Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

“That isn’t necessary.”

“It is if you want to use the bathroom.”

“You’re punishing me, aren’t you? For…for before. You’re humiliating me out of spite, when all I did was my job.”

“If you’re not going to pee, back in the chair you go.”

She thought it over, then said, “Can you at least close the door halfway?”

He conceded her that much. While she was attending to her business, he moved restlessly around the bedroom. He went over to the window and looked out on a night that was black and still. He fiddled with the sash on the window shade, then batted at it angrily and moved to the bed and sat down.

Damn right he was holding a grudge against her. Giving her a taste of humiliation. Doesn’t taste good, does it, Miss Shelley? If she felt helpless and out of control, good. Because that was how he’d felt five years ago, when she’d entertained her television audience with his personal crisis. Smugly she’d broadcast his degradation with the enticement of a carnival barker.

Thinking of it now made his hands close into fists. He wouldn’t hit her, but he might hit the wall, pound at it in outrage over the injustice of what had happened to him and how Britt Shelley had contributed.

With him in this fractious frame of mind, it wasn’t very smart of her to mention Hallie. Weren’t you engaged? Not smart of her at all to reopen that wound.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed when she used her foot to open the bathroom door. “You-” The word died on her lips. His expression must have conveyed to her the bitterness roiling inside him. He certainly didn’t try to conceal it.

She wavered there on the threshold between the two rooms, looking ready to duck back into the bathroom for safety. Enjoying her apprehension, he stood up slowly. “Turn around.”

“What for?”

“Turn around,” he repeated with emphasis.

Her face filled with distress. “Mr. Gannon, please. I know you probably think that I…that the news coverage I gave the…the fix you got yourself into was perhaps…”

“Exploitative?”

“I was young and green and terribly ambitious. I was trying to build an audience.”

“At my expense.” He began walking toward her and she started backing up.

“It was a long time ago.”

“My memory of it is fresh.”

“You don’t want to do anything now that would get you into even more trouble.” She cried out when he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “Oh, God,” she whimpered. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Putting his mouth directly above her ear, he whispered, “Relax, Ms. Shelley. I only wanted to check your hands, make sure you weren’t bringing something out with you.” He released her abruptly.

She turned, took several deep breaths, swallowed. He watched as her fear evolved into anger. “You deliberately frightened me into thinking-”

“What? That I’m actually the brute you painted me to be?”

“What did you think I might sneak out? A razor?”

He didn’t respond. He hadn’t brought her here to bicker. “We’re wasting time. Go sit down.”

“How long must we keep this up?”

“Until I’ve got from you everything I need.”

“Everything you need for what? What is this leading to? The kidnapping, the Gestapo-type interrogation. What do you plan to do?”

“I plan to make you sit down.” He hitched his chin toward the living area. “If you don’t sit down willingly, I plan to tie you to the chair.”

She marched back to the chair. Once she was seated, he knelt in front of her and took a roll of duct tape from the black bag. She tucked her feet beneath the chair. “Please. I promise not to get up until you tell me I can. Please.”

After a short staring contest, he relented and resumed his place in the other chair. “You never answered my question. Did you have sex with Jay?”

She studied a button on his shirt. At least her gaze landed in that vicinity of his chest and remained there. “I swear to you, I don’t know. My gynecologist examined me, but all she could determine was that there hadn’t been any…any trauma to the tissue.”

Raley gnawed the inside of his cheek, ruminating on that, wondering if he believed her, wondering why he gave a damn whether she and Jay had had sex or not.

“You joined him at the table in the corner of the bar. How was he?”

She laughed softly, but there was a touch of sadness behind it. “Like Jay. Handsome and well dressed. Charming. Flirtatious.”

“That’s our Jay.”

She looked at him curiously. “Was he always like that? Even when you were boys?”

“Always. What did you have to drink?”

She seemed about to ask more about their boyhood friendship but answered his question instead. “He was drinking vodka, maybe gin. Something clear, on the rocks. He’d had two or three. He ordered another when I ordered my wine.”

“From one of the waitresses?”

“She came to our table.”

“Did the same waitress deliver your drinks, or another?”

“I’m almost certain it was the same one. I remember thanking her when my wine appeared, but I was involved in my conversation with Jay, so I didn’t really take much notice.”

“What happened then, after your drinks came?”

“We clinked glasses.”

“Do you think Jay slipped something into your wine?”

“Why would he?”

“Do you think he did?”

“No.”

“Did he have an opportunity to?”

“No. We-”

Suddenly she stopped, her gaze turning inward.

“What?”

“I…” She looked at him, wet her lips. “I just remembered something. I took a cardigan with me. I always do. Air-conditioning.”

“So?”

“The bar was crowded, warm, so I didn’t need my sweater. I remember turning away to drape it over the back of the chair. The chair had a curved wood back, sort of like that one,” she said, nodding toward the one he was sitting in. “My sweater slipped off onto the floor. I bent down to pick it up.”

“Giving Jay enough time to drop something into your wineglass?”

“I don’t know. I suppose. But he would have had to be incredibly quick and dexterous.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe he did. And, anyway, why would he?”

“Right. When he knew you’d go to bed with him without being drugged.”

She stared back at him with teeming animosity, but she didn’t address the insult. He didn’t apologize, but he did say, “I don’t think Jay put anything in your drink, either. Resorting to that would be demeaning to his ego. He was awfully proud of his ability to get women into his bed.” He let that sink in, then said, “If not Jay, who?”

“I have no idea. Maybe someone just playing an ugly prank. But I’m convinced it happened at The Wheelhouse. I was already feeling funny when we left there. By the time we reached Jay’s town house, I wasn’t well at all.”

“Did you tell Jay you didn’t feel well?”

“I don’t believe so. I was anxious to hear what he was about to tell me. I didn’t want him to cut the evening short, saying it could wait for another time.”

“Right. You wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of getting a big story.”

She fired back, “You’re damn right I wouldn’t!”

Raley could have said how well he knew the lengths to which she would go to nail a story, but he let it pass. “Jay lured you with-”

“He didn’t lure me. He said he needed to talk to me. When he told me about his cancer, I thought that was the purpose of the meeting.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had altered, become softer. “Did you know he was sick?”

Something inside him twisted, but he kept his features schooled. “Not until I heard he’d died in bed with you.”