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.
Besides, if he went back to say a proper goodbye, he didn’t trust himself to walk out a second time.