Seeing Red

by Sandra Brown

  Trapper said, “Kerra, that’s his way of telling me that he’s above the law because he’s got well-positioned people in his pocket.”

  And the smooth-talking son of a bitch was right. Trapper didn’t want to call the cops and have Wilcox hauled in for a B & E when he was accountable for a minimum of one hundred ninety-seven murders.

  As though reading his thoughts, Wilcox said, “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

  “Trapper.” Kerra touched his left sleeve. “Sit down.”

  He wasn’t good at parleying, didn’t believe in bargaining with the bad guys, but in spite of himself, he was curious to hear more about this deal Wilcox had in mind. Without taking either his aim or his eyes off the man, he righted the other chair, straddled the seat backward, and propped his gun hand on the top slat. “Okay, I’m sitting.”

  Wilcox looked at Kerra. “This is off the record.”

  “Of course. I assumed that.”

  Going back to Trapper, he said, “The people who vandalized your office want you dead. When not an outright threat, you’ve been a pest. Once and for all, they’d like to see you squashed.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “The only thing these people want more than to see you dead is to know how much information you gleaned during your investigation into me and how incriminating it is.”

  Again Trapper glanced at the hole where the electrical outlet had been.

  Wilcox swiveled the desk chair to follow Trapper’s gaze, and when he came back around, he said, “They found your hiding place.”

  Trapper gnawed his inner cheek but didn’t say anything.

  Kerra murmured with anguished disappointment.

  “What was inside that wall?” Wilcox asked.

  “Electrical wiring and lousy insulation.”

  Undeterred by Trapper’s quip, the millionaire said, “It couldn’t have been anything very large. A file or two? Strongbox? Or something as small as a flash drive, perhaps?”

  Trapper shifted in his seat but didn’t say anything.

  Again Wilcox smiled with smugness. “And all this?” He indicated the contents of Trapper’s file cabinet scattered across the floor.

  “Trash.”

  “I believe you. You wouldn’t keep your files on the Pegasus that accessible.” He motioned behind him. “But it appears they got what they came for. The question is, will they be able to make heads or tails of it? Is it in code?”

  Trapper narrowed his eyes. “Worried, Tom? Can I call you Tom?”

  “I am worried, but not in the way you think.” Wilcox leaned forward and rested his forearms on the desk.

  The shift in body language made Trapper chuckle. “Getting down to business, huh? Is this where you lay out the terms of the deal? If so, you can save your breath. I have no authority to make a deal with you. I’m out, remember? Expelled. Disenfranchised. Professionally speaking, my dick was cut off.”

  “You have friends in—”

  “Former friends.”

  “Surely not all your former associates thought you were wrong.” When Trapper didn’t either deny or confirm that, Wilcox continued. “Tell me what you have. I won’t admit to anything. But I’ll steer you along if you begin to stray.”

  “I saw that movie, too,” Trapper said. “Me Bernstein, you Deep Throat.”

  Wilcox looked annoyed. “If you don’t want to do this, I’ll leave.”

  “Hell you will. You’d have to get past me and this pistol.”

  “Shooting me wouldn’t accomplish anything.”

  “Yeah, it would. It would make me feel better. Great, in fact.”

  “Not for long. You’d be snuffed in a matter of days. You probably will be anyway.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “With Kerra’s life, too?”

  That silenced Trapper’s wisecracking. Much as it galled him to play Wilcox’s game, he asked, “What are you offering?”

  “I equip you to get reinstated and to reopen your Pegasus bombing case. I can make sure you’re listened to this time.”

  Trapper hadn’t expected that, but he tried to conceal his shock. “You’d do that for me?”

  “I would.”

  “Even though you know I’d be coming after you first, and coming full throttle.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. You cooperate with me in exchange for what? Life rather than the death penalty?”

  “Full immunity.”

  Trapper barked a laugh. “Hilarious.”

  Wilcox leaned back in his chair. “We need each other, Mr. Trapper. Think about it. Take the deal. Play it smart.”

