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“I’m sorry, John. I took what I believed to be my only choice.”
“Marianne knew nothing about it, did she?”
“No.”
“That’s a mercy,” Kerra said softly.
“Here I’ve been thinking I was protecting you from Wilcox,” Trapper said to The Major. “You were protecting me. The son of a bitch pitted us against each other.”
Although his strength was waning, The Major squeezed Trapper’s hand tighter. “It pained me when you said that this—I, Wilcox, the Pegasus—was your life.”
“Aw, I was just spouting off.”
“No. You weren’t. In countless ways, what happened that day took over all our lives. Debra’s. Mine. Yours.”
Trapper, made uncomfortable by his father’s remorse, turned and looked out the open front door. The ambulance was speeding through the gate, but Trapper willed it to go even faster. The Major was laboring for each breath, his complexion had gone gray, his lips bluish.
“I missed the spotlight,” he was saying to Kerra, even as he gasped for air.
“You were good in it.” She sniffed back tears and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“That’s why I wanted…the interview.” He seemed impatient with his increasing shortness of breath. It was obvious he wanted to say more. “My ego put your life at risk, and I’m more sorry for that than I can say.”
“No apology necessary.”
His eyes misted. “Vanity is my downfall. John knows. Fame is seductive and addictive,” he said, struggling. “I went all in. Too often at John’s expense.”
“Look, I’m okay. All right?” Trapper said. Blood was frothing in the corner of The Major’s lips. Trapper blotted it with his own shirtsleeve. “The ambulance is here. Stop talking. Save your breath.”
The Major feebly raised a hand to touch Trapper’s face. “You never gave up.”
“That’s my downfall. I’m pigheaded.”
“In a good way, John. A good way.”
Trapper’s throat had become too tight to speak. The paramedics had come inside and were trying to push him out of their way, but The Major maintained a surprisingly strong grip on his hand. “John, please don’t share Debra’s diary. Not for my sake, but hers. Bury it with me.”
Trapper wiped his nose on his cuff and smiled. “You don’t have to worry about that, Dad. Mom didn’t keep a diary.”
Major Franklin Trapper was pronounced dead on arrival at the county hospital. For the second time in a week, the facility became the eye of a media storm.
Kerra was called upon to do three live stand-ups, the last of which was for the network evening news.
In his solemn baritone, the anchorman said, “A nation has lost an American icon. But you knew The Major personally. What are your thoughts right now, Kerra?”
“Although our time together was brief, I will feel the loss forever. If not for Major Trapper, my life would have ended twenty-five years ago.” Tears threatened, but she swallowed hard and managed to hold it together.
“You were with him just before he died.”
“I followed the ambulance from his house. He died en route to the hospital.”
“We understand that The Major’s passing is linked to the tragic murder-suicide that occurred earlier today in the home of prominent Dallas businessman Thomas Wilcox and the arrest of an area clergyman. Can you elaborate on that?”
“Only to say that the FBI has begun conducting a thorough investigation into Mr. Wilcox and Reverend Addison.”
“Sources tell us that federal investigators are following a trail that goes all the way back to the bombing of the Pegasus Hotel. From your unique perspective of that historic event—”
“I can’t comment on the government’s investigation. Regarding the Pegasus bombing, my unique perspective is that of a five-year-old child, whose dying mother passed her off to Major Trapper. He saved my life. That’s really all I can or am willing to say at this time.”
