s called premenopause, you moron.” An idea made it through the fog of her irritation. “Does she have health insurance?”
More shuffling of papers. “Yep. Employer-provided HMO. Secondary to being covered on her husband’s plan.”
So much for that theory. “What about Lara Selznick?”
“Now here’s an interesting little tidbit I bet you don’t know about Lara Selznick.”
J.J. resisted rolling her eyes. “And what might that be?”
“Lara Selznick doesn’t exist.”
“DON’T YOU FIND that strange?” she asked him for the third time since they’d left the ranch.
“None of her neighbors knows anything about her?” He rubbed his chin, still digesting all the information J.J. had shared.
“None. Zero. Zippo. A twenty-unit apartment complex and not one person has ever interacted with Lara other than to say ‘hello’ in the elevator or the laundry room. And,” she continued on a rush of breath, “it’s one of those Florida snowbird buildings. Lara is the only tenant who lives there year-round. And she’s like three generations younger than everyone else in the place.”
“She’s on the road a lot,” Cody qualified. “There could be a dozen reasons why she lives there.”
“Name one,” J.J. challenged as he turned onto the highway and headed toward the cabin.
“Cheap rent.”
“Okay. Name another.”
“No kids.”
He watched her deflate out of the corner of his eyes. “Or, she could be using the place as a front to plan the overthrow of the government. My point is, all we have are some letters and a phone number on a pad and a description of her living arrangements that sounds pretty dull.”
“But no one knows her,” J.J. argued.
Glancing over at her, he asked, “Where do you live?”
“I have an apartment in Arlington, Virginia. Why?”
“Who are your neighbors?”
“I—I haven’t been there much for two years.”
“Before that? Before you went undercover. Did you throw dinner parties? Get together for a wild canasta night?”
“No. But I’m not seventy and I don’t know how to play canasta. What’s your point?”
“That you aren’t so different from Lara.” He heard an indignant little snort from her direction and fought back a smile.
“What about you?” she challenged.
Cody’s urge to smile vanished. “Guilty. I have an apartment in D.C that I’ve slept in maybe fifty nights in five years. But—” he felt a surge of arrogance “—I do know that my next-door neighbor likes to watch court shows and yell at the litigants. That’s something.”
“Yeah,” J.J. fairly jeered. “It’s lame. We are a sad group, Cody, aren’t we?”
“We have demanding jobs that don’t lend themselves to having lives,” he said as the cabin came into sight.
“I used to think that was a good thing,” she mused.
Me, too, he thought as the tire caught a patch of slick snow, careening him into the driveway. He just missed smashing into the side of the SUV.
Just as he reached for the door handle, J.J. reached for him. There was quiet concern in her eyes.
“I know this is tough on you.”
He managed a weak smile. “Interrogating Denise probably won’t be the best part of my day.”
“Want me to wait here?”
He shook his head. “You can’t wait out here. You’re still a target, remember?”
She reached up and placed her palm against his cheek. “You’re wearing too many hats on this one. Landry. Why not let me interrogate Denise and you stay out here. After all, this is my investigation.”
“And you are the expert on hats.”
J.J. smiled in spite of herself. “I’m so sorry I told you about my milliner skills. Had I known you were going to work in a hat pun at every turn, I’d never have said a word.”
She felt his return grin through all three layers of clothing. When he lifted his hand to cup her face, she watched—fascinated—as his gaze turned to luscious liquid chocolate. His attention was squarely fixed on her mouth and she could almost feel the kiss before it actually happened.
He surprised her, though. This kiss was different. Tentative, curious, sweet. The passion was there—as always, but this time he slowly and deliberately took her mouth with a gentleness that she hadn’t expected.
It triggered in her something primal and needy. Her whole body felt coiled. There was nothing tentative in the way she yanked at the zipper of his jacket and shoved her hands inside to feel the corded strength of his torso.
She deepened the kiss, changing the tenor to convey her total and complete need for this man. She reveled in the warm wetness of his mouth, sparred with his tongue, nibbled his lips. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
His hands moved to her shoulders, firmly grasping her in order to basically pry her off of him. She should have been embarrassed. But she wasn’t. She was just too needy.
He looked at her with heavy, hooded eyes, his breaths coming in short, shallow gulps. “We’re fogging up the windows.”
J.J. glanced around. “So we are.”
“Denise is going to march out here—” He stopped in midsentence.
Instantly, J.J. realized the ramifications of the situation as her training superceded her longings. “Why didn’t she march out here?” She wasn’t sure why she was whispering as she reached for her weapon in concert with Cody.
Grabbing his phone, he called Denise. J.J. lowered the window a crack and could hear the faint chime of the cell phone ringing inside the cabin. No answer.
After dialing 9-1-1, he said, “Stay behind me.”
“I’ll check the SUV.”
Cody shot her a stern look and pointed to himself. “U.S. Marshal.” He pointed at her. “Protectee.” Next, he opened the door and practically dragged her across the console, shielding her as she stumbled out of the car.
Guns drawn, they flattened against the cold steel of the SUV and worked their way around to the back of the vehicle with the effortless precision of synchronized swimmers. Knowing the cars were their best barricade should anyone be inside the cabin, J.J. worked as a team with Cody. He opened a door, she dropped on one knee, gun targeting the area.
After they’d checked the SUV, J.J. followed Cody as they used the dash and cover method to work their way to the porch.
Careful to avoid the windows, J.J. felt her heart pounding from the rush of adrenaline as she watched Cody mouth a count of three before he reared back and kicked in the door.
It hit her instantly.
The acrid, sour smell of death.