Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

With the chore out of the way, they returned to the table and sat down across from each other. He began fiddling with a box of toothpicks in the center of the table.

The silence stretched out until it became unbearable to her. Apparently he was waiting for her to begin. She said, “If you had told me earlier last night that the same thing had happened to you, and given me a few minutes to assimilate it, I would have seen reason, just as I have this morning.”

“Maybe.”

“I wouldn’t have hightailed it out of here, I wouldn’t have plunged headlong into the wilderness. Not until I had the whole story.”

“Probably not.”

He was contradicting himself. She shook her head in confusion. “Then it wasn’t really necessary for you to tape our hands together and bind me to the bed, was it?”

“No.”

“So you did that out of sheer meanness.”

“Not entirely.”

“Then why? Why did you-” But she broke off without finishing the question because suddenly she knew why.

He kept his head down for a long time. When he finally raised it and looked at her, it felt as though he’d reached across the table and socked her lightly in the lower abdomen.

Just then footsteps landed heavily on the front steps.

“Raley! Get up, boy!”

“Oh shit,” Raley muttered as he came quickly out of his chair.

The strangest-looking man Britt had ever seen came barging through the screen door, nearly tearing it off the hinges in his haste. He stumbled over three hounds, who bounded in along with him, their tongues dripping slobber onto the man’s crusty bare feet. He cursed them lavishly for tripping him up.

“Get those damn dogs out of here,” Raley ordered. “They’ve got fleas. So do you, for that matter.”

The old man didn’t seem to hear him. Immediately upon clearing the doorway, he’d stopped dead in his tracks and stood transfixed, gaping at Britt, who had also shot to her feet, partially to protect herself from the hounds, who were circling her, sniffing at her bare legs with more curiosity than menace.

Raley whistled sharply. “Out!” The three reluctantly withdrew, whining, tails tucked between their legs. Raley held open the screen door. They slunk through it onto the porch, where they plopped down into three panting canine heaps.

Raley returned to the table and sat down as though the disruption hadn’t taken place. The old man was still rooted to the floor, staring at her. “What’s she doing here?”

Britt didn’t miss the disparaging emphasis on his reference to her. “You know who I am?”

“I ain’t blind. Course I know who you are.” He shot a look toward Raley. “I know all about you.”

His tone indicated that what he’d heard about her from Raley wasn’t complimentary.

“He kidnapped me.”

“Kidnapped you?”

“He came into my home, bound and gagged me, and drove me here.”

“Against your will?”

“Isn’t that what kidnapped usually implies?”

“Don’t get on your high horse with me, young lady. You’re gonna need all the friends you can get.”

That elicited a reaction from Raley. He looked at the old man sharply. “Why? What’s happened?”

“I seen it on the TV first thing this mornin’.” He looked askance at her, then spoke directly to Raley. “They done the autopsy on your late friend Jay.”

Any time a police officer died of anything other than natural causes or old age, it made news.

Patrick Wickham, Jr., knew that from when his father had been killed. He’d been gut-shot and left in a dirty, rat-infested alley to bleed out. Newspapers had deemed it a heinous crime committed by a lawless assailant. The community was saddened and outraged. It had lost a hero who would be long remembered and revered for his unstinting bravery on the day of the police station fire.

Barely a year had elapsed between the fire and the night Pat Sr. was slain. The brouhaha over the fire was just beginning to die down when his murder stirred it all up again.

As a trained policeman himself, Pat Jr. knew that his father had failed to follow procedure that night. He hadn’t even exercised common sense. But his costly misjudgment had been obscured by the posthumous accolades to his uncommon courage.

The other three heroes of the fire were asked to eulogize his dad. Pictures of Cobb Fordyce standing with head bowed beside the casket had made him a shoo-in for the race for the AG’s office. George McGowan had wept openly at the interment. Jay Burgess had offered Pat Jr. and his mother whatever assistance they needed from him and the CPD. “Anything,” Jay had said, pressing his mother’s hand as he kissed her cheek.

For weeks following Pat Sr.’s funeral, Jay had phoned often, even stopped by the house a few times to see how they were faring, bringing with him flowers and small gifts. But then the calls and the visits had tapered off and finally stopped altogether.

Every once in a while, his and Jay’s paths would cross at police headquarters. They always exchanged friendly hellos, but it was obvious to Pat that Jay didn’t want to engage in conversation, and that was more than okay with him.

Now a photo of that handsome, guileless face filled the screen of his twelve-inch kitchen TV.

“Another officer who distinguished himself five years ago during the police station fire apparently died the victim of foul play,” the announcer said, all gravity.

“Daddy?”

“Shh!”

“I wan’ milk.”

Each morning Pat Jr. prepared breakfast for his two children. It wasn’t a chore he particularly enjoyed. In fact, he dreaded it every morning-the whining, the demands, the invariable spills. But getting breakfast was the least he could do for his wife and children. The very least.

Mechanically he poured milk into a sippy cup, secured the top, then handed it to his three-year-old son. Smelling of a wet diaper, his two-year-old daughter was in her high chair, creating a mush of waffles and syrup in the tray.

“Jay Burgess was found dead two days ago in his bed by newswoman Britt Shelley. Ms. Shelley, who placed the 911 call, contends that after meeting Burgess at a popular nightspot, she has no memory of the night she spent with him.”

They cut to an exterior shot of The Wheelhouse. Pat Jr. knew it, but he’d never been there.

“Daddy?”

“Just a minute,” he snapped impatiently.

“Police, who’ve questioned Ms. Shelley extensively, have declined to cite any wrongdoing on her part. However, they did request that the autopsy on Burgess be conducted as soon as possible. Gary, in view of this report from the medical examiner’s office, do you think the authorities will be questioning Ms. Shelley further?”

The field reporter, covering the story from outside Jay Burgess’s town house, now a crime scene, appeared on camera. “No doubt of that, Stan. Ms. Shelley said at the news conference she held yesterday that she was eager to learn the cause of Burgess’s death. By her own admission, she was the last person to see him alive. Given the findings of this autopsy, the police will have some hard questions for her.”

“Pat?” Pat Jr. turned around to see his wife, who’d just come from bed. Her eyes were still puffy with sleep, but she was looking at the television. “Is that about Jay Burgess? What are they saying?”

“That he didn’t simply die in his sleep.” The words seemed reluctant to be spoken. They got jammed up inside Pat Jr.’s misshapen mouth, but he was finally able to articulate them.

Astonished, she said, “No kidding?”

He shook his head, wishing with all his might that he was kidding.

“So what happened to him?”

Pat Jr. didn’t have the wherewithal to reply.

George McGowan already had the front door open when his father-in-law arrived and honked the car horn loudly. Nevertheless, as George wedged himself into the seat of Les Conway’s latest acquisition, a spanking new, red Corvette convertible, Les shot him a look of reproof as though he’d been kept waiting.