by Sandra Brown
“Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”
“I’m still muzzy.” All she felt like doing was closing her eyes and seeking oblivion, and that was very uncharacteristic of her. Struck by a frightening thought, she asked, “Do I have a brain injury?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” the sheriff replied. “Nothing serious. You’re just doped up,” he said and gestured toward the IV. “You took quite a tumble and landed like a rag doll. You recall that?”
“Somebody came down on a rope.”
“A fireman. We weren’t sure until he got down there that you were still alive. We’d been searching for almost an hour, shouting your name.”
As after the hotel bombing, memories of the previous night came back to her in snatches with wide gaps in between. Some were vivid, like how badly her shoulder had hurt, how cold she’d been, while others were foggier.
She remembered lying on her back on the hard ground, the fierce wind, sprinkles of cold rain. She recalled trying to respond to the people shouting her name, but she couldn’t find the strength to raise her voice.
She’d also been afraid that if she signaled her whereabouts, it would seal her doom, that whoever had killed The Major would appear at the top of the ravine and finish her off from that vantage point.
She remembered fearing that she would die in one manner or another, from internal injuries, exposure. Her mother had died catastrophically. Her father’s death was all too recent. The longer she lay there, the greater the possibility she would die. Surely she wouldn’t cheat death a second time.
She was so convinced of that, she became hysterical with relief and thankfulness when rescuers arrived. As they strapped her to a stretcher, she’d begged for repeated reassurance that she had survived. A consoling EMT had pushed a tranquilizing drug into her vein to stop her hysteria.
But now, she felt the scald of fresh tears. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Sheriff Addison said.
Just then a man dressed in scrubs came through the door into the room. He looked surprised to see Trapper and the sheriff there. “What are you doing in here?”
Sheriff Addison replied, “I need to talk to the witness.”
“Not now, sheriff. Who’s he?”
“John Trapper.”
“Oh, well…Sorry, Mr. Trapper.” He glanced at Kerra before going back to them. “She’ll be going in and out for a while yet. You couldn’t trust anything she told you to be sequential, accurate, or thorough. It’ll be at least several more hours before she’s up to being questioned. I’ll have the deputy outside call you when I feel she’s ready.”
“But—”
“With all due respect, gentlemen, I need to examine my patient.” The doctor stood firm.
Glenn Addison didn’t look happy about getting the boot, but he bobbed his head toward her and said good night, then used his hat to motion Trapper toward the door.
Trapper remained motionless, staring at her in that silent and predatory way of his, then turned abruptly and followed the sheriff out without uttering a word. Kerra followed his exit until the door whispered closed behind him. Had that cold and remote man really kissed her? Or had she dreamed it?
“I’m sorry about that.” The doctor moved to the bedside, consulted her chart, then smiled at her through a neatly clipped door-knocker, and introduced himself. “How are you feeling?”
“Was I shot?”
“No. No spinal cord injury, broken bones, or internal bleeding, which is just short of a miracle. You were close to hypothermia, but the EMTs had you back to normal temp by the time you got to the ER. Your left shoulder was dislocated. I hope you don’t remember us popping it back in.”
“No. Thank God.”
“We sent the MRI to an ortho specialist, but several of us here looked at it and didn’t see any damage to the rotator. You have a hairline fracture on your left clavicle. Take it easy with that, no strenuous workouts for six weeks, and it’ll heal on its own.
“You sustained a lot of scrapes and cuts, and we had to dig out some bits of rock and wood splinters. Most were superficial wounds, but one on your right thigh required two stitches. You’re getting IV antibiotics to prevent infection. The worst of it, you took a whack on your head, which gave you a concussion. Is your vision blurry?”
“Yes.”
“It’s temporary. Do you know what month it is?”
“February.”
“Nausea?”
“It comes and goes. As long as I’m lying still, it’s okay.”
“How’s the pain?”
“Not pain, specifically. General soreness and discomfort all over. A headache.”
“On a scale of one to ten?”
“Five.”
“I’ll keep the drip going,” he said, making a notation on the chart. “Any questions?”
“How long will I be here?”
“Couple of days. Tomorrow, we’ll get you up, see if you can make it to the bathroom on your own. Check your head again. I’d like a neurologist to look at the pictures. We’ll know more once he gets back to us, but I think you’ll be fine in a day or two.”
“Do you know anything about my crew? Are they all okay?”
“Anxious about you. They’ve been camped out in the waiting room since you were brought in.”
They’d been traumatized, too, and she knew their concern for her was sincere. But the thought of being swarmed, even by five well-meaning colleagues, was an overwhelming prospect. “Would you please send word out that I’m fine, but—”
“No visitors. I’ll tell them myself. Doctor’s orders. Best thing for you now is rest.” He switched out the light above her bed. “This may not be the suitable time to say it, but I’m a fan.”
“Thank you.”
“I caught your interview with The Major. It was outstanding.”
“Thank you.”
He patted her knee, said, “See you tomorrow,” and left.
