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“Trace did tell me some things,” she offered.
“But he couldn’t tell you this story because he doesn’t know it. Not the important parts, anyway.”
“Then, you tell me,” she said softly.
Cody thought for a moment, as if he were trying to find the right thread to begin. “It’s a bit involved. I was the sheriff in Black Rock, but I was also working undercover in the militia way back then. Some people were openly members of the militia, but I wasn’t. My code name in the militia was Centurion.” He laughed humorlessly. “Pennington picked the name. He thought it was clever. Maybe it was.”
He breathed deeply. “D’Arcy knew I was undercover. He was responsible for Ryan Callahan, and it was his idea to send him to Black Rock after Pennington’s trial, and Callahan agreed. I know I already told you D’Arcy figured if Pennington somehow tracked Callahan down, I’d get wind of it and would be able to warn him.”
She nodded.
“It actually worked out better than that—when Pennington located Callahan I was given the assignment of eliminating him. But I’m getting ahead of the story.”
His eyes took on a faraway expression as he looked into the distant past. “You already know Callahan came to Black Rock under an alias—Reilly O’Neill. He fell for Mandy. Hard. It was the same for her. Two months after they met, they...became lovers.”
Keira closed her eyes momentarily at the pain in Cody’s voice, a pain she felt twisting inside her.
“Some of this I inferred by what happened later. Neither of them actually told me, of course, but I...I had my suspicions early on. Mandy never was good at hiding how she felt. And even if she’d wanted to, I don’t think she could have hidden it from me. I knew her too well.”
He stopped and took a deep swallow of coffee, then stared down into the cup. After a minute Keira said, “Go on.”
“Callahan had been in Black Rock about six months when Pennington tracked him there. I was ordered to kill him, but not just in any way I saw fit. Pennington was obsessed with seeing Callahan in hell—a vow he’d made after Callahan testified against him and put him in jail—so Callahan had to die by fire.
“D’Arcy, McKinnon, Callahan and I set it up to fake Callahan’s death. We rigged his truck with explosives, and D’Arcy even arranged for a cadaver to be burned in the truck.” He grimaced at the memory. “We also had a fake autopsy report all ready, identifying the corpse as Callahan, to make it more realistic.”
Cody paused for a moment. “Callahan was afraid that if Pennington had tracked him down once, it could happen again, so he insisted we not tell Mandy. He said he’d rather give her up than risk having anything happen to her.” A wry smile played over Cody’s lips. “That’s the throwback part of him. In his world a man doesn’t put the woman he loves in jeopardy. Even if it means breaking her heart.” The smile faded.
“We planned it for a Saturday, Mandy’s busiest day at her bookstore. Neither of us counted on her showing up at the reservoir where she thought Callahan was working, where the explosion was set to go off.”
Keira’s gaze was glued to his face. “Why? Why did she show up?”
Cody’s expression was grim. “She went there to tell him something. Something important. She just didn’t get there in time.”
“So, what happened?”
“She saw the explosion from the road. She thought Callahan was inside the truck. She crashed trying to reach him. She lost their baby. She almost lost her life.” The choppy little sentences were spoken without emotion, but Keira knew Cody was bleeding inside.
A long silence followed, and Keira waited patiently. Then Cody said, “Callahan had to disappear for the deception to work. D’Arcy had arranged for federal marshals to whisk Callahan away to safety immediately after the explosion. McKinnon was one of them. For security reasons, I wasn’t told where he was going. But everything was in place to convince Pennington that Callahan was dead, and that I’d obeyed orders. We, none of us, considered how Mandy would take it, and Callahan didn’t find out about the crash...or the baby, until a year later.”
