In a voice vibrating with grief and wrath, Kerra said, “My mother was crushed to death.”

Wilcox looked over and spoke to her back. “I didn’t detonate those explosives. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to go about making a bomb. A man confessed. Those are facts.” Coming back to Trapper, he said, “Isn’t that so?”

His unflappability made Trapper seethe. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to shoot you. I want to tear out your throat just to see if your blood will run warm like all the blood spilled that day. Or does your blood always flow cold?”

For the first time, Trapper got an involuntary reaction. Wilcox’s right eye twitched. “It’s always cold. But it turns icy whenever I think about the men who murdered my daughter.”

Chapter 20

Kerra had listened with increasing dismay as Trapper outlined what he believed to be Thomas Wilcox’s egregious crimes. There must have been some truth to the allegations. Surely an innocent man would have been sputtering outraged protests. She also trusted that Trapper wouldn’t make such claims if they were completely unfounded. Unproven, perhaps. But not without basis.

“Time’s up,” Wilcox said from behind her. “Kerra should make that second call or the men outside will come in blazing. What’s it to be, Mr. Trapper? I want a deal with you, and you want Kerra to live. Decide. Now.”

Kerra’s heart was in her throat. She knew how difficult it was for Trapper to give an inch of ground to anyone, but especially to the man who was responsible for the loss of so many lives.

However, he must have seen the wisdom in keeping Wilcox talking. He said, “Kerra, recall the number.”

“Move slowly,” Wilcox said. “Once it rings, hold the phone so I can be heard.”

She placed the call. She saw one of the men below raise a cell phone to his ear, but he didn’t say anything into it.

Speaking loudly, Wilcox said, “For the time being, stand down.”

The call was immediately disconnected. She watched the man lower the phone.

“What are they doing?” Trapper asked.

“Just standing there.”

“See?” Wilcox said. “All well. You can come back now, Kerra.”

When she turned, her gaze immediately went to Trapper, who still held his pistol aimed at the millionaire. But as she returned to her chair, he asked, “You okay?”

“Fine.” She sat down, and, needing badly to make physical contact, pressed her thigh against his.

She looked at Wilcox and marveled over how unmoved he appeared to be by Trapper’s numerous accusations. His composure was disgusting and infuriating. Her impulse was to lash out and remind him that Trapper had alleged murder—her mother’s murder. But she held her peace because she, as much as Trapper, wanted to hear what Wilcox had to say.

He addressed Trapper. “Over the course of the past ten minutes, you’ve come to realize that you need me in order to get yourself reinstated. Especially now that your hidey-hole has been discovered and raided. Without my testimony, you’ve got nothing.”

“And what do you want from me, except your Fantasyland wish for immunity?”

“Justice for my daughter.”

“What makes you think she was murdered?” Trapper asked.

“I don’t think it. I know it.” He drew in a breath. “Do you know the circumstances of Tiffany’s death?”

“I didn’t know anything about it at all until last night,” Trapper said.

“That doesn’t surprise me. We swept it under the rug.”

“She died not long before I did the interview with you,” Kerra said. “Like Trapper, I was unaware of your loss. You must have thought I was awfully brash even to approach you so soon after.”

“At that point in time, the grieving was still very raw.”

“Then why did you agree to the interview?” she asked.

“To make Tiffany’s killers nervous. They didn’t know what track the interview would take, whether or not you would ask me something about Tiffany’s death. For all they knew, that was to be the context of it. I wanted to make them squirm, even if just a little.”

Kerra looked to Trapper, whose subtle nod prompted her to continue. She sat forward and spoke to Wilcox with the delicacy the subject required. “Trapper and I were told that Tiffany died of an overdose of heroin.”

“True. The needle was still in her arm when she was found.”

“Who found her?”

“A policeman on patrol. Her car was parked alongside the road at the edge of a municipal park, not more than a mile from the riding academy where she’d spent the afternoon practicing her jumps and then had stayed to groom her horse.

“She’d called to say she would be a few minutes late for dinner, for us to start without her. I told her we would wait. ‘Okay, I’ll be there in a few. Love ya.’ That was the last time I heard her voice.”

This man had robbed Kerra of her mother, but his bereavement was genuine, and it was difficult for her not to feel some empathy for him.

The same might also be said of Trapper, who’d lost a child to miscarriage. His hand was cupped over his mouth and chin as though to keep his compassion from showing.

Wilcox cleared his throat before continuing. “Tiffany was found sitting in the driver’s seat, but slumped over. Given the amount and strength of the heroin, and the toxins in the substances it had been mixed with, the ME told us that she probably died within five to ten minutes of ingestion. It’s believed, hoped, that she would have been unconscious for much of that time.”

Nobody said anything until Kerra broke the silence in a voice that had gone hoarse. “She’d never done drugs?”

“No. And I’m not an oblivious parent now in denial. Even if she had decided to experiment, it wouldn’t have been that way. She was terrified of needles. Paraphernalia was found in her car, in her lockers at school, and at the equestrian center, but I know with absolute certainty that all of it was planted.”

“No clues ever led to a suspect?” Kerra asked.

“No. Joggers and bicyclers who’d been on the park trails that day were interviewed and dismissed. None claimed to have seen either her car or anyone sinister. There’s a dog run in the park within walking distance of where she was found. I surmise, although I don’t know, that someone looking like the frantic owner of a runaway dog flagged Tiffany down. She was the kind of person who would have stopped to help. Whoever killed her was quick, thorough, gone within minutes.”

“Who was it?” Trapper demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“Who was behind it?”

“I’m not ready to name names.”

Whatever sympathy Trapper had been feeling toward the man vanished. He now looked ready to strangle him. “Look, Wilcox, I can still call the police. They’ll arrest you and your musketeers for vandalism if for nothing else, and I could persuade them to throw in assault with a deadly weapon.”

“None of it would stick.”

“Of course not. You’d have a highly paid lawyer at the jailhouse within an hour. But Kerra and I would make damn sure the media was alerted. It would be on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper and reported on every local TV station. Being camera shy like you are, I don’t think you want that kind of publicity.

“And you sure as hell don’t want to raise the ire of your … ‘associates’ … by being put in the slammer even for a short time. Who knows what kind of deal you’d try to cut? Wondering might make them edgy. Now, goddammit, give me something to keep me from making that 911 call.” He’d pushed the last few words between his clenched teeth.

Wilcox eased back, putting more distance between him and Trapper, as though realizing that he’d come to the end of a short and unraveling rope. “All right. Let’s pretend that I did entertain an occasional visitor—”

“Who left the meeting looking poleaxed.”

“That was your word.”

“Berkley Johnson’s, actually. What word would you use to describe your new recruit?”