“What’ll I give as a reason?”

“Health. You had a close call today. It woke you up to priorities.”

Glenn nodded. “The other? My turning state’s evidence?”

Trapper kept his expression neutral. “I’ve got to deliver Wilcox first. I do …” He shrugged. “What they do to you or to anyone else who signed his fucking pledge won’t be up to me.”

“I love your dad,” Glenn said, his voice cracking. “I love you like a second son. I would never have let anybody harm either of you.”

Glenn waited to see if Trapper was going to say or do anything in response to that. But anything he said would come out laced with either anger, sarcasm, or heartbreak. He didn’t trust himself to speak at all.

“Well.” Glenn pushed himself out of his chair. “I’m going to bed. Tomorrow’s going to be an eventful day.” He took the bottle of whiskey with him as he shuffled out of the room.

Hank set his elbow on the table and rested his forehead in his palm. “So much for my tabernacle.”

Trapper took a step toward him and would have leveled the self-absorbed son of a bitch if Kerra hadn’t stepped between them.

“It’s time we left, Trapper,” she said.

Trapper looked down at Hank with contempt. “Couldn’t agree more.” He guided her through the mudroom and outside.

Chapter 31

Trapper had driven them in the maroon sedan, choosing it over Kerra’s car, which still had to be hot-wired.

From the Addisons’ back door, they walked to the car in silence, and neither of them spoke until several minutes later, when Trapper pulled into a gas station and Kerra remarked that it was closed.

“I’m not here to get gas.” He switched on the flashlight app of one of his several cell phones, got out, and searched the underside of the car. When he got back in, Kerra asked if he’d found anything.

“No, and I didn’t really expect to. When I mentioned the transmitter, Glenn’s puzzled reaction was genuine. I don’t believe he knew anything about it. Which means that somebody else put it there.”

“Jenks?”

“My money’s on him. But was he acting on his own authority or someone else’s?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Kerra, I don’t know who or what to believe anymore. It’s tough to hear, much less accept, that Glenn has been in cahoots with Wilcox for years. No wonder he insisted I stay far removed from his investigation. He was afraid I would discover his collusion.”

“Is he framing Leslie Duncan?”

“I’m not sure about anything, but I’m inclined to say no to that, too. He owned up to doing much worse than planting evidence, so why not admit to that?”

He restarted the car and steered it back onto the highway. “I can’t believe I’m even talking about Glenn Addison in criminal terms.”

“You went there tonight knowing that at the very least he’d been disingenuous,” she said. “You started out by saying it wasn’t going to be fun.”

“I know, but it really, really sucked. I have a lifetime of good memories with that man. Tainted now. Gone. Because Glenn made a bargain with the devil. That breaks my heart. But—”

“But?”

“It also pisses me off,” he said in a lower, deadlier tone. “It’s time Wilcox was stopped from destroying lives. Especially mine.”

To punctuate his hatred of the man as well as his new resolve, he floorboarded the accelerator. “We probably won’t be coming back to the motel, so we’ll make a quick stop there and get our things.”

“Where are we going?”

“Dallas.”

“Now?”

“You can nap on the way. I’ll drop you at your condo, then I’m going to pay a call on Mr. Thomas Wilcox.”

“By the time you get there, it’ll be …” She tried to estimate the time. “One o’clock in the morning.”

“All the better. He won’t be expecting me.”

“His estate is a fortress, Trapper. There’s a gate. He’ll never let you in. He’ll call the police.”

“No, he won’t. For the same reason I didn’t call them when he ambushed us in my office. I was curious to hear what he had to say. Tonight he’ll be more than curious, he’ll be itching to know if I’ve started negotiations with the feds on his behalf.”

“You said you wouldn’t until you had his balls in one hand—”

“Tonight I do.” He held up his fist.

“But you don’t have his insurance policy in the other.”

“No, but at least now I know what it is.”

“The pledge he has everyone sign.”

“Right. Just my knowing about it, plus the phone recording you made of our conversation, which he’s unaware of, plus Berkley Johnson’s video, which he’s unaware of, plus—”

“Everything Glenn told us.”

“That may come in useful later, but I won’t bring Glenn into it tonight. I won’t need to. Everything else we have adds up to a lot of leverage. But the real kicker? I’m betting that a small-town sheriff is chicken feed compared to the other power players who’ve signed Wilcox’s pledge. One or a cadre of them want him dead, and he knows they’re not squeamish about committing a murder here or there because they’ve already killed his daughter. Hammering that home will be my thumbscrews. He’ll start rethinking his terms and give me that goddamn list.”

“It may work.”

“I’ll make it work.”

“There’s only one glitch in your plan.”

“What?”

“You’re not going to drop me anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t drop you anywhere, Kerra. You’ll be safe inside your condo, especially after I threaten to emasculate the doorman if anybody except the people who live there are allowed in.”

“I’m going with you to see Wilcox.”

“Like hell you are. I don’t want you near him again. I didn’t want you near him in the first place, and that was before I knew that he knew that The Major carried you out of the Pegasus. You’re a danger he can’t afford.”

“So are you!”

“Yeah.” He jerked the car to a halt only a few feet from their motel room door. Reaching around to the small of his back, he drew his pistol, flourishing it. “But I’ve got a gun.”

She produced a cell phone. “I’ve got the recording.”

He snatched the phone from her hand. “Now I’ve got the phone.”

“But not the code.”

“It doesn’t have one.”

“It didn’t when you gave it to me.” She shot him a cheeky grin and pushed open the car door. “It won’t take me but a sec to get my stuff.”

“Dad?” Hank had been lying on the sofa but sat up when he heard Glenn’s tread on the stairs.

“That fourth step has always squeaked,” Glenn complained.

“What are you doing up? And in uniform?”

“Just got a call from Jenks. I’ve got to go meet him out at The Pit.”

“The Pit? All the way out there? Now?”

“Jenks thinks he’s found a missing person. What’s left of him.”

Hank got up, and, in stocking feet, followed his father into the kitchen, where Glenn went to the cupboard and retrieved his gun belt from the top shelf. “Surely somebody else can handle this,” Hank said.

“Surely somebody else can. But I want to. Until tomorrow, I’m still sheriff.” Glenn buckled on the belt, adjusted it to his hips, and took his hat from the hook near the door.

“Does Mom know you’re going?”

“I don’t ask her permission to perform my duties.” He looked at Hank sourly. “Give me at least a five-minute head start before you go tattle.”

“You shouldn’t go, and you certainly shouldn’t be driving. You drank a lot, you’re on medication, and in addition to what Trapper did to you—”