Smoke Screen (20 page)

A bell above the screen door jangled when he went in. A man wearing a stained white wife-beater and khaki pants was leaning on the counter, eating a bag of onion-flavored potato chips and thumbing through a hunting and fishing magazine. Above and behind him on the wall was the mounted head of a snarling razorback.

As Raley approached the counter, the man wiped his salty fingers on his pants legs and looked Raley over, starting at his muddy bare feet and moving up his clinging, wet clothes to his dirty, bearded face and matted hair. “Out for a swim?”

“Hot tea, please. One.”

“Hot
tea
?” He chortled. “Want fries with that?”

Raley just stared at him.

The man’s silly grin slowly evaporated. “Coffee machine’s over there. Hot water spout’s on the side of it.”

Raley went to the self-serve area and scrounged around until he found a crushed box of Lipton tea bags. He filled a foam cup with hot water—which was barely tepid—dropped the tea bag in, and put a lid on it. He returned to the counter. “How much?”

“Is it for the lady?”

The man peered past Raley, who turned to see what he was looking at: Britt with her head leaned against the passenger window, wet hair obscuring most of her face, except for her eyes, which were staring blankly through the windshield. “That’s right,” Raley said, coming back around.

“Rough night?”

“You could say.”

“On the house,” the man said, sliding the cup of tea toward Raley.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t forget the sugar.”

Raley picked up two packets of Domino, nodded his thanks to the man, and returned to the truck. He handed the tea and sugar to Britt, then started the truck and pulled it back onto the road.

“I don’t want this.” She had removed the cap and was looking into the cup of tea, which had brewed barely to the color of apple juice.

“Drink it anyway.”

Obediently she placed the cup between her knees, emptied both packets of sugar into it, and bravely took a sip.

He said, “I have an oxygen tank at my place.” She didn’t say anything, but in his peripheral vision, he could see that she was looking at him quizzically. He kept his head forward. “I got it thinking that I might need it for an emergency, that Delno might go into cardiac arrest from eating too much fatty food like possum. He fries everything in lard and thinks bacon grease is a beverage.”

She took another sip of the tea, still looking at him over the rim of the cup. “You want me to go back to your cabin with you?”

He turned his head. “Not really, no. But I’ve got something to show you.”

“In addition to your oxygen tank?”

“My files. Everything I have on my investigation into the fire.”

“Official documentation?”

“In anticipation of being fired, I sneaked into Brunner’s office and made a copy of everything. I’d be willing to let you read through it, but first I must have your word that you won’t make me a news story until I give you the go-ahead.” He paused to let that sink in.

“Or?”

“Or I can drop you off at an emergency room, where you can get proper treatment. Or I can drive you to your house and you can surrender to the police. In all fairness, I have to tell you that either of those options would be wiser than sticking with me.”

She ran her finger around the rim of the cup several times. “My own lawyer may not be trustworthy.”

“Whether or not he betrayed you to the bad guys, he’s compromised.”

“You said yourself that the detectives on my case idolized Jay and wouldn’t want to hear anything negative about him.”

“I’m confident you would get them past that. They’d have to accept the truth about him sooner or later.”

“But later. Because right now my credibility is nil.”

“In the meantime, you’re exposed and in danger.”

“There’s no disputing that. Someone tried to…tried to…”

“Kill you.”

Too emotional to speak, she nodded.

Raley considered that answer enough.

Thank Jesus the last of the guests were straggling toward the front door to say their thank-yous and good-byes. George had had about all of this party he could stand. Les’s idea of a good time was to gather his toadies and their wives around him, ply them with rich food and strong drink, and let them know how fucking great he was and weren’t they lucky to be paid to kiss his ass.

Ostensibly the party had been a last-minute thing to celebrate the deal with the city that had been consummated this afternoon after a slow eighteen holes of golf and an endless lunch. George doubted its spontaneity.

By the time he got home from the country club, catering trucks and hired bartenders and waiters were already there, setting up. Guests began arriving at six thirty, continued until seven, and the attendance rate had been one hundred percent of those invited. He figured Les had had this soiree planned for weeks.