  “Oh, smart like you? Coming here alone? Waving around a flashy pistol?”

  Wilcox said nothing for several seconds, then softly, “I had hoped you’d see reason, and it wouldn’t come to this.”

  “Come to what?”

  “I didn’t come alone.”

  Trapper kept his facial expression as blank as possible, but every muscle in his body tensed.

  Wilcox said, “There are five men outside—”

  “Bullshit.”

  “—waiting to escort me safely out of here after you and I have concluded our business. If we don’t reach a conclusion that’s satisfactory to me, they’re to make certain that you die. I really didn’t need the madam’s pistol. I was only showing it off.” He smiled.

  If the man was bluffing, he was damn good at it.

  “I can see you’re unconvinced, Mr. Trapper. Give Kerra the phone.” Trapper hesitated. Wilcox said, “I strongly advise that you do as I ask.”

  Trapper held on to the cell phone for only a couple of seconds more, then passed it to Kerra.

  “Call this number.” Wilcox gave her a ten-digit number, which she tapped in. “After one ring, hang up immediately.”

  She did as told.

  “Now go to the window.”

  She looked at Trapper for instruction. He didn’t take his eyes off Wilcox. “If you’re setting her up to be hurt, your gray matter is gonna be dripping down that wall behind you.” Again, he took a bead on the space between the man’s eyes.

  Kerra got up and walked to the window that overlooked the street.

  Within a few seconds, she said, “Two men are coming from the corner. A third from the other direction.”

  Wilcox didn’t blink. Trapper could hear his wristwatch ticking in the silence. Fifteen seconds elapsed. Then ten more before Kerra said, “There’s a fourth, Trapper.”

  “The fifth is inside the building across the street,” Wilcox said. “I suggest Kerra not move because she’s in the crosshairs of his scope.”

  Trapper sprang to his feet.

  “Sit down or she dies,” Wilcox ordered.

  “I’m going to blow your brains out.” Trapper jabbed the barrel of his pistol between Wilcox’s eyebrows.

  “If you pull the trigger, Kerra will die within a second of me.”

  “How do I know there’s a fifth guy?”

  “You don’t. But will you gamble with Kerra’s life that there isn’t?”

  “Trapper, I’m okay,” she said.

  Trapper stayed as he was. Wilcox said, “Those men have been instructed to wait for a second call, a second hang-up. If it doesn’t come within ten minutes, they’ve been given orders to rush the building and kill you, Mr. Trapper. After which, I go home. I haven’t touched anything. Not even the arms of this chair. No one will know I’ve been here, and the people who wish you dead will be thrilled to learn that you’re no longer a bother.”

  Trapper risked a glance toward the window. Kerra remained with her back to them, frozen in place.

  Wilcox said, “You’re reckless with your own life, but you won’t risk Kerra’s. And you’re too principled to shoot an unarmed man.”

  “For you, I would make an exception.”

  “You’re wasting valuable time, Mr. Trapper.”

  Shit! Trapper retracted the
pistol and sat back down. “Quite a setup. How did you even know we would be coming here tonight?”

  “Deductive reasoning. I heard about your madcap getaway from Lodal last night. When were you last at your apartment?”

  “Sunday night, when I was notified that The Major had been shot.”

  “I sought you there first.” Wilcox indicated the mess. “This looks good by comparison. When your home didn’t yield anything, my…associates…must have reasoned, as I did, that whatever goods you have on me, and by extension on them, would be discovered here.”

  He glanced at his gold Rolex. “You’re down to seven and a half minutes. Why don’t you start telling me what’s on that flash drive. What am I up against?”

  Trapper thought about that scope fixed on Kerra and began talking fast. “You were thirty-two years, fifty-eight days old when the Pegasus Hotel was bombed. You were Dallas’s real estate whiz kid. You had it all goin’ on.

  “But you stayed under the radar. You weren’t into party girls, cars, private jets, yachts, none of the trappings of a man who was making money hand over fist. You didn’t mix with society, you dodged publicity, you didn’t have any close friends.

