Heart thudding, he opened the first. It required magnification before he could read the names. He scanned them. Some celebrity names jumped out at him. He recognized the names of politicians, living and dead. Names that had “Dr.” in front, names with “The Honorable” before them, names with distinguishing ranks.
The list having been alphabetized, Glenn Addiso
n’s was near the top.
He went to the next photo, then the next. He had expected to find a few names there that weren’t.
Heart near to bursting with dread, he ran down the list of names beginning with the letter T. Trapper wasn’t there.
A dry, harsh cry of gladness escaped him. His knees gave way with relief, and he sank to the floor. He sighed an inarticulate prayer.
He sat there clutching the phone, giving his heart time to stop racing and his breathing to return to normal before going through the remainder of the list. The alphabet gave out in the center of the fourth photo.
Trapper tapped on the fifth and final. In the dead center of the page, there was only one name. Not typed. A signature.
Major Franklin Trapper.
There could be no mistake. The signature was too distinctive to have been forged. It was his father’s.
Trapper fell back against the wall, his shoulder blades banging hard against it, but he didn’t feel it. He raised his knees, bent his head over them, and heaved a series of dry sobs so wrenching they made his breastbone ache.
This was what he had lived in fear of finding at the end of his quest for truth. He wasn’t shocked or disillusioned. He had suspected it. Expected it. What he hadn’t anticipated was that it would hurt this bad to know for certain.
It was clear now why Wilcox had put the list into Trapper’s hands. It hadn’t been because he feared prosecution or assassination by one of his own, or because Trapper had intimidated him into surrendering it. It wasn’t even to bring his daughter’s murderers to justice, although if he were alive, Wilcox surely would have assigned Trapper to eliminate them.
The list was Trapper’s heart’s desire.
Wilcox had given Trapper what he most wanted, proof of his years of corruption and bloodletting, but Trapper couldn’t use it to incriminate Wilcox without incriminating his own father.
He must drop the investigation, stop asking questions and making a pest of himself, tell the federal agents, “Just kidding,” and bury any lingering suspicion of the Pegasus bombing. His conviction about a conspiracy would never be vindicated or validated. He would remain a burnout who couldn’t hack it, and people would continue to roll their eyes whenever his name cropped up.
He could delete photo number five, but The Major’s signature would still be on the original pledge. Even though the authorities didn’t know of its existence, Trapper did. He would live each day knowing that he was breaking the law by obstructing justice. Wilcox had known how onerous that would be to him. How had he kept from laughing out loud?
It didn’t even matter that Wilcox was dead. In order for The Major to remain a hero in the eyes of the world, Trapper would have to abandon his crusade.
Forever and ever. Amen.
He sat there on the floor, gripping the phone so tightly his fingers turned white, staring at his father’s signature through a glossing of tears.
Then he wiped them from his eyes and stood up.
“Fuck you, Wilcox.”
Chapter 35
The law secretary was only slightly less startled than before when Trapper strode in again and went straight into Carson’s office. The client was still there, slumped and sullen, looking pessimistic about his future.
Trapper said, “I need to borrow—”
Carson pitched him a set of car keys. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Carson came to his feet. “You sure? ’Cause you look—”
“Which car do these keys go to?”
“Yours. Remember it? It’s parked out back looking as good as new.”