Smoke Screen (29 page)

“Good try, Miranda,” George said softly. “But you don’t really want me to call your bluff, do you? Do
you,
Les?”

In answer, she went to stand next to her father, the two of them facing him, as they had on the day he and Miranda got married. In St. Philip’s Church downtown. Everybody who was anybody in attendance. A dozen bridesmaids. Flowers by the truckload. Miranda wearing a designer gown that had cost more than most men earn in a year.

Standing together at the altar, Les had handed her over to him, her groom, her husband, her life partner. But it had been a symbolic gesture without substance. George had soon learned what his status was in the family structure. In this trio, he would always be the odd man out.

Les said, “Make this problem go away, George. Right now. For good this time.”

“How in hell am I supposed to do that?”

“F.I.O.,” Miranda said, tossing her hair. “Figure it out.”

It had been a slow day for the two men known as Smith and Johnson. They were having an early dinner at a steak house that featured an unlimited salad bar and free apple cobbler. Two clean-cut men sharing a meal and conversation, never drawing attention to themselves, men who’d be forgotten as soon as they left the restaurant.

Yesterday they had got their asses chewed for losing Raley Gannon after he left the funeral. It was pointed out to them that they’d missed a golden opportunity, especially since he was now partnered with Britt Shelley, who twice had survived them.

“No way she could’ve got out of that car,” Johnson had said when they learned she was alive and seemingly fine.

“Well, obviously she did,” their employer had said with rancor.

Had they been sharp enough, they were told, they could have followed Raley Gannon from the funeral, back to the newswoman, and taken care of both of them, then collected their pay and disappeared.

They took the reprimand stoically, knowing they deserved it. They had enjoyed the car play on that dark country road, but it hadn’t been an efficient form of assassination. In fairness to themselves, they cited that it had been their retainer’s idea to intercept the woman on the road and make her death look like a suicide.

At present, no one knew where Gannon and Britt Shelley were holed up. Charleston didn’t seem that large until you were trying to find someone in it, and most of the population seemed to be driving gray sedans. License plate numbers were pointless; Gannon was smart enough to switch them.

“We should have put a transponder on the car while he was inside the chapel,” Smith observed now as he cut off a piece of blood-rare sirloin.

“Too many people around. Late arrivals. Chauffeurs. Grave-diggers.”

The drop-in visit to Wickham’s house had been reported to them.

“Do you think Gannon is carrying, or was Wickham dramatizing?” Smith asked, chewing thoughtfully.

“From what we’ve been told about Wickham, I’d say he was probably dramatizing.”

“But is Gannon carrying?”

“I think we have to assume he is.”

“Do you think he knows how to shoot?”

“Doesn’t matter. We do.”

Johnson was grinning confidently at his partner when his cell phone vibrated. He answered with a brusque “Here,” then didn’t speak another word for sixty seconds. “Got it.” He slapped the phone closed and said to Smith, “Showtime.”

R
ALEY’S PARANOIA WAS CONTAGIOUS.

Britt didn’t argue when he suggested that they move again. After his call to Judge Mellors, they returned to the motor court only long enough to gather their things. It took less than ten minutes. Raley drove into the urban area of Charleston, then beyond it, crossing the Cooper River before he found another suitable motel. Combined with an RV park, it had individual cabins lining the edge of a pretty marsh.

Raley used an alias to check them in, paid for a couple of days in cash, and parked the car behind their cabin. “I asked for this one. Easy in, easy out,” he said as he ushered her into their new quarters, which were furnished similarly to the previous place but were much nicer and newer. They kept the curtains over the front window tightly drawn, although Raley peered through them at regular intervals to check for anyone encroaching on their bolted door.

“Did the judge give you a time frame?”

“She asked for several hours. Then I’ll go out and find another pay phone.”

“What do you think Fordyce will say?”

Killing time, Raley was lying on his back on the double bed next to the one on which she was reclined. He’d bunched up the flat pillows beneath his head. His forearm was resting on his forehead. “I don’t know. But Candy was my best and last resort. I laid it on pretty thick, the obligation factor and her belief in the law. It was crass manipulation, but at least she promised to try to talk him into seeing me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been so brutally honest.”

Keeping his arm on his forehead, he looked at her across the narrow space separating the beds.

She said, “What I mean is, you told her you suspected him of several felonies. Maybe you should have fudged a little.”

“Maybe I should have let you ask her. You’re all about fudging.”

“Some would call it diplomacy.”

“Some would call it lying.”

Her breath gusted out in frustration. “God, you’re unbending.”

“Candy called it tenacious.”

“Call it by any name you like, you’re unforgiving. That’s probably why Hallie—” She broke off, then mumbled, “Never mind.”

“Oh no,” he said, turning onto his side and propping himself on his elbow. “You opened that can of worms. That’s probably why Hallie
what
?”

She watched him closely, half out of curiosity to see how he would react, half out of wariness of his reaction. “Your unforgiving nature is probably why she didn’t come back to you.”

