Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

THE MAROON CAR HAD BEEN LEFT IN A PUBLIC PARKING LOT two blocks off King Street. Because of the traffic, Raley was able to go slow and keep well back until the pair retrieved their car. He followed them out of the historic district, and then several miles along a major boulevard to an older Holiday Inn.

“Assassins on a budget,” Britt said.

“No, they’re charging the client three times what the rooms cost.”

The hotel had two levels of rooms accessed by open-air corridors. The men parked their car steps away from rooms on the ground floor. Watching from a strip-center parking lot across the busy, divided thoroughfare, Raley and Britt saw the driver, the one they called Butch, open the trunk and remove a duffel bag.

She said, “That looks heavy.”

“Tools of their trade.”

Thoughtfully she asked, “That night on the road, why didn’t they just shoot me?”

“The risk of leaving evidence. The timing.”

“Two homicides so close together, mine and Jay’s, our being friends, that would have roused suspicion.”

“Your murder might not have passed as a random act of violence. Better that it take days, weeks maybe, for some poor fisherman to discover your car with you inside.”

“And then it would have appeared I’d killed myself.”

“Right. Then if you had remembered something Jay told you, and had passed it along to someone else, it could be discredited and dismissed.”

“The ramblings of a distraught woman about to take her own life.”

“Exactly.”

“They’re very clever, aren’t they?”

Her serious tone of voice brought his head around. “Very.”

The two men went into neighboring rooms. Butch kept the duffel bag with him. “He must be the senior partner,” Raley said. “Or maybe just the best shot.”

Britt asked, “Now what?”

After taking a glance around, he said, “Keep an eye on their rooms. Signal me if they come out.” He pushed open the car door.

“Where are you going?”

“To call Candy before it gets any later.” He pointed toward a telephone booth at the far end of the shopping center. “Since the booth is still there, I’m thinking the phone will be working.”

“Let’s drive over.”

He shook his head. “We couldn’t see their rooms as well. Stay put. Watch those rooms.”

“You’ll be exposed. They could see you.”

“They’re not looking. But just in case…” Holding the pistol by the barrel, he extended it to her. “You keep this.”

She recoiled. “Leave it on the seat.”

He got out and carefully set the pistol on the driver’s seat, then set off across the parking lot at a jog. Despite what he’d told Britt, he didn’t like being so exposed. He stepped into the phone booth but didn’t close the door, so the light wouldn’t come on. Fortunately the telephone was still there. Even more of a break, it was in working order. He’d come up with a pocketful of change.

Candy answered his call on the first ring. “Where have you been? I was beginning to think that you’d come to your senses and weren’t going to call back.”

He plugged his ear with his index finger to help filter out the swishing noise of traffic. “I got tied up. Sorry I kept you up late. What have you got for me?”

“An appointment with Fordyce.”

He was stunned. He hadn’t admitted, even to himself, that she might manage to pull it off. “No shit?”

“Oh he shit, all right. At least I’m fairly sure he did. He was having no part of it at first, but I eventually wore him down. I told him he was lucky you hadn’t accosted him at Jay’s funeral like you did George. I advised him as a former colleague that he should talk to you in private before you did something very public and probably crazy. He’s expecting you to be just shy of a complete mental case, so hopefully your reasonable state of mind will come as a pleasant surprise.” She hesitated, then said, “You aren’t a mental case, are you?”

“No. Just a man with a mission.”

“Same as,” she muttered.

“What time?”

“Eleven o’clock. His office. Check in with the guard. A page will escort you.”

“Candy, I don’t know what to say.”

“Say good night,” she said querulously. “I’ve got back-to-back interviews all day tomorrow and need to go to bed. I’m retaining fluid because I never have time to pee, so my eyes are already puffy. Don’t even get me started on my ankles.”

He smiled at the picture she painted. “I owe you. Huge.”

“Red and white.”

“What?”

“When you come to dinner next week, you have to bring both colors of wine. And no cheap stuff.”

“You’ve got it.”

“And, Raley.”

“Yeah?”

“Hold his feet to the fire. Pun intended.”

“What time?” Britt asked when Raley returned to the car with the good news.

“Eleven o’clock. His office.”

“I’m surprised. I hoped he would agree to see you, but I doubted he would.”

“Frankly, so did I. Maybe he’s got bigger cojones than I give him credit for.”

“It’s easy to be brave when you’re inside a guarded government office.” She gazed thoughtfully at the maroon sedan parked outside the rooms at the Holiday Inn. “Or when you have someone fighting your battles for you.”

She repeated the statement to herself and realized how accurately it applied to her. Acting on impulse and before she could change her mind, she opened her car door and stepped out.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Britt?”

Ignoring him, she ran toward the busy boulevard, calling to him over her shoulder. “If something happens, drive away and call Detective Clark.”

“Britt!”

“Drