AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Then how did he know that rifle wasn’t loaded?”
The agent shrugged. “Far as he knew, it was.”
Epilogue
Kerra let herself into her apartment, dropped her keys on the console table in the entry, and set her shoulder bag on the floor. Moving into the living room, she took off her jacket, pulled her blouse from the waistband of her skirt, and had the top two buttons undone before she saw Trapper.
He was standing in front of the glass wall, backlit by the glittering skyline, but she would know that silhouette anywhere.
“Don’t stop there,” he said. “Keep going. But leave the heels on.”
After weeks without contact of any kind, her heart surged at the sight of him. But somehow she managed to keep her tone cool and uninterested. She stepped out of her heels. “How did you get in?”
“Picked the lock.”
“How did you get into the building?”
“Told the doorman I was a building inspector for the ATF checking for fire code violations.”
“He believed that?”
“When I showed him my ID.”
“You’re back with the bureau?”
“We’ll see how it goes.”
She wasn’t fooled by his feigned nonchalance but knew it would be a mistake to comment on it. “Carson will miss you being upstairs.”
“Come Saturday, he will have been married a month. He’s going for a personal record. I told him he’d never make it if he continues to buy other women bad-girl bras. You still have it?”
“Yes.”
“You wearing it?”
“It’s hardly workday attire. I’ve spent all day with an editor—”
“Bet he liked it.”
“She and I have been editing the hour-long special I’m doing on Major Franklin Trapper.”
He dropped the teasing. “For the network?”
“It airs two weeks from Sunday and focuses on all the good he did, how he used his fame to benefit charities and educational programs. I appreciated getting your okay with a capital O.”
In the chaotic aftermath of The Major’s death, following her conversation with Jenks, she’d gone in search of Trapper. A note, and only a note, addressed to her had been lying in the hospital bed to which he’d been assigned. Okay printed in block letters, his signature scrawled across the bottom.
“I saw some of your reporting,” he said. “It was all good.”
“Thank you.”
“You gave a sanitized version of events.”
“I told the public all they needed to know.”
She had been obligated to contribute to the coverage of The Major’s death and what had led up to it, of Thomas Wilcox’s crimes dating back to even before the bombing of the Pegasus Hotel, and of the fall from grace of the vainglorious Reverend Addison.
Mention of Trapper had been kept to a minimum, and what she’d reported was a matter of record. Gracie had pressed her to “deliver the goods,” but she’d threatened to quit if Gracie kept at her, reminding the producer and everyone up the food chain that, with her present celebrity, any other outlet in the industry would be thrilled to have her. They’d backed off.
