Seeing Red

by Sandra Brown

  “I don’t think you do, John,” he said. “I heard them coming toward the house and tried to warn Kerra. Ran out of time. That’s all.”

  Trapper held his father’s gaze. Breathed in, breathed out. He thought his ribs would break from the pressure building behind them. His heart was already broken.

  Hank said, “Ah. A pregnant pause.”

  Trapper ignored him and looked at the six-shooter in Jenks’s large hand. “If The Major doesn’t get back to the hospital soon, you’ll be charged with murder.”

  “I didn’t shoot him, Petey did. Excitable little bugger.”

  Hank said, “Language, Jenks, language.”

  Trapper was still holding the deputy’s implacable stare. In his mind, he was reconstructing Sunday night’s scenario, piecing it together, getting a fix on how it had played out from Jenks’s point of view. “Petey was quick on the draw. You didn’t expect that. Seconds after The Major was down, you noticed the powder room light go out.”

  “Didn’t expect that, either,” Jenks said.

  “There wasn’t supposed to be anybody else here.”

  “No. She,” he said, glancing at Kerra, “was a mean surprise. Otherwise, I had it all worked out.”

  Looking into the man’s rock-steady gaze, Trapper murmured, “But things didn’t go as planned.”

  “You could say.”

  “That was then.” Hank’s impatience drew Trapper’s attention back to him. The rifle barrel was still aimed at his chest. “This is now. And I’ve got this all worked out.”

  Trapper made brief eye contact with Kerra. Her face was stark with fear. His own heart was stuttering, but, trying to keep his tone casual, he drawled, “You do? Just out of curiosity, Hank, how do you plan on killing the three of us and getting away with it?”

  “I’m not going to kill anybody.” He forced Kerra’s index finger around the trigger. “Kerra is.”

  “No!”

  “I’ll let her choose who goes first.” Hank shifted the rifle’s barrel fractionally so the bore was now aimed at The Major. “She can put The Major out of his misery. That would be rather poetic, wouldn’t it? He saved her life, she ends his. The irony of it gives me cold chills. Or,” he said, aiming again at Trapper, “she can shoot you.”

  “Not with that rifle she can’t. It isn’t loaded.” Trapper lowered his raised hands.

  “Keep them up,” Hank shouted.

  “No, no, no,” Kerra was saying as she strained against Hank’s increased pressure on her finger.

  “Hank, for god’s sake, stop this.” The Major placed his hands on the arms of the recliner as though to lever himself up, but Jenks pulled him back and cocked his revolver.

  Trapper kept his eyes trained on Kerra’s. “Pull the trigger.”

  She gave a small but emphatic shake of her head.

  “It’s not loaded,” Trapper said.

  Hank laughed loudly in her ear, causing her to cringe. “Like I’d fall for that.”

  “Did you check it, Hank?” Trapper asked.

  Hank hesitated, “I didn’t need to.”

  “Jenks always does what you tell him to?”

  “Always.”

  Trapper turned his head and looked at Jenks. No expression, solid as granite, nary a twitch, but keenly alert to every blink of an eye.

  Trapper came back around to Hank. “If you’re sure the rifle is loaded, then seconds from now I’ll be dead, and you’ll be happy.”

  “John, what are you doing?” The Major said, wheezing. “Stop provoking him.”

  Trapper said, “Kerra, pull the trigger.”

  “I can’t.” Her voice was mournful, barely audible.

  “Nothing will happen.”

  Hank chortled. “You’re bluffing, Trapper.”

  “Pull the trigger, Kerra.”

  “Trapper, please,” she sobbed. “I can’t.”

  “Do you trust me?” he whispered.

  Her eyes probed his. She nodded.

  “Then do it. Pull the trigger.”

  She hesitated for the length of one heartbeat, then jerked her finger against the trigger.

  The rifle clicked but didn’t fire.