  “Then one day I got an anonymous tip that you did. Have friends, that is. Or at least the occasional visitor. Your guests crossed ethnic lines, age groups, came from different socioeconomic levels. No common denominator. Except that you met with them individually and under guard, and every one of them went in to see you looking mildly curious and came out looking like he’d been poleaxed.”

  “Six minutes,” Wilcox intoned.

  “The tipster went on to say that after such meetings with you, things happened. ‘What things?’ I asked. ‘Bad things,’ he said. ‘Like what?’ ‘Like the Pegasus Hotel bombing.’ Tongue in cheek I said, ‘Are you telling me that Thomas Wilcox was behind the Pegasus Hotel bombing?’ He said yes, and, to my everlasting regret, I laughed at him. Out loud and hard.”

  Wilcox’s expression didn’t change.

  “Kerra, anything moving outside?”

  “No. But the four are still on the street.”

  Trapper continued. “I wrote my tipster off as a kook who had singled me out because of my relationship to The Major. I recommended he have his meds better regulated and told him not to bother me again.

  “Weeks went by, and I’d almost forgotten about him. Then one day he called again. Frantic. He told me that a family-owned factory was squatting on acreage where a group of investors wanted to put a new sports arena. Heading that conglomerate was Thomas Wilcox. He forecast that the factory was as good as history.

  “No way, I thought. The guy had to be either misinformed, misguided, vengeful, drugged to the gills, or outright crazy.” He stopped and waited several beats. “I was proved wrong.”

  With remarkable calm, Wilcox said, “The site of the sports arena was previously home to a clothing factory that was tragically destroyed by fire. That’s common knowledge.”

  Trapper squeezed the grip of his pistol. “Two night watchmen died in that blaze. Their bodies had to be identified by their teeth, which was all that was left of them.”

  Kerra made a small sound of dismay, but Wilcox was unfazed by it, and Trapper didn’t let himself be distracted. He was racing the clock. In under six minutes, absolutely nothing might happen. But something might. And if it came down to a shootout, Kerra would be the first to die.

  He continued. “I told my superiors about the tip I’d gotten on the factory fire, but I didn’t want to give up your name yet. Not until I’d checked it out. It took me weeks to identify my anonymous caller. His name was Berkley Johnson. He drove you and acted as bodyguard. He’d pledged an oath of secrecy and silence.

  “But he’d found Jesus and could no longer live with himself for not reporting conversations he was privy to. He and I had several clandestine meetings. He gave me a lot of stuff but was skittish about talking to anyone but me until I could arrange for witness protection for him and his family.”

  “What happened to him?” Kerra asked.

  “Ask Mr. Wilcox here,” Trapper said.

  “Berkley Johnson died while in my employ.”

  “He didn’t die,” Trapper said. “He was shot in the head during a carjacking. His family lost their livelihood, and I lost my witness who would’ve put you away. I also lost credibility with my bosses, who said I’d been led down the primrose path by a disgruntled employee. I was asked if I genuinely believed that Thomas Wilcox had committed a carjacking. To which I said, hell, no. He hasn’t got the balls to do his own dirty work.”

  “Was that insult worth the precious seconds it cost you?” Wilcox asked.

  “You had Berkley Johnson executed. How close or far off am I, Tom?”

  “Keep going.”

  From her place in front of the window, Kerra gasped. “This is all true?”

  Wilcox said only, “It’s a captivating story,” which could have meant anything and validated nothing.

  “No one was ever arrested for that factory fire,” Trapper said. “I asked permission to reopen an investigation into the Pegasus, and I had to justify it by explaining how it could be traced back to you. My superiors told me to back off that, that it was preposterous. But, being me, I did some digging anyway. And guess what it yielded. Thomas Wilcox. Just like Berkley Johnson said it would.”

  “Two minutes,” the millionaire said.

  “What was Wilcox’s connection to the Pegasus?” Kerra asked. “Why wasn’t it found before?”

  Trapper replied, “The authorities had a confessor. Why dig deeper? Without Berkley Johnson I wouldn’t have.”

