Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

“He treated all his friends like that. With a casual disregard that would piss people off if it was anybody else besides Jay.” He sliced the air with the back of his hand. “No matter what the offense, people excused him, saying, ‘That’s just Jay.’

“But-and that’s a big word here-he also had a talent for cheering you up when you were having a crummy day. He could get you to laugh when you felt like crushing something. He was the life of the party. He was never in a bad mood. He was affectionate and fun. That’s why people were drawn to him. Everybody wanted to be near Jay, inside his energy field. Because it was electric and exciting. The air around him crackled. From the outside looking in, it seemed like he had a thousand friends.”

He paused and thoughtfully uncrossed his ankles, pulling his legs in and setting his elbows on his thighs, leaning forward. “But I wonder. Did he have friends, or just acquaintances he could manipulate and get away with it? Was he a friend, or a man who could use you with such finesse you didn’t even realize you were being used?”

He paused a moment, then said, “Looking at his casket today, I had to wonder if anything he had ever said to me, in our entire lives, was honest and real. When I was down or in doubt and he doled out encouragement, was it just so much rhetoric? When I shared my ambitions and dreams, was he bored? Secretly laughing up his sleeve? I think maybe his special gift was just knowing the right thing to say and when to say it, to make you think he was your friend.”

He sighed. “Did I feel a loss? Yeah, I did. I thought my friendship with Jay ended five years ago. Today I realized that it had never existed. We’d never had a true friendship. That’s what I mourned.” Feeling slightly embarrassed over the sentimentality, he slapped his thighs lightly and stood up. “Finished?”

She cleared her throat. “Yes. Thank you. It was delicious.”

He slipped on his sneakers and carried the debris to a trash can outside so as not to stink up their small quarters. As he headed back toward the cottage, he questioned whether or not to tell Britt about what had happened after he parted company with George McGowan. She deserved to know, but did she need to be any more frightened than she already was?

He scanned the parking lot, but there was only one other car parked outside a cabin, and it had been there when they checked in. He went back inside, making certain the door was locked and the dead bolt secured.

He turned to find Britt facing him squarely, hands on her hips. “When are you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Why you’re walking around with that cannon tucked into your waistband.” She lifted his shirttail and pointed at the pistol grip. “Tell me why you got up to look out the window twice while we were eating. Why-”

“They were at the funeral.”

“Who?”

“Butch and Sundance. The two men who came to the cabin.”

She backed up until her knees hit the edge of the bed, then plopped down on it. “Did they see you?”

“Yes, but I pretended not to recognize them.”

“What happened?”

He’d left George looking ready to implode. Going down the incline toward his car, he’d spotted the maroon sedan out of the corner of his eye. He tried not to give any indication that he recognized the car or the man sitting behind the wheel, although he was sure it was the same man who’d searched his cabin. He was still wearing the pale blue shirt. There was another man in the passenger seat, and although Raley had never got a good look at him, he saw that he was wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses and had to assume it was the man who’d gone through his truck.

He had no choice but to drive away in the sedan he’d recently purchased for the express purpose of getting rid of an identifiable vehicle. “A wasted thirty-five hundred dollars, asshole.” Covertly he shot the finger at the driver of the maroon sedan.

He nosed his way into the line of cars leaving the funeral and was glad to see that the maroon sedan had to wait for another opening in the stream, which didn’t come until six more cars had passed. When Raley reached the exit, he turned onto the thoroughfare, going in the direction opposite from the motor court where he and Britt were registered. He drove as fast as he dared without risking getting stopped for speeding.

Nevertheless, the maroon sedan caught up with him at the second traffic light. It remained in his rearview mirror for the next few blocks, keeping several cars between them but matching Raley’s speed and shifting lanes whenever he did.

It took him five miles in heavy traffic to finally shake the other vehicle, but he couldn’t be certain that Butch didn’t have someone else bird-dogging him. He continued to weave through traffic on the boulevards, got on and off the expressway several times, and doubled back on his route so many times he didn’t think he could possibly have been followed.

That was what he told Britt now, and wished his voice held more conviction. “I think I evaded them, but I can’t be sure.”

“We won’t know until someone comes barging through the door, guns blazing.”

“I’ve got a gun, too.”

That didn’t seem to console her all that much. “You’re not always here, Raley. And now that they’ve seen the new car, they know what we’re driving.”

“I drove into a parking garage at the hospital and switched license plates with a minivan, then I got a felt marker and made an eight out of a three. And I chose this car because there are a lot of boxy gray sedans similar to it. So it’ll be hard for them to track us.”

“They’ve done okay so far.”

She was right, so he didn’t insult her with a lame contradiction. “You could still turn yourself in.”

“Not until I’m better equipped, ready to fight fire with fire. So to speak.” Reaching behind her, she took several copied documents off the bed, where she had obviously been reading them during his absence.

“You took pains to hide all this stuff. Why?”

“I wanted to be sure a copy of the original records existed. I was afraid that, after I left the department, they would be doctored or accidentally-on-purpose misplaced, never to be found.”

“When you were stonewalled by Jay, what specifically were you investigating?”

“The seven victims.”

“According to these reports, one was a file clerk.”

“Her body was found in a stairwell. She was trapped there when the ceiling collapsed. Cause of death, she was crushed, but she probably would have died of smoke inhalation anyway.”

“The jailer.”

“Was rescued but died two days later of burns and smoke inhalation. It wasn’t a merciful death,” Raley said grimly.

“Five prisoners died in the holding cell.”

“Four died in the holding cell. But there was a fifth detainee who also died.”

She glanced down at the sheets of paper in her hand. “You’ve circled a name in red.”

“Cleveland Jones.”

CLEVELAND JONES WAS IN A SMALL, ENCLOSED OFFICE WITH no window, not even in the door. It was being used that day as an interrogation room,” Raley said.

“Why that day?”

“Curious, isn’t it? Especially when there were two other bona fide interrogation rooms. Anyway, it’s believed that he set the fire.”

“By igniting the contents of a wastebasket. You said it wasn’t that simple.”

“It wasn’t. As a seasoned inspector, Brunner knew that, too. Ordinarily, the trash can fire would have burned itself out in a matter of minutes, when all the combustibles were consumed. But this trash can was placed near an intake air vent. The grille was missing and no telling for how long.”