“Not my department. Ask the doctor.”

“Was he lucid?”

“In his right mind, but groggy.”

“Did he see who shot him?”

“I asked; he said no. He asked about Kerra. Eased him to know that she was all right.” He paused before asking, “Are you going to allow her to do that interview tomorrow evening?”

“I’ve mulled it over. Discussed it with key people. We’ve decided it could actually be beneficial. Nervous suspects do stupid things. We’ll have someone standing just outside camera range to signal Kerra not to answer any questions that could impede or compromise the investigation.”

“What about her personal safety?”

“The place will be saturated with uniforms. Plainclothes, too. She’s already got a guard on her, twenty-four–seven.”

“Yeah, about that,” Trapper said, “I blew right past him when I went into her motel room, ready to throttle her.”

“That deputy knows you. Besides, he said she ‘admitted’ you into her room.”

“But he didn’t follow up. He didn’t come to check on her. In the amount of time I was with her before you came banging on the door, I could’ve strangled her a dozen times over.”

“You’d never do that. Not with a cop car out front and all those witnesses who saw you go in.”

Glenn’s tongue-in-cheek response to his serious observation frustrated Trapper and made him want to shake the older man until he saw sense. “Glenn—”

“Hold on.” The sheriff reached for his cell phone, barked his name into it, listened, then said, “Be right down.” As he clicked off, he said to Trapper and Hank, “Press conference. They’re asking to hear directly from me about the crime scene. Hank, give your mother a lift home, please. Tell her I’ll check in when I can. Trapper, keep your damn phone on and … Aw, hell.”

He left them for the elevators, and one arrived just as he punched the down button, which was a good thing because he looked ready to boil over.

“I’m the one with the right to be pissed,” Trapper said to Hank as they watched the elevator doors close. “His best friend is off the critical list. He ought to be dancing a jig. Why’s he so steamed?”

“It’s a culmination of things,” Hank said. “The investigation is going nowhere. They don’t have any solid leads. No suspects. The Rangers are flexing muscle. The FBI has offered their services should they be needed, implying that they are.”

Sensing that Hank had stopped before he was through, Trapper said, “And?”

“And,” Hank said, stretching out the word, “he’s afraid that your intentions toward Ms. Bailey aren’t exactly honorable.”

“He thinks I want to, uh, in preacher speak, have carnal knowledge of her?”

Hank’s expression formed a question mark.

“It’s crossed my mind,” Trapper said. About a thousand times. In his fantasies, he’d had carnal knowledge of her in every way it was to be had, and if Glenn hadn’t interrupted them at the motel, they might be indulging in one of those ways right now.

“Well,” Hank said, “please wait until she’s safely back in Dallas and no longer in Dad’s jurisdiction.”

“What business is it of his?”

“He’s scared something bad will happen to her on his watch, while the whole world is looking on.”

“Something bad has already happened to her.”

“Something worse.”

“I’m worse than falling over a cliff while escaping would-be murderers?”

Hank winced. “Don’t be mad.”

“Mad, hell. I’m flattered.”

Just then Trapper noticed that Emma’s prayer group was breaking up and members of it were moving toward the elevators, giving him an ideal opportunity to split. He reached out and clasped Hank’s right hand. “Thanks for being here. You and the flock grab the elevators. I’ll take the stairs.”

Before Hank could detain him, Trapper headed for the fire stairs, jogged down to the ground floor, and pushed open the door into the lobby just as Kerra came through the automatic doors at the main entrance.

She was wearing a coat over the unflattering tracksuit. There was sleet in her hair. Her cheeks and nose were red with cold. Spotting Trapper, she hurried over. “I was coming to look for you.”

“I was coming to find you.”

“The Major?”

“Against all odds, it looks like he’s going to make it.” Talking over the questions he saw forming on her lips, he said, “Your car’s an icicle. How’d you get here?”

“I hitched a ride in the van with the crew. They were deployed to help cover the press conference. I had them drop me here in front, and they drove around.”

“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.