Seeing Red

by Sandra Brown

  “Which is why I have a bodyguard.”

  “You haven’t advanced me a penny of my retainer.”

  “How much?”

  “You can’t afford me.”

  “Try me.”

  “And anyway, I’m not for hire.”

  “Where’s the flash drive?”

  “Fuck!” Looking ready to throttle her, he stood there, breathing hard and angrily, then sliced the air with his hands. “Fine. I have transportation.” He dug into his jeans pocket for the key Carson had given him. “I’ll go. The room is paid up through today. You can stay here and figure out how to get back to Dallas on your own.”

  He pulled on his coat and went over to the door. “The offer’s still good to take you to your car, but it expires in thirty seconds.”

  She continued staring into eyes that could be as hard as blue diamonds or as hot as blue flame. They were in the former mode, giving back nothing as she looked deeply into them.

  Yielding was her only option.

  She pulled on her coat, zipped the duffel bag and shouldered the strap, then got her purse. He took a wire coat hanger from the closet. They met at the door; Trapper held it open for her. Remembering Carson’s instructions to Trapper, she turned toward the north end of the building.

  A maroon sedan was one of only three vehicles parked on the rear lot. Trapper unlocked it. He set her bag on the backseat while she got in the front. It wasn’t far to the motel in which she had originally stayed. They reached it before the car motor had warmed up sufficiently for the heater to work.

  Trapper pulled up beside her car. “Wait here till I get it started. It may need some coaxing since it’s been out in the cold for so long.”

  He left the sedan’s engine running as he got out, taking the coat hanger with him. She thought car manufacturers had redesigned door locks so they were no longer susceptible to this kind of break-in, but they were susceptible to Trapper, who had it open within seconds.

  Out the corner of her eye, she noticed another vehicle pulling into the parking lot. When it got even with the sedan, the driver slowed down to look at her, then past her toward her car where Trapper was bent down, only one leg visible where it hung out the open driver’s door.

  The man stopped his minivan and got out. He shot Kerra another glance, then strode past, shouting, “Trapper!”

  Trapper sat up and, when he saw the man, scooted out and took a few steps toward him. “Hey, Hank. What are you doing here?”

  The minister charged up to him and slugged him as hard as he could right in the jaw.

  Chapter 25

  Trapper fell back against the side of Kerra’s car. “What the—”

  Before he could get the rest of it out of his mouth, Hank slugged him again, this time catching him just beneath his eye. Reacting instinctively, Trapper rammed his fist as hard as he could into Hank’s solar plexus. Hank doubled over and staggered back.

  Trapper touched the heel of his hand to his cheekbone, and it came away red with fresh blood. He took a moment to clear his vision. Hank was no longer a threat. He was standing bent at a ninety-degree angle, gasping and gagging.

  Kerra scrambled out of the maroon car and came running toward Trapper.

  He held up a hand like a traffic cop, stopping her midstride. This was between him and Hank. He left the support of the car and walked toward him. “Okay, I had that coming. But bloody hell!” He dabbed his cheekbone again, felt a bump already rising. “Whatever happened to turning the other cheek?”

  Hank sucked in hard to draw breath. “The only…cheek…I’ll turn to you will be a butt cheek.” He wheezed, coughed, wiped spittle off his lips. “So you can kiss my ass.”

  Trapper pushed up the sleeve of his coat and blotted blood off his face with the cuff of his shirt. “I shouldn’t have sent you out to the line shack. I’m sorry. I just needed to throw people off track for a few hours. But which is the worse sin, manipulation or betraying a confidence? Which is what you did. So don’t go all holier than thou with me.”

  Hank struggled to bring himself upright, though he continued to hold one forearm across his middle. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “This isn’t about that. It’s about what you’re doing to Dad.”

  “Glenn? I’m not doing anything to him.”

  “No? He suffered some kind of…episode.” Hank wiped more snot. “Shortness of breath. Chest pains. Red in the face. A deputy rushed him to the ER. His cardiologist met him there. Mom’s hysterical.” He aimed an accusing finger at Trapper. “This is on you.”