“After Jay, you mean. After he threw her over for the next flavor of the month.”

“If she had crawled back, full of contrition, would you have resumed your relationship with her?”

“After Suzi Monroe, I couldn’t very well condemn anybody on faithfulness issues, could I? I would have forgiven Hallie on a cerebral level. But, no, I wouldn’t have taken her back.”

“Because it was Jay she turned to.”

“Because she turned to him so easily. She knew how he was, how shallow and self-serving he could be. We’d talked about his character flaws. Even laughed about how he’d made egomania an art form. And still she chose him over me.”

Britt considered letting it drop there, but prodded by curiosity, she said, “But you sort of…”

“What?”

“Nudged her away. Didn’t you? When you offered her time and space, were you testing her love and devotion?”

“Maybe.” He flopped onto his back again. “If it was a test, she failed. You said I hadn’t fought for her, but she didn’t fight for me, either.”

“Then why did you try to contact her years later?”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Good question, Ms. Shelley. I’ve asked it of myself a few thousand times. Self-flagellation? I wasn’t quite miserable enough? Curiosity? Loneliness? Maybe a combination of all those reasons.

“Anyway, I got extremely upset when I heard that she’d married and was having a baby. But not out of jealousy. I didn’t love her anymore, but I cared enough about her to be glad that she’d survived Jay.”

“Then why did you get upset?”

“Because her newfound happiness underscored how crappy my life was. It made me furious. She, Jay, Fordyce, all of them were flourishing. Suzi Monroe had been nothing more hazardous than a speed bump in their lives. They were past it, moving forward and upward. I was stuck in neutral and couldn’t do anything about it.”

“You could have gone to another city, applied at the fire department and—”

“And been told thanks but no thanks. Soon as my previous employment was checked, I’d’ve been turned down on character issues.”

“You could have done something else. Changed careers.”

“I wanted to be a firefighter. That’s what I’d spent years training for. That’s what I did and wanted to do. Besides, my job here wasn’t finished.”

“To unforgiving, add stubborn.”

She’d meant it as a gibe, but he didn’t respond, so she figured he’d taken it as another criticism of his character. For several minutes, silence simmered between them. He was the first to speak. “Candy thinks this is about the Suzi Monroe thing. Hallie and Jay. All that. She said it’s futile for me to hold a grudge against him because you can never come to a reconciliation with a dead man.”

“Very perceptive of her. You told me you’ve spent the last five years plotting your revenge.”

“Yes, I did, but that’s not what it’s about now.”

“What’s it about now?”

“It’s about the seven people who died. Eight, if you count Suzi.”

He was still staring up at the ceiling, so his profile was all she could see of his face, but the tenor of his voice had changed. “Those people were murdered, Britt. No one knows that a killer or killers went free. No one even
suspects.
There’s been no accountability for those crimes. Call me unforgiving and unbending, that’s okay. I won’t forgive and I won’t bend because even Cleveland Jones, who by all accounts was irredeemable, deserves justice.”

After a moment, she said, “You’re passionate about this.”

He turned and looked at her, then gave a small shrug. “Passionate? Yeah, I guess. When I was a kid, I had this dream of becoming a fireman so I could save lives and property, put my life on the line to rescue others, see that arsonists were caught and punished. Very idealistic. Even arrogant. But that’s how I felt.”

“Most little boys want to become firemen so they can ride on the fire truck.”

“Well, there was that,” he admitted with a flash of a grin. “Not to mention the cool-looking, badass gear, and sliding down the pole, and getting to hang out at the firehouse. All that macho, male bonding stuff.” They smiled across at each other.

“What’s your most memorable experience as a fireman?”

He didn’t have to think about it but said instantly, “I rescued a man who was pinned in his wrecked car.”

“Tell me about it.”

“When we arrived, he was screaming, hysterical, but he wasn’t hurt all that badly. I calmed him down, told him we’d get him out and that he’d be all right. A half hour later he was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital, a little beat up, but fixable.”

“That’s a good story with a happy ending.”

He looked over at her, then back at the ceiling. “Not really. After we got him into the ambulance, we had to go back and cut his four-year-old son out of the wreckage. His body was crammed up under the engine block, and when we tried to pull it out…” He stopped, waited, started again. “Nothing held together. He was in pieces.” He paused again and cleared his throat.

“See, his dad had taken him to the supermarket with him. When they came out, the kid set up a howl about getting back into his car seat. His dad was embarrassed because the kid was yelling, everybody in the parking lot was staring, he didn’t know how to deal with a tantrum.

“So he gave in and told the kid okay, he could ride in the front seat. They weren’t that far from home. And it was just for this one time that he’d be allowed to sit there. But it only took one time, one bad decision. A truck ran a red light and T-boned the car.” After several seconds, he added, “That kid would be eleven or twelve now. I imagine his dad thinks about that a lot.”

Britt let moments pass, then said, “Have you had many experiences like that?”

