Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

“I think we have to assume he is.”

“Do you think he knows how to shoot?”

“Doesn’t matter. We do.”

Johnson was grinning confidently at his partner when his cell phone vibrated. He answered with a brusque “Here,” then didn’t speak another word for sixty seconds. “Got it.” He slapped the phone closed and said to Smith, “Showtime.”

RALEY’S PARANOIA WAS CONTAGIOUS.

Britt didn’t argue when he suggested that they move again. After his call to Judge Mellors, they returned to the motor court only long enough to gather their things. It took less than ten minutes. Raley drove into the urban area of Charleston, then beyond it, crossing the Cooper River before he found another suitable motel. Combined with an RV park, it had individual cabins lining the edge of a pretty marsh.

Raley used an alias to check them in, paid for a couple of days in cash, and parked the car behind their cabin. “I asked for this one. Easy in, easy out,” he said as he ushered her into their new quarters, which were furnished similarly to the previous place but were much nicer and newer. They kept the curtains over the front window tightly drawn, although Raley peered through them at regular intervals to check for anyone encroaching on their bolted door.

“Did the judge give you a time frame?”

“She asked for several hours. Then I’ll go out and find another pay phone.”

“What do you think Fordyce will say?”

Killing time, Raley was lying on his back on the double bed next to the one on which she was reclined. He’d bunched up the flat pillows beneath his head. His forearm was resting on his forehead. “I don’t know. But Candy was my best and last resort. I laid it on pretty thick, the obligation factor and her belief in the law. It was crass manipulation, but at least she promised to try to talk him into seeing me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been so brutally honest.”

Keeping his arm on his forehead, he looked at her across the narrow space separating the beds.

She said, “What I mean is, you told her you suspected him of several felonies. Maybe you should have fudged a little.”

“Maybe I should have let you ask her. You’re all about fudging.”

“Some would call it diplomacy.”

“Some would call it lying.”

Her breath gusted out in frustration. “God, you’re unbending.”

“Candy called it tenacious.”

“Call it by any name you like, you’re unforgiving. That’s probably why Hallie-” She broke off, then mumbled, “Never mind.”

“Oh no,” he said, turning onto his side and propping himself on his elbow. “You opened that can of worms. That’s probably why Hallie what?”

She watched him closely, half out of curiosity to see how he would react, half out of wariness of his reaction. “Your unforgiving nature is probably why she didn’t come back to you.”

“After Jay, you mean. After he threw her over for the next flavor of the month.”

“If she had crawled back, full of contrition, would you have resumed your relationship with her?”

“After Suzi Monroe, I couldn’t very well condemn anybody on faithfulness issues, could I? I would have forgiven Hallie on a cerebral level. But, no, I wouldn’t have taken her back.”

“Because it was Jay she turned to.”

“Because she turned to him so easily. She knew how he was, how shallow and self-serving he could be. We’d talked about his character flaws. Even laughed about how he’d made egomania an art form. And still she chose him over me.”

Britt considered letting it drop there, but prodded by curiosity, she said, “But you sort of…”

“What?”

“Nudged her away. Didn’t you? When you offered her time and space, were you testing her love and devotion?”

“Maybe.” He flopped onto his back again. “If it was a test, she failed. You said I hadn’t fought for her, but she didn’t fight for me, either.”

“Then why did you try to contact her years later?”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Good question, Ms. Shelley. I’ve asked it of myself a few thousand times. Self-flagellation? I wasn’t quite miserable enough? Curiosity? Loneliness? Maybe a combination of all those reasons.

“Anyway, I got extremely upset when I heard that she’d married and was having a baby. But not out of jealousy. I didn’t love her anymore, but I cared enough about her to be glad that she’d survived Jay.”

“Then why did you get upset?”

“Because her newfound happiness underscored how crappy my life was. It made me furious. She, Jay, Fordyce, all of them were flourishing. Suzi Monroe had been nothing more hazardous than a speed bump in their lives. They were past it, moving forward and upward. I was stuck in neutral and couldn’t do anything about it.”

“You could have gone to another city, applied at the fire department and-”

“And been told thanks but no thanks. Soon as my previous employment was checked, I’d’ve been turned down on character issues.”

“You could have done something else. Changed careers.”

“I wanted to be a firefighter. That’s what I’d spent years training for. That’s what I did and wanted to do. Besides, my job here wasn’t finished.”

“To unforgiving, add stubborn.”

She’d meant it as a gibe, but he didn’t respond, so she figured he’d taken it as another criticism of his character. For several minutes, silence simmered between them. He was the first to speak. “Candy thinks this is about the Suzi Monroe thing. Hallie and Jay. All that. She said it’s futile for me to hold a grudge against him because you can never come to a reconciliation with a dead man.”

“Very perceptive of her. You told me you’ve spent the last five years plotting your revenge.”

“Yes, I did, but that’s not what it’s about now.”

“What’s it about now?”

“It’s about the seven people who died. Eight, if you count Suzi.”

He was still staring up at the ceiling, so his profile was all she could see of his face, but the tenor of his voice had changed. “Those people were murdered, Britt. No one knows that a killer or killers went free. No one even suspects. There’s been no accountability for those crimes. Call me unforgiving and unbending, that’s okay. I won’t forgive and I won’t bend because even Cleveland Jones, who by all accounts was irredeemable, deserves justice.”

After a moment, she said, “You’re passionate about this.”

He turned and looked at her, then gave a small shrug. “Passionate? Yeah, I guess. When I was a kid, I had this dream of becoming a fireman so I could save lives and property, put my life on the line to rescue others, see that arsonists were caught and punished. Very idealistic. Even arrogant. But that’s how I felt.”

“Most little boys want to become firemen so they can ride on the fire truck.”

“Well, there was that,” he admitted with a flash of a grin. “Not to mention the cool-looking, badass gear, and sliding down the pole, and getting to hang out at the firehouse. All that macho, male bonding stuff.” They smiled across at each other.

“What’s your most memorable experience as a fireman?”

He didn’t have to think about it but said instantly, “I rescued a man who was pinned in his wrecked car.”

“Tell me about it.”

“When we arrived, he was screaming, hysterical, but he wasn’t hurt all that badly. I calmed him down, told him we’d get him out and that he’d be all right. A half hour later he was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital, a little beat up, but fixable.”

“That’s a good story with a happy ending.”

He looked over at her, then back at the ceiling. “Not really. After we got him into the ambulance, we had to go back and cut his four-year-old son out of the wreckage. His body was crammed up under the engine block, and when we tried to pull it out…” He stopped, waited, started again. “Nothing held together. He was in pieces.” He paused again and cleared his throat.