The Lawman Who Loved Her

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.