The son of a bitch had never entertained the thought that he might be unsuccessful in securing that athletic complex contract.

“Mr. McGowan, there’s a call for you.”

George turned toward their housekeeper, who had touched him on the arm to get his attention. “Take a message.”

“I tried, sir. He was most insistent on speaking with you.”

“George?” Miranda, looking stunning in a black, body-hugging, strapless dress, approached. Her pink martini matched the diamond drop nestled in her cleavage. The five-carat stone was spectacular but couldn’t hold a candle to the lush breasts. “The Madisons are waiting to say good-bye to you.”

Madison was further up Les’s ass than the rest of them. “I’ve got to take a phone call. Say good night for me.”

She looked perturbed but said nothing, only turned her back on him and rejoined Les, who was glad-handing Madison and insincerely complimenting his plump, mousy wife on her drab dress.

George drained his highball and handed the empty glass to the housekeeper. “Thanks. I’ll take the call in the study.”

It was a pretentious room. The bookshelves were filled with books he’d never read, written by authors he’d never heard of. Adorning the paneled walls were the stuffed heads of deer and elk he hadn’t shot. There was a glittering display case full of trophies for golf tournaments and tennis matches he didn’t remember playing. One of his racehorses had won several silver cups, too, but George had had nothing to do with that beyond paying the exorbitant bills that came with owning, stabling, and training a high-strung, ill-tempered Thoroughbred.

And there was that famous photo of him and the others at the scene of the fire. Miranda had blown it up to an embarrassing size and hung it on the wall in a frame that the Queen of England might have used for her state portrait.

He avoided looking at it as he sat down at the desk and picked up the phone. “Yeah? Who’s this?”

“Cobb Fordyce.”

Despite his determination not to look at the photo, his eyes went straight to it. “It’s after office hours for you, isn’t it?”

“I felt I should call.”

“We’re having a party, Cobb. I have guests.”

Ignoring that, the attorney general said, “I had an interesting call a few minutes ago.”

“Oh?”

“Bill Alexander.”

George swallowed. Or tried. Actually, his mouth had gone dry. He wished he’d poured another drink before picking up the phone. “The lawyer?”

Sounding vexed, Cobb said, “Come on, George.”

“Okay, why did he call you at this time of night?”

“Because I’m the state AG. Therefore, he thought I should know that Britt Shelley had told him there was a connection between Jay Burgess’s murder and the police station fire.”

George propped his elbow on the desk and dropped his head into his palm.

Fordyce went on. “I asked Mr. Alexander why his client, Ms. Shelley, would link the two tragedies. Was she merely surmising, or had Jay told her something before he died? Mr. Alexander explained that he didn’t have time to ask her these questions before their cell-phone conversation was cut off.

“I’m not sure how well you know Bill Alexander, George, but he is an excitable individual on his best day. When he called me tonight, he was near panic. He had promised Detective Clark that Ms. Shelley was due to arrive at her house within an hour of their conversation to turn herself in. She never showed. Once again, her whereabouts are unknown.”

“Huh. Why did Alexander call you with this news flash?”

“He’s wondering if he should give any credence to Ms. Shelley’s allegation that there’s a relationship between the fire and the murder of Jay Burgess. He asked my opinion on the matter. Did I think it warranted further investigation? Should it be made public? Or kept quiet? In short, he’s got a rattlesnake by the neck and doesn’t know where to pitch it.”

George wanted badly to throw up. “When Alexander called Detective Clark, told him that Britt Shelley was on her way home to surrender, do you know if he mentioned this business about the fire?”

“No, he didn’t. He thought he should consult me first.”

Well, George thought with relief, that was something. Not much. But something. Sensing movement, he looked up to see his father-in-law and Miranda standing side by side just inside the study door.

Cobb was saying, “I don’t like this harkening back to the fire, George. It could become very uncomfortable for all of us.”

“Yeah, I’m aware of that.” He took a quick breath. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“We must talk, George.”

“Right. I’ll call you early.” He hung up before the AG could say anything further.

Miranda walked to a leather sofa and draped herself over the arm of it, stretching languorously, expanding those creamy breasts above the low neckline of her dress. “Who was that, darling?”