She settled into a more comfortable position. She closed her eyes. But rather than finding comfort in the grogginess that had protected her earlier, panic overcame her with tsunami force.
She was back in the powder room, only a door between her and certain death. Powerless to move. The walls and ceiling closing in. Heartbeats loud against her eardrums.
Recognizing the panic for what it was, she covered her nose and mouth with her hands and willed herself to inhale deeply and exhale slowly. The concentrated breathing staved off hyperventilation. The resultant tingling in her hands and feet subsided.
But her heart continued to race. Her skin broke a terror-induced sweat.
She relived squeezing through the window and the blinding pain when her shoulder hit the ground. She felt the rush of bitter wind as she ran headlong into the dark chased by gun blasts, striking close. She felt again the earth giving way beneath her.
The falling sensation was so real it made her clutch at the sheet, clawing up handfuls of it in an attempt to stop her plummet. But she kept falling and landed hard enough to knock the wind out of her.
Gasping, her eyes popped open.
Trapper was standing at the side of the bed.
Her throat seized up so completely she couldn’t make a sound. Not a peep. Not a scream. She wet her lips, or tried. Her mouth and tongue were dry and her breaths were coming hard and fast.
He picked up the lidded plastic cup of water that had been left for her on the nightstand, held it close to her mouth, and pressed the bendable straw between her lips.
She sipped, then again, then continued to. They didn’t break eye contact until the cup was empty and he returned it to the nightstand.
“Thank you.” Her voice was raspy in spite of the water.
“You’re welcome.”
“Where’s the sheriff?”
“On his way home to catch a few hours’ sleep.”
“Did he send you back here?”
“No.”
“Does he kn
ow you came back?”
“No.”
“Why did you?”
“Coming from somebody who interviews people on TV, that’s a dumb question.”
He was a large, looming, rough-looking, rude presence, but not wholly unwelcome. With him here, who or what could harm her?
She had thought never to see him again. When she had allowed herself to fantasize about an occasion when they came eye to eye for the first time after that kiss, the setting was either rose-scented, rose-colored, and romantic, like a picnic beneath a cherry tree in full bloom, raining pink petals over them. Or the scene was hot and torrid and untamed, twisted bedsheets, naked skin, and sweaty sex.
Never would she have fantasized a tragic circumstance such as this.
He was wearing his standard uniform. His hair was windblown. His scruff was the same as when he’d beat a hasty retreat from her motel room on Tuesday night, but there were dark circles under his eyes as though he hadn’t slept since then. He probably wouldn’t be sleeping much for days to come.
“Trapper,” she said with emotional huskiness, “I’m sorry.”
“Like Glenn said, there’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”
“The nation lost a hero. You lost your father. I don’t know how his murder could possibly be connected to the interview, but I feel—”
“Wait. Kerra. You think The Major’s dead?”
She inhaled a swift breath.
“He’s upstairs in ICU,” he said. “Barely alive, but not dead. He has a head wound, worse than superficial, but better than fatal. But that may not matter because a nine-millimeter bullet blew a hole in his left lung. Collapsed like a burst balloon. Massive blood loss. Odds are that he won’t make it, but for the present he’s hanging on.”
Tears of relief began coursing down her cheeks. “But he said…I heard him ask The Major how he liked being dead so far.”
Trapper hooked his foot around the leg of a chair, pulled it nearer the bed, and sat down. He planted his elbows on his thighs, tented his hands, and held them against his chin as he studied her. “Who said that?”
“The man who shot him. He thought he’d killed him. So did I.”
A tear slid from the outer corner of her eye and trickled toward her hairline. His eyes followed its path then held steady on her face, while her image of him was doubling and quadrupling, making her seasick.
“Tell me everything, Kerra. Talk me through it.”
“I can’t, Trapper. Not now. I’m dizzy. The doctor said I shouldn’t have visitors.”
“He didn’t say it to me.”
“I’m saying it to you.”
Actually, she didn’t want to be alone, but she also didn’t want to be pressured to answer questions right now.
He said, “When I came in, you were having a panic attack.”
“Yes.”
“What brought it on?”
“Nothing specific. I was fully conscious for the first time. Alone and aware of being alone. I got frightened. It all came rushing back, and I…”
“Felt you were in mortal danger again?”
“Yes.”
“Any flashbacks to the Pegasus bombing?”
“No. It was all about last night. I was in the powder room again and fearing whoever was on the other side of the door.” She thought back to the latch being shaken to test if it was locked. The soft, metallic rattling had been as menacing as that of an unseen diamondback.
Feeling the weight of Trapper’s stare, she collected herself. “The panic has passed. I’m fine now.”
He looked down at her hand. It was still gripping the sheet. She forced her fingers to relax and let go of the cloth.
“Did Glenn figure right?” he asked. “You escaped through the window?”
“That’s when I dislocated my shoulder.”
“What were you doing in the bathroom?”
“What one usually does in the bathroom.”
“You weren’t hiding?”
“Not at first.”
“Not at first.” His inflection was a prompt for her to elaborate. “You went to use the bathroom and…? Then what?”
