Seeing Red

by Sandra Brown

  He maintained the kiss as his arms closed around her. He held her skin to skin until her orgasm subsided and continued to hold her until she slowly spiraled down, bumped her head back against the wall and opened her eyes.

  She gave him a drowsy smile. “What about you?”

  “We’re getting to that.”

  He lifted her against him and carried her to the bed. As she lay down, he stripped off the rest of his clothes. He did a push-up above her and settled between her thighs. She tilted her hips up to accommodate him, and he delved into her in one long glide. She was incredibly wet, but still glove-tight. He luxuriated simply in being grafted to her and feeling her subtle contractions that became ever stronger and soon had his breath hitching.

  He groaned, “You’re killing me doing that.”

  “I’m trying my best.”

  “It’s working.”

  He took her hands and stretched her arms above her head. Fitting her palms into his, he linked their fingers and began to stroke her inside. As before, he wanted her to remember this, because it would be engraved on his memory: the feel of her around him, the way she hugged his hips with her thighs, the sexy undulation of her belly against his, the sight of his chest hair dusting the hard tips of her breasts.

  The kiss.

  He kissed her, and, of all the other mind-blowing sensations, it was that of her mouth so greedily taking his tongue that caused his control to burst. When it did, she arched up and ground against his straining pelvis and brought on another soul-rending orgasm.

  Later, he didn’t remember separating from her. He thought that both of them might already have been in the twilight of sleep before they moved, but when he woke up a short time later, he and Kerra were spooned together, his sex dormant now, but intimately tucked into the furrow of hers, her heart beating against his palm. He removed his hand from her only long enough to pull the covers over them, then returned it to cover her breast. Sleepily she murmured his name and snuggled closer.

  For the first time in years, Trapper fell asleep without anger, at peace.

  The Major was in conversation with the doctor who’d been overseeing his care when Hank poked his head around the door. “I can come back later.”

  “No need, reverend,” the doctor said. “We’re finished.”

  The doctor left. Hank came in. His smile was anemic, his manner subdued, his expression telegraphing bad news. “I haven’t seen you the whole while you’ve been here. You’re looking remarkably well for—”

  The Major interrupted him. “Thank you for coming, Hank, but you can skip the pastor part. What’s the matter?”

  “Nobody can locate Dad.”

  The Major tried but failed to wrap his mind around what that signified. “Can you elaborate?”

  “I was the last person to see him, and that was after midnight.”

  “I haven’t heard from him since early yesterday.”

  “Yesterday,” Hank said, pressing his temples between his middle finger and thumb, “turned out to be a dreadful day.”

  “I know he had an anxiety attack,” The Major said.

  “That was the diagnosis, which was a relief, but he was depressed after.” Hank described how Glenn had begun to completely unravel soon after getting released to go home. “Mom practically had to fork food into him to get him to eat. He was well into killing a bottle of Jack when Trapper showed up. Late. Uninvited. Kerra Bailey was with him. And before Trapper got done with Dad, he—”

  “Got done with him?”

  Hank expelled a sigh. “Trapper’s latest wild hair is that this guy from Dallas was behind the Pegasus Hotel bombing, that the men who did the actual deed were pawns. Supposedly, he—Wilcox is his name—has a stranglehold on Dad and involved him, to some extent, in the attack on you.”

  “Glenn?”

  “At first I thought this had to be just another of Trapper’s pranks. But no, he was dead serious. And what I really couldn’t believe is that Dad confessed to…” He gave a humorless laugh and shook his head. “In the light of day, it sounds crazy, or like I dreamed it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Dad confessed to signing some kind of pledge with this guy to spy on you, you, in exchange for winning reelection.”

  “The past election?”

  “No. Back in the late nineties.”

  The Major registered shock.

  “It gets even more bizarre,” Hank said. “This week, Wilcox supposedly ordered Dad to kill you.”

  The Major was too shocked to speak.

