Seeing Red(119)

He barged into Carson’s office, startling his former stripper-turned-receptionist. “He’s with a client,” she said.

But Trapper was already pushing through the door into Carson’s private office. “What couple of guys?”

Carson’s client had the reflexes of the guilty. He sprang from his chair, whipped a knife from his coat sleeve, and brandished it.

Carson stood up and patted the air. “Put the blade away. He’s harmless.”

“Long way from harmless,” Trapper told the sneering miscreant. “Get that knife out of my face or I’ll break your arm.” The client obviously believed him. He did as told. Trapper went back to Carson. “The repair to my office. You said a couple of guys. Who were they?”

“I don’t know. Guys. In coveralls. With tools and paint cans and shit.”

“Whose name was on the invoice for the job?”

“No invoice. Cash got me a ten percent discount.”

“Do you have a hammer?”

Carson looked at him like he’d asked for the tail of a mermaid.

“A hammer, a hammer.”

“What would I need with a hammer?”

Trapper left three stunned people behind as he left as rapidly as he’d appeared and ran back up the stairs to his office. He gave his desk chair a shove that sent it rolling out of his way, then kicked the wall just above the outlet plate, striking it with his boot heel until it caved in.

But the hole he’d made wasn’t large enough to get his hand through.

He opened his lap drawer, got the magnifying glass, and wielded it as he would have a hammer, beating the metal casing of it against the Sheetrock until chalky hunks of it were chipped away and he had an opening large enough to work his hand inside and up to his elbow.

The cell phone was duct-taped to one of the studs.

After pulling it out, he tapped it against his forehead in time to his whispered chant, sonofabitch, sonofabitch, sonofabitch. Wilcox’s contingency.

He allowed himself about ten seconds to be overjoyed.

And thirty seconds to be terrified of how he would be impacted by what he held in his hand.

He had to know.

He turned on the phone and was relieved that it didn’t require a code to open. He accessed photos. There were five in the folder.

Heart thudding, he opened the first. It required magnification before he could read the names. He scanned them. Some celebrity names jumped out at him. He recognized the names of politicians, living and dead. Names that had “Dr.” in front, names with “The Honorable” before them, names with distinguishing ranks.

The list having been alphabetized, Glenn Addison’s was near the top.

He went to the next photo, then the next. He had expected to find a few names there that weren’t.

Heart near to bursting with dread, he ran down the list of names beginning with the letter T. Trapper wasn’t there.

A dry, harsh cry of gladness escaped him. His knees gave way with relief, and he sank to the floor. He sighed an inarticulate prayer.

He sat there clutching the phone, giving his heart time to stop racing and his breathing to return to normal before going through the remainder of the list. The alphabet gave out in the center of the fourth photo.

Trapper tapped on the fifth and final. In the dead center of the page, there was only one name. Not typed. A signature.

Major Franklin Trapper.

There could be no mistake. The signature was too distinctive to have been forged. It was his father’s.

Trapper fell back against the wall, his shoulder blades banging hard against it, but he didn’t feel it. He raised his knees, bent his head over them, and heaved a series of dry sobs so wrenching they made his breastbone ache.

This was what he had lived in fear of finding at the end of his quest for truth. He wasn’t shocked or disillusioned. He had suspected it. Expected it. What he hadn’t anticipated was that it would hurt this bad to know for certain.

It was clear now why Wilcox had put the list into Trapper’s hands. It hadn’t been because he feared prosecution or assassination by one of his own, or because Trapper had intimidated him into surrendering it. It wasn’t even to bring his daughter’s murderers to justice, although if he were alive, Wilcox surely would have assigned Trapper to eliminate them.

The list was Trapper’s heart’s desire.

Wilcox had given Trapper what he most wanted, proof of his years of corruption and bloodletting, but Trapper couldn’t use it to incriminate Wilcox without incriminating his own father.

He must drop the investigation, stop asking questions and making a pest of himself, tell the federal agents, “Just kidding,” and bury any lingering suspicion of the Pegasus bombing. His conviction about a conspiracy would never be vindicated or validated. He would remain a burnout who couldn’t hack it, and people would continue to roll their eyes whenever his name cropped up.

He could delete photo number five, but The Major’s signature would still be on the original pledge. Even though the authorities didn’t know of its existence, Trapper did. He would live each day knowing that he was breaking the law by obstructing justice. Wilcox had known how onerous that would be to him. How had he kept from laughing out loud?

It didn’t even matter that Wilcox was dead. In order for The Major to remain a hero in the eyes of the world, Trapper would have to abandon his crusade.