“Cobb Fordyce.”

Her eyebrows arched eloquently, but it was Les who asked, “What did our attorney general have to say for himself at this hour of the night?”

George divided a look between them. “He said we have a problem.”

B
RITT OBJECTED TO THE OXYGEN.
“I’
M OKAY
. H
ONESTLY.”

“Breathe it for five minutes. Long enough for me to shower.” She relented and positioned the cannula. “Just breathe normally.” She gave Raley a thumbs-up, but it was a feeble gesture.

Exhausted and emotionally shaken, they had exchanged only a few words on the long drive back to the cabin. There was much to discuss, but they had tacitly agreed that all of it could wait until they were physically restored.

Fearing bacteria that may have latched on to him in the Combahee, Raley showered vigorously. None of the cuts and scratches on his arms and hands looked serious, but he dabbed them with antiseptic before putting on a clean T-shirt and a pair of old jeans he’d cut off at the knees.

Britt was sitting exactly as he’d left her in one of the chairs at the dining table, her bare feet resting on the dowel between the front legs, toes curled under. He switched off the oxygen, and she removed the tubing from her nostrils. “Can I shower now?”

He motioned her toward the bedroom. “I left a fresh towel and some clothes in the bathroom.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you hungry?”

She shook her head as she disappeared into the bedroom, moving like a sleepwalker.

He’d thought he was ravenous, but when he opened the refrigerator, nothing looked appetizing. Forgoing food, he returned to the bedroom. The shower was still running. His gaze drifted around the room, lighting on the sweet potato vine.

It
was
a nice, homey touch.

The shower went off. He stepped back into the living area and waited until he heard the bathroom door open, then went as far as the bedroom door. She had put on the T-shirt and boxer shorts he’d left out for her. They were huge on her, of course. The shorts rode low on her hips, and the shirtsleeves drooped past her elbows, but she was decent.

Her hair was still wet. Her eye sockets were dark, and her eyes themselves looked extraordinarily wide and vacant. He doubted anyone from her television audience would recognize this bedraggled waif as the with-it woman who brought them the latest news.

“Sit down on the bed,” he said. “I’ll put some stuff on those cuts. It stings, but that means it works.”

Without argument she went to the bed and sat down. He returned from the bathroom with a bottle of antiseptic and a roll of toilet paper. He didn’t have cotton balls.

He hunkered down in front of her and ripped off a wad of the tissue, dousing it with the strong-smelling liquid fire. He swabbed a scrape on her arm. Breath hissed through her clenched teeth. “Warned you,” he said.

“It’s okay.”

“I’ll be quick.” He moved to another cut, this one on her knee. “I had to pull you through the windshield.”

“I couldn’t break it.”

“I took a wrench down with me, hammered on it until it broke. You don’t remember that part?” She shook her head. “Probably just as well,” he said.

“I remember the car hitting the water. Hard. My air bag opened, then deflated. The car tipped down. My seat belt held me in. I remember thinking how sudden it all was. But it also seemed that everything went into slow motion, you know?”

He nodded as he ripped off several more sheets of tissue and dribbled the liquid onto them.

“The headlights and all those on the dash went out. It was dark. So dark.”

“You don’t have to talk about it, Britt.”

“The car filled with water.” She continued as though she hadn’t heard him. He didn’t think she had. “It closed over my head. I undid my seat belt and started banging on the window, but…” She turned her head from side to side. Tears filled her eyes. She was shivering. “I kept trying to break the glass, but I couldn’t. And I couldn’t hold my breath any longer.”

“Britt, are you cold?”

“No.”

But her teeth were chattering. He stood up and yanked the quilt off the bed, then pulled it around her. She clutched at the fabric, crossing her arms over her chest, huddling inside the quilt.

He knelt in front of her again and assessed a cut on her temple. “Bad enough, but not so deep that you need stitches. You might have a faint scar, at least for a while. With makeup on, you probably won’t be able to see it at all. Especially on camera.”