  Hank shook his head. “I told you it sounded crazy.”

  “Glenn sent those men to my house?”

  “No! He thought he’d talked this Wilcox out of it. He swore to Kerra that he had nothing to do with it.” He looked at The Major with helplessness. “The whole thing is preposterous, right?”

  The Major lost focus and thoughtfully stared into near space.

  “Major?” Hank spoke his name with irritation to snap him back. “Surely you don’t believe any of this.”

  “I don’t believe Glenn would do anything to hurt me, no. But Trapper has long contended that Thomas Wilcox was behind the bombing. How did last night’s conversation end?”

  “Trapper issued Dad an ultimatum to retire from office. Today. Dad went upstairs. Trapper and Kerra left. A couple hours later, Dad came downstairs, in uniform, told me Jenks had called him out to investigate a missing persons case.”

  “You were there?”

  Hank told him why he’d planned to stay over. “I tried to talk him out of leaving the house in his condition, but he went anyway.”

  “What happened when he met Jenks?”

  “That’s just it,” Hank exclaimed. “Jenks says he didn’t call Dad last night about a missing persons case or anything else. He figured Dad was knocked out on meds, and he should have been.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I waited up for him for a while, then fell asleep on the sofa. Mom came down early, woke me up, asked where he was.

  “I’ve been calling his cell, but it goes straight to voice mail. After I checked with Jenks and he told me he’d made no such call, he canvassed the whole sheriff’s department. Nobody’s seen Dad this morning. I thought maybe he’d come to see you and had failed to notify dispatch.”

  “Who’s looking for him?”

  “Everybody who wears a badge. DPS troopers. The whole SO. All the personnel are worried about him, especially after his collapse yesterday. But it’s been coming on ever since Sunday night. Well, actually even before, ever since he was notified of your interview with Kerra.” He paused, then added bitterly, “News also delivered by Trapper.”

  The Major’s thoughts were pinging from one point to another like a pinball. “Maybe Glenn left to find John and try to reason with him.”

  “That’s a possibility, I guess,” Hank said. “Do you know where Trapper is?”

  “I haven’t seen or heard from him since he visited me yesterday afternoon.”

  “He’s not at the motel. I already checked.”

  “What did you plan to do if you found him? Ask him if he knows where Glenn is? Or slug him again?”

  “I’m not proud of that,” Hank mumbled, “but I’d like to hit him again. He brought Dad down low last night.” He fiddled with a loose cuticle on the side of his thumb. “Dad prefers Trapper to me. No, don’t bother to contradict it. You know it as well as I do. Whether or not Dad is guilty of corruption, what hurt him most was Trapper being the one to accuse him of it. Did Trapper share his speculation with you?”

  “About Glenn? No.” Although something had been weighing on his mind, because during their visit yesterday John had brought up Glenn’s name several times.

  “What about Wilcox?” Hank asked.

  “For several years, he’s been of interest to John.”

  “It has to be all conjecture, though, or else Wilcox would be in prison.”

  “John’s official investigation ended when he left the ATF.”

&n
bsp; “But unofficially?”

  “He remains convinced of some collusion.”

  “Jesus,” Hank whispered. “And I mean that as a prayer.”

  He sat down on the corner of the bed, not knowing that it was the same spot in which Glenn had sat twenty-four hours earlier, pretending never to have heard of Thomas Wilcox. It pained The Major to think of his lifelong friend lying to him, even by omission.

  “I’m frightened,” Hank was saying. “If Dad’s honor is brought into question at this stage of his career, he might take an easier way out than retirement.”

  “Suicide?” The Major asked with horror. “Glenn wouldn’t do that to himself, to you, or to Linda.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve known him longer than you have, Hank. He wouldn’t.” Suddenly The Major was disgusted with Hank. “You whine over Glenn liking Trapper better? Why wouldn’t he? If Trapper was frightened for Glenn, as you claim to be, he wouldn’t be sitting here wringing his hands, he’d be out beating the bushes for him. What good are you doing Glenn in here?” The Major poked his index finger toward him. “Get out there and find him.”