“No. Thank God. But you asked me my most memorable. That’s it. By far.” Turning his head, he said, “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Are you passionate for your work?”

Her reply was slow in coming. “Yes.”

Her hesitancy raised his eyebrows. “I know what passion sounds like, and that’s not it.” He gave her a long look, and she remembered the hungry, sexy sounds that had filled his bedroom the night before last.

She looked away and in a quiet voice asked, “Want to know a secret, Raley?”

“Hmm.”

“Are you sure? If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

He smiled.

“Shelley Britt Hagen.”

He looked at her blankly. “Okay.”

“That’s my real name. But sometimes even I forget I wasn’t born Britt Shelley, because I adopted it as my professional name even before I graduated college.”

“You don’t have to kill me to protect that secret.”

“Well, that’s not the big one.”

“Oh. You have a darker one?”

“Um-huh.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s safe with me.”

He said it in all seriousness. Meeting his gaze full-on, she said, “I’m certain of that.”

She thought that loyalty was probably one of his strongest qualities. In that regard, being muleheaded was an attribute, not a flaw. If someone told him a secret, he would take it to his grave. If he made you a promise, he would keep it. A commitment would be a commitment for life. He would be faithful to a woman.

Frankly she thought Hallie was a fool for doubting, even for an instant, that he wasn’t in control of his faculties when he was with Suzi Monroe. His body had functioned as conditioned, but his brain was shut down. Certainly his heart hadn’t been involved. If his fiancée truly had loved him, if she had known him at all, she would have accepted his explanation without question.

But she herself had deemed him guilty, hadn’t she? She’d doubted nothing Jay told her, but had believed the worst of Raley Gannon without so much as a single meeting. When he dodged her microphones and cameras, she had concluded that his avoidance was as good as an admission, and taking it one step further, she had swayed her viewing audience into believing likewise.

For five years, his unfinished investigation had haunted him. He’d borne the weight of eight murders that had gone unaccounted for. With sadness and shame, Britt acknowledged that she was partially responsible for that.

“I’m sorry, Raley.”

“For what?”

“For my partial reporting.”

“You already apologized.”

“Yes, but when I did, I was still working an angle. I was trying to weasel more information from you. I wanted this new, bigger story, and I wanted to stay with you until I got it. This time I mean my apology sincerely.”

After a beat or two, he said, “That’s your secret?”

“No.” She took a deep breath as she turned onto her back. “My secret is that I’ve had job offers in larger TV markets. One was even a network job. A contributing reporter on weekends, but it would have been a good start. I’ve turned them all down.”

“How come?”

“Fear of failure.”

She glanced at him but quickly cast her eyes back toward the ceiling. “I called you a coward, but the truth is, I’m the coward. I’m afraid to leave my small pond here, where I’m a big fish. In a larger market, the competition would be tougher. The expectations would be greater. What if I couldn’t hack it? What if I made a colossal fool of myself? So every time my agent came to me with an offer, I turned it down.

“I always had a reasonably valid excuse, but the bottom line was that I was afraid to give up my star status here. Anywhere else, I may discover I’m only average, and then what?

“I’ve been working without a net since I was eighteen, and it’s been good for me. I’m independent and self-sufficient. When everything is going well, I tell myself I’m capable of anything. But if things were to go terribly wrong, I don’t have anything or anyone to fall back on, even temporarily, even long enough for me to get back on my feet and dust myself off and try again. That frightens me.

“When I was younger, I could afford a career setback or two. I moved frequently, and the risks always worked out in my favor. But I’m not so young now. I’m no longer the fresh face. I’ve got more to lose and can’t afford a major setback. So I don’t gamble with my career. I stay well within my comfort zone.” She took a deep breath and looked over at him, expecting a comment. When he didn’t say anything, she said, “That’s it. That’s my secret.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“What?”

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit.” He looked almost angry as he swung his feet to the floor and stood up. “First of all, your face is fresh enough. You could take it anywhere and become a star.” Turning away, he stalked to the window and parted the curtains, looked out, drew the curtains together again, came back around.

“Second, you’re alone because that’s your choice. You could have a safety net if you wanted one. You may not want to leave this TV market for a larger one, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t, and do it successfully.”

Britt angled herself up, supporting herself on her elbows. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I’m not sure I can trust the opinion of a man who doesn’t even own a television.”

“I’ve seen you enough times to know you’re good. I saw a replay of your press conference. You had them eating out of your hand. You convinced me of your innocence, and I was your most skeptical viewer.”

“The police weren’t convinced, though, were they? Clark and Javier believe I killed Jay. Pat Junior believes I did.”

“Does he?” His eyes moved down to her chest, and he stared at it hard enough to make her uncomfortably aware of the snug fit of her T-shirt. Then his eyes snapped up to hers.
“Does
he believe you killed Jay? He accused you of it, but…” Muttering an expletive, he began to pace. “That whole scene with him was off. I don’t know how, just off.”