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“They call his. They flex muscle.” Kerra could tell the moment it clicked with Trapper. He said, “They kill his pride and joy.”
Wilcox acknowledged it with a nod, then turned to her. “Kerra, about the tragedy that befell your parents, I was glib before. I apologize. I know the excruciating pain of loss.”
She didn’t address that but asked a question. “Does your wife believe that Tiffany was experimenting with drugs?”
“Greta accepted the medical examiner’s ruling that she died of respiratory arrest due to an accidental overdose. But, to this point, it’s been too painful a subject for us to discuss, even privately. She’s been shattered.”
Trapper said, “Like the people who lost loved ones to the Pegasus bombs.” He was eyeing Wilcox with unmitigated contempt. “Kerra may forgive you for the agony you brought about that day. That’s her prerogative. But don’t expect me to.”
“I don’t.”
“You tell a sad story, Wilcox. And I’m not being glib. I mean it. I hope the bastards who did that to your girl are captured, castrated, and then drawn and quartered. It would still be too easy on them. But am I supposed to be so moved by your personal tragedy that I’ll go to the FBI, or whoever, and advocate that they let you off the hook?”
“No, I don’t expect you to do anything for my sake.”
“Then what’s to motivate me?”
“These are the same men who tried their best to kill your father, tried to kill Kerra.”
Trapper and Kerra exchanged another glance, then both of them went back to Wilcox and simultaneously asked, “Who are they?”
But it was Trapper who, when Wilcox di
dn’t answer, lunged out of his seat, braced his hands on the desk, and shouted into the other man’s face. “Who? Tell me, damn you.”
“No.” Wilcox rolled the desk chair backward and stood up. “You can’t beat it out of me, either. Nor would you try. Because you still need me.”
“Let me get this straight,” Trapper said. “Bottom line. Your bargaining chip for immunity in the case of the Pegasus is to finger the men who tried to kill the hero of it?”
“There’s symmetry in that, don’t you think?”
“What I think is that you’re a piece of shit.”
Before Trapper took a swing at Wilcox, which he seemed on the verge of doing, Kerra nudged him aside and faced Wilcox across the desk. “Why was the attempt made on our lives so soon after the interview?”
“I think you’ve figured that out,” he said, dividing a look between them.
“They’re afraid of my memory?” she asked.
“Should they be?”
Trapper said, “Don’t answer that.”
“He’s right, Kerra,” Wilcox said. “Until these men are arrested, whatever you remember of that day, you should keep to yourself.” He looked between them again, but landed on Trapper. “I want to see the people who killed my daughter brought to justice.”
“Then why didn’t you sic the police on them when it happened? Why sweep it under the rug? Oh, wait. I know. You couldn’t expose them without your own crimes coming to light.”
“Not entirely.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“If I’d implicated them, the backlash would have been unmerciful.”
“You would have been knocked off next? Or your wife?”
“Oh, no. They would’ve punished me on a much grander scale. A school bus full of children would’ve been disintegrated. A nursing home’s heating system would’ve malfunctioned, and everyone in it would’ve been asphyxiated. Those were only two of the possibilities suggested to me.”
“Jesus.”