  Trapper had been sequestered in the spare bedroom Kerra used as a home office for the past hour while she wandered the other rooms of the apartment, inventing ways to keep herself busy and her mind off what was happening behind the closed door. Now, as she heard Trapper emerge, she rushed to intercept him in the hallway and looked at him expectantly.

  He gave her a crooked grin. “It was easier than I anticipated.”

  A gust of breath escaped her. “Trapper!” She nearly bowled him over as she threw her arms around him.

  He hugged her back. “Having Thomas Wilcox made all the difference. I’m not just an agent who went off the rails. That Wilcox wants to bargain, and that he’s bringing in lawyers, signals them that he’s guilty of something. And, unbeknownst to me, someone who read my reports three years ago didn’t dismiss them altogether. The FBI has had a man working the inside, so—”

  Kerra’s cell phone jangled, cutting him off. “I’ll get it later,” she said. “Keep talking.”

  “Too much to tell right now, but bottom line, the meeting is set for two o’clock this afternoon in the federal building. That should give Wilcox time to round up his legal team and retrieve his everlovin’ list. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll show, because they’re ready to listen.”

  “Do you have your flash drive?”

  He tapped his jeans pocket. “Can I borrow your shower? And a razor? And I probably should go out and buy a pair of slacks and a dress shirt. I want to look respectable.”

  Her phone rang again.

  “You grab that,” he said. “I’ll hit the shower.”

  “Razors are in the second drawer, right-hand side.” She beamed another smile at him. “I’m so glad for you.”

  “Me too. The only thing they laughed at was when I told them Wilcox wanted full immunity. But I won’t break that to him till he gets there.”

  He gave her a quick kiss and headed down the hallway. Her lips were tingling from the kiss when she answered the phone.

  Gracie blared into her ear. “Well, it’s about time!”

  “Hi, Gracie. I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch. The past couple days have been—”

  “Never mind the apology. We have a hot-hot-hot story cooking.”

  “I’m on sick leave.”

  “Not anymore. It’s all hands on deck.”

  “But—”

  “Look, Kerra, I went to the mat for you when you bailed on the network interview. I took up for you because you were so shaky and feeble. Blah, blah. But I won’t cover for you on this. Besides, you wouldn’t want me to. I’m going to send a news van to pick you up outside your building in ten. Look sharp.”

  Kerra wasn’t ready to plunge back in, but Trapper was going to be busy, and if things went well for him today, he was going to be a lot busier for months to come. She couldn’t be of any more help to him today, and, after all, she had a job to protect. Or salvage.

  “All right. In ten. What’s the hot-hot-hot story?”

  A few minutes later, she went into the master bathroom. Trapper saw her through the shower stall door and leered. “You’re just in time to wash my back. Or my front.”

  But he must have read her expression because the teasing glint in his eyes winked out. He shut off the taps and pushed open the glass door. “What?”

  “Thomas Wilcox is dead.”

  Chapter 34

  It appears to have been a murder-suicide,” Kerra said. “His wife shot him, then herself.”

  Trapper reached for a towel and began drying off. “Where’d you hear it?”

  “Gracie just called.”

  “Meaning the media is already on it.”

  “I’ve been commandeered to cover the story. Gracie’s sending a news van to pick me up.”

  “I guess those federal officers I talked to half an hour ago will wonder how I plan to produce a dead man.” He tossed aside the towel and eased around Kerra to get into the bedroom, where he began collecting his clothes.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Get dressed.”

  “No, I mean about—”

  “When’s the van coming for you?”

  She made a dismissive gesture. “In a few minutes.”

  “Bathroom’s free. You’d better hurry. I’ll be out of here in a jif.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to life as I knew it before you knocked on my office door.”

  “You can’t just drop this, Trapper.”

