Seeing Red
Page 1
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Discover More Sandra Brown
About the Author
Other Novels by Sandra Brown
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Sandra Brown Management, Ltd.
Cover design by Kathleen Lynch
Digital illustration by Elizabeth Turner
Cover photograph of woman by George Kerrigan
Author photograph by Andrew Eccles
Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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LCCN: 2017941268
ISBNs: 978-1-4555-7210-6 (hardcover), 978-1-4555-7207-6 (ebook), 978-1-4555-7206-9 (large print)
E3-20170711-DANF
Prologue
Did you think you were going to die?”
The Major pursed his lips with disapproval. “That question wasn’t on the list I approved.”
“Which is why I didn’t ask it while the cameras were rolling. But there’s no one here now but us. I’m asking off the record. Were you in fear of your life? Did dying cross your mind?”
“I didn’t stop to think about it.”
Kerra Bailey tilted her head and regarded him with doubt. “That sounds like a canned answer.”
The seventy-year-old gave her the smile that had won him the heart of a nation. “It is.”
“All right. I’ll respectfully withdraw the question.”
She could graciously pass on it because she’d got what she’d come for: the first interview of any kind that The Major had granted in more than three years. In the days leading up to this evening’s live telecast from his home, he and she had become well acquainted. They’d engaged in some lively discussions, often taking opposing views.
Kerra looked up at the stag head mounted above his mantel. “I stand by my aversion to having the eyes of dead animals staring down at me.”
“Venison is food. And keeping the herd thinned out is ecologically necessary to its survival.”
“Scientifically, that’s a sound observation. From a personal and humane standpoint, I don’t understand how anyone could place a beautiful animal like that in the crosshairs and pull the trigger.”
“Neither of us is going to win this argument,” he said, to which she replied with matching stubbornness, “Neither of us is going to concede it, either.”
He blurted a short laugh that ended in a dry cough. “You’re right.” He glanced over at the tall gun cabinet in the corner of the vast room, then pushed himself out of his brown leather La-Z-Boy, walked over to the cabinet, and opened the windowpane front.
He removed one of the rifles. “I took that particular deer with this rifle. It was my wife’s last Christmas present to me.” He ran his hand along the bluish barrel. “I haven’t used it since Debra died.”
Kerra was touched to see this softer side of the former soldier. “I wish she could have been here for the interview.”
“So do I. I miss her every day.”
“What was it like for her, being married to America’s hero?”
“Oh, she was super-impressed,” he said around a chuckle as he propped the rifle in the corner between the cabinet and the wall. “She nagged me only every other day about leaving my dirty socks on the floor rather than putting them in the hamper.”
Kerra laughed, but her thoughts had turned to The Major’s son, who’d made no bones about his aversion to his father’s fame. She’d felt an obligation to invite him to appear on the program alongside The Major, perhaps just a brief appearance in the final segment. Using explicit language that left no room for misinterpretation, he had declined. Thank God.
The Major crossed to the built-in bar. “So much talking has made me thirsty. I could use a drink. What would you like?”
“Nothing for me.” She stood and retrieved her bag from where she’d set it on the floor beside her chair. “As soon as the crew gets back, we need to hit the road.”
The Major had ordered a cold fried chicken picnic supper from a local restaurant for her and the five-person production crew. It was delivered to the house, and, after they’d eaten, packing up the gear had taken an hour. When all was done, Kerra had asked the others to go gas up the van for their two-hour drive back to Dallas while she stayed behind. She had wanted a few minutes alone with The Major in order to thank him properly.
She began, “Major, I must tell you—”
He turned to her and interrupted. “You’ve said it, Kerra. Repeatedly. You don’t need to say it again.”
“You may not need to hear it again, but I need to say it.” Her voice turned husky with emotion. “Please accept my heartfelt thanks for…well, for everything. I can’t adequately express my gratitude. It knows no bounds.”
Matching her solemn tone, he replied, “You’re welcome.”
She smiled at him and took a short breath. “May I call you every once in a while? Come visit if I’m ever out this way again?”
“I’d like that very much.”
They shared a long look, leaving the many insufficient words unspoken, but conveying to each other a depth of feeling. Then, to break the sentimental mood, he rubbed his hands together. “Sure you won’t have a drink?”
“No, but I would take advantage of your bathroom.” She left her coat in the chair but shouldered her bag.