He was talking to keep her calm. Or maybe he was talking to keep himself calm. One of them had to hold it together, and she was the one who’d been the most traumatized and who now looked extremely fragile.

What she was experiencing was typical. Now that the imminent danger was over, the realization had set in—she’d had a near miss with death. He’d seen it happen dozens of times with people who’d been rescued from a burning building or some other perilous situation. When the adrenaline rush ebbed, and they fully grasped the mortal danger they had been in, they often became hysterical.

He heard a little hitch in her breathing, and it alarmed him. “Are you having trouble breathing?”

“No.”

He poured antiseptic onto a fresh pad of toilet paper and applied it to the jagged cut on her forehead. She made another hiccuping sound. The tears standing in her eyes spilled onto her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I know this medicine stings,” he said. “But only for a little while. I promise.”

“It’s all right.”

“I’m almost finished. You don’t want to host a parasite.” He dabbed the cut several more times, then set the roll of tissue and the bottle of antiseptic on his TV tray night table. “There. See?” He came to his feet, dusting his hands. “All done.”

She looked up at him, her eyes so large and watery they dominated her face. She was making sobbing sounds and her lips were trembling. A tear slid into her mouth, at the corner of it, where her lips met. She seemed unaware of it.

“I was so…so scared.”

He dropped his phony cheerful manner and said solemnly, “I know.”

“There was nothing I could d-do.”

“No.”

“I tried to get away from them, but the road—”

“You did your best.”

“When the water rushed in, I panicked.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“I’ve always thought…thought I’d be brave. But I wasn’t.”

“You were—”

“I knew I was going to die.”

“But you
didn’t.”

“It wasn’t…you know how people say their life flashes in front of them?”

“Yeah.”

She shook her head furiously. “Mine didn’t. There was nothing. Nothing but the water and…and terror. I just wanted to escape. I was so af-afraid. Raley?”

“Hmm?”

She reached for his hand, but when he extended it, she grasped his forearm instead. Then her other hand hooked his waistband, pulling at him. Dropping the quilt, she practically climbed him, using parts of his upper body as handholds to help her stand up, and when she was on her feet, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and clung fast.

“I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to die.”

“You didn’t. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

“Oh, God.” Coming up on tiptoe, she burrowed her face in his neck. “I thought I was going to die.”

“It’s over. You’re safe.” Awkwardly, he patted her back. “You’re gonna be fine.”

Then her hands were on his cheeks, tilting his face down toward hers, her lips frantically seeking his. She threaded her fingers up through his hair and formed tight fists that nearly ripped his hair out by the roots. She kissed him and continued to kiss him between words that were choppy and unintelligible but had the ring of desperation.

The feel of her body, much smaller, softer, than his. Her bare legs rubbing against his. Her hands, clutching. Her lips, moist and yearning. It was all too much. He was consumed by raw desire.

His arms closed around her. His hand on her ass, he drew her up and into him. He angled his lips against hers. When he did, hers parted. Tongues touched, then his was filling her mouth, and, Jesus, he was lost.

Inside his head a bell of warning was clanging louder than any fire alarm, but he didn’t heed it. She smelled good, she tasted good, her mouth was silky and hot and hungry, and it had been a long time since a woman had wanted him. With desperation.

She continued to clutch handfuls of his hair, then his T-shirt, until her hands slid beneath it onto his back. Her nails dug into his skin. He broke the kiss long enough to pull his shirt over his head and fling it away, then went back to kissing her. They separated again only long enough for her to take off the T-shirt he’d given her to wear. When they came together this time, her breasts were pressed against his chest, and he heard himself growl with pleasure.

She took hold of his waistband again and tugged him forward as she fell back onto the bed. He followed her down. She undid his fly, or rather they undid it together, clumsy fingers battling over the metal buttons until her fingers, no longer clumsy, closed around him. He groaned an incoherent string of swearwords as he shoved off his cutoffs and then worked the baggy boxers down her legs. She kicked them away even as he thrust into her.

It was hard and fast and graceless, and in under a minute they both came, hugging each other tightly, moaning, gasping for breath.

Then for several minutes, they lay locked together, completely spent. She didn’t move, so neither did he, although the consequences of what had just happened fell on him like a ton of bricks.

