“I thought you had a deputy guarding you.”
“He followed us in his patrol car.” She pointed through the glass doors. Parked at the curb was a sheriff’s unit, engine running, lights flashing. “He’s going to wait there. I told him I wouldn’t be long.”
Trapper hooked his hand around her elbow and steered her down a corridor. “You weren’t invited to the press conference?”
“Another reporter is covering it. Besides, I have an exclusive with the son. How is The Major?”
“I told you.”
She pulled up and brought him around to face her. “I want details.”
He gave her the summary and answered a dozen questions. When she was satisfied that he’d told her everything he knew, she said in wonderment, “I can’t believe it. It’s a miracle.”
“No miracle. Good trauma surgeon.” Trapper took her arm again and propelled her to the end of the wide hall, where he shoved open a heavy metal door, an employee exit, and ushered her through.
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll give you a ride back to the motel.”
“I hoped to see The Major.”
“They won’t let you tonight.”
“Just long enough to say hello and tell him—”
“They won’t let you.”
She conceded. “All right. I’ll try again in the morning. But you don’t have to give me a ride. I can wait till the press conference is over and go back with the crew or the deputy.”
“I thought you wanted an exclusive with ‘the son.’”
She looked back toward the building they’d just exited. “Can’t we talk inside? Maybe over some hot chocolate?”
“If you’re spotted in there, you’ll be stampeded. I have been. We won’t have any privacy.”
After a few seconds of indecision, she took her phone from her coat pocket, tapped in a number, and told whoever answered that she had another ride back to the motel. During her brief conversation, Trapper steered her around patches of black ice on the parking lot. Nearing the SUV, he unlocked it with a key fob and hoisted her into the passenger seat.
As he did, he made brushing contact with her thigh. He wished his hand were still inside the ugly, baggy track pants, his palm on her hip, pulling her to him and securing her there. He thought something similar must’ve been going through her mind, because when their eyes met, it was like time rewound at warp speed and they were mouth to mouth, middle to middle again.
But she took a quick little breath, then looked away.
And he was getting pelted with sleet.
He shut her door and went around. As soon as he climbed in, he cranked the engine and switched on the windshield wipers. They scraped across the icy accumulation a few times, but with the defroster on high, the crusting of sleet began to break up well enough for him to see to drive. He backed out of the parking space, navigated through the lot, and then turned onto the street.
“Do you still have your phone handy?” he asked Kerra.
“Where’s yours?”
“Battery’s dead.” He held out his right hand. She placed her phone in it. With his hands propped on top of the steering wheel, he opened the back of her phone, removed the battery, and dropped it into his left coat pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“Making it impossible for you to record anything I’m about to tell you.”
“I had no intention of recording it!” Thrusting her hand toward him, she said, “Give me back my phone.”
He laid the phone in her palm but kept the battery. “For the time being, anything I say is off the record. Okay?”
She gave a curt nod.
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Fuck you.”
He snickered. “Good enough.” He let her stew for a moment, then said, “Several times you’ve asked what caused my split with The Major.”
Still miffed over the phone, she answered stiffly, “A perfectly valid question.”
“It was the Pegasus bombing.”
Her vexation immediately changed to captured interest.
“You also wanted to know what caused my severance with the ATF.”
“Yes.”
He looked across at her. “Same thing.”
He held her gaze for several seconds, then returned his attention to the icy roadway. The SUV was better equipped to drive on it than his car would have been. Carson was good for something.
They rode in silence for half a mile before Kerra said, “Well? Talk to me. You had a quarrel with the ATF and with The Major over the bombing.”
“Yes.”
“Can you elaborate?”
“I will.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
He drove past the motel without even slowing down. She turned her head to look at the neon sign that blurred and then disappeared in the freezing fog and mist behind them. “You passed the motel.”
“Did I?”
“You know you did, Trapper. What’s going on?”
“I’m concentrating. Trying to keep this thing from skidding off the road and still maintain some decent speed.”
“We don’t need to maintain a decent speed.”
“We do if we don’t want them to catch us.”
“Catch us? What are you talking about? Who’s after us?”
“Nobody yet. But there will be as soon as you’re reported missing.”
“I’m not missing.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Trapper, what are you doing? Turn around this instant. Take me back.”
“No can do.”
“You damn sure can!”
He kept driving, eyes on the road.
“What is this? A kidnapping? I’m your hostage?”
“No, not a hostage.”
“If you’re hauling me off to God knows where, without my consent and against my will, then what would you call me?”
He shot her a glance. “Bait.”
Chapter 13
Gracie knocked three times. “Kerra? Kerra, are you in there?” She waited for fifteen seconds, then knocked again. When she didn’t get a response, she turned to the young man whose plastic name tag read “Travis.” Gracie had dragged him from the checkin office, explaining that her friend wasn’t responding to attempts to rouse her. “Still not answering. Unlock the door.”
“Maybe you ought to call her first.”
“Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” She glared at him. “I have called her. About a dozen times.”
“There could be lots of reasons she’s not answering.”
“Yes, and one of them could be that she’s unconscious.”
He went over to the window, cupped his hands around his eyes, and peered through the crack in the drapery. “No lights on. She’s probably just asleep. Maybe left her earbuds in.”
“Unlock the door.”
“If we walk in on something, uh, personal—”
“I hope to God we do.”
“I’ll get canned.”
“I’ll take full responsibility.”
“The owner’s number one rule is to protect the privacy of our guests.”
“My number one rule is to make sure my friend is breathing! Open. The. Door.”
“We’re not supposed to—”
Gracie grabbed him by the front of his shirt and jerked him toward her. “The woman is recovering from a concussion, you moron! If you don’t open that damn door, I’m going to smash the window with your head.”