Smoke Screen (19 page)

Raley, maybe.

Or maybe not. He didn’t like her. He’d said so.

She jumped when an owl—or some nocturnal bird with a wide wingspan—swooped across the road directly in front of her grille. Then, feeling foolish over her jumpiness, she laughed with self-deprecation. But who wouldn’t be a little nervous driving alone at night on a dark country road?

A few minutes later, she was actually happy to notice a pair of headlights up ahead. The vehicle was on a side road, waiting for her to pass so it could pull out. She was relieved that it turned onto the road behind her. She welcomed the company.

But then the headlights loomed up in her rearview mirror.

For one irrational moment, she thought,
Raley!
He was coming back to Charleston with her.

But immediately reason asserted itself. He wouldn’t be coming from that direction, the headlights were too low to belong to a pickup, and Raley certainly wouldn’t zoom up behind her, practically riding her rear bumper. He wouldn’t flash his headlights onto bright and leave them on, as this driver had. Raley wouldn’t drive that dangerously close to another car, not even to get her attention and announce his presence behind her.

“Jerk,” she muttered as she gave her car some gas. The other driver did the same and stayed directly on her bumper for the next half mile. If he was impatient with her for driving the speed limit, why didn’t he just go around? There wasn’t a double yellow stripe prohibiting passing, but even if there was, anyone who didn’t have qualms against tailgating wouldn’t have qualms about breaking the no-passing law. There was no oncoming traffic to prevent him from passing her.

Raising one hand against the glare reflected in her rearview and side mirrors, she could make out two silhouettes in the other car. They appeared to be male, but she couldn’t tell with any degree of certainty, and now she was going too fast not to keep both hands on the wheel.

They were probably kids, making mischief, too foolish to realize they were playing a life-threatening game. She should do a story on it, posing the question: Should the legal driving age be raised to eighteen?

After another mile, she was frazzled. Her hands seemed grafted to the steering wheel from gripping it so tightly. Her shoulders ached with tension.

“You win.” She eased her car closer to the shoulder, which was nearly nonexistent. But the driver didn’t use the extra space to go around. Instead he pulled up so that his right front bumper was slightly overlapping her left rear one. She moved over more, until her right tires slid into soft mud. The other driver compensated, keeping their bumpers only inches apart. “What is wrong with you, you moron?”

But her irritation was steadily turning into panic. This was more sinister than teenagers playing a prank. Should she speed up, slow down, stop? All of the options posed risks, especially the last one. She was barely dressed. Her cell phone was dead. She had no weapon. She hadn’t seen another car for half an hour. Occasionally she had noticed lights from homes tucked into the woods, but not for the last few miles.

No, stopping wasn’t an option. Slowing down hadn’t discouraged him; he’d simply pulled his vehicle closer to hers. That left her only one thing to do, keep her speed up and hope that they wouldn’t crash before they reached the heavily traveled Highway 17, or that these two would tire of their game and leave her to go her way.

But instinctually she knew that wasn’t going to happen. This was menacing, not playful. The two in the other car meant to hurt her.

The driver seemed to have an uncanny knack for keeping his headlights shining directly into her mirrors. They were blinding her. Going on the offensive, she pressed her accelerator to the floorboard and at the same time jerked her wheel sharply to the left. She missed clipping his right front bumper by a hair. Now back on the hardtop surface, her car surged ahead.

But the advantage was short-lived. The other vehicle roared up behind hers, then whipped around the rear of it and overlapped bumpers again. “Dammit!” she shouted in fear. “Why are you doing this? What do you want?”

Again, she was blinded by his headlights, but up ahead she could make out the signpost for the river. Just beyond the sign, the shoulder tapered to nothing and the road narrowed to form a bridge.

Britt’s anxiety increased. She thought of the blackwater river she and Raley had crossed several times on their way from his cabin to the airstrip. Even with her limited knowledge, she knew that several great rivers converged and emptied into St. Helena Sound and from there into the Atlantic, their direction of flow shifting four times a day, depending on the ocean tide.

A lot of water. People died in it. Recently she’d reported on the recovery of a man’s body. He was an experienced swimmer, but he’d drowned when his fishing boat capsized. Two kayakers had been lost for days before their bodies were recovered miles downstream from where they’d put in to take advantage of a river swollen by heavy spring rains.

