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.”