  He clipped on his holster and tossed a set of keys toward her, which she made no effort to catch. They landed on the floor in front of her. “The keys to the maroon sedan. I’m sure Carson won’t mind you keeping it until you can get your car back from Lodal.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Call Uber.”

  “About Wilcox.”

  “What’s to be done about him? I’m not an undertaker, and I doubt he’d have wanted me as a pall bearer.”

  “Keep your meeting, Trapper. Lay out your case. I can vouch—”

  “No.”

  “You can tell them about the cell phone in the safe behind the painting.”

  “Pictures of a list of names. It could be Wilcox’s Christmas card list.”

  “Sheriff Addison’s name will be on there.”

  “Solid citizen Wilcox didn’t neglect to thank regional officials.”

  “But Glenn Addison will—”

  “Talk? Go on record with what he told us last night?” He negated that with a shake of his head. “He may surrender his badge and retire. But he’ll cite declining health or wanting more leisure time. He won’t undo forty years of law enforcement by admitting to…what? What malfeasance? Keeping a close eye on an American hero? He’ll be admired, not indicted.”

  “Why are you being so obtuse?”

  “Not obtuse, Kerra. Realistic.”

  “Well, here’s a piece of reality for you. Somebody tried to kill me and The Major last Sunday.”

  “Whoever they are, they’ll either be captured or not, but they’ll never be connected to Wilcox.”

  “But the sheriff knew about the threat to us and did nothing.”

  “His word against mine on that. And, don’t forget, I’m the spinner of tall tales and conspiracy theories.”

  “I was there, too. With everything I’ve heard this week, I can break this story wide open.”

  “Without corroboration?”

  “You would corroborate it.”

  “Hell I would. I don’t talk to the media.”

  “Fine. I don’t need you. Hank Addison was witness to his father’s confessions.”

  “Hank would love nothing better than to see me brought to heel and humiliated. He’ll either develop amnesia or say that I bullied Glenn into making false confessions while he was drunk and stoned on antidepressants. Who knows? Maybe I did, and his confessions were
false.”

  “You’re going to let Leslie Duncan be convicted for a crime he didn’t commit?”

  “Maybe he did commit it. Maybe all my intuitions are just wrong. Anyway, he’s a lowlife and not my problem.”

  After checking to see that he had all his belongings, he left the bedroom. Kerra caught up with him in the living room as he was pulling on his coat. She reached out for his arm, managed to catch only his sleeve but hung on tight.

  “I know you, Trapper,” she said. “You won’t be able to let it go.”

  “Watch me.”

  “The people trying to overtake Wilcox—”

  “Maybe there were none.”

  “Somebody killed his daughter.”

  “Or did she shoot up and die of an accidental overdose? Maybe Wilcox came to my office to see if he could find what I had on him, and everything he told us was pure fabrication for his own amusement.”

  “You don’t believe that. I don’t believe that. I think everything he told us was the truth.”

  “Prove it.”

  Her lips parted, but there were no words to speak.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Trapper pulled his sleeve from her grip and opened the door.

  “What am I supposed to do with this information?” she asked. “Forget I ever heard it?”

  “Do whatever you want. I don’t recommend that you run with it. If you reported it without any corroboration, you could lose all credibility, and then where would you be? Fucked. Like me.” He looked her over. “Although that part of this misadventure wasn’t too bad.”

  He went out and closed the door behind him.

  Rather than wait for the elevator, he took the fire stairs. Midway down, on the landing of the eleventh floor, he fell back against the wall, squeezed his eyes closed, and tried to block out Kerra’s wounded expression over his parting words.

  The tactic didn’t work.

  He looked up through the switchbacks of the stairwell and considered racing back to apologize, pull her close, hold her. But a sweet embrace and fond farewell weren’t going to change the situation. He had vowed to himself that if things didn’t go well today, he wasn’t going to drag her down with him. A clean break was best.