“He might have lied about everything else, but I don’t believe he lied about his daughter and how she died.”

“Me either.”

“And the rest of it?”

“I tend to believe that, too,” Trapper said grimly. “He’s spooked, or he wouldn’t have been here. And those guys were too good to be poker buddies. I didn’t know they were there.”

“Will you intercede on his behalf?”

“With the feds, you mean?” He huffed a laugh. “He’s got a whole lot more faith in my influence than I do.”

She looked down at the wall outlet. “What was hidden in there?”

“Wilcox made a lucky guess.”

“You’d put everything on a flash drive?”

“Yep. Copies of every scrap of information, names, dates, transcripts of interviews with people who survived the Pegasus, and a recording of Berkley Johnson spilling his guts to me.”

“On video?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want Wilcox to know about that. Not yet.”

“Did you ever show it to anyone?”

“My immediate supervisor. He debunked it, believed it to be an elaborate lie Johnson concocted because of a grudge against his employer. He was a recovered alcoholic and in his youth had served time for committing a series of burglaries. They were penny-ante crimes, but his record brought his credibility into question.

“I suggested we depose him, where he’d be under oath—plus under pain of death from me if he was lying. But before that came about, he was killed.” He moved behind the desk, crouched in front of the hole in the wall, and stuck his arm inside up to his elbow, feeling around. When he stood up, he dusted his hands.

Kerra deflated. “They got it?”

“They got one of them.”

“One of them?”

A slow smile spread across Trapper’s face.

“Where’d you find it?”

Jenks replied, “Behind a wall outlet. Last place I looked.”

The other man pushed the flash drive into the computer port. “Where you find something is always the last place you look.”

The deputy chuckled. “Before I got to that outlet, I had the pleasure of turning the place inside out. Trapper won’t recognize it. Or his apartment, either.” He raised his glass of whiskey and saluted his own success.

“Let’s see what we have.”

Jenks scooted his chair closer so that he could see the computer monitor. The files on the drive were numbered, but not named. “May as well start at the top,” Jenks said.

The file opened onto a video screen. The play arrow was clicked on. For several seconds the screen remained black, but audio began playing. It was a percussion beat.

Then the video fade-in showed three naked people on an unmade bed, two women and a man, in flagrante delicto. A ménage à trois to the accompaniment of a monotonous thump, thump, thump.

Chapter 21

Kerra sputtered and then laughed out loud when Trapper told her what the vandal would find on the flash drive. “How many such videos did you put on there?”

“Ten or twelve. But after the first file is opened, he’ll know he’s been had.”

They’d left his office within minutes of Wilcox’s departure and were back in the ugly car borrowed from Carson’s brother-in-law. Trapper was driving.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before someone came searching to see what I had on the bombing and determine whether or not it was cause for concern. In light of this week’s events, it was almost a sure thing. I’d even asked Carson to keep his eyes peeled.”

“The file cabinet?”

“All for show. Trash, just like I told Wilcox. It wouldn’t have taken the intruder long to figure that out. I hid that flash drive behind the outlet so he’d think he’d found the mother lode.”

“Genius.”

“Not so genius. I still don’t know who he is, who they are, if there was more than one. Remains to be seen how many members there are in Wilcox’s fucked-up band of brothers.”

“Berkley Johnson didn’t specify?”

“He ‘couldn’t say for sure,’ and he might have been telling the truth. He could have lost count over the years. Or he was afraid to tell too much until he got into witness protection, which I think is more likely. I know he was scared of reprisal.”

“Rightfully.”

Trapper sighed. “Yeah. I live with that every day. I should’ve kept much better watch over him.”

“Blame the people responsible, Trapper. Not yourself.”

“Easier said.” He’d failed Berkley Johnson by not doing enough, soon enough, to protect him, which was why he was determined to keep Kerra in his sight. Not that having her within touch was hardship duty.

Trapper took a circuitous route from downtown, driving through residential neighborhoods, entering parking lots on one side and exiting on the other. Where traffic was heavier, he wove in and out of lanes, shot through yellow lights, made sharp turns at the last possible moment, constantly checking the rearview and side mirrors for a tail.

When he was certain they weren’t being followed, he backtracked in the same zigzagging way and now pulled to the curb in front of a neat, cottage-style house in one of Fort Worth’s established but recently refurbished neighborhoods.

Looking at the house, Kerra said, “This isn’t where I envisioned you living.”

“I don’t.”

“Then whose house is it?”

Disregarding the question, he said, “Come on.”

He got out on the driver’s side and went around. He ushered her up the front walk to the small, square porch where matching pots with narrow evergreen shrubs flanked a brick-red front door. An iron light fixture hung above it, but it was off.

Ignoring Kerra’s stare, which was demanding an explanation, he pressed the doorbell. It could be heard chiming inside. He continued to look straight ahead at the glossy surface of the door until the light fixture came on, the door was pulled open, and he was looking into the face of his former fiancée.

Marianne was as pretty and sweet-looking as ever. Her eyes were still guileless. But there were noticeable differences in her appearance. She was wearing her hair shorter, and, always trim before, her belly was now distended with advanced pregnancy.

She spoke his name softly.

“Hey, Marianne.”

Her smile was as wobbly as his felt. She said, “It’s good to see you.”

“You too. You look great.” Awkwardly, he motioned toward her midsection. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“When?”

“April.”

“Not long, then.”

She laughed in her self-deprecating way. “By the due date, believe me, I’ll be ready.”

“I’m glad for you,” he said, meaning it to his marrow.

“Thank you. I’m glad, too.” She continued looking into his eyes for several seconds more before shifting to Kerra.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Marianne, this is—”

“No introduction necessary. Welcome, Kerra.”

“Thank you.” Kerra reached across the threshold, and the two shook hands.

Marianne stood aside and motioned them in. Just as she closed the door behind them, a man stepped into the central hallway from one of the rooms opening off it. “Marianne, who—”

Upon seeing Trapper, he stopped as though he’d run into a glass wall, and, if hostility had a sound, he would have crackled. His bearing indicated that he’d like nothing better than to drop his book and reading glasses where he stood and lay into him.

In her quiet and unassuming way, Marianne tried to defuse the situation. “My husband, David. David, this is John Trapper.”

“What’s he doing here?”

He said, “I won’t be here long.”

“Damn right, you won’t. In fact, you’re on your way out.”

“David, please,” Marianne whispered.

Her husband hesitated as though he might yet whale into Trapper, but he responded to the tension in Marianne’s face and the pleading in her eyes by saying nothing more. He did, however, remain standing in the middle of the hallway with the rigidity of a palace guard and the territorial menace of a junk-yard dog.