“Force.”

“To force me to retreat from the public eye. I told him about the conclusions you’d drawn about the bombing and your certainty that there’s a correlation between it and the attempt on my life.”

“You mention Thomas Wilcox?”

“I told Glenn you suspected him of some involvement.”

“What did he say to that?”

“I got no indication that he’d ever heard of Wilcox, but he said you must have something on the man or you wouldn’t make such serious allegations.”

“Nice of him to say. What did you come back with? Did you tell him you think I’m delusional?”

“No, I told him I think you’re right.”

That being the last thing he’d expected to hear, Trapper’s heart bumped hard against his ribs. He was at a loss for words.

With tight-lipped reluctance, The Major continued. “I don’t know if all your hypotheses are correct, but, along with your stubborn streak, you also have integrity that’s equally ironclad. You wouldn’t condemn a man on a whim, or for self-gain, or for any reason other than your conviction of his guilt.”

Trapper was relieved of having to respond when a nurse entered the room to exchange bags on The Major’s IV drip. Trapper left the chair and went over to the window, where he stared unseeing across the hospital parking lot and tried to come to terms with receiving even a backhanded compliment from his father.

Call him a cynic, but he couldn’t help but wonder why the stroking was coming now.

He could validate his father’s flattery by telling him about Wilcox’s visit to his office, his willingness to make a deal with prosecutors, his admission that he needed Trapper in order to do that.

But Trapper was reluctant to share that just yet. Not yet.

He stayed at the window for as long as it took the nurse to go through her routine, then turned his back on the splendid sunset and faced The Major. “I went out to your house this afternoon.”

“What for?”

“Ostensibly to get your bathrobe.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, that was my lie to cover why I was there.” He motioned toward the Walmart bag. “You have a new flannel robe, and I bought myself a shirt. One with snaps, not a pullover.” He pinched up the stretchy fabric of the black t-shirt Carson had bought for him. “This is a little too Euro to suit me.”

“You’re stalling, John. Who’d you lie to?”

“Deputy Jenks. Know him?”

“Only through Glenn. He says he’s one of the best deputies in the department.”

“Well, he’s certainly been on the ball this week. He pulled a graveyard shift guarding Kerra’s hospital room. Then today, he caught me at your house. Said he’d been asked to keep an eye out for intruders.”

“Glenn told me he would see to it that the house wasn’t looted in my absence.”

Trapper supposed that was a valid explanation. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about Deputy Jenks. He recalled him being exceptionally curious about Kerra’s and his conversation in her hospital room. He’d specifically asked if she had recounted to him what had happened.

“Why did you go to the house today, John?”

Trapper returned to the chair and sat down. He assumed the same hunched position as before, looking down at the floor between his spread knees. “I went looking for something.”

“What?”

“A way for someone to get in undetected.”

“Into the house?”

“Kerra swears that someone tried to open the powder room door before she heard the gunshot.” He raised his head to gauge The Major’s reaction. He appeared to be thinking hard.

“The man who shot me and his accomplice were on either side of the front door. Are you saying there was a third?”

“Kerra says it. Her mind is clear on the point. So unless it was you—”

“Me?”

“Well, you were there.”

“Why would I try to open the bathroom door, knowing full well Kerra was in there?”

“Then someone else was in the back of the house, and it had to be someone familiar with it, or they could easily break their neck trying to get inside. Especially on the north side at the back, and especially in the dark.”

“Glenn hasn’t mentioned a third suspect to me.”

“Which is curious in itself. He’s not convinced there was a third party. He thinks Kerra got confused, the concussion and all.”

He gave The Major time to contemplate all that before continuing. “The day I delivered Kerra to meet you, I drove directly from your house to the Addisons’ and informed Glenn of the upcoming interview.”

“He called me soon after you left him. He wanted to confirm with me that the interview was actually going to take place. He was grousing about the commotion that having a TV crew in town would create, part-time deputies put on the payroll, the overtime it would cost.”

“Soon everyone in his department would have been aware of when and where the interview was to take place.”

“Soon everyone in the whole world knew, John.”

But not everyone in the whole world knew about the sharply varying grade around The Major’s house or the steep ravine where Kerra might have died. It would take someone familiar with the place to know the pitfalls to watch for if sneaking in through a rear window.

Trapper didn’t believe that Jenks just happened to be passing by on that rural road and noticed Kerra’s car at The Major’s house. Finding the tracking device reinforced his suspicions of the deputy.

But he didn’t air those with The Major, either. He was beginning to sound paranoid even to himself.

“You’re frowning, John.”

“Am I?”

“Just like you did as a boy when a riddle had you stumped.”

He wasn’t so much stumped by the things that weren’t adding up as he was deeply disturbed by the things that were.

“Why all the questions about Glenn?” The Major asked.

“I’m worried about him.”

“In what context?”

In the context of Glenn taking him to ball games when his own father was off making speeches. Glenn giving him advice on women, which he hadn’t taken, and on where to buy the best boots, which he had. Glenn sparing him a paddling over an Easter egg prank. Glenn with an unspecified problem that was causing him to drink too much and giving him anxiety attacks.

Suddenly Trapper didn’t want to talk any more. Or think any more. He stood up. “I gotta go.”

“John—”

“You look tired. I think changing rooms must’ve worn you out.”

“We didn’t finish earlier.”

“Finish what?”

“You know damn well what,” The Major snapped. “I told you I thought you were right.”

“Thanks.”

“But—”

“See? This is why I avoided a finish. I didn’t want to hear the ‘but.’”

“But I don’t want your obsession, as noble as it is, to destroy you. Taking on somebody like a Thomas Wilcox—”

“Believe me, I’m aware of the risks involved. Look at what happened to you.”

“Then for god’s sake ask yourself if persisting is worth it. Can’t you just drop it?”

Trapper placed his hands on his hips. “Even though you think I’m right, I have ironclad integrity, conviction, etcetera, you’re advising that I drop it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Why should I drop it? Tell me. Give me a reason.”

“Because I want you to have a life.”

“I do. This is it.” He stabbed his finger toward the floor. “And this is the second time today I’ve had to tell somebody that.”

“Kerra?”

“You’ll be glad to know that she’s safely off my destructive path. She’s gone back to Dallas.”

“By choice? Or did you drive her away?”

He didn’t reply to that. Instead he said, “I’m not dropping it.”