She’d feel safer once she was across that bridge. But when she sped up with that purpose in mind, the driver matched her speed and inched closer to her car.

In desperation, she flattened the gas pedal onto the floorboard again. Even then her speed wasn’t enough to pull ahead of the other vehicle. Just as she reached the signpost, the other driver outmaneuvered her. He edged his car to the right, forcing her off the road and onto the soft shoulder that soon gave way to nothingness.

She was probably going close to a hundred miles an hour when her car hit the water. It slammed into the surface of the river with such impact that her air bag deployed. That saved her life but wasn’t really a blessing. Because she was still conscious when her car was swallowed by the greedy, swirling water.

R
ALEY WAS SPEEDING TOWARD
C
HARLESTON, HIS TRUCK
eating up the miles, when he spotted dual sets of taillights ahead of him. They flickered through the trees, often disappearing for minutes at a time before he caught sight of them again.

But even being as far behind them as he was, he could tell the second driver was tailgating the first. “Idiot.” It was just plain stupid to drive that aggressively, especially on a highway like this. If the driver was that impatient to get where he was going, why didn’t he just go around the other car?

In the back of his mind, he was hoping the first driver wouldn’t be a prick, a road hog who refused to let anyone pass him. He was in a hurry to reach Charleston and warn Britt to tread carefully. He wasn’t sure how he was going to make contact with her. She would be surrounded by police and—

“What the hell?”

The first car had moved onto the shoulder, but the second car didn’t pass. In fact, it looked like the tailgating guy was trying to nudge the other driver off the road.

He was gripped by a terrible intuition.
Britt.
And as suddenly as he thought it, the cars disappeared.

Had he had time to catch up with her? Not unless she was a slow driver. Not unless she’d got lost.

“Shit!”

It seemed to take forever for him to come out of the curve that had temporarily blocked the other two cars from sight, but once he did, he squinted for sharper focus. Unfortunately, he was too far away to make out the shapes of the taillights and determine the models of the cars involved in the dangerous cat-and-mouse chase. He pushed the pickup as fast as it would go, but the other cars were lighter, faster, and he couldn’t close the distance.

Again they disappeared.

He counted the seconds. Twenty maybe? Thirty?

And then he had another flickering view of one set of winking taillights disappearing from sight altogether, and those of the tailgater speeding across the bridge.

Raley uttered a sharp cry as he crammed his gas pedal against the floorboard. It seemed to take a thousand years to cover the distance to the bridge. He pounded the steering wheel as though whipping the truck to go faster.

It skidded to a jarring stop just inches away from the brink of the eroding earth embankment that supported the bridge. He was out of the truck before inertia settled it. He opened the toolbox and took out the heavy-duty flashlight he’d used earlier, then grabbed the first weighty metal object he touched. A wrench. It would have to do.

He scrambled down the embankment, half sliding, half hopping as he pulled off his sneakers. By the time he reached the water, he was barefoot and huffing deep breaths to fill his lungs, then without a second thought, he dived in.

His flashlight had a powerful beam, but he might as well have been shining it through blackstrap molasses. He knew the river, knew how impenetrably dark the water could be even where it was most shallow, and this wasn’t one of those places. Here, the channel was deep.

Frantically he swept the light from side to side and was becoming panicked when he spotted the car, settling heavily on the riverbed, surrounded by a nimbus of swirling silt. He shone the light in the direction of the driver’s window. The beam picked up a pale palm, flattened against the glass, a strand of blond hair floating eerily in the feeble shaft of light.

Britt.

The flashlight blinked once and went out. The darkness was absolute.

He dropped the light, but gave a hard kick and within seconds reached the passenger side of the car. Feeling his way, he found the windshield and hammered the wrench against it as hard as he could. It didn’t give. He pounded it several more times. Nothing.

His lungs were beginning to burn.

He continued banging the wrench against the windshield until finally he felt the safety glass break but not shatter. He kicked at it again and again until his foot pushed through. He widened the hole by continuing to kick, then wedged his shoulders through it. Broken glass scraped against his head and arms, but he ignored the pain.

Blindly he groped for Britt and found her right arm. When he touched it, she didn’t react, and his mind screamed,
God, no!

