“Why?”

“It takes years for specialists to recreate a catastrophic event like that. They do it bit by minuscule bit, but even when they’ve fit together all the pieces available, it’s common for questions to remain. The laws of physics apply to explosions, but anomalies occur that defy logic and/or science. How did that human ear wind up a quarter mile away while its mate was discovered six blocks in the opposite direction? Why didn’t that one window blow out like all the others on that side of the building? Why did that can of Coke remain intact when everything around it was blown to smithereens?

“But with the Pegasus, everything was neatly wrapped up. No ambiguities. Every t crossed, every i dotted. No loose ends. Not even the culprits. The guy who confessed didn’t make it to his sentencing trial. He died of stomach cancer, which had been diagnosed months before he carried those bombs into the Pegasus.”

“Leading you to conclude what?”

“He didn’t bomb the place to settle a score with the petroleum company that had gouged him at the gas pump.”

“He claimed that he and his friends were making a statement.”

“That’s what he claimed, but what was the statement? I’ve read the transcripts, watched the videos of his sessions with the investigating agents. He rambled, he groused, but he never gave a clear-cut explanation of their gripe. He had the world’s attention, but didn’t step up on the soapbox?” He shook his head, negating the reasonableness of that.

“There was no indication of religious fanaticism, no white supremacy or anti-establishment leanings. No saber wielding, no screamed threats of annihilation, no swastikas. All the same,” he said, lowering his voice, “three men who, on the surface, were perfectly ordinary, were indoctrinated into committing mass murder.”

“Indoctrinated? That connotes the opposite of what you just said. They didn’t have a cause.”

“They had one. I just don’t know what it was. I was stopped before I could find out.”

“Is this where the aforementioned ‘somebody’ comes in?”

“He’s the indoctrinator. I was close. This close,” he said, holding his thumb and finger an inch apart, “to nailing him. But before I had all the evidence I needed, the plug got pulled. I was making a nuisance of myself, so I got called on the carpet and was reminded that the Pegasus Hotel was a closed case. Sure, my interest in it was understandable; it was deeply personal.”

“You’d almost lost your father that day.”

Trapper was thinking that he had lost his father that day, but he didn’t say so.

“Why was he in the hotel?” Kerra asked. “We didn’t cover that in the interview.”

“After retiring from the army, he went to work for a software developer. A lot of their clients were government agencies, so his military background was useful. The day of the bombing, he and other middle management were courting a potential client. They decided to break for pie and coffee in the Pegasus’s dining room. It was a two-block walk from their office.

“When Mom saw the news bulletin on TV, heard that nearby buildings had been damaged by the explosion, she called him, concerned that his workplace was so close to the hotel. She had no idea that he was in the Pegasus until two policemen showed up to tell her that he’d been taken to the hospital.”

“She must have been frantic.”

“I missed that. I was at school. She was still shaking and crying when the three of us were reunited in his hospital room that evening. He had bumps and bruises, but kept asking the medical staff about the fate of the others in his group, and when he heard, he and Mom both had breakdowns. It was a bad scene.”

“None of them survived?”

“Only two besides The Major. One lost a leg. Never really recovered. Died within a couple of years. The other didn’t suffer any serious injuries but succumbed to survivor’s guilt. He killed himself.”

“Lord.” She took the time to clear her mind of that, then asked, “What put you and The Major on the outs?”

“Several things, but all relating to the Pegasus. At work, I was being reminded that the perps were dead and buried, so what was behind all this poking around, nosing in where I didn’t belong? I was ordered to drop ‘that nonsense,’ move on, and work only on assigned cases.”

“That’s when you quit.”

“Before they could fire me,” he admitted with a rueful smile. “Seconds before.” He checked the road in both directions. It was still dark, no vehicles in sight. Sleet pecked against the windshield. Snow swirled.

“Around the same time,” he continued, “The Major was approached about writing a book, followed by a movie based on it. He’d had similar offers many times over, but this one had serious money behind it and sounded like more than just hype by a Hollywood asshole.

“When it looked like it was actually going to happen, I panicked. I sat down with him, confided my theory, told him I’d become convinced that the individual responsible for the bombing was still out there, and, I was damn sure, monitoring survivors to make sure none ever questioned the outcome of the investigation.

“I told him to scratch the book and movie idea. In fact, I urged him to shut the hell up about that bombing altogether, stop going on TV and talking about it, or the real culprit might get the idea that The Major saw and heard more that day than he even realized, that he might wind up with a bullet in his head to guarantee he wouldn’t reveal an incriminating detail while waxing eloquent at a Rotary Club luncheon.”

“He denounced your theory?”

“In spades. He said I made the whole thing up because I was jealous of his fame. Nobody was after me to write a book, were they? Nobody wanted to make a movie based on my life, did they? Unless it was a porn flick. Furthermore, I was ‘trashing my career’ as well as making a laughingstock of myself with this ridiculous fantasy. No wonder the ATF had fired me. The family could boast only one hero, and he was it.”

“Trapper.” Her expression turned sorrowful, almost pitying, and he couldn’t countenance that.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said with terse emphasis. “He said what he thought, and it was ugly, but I didn’t want to see him dead. Since he refused to listen to reason, I resorted to another means of shutting him up.”

“What?”

“Blackmail.”

She flinched.

“I’m not proud of it,” he said.

“What did you blackmail him with?”

“Mom’s journal.” Kerra blinked but didn’t say anything, so he went on. “He denied she kept one. I asked how he would know, since on every page she wrote about the other side of Major Franklin Trapper, the one who neglected his wife and son while he went off heroing for weeks at a time. I told him that if he signed this book deal, I’d make a deal of my own with the tabloids and shatter the myth of how fucking fabulous ‘The Major’ was.”

“Would you really have done that? I think he loved your mother.”

“I know he did. But that didn’t keep him from making her a distant second to his celebrity.” He stared into middle distance for several seconds, then said, “Anyway, he took the threat to heart. He stopped. Cold.”

“Until I came calling,” she said softly.

“You dangled the carrot. He didn’t have to take it.”

“It’s clear to me now why you tried so hard to get rid of me. You’re still protecting him.”

“Yes. Whether or not he ever speaks to me again, I’d prefer him to die of natural causes at a ripe old age, still a hero in everyone’s eyes. But he’s not the only one who needs protection, Kerra. You showed up out of nowhere and announced your intentions, and my gut dropped to my boots.”

He reached across the console and brushed his thumb over her beauty mark. “You had a jewel of a secret and couldn’t wait to show it off. But you were setting a deathtrap for yourself. This somebody never worried about that little girl in the photo. Didn’t even know her name until Sunday night. She turns out to be not just a grown woman with a memory, she’s famous. A newscaster, no less. A reporter who gets to the bottom of things.