Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

“Did you speak?”

“No. Just looked at each other the way strangers do. No smiles were exchanged, just pleasant-like. You know. Then I spotted Jay and…Wait.” She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut. “I may have seen him when Jay and I left the bar. There was a man sitting in a car, parked across the street from the bar’s entrance.”

“Ordinary sedan? That’s what they were in today. Maroonish?”

“Maybe. You know what the traffic is like on East Bay during the dinner hour. In between passing cars, I saw…” She strained to remember clearly, but the image remained cloudy. “There was a man sitting in the driver’s seat, but I don’t know for sure that it was the same man as the one at the bar.”

“But you’re sure the man at the bar and the one in the cabin today were the same?”

“Positive.”

“Okay.” He gnawed the inside of his cheek, thinking.

“What?”

He tapped the steering wheel with his fist several times. “Couple of things I can’t figure out. First, why did they come snooping around my cabin? What were they looking for?”

“How did they find you?”

“It wouldn’t be hard. I have a driver’s license. I pay property taxes. It would be easy enough to find out where I live. But why did they come looking?”

“They could’ve put two and two together.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mentioned Yemassee to Bill Alexander. If they located your address-”

“And saw it wasn’t far from there.” He nodded. “Yeah. I see where you’re going. They would have thought that was a weird coincidence.”

“Maybe McGowan and Fordyce are thinking you’re a loose end they can no longer afford to leave loose.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” he mumbled. Giving her an uneasy glance, he said, “And so are you, Britt. A loose end they thought they didn’t have to worry about anymore. Bet it came as a shock to discover that you’re still alive and in my company. That would make them real nervous.”

To stave off her rising fear, she insisted again that the man in the cabin hadn’t seen her. “If he had, he would have done something.”

“But the Target bags were on the bed in plain sight. He would have looked inside them, checked the date on the receipt, seen the clothes, seen the new makeup in the bathroom. I doubt they’d mistake me for a cross-dresser.”

“You could have bought all that for another woman.”

“What other woman?”

“Any other woman. A living woman. They think I’m fish food at the bottom of the Combahee.”

“I hope that’s what they think. But if I were them, and I hadn’t seen your corpse for myself, and I saw new clothes in your approximate size in the home of a man with whom you have something in common, like being screwed over by Jay Burgess and friends, I’d be thinking that maybe you hadn’t drowned. I’d have a hunch, just like this guy said. So until proven wrong, I’m going to assume this is a fight, and it’s us against them. For reasons known only to them, they didn’t take us out at the cabin, but that doesn’t make me any less paranoid.”

He left the pickup’s motor running while he went into a bank to “cash out,” as he put it. When he returned, he brought with him a zippered bag, which Britt figured contained currency.

“I’ll owe you half of our expenses,” she said. Her wallet was in her handbag, in her car, in the river. She didn’t like being completely without means, but she had no ATM card or ID with which to withdraw anything from her bank. Not that she would anyway. A bank withdrawal would be the first thing Clark and Javier would watch for.

“Don’t worry about it,” Raley said. “Money’s the least of our problems.”

“What have you lived on for the past five years? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I sold my house. The cabin cost a fraction of the equity I got from that sale. I had another car. Sold it, sold my fishing boat and trailer. Liquidated everything. Bowling ball, skis, bicycle, scuba gear, everything. I don’t have as many toys now, but I don’t have as many expenses, either.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“I’m fine with that.” He looked over at her and added, tongue in cheek, “About as fine as you are with having no family.”

He slowed down to survey the inventory of a place on the highway that advertised used cars, boats, trailers, generators, and propane tanks. Easy terms. Priced to sell.

About fifty yards past that was an AME church. Raley turned in to the church parking lot and pulled the pickup into the shade of a live oak draped in Spanish moss. He counted out several thousand dollars from the money bag and pocketed the hundred-dollar bills. He told her to stay in the truck. “If anyone comes close, honk the horn, and I mean sit down on it.”

He walked back to the car lot. She watched as he moved along the row of cars and pickups. Soon a short, potbellied man, whose shirt showed sweat rings under his arms, came out of the sales office and approached Raley. They shook hands, had a brief exchange, then the salesman began pointing out various models for Raley’s consideration. He dismissed some straightaway, inspected a few, deciding against them until he was directed to a sedan with a generic body style and drab color.

While the salesman gave his pitch, Raley walked around the car kicking the tires, then got behind the wheel. He turned on the ignition, popped the hood, checked the engine, looked underneath the body to check for oil drips-or so Britt assumed-then seemed to make up his mind. He followed the happy salesman into the office and emerged a few minutes later with a handful of yellow papers and a set of keys.

He drove the car to the church, parked it behind the pickup, then came to the passenger side and opened the door for her, handing her the new set of keys as she alighted.

“You drive that car. They won’t know to look for it. I’ll take the truck. If something happens-”

“Like what?”

“Anything. You keep going. Drive straight to Charleston and throw yourself on Detective Clark’s mercy. Got it?”

“I thought you would trade the truck in,” she said as she followed him over to the new purchase.

He stuffed the paperwork, including the title and a short-term insurance policy, into the glove compartment. “A trade-in is a transaction too easy to trace. Besides, I like my truck.”

“Where are you going to leave it?”

“The airstrip. I thought about taking it to Delno’s, but I don’t want to involve him. I don’t think they know about the airstrip, so it’s best to leave it there, even though it means doubling back several miles.” He saw her settled behind the wheel of the sedan. “All right?”

She adjusted the seat and the mirrors. “The upholstery stinks.”

“Can’t have everything. Follow me, but stay close. Don’t let a car get between us. Okay?”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

He closed the door but left his hands in the open window. “Remember what I told you, Britt. If something happens to me, you keep going.”

But nothing untoward happened. They arrived at the airstrip without incident. They took their belongings, including the pistol, from the pickup, then got into the sedan together, although he took over the driving. She noticed him giving his pickup a wistful glance as they pulled away from the old hangar. He was abandoning his one remaining toy.

“Now where to?” she asked.

“Home sweet home.”

“Where’s that?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

It was quaintly called a motor court. Twelve cabins were tucked into a grove of trees set back off Highway 17, west of the Ashley River, which they would cross to get into Charleston proper. The motel had little to recommend it. There was a swimming pool, but it had been drained; the bottom of it was littered with debris both natural and man-made. Enclosed in a chain-link fence was a rusty swing set that had a yellow plastic seat hanging by only one chain. The rest of it was missing.