by Sandra Brown
“Gracie, please, take a breath,” Kerra cut in. “I know what’s expected, and I’ll deliver. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that a great man is still in critical condition. He may die, and I’ll have been there when he was fatally attacked.” She bent her head over her hand and pressed her fingers to her forehead.
“That’s the kind of emotion I want to see from you tomorrow,” Gracie exclaimed. “Just like that. You’re distressed to the max. Inconsolable.”
Kerra was appalled by her insensitivity.
“Of course I realize that your distress is genuine,” Gracie added hastily. “It’s just that I’m trying to infuse you with some excitement. Where’s the go-getter I’m used to working with? Where’s your usual verve?”
“Sorry. I’m fresh out of verve,” Kerra said. “Besides, this conversation may well be pointless. So I’m running you out. I need to rest.”
Realizing she’d overstepped, Gracie gathered her things and went to the door. “I’m sorry. I get wound up and lose all perspective.”
“It’s okay. I do it myself.” Kerra hoped she never did it to that degree, but she had said it to get rid of Gracie faster.
“Do you need anything? Will you be all right?”
“After a good night’s sleep, I’ll be fine.” Kerra opened the door.
On her way out, Gracie said, “You know I’m up till all hours, so if you need—Who is that?”
Kerra turned to see who had Gracie agape.
He had swapped the leather jacket for a heavier one made of shearling sheepskin. The collar was flipped up against his jaw, which was set as hard as granite.
He was coming toward them from across the parking lot, appearing out of the swirling, freezing mist like an avenger in an apocalyptic movie, impervious to the precipitation, sure-footed in spite of the icy pavement, so purposeful in bearing and stride it seemed that no power could have stopped him unless it was divine. Or demonic.
“That’s John Trapper.”
Gracie’s eyes bulged behind her orange glasses. “The son?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve met him?”
Kerra swallowed. “Briefly.”
He almost had to duck to clear the low overhang. Ignoring Gracie as though she were invisible, he placed his two forefingers against Kerra’s sternum and pushed her back across the threshold, then slammed the door behind them.
Trapper stormed past her and took a look around. “Does that beer belong to anybody?” Without waiting for her to answer, he yanked a can from the plastic webbing and opened it.
“Help yourself.”
Ignoring her sarcasm, he looked her over while taking a long drink, and when he lowered the can, he said, “You don’t strike me as a beer drinker. Or a collector of balloons with goofy faces on them.”
“The crew hosted a party.”
“Party, huh? If you ask me, you don’t have much to celebrate.”
“Well, I didn’t ask you, did I? I don’t want you here, and where do you get off showing up and barging in whenever you feel like it?”
“When I barged in, you didn’t put up much of a fight. How come?”
“I’m short on verve.”
“Maybe. But that’s not it. You’re scared of me.”
“I am not.”
He took in the upward tilt of her chin and defiant stance, and scoffed. “You get credit for at least trying to sound unafraid.”
“Why would I be scared of you?”
“Beats the hell out of me.” He came toward her until he was close enough for her to see individual ice crystals melting on the shoulders of his jacket and in his hair. “You tell me, Kerra. Why would I make you afraid?”
“I’m not afraid, I’m weary.” She edged around him. “Achy. My shoulder hurts. I’m reminded of my cracked collarbone whenever I move a certain way. I have a headache. Occasional dizzy spells. It’s been a very long day, and I’m tired. I’m especially tired of you bothering me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I bother you?”
Ignoring that, she said, “I want you out of here so I can go to bed.”
“So you’ll be daisy fresh for the big interview tomorrow.”
That brought her up short. “How did you know I’d consented to it?”
His expression hardened. “I didn’t.” He drained the beer, crushed the can with one hand, and lobbed it into the wastebasket. “Wild guess.”
“Very clever.”
“I’m not a private eye for nothing.” He waited a beat, then, “Actually, the guess wasn’t so wild. I knew you’d do it.”
“No, you didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t make up my mind until after thinking about it overnight and all day today. Don’t presume to know me, anything about me. You don’t.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said in a drawl. “Let’s see. I know that you use bath powder. I know that you have an old scar about two inches above your left knee on the inside of your thigh. I say old because it’s pale, barely visible.” His gaze dropped to her chest. “And you get chilled easily.” He let that resonate, and when his eyes reconnected with hers, he said, “What else do you want to know?”
It was indignation that caused her to go hot all over. She was sure of it. She should call him on the uninvited suggestiveness, but then he would know that his sexy insinuations had affected her, and that would equip him to intimidate her even more than he already did.
Instead, she turned the tables and put him on the defensive. “How did you get my shoulder bag? When? Where?”
“Funny, we covered a lot of territory last night, but you failed to mention that your bag was missing. Why?”
“Why would I? It was none of your business. Or so I thought.”
“Well, it for damn sure is my business now.” With a suddenness that made her jump, he whipped off his coat and flung it into a chair. “I was sitting there in the ICU waiting room, waiting to see if The Major’s improvement would continue or if he’d tank, my butt going numb from sitting, reading an old copy of Outdoorsman for the third time. Ask me anything about the mating rituals of white-tail deer.”