  In the instant of Hank’s bafflement, Trapper lunged toward Kerra and pushed her aside, then charged Hank. Hank swung the rifle like a club. The steel barrel caught Trapper on the side of his head, but he kept going, ramming into Hank’s center and pushing him backward for several yards like a tackling dummy, before finally landing him on the floor.

  Hank tried to scramble backward, but Trapper grabbed him by his shirt and jerked him upright.

  “This is for whatever you did to Glenn.” Trapper drew back his fist and hit him as hard as he could in the center of his face. Bones cracked, blood spurted, Hank screamed. His head flopped forward.

  Trapper grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up. “This is for The Major.” He hit him again, harder, dislocating his jaw but maintaining a fistful of his hair. “You hypocritical cocksucker, I should kill you for what you did to Tiffany Wilcox, but I’d rather watch you rot for the rest of your miserable life.” He drove his fist into Hank’s gut, but by then Jenks was restraining him. He wrestled him up and away from Hank.

  Trapper flung him off. “I’m done, I’m done.” Woozy from the blow to his head, he swayed as he stood up and turned to Jenks. “You son of a bitch. You’re FBI, right?”

  “North Texas field office.” He proffered his FBI ID.

  “Would have been nice of you to clue me.”

  “Nice, maybe, but against orders.”

  “I nearly shot you that day.”

  Agent Jenks gave a wry grin. “No need to remind me. When did you guess?”

  “About a minute ago. I couldn’t figure why you were just standing there, taking it all in, instead of making quick work of me with that,” he said, indicating the revolver Jenks still had in hand. “I hoped to God my hunch was right. You got backup coming?”

  “On the way.”

  Trapper kicked Hank in the knee. “Read him his rights.”

  “Trapper!”

  He turned toward Kerra’s startled voice.

  Chapter 37

  She had reclined The Major’s chair and was leaning over him. Trapper was still unsteady on his feet, but he made it to the recliner and knelt beside it.

  From the opposite side of it, Kerra looked at him bleakly and drew his attention to The Major’s lap. His torso was distended on his left side, indicating internal bleeding.

  The Major said, “I sprung a leak. The surgeon warned me it was too early to leave, warned that my lung could collapse again. But Glenn—”

  “Just be still,” Trapper said. “Help will be here in no time. We’ll get you back to the hospital. That doctor’s good. He’ll patch you up again.”

  Trapper was vaguely aware that uniformed men had arrived and were clumping around the living room. Jenks must’ve had them awaiting his signal to move in. He appeared in Trapper’s peripheral vision.

  “Major?” Jenks placed his hand on The Major’s shoulder. “My fault you were shot. I didn’t have time to warn you, so I hit you in the head just to get you down. Petey wasn’t supposed to—”

  “We’ll sort it all out later,” Trapper said. “Is an ambulance on the way?”

  Jenks nodded, but his attention was still on The Major. “Your friend Glenn Addison is in custody. I called him out to The Pit like Hank said, but for his own safety. I turned him over to arresting agents who were waiting there for us. Same as I did with Petey Moss. Sheriff Addison is fine. Cooperating fully. He specifically asked me to tell you that he loves you. Nothing ever changed that.”

  The Major asked, “Does he know about Hank?”

  “Not yet, and I dread him having to be told. The sheriff’s a good man. He might have cheated on an election or two, but he performed his duties well.”

  “Thanks for delivering his message.”

  Jenks gave The Major a reassuring pat on the shoulder then hurried away to
brief and issue orders to arriving officers.

  The Major looked at Trapper. “You saw my name on Wilcox’s list?”

  “He made sure I did.”

  “And you still handed it over to the FBI?”

  “I had to. I didn’t want to. I struggled with it, but—”

  “But being you, you had to.”

  “I did, yeah.”

  The Major smiled shakily. “I’m proud of you for it.” He took a rattling breath. “I hoped all this would go away without you ever knowing.”

  “Well, it didn’t go away. And I do know. I know everything except the nature of your pact with Wilcox. Was it connected to that lucrative book and movie deal?”