Jay was here first.

Despite how goddamn good she felt, that was what he was thinking when her leg slid off his hip and her arms relaxed their embrace, then let go.

He rolled off her onto his back and closed his eyes. Minutes passed in ponderous silence, so many minutes that the situation became even more awkward than it already was. Somebody had to say something sometime, but it wasn’t going to be him.

Finally, he felt her sit up. He opened his eyes as she reached for the boxers that had been kicked to the foot of the bed. He couldn’t resist glancing at her in profile. Remarkable ass. Lovely, smooth back. Lovelier front. The curve of her breast full but natural. A pink nipple that looked delectable.

Bothered by another twinge of arousal, he swung his feet to the floor and sat up. He retrieved the T-shirt she’d been wearing from the floor and without turning around passed it back to her. She took it without a word. He gathered his two articles of clothing, then got up and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

He stood at the sink, turned on the water, and used a cloth to wash himself, thinking,
Christ, Christ, Christ.

He buttoned his cutoffs—remembering, with chagrin, the hackneyed adage about closing the barn door—then turned out the light before opening the door. She was lying on her side, facing the opposite direction. She had put on the T-shirt and pulled the quilt up to her waist. He lay down and turned onto his side so that they were back to back.

Huskily she said, “They say…” She hesitated, cleared her throat, tried again. “They say that when you…when you experience something like I did tonight, or when you go to a funeral, when you have an encounter with the reality and finality of death, it’s normal for you to…to want sex. They say that what happened just now…between us…What I mean is, they say it’s a natural reaction to the kind of trauma we went through tonight. Because sex is the ultimate…It’s the…It’s life affirming.”

Raley lay still for several moments, then reached for the gooseneck lamp and switched it off. “Is that what they say?”

He was gone when she woke up. There was a note on the dining table. White lined paper ripped from a spiral notebook, a bold, familiar script written in black ink. “Back soon.” A man of few words.

According to the time he’d jotted down beneath the brief message, he’d been away over two hours. She made toast and coffee, and was finishing her second cup when she heard his pickup coming up the lane.

She scampered back into the bedroom and closed the door, not wanting it to appear that she had been anxiously awaiting his return. While she was hiding there, it occurred to her that, when it came to sex, grown-ups could certainly behave childishly. Even so, she didn’t come out.

She heard the screen door squeak open, then slap shut, heard his footfalls going toward the kitchen area. When she worked up enough courage to open the bedroom door, his back was to her. He was piling several plastic sacks on the dining table. They bore the familiar Target logo.

“I wondered where you—”

She broke off when he turned around. He’d got a haircut. It wasn’t short like he used to wear it, but it had been clipped and moderately tamed. But the most startling change was his beardless face. She’d forgotten the angular bone structure of his jaw, the jut of cheekbones. And without the beard detracting from his eyes, they seemed greener, more arresting.

She wondered if she should comment on this sudden and drastic change, but before she could, he turned back around and began unloading his purchases. “Did you eat something?” he asked.

“Toast.”

“I brought some fruit.”

She approached the table and saw a plastic basket of strawberries and a cantaloupe. She picked up the berries and carried them to the sink. “These look delicious.” She turned on the faucet and rinsed the berries.

“I got you some clothes,” he said. “I don’t know if they’ll fit.” She set the basket of berries on the counter to drain. He extended her several of the sacks. “Don’t expect too much.”

Curious, she peered into one of the bags. “Thank you. I’ll go change into something now.”

She had almost reached the bedroom when he said, “Are you on the pill?”

She came back around. “What?”

He frowned as though to say
You heard me. Are you going to make me repeat it?

She made a noncommittal rolling motion of her shoulders.

He propped his hands on his hips. “Is that a yes or a no?”

Britt liked neither his stance nor his tone. “It’s a
none of your damn business.”

“Unfortunately, as of last night it is.”

A tide of anger surged through her. “Listen to me, Mr. Gannon. Of the men I’ve slept with, most were flattered, some were grateful, all were satisfied, but none felt
unfortunate.”