He groped for her seat belt. It was unfastened. She’d managed to do that. He hooked his hands under her arms and guided her through the hole in the windshield, carefully but quickly. Neither had much time left. He was out of air, and she was completely still.

Once he had her clear of the windshield, he executed a hard scissor kick and used his free arm to claw toward the surface. His lungs were screaming for oxygen. He kicked as hard as he could, but his limbs were becoming heavier by the second, rubbery and uncoordinated. It had been five years since he’d done any rescue training; he was out of condition.

He looked toward the surface, but it was only a lighter shade of black. Still, he struggled toward it. Up. Up. And finally, his head broke the surface and he gulped a mouthful of air.

But Britt wasn’t breathing.

He made sure her face was clear of the water, then began to swim to the bank. His body was still hungry for oxygen, and he was exhausted, but he swam as fast as he could against the current. When his feet touched bottom, he waded the rest of the way, then crawled up onto the bank, dragging Britt along with him.

He flipped her onto her back and straddled her. She had a weak pulse but wasn’t breathing. Placing his hands in the center of her chest, he began CPR.

“Come on, Britt,” he said as he rhythmically pumped her chest. “Do not die on me. You’re not finished yet. Come on, come on.”

River water trickled over his face and into his eyes, but he didn’t stop the compressions or the litany of encouragement that eventually took on the inflection of a dare. “You called me a coward, but you’re the one giving up here. Are you going to let some other TV dolly grab your story? You’d never forgive yourself if you let that happen. Now breathe, goddammit!”

River water spewed from her mouth onto him. He dropped his head against his chest, weak with relief. “I thought that might bring you around.” He turned her head to one side. She coughed and gasped, coughed some more. “Get it out, that’s the way, that’s good,” he murmured, holding her wet hair away from her face as she vomited up the water she’d swallowed.

When she was breathing more easily, she turned her head and looked up at him. Her eyes were streaming tears. Her voice was hoarse, and she strangled when she tried to speak. She spat out more water, then finally managed to say, “They tried to kill me.”

He nodded. A thousand questions were demanding answers, but they would have to wait. He needed to assess her physical condition. But he also thought they needed to get the hell away from here. He couldn’t be sure that his headlights had gone unnoticed by whoever was intent on pushing her off the road. The asshole might return to make sure she hadn’t been rescued or by some miracle survived. If the would-be killer came back, they were sitting ducks.

“We need to get to the truck. I’ll have to carry you.”

“I can walk.”

He didn’t think so, but he didn’t argue. He stood up and extended his hand to her. She took it and pulled herself up. But as soon as she was on her feet, her knees buckled. He caught her, then giving her no choice or opportunity to argue, lifted her into a fireman’s carry across his shoulders and started up the embankment.

In the darkness he searched for toeholds he could use for leverage. His own knees almost gave way several times. He stumbled over rocks, dodged wild shrubs and spiky palmettos, and once barked his shin on the branch of a fallen tree. His bare feet got stuck in the mud several times.

When they finally reached the truck, he lowered Britt to the ground and propped her against the fender long enough for him to open the passenger door, then boosted her in.

Reaching across her, he picked up the windbreaker and put it on her, guiding her arms into the sleeves. He pinched her chin between his fingers and searched her face. Her lips were no longer blue. He picked up her hand and studied her fingertips. Color seemed to be returning to them, too, although the dome light wasn’t that bright, so it was difficult to tell.

“Rub your hands and feet. I’ll be right back.”

She gripped his hand in panic. “Where are you going?”

“To get my shoes.” He pulled his hand free and closed the door of the truck.

He tramped around on the riverbank until he found both sneakers, not wanting to leave them behind. So far, whoever had forced Britt into the river was unaware that she’d been rescued. He certainly couldn’t be identified as her rescuer. For the time being, he thought it best to keep their alliance unknown. There was nothing he could do about his footprints in the mud or his tire tracks. He hoped if anyone returned to check, he would be looking for traces of her submerged car. Satisfied that it had sunk from sight, he wouldn’t give the area a detailed search.

He explained this to Britt when he climbed into the cab and dropped his sneakers into the foot well beside her bare feet. Then he started the truck and pulled back onto the road. He headed in the direction from which he’d come, away from Charleston. His destination was anywhere but here. He wanted to leave the scene. “Who was it, Britt?”