  “Exactly what did you discover?”

  As he answered Kerra’s question, Trapper kept his eyes trained on Wilcox. “He wanted the Pegasus to be the hub of an entertainment complex he wished to develop. But the oil company who owned the hotel wouldn’t sell. They thumbed their noses at his repeated offers. This bargaining went on for a year or two. Eventually he realized that it was the plot of ground he really coveted. The Pegasus could be replaced with a newer, flashier hotel. So he obliterated it. Never mind all the people inside.”

  Trapper made a scornful sound. “You peaked early, Tom. You never topped the Pegasus. It was your opus, your Super Bowl ring. In the process of obtaining it, you killed Elizabeth Cunningham, and made her husband, James, a quadriplegic, effectively robbing their little girl of both her parents.”

  In a voice vibrating with grief and wrath, Kerra said, “My mother was crushed to death.”

  Wilcox looked over and spoke to her back. “I didn’t detonate those explosives. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to go about making a bomb. A man confessed. Those are facts.” Coming back to Trapper, he said, “Isn’t that so?”

  His unflappability made Trapper seethe. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to shoot you. I want to tear out your throat just to see if your blood will run warm like all the blood spilled that day. Or does your blood always flow cold?”

  For the first time, Trapper got an involuntary reaction. Wilcox’s right eye twitched. “It’s always cold. But it turns icy whenever I think about the men who murdered my daughter.”

  Chapter 20

  Kerra had listened with increasing dismay as Trapper outlined what he believed to be Thomas Wilcox’s egregious crimes. There must have been some truth to the allegations. Surely an innocent man would have been sputtering outraged protests. She also trusted that Trapper wouldn’t make such claims if they were completely unfounded. Unproven, perhaps. But not without basis.

  “Time’s up,” Wilcox said from behind her. “Kerra should make that second call or the men outside will come in blazing. What’s it to be, Mr. Trapper? I want a deal with you, and you want Kerra to live. Decide. Now.”

  Kerra’s heart was in her throat. She knew how difficult it was for Trapper to give an inch of ground to anyone, but especially to the man who was responsible for the loss of so many lives.

  However, he must
have seen the wisdom in keeping Wilcox talking. He said, “Kerra, redial the number.”

  “Move slowly,” Wilcox said. “Once it rings, hold the phone so I can be heard.”

  She placed the call. She saw one of the men below raise a cell phone to his ear, but he didn’t say anything into it.

  Speaking loudly, Wilcox said, “For the time being, stand down.”

  The call was immediately disconnected. She watched the man lower the phone.

  “What are they doing?” Trapper asked.

  “Just standing there.”

  “See?” Wilcox said. “All well. You can come back now, Kerra.”

  When she turned, her gaze immediately went to Trapper, who still held his pistol aimed at the millionaire. But as she returned to her chair, he asked, “You okay?”

  “Fine.” She sat down, and, needing badly to make physical contact, pressed her thigh against his.

  She looked at Wilcox and marveled over how unmoved he appeared to be by Trapper’s numerous accusations. His composure was disgusting and infuriating. Her impulse was to lash out and remind him that Trapper had alleged murder—her mother’s murder. But she held her peace because she, as much as Trapper, wanted to hear what Wilcox had to say.

  He addressed Trapper. “Over the course of the past ten minutes, you’ve come to realize that you need me in order to get yourself reinstated. Especially now that your hidey-hole has been discovered and raided. Without my testimony, you’ve got nothing.”

  “And what do you want from me, except your Fantasyland wish for immunity?”

  “Justice for my daughter.”

  “What makes you think she was murdered?” Trapper asked.

  “I don’t think it. I know it.” He drew in a breath. “Do you know the circumstances of Tiffany’s death?”

  “I didn’t know anything about it at all until last night,” Trapper said.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. We swept it under the rug.”

  “She died not long before I did the interview with you,” Kerra said. “Like Trapper, I was unaware of your loss. You must have thought I was awfully brash even to approach you so soon after.”