Seeing Red(64)

He recited the address that Gracie knew to be Kerra’s condo. She gave Glenn Addison a smug smile as she went out.



When Kerra exited her building, Trapper flashed the car’s headlights so she could see where he was parallel parked a block away. She jogged down the sidewalk and got into the passenger seat. He asked if anybody had seen her leaving her building.

“The concierge—not your concierge, a male one—was on the phone. We didn’t acknowledge each other. If he saw me, it wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. I frequently walk to work and back.”

“Go okay?” he asked.

“I told the truth.”

“That rarely gets me anywhere.” He wheeled out onto the street. “Could you tell if anyone was listening in?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t mean they weren’t. You forwarded your calls to this blocked number?”

“As instructed, and left my phone on the kitchen island.”

“Okay. Tell me everything she said.”

She recounted her conversation with Gracie, and when she finished he looked over at her. “You didn’t tell the truth about knowing where I was.”

“Technically, I did. We did part company when you dropped me off at the entrance, and I didn’t know where you were while I was inside.”

He grinned. “You’re getting better at this. With more practice—”

“I don’t want to get better at it. I didn’t lie in a literal sense, but it was definitely duplicitous.”

Several good comebacks sprang to mind, all relating to Kerra’s moral compass and his lack thereof, but he kept those remarks to himself. He’d been walking on eggshells since she had declined to split after he had all but shoved her out the door.

“Regardless of The Major’s warning and my own misgivings,” she’d said, “I’m going to see this through.”

To which he’d said, “Suit yourself.”

At the time, he’d been mired in the self-loathing always induced by memories of Marianne and the loss of the baby. Nevertheless, he’d been relieved and glad of Kerra’s decision to stay with him. He wasn’t ready to see the last of her. Not by a long shot.

But for once, he’d been prudent enough to keep his mouth shut and not jinx it. He’d curbed his natural impulse to either lash out or make a sarcastic wisecrack. He hadn’t pressed her to explain why she’d decided in his favor. When she’d headed for the bathroom to shower, he withheld an innuendo, and when she complained that Carson had bought her jeans a size too small, he’d refrained from telling her how smokin’ her rear end looked in them.

It had been midafternoon before they left the motel. As they departed it, Kerra told him that she must notify Gracie. “If I don’t, I may not have a job to go back to.”

He’d understood the necessity but prevailed on her to wait until they reached Dallas.

“I thought we’d be going to Fort Worth.”

“Not yet,” he’d told her. “Call Gracie on your phone from your apartment. That way, if Glenn is tracking us via your phone, it’ll place you there.”

Now, as Trapper navigated the streets of downtown Dallas toward the westbound freeway, Kerra asked what he thought about the FBI’s involvement.

“Unsurprising,” he said. “It was a matter of time, and I couldn’t be happier. While they’re poking into the case in Lo-dal, they might uncover something that would support what I have.”

“What do you have?”

“No proof. Just a preponderance of evidence filed away.”

“Where is it? Your office? We’re going there now?”

“We are, although it requires backtracking.”

The thirty miles between the cities took them an hour to drive because of a multi-car accident. But the delay worked well into Trapper’s plan. He wanted it to be full-on dark when they arrived at his office. He killed even more time by picking up drive-through burgers and eating them in the car.

By the time he drove onto the street where his office was located, nightfall was complete, and in this seedier section on the fringe of downtown, darkness was either sought or avoided, depending on one’s purpose.

One exterior light illuminated the building’s address formed by block tiles above the entrance, but the office windows on every floor were unlit. Trapper took the precaution of driving around the block, then pulled into a parking space on the opposite side of the street.

“Let’s sit tight for a while,” he said as he cut the car’s engine.

“Why?”

“To see what happens. If nothing does, then the coast is clear.”

An occasional car drove past, but none slowed down as though surveilling the area. He watched surrounding buildings for movement behind windows, watched alleyways for signs that someone was lurking in them, but in half an hour, he didn’t see anything to arouse suspicion.

“Okay.”

They got out of the car. He hustled Kerra across the street, bypassed the lighted entrance, and went to one on the side of the building. He punched in the code on the keypad to unlock the heavy metal door. They slipped through. He made certain that it locked behind them.

He chose the fire stairs over the elevator. The stairwell was illuminated only by red exit signs, but they had no difficulty climbing to the third floor. The moment they stepped out into the hallway, he saw the broken glass that had been the upper half of his office door.