  “No.”

  Trapper bent his head low and blinked tears out of his eyes. “Just tell me…please tell me that you didn’t bomb the Pegasus Hotel.”

  The Major fumbled for his hand and grasped it. “No, John. No. Is that what you thought?”

  “It’s what I feared. I’ve been through hell fearing it. When I started investigating the bombing, realized the three who took the blame were under orders from somebody else, I thought that maybe you were one of them, too, but had been lucky enough to get out.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because, except for Wilcox, you benefited from that goddamn disaster more than anybody. You built a career off it.”

  “Fate. Right place, right time. That’s all it was.”

  “Then why’d you strike a bargain with Wilcox?”

  “I swear on your mother’s soul that I never had any dealings with him until three years ago when you started making headway on your investigation into him.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Trapper groaned, “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “You did nothing wrong. You were doing your job. You’re only to blame for being very good at it and being persistent. Wilcox reeled me in, told me I must, must, discredit you, dismiss your conspiracy theory, denounce you and anything you alleged.”

  “Or what? What could he do? Cancel your hero status?”

  “Kill Marianne.”

  Trapper flinched.

  “It’s worse,” The Major said. “He assured me that all the evidence would point to you.”

  Trapper looked across at Kerra, saw her horror, and said, “I’ve seen the names on his list. He could have made it happen.” Going back to his father, he asked, “Why her? Why not just pop me?”

  “Because he didn’t know what you had on him, how much you’d uncovered and shared with your superiors. If you were killed, he was afraid of what you might be leaving behind for future analysis. But my denunciation of you would go a long way, he said. He told me to discredit you, or else. Even if you were acquitted for your fiancée’s murder—”

  “My reputation, my life, would have been destroyed. They were destroyed.”

  “I’m sorry, John. I took what I believed to be my only choice.”

  “Marianne knew nothing about it, did she?”

  “No.”

  “That’s a mercy,” Kerra said softly.

  “Here I’ve been thinking I was protecting you from Wilcox,” Trapper said to The Major. “You were protecting me. The son of a bitch pitted us against each other.”

  Although his strength was waning, The Major squeezed Trapper’s hand tighter. “It pained me when you said that this—I, Wilcox, the Pegasus—was your life.”

  “Aw, I was just spouting off.”

  “No. You weren’t. In countless ways, what happened that day took over all our lives. Debra’s. Mine. Yours.”

  Trapper, made uncomfortable by his father’s remorse, turned and looked out the open front door. The ambulance was speeding through the gate, but Trapper willed it to go even faster. The Major was laboring for each breath, his complexion had gone gray, his lips bluish.

  “I missed the spotlight,” he was saying to Kerra, even as he gasped for air.

  “You were good in it.” She sniffed back tears and placed her hand on his shoulder.

  “That’s why I wanted…the interview.” He seemed impatient with his increasing shortness of breath. It was obvious he wanted to say more. “My ego put your life at risk, and I’m more sorry for that than I can say.”

  “No apology necessary.”

  His eyes misted. “Vanity is my downfall. John knows. Fame is seductive and addictive,” he said, struggling. “I went all in. Too often at John’s expense.”

  “Look, I’m okay. All right?” Trapper said. Blood was frothing in the corner of The Major’s lips. Trapper blotted it with his own shirtsleeve. “The ambulance is here. Stop talking. Save your breath.”

  The Major feebly raised a hand to touch Trapper’s face. “You never gave up.”

  “That’s my downfall. I’m pigheaded.”

  “In a good way, John. A good way.”

  Trapper’s throat had become too tight to speak. The paramedics had come inside and were trying to push him out of their way, but The Major maintained a surprisingly strong grip on his hand. “John, please don’t share Debra’s diary. Not for my sake, but hers. Bury it with me.”

  Trapper wiped his nose on his cuff and smiled. “You don’t have to worry about that, Dad. Mom didn’t keep a diary.”

