Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

“Only what’s been in the news. Apparently Bill Alexander was the last person she talked to. He’s an idiot. That’s off the record and just between us, of course.”

George laughed. “Gotcha.”

“Listen, George, I need to get to bed. Again, I apologize for calling so late, but this is the first private moment I’ve had all day. Until the Senate vote, my time’s not my own.”

“Good luck with that. Not that you need it.”

“Thanks.” A short silence followed, then she said, “At least Jay is at peace now.”

“One hopes.”

After their good-byes, George closed the phone, then stared at it thoughtfully before turning off the car and getting out.

As he trudged up the steps, Miranda asked, “Who was that?”

“Judge Cassandra Mellors.”

Miranda’s eyebrow arched eloquently. “My, my. You’re awfully popular this week, George. First the state attorney general calls. Now a district court appointee. Doesn’t she have anything better to do than place late-night phone calls to old chums?”

“She wanted to hear about the funeral. I told her about Raley.”

“Oh? And what did she say?”

He recounted their conversation. “Candy ended by saying that at least Jay was at peace.”

Miranda stepped closer to him. “In between conversations with people in high places, you had time to screw your little cocktail waitress. I can smell her on you.”

“Can you?” He pushed his hand between Miranda’s thighs and squeezed her sex. “Jealous?”

“Why would I be?” she said, deliberately rubbing herself against his hand. “When I know that every time you’re with her, or any other woman, you’d much rather be having me.”

It was the truth, and George hated her for knowing it. “But I can’t really have you, Miranda, can I? No matter how many times I fuck you, I’ll never have you.”

She didn’t even pretend not to understand. Nor did she refute him. She merely stared back at him with that knowing smile that tormented him. Frustrated, he withdrew his hand and stepped around her, moving toward the door.

She caught his arm and stopped him. “I don’t like it.”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Jay dies, and all your old cronies start showing up. They’re like buzzards drawn to a carcass.”

He chuckled a mirthless laugh. “You may not like it, but you can’t be surprised. Did you think Jay’s murder was going to go unnoticed? It was bound to have a ripple effect. Like Raley said today, we’re all connected.” Bending toward her, he said in a stage whisper, “To the fire.”

Miranda released her hold on him and backed away, separating them in more ways than just linear distance. “That may be, George, but I’m not part of that dysfunctional little family.” Her eyes shone with an even colder glint. “If you go down, sugar pie, don’t expect me to be dragged along with you.”

I SEE MR. JONES HASN’T MADE ANY HOME IMPROVEMENTS SINCE I was last here,” Raley said as he brought the car to a stop.

The mobile home squatted on a barren lot and had an aura of general neglect. A short-haired, heavily muscled dog bared his teeth and strained against the chain securing him to a metal stake.

“How do you know he still lives here?” Britt had to speak loudly in order to make herself heard above the dog’s ferocious barking.

“I looked up his name in the phone book while you were showering.”

“Do you think he’s home?”

“Truck’s here.”

Parked only a few feet from the door of the mobile home was a pickup with a camouflage paint job and mud-caked tires almost as tall as Britt. The Stars and Bars flag of the Confederacy hung from the radio antenna. “He should live in the pickup and scrap the trailer,” she remarked. Of the two, the truck was in far better condition.

She had insisted on coming along, and Raley had put up only a token argument. For one thing, if the men looking for them tracked her to the motor court, she had no way to protect herself. Even if he left the pistol, he doubted she would use it. She flinched each time she looked at it.

And if the pistol had stayed behind with her, he would have had no way of protecting himself in case of attack, except with brute force, and he didn’t trust himself to be as ruthless as men who would smother a terminally ill man with a pillow and force a woman’s car into a river, leaving her to drown.

The only solution had been to bring both the weapon and Britt with him when he came to call on the late Cleveland Jones’s next of kin, his father.

He opened his car door and put his left foot on the ground. The dog went berserk. “I hope that stake holds.”

“Do you think a doughnut would appease him?” Britt picked up the Krispy Kreme bag containing the leftovers of the doughnuts they’d eaten for breakfast.

“I doubt it. He looks pure carnivore.”

Raley got out and gave the dog a wide berth as he approached the rusty mobile home. He’d left his shirttail out to cover the pistol in his waistband and checked now to make sure it was still concealed. Mr. Jones hadn’t been at all cordial five years ago. He would be even less so now if he saw Raley coming to his door armed with a.357.

When Britt joined him at the steps leading up to the door, he gave her a critical once-over. She was supposed to be incognito, but he didn’t think she would pass for anything other than a babe who happened to be wearing a baseball cap, maybe because of a bad hair day.

She wasn’t made up and camera ready, but the facial bone structure that made her photogenic was hard to disguise. Today she’d dressed in a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. Raley thought maybe he should have gone up a size on both. The white cotton hugged her torso, and the denim molded to her ass. They looked great on her but weren’t the best choice of clothing when the goal was to make her inconspicuous and forgettable.

“Remember,” he said, “if he recognizes you, we’re outta here immediately. No ifs, ands, or buts. Don’t say anything that would give away where we’re staying. Don’t-”

“We already went over this, Raley.”

“Yeah, but this is still a bad idea.”

“I’m not an idiot. I won’t give anything away.”

“You should stay in the car.”

“I have better interviewing skills than you.”

She’d taken that position during their argument about whether or not she would be present when he talked to Jones. He’d said no, definitely not. She would stay in the car and not risk exposure.

“I interview people for a living,” she argued. “I get information out of them, often when they’re reluctant to give it up.”

“I got information out of you.”

“By tying me to a chair!” There was nothing he could say to that. “Besides,” she persisted, “you tend to get impatient. Chances are good you’d rile Jones and shut him up before we learned anything useful.”

He knew firsthand that she did have a talent for getting someone to tell more than he intended. She would know the questions to ask and how to ask them in a way that required more than a yes or no answer. One earnest look from her, a blink of those oh-so-interested baby blues, and a person heard himself babbling.

Also, and this was the biggie, he was afraid that, if he let her out of his sight, she would vanish and never be seen again. He had flashbacks of her engulfed in river water, her palm futilely pressed against the window of her car.

So, here she was.

They started up the steps, but before they reached the door of the mobile home, it was pushed open with a strong whoosh of air and a bellowing voice. “Shut up, you goddamn mutt. That barking’s driving me crazy!”