Trapper pulled her coat off a hanger in the closet, tossed it to her, then picked up his own. “Good question.”
Chapter 29
Hank answered the mudroom door to Trapper’s knock.
Peering at them through the screened door, he said, “We aren’t exactly up to having company tonight.”
“We’re not company.” To include Kerra in that, Trapper placed his arm across her shoulders.
He hadn’t even considered leaving her behind. Not after discovering the tracking device on her car, and not after having Jenks show up coincidentally at The Major’s house, and not after learning that there was something hinky about the timing of when Glenn became aware of her connection to the Pegasus Hotel bombing.
He wanted Glenn’s explanation for all these peculiarities, and he didn’t care if he had been rushed to the ER today, he wanted to hear what the sheriff had to say now, even if he had to drag him from his bed.
Hank still didn’t invite them in. “How’s your cheek?”
“It’s not terminal.”
“You probably should have had it stitched.”
“Is Glenn still up?”
Hank sighed. “Trapper, the last thing Dad needs—”
“I need to talk to him.”
“What for?”
“That’s for him to know.”
“Can’t it wait till morning?”
“If it could wait till morning, I wouldn’t be here now.”
Hank looked from him to Kerra as though seeking her support, which she didn’t lend. Going back to Trapper, he said, “Don’t you have a filter, any sense of propriety?”
“You have to ask?”
“He’s not going to go away.” The gruff voice reached them from beyond Hank in the direction of the kitchen. “You had just as well let him in.”
With unconcealed reluctance and dissension, Hank flipped the latch on the door, pushed it open, and stepped aside. Kerra went in first. Trapper followed, and, when he walked past Hank, said under his breath, “You ever hit me again, you’ll be preaching through extensive dental work.”
When Trapper entered the kitchen, Glenn was holding one of the dining chairs for Kerra. The kitchen smelled like the baking dish of lasagna that had been left on the stovetop. And of the whiskey in the glass on the table in front of the chair Glenn dropped back into.
Trapper was shocked by his appearance. He was disheveled and seemed to have aged twenty years since this morning during the questioning of Leslie Duncan. Trapper wondered if Glenn hadn’t suffered something more serious than an anxiety attack. It must have been one hell of one. It was also obvious that the drink in front of him wasn’t his first. Or even his second.
“Kerra, something t
o drink?” Glenn asked. “Soft or hard? Coffee?”
“Nothing, thank you.”
“Trapper?”
“Believe I will.” He excused himself to step around Hank, got a glass from the cabinet, and returned with it to the table. He sat down across from Glenn and adjacent to Kerra. Hank took the fourth chair.
Trapper asked where Linda was. Hank said, “She was exhausted. I made her go to bed with the promise that I would stay here overnight in case Dad needed anything or took a turn.”
“I’m not going to take a turn,” Glenn muttered.