“Trapper, please, I don’t feel up to talking about it yet. It’s too fresh. In a couple of days when I have some distance from it—”
“It will take more than a couple of days for you to gain distance from it, and I don’t want distance from it. I want to hear it while it’s fresh.”
“But my recollections are all jumbled up.”
“Did you put Glenn’s number in your phone?”
“What?” Her mind was hazy with confusion, then she remembered. “Yes, I did.”
“If you were in fear, why didn’t you call him?”
Yes, why hadn’t she? When she’d added the sheriff’s number to her speed dial, she’d done it only to honor her promise to Trapper that she would. He had said, I’m not joking. But she hadn’t taken the statement as a warning. Not until now. There were disturbing implications to that lurking just beyond her ability to reason them out. She couldn’t identify and contemplate them until she had a clearer head.
She said, “I don’t feel well. Besides, until I’m questioned by the authorities, I don’t think I should talk about it to anyone.”
“I’m not just anyone. The man clinging to life upstairs is my father.”
“I know this is very personal for you, but there are proper police procedures to adhere to.”
“Well, you’re half right. There are proper police procedures, but they don’t have to be adhered to. In fact, I’m not big on procedures in general, and proper ones in particular.”
“Then we can all be glad that you’re not investigating the case.”
“What gave you that idea?” He stood up slowly, planted his fists on the edge of the mattress, and leaned over her. “Kerra, who did you see out there?”
“No one.”
He continued to stare at her, his eyes hard, incisive, unmoved by her firm denial.
“No one,” she repeated. “I didn’t see anything.”
He stayed where he was for a ponderous length of time, then straightened up and headed for the door.
She struggled to lever herself into a half-sitting position. “Trapper, I swear I didn’t. Don’t you believe me?”
“Doesn’t matter if I believe you. Only matters if they do.”
“The police?”
“No, the men who were there.”
Chapter 7
By the time I got over to the window, she was racing away from the house. You know how dark it can get out there. It was like she was swallowed by it.” Petey Moss’s knee was jiggling beneath the table on which were strewn the contents of Kerra Bailey’s shoulder bag.
The man rifling through the articles pulled a plastic card from one of the slits in a flat wallet and flipped it onto the table. “Fitness club membership.”
Petey looked relieved. “That explains it. Conditioning. No wonder she can run like a deer.”
“I still don’t see how she escaped you.”
“Well, first, it took us off guard that she was there.”
“But when you discovered that she was—”
“We—”
The other man held up his hand. “Start at the beginning.”
Petey wet his lips. “Well, The Major came to the front door, opened it, and poked his head out. Didn’t expect him to be carrying a rifle. Jenks was on his blind side. Hit him with the stock of the shotgun. Here.” He touched his skull behind his right ear. “Major dropped. I shot him in the chest. He never felt it.”
“He’s feeling it now.”
“What?”
“You didn’t kill him.”
Petey looked like he’d been struck between his eyes with a sledgehammer. “That’s impossible.”
“He’s in county hospital, not the morgue. He’s not dead. Neither is the woman, which means you failed on two counts.” This was said calmly as the contents of a small pouch containing various cosmetic products
were inspected item by item.
He opened a tube of lipstick, sniffed it, replaced the cap, and tossed it back onto the table. “His condition is critical. He probably won’t survive. But we can’t count on that. He may pull through.”
Petey was looking like he might throw up.
“But actually, the woman is more of a worry than The Major. Her injuries aren’t that serious. She’s able to communicate, and communicating is what she does for a living. So, Petey, I need to know, and know now, if she saw you.”
He shook his head vigorously. “No. She’d locked herself in the bathroom.”
The man played with Kerra’s key chain, his expression thoughtful. “How did you come to realize she was in the bathroom?”
“No sooner had I shot The Major, I noticed the light go out under the bathroom door. I went to check. Sure enough, the door was locked. By the time we’d busted it down, she’d gone out the window. Jenks fired at her, but she—”
“Was swallowed up by the darkness.”
“That’s right.”
“Why didn’t you chase her down?”
“No time to. We heard a car turning off the main road. Saw the headlights coming up the drive. We went out the back, but not before thinking to grab her bag there.”
“Nobody saw you?”
“No, sir. I’d swear to it. She was too busy running for her life to look back, and the house was between us and whoever was approaching in that car.”
“It was the TV crew’s van. Five of them.”
“They couldn’t’ve seen us. Jenks had left his truck at least a half mile from the house. We found our way back to it in the dark. Near froze our balls off on that hike. Anyhow, we drove on back to town and shared a basket of ribs at the barbecue place on the square. Established an alibi, like you told us.”
“Which will make no difference if The Major survives.”
“No way he could. I’d lay money on that. They must be keeping him alive with machines.”
“Kerra Bailey isn’t hooked up to machines. Eventually she’ll tell everything she knows.” He dwelt on that for a moment as he absently jangled the key ring. Then he set it down and motioned for Petey to lean forward as he lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’m nervous, Petey.”