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“You’re ruthless, Trapper.”
“You’re right,” he said and sent his text.
Around three a.m. the precipitation began to taper off. By dawn, it had stopped altogether. The sun came up behind an overcast eastern horizon, but the skies began to clear from the west, making the day brighter, the icy surfaces reflective.
Hank squinted against the harsh light as he braked his car at a distance from the shack.
Nobody knew who’d built it, somebody in the last century, possibly in the one before that. It had been used for shelter by cowboys checking herds and rounding up strays, or riding the miles of barbed wire fences checking for breaches, manmade or otherwise.
Most cattlemen now kept tabs on their herds and graze land from the cockpit of a helicopter, so nobody used the shack except for the occasional drifter who veered off the beaten path, or hunters caught in storms, or randy teenagers who upheld the tradition that Trapper had initiated.
After a quail hunt, during which The Major and Glenn had acquainted their two sons with the existence of the rough-hewn cabin, Trapper had claimed it as his personal pleasure palace, an ideal place to sneak away with a girl whenever he visited Lodal. One time Trapper had invited him to go on a double date. That was the last misadventure he’d had in Trapper’s corruptive company.
It was impossible not to like Trapper. He had charisma. Charm was effortless, as much a part of him as his fingerprint. He walked into a room, and the atmosphere became charged with vitality. He was the devil whispering in one’s ear of the delights to be found in sin if only one dared.
Throughout their boyhood, Trapper had mocked Hank’s conscience. He’d resented being the object of Trapper’s ridicule, but he’d also harbored a deep-seated jealousy of Trapper’s flagrant disregard for rules and often wished he could be that cavalier.
But bad behavior that could be forgiven in an adolescent was unacceptable in a grown-up. Trapper’s unconcealed scorn for high ideals and morality had left him a lonely, bitter man. He was liked, but not admired.
What mystified Hank was that Trapper seemed unaffected by the opinion of others. Indeed, he seemed indifferent to anything that truly mattered, including his own self-destruction.
Hank eased his foot off the brake and drove at a snail’s pace toward the squat, weathered structure. It was somewhat protected from the elements by the rocky hill that rose behind it. The rusty tin roof had barely a dusting of last night’s snow, while the black SUV parked outside had an inch of accumulation on its level surfaces. The tall off-road tires were caked with frozen mud.
How like Trapper to defy a blizzard.
Hank pulled up beside the SUV. He got out of his car and retrieved two bags of goods from his backseat. When he reached the door of the shack, he tapped it with the toe of his shoe. “Hey, Trapper, it’s me.” He hunched his shoulders in order to raise the collar of his coat up around his ears to protect them from the wind. “Hurry up. It’s freezing out here.”
When nothing happened, he set down the bags and tried the door. It swung open, was caught by the wind, and blew wide, banging against the interior wall.
The shack was empty. From the looks of it, it had been vacant for a long time. Cobwebs clinging to the doorjamb fluttered against Hank’s face.
His breath escaped through his teeth in an angry whistle that matched the wind curling down the rocky face of the hill. He took his phone from the breast pocket of his coat and used speed dial. His call was answered on the first ring. “They’re not here.”
“What! Are you sure he meant this shack?”
“Yes, Dad. The SUV is here, but Trapper and Kerra Bailey aren’t. You can come on up.”
In a matter of seconds the sheriff’s unit, which had kept just out of sight, appeared on the horizon. Glenn sped toward the shack and, when he reached it, got out of his car, stormed past Hank and through the open door.
Immediately, he came back out, hands on hips, breathing fire. “How could they’ve left while that SUV is still here?”
“Well,” Hank said, “I don’t believe Trapper was raptured.”
“Son of a bitch.” Glenn’s angry gaze swept the open landscape. “Where the hell is he?”
Chapter 17
The seedy motel was on the frontage road of eastbound I-20.
Trapper was lying on his side in bed next to Kerra, watching her sleep. He was outside the covers, she was underneath, a stipulation she had insisted on after Carson had brought them here in the wee hours and checked them in. He’d used fake names and paid in cash. The desk clerk was one of his clients, currently on parole. He asked no questions.
Kerra had demanded separate rooms. Trapper had told her to forget it. She capitulated, Trapper figuring because she’d been too exhausted to argue further. But when they entered the room and saw its one bed, she’d made him swear that he would behave himself. He solemnly swore that he would.
Minutes after Carson left, she had removed only her shoes before climbing in and pulling the covers up to her chin. She fell fast asleep. Trapper had checked the bathroom window and determined that it was too small for an adult to get through. He tested the door lock, slid the chain into place, and wished for sturdier of both. He switched off the light. Then for half an hour, through the pair of ratty curtains, he watched the parking lot to make certain that, by some miracle, no one had followed them.
Finally satisfied that he’d thrown Glenn off track—because surely Hank would have informed him that, come morning, he was meeting Trapper at the line shack—he’d removed his pistol from the holster at the small of his back and set both on the nightstand, pulled off his boots, and lay down as close to Kerra as he could get. He fell asleep immediately.
Now, six hours later, she must have sensed that he was awake, because she stirred, then opened her eyes and looked at him drowsily. His cock went from semi-hard to battering ram, decimating his vow to behave himself. He leaned over her.
