Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

George was getting increasingly hot under the collar. He assumed a belligerent stance. “I didn’t mention that ’cause I figured you’d just as soon not talk about it.”

Raley smiled and said softly, “No, George, you’d just as soon not talk about it. See, I don’t think you’d want anybody to know that I told you, Jay, Pat Wickham, and Cobb Fordyce that I’d been given a drug in my drink to wipe clean my memory of that night. Because it might strike them as strange that Britt Shelley has said the same thing about the night Jay died.”

“Date rape drug, my ass,” George said, bringing his florid face closer to Raley’s. “That’s a real convenient defense that can’t be proven.”

“Something I know all too well.”

“Look, she and Jay had a lovers’ quarrel. End of story.”

“She claimed they weren’t lovers.”

George guffawed. Or tried. It sounded more like choking.

“Besides,” Raley continued, “Jay didn’t quarrel with women. Never. He spared himself such scenes. When he wanted to end a fling with a woman, he just stopped calling her. No fuss, no muss.”

“Maybe this gal didn’t know that. Maybe-”

“Jay had only weeks to live. I wonder what it was he wanted to tell a celebrated newswoman that night. Have you thought about that?”

George fumed for several seconds, then said, “He might have wanted to tell her how easy it was for him to get in your fiancée’s pants.”

Raley didn’t flinch. “I think he wanted to give Britt Shelley a big news story with his deathbed confession built in.”

George took another aggressive half step forward. “What would Jay have to confess?”

“You tell me.”

“You’re full of shit, Gannon. You’re holding a grudge against Jay for taking Hallie away from you. If I was still a cop, you know what I’d be thinking? I’d be thinking that maybe you sneaked into his place that night and held a pillow over his face.”

“If I was going to kill him, it wouldn’t have taken me five years to do it. This isn’t about him and Hallie.”

“No?” George sneered. “You know, a few months after you left town, I went by Jay’s place one day. Middle of the day. Broad daylight.”

“Somebody’s going to connect the dots, George. You, Fordyce, Pat Wickham, Jay, Suzi Monroe, me, Britt Shelley.”

“I was about to ring Jay’s doorbell when I saw them through the window.”

“Somebody’s going to make that connection, George, and the common thread is the fire.”

“Your girl’s legs were draped over the arms of a chair, and Jay was on his knees, his face buried in her pussy, and she was loving it.”

“This cast of characters originated with the fire.”

Raley said it loud enough to draw attention to them and halt the conversations taking place nearby. George, his face suffused with heat, looked around, smiling, but his worry of being overheard was apparent.

In that moment of suspended animation, the hearse pulled away. Raley and George, like the others, solemnly watched its slow progress down the hill. No one moved or said anything until it turned at the end of the lane and disappeared behind a dense hedge of evergreens, then a collective sigh of relief could be heard among the last of the mourners.

George mumbled, “Well, that’s that.”

“You wish.” Raley turned back to George and thumped him softly in the chest. “You’d better go have that drink, George. Have two. I think you need them.” Then he smiled. “See you around.”

“But if he’s any judge of smiles at all,” Raley told Britt an hour later, “he’ll know mine wasn’t for grins.”

“I’ve seen that smile.” She dunked a French fry into a puddle of ketchup. “It’s wicked.”

“Wicked?”

“Villainous. Hungry. Wolfish.”

Raley scoffed. “I don’t think any of those descriptions fit me. Especially now that I’ve shaved off my beard.”

“They fit you more without the beard. The jaw, the eyes. Definitely lupine.”

He had returned to the motor court, bringing with him, along with a six-pack of Diet Coke and a can of Lysol spray, a sack of cheeseburgers and fries with a side order of fried shrimp, and two milk shakes. In the amount of time it had taken him to pull his shirttail from the waistband of his trousers and toe off his shoes, Britt had had the food unwrapped and on the table. They’d dug in.

While they ate, he recounted his conversation with George McGowan, trying to be as precise as possible. Britt didn’t allow anything to be glossed over or summarized. She demanded elaboration and details.

“Is she gorgeous?” she asked now.

“Miranda?”

She smiled wryly. “I see you didn’t have to pause and think about who I meant.”

“Yes. Gorgeous.”

“I’ve only seen pictures of her. Did Jay…you know?”

He raised one shoulder. “Maybe. Probably. Everybody else has.”

Britt stopped chewing, the unasked question evident in her expression.

He wiped his hands on a paper napkin. “The first time Miranda caught my eye, she was a high school cheerleader in a short skirt, doing high kicks on the sidelines. Jailbait. By the time she was old enough, I was away at school, and after that I was with Hallie.”

“I see. Lousy timing and lack of opportunity.”

He thought, Let her wonder, and reached for his milk shake. He took a long pull on the straw, then for the next several minutes they ate in silence.

“Raley?” When he looked across at her, her gaze was soft, earnest. “How did you feel? During the service, I mean. How was it for you, coming to grips with Jay’s death?”

“You’re not going to say the word closure, are you?”

She frowned at that. “Despite what he’d done to you, he was your oldest friend. Did you feel a loss? Were you able to mourn?”

He popped a shrimp into his mouth. “Always the interviewer, aren’t you?”

She yanked her head back as though he’d slapped her. Then she tossed down her last French fry and began gathering up the trash, stuffing it into the sack. “Forget it. I thought you might be feeling some conflicting emotions and would appreciate a sounding board to help you sort them out. My mistake.”

She moved back her chair and stood up. Raley caught her arm. “Okay, sorry.”

She pulled her arm from his grasp. “You’re still looking for an ulterior motive in everything I say and do. I thought we were past that.”

“I may never be past that.”

Angrily, she held his gaze for several moments, then expelled a long breath, her shoulders relaxing. “I deserve your mistrust, I guess. But I honestly thought you might want to talk about you and Jay.”

He hesitated, then with a small motion of his head, invited her to sit back down, which she did. He leaned back in the chair, which was much too small for his tall frame, and stretched his legs out in front of him. “You’re not a reporter for nothing, and I mean that as a compliment. Your instincts are excellent. Your questions about the funeral struck a nerve. That’s why I said what I did.”

He shot her a quick glance but found it difficult to look her in the eye while he verbalized these particular thoughts, so he focused on the happy face printed on the cup of his milk shake. “Jay was one of those people you make excuses for. Excuses to yourself.”

“How do you mean?”

“We’d make plans. To go to a ball game. To water-ski. Whatever. He’d arrive an hour late. I’d be furious. He’d be apologetic and penitent. ‘You have every right to be sore,’ he’d say. And even though I did have every right to be mad as hell, I’d let it go. I’d excuse him.

“He’d borrow my car and return it with an empty gas tank. I’d be steamed, but I’d never say anything. We’d be out to dinner. He’d let me pick up the check, saying he would get it the next time, but ‘next time’ never came. It wasn’t a matter of money. That’s not what I resented. It was his taking for granted that I’d pay and never make an issue of it.