“You’re not going to drop me anywhere.”
“I wouldn’t drop you anywhere, Kerra. You’ll be safe inside your condo, especially after I threaten to emasculate the doorman if anybody except the people who live there are allowed in.”
“I’m going with you to see Wilcox.”
“Like hell you are. I don’t want you near him again. I didn’t want you near him in the first place, and that was before I knew that he knew that The Major carried you out of the Pegasus. You’re a danger he can’t afford.”
“So are you!”
“Yeah.” He jerked the car to a halt only a few feet from their motel room door. Reaching around to the small of his back, he drew his pistol, flourishing it. “But I’ve got a gun.”
She produced a cell phone. “I’ve got the recording.”
He snatched the phone from her hand. “Now I’ve got the phone.”
“But not the code.”
“It doesn’t have one.”
“It didn’t when you gave it to me.” She shot him a cheeky grin and pushed open the car door. “It won’t take me but a sec to get my stuff.”
“Dad?” Hank had been lying on the sofa but sat up when he heard Glenn’s tread on the stairs.
“That fourth step has always squeaked,” Glenn complained.
“What are you doing up? And in uniform?”
“Just got a call from Jenks. I’ve got to go meet him out at The Pit.”
“The Pit? All the way out there? Now?”
“Jenks thinks he’s found a missing person. What’s left of him.”
Hank got up, and, in stocking feet, followed his father into the kitchen, where Glenn went to the cupboard and retrieved his gun belt from the top shelf. “Surely somebody else can handle this,” Hank said.
“Surely somebody else can. But I want to. Until tomorrow, I’m still sheriff.” Glenn buckled on the belt, adjusted it to his hips, and took his hat from the hook near the door.
“Does Mom know you’re going?”
“I don’t ask her permission to perform my duties.” He looked at Hank sourly. “Give me at least a five-minute head start before you go tattle.”
“You shouldn’t go, and you certainly shouldn’t be driving. You drank a lot, you’re on medication, and in addition to what Trapper did to you—”
Glenn turned to face him and tapped the center of Hank’s chest for emphasis. “Listen to me, Hank. Trapper didn’t do anything to me. I did it all to myself.” He bobbed his head for emphasis, then put his hat on.
Hank watched through the screened door as his father climbed into his sheriff’s unit and backed down the drive. He didn’t turn on the light bar until he reached the road. Hank continued to watch until the flashing lights disappeared behind a rise.
As he returned to the living room, he took his cell phone from his pants pocket and placed a call. Jenks answered on the first ring.
Hank said, “Whatever you told him, he fell for. He’s on his way.”
“I’m here, ready and waiting.”
“I can send somebody to help if you feel like you need it.”
“I’m good.”
“I don’t want another debacle like Sunday.”
“Neither do I,” Jenks said. “I got this.”
Hank clicked off and lay back down on the sofa. He needed to catch some shut-eye before his mother woke up, discovered that Glenn wasn’t in bed with her, and came downstairs looking for him.
Chapter 32
Thomas reached for his cell phone on the bedside table before realizing that the chime was coming not from it but from the intercom panel. He threw off the covers and went over to the keypad on the wall. The blinking red light was labeled “Front Gate.” Parting the window drapes, he saw a pair of headlights shining through the iron pickets. Swearing under his breath, he returned to the keypad and pressed the button. “Jenks?”
“Wrong. But that’s an interesting guess.”
Trapper.
“What do you want?”
“Well, for one thing I want to know why you would assume I was Deputy Sheriff Jenks, dropping by in the middle of the night, when this isn’t even his county.” He waited, then taunted, “Nothing? Not even a plausible lie? We can’t be friends if you don’t open up to me, Tom.”
“I hope you have good news.”
“Matter of fact, I do. I’ve got such a tight grip on your balls they’re turning blue. Oh, you meant good news for you? No, sorry.” Changing his tone to one of no nonsense, he said, “Open the gate.”
Thomas pressed the button.
He pulled on the cashmere sweat suit he’d been lounging in before going to bed, slid his feet into leather slippers, and left his bedroom. He’d reached the top of the staircase before he thought to go back. He tiptoed to the closed door of Greta’s room and put his ear to it. He didn’t hear a sound, and no light shone beneath the door.
Stepping quickly but as quietly as possible, he retraced his steps, descended the stairs, disengaged the security alarm, and pulled open the front door just as Trapper was reaching for the bell.
“Please don’t. My wife’s asleep.”
Trapper said, “I was beginning to wonder if you’d rolled back over.”
Kerra Bailey was with him. Both looked untidy and tired, but Thomas was discomfited by the way Kerra was staring at him, with perplexed concentration, as though trying to discern what was behind his eyes.
“Did you know when I interviewed you last year that I was the girl in the Pegasus Hotel picture?”
Her question caught him off guard. Unprepared to answer just yet, he opened the door wider. “Come in.” The pair stepped into the foyer. Thomas reset the alarm system, then motioned them toward his study.
“I’m surprised you don’t have guards,” Trapper remarked. “Or do you, and they’re hiding in the bushes? Snipers on the roof? Dobermans on sentry?”
Thomas steeled himself against Trapper’s wisecracking. He wasn’t going to let it get to him tonight. “After Tiffany’s murder, although there hadn’t been a breach of our property, we did employ security guards for a time. But rather than giving Greta peace of mind, their ‘lurking,’ as she called it, only made her more nervous.”
“Security cameras?” Trapper asked.
“No.”
“Right. You wouldn’t. They could catch a corrupt cop paying you a call at an ungodly hour.”
As they entered the study, Kerra went directly to the fireplace and looked up at the portrait above it. “Your daughter was beautiful.”
“Inside and out.” Thomas gestured to the bar in the corner. “Can I get you something to drink?” They declined. “You don’t mind if I do?”
“It’s your liquor,” Trapper replied.
Thomas poured himself a neat scotch from the Baccarat decanter. When he turned back around, Trapper was twirling the madam’s pearl-handled pistol around his index finger like a gunslinger.
“Look what I found in your desk drawer, Tom. I’ll hold on to it for the time being. Not that there’s any mistrust between us.”
Thomas indicated an armchair to Kerra. She sat. He calmly walked over to the leather love seat and sat down. Trapper remained with his rear end propped against the edge of Thomas’s desk. He had put the pistol down but within his reach.