Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

She shook her head. “Left-hand side.”

“Okay.”

While he was fixing that image in his head, she asked, “How did you know where I lived?”

“I followed you there.”

“Today?”

“Five years ago.”

He could tell that made her uneasy. She shifted slightly in her seat but didn’t comment.

“I knew you’d have an alarm system,” he went on. “I also knew that the back door going into the kitchen is probably the one you most frequently use and figured that it would have a delay on it. So I picked the lock.”

“You know how to pick locks?”

“The alarm started beeping. I counted on having at least a minute and a half before the actual alarm went off. Most people set the delay for even longer, but I figured I had at least ninety seconds to get you to punch in the code. I also figured that a single woman, living alone, would have a remote-control panel within reach of her bed.”

“How did you know I was single and living alone?”

“Jay never dated married women.”

She left that alone, saying instead, “Ninety seconds for you to find my bedroom and force me to turn off the alarm. That’s not much time. You were awfully sure of my compliance.”

“I counted on you being scared.”

“I was. Out of my wits.”

“So my hunch was right.”

“What if I hadn’t been scared?” she asked. “What if I’d had a gun at my bedside instead of a remote? I could have killed you.”

He glanced around his cabin for effect, then came back to her. “I don’t have anything to lose.”

That, too, made her uneasy. Her eyes drifted away, then back. “Can’t you please release my feet? Just my feet?”

He shook his head.

“They’re numb.”

“According to the newspaper,” he said, “The Wheelhouse was crowded that night.”

After a mutinous pause, which didn’t faze him, she continued, describing to him the usual happy-hour bar scene. “The place was packed, but I spotted Jay as soon as I came in. I went-”

“Wait. Were there people at the bar? That’s where I sat today. There are twenty or more barstools.”

“People were standing three deep behind the stools.”

“How many bartenders?”

“I didn’t count.”

“How many cocktail waitresses?”

“A few. Several. Four, five, half a dozen. I don’t know.”

“But all of them were busy.”

“Extremely. There was noisy chatter, loud music, people-”

“Did you ask a hostess if Jay was there yet?”

“There wasn’t anyone at the hostess stand. I told you I spotted him.”

“So you didn’t announce your arrival in any way?”

“No.”

“Did anyone approach you?”

“No.”

“Did you attract anyone’s notice?”

“No.”

He looked her straight in the eye, then deliberately dropped his gaze to her chest, and lower, to her bare thighs. He let his eyes linger there for a noticeable time before lifting them back to her face and silently communicating that he found it hard to believe no one had noticed her.

She squirmed under his gaze. “Look, I’ve been over this time and again with the police. Nothing unusual happened. Nothing.”

“You’re on TV every day. Nobody recognized you? You didn’t make eye contact with anyone besides Jay?”

She closed her eyes as though resetting the scene in her mind and trying to squeeze out a memory. “I think maybe…maybe…” She opened her eyes but made a small sound of frustration. “Possibly I made eye contact with a man at the bar, but I don’t know if I’m remembering or imagining.”

“Maybe when you’re not trying so hard it will come back to you.” He studied her for several moments, then said softly, “Unless this loss of memory thing is all a hoax and you remember everything.”

If her feet hadn’t been secured, he thought she would have launched herself out of the chair and straight at him. Her face was flushed with so much anger, he thought she might try to attack him in spite of being hobbled. “Why would I fabricate a memory loss, Mr. Gannon?”

“Well, one good reason would be that you woke up next to a dead guy, and you’re covering your ass.”

“Nothing I did caused Jay to die.”

“Let’s say the sex got rowdy or kinky.”

“Let’s not.”

“Before you knew it, your lover wasn’t moving. Or you had a lovers’ tiff that turned ugly.”

“We weren’t-”

“Maybe Jay went into cardiac arrest, which freaked you out, and you were useless to try and help him. Anything’s possible. You were both drunk on scotch-that was in the newspaper, too-maybe scotch isn’t your drink. It makes you wild, irrational, violent. You-”

“None of that happened!”

“How do you know if you can’t remember?”

“I would remember if I’d killed a man accidentally or otherwise.”

“Are you sure?”

The taunt only maddened her more. “I’ve had it with this. And with you. Get this tape off me!” she yelled.

“You can scream all you want, nobody is going to hear you, and you’ll only make that golden throat of yours hoarse. You wouldn’t want that to happen.”

Blue eyes blazed at him. “I’m going to see you in prison for this. I can’t wait to cover your trial. I’ll be there with a microphone and camera the day they lock you up.”

“Do you know how Jay died?”

“No!”

“Did you kill him?”

“No!”

“Did you fuck him?”

THE VULGARITY SHOCKED THE ANGER OUT OF HER.

“What?”

“Want me to spell it?”

She looked away, then down at the floor. “I need to use the bathroom.”

The crudity had been intentional, and it had served its purpose. Anger sometimes escalated into stubbornness. If she went tight-lipped on him out of sheer obstinance, then he’d gain nothing.

Now that she was subdued, he could be more lenient. A little more. He knelt down in front of her and used his pocketknife to slice through the duct tape around her ankles, then peeled it off.

“Thank you.” She tried to stand but dropped back into the chair. “My feet have gone to sleep.”

He cupped her elbow and steadied her as she stood up and took a tentative step. “Ouch.”

“Wiggle your toes.”

It was a long minute before she was able to put her full weight on her feet. He kept his hand around her elbow as they shuffled toward the bedroom, where the bathroom was.

“Have you lived here since you left Charleston?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“A raccoon hung around for a few months.”

“You didn’t get married?”

“No.”

They were in the bedroom now. He reached through the open bathroom door to switch on the light. This afternoon before he left, he’d gone over the fixtures with a disinfectant solution. He’d hung a clean towel on the bar. A new roll of toilet paper was on the spool. He’d put an unused bar of soap in a dish he pilfered from the kitchen.

All the while he was cleaning, he’d asked himself why he was bothering. It wasn’t like she was going to be a guest. But now he was glad he’d gone to the effort. It made the room, and by extension him, more presentable.

“Weren’t you engaged?” she asked.

“Yes.” He stood aside and motioned her into the bathroom. He could read the question in her eyes, but he wasn’t going to discuss his broken engagement. Not yet. “Hurry up. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“You haven’t freed my hands.”

“You’ll manage.”

“I can’t go with my hands bound behind my back.”

“I bet you can if you have to go bad enough.”

Once she’d cleared the bathroom door, she kicked it shut. He turned the knob and pushed it open. “The door stays open.”