“Two men.”

He reached for her left hand and laid it, palm up, between them on the seat. He pressed his fingers firmly against her pulse. “You couldn’t see their faces?”

She shook her head.

“What kind of car?”

She shrugged.

“License plate?”

She shook her head again.

He counted her pulse. It was a little higher than normal but seemed strong and steady. “Open the glove box. Get the first aid kit. There’s a thermometer in it. Take your temperature.”

“I’m okay.”

“Will you just get the fucking thermometer and take your temperature without an argument?” His tone was harsh, but not from irritation so much as fear. If he’d been a few minutes longer at the gas pump, if he hadn’t heeded his instinct to go after her, if he’d been unable to break the windshield, Britt would have drowned. The what-ifs made his hands tremble.

Subdued, she did as she was told. They rode in silence until she removed the thermometer from her mouth and read it. “Ninety-seven point five.”

“Close enough.”

“I’m rarely ninety-eight point six.”

“Okay. Good. Now here’s the thing. You probably should be checked out at the hospital. There’s one in Walterboro. Your body temp is okay, and your circulation has returned. Before my flashlight went out, I saw your hand pressed against the window. You were conscious then, so you couldn’t have been out long. Maybe two minutes total, which means there’s probably no brain damage.

“But your oxygen level should be checked anyway. You’ve got some bleeding cuts and scrapes from when I pulled you through the windshield, possibly a concussion. There may be sediment in your lungs, although you’d probably be coughing if there was any significant amount. CPR keeps your blood circulating until you can breathe on your own, but when there’s a near drowning victim, there are emergency treatment protocols that—”

“Raley?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you want to take me to the hospital?”

In spite of all the reasons he was listing that he should, she’d been able to tell he was discouraging it. “Because I’m afraid if I do, you won’t live long.” He saw no merit in sugarcoating it. She needed the truth and needed it told to her without any buffering bullshit. “Somebody killed Jay. Somebody tried to kill you. I think you’ll be safer if they think you’re dead.”

“Cobb Fordyce was behind this?”

“Or George McGowan. Or maybe both.”

“One for all,” she said softly, repeating what he’d said earlier.

“After we separated, I got to thinking about how vulnerable you are. I was coming to warn you to be careful, to remain in police custody if you could. After this, it’s no longer a matter of speculation. Whoever killed Jay believes you pose a threat.”

“Why didn’t they kill me when they killed Jay?”

“I’m sure they’re asking themselves the same question, regretting that they didn’t.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hug her elbows and rub her upper arms. Despite the outside temperature, he switched the truck’s AC over to heat and aimed the vents at her.

“Did you see the other car?” she asked.

“Couldn’t make it out. Too far away and too dark. What I can’t figure is how they knew where you were. Unless they put a transponder on your car. But if they’d done that, why weren’t they waiting for us at the airstrip? Or why didn’t they intercept us when I took you from your home last night?”

“My telephone,” she said dully. “I found it.”

“Oh.”

“It rang shortly after I left the airstrip. My lawyer was calling. We had a two-or three-minute conversation before the battery went dead. Could they track it by satellite?”

“I guess. If they had the equipment and were set up for it. Did you tell Alexander where you were?”

She nodded. “Which road I was going to take and how far out I was.”

“Anyone hearing that could have been waiting on a side road. When you passed, they pulled out behind you.”

“That’s exactly what they did. At first I was glad to see another car.”

“Did you mention me to Alexander?”

“No.”

“Did you say anything about what I’d told you?”

“Only that Jay’s murder and the police station fire were connected. That there was more to the story.”

Raley expelled his breath. “How well do you know this lawyer?”

“I met him yesterday morning.” She flung back her head and released a mirthless laugh. “Was that only yesterday?”

“Seems he double-crossed you, Britt.”

“I guess.”

“Or his phone was bugged.”

They came upon a tackle shop that, along with live bait, sold cold beer, hot coffee, fireworks, and the best burgers in Dixie. Or so boasted the handwritten sign in the window.

Raley parked in front and opened his door. “I’ll be right back.” When she didn’t argue or pepper him with questions, he knew she was still in shock. He preferred the questions.