  Trapper exhaled through his mouth and shoved his fingers through his hair. “I’ll go right now—”

  “You’ll stay the hell away from him!” Hank shouted. Or tried to. It came out a croak, but with wrath behind it.

  Kerra walked over to Hank and placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry to hear that your father is ill. I’m Kerra Bailey.”

  He looked at her with abashment. “Hank Addison. I’m sorry you saw that. Ordinarily I don’t fly off the handle.” He shot a glare toward Trapper. “I’m not that short-tempered.”

  “Trapper has that effect on people,” she said. “How did you know where to find him?”

  “Last I heard, you were both staying here.”

  She looked beyond Hank toward the café that shared the parking lot with the motel. “It would be warmer inside, and I think you probably shouldn’t drive just yet. Can we continue in there?”

  Hank nodded dumbly and let himself be guided toward the café. Kerra looked over her shoulder at Trapper. “Coming?”

  He was on the verge of saying something caustic or profane about her turning into Mother Teresa, but she had a look in her eye that warned him not to press his luck.

  He secured her car and the maroon sedan. He closed the driver’s door of Hank’s minivan, which had been left standing open when Hank launched his assault. He caught up with Hank and Kerra inside the café. Other than a couple of old-timers sitting at the counter and arguing the merits of Fords and Chevys, they had the place to themselves.

  They claimed a booth. Hank practically fell into one side of it. Kerra slid in across from him and Trapper moved in beside her.

  In an undertone, she said, “Your cheek is still bleeding.”

  He blotted it again with his shirt cuff. “Hurts like a son of a bitch.”

  He and Hank remained locked in a mutually antagonistic stare until the waitress came with menus. “We’re only ordering drinks,” Kerra said to her.

  “Not me,” Trapper said. “I’m starving. Cheeseburger, fries, coffee, please.” Looking at Kerra, he said, “Long as we’re here, eat. You haven’t had anything.”

  She ordered a grilled cheese sandwich.

  Hank told the waitress he would have only a Coke.

  “Come on, let me buy your lunch,” Trapper said. “Peace offering.”

  “Thanks all the same, but I can’t stay. I’m needed out at the site.”

  “Want anything for that face, honey?”

  Trapper, who’d been about to ask Hank what site he was talking about, realized that the waitress was still there and addressing the question to him. He smiled up at her. “No thanks. I’m fine. My new kitten scratched me.”

  She gave him an arch look. “He must be a bobcat.”

  Kerra leaned across Trapper. “A paper towel soaked in cold water would help.”

  “Sure, honey. I’ll be right back with that.”

  She left. Trapper asked Hank, “Site of what?”

  “The new tabernacle. Foundation has been poured. They’re putting up the I-beams today, and there’s a problem with placement. The plans have one right in the middle of the choir loft.”

  “I didn’t know you were building a new tabernacle.”

  “No, I’m sure you didn’t,” Hank said with testiness. “Furthermore, you didn’t care. You don’t care about anything except—”

  Hank broke off when the waitress returned with the makeshift compress. Trapper thanked her
and gingerly laid it against his throbbing cheekbone. “You were saying?”

  Hank propped his elbows on the table and covered his face with both hands. Trapper wondered if he was praying. Eventually Hank lowered his hands and noticed the smear of Trapper’s blood across his right knuckles. He pulled a napkin from the dispenser on the table and wiped at it. “Never mind.”

  “No,” Trapper said. “You’d built up a full head of steam. Don’t stop there. Let’s hear it.”

  “Why? Anything said wouldn’t make a dent, Trapper. You don’t care about anything except yourself and whatever it is that’s eating you. I just wish you’d have left Dad out of it.”

  “Glenn is in it because his best friend was nearly killed. Oh, and, by the way, he’s also sheriff of this county.”

