Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

His heart was drumming, and when he heard his own gasping breaths, he willed his mouth shut in order to stopper them. He stood transfixed, but his brain was scrambling, seeking an explanation for the inexplicable.

The woman was dead.

The tanned skin had taken on the ashen hue of death. Her lips were the color of putty. Her eyes, partially open, were beginning to film.

His stupefaction lasted for maybe ten seconds. Perhaps even less. Then his training kicked in, and so did his innate compulsion to act. It wasn’t so much compassion, which denoted forethought and a choice to be valiant. With Raley, it was more like energy, spontaneity, instinct that propelled him to rescue something or someone without his even having to consider it.

He was beside her in a nanosecond, feeling for a pulse. He felt none. Her skin was as cool as marble. Nevertheless, he began giving her CPR.

“Jay!” he shouted. “God dammit, where are you? Jay!” His shouts went unheeded. He could hear no noise in the house except his own labored breathing and his muttered urging for her to move, breathe, revive.

But both his efforts and his prayers were useless. He’d known they would be, but he’d had to try. He continued until his chest was bathed in sweat, until sweat was streaming down his face. Or were those tears of anguish stinging his eyes and rolling down his cheeks?

Finally, weakened by his own exertion, he gave up. He sat back on his heels and stared at her, still trying to grasp how this horror show could possibly be playing out, with him as the lead character.

He reached for the phone on the nightstand. It was an extension to Jay’s landline. He dialed 911. The operator answered.

“There’s been a death. Send an ambulance.” He hung up before the dispatcher could begin asking questions.

His heels made loud thudding noises against the floor as he ran from the room and down the hallway. Jay was in the kitchen, sitting on a barstool, a mug of coffee in his hand, the Sunday newspaper spread out on the counter in front of him. Earphones bridged his head, and his bare foot was tapping out the beat of the music being piped into his ears.

“Jay!”

Raley didn’t think he heard him, but he must have noticed the motion out the corner of his eye. He turned his head and immediately started laughing, which under the circumstances, was obscene. It didn’t occur to Raley until much later what a bizarre sight he must have been. Naked and bug-eyed, flapping his arms to get his friend’s attention.

As soon as Jay removed his earphones, he said, “The girl-”

“You look like the Wild Man of Borneo,” Jay chortled.

“There’s a girl-”

“I know, but I promise not to tell.”

“She’s dead.”

Jay bit back a laugh. His smile collapsed. “What?”

Raley turned and retraced his steps to the bedroom, trusting that Jay would follow him. He did. He stopped in the open doorway, stared at the body with dismay, covered his mouth with one hand. “Fuck me.”

“I tried to revive her, but…” Raley ran his hand over his head. “Jesus Christ.” Thinking he might faint, he bent at the waist, placed his hands on his knees, and sucked in several deep breaths.

By the time he straightened up, Jay was standing beside the bed, studying the still form. “Looks like she’s been dead for a while.”

“I woke up. Found her. Like that.”

Jay wiped his mouth again. “Shit, man.”

“I know. I’ve called 911.”

Jay nodded absently. “Get some pants on.” Raley stared at him, not quite comprehending. “Get some pants on,” Jay repeated.

Staying in one spot, Raley pivoted until he spied his trousers in a heap of clothing belonging to him and the girl. FCUK spelled out in rhinestones, mocking him. He stepped into his pants, pulled them on, did up his fly, but each motion was mechanical.

“What happened?” Jay asked.

Raley looked at him blankly. “What?”

“What happened? Christ, Raley. I’ve got a dead woman in my house. In bed with you. What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know!”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” He motioned toward the corpse. “I don’t even know her name.”

Jay placed his hands on his hips and looked at him with consternation, then, hearing the distant whine of a siren, dropped the pose and went into action. His eyes skittered around the room until they lighted on a woman’s handbag.

He got it and began rifling through it, coming up with a wallet. He flipped it open. “Suzi with an i. Monroe.” He shot Raley an inquiring glance.

Raley shook his head. “If she told me her name, I don’t remember.”

“I never saw her before last night, either,” Jay said. “I looked around for you, and saw you out on the patio making chummy with her.”

Raley ran his hand down his clammy face. “Yeah, I vaguely remember that. She came up to me and started talking. She gave me a margarita. We walked out…out by the swimming pool, I think.”

Jay was looking at him with incredulity. “I had no idea you were that far gone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Raley, you and this chick-” He broke off, shook his head impatiently. “We don’t have time for this now.” The siren’s wail had got louder. It was close now. Jay continued to plow through her handbag.

“What are you looking for?”

“She shows up at a party uninvited, a gate-crasher. What does that tell you? She’s a party girl, right?”

Raley was too befuddled to reason through whatever it was Jay was trying to communicate.

“Ah!” He withdrew a small folded square of aluminum foil from her bag. Barely pinching the corner of it between his fingernails, he held it up where Raley could see it, then dropped it back into the purse. He went down on one knee and examined the surface of the nightstand. “Un-huh.” When he came to his feet, he bent down close to the girl’s still face, examining it as a cop would. “She’s a cokehead,” he said, straightening up and turning to Raley. “Did you snort last night?”

Raley just stared at him, flabbergasted by the question. He and Jay had experimented with marijuana in college but found they got a better buzz from alcohol. Besides it was cheaper, and legal. Jay knew damn well he wasn’t a drug user.

Jay said, “I’ll take your whey-faced expression as a no.”

The siren reached its loudest, then stopped. Jay moved Raley aside as he headed for the door. “I’ll let them in. I’ve got to call the PD. I’ll take care of it, okay? Don’t say anything to the EMTs. You’re too shaken to speak, all right?”

“I am too shaken to speak.”

“Good.” Jay gave him a thumbs-up, then left to let the emergency responders in.

Raley knew them. They gaped at him when they entered the bedroom and saw their cohort standing beside the bed with the naked corpse on it. But they did their job without pausing to ask questions of him.

The next half hour passed in a blur. Later, when Raley tried to recall the sequence of events, they overlapped until they became a mishmash of memories, some indistinct, others sharp. Of the night before, he couldn’t remember anything except arriving at Jay’s party with Candy and planning a quick getaway seconds before the girl came up to him.

The EMTs summoned the county coroner, who arrived shortly and confirmed that the body in the bed was definitely dead.

At some point Jay handed Raley a cup of coffee. “I called Pat and George, told them briefly what the situation was. Lucky for us, they agreed to come over, even though it’s Sunday and neither is on duty.”

Pat Wickham and George McGowan, friends of Jay’s in the police department. Both were detectives who solved crimes against persons. Assault, rape, murder.