  Major Franklin Trapper was pronounced dead on arrival at the county hospital. For the second time in a week, the facility became the eye of a media storm.

  Kerra was called upon to do three live stand-ups, the last of which was for the network evening news.

  In his solemn baritone, the anchorman said, “A nation has lost an American icon. But you knew The Major personally. What are your thoughts right now, Kerra?”

  “Although our time together was brief, I will feel the loss forever. If not for Major Trapper, my life would have ended twenty-five years ago.” Tears threatened, but she swallowed hard and managed to hold it together.

  “You were with him just before he died.”

  “I followed the ambulance from his house. He died en route to the hospital.”

  “We understand that The Major’s passing is linked to the tragic murder-suicide that occurred earlier today in the home of prominent Dallas businessman Thomas Wilcox and the arrest of an area clergyman. Can you elaborate on that?”

  “Only to say that the FBI has begun conducting a thorough investigation into Mr. Wilcox and Reverend Addison.”

  “Sources tell us that federal investigators are following a trail that goes all the way back to the bombing of the Pegasus Hotel. From your unique perspective of that historic event—”

  “I can’t comment on the government’s investigation. Regarding the Pegasus bombing, my unique perspective is that of a five-year-old child, whose dying mother passed her off to Major Trapper. He saved my life. That’s really all I can or am willing to say at this time.”

  “His son, John Trapper, a former ATF agent, took part in the apprehension of Reverend Addison, isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Trapper was injured. Do you know his current condition?”

  “He suffered a head wound. He’s been admitted to the hospital, but the injury isn’t serious. He’s listed in good condition.”

  “Has he made a public statement about the passing of his famous father?”

  “No.”

  “Can we expect one soon?”

  “No. Mr. Trapper doesn’t give interviews.”

  On that disappointing note, the anchorman wrapped it up with her. She waded her way through a sea of reporters hurling questions at her before reaching the sawhorses barricading the entrance to the hospital’s main lobby, where she was surprised to see Gracie.

  “Guess what? Entertainment Tonight has called. The network has temporarily suspended the clause in your contract that prohibits you from—”

  “This isn’t entertainment, Gracie,” she said and made to go around her.

  “The View wants you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be busy tomorrow.”

  “Okay, I’ll put
them off. Maybe one day next week?”

  “Until further notice, don’t commit me to anything.”

  “Kerra, be smart here. Capitalize on this.” She wagged her index finger at her. “I know you’re holding back a lot of juicy stuff. If you never reported another story, you could make a career off this one.”

  The words were so painfully close to the ones Trapper had said to The Major, she recoiled. “That’s the last thing I would want to do. Now, you must excuse me. Deputy Jenks has asked to talk to me.”

  He was waiting in the hospital lobby, in uniform, continuing the pretense that he was a high-ranking deputy sheriff and not a federal agent. He drew her aside, out of anyone else’s earshot. He gestured toward her biceps. “I hope I didn’t squeeze your arm too tight.”

  “When we were back there, why didn’t you tell me you were an FBI agent?”

  “Sorry, but you had to be convincingly frightened. I wanted Hank’s confession to the Wilcox girl’s murder before I arrested him.”

  “Trapper was told this morning that the FBI had a man working from the inside.”

  “Two of us, actually,” Jenks said. “For the past couple of years.”

  “Is your partner also in the sheriff’s office?”

  Jenks smiled politely but didn’t answer.

  Abashed, she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked, even though anything we say is off the record. You have my word.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Can I ask what put Glenn Addison on the FBI’s radar to start with?”

  “More people listened to Trapper than he was aware of,” Jenks said. “Based on what he’d brought to light, we started sniffing out Wilcox, and things began to stink, especially when surveillance picked up the close contact he maintained with a sheriff, who happened to be The Major’s good friend.

  “Because of Trapper’s kinship with The Major,” he continued, “the higher-ups weren’t sure he could remain objective if he were told about it. They sent us up here, but kept Trapper out of the loop.”