  “Yes, but you haven’t made his job any easier. You’ve pulled one shenanigan after another. He’s been more focused on keeping you in line than he has been on capturing the men who attacked The Major. Whatever the stunt was that you pulled this morning—”

  “I retained a lawyer to represent the suspect.”

  Hank gave Kerra a knowing look before returning his accusing gaze to Trapper.

  He removed the compress from his face and wadded it into a ball. “All right. It was a little bit of a stunt.”

  “Whatever you did,” Hank said, “coming so soon after Dad’s troubling talk with The Major, sent his blood pressure—”

  “Wait. Troubling talk with The Major? When was this?”

  “Early. He went to the hospital before breakfast. Came back to the house to eat before going to work. According to Mom, he was upset.”

  Kerra said, “He apologized to me for his mood, said it had been that kind of morning.”

  Trapper remembered Glenn being particularly choleric when he’d greeted them at the elevator. “Why would a visit with The Major have upset him? He’s doing so much better.”

  “I’m surprised you’ve noticed his improvement,” Hank said. “When did you work in time to see your ailing father, when you’ve been so busy wreaking havoc and making people miserable?”

  “Okay, look, I’m maggot shit, and you’re a saint. That’s well known. But bring yourself down to my level long enough for us to talk about Glenn instead of my character flaws.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He hasn’t been…right…since you showed up.”

  Trapper was having a hard time holding down his own temper. He didn’t raise his voice, but he leaned forward and spoke with emphasis. “Don’t lay all this on me, Hank. The night I walked in on Glenn unannounced and told him about Kerra’s upcoming interview with The Major, he was guzzling Jack straight from the bottle. While I may have been an additional aggravation to him this week, I’m not the source of his problem. It was in place before the events of this week.”

  Trapper knew he’d struck a nerve when Hank glanced at Kerra, clearly uneasy.

  “What’s going on with him, Hank?” Trapper asked.

  He hesitated, then, “I don’t know. Something.”

  Trapper settled back against the booth, concern over Glenn replacing his anger with Hank. “Maybe he’s sick, real sick, and is keeping it to himself.”

  Hank dismissed that. “Mom would know. She monitors everything from his daily baby aspirin to his bowel movements. The past few years he’s had some health issues. High blood pressure, high cholesterol. Normal for a man his age, more nuisances than illnesses. Until today.”

  “Pressures of the job getting to him?” Trapper asked. “He told me he needed a man in his CAP department who was younger and smarter than him.”

  “He may be resisting aging in general,” Kerra said. “It works on the minds of some people more than on others.”

  “All those could be factors,” Hank said. “I think there’s more to it than that, though. But I don’t know. That’s the bottom line: I don’t know.” He struck the tabletop with his blood-stained fist to underscore the words.

  “He doesn’t confide in me. Won’t. Whenever I urge him to, he says something cutting like ‘when I need a priest, I’ll turn Catholic.’ Stuff like that. But whatever is bugging him, he didn’t need any more stress.” The last was addressed to Trapper.

  “It wasn’t my fault that The Major got shot.”

  “No, but have you made a terrible situation better or worse?”

  “You’ve already made that point.”

  Trapper’s quietly spoken concession took some of the starch out of Hank. He shook his head with frustration. “Trapper, I know you’re fond of Dad. And I don’t believe you do anything with malicious intent. You’re just being you.” He leaned forward. “But you make trouble. You always have. I can’t help but think that the chaos you’ve generated this week is at least partially responsible for Dad being in the ER as we speak.”

  It upset Trapper to hear that. It bothered him more than he let on. He couldn’t raise a single defense against a charge that was most probably true, so he said nothing.

  Kerra breached the taut silence by asking Hank if he had any idea of how serious Glenn’s condition was.

  “The ER nurse who admitted him didn’t think he was having a heart attack because he didn’t have all the symptoms. We’re hoping it was just an acute anxiety attack. Bad enough, certainly scary, but not deadly. Mom’s supposed to call me after they’ve run all the tests.”

  The waitress arrived with their order. Hank took one sip from the straw in his soft drink, then scooted to the end of the booth. “I need to go and get things sorted out at the site. Whether or not Dad is hospitalized, I need to be available to him and Mom later today.”