“You know where it is.”
This making the fourth time she’d been to his house, she was familiar with the layout. The living area looked like a miniature Texas museum, with cowhide rugs on the distressed hardwood floor, Remington reproductions in bronze of cowboys in action, and pieces of furniture that made The Major’s recliner seem miniature by comparison.
One of the offshoots of the main room was a hallway, and the first door on the left was the powder room, although that feminine-sounding name was incongruous with the hand soap dispenser in the shape of a longhorn steer.
She was drying her hands at the sink and checking her reflection in the framed mirror above it, making a mental note to call her hairdresser—maybe a few more highlights around her face?—when the door latch rattled, calling her attention to it. “Major? Is the crew back? I’ll be right out.”
He didn’t respond, although she sensed someone on the other side of the door.
She replaced the hand towel in the iron ring mounted on the wall beside the sink and was reaching for her shoulder bag when she heard the bang.
Her mind instantly clicked back to The Major taking the rifle from the cabinet but not replacing it. If he’d been doing so now and it had accidentally discharged…Oh, my God!
She lunged for the door and grabbed hold of the knob, but snatched her hand back when she heard a voice, not The Major’s, say, “How do you like being dead so far?”
Kerra clapped her hand over her mouth to hold back a wail of disbelief and horror. She heard footsteps thudding around in the living room. One set? Two? It was hard to tell, and fear had robbed her of mental acuity. She did, however, have the presence of mind to reach for the switch plate and turn off the light.
Holding her breath, she listened, tracking the footsteps as they crossed rugs, struck hardwood, and then, to her mounting horror, entered the hallway. They came even with the bathroom door and stopped.
Moving as soundlessly as possible, she backed away from the door, feeling her way past the sink and toilet in the darkness, until she came up against the bead board wall. She tried to keep her breathing silent, though her lips moved around a prayer of only one repeated word: Please, please, please.
Whoever was on the other side of the door tried turning the knob and found it locked. It was tried a second time, then the door shook as an attempt was made to force it open. To whomever was trying to open it, the locked door could only mean one thing: Someone was on the other side of it.
She’d been discovered.
Another set of footsteps came rushing from the living area. The door was battered against with what she imagined was the stock of a rifle.
She had nothing with which to defend herself against armed assailants. If they had in fact fatally shot The Major, and if they got past that door, she would die, too.
Escape was her only option, and it had to be now.
The double-hung window behind her was small, but it was the only chance she had of getting out alive. She felt for the lock holding the sashes together, twisted it open, then placed her fingers in the depressions of the lower sash and pulled up with all her might. It didn’t budge.
Bambambam! The rapid succession of blows loosened the latch and splintered the wood anchoring it.
Because silence was no longer necessary, Kerra was sobbing now, taking in noisy gulps of air. Please, please, please. She whimpered the entreaty for salvation from a source stronger than she because she felt powerless.
She put all she had into raising the window, and it became unstuck with such suddenness that it stunned her for perhaps one heartbeat. Another violent attempt to break the latch separated metal parts of it. She heard them landing on the floor.
She threw one leg over the windowsill and bent practically in half in order to get her head and shoulders through. When they cleared the opening, she launched herself out and dropped to the ground.
She landed on her shoulder. A spike of pain took her breath. Her left arm went numb and useless. She rolled onto her stomach and pushed herself up with her right arm. After taking a few staggering steps to regain her balance, she took off in a sprint. Behind her she heard the bathroom door crashing open.
A blast from a shotgun deafened her and sheared off an upper branch of a young mesquite tree. She kept running. It fired again, striking a boulder and creating shrapnel that struck her legs like darts.
How many misses would they get before hitting her?
There were no city lights, only a sliver of moon. The darkness made her a more difficult target, but it also prevented her from seeing more than a few feet ahead of her. She ran blindly, stumbling over rocks, scrub brush, and uneven ground.
Please, please, please.
Then without warning, the earth gave out beneath her. She pitched forward, grabbing hold of nothing but air. She was helpless to catch herself before smashing into the ground and rolling, sliding, falling.
Chapter 1
Six days earlier
Trapper was in a virtual coma when the knocking started.
“Bloody hell,” he mumbled into the throw pillow beneath his head. His face would bear the imprint of the upholstery when he got up. If he got up. Right now, he had no intention of moving, not even to open his eyes.
