She hesitated for the length of one heartbeat, then jerked her finger against the trigger.

The rifle clicked but didn’t fire.

In the instant of Hank’s bafflement, Trapper lunged toward Kerra and pushed her aside, then charged Hank. Hank swung the rifle like a club. The steel barrel caught Trapper on the side of his head, but he kept going, ramming into Hank’s center and pushing him backward for several yards like a tackling dummy, before finally landing him on the floor.

Hank tried to scramble backward, but Trapper grabbed him by his shirt and jerked him upright.

“This is for whatever you did to Glenn.” Trapper drew back his fist and hit him as hard as he could in the center of his face. Bones cracked, blood spurted, Hank screamed. His head flopped forward.

Trapper grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up. “This is for The Major.” He hit him again, harder, dislocating his jaw but maintaining a fistful of his hair. “You hypocritical cocksucker, I should kill you for what you did to Tiffany Wilcox, but I’d rather watch you rot for the rest of your miserable life.” He drove his fist into Hank’s gut, but by then Jenks was restraining him. He wrestled him up and away from Hank.

Trapper flung him off. “I’m done, I’m done.” Woozy from the blow to his head, he swayed as he stood up and turned to Jenks. “You son of a bitch. You’re FBI, right?”

“North Texas field office.” He proffered his FBI ID.

“Would have been nice of you to clue me.”

“Nice, maybe, but against orders.”

“I nearly shot you that day.”

Agent Jenks gave a wry grin. “No need to remind me. When did you guess?”

“About a minute ago. I couldn’t figure why you were just standing there, taking it all in, instead of making quick work of me with that,” he said, indicating the revolver Jenks still had in hand. “I hoped to God my hunch was right. You got backup coming?”

“On the way.”

Trapper kicked Hank in the knee. “Read him his rights.”

“Trapper!”

He turned toward Kerra’s startled voice.

Chapter 37

She had reclined The Major’s chair and was leaning over him. Trapper was still unsteady on his feet, but he made it to the recliner and knelt beside it.

From the opposite side of it, Kerra looked at him bleakly and drew his attention to The Major’s lap. His torso was distended on his left side, indicating internal bleeding.

The Major said, “I sprung a leak. The surgeon warned me it was too early to leave, warned that my lung could collapse again. But Glenn—”

“Just be still,” Trapper said. “Help will be here in no time. We’ll get you back to the hospital. That doctor’s good. He’ll patch you up again.”

Trapper was vaguely aware that uniformed men had arrived and were clumping around the living room. Jenks must’ve had them awaiting his signal to move in. He appeared in Trapper’s peripheral vision.

“Major?” Jenks placed his hand on The Major’s shoulder. “My fault you were shot. I didn’t have time to warn you, so I hit you in the head just to get you down. Petey wasn’t supposed to—”

“We’ll sort it all out later,” Trapper said. “Is an ambulance on the way?”

Jenks nodded, but his attention was still on The Major. “Your friend Glenn Addison is in custody. I called him out to The Pit like Hank said, but for his own safety. I turned him over to arresting agents who were waiting there for us. Same as I did with Petey Moss. Sheriff Addison is fine. Cooperating fully. He specifically asked me to tell you that he loves you. Nothing ever changed that.”

The Major asked, “Does he know about Hank?”

“Not yet, and I dread him having to be told. The sheriff’s a good man. He might have cheated on an election or two, but he performed his duties well.”

“Thanks for delivering his message.”

Jenks gave The Major a reassuring pat on the shoulder then hurried away to brief and issue orders to arriving officers.

The Major looked at Trapper. “You saw my name on Wilcox’s list?”

“He made sure I did.”

“And you still handed it over to the FBI?”

“I had to. I didn’t want to. I struggled with it, but—”

“But being you, you had to.”

“I did, yeah.”

The Major smiled shakily. “I’m proud of you for it.” He took a rattling breath. “I hoped all this would go away without you ever knowing.”

“Well, it didn’t go away. And I do know. I know everything except the nature of your pact with Wilcox. Was it connected to that lucrative book and movie deal?”

“No.”

Trapper bent his head low and blinked tears out of his eyes. “Just tell me … please tell me that you didn’t bomb the Pegasus Hotel.”

The Major fumbled for his hand and grasped it. “No, John. No. Is that what you thought?”

“It’s what I feared. I’ve been through hell fearing it. When I started investigating the bombing, realized the three who took the blame were under orders from somebody else, I thought that maybe you were one of them, too, but had been lucky enough to get out.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because, except for Wilcox, you benefited from that goddamn disaster more than anybody. You built a career off it.”

“Fate. Right place, right time. That’s all it was.”

“Then why’d you strike a bargain with Wilcox?”

“I swear on your mother’s soul that I never had any dealings with him until three years ago when you started making headway on your investigation into him.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Trapper groaned, “I don’t want to hear this.”

“You did nothing wrong. You were doing your job. You’re only to blame for being very good at it and being persistent. Wilcox reeled me in, told me I must, must, discredit you, dismiss your conspiracy theory, denounce you and anything you alleged.”

“Or what? What could he do? Cancel your hero status?”

“Kill Marianne.”

Trapper flinched.

“It’s worse,” The Major said. “He assured me that all the evidence would point to you.”

Trapper looked across at Kerra, saw her horror, and said, “I’ve seen the names on his list. He could have made it happen.” Going back to his father, he asked, “Why her? Why not just pop me?”

“Because he didn’t know what you had on him, how much you’d uncovered and shared with your superiors. If you were killed, he was afraid of what you might be leaving behind for future analysis. But my denunciation of you would go a long way, he said. He told me to discredit you, or else. Even if you were acquitted for your fiancée’s murder—”

“My reputation, my life, would have been destroyed. They were destroyed.”

“I’m sorry, John. I took what I believed to be my only choice.”

“Marianne knew nothing about it, did she?”

“No.”

“That’s a mercy,” Kerra said softly.

“Here I’ve been thinking I was protecting you from Wilcox,” Trapper said to The Major. “You were protecting me. The son of a bitch pitted us against each other.”

Although his strength was waning, The Major squeezed Trapper’s hand tighter. “It pained me when you said that this—I, Wilcox, the Pegasus—was your life.”

“Aw, I was just spouting off.”

“No. You weren’t. In countless ways, what happened that day took over all our lives. Debra’s. Mine. Yours.”

Trapper, made uncomfortable by his father’s remorse, turned and looked out the open front door. The ambulance was speeding through the gate, but Trapper willed it to go even faster. The Major was laboring for each breath, his complexion had gone gray, his lips bluish.

“I missed the spotlight,” he was saying to Kerra, even as he gasped for air.

“You were good in it.” She sniffed back tears and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“That’s why I wanted … the interview.” He seemed impatient with his increasing shortness of breath. It was obvious he wanted to say more. “My ego put your life at risk, and I’m more sorry for that than I can say.”