  “I’ll check in with you,” Trapper said.

  Kerra wrote down her cell number on a paper napkin and passed it to Hank. “Call me if there’s an emergency.”

  “Will do.” Hank pocketed the napkin. Then, looking at Trapper, he said, “Sorry about that,” and motioned toward Trapper’s face.

  “Like hell you are.”

  Hank gave a soft laugh. “Like hell I am. It actually felt really good.” He bobbed his head in a goodbye to Kerra, then left them.

  The bell above the door jingled as he went through. The two old men had moved from auto makers to football teams but were still arguing. Seated on a stool behind the cash register, the waitress was flipping through a tabloid magazine.

  Trapper picked up a french fry and studied it as he twirled it between his thumb and index finger, then dropped it back onto his plate.

  “No longer starving?” Kerra asked.

  “No.” He noticed that her food had also gone untouched. “What’s spoiled your appetite? Sitting next to me?”

  “Trapper—”

  Before she could say anything more, he got out of the booth, pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket, and placed it on the table. “That should cover it.” He set a key fob on top of the bill. “Keys to the maroon car. Your bag is already in it. I doubt you know how to hot-wire, so I’ll use your car. I’ll get it fixed for you. In a day or two, we’ll figure out where and when to make the switch. Phone.”

  From a coat pocket, he produced a cell phone and battery. While he was inserting it, he said, “This is the number yours has been forwarded to. You can undo it when you reunite with your phone. Be careful driving back.”

  “Wait a sec. You’re just leaving? Like this?”

  He paused to take her in. Eyes, beauty mark, mouth. She was everything desirable, and he wanted her.

  But he made trouble. He wreaked havoc and made people miserable.

  Like Marianne.

  Like Glenn.

  Like his father.

  He was poison.

  “I didn’t want this to be my life, you know,” he said. “It just is.”

  As Trapper drove through the gate, the wind whipped up a dust devil between him and the horizon. He braked and watched as it cut a swath across the ground. For a minute or more, it spun with furious energy, kicking up everything in its path.

  Then
, as though exhausted by its own futility, it disintegrated.

  Except for the damage left in its wake, no one would have known it had been there, raging but aimless.

  Trapper continued up the drive toward the house. One end of a strip of crime scene tape had come loose. The yellow ribbon snapped in the wind, whisking the windshield as he brought Kerra’s car to a stop just short of the porch.

  He left the engine running when he got out. The front door was locked, but he knew where The Major had always kept the spare key, and it was there, resting on the third support to the left under the eaves.

  The crime scene techs had been thorough. There were markings on the floor where measurements had been taken. Tiny plastic tents in varying colors showed where pieces of evidence had been collected. Black dust coated articles from which fingerprints had been lifted.

  He avoided touching anything as he made his way first into the kitchen. He gave it a cursory glance, seeing nothing in it to indicate that it had been an area of interest to the investigators.

  Leaving it, he crossed the main room and entered the hallway. The door to the powder room was missing, taken as evidence, battered latch and all. The window through which Kerra had escaped was intact, the upper and lower sections locked together. He marveled that she could have squeezed through a space so small, but then panic and adrenaline enabled people to accomplish amazing feats.

  He continued down the hall. He’d never lived in this house, but when The Major and his mother had moved to Lodal from Dallas, she’d designated a guest bedroom as Trapper’s room, making it homey and personal to encourage frequent visits. The wall opposite the bed served as a photo gallery, with all the pictures framed identically and attractively arranged.

  Trapper stood before it now and studied the collection that more or less chronicled his life. He could have marked the year of the Pegasus Hotel bombing just by looking at the photographs.

  In the pictures taken before it, his dad was beside him, hand on his shoulder, grinning proudly into the camera as they held between them a fishing pole sporting a catch, an athletic trophy won at summer camp, a Boy Scout sash with badges attached. Snapshots captured other such milestone markers up to age eleven.