The knocking might have been part of a dream. Maybe a construction worker somewhere in the building was tapping the walls in search of studs. An urban woodpecker? Whatever. If he ignored the noise, maybe it would go away.
But after fifteen seconds of blessed silence, there came another knock-knock. Trapper croaked, “I’m closed. Come back later.”
The next three knocks were insistent.
Swearing, he rolled onto his back, sailed the drool-damp pillow across the office, and laid his forearm over his eyes to block the daylight. The window blinds were only partially open, but those cheerful, skinny strips of sunshine made his eyeballs throb.
Keeping one eye closed, he eased his feet off the sofa and onto the floor. When he stood, he stumbled over his discarded boots. His big toe sent his cell phone sliding across the floor and underneath a chair. If he bent down that far, he doubted his ability to return upright, so he left his phone where it was.
It wasn’t like it rang all that often anyway.
Holding the heel of his hand against his pounding temple, and with one eye remaining closed, he managed to reach the other side of his office without bumping into the bottom drawer of the metal file cabinet. For no reason he could remember, it was standing open.
Through the frosted glass upper half of the door, he made out a form just as it raised its fist to knock again. To prevent the further agony that would induce, Trapper flipped the lock and opened the door a crack.
He sized her up within two seconds. “You’ve got the wrong office. One flight up. First door to the right off the elevator.”
He was about to shut the door when she said, “John Trapper?”
Shit. Had he forgotten an appointment? He scratched the top of his head, where his hair hurt down to the follicles. “What time is it?”
“Twelve fifteen.”
“What day?”
She took a breath and let it out slowly. “Monday.”
He looked her up and down and came back to her face. “Who are you?”
“Kerra Bailey.”
The name didn’t ring any bells, but it would be hard to hear them over the jackhammer inside his skull. “Look, if it’s about the parking meter—”
“The one in front of the building? The one that’s been flattened?”
“I’ll pay to have it replaced. I’ll cover any other damages. I would have left a note to that effect, but I didn’t have anything on me to write—”
“I’m not here about the parking meter.”
“Oh. Hmm. Did we have an appointment?”
“No.”
“Well, now’s not a good time for me, Ms.…” He went blank.
“Bailey.” She said that in the same impatient tone in which she’d said Monday.
“Right. Ms. Bailey. C
all me, and we’ll schedule—”
“It’s important that I talk to you sooner rather than later. May I come in?” She gestured at the door, which Trapper had kept open only a few inches.
A woman who looked like her, he hated turning down for anything. But, hell. His head felt as dense as a bowling ball. His shirt was unbuttoned, the tail hanging loose. He hoped his fly was zipped, but in case it wasn’t, he didn’t risk calling attention to it by checking. His breath would stop a clock.
He glanced behind him at the disarray: suit jacket and tie slung over the back of a chair; boots in front of the sofa, one upright, the other lying on its side; one black sock draped over the armrest, the other sock God only knew where; an empty Dom bottle precariously close to rolling off the corner of his desk.
He needed a shower. He really needed to pee.
But he also really, really needed clients, and she had “money” written all over her. Her handbag, literally so. It was the size of a small suitcase and covered in designer initials. Even if she had been looking for the tax attorney on the next floor up, she would have been slumming.
Besides, when had he ever been known to say no to a lady in distress?
He stepped back and opened the door, motioning her toward the two straight chairs facing his desk. He kicked the file cabinet drawer shut with his heel and still got to his desk ahead of her in time to relocate an empty but smelly Chinese food carton and the latest issue of Maxim. He’d ranked the cover shot among his top ten faves, but she might take exception to that much areola.
She sat in one chair and placed her bag in the other. As he rounded the desk, he buttoned the middle button of his shirt and ran a hand across his mouth and chin to check for remaining drool.
As he dropped into his desk chair, he caught her looking at the gravity-defying champagne bottle. He rescued it from the corner of the desk and set it gently in the trash can to avoid a clatter. “Buddy of mine got married.”
“Last night?”
“Saturday afternoon.”
Her eyebrow arched. “It must have been some wedding.”
He shrugged, then leaned back in his chair. “Who recommended me?”
“No one. I got the address off your website.”
Trapper had forgotten he even had one. He’d paid a college kid seventy-five bucks to do whatever it was you do to get a website online. That was the last he’d thought of it. This was the first client it had yielded.