Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

Raley parked in front and opened his door. “I’ll be right back.” When she didn’t argue or pepper him with questions, he knew she was still in shock. He preferred the questions.

A bell above the screen door jangled when he went in. A man wearing a stained white wife-beater and khaki pants was leaning on the counter, eating a bag of onion-flavored potato chips and thumbing through a hunting and fishing magazine. Above and behind him on the wall was the mounted head of a snarling razorback.

As Raley approached the counter, the man wiped his salty fingers on his pants legs and looked Raley over, starting at his muddy bare feet and moving up his clinging, wet clothes to his dirty, bearded face and matted hair. “Out for a swim?”

“Hot tea, please. One.”

“Hot tea?” He chortled. “Want fries with that?”

Raley just stared at him.

The man’s silly grin slowly evaporated. “Coffee machine’s over there. Hot water spout’s on the side of it.”

Raley went to the self-serve area and scrounged around until he found a crushed box of Lipton tea bags. He filled a foam cup with hot water-which was barely tepid-dropped the tea bag in, and put a lid on it. He returned to the counter. “How much?”

“Is it for the lady?”

The man peered past Raley, who turned to see what he was looking at: Britt with her head leaned against the passenger window, wet hair obscuring most of her face, except for her eyes, which were staring blankly through the windshield. “That’s right,” Raley said, coming back around.

“Rough night?”

“You could say.”

“On the house,” the man said, sliding the cup of tea toward Raley.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t forget the sugar.”

Raley picked up two packets of Domino, nodded his thanks to the man, and returned to the truck. He handed the tea and sugar to Britt, then started the truck and pulled it back onto the road.

“I don’t want this.” She had removed the cap and was looking into the cup of tea, which had brewed barely to the color of apple juice.

“Drink it anyway.”

Obediently she placed the cup between her knees, emptied both packets of sugar into it, and bravely took a sip.

He said, “I have an oxygen tank at my place.” She didn’t say anything, but in his peripheral vision, he could see that she was looking at him quizzically. He kept his head forward. “I got it thinking that I might need it for an emergency, that Delno might go into cardiac arrest from eating too much fatty food like possum. He fries everything in lard and thinks bacon grease is a beverage.”

She took another sip of the tea, still looking at him over the rim of the cup. “You want me to go back to your cabin with you?”

He turned his head. “Not really, no. But I’ve got something to show you.”

“In addition to your oxygen tank?”

“My files. Everything I have on my investigation into the fire.”

“Official documentation?”

“In anticipation of being fired, I sneaked into Brunner’s office and made a copy of everything. I’d be willing to let you read through it, but first I must have your word that you won’t make me a news story until I give you the go-ahead.” He paused to let that sink in.

“Or?”

“Or I can drop you off at an emergency room, where you can get proper treatment. Or I can drive you to your house and you can surrender to the police. In all fairness, I have to tell you that either of those options would be wiser than sticking with me.”

She ran her finger around the rim of the cup several times. “My own lawyer may not be trustworthy.”

“Whether or not he betrayed you to the bad guys, he’s compromised.”

“You said yourself that the detectives on my case idolized Jay and wouldn’t want to hear anything negative about him.”

“I’m confident you would get them past that. They’d have to accept the truth about him sooner or later.”

“But later. Because right now my credibility is nil.”

“In the meantime, you’re exposed and in danger.”

“There’s no disputing that. Someone tried to…tried to…”

“Kill you.”

Too emotional to speak, she nodded.

Raley considered that answer enough.

Thank Jesus the last of the guests were straggling toward the front door to say their thank-yous and good-byes. George had had about all of this party he could stand. Les’s idea of a good time was to gather his toadies and their wives around him, ply them with rich food and strong drink, and let them know how fucking great he was and weren’t they lucky to be paid to kiss his ass.

Ostensibly the party had been a last-minute thing to celebrate the deal with the city that had been consummated this afternoon after a slow eighteen holes of golf and an endless lunch. George doubted its spontaneity.

By the time he got home from the country club, catering trucks and hired bartenders and waiters were already there, setting up. Guests began arriving at six thirty, continued until seven, and the attendance rate had been one hundred percent of those invited. He figured Les had had this soiree planned for weeks.

The son of a bitch had never entertained the thought that he might be unsuccessful in securing that athletic complex contract.

“Mr. McGowan, there’s a call for you.”

George turned toward their housekeeper, who had touched him on the arm to get his attention. “Take a message.”

“I tried, sir. He was most insistent on speaking with you.”

“George?” Miranda, looking stunning in a black, body-hugging, strapless dress, approached. Her pink martini matched the diamond drop nestled in her cleavage. The five-carat stone was spectacular but couldn’t hold a candle to the lush breasts. “The Madisons are waiting to say good-bye to you.”

Madison was further up Les’s ass than the rest of them. “I’ve got to take a phone call. Say good night for me.”

She looked perturbed but said nothing, only turned her back on him and rejoined Les, who was glad-handing Madison and insincerely complimenting his plump, mousy wife on her drab dress.

George drained his highball and handed the empty glass to the housekeeper. “Thanks. I’ll take the call in the study.”

It was a pretentious room. The bookshelves were filled with books he’d never read, written by authors he’d never heard of. Adorning the paneled walls were the stuffed heads of deer and elk he hadn’t shot. There was a glittering display case full of trophies for golf tournaments and tennis matches he didn’t remember playing. One of his racehorses had won several silver cups, too, but George had had nothing to do with that beyond paying the exorbitant bills that came with owning, stabling, and training a high-strung, ill-tempered Thoroughbred.

And there was that famous photo of him and the others at the scene of the fire. Miranda had blown it up to an embarrassing size and hung it on the wall in a frame that the Queen of England might have used for her state portrait.

He avoided looking at it as he sat down at the desk and picked up the phone. “Yeah? Who’s this?”

“Cobb Fordyce.”

Despite his determination not to look at the photo, his eyes went straight to it. “It’s after office hours for you, isn’t it?”

“I felt I should call.”

“We’re having a party, Cobb. I have guests.”

Ignoring that, the attorney general said, “I had an interesting call a few minutes ago.”

“Oh?”

“Bill Alexander.”

George swallowed. Or tried. Actually, his mouth had gone dry. He wished he’d poured another drink before picking up the phone. “The lawyer?”

Sounding vexed, Cobb said, “Come on, George.”

“Okay, why did he call you at this time of night?”