The fuse on his temper was burning short. At the end of it, she feared it was going to be explosive. He had started out with his voice at a conversational level, but the volume had steadily increased. “What happened?” she asked.
“In sauntered two deputies who told me that Sheriff Addison wanted to see me. I told them that Glenn had my cell number. If he wanted to talk, he knew how to reach me. Noooo. A phone call won’t do, they said. The meeting had to be in person.”
“You were arrested?”
“I told them I’d already had a person-to-person meeting with Sheriff Addison today, thank you, and went back to reading about stags in rut. But then one of the officers plucked the magazine out of my hand and said that the summons was more than a friendly invitation. I could follow them in my own vehicle to the sheriff’s office, but I had to go, and it had to be right then.
“So I left those poor bucks unfinished and followed the pair of deputies to the sheriff’s office, where I was grilled for the next two friggin’ hours.” As expected, he was furious. He didn’t end with a shout, however, but rather with a snarl, which was much more menacing.
She backed a step away from him. “They questioned you based on what I told them?”
He put his hands on his hips and closed the distance she’d created. “Ya think?”
“Trapper—”
“You suspect me of trying to kill my own father?”
“No.”
“That’s what it sounds like. I know I didn’t make a very good first impression on you, Miss Louis Vuitton, but Jesus!” He raked his fingers through his damp hair. “You changed the sequence of events in your story—”
“I didn’t change the sequence. I hadn’t remembered it correctly.”
“Until when, Kerra? Before or after you talked me through it last night?”
She avoided looking him in the eye.
“That’s what
I thought.”
She defended herself against the accusation behind his droll remark. “I wasn’t completely honest with you last night because you’d made me—”
“Afraid.”
“All right, yes! You sneaked into my room after you’d left with the sheriff, which was frightening enough, but then you demanded to know if I’d seen the men who’d attempted to kill The Major. What was I supposed to think?”
“You were supposed to think that a son would want to know who’d tried to off his father.”
“A son who hadn’t spoken to that father in years, who emanated so much hostility you could cut it with a knife? That son?”
He glared at her then turned away, mumbling things she thought it just as well she didn’t catch. She gave both of them a short timeout to cool down, then said quietly, “I had to tell the authorities, Trapper.”
“You did what your conscience dictated and”—he snapped his fingers—“next thing I know, everybody puts me creeping around in the dark back rooms of The Major’s house, jiggling doorknobs.”
“I understand why you would take offense at the allegation, but it will go away as soon as you provide an alibi for Sunday night.”
“Right. Right.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll think of something.”
Her lips parted in shock.
He rolled his eyes. “That was a joke, for crissake.”
“It wasn’t funny.”
“You’re right. Not a damn thing’s been funny since you knocked on my office door.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that, but you haven’t helped yourself, either. How did you get my bag?”
He spread his arms from his sides. “I don’t have your bag. Glenn and those Rangers hammered me hard about that thing. I denied knowing anything about its missing status.”
“Did they believe you?”
“Didn’t stick around long enough to find out. I told them I wasn’t saying another goddamn word without a lawyer, got up, walked out.”
“They let you go?”
“They had to. They’ve got nothing on me. And, in case you’re still wondering, I do have an alibi. I was in a sports bar where I’m a regular. I had a dinner of wings and cheese fries, watched a game that went into overtime, and didn’t leave till the final buzzer. Bartender knows me. He can vouch. Plus I put the tab on a credit card, so the receipt will be time-stamped. Satisfied?”
“Did the sheriff check it out?”
“In the process when I left.”
“What about the earring? How did you explain having it?”
“I spotted it on the floor under your hospital bed last night while I was waiting for you to come out of the bathroom.” He paused, then added, “Smelling like bath powder.”
“That isn’t true.”
“It absolutely is. Baby powder, I’m guessing.”
“Not about that,” she snapped. “About the earring.”
“Oh. Yeah, that was a lie. That’s how I explained having it. But the truth is that I found it out behind The Major’s house.”
Rendered speechless by that, she sat down on the edge of the bed and stared up at him.
He said, “When I left the hospital after seeing you Monday morning, I went out there to look around.”
“Weren’t crime scene investigators all over it?”
“Pretty much. But the sun hadn’t come up, and, besides, the sky was overcast. It started to rain, which soon turned to freezing rain. Everybody was wearing winter gear up to their eyebrows. I blended in with the diehards poking around outside. I found the earring in a patch of dead grass twenty yards or so away from the house.”
“How would it have gotten there?”
“You told Glenn you’re positive it was in an inside pocket of your bag.”
“That’s right.”
“Zipped in?”
“No. I put the earrings in a slot in the lining that doesn’t have a zipper.”
“And your bag doesn’t close at the top. I remember that from when you came to my office. The earring could have shaken out when whoever took the bag was running away from the house.” He tipped his head. “Conceivable?”
