“I blasted everything I could but you. Hank wasn’t happy we’d missed you and The Major. Once you were released from the hospital, Hank sent me to try again.”

She listened, appalled as he told her about hiding in the closet of her motel room. “I couldn’t let your producer discover me, or I’d have had to blow my cover.”

“What if I’d returned to my room and discovered you there?”

“That’s actually what I was hoping for. I intended to tell you who I was and what I was doing, and ask if you wouldn’t mind cooperating with your government by vanishing for a couple days and letting Hank think you were keeping Petey company in The Pit.” He chuckled. “Trapper saved me the trouble by kidnapping you.”

Turning serious again, he said, “I was afraid since I’d failed twice to get you, Hank would send someone else. Somebody like Petey, who wanted to prove his loyalty, or like the guy he sent to do the Wilcox girl. Texas Rangers got that guy, by the way. He admits to acting on Hank’s orders.

“But back to you. I was worried for your safety. I put the transmitter on your car so I could keep track. As it turned out, Trapper was cagier. He kept pulling disappearing acts with you.” He paused, then added, “He’s a pain in the ass, you know.”

She laughed softly. “Yes, I do know.”

“The bureau will be questioning you extensively about Wilcox, and you’ll probably be subpoenaed to testify against Hank.”

“That won’t be a problem.” She shuddered. “I think he’s a sociopath.”

“Well, if he’s thinking of pleading insanity, he can think again. Turns out some of his flock proved less devoted when federal agents started showing up at their doors today with warrants. They’ll turn on him in exchange for lesser charges. But all that will be overseen by people with ranks higher than mine. So, Ms. Bailey, if this is goodbye …” He offered his hand, and they shook.

“I can’t say that it’s all been a pleasure, Deputy Jenks.

He grinned with good nature. “I’ll see you on TV.” He started to move away, but she called him back.

“When did you make Trapper aware that you were FBI?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then how did he know that rifle wasn’t loaded?”

The agent shrugged. “Far as he knew, it was.”

Epilogue

Kerra let herself into her apartment, dropped her keys on the console table in the entry, and set her shoulder bag on the floor. Moving into the living room, she took off her jacket, pulled her blouse from the waistband of her skirt, and had the top two buttons undone before she saw Trapper.

He was standing in front of the glass wall, backlit by the glittering skyline, but she would know that silhouette anywhere.

“Don’t stop there,” he said. “Keep going. But leave the heels on.”

After weeks without contact of any kind, her heart surged at the sight of him. But somehow she managed to keep her tone cool and uninterested. She stepped out of her heels. “How did you get in?”

“Picked the lock.”

“How did you get into the building?”

“Told the doorman I was a building inspector for the ATF checking for fire code violations.”

“He believed that?”

“When I showed him my ID.”

“You’re back with the bureau?”

“We’ll see how it goes.”

She wasn’t fooled by his feigned nonchalance but knew it would be a mistake to comment on it. “Carson will miss you being upstairs.”

“Come Saturday, he will have been married a month. He’s going for a personal record. I told him he’d never make it if he continues to buy other women bad-girl bras. You still have it?”

“Yes.”

“You wearing it?”

“It’s hardly workday attire. I’ve spent all day with an editor—”

“Bet he liked it.”

“She and I have been editing the hour-long special I’m doing on Major Franklin Trapper.”

He dropped the teasing. “For the network?”

“It airs two weeks from Sunday and focuses on all the good he did, how he used his fame to benefit charities and educational programs. I appreciated getting your okay with a capital O.”

In the chaotic aftermath of The Major’s death, following her conversation with Jenks, she’d gone in search of Trapper. A note, and only a note, addressed to her had been lying in the hospital bed to which he’d been assigned. Okay printed in block letters, his signature scrawled across the bottom.

“I saw some of your reporting,” he said. “It was all good.”

“Thank you.”

“You gave a sanitized version of events.”

“I told the public all they needed to know.”

She had been obligated to contribute to the coverage of The Major’s death and what had led up to it, of Thomas Wilcox’s crimes dating back to even before the bombing of the Pegasus Hotel, and of the fall from grace of the vainglorious Reverend Addison.

Mention of Trapper had been kept to a minimum, and what she’d reported was a matter of record. Gracie had pressed her to “deliver the goods,” but she’d threatened to quit if Gracie kept at her, reminding the producer and everyone up the food chain that, with her present celebrity, any other outlet in the industry would be thrilled to have her. They’d backed off.

Her reports had been comprehensive, but without any exploitation or invasion of the Trapper family’s privacy.

“What’s next for you?” he asked. “New York?”

“Trying to get rid of me?”

“Following this big hit, I figured you’d want to move on.”

“I like the view from here.” She motioned toward the panoply behind him.

“New York is famous for its views.”

“I like this one.”

They stared at each other. Somehow she resisted the urge to go to him and, as though holding herself back by force, folded her arms across her waist and looked down at her bare toes as she curled them into the rug. “The burial was private.” When he didn’t say anything, she raised her head.

“I couldn’t go through all that falderal, Kerra.”

“Nor should you have had to.”

“Yeah, but it’s what everybody expected. I think the folks in Lodal feel cheated of an extravaganza.”

“You don’t owe anyone an explanation.”

“He’s buried beside Mom. No headstone, just a plaque.”

“No diary.”

“No diary.” He gave a rueful smile “Even he thought it was a good bluff.”

“He laughed.”

“First time in years we’d laughed together. Last time, too.”

He paused there before going on to say, “I’m glad we had that laugh.” Within minutes of it, The Major had died. Trapper had been in the ambulance with him.

Knowing how much he disliked sentimentality, she changed the subject. “Hank thought you were bluffing about the rifle.”

“The one time I was completely straight with him …”

“If you’d been wrong—”

“I knew Jenks wouldn’t have left a loaded rifle for Hank.”

“But you only played a hunch that Jenks was the undercover man. If you’d been wrong, I would have shot you. You would have died right in front of me,” she said, her voice cracking.

“True. I’m reckless. Beyond stubborn. A grab-bag of character flaws.”

“Chief among them rudeness,” she said, putting some heat behind it. “You show up here uninvited. You disappeared without saying goodbye.”

“I’m sorry about that, Kerra. Soon as they stitched my scalp—”

“You pulled a disappearing act.”

“Because the falderal was about to get underway, and I didn’t want to be trapped inside the hospital when it did.”

“I wanted to see you, Trapper. To know that you were all right, to comfort you.”

“I didn’t need platitudes and consolation.”