“Conceivable. But why didn’t you turn it over to the authorities?”
“Until I watched the interview and saw that you were wearing it then, I didn’t even know it belonged to you.”
“That’s flimsy, Trapper. You were at a crime scene and found something. You knew it wasn’t The Major’s earring. It should have been left where it was and brought to the attention of the investigators. You should’ve let them retrieve it.”
“That would have been proper procedure.”
“And we know what you think of that. You would also have had to account for yourself being there in the first place.”
The more he explained, the more he baffled her. She didn’t know what to believe and what not to. With seamless ease, he melded fact with fabrication and sarcasm with sincerity.
She had been with him enough times now to recognize the barriers he raised to hide a long-simmering anger and wounded pride. He also used his glibness and charm without shame. He could disarm with intimidation as well as with a wolfish grin, and she’d been susceptible to both.
“Did you discover any other evidence while poking around with the diehards?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“You shouldn’t. But it’s the truth. If I had found something I deemed important to the investigation, I would have handed it over to the authorities immediately. I swear.”
She had to take him at his word. At least for the time being. “How do you think the culprits got away? Where did they go?”
“They believed The Major was dead. You had escaped, and they ran out of time to look for you, probably because they saw the TV van returning. They went out the back and skedaddled. They had left a vehicle a safe distance away, with or without an accomplice waiting behind the wheel.
“While your crew was freaking out, calling 911, and so forth, the bad guys were driving away undetected. There are lots of back roads and old cattle trails out there. You can get lost if you know where you’re going.”
He smiled at his own irony, then continued. “It was lucky for them that the rain didn’t come till after they were long gone, or there would’ve been footprints, tire tracks. Now an inch of sleet is covering any they might have left. If they’re eventually found, they’ll be so compromised, any punch they might have given a prosecutor’s case will be diluted.
“Lucky for you the production people returned when they did. If the perps had had time, they would’ve searched till they found you. You would have made an easy target from the drop-off above the creek bed.”
“I thought of that while I was lying there.”
“Did you see them, Kerra?”
She had been absorbed in recollections of the harrowing experience, but his abrupt question brought her head up. “No.”
“You were holding something back last night? What?”
“The fact that someone tried to open that door before the gunshot.”
“So you do think there were three would-be assassins? Two came to the front door where The Major was shot. Another came in through the back and saw you go into the powder room? He knew you were in there, but his buddies didn’t until after The Major was down? Is that what you think?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what to think any more.”
They lapsed into silence, but as he looked her over, his grim expression relaxed. “Well, honestly, what I think is that before going on TV you may want to change that outfit.”
Gracie had purchased the fleece tracksuit and sneakers for her to wear as she left the hospital. She looked down at herself. “Good advice. It’s ugly.”
He didn’t echo her self-deprecating laugh. All seriousness, he said, “Better yet, Kerra, change your mind. Don’t do the interview.”
“No one in law enforcement is keen on the idea, so the inte
rview could be scrubbed. If it is, all your ranting over it will have been for nothing. You didn’t give me an opportunity to tell you that before blazing in here and drinking my beer.”
“I was pissed.”
“I gathered that.”
“I’m also a real jerk for not even asking how you’re feeling.”
“I told you. Weary, achy, dizzy. But I was exaggerating a little bit,” she admitted with a sheepish smile. She stood up and walked toward him. “I am sorry that you were taken in for questioning. But I don’t regret telling them about the earring. I had to, and I know you understand that, Trapper.”
“I do. Of course I do. I admire you for it. It’s just that I have issues with authority.”
“I’ve gathered that, too.”
They exchanged smiles. He moved to the door, but stopped and turned back before opening it. “Say, I’ve been catching up on my Kerra Bailey–watching and—”
“You have?”
“On my laptop. Helps kill time in the waiting room.”
“I hope I’m at least as engrossing as white-tail deer.”
“I don’t know,” he said, giving her a lazy grin. “Tell me about your mating rituals.” At her look, he shrugged. “Worth a try. Anyway, I saw an interview you did with Thomas Wilcox.”
“It was one of the first feature stories I did here in Texas.”
“Why’d you choose him to focus on?”
“He’s mega successful.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“Why do you ask? Do you know him?”
“By reputation only. Everything I’ve read about him says he’s secretive. Keeps his business private. Shuns media attention.”
“All true. I had to finagle him.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “That sounds like really dirty foreplay.”
She laughed, but stopped laughing when he slid his hand under her hair at the nape of her neck and turned them until her back was to the door. Leaning in, his lips skimmed her beauty mark on their way to her ear, where he whispered, “I’d like for you to finagle me.”
She didn’t speak a word, didn’t move, didn’t do anything except give herself over to his body heat and largeness and maleness and sexiness, the blend of which seeped into her like a potent restorative. He had made her fearful, had bullied her, lied to her, tricked her. But now, all she wanted was to be against his skin. She arched her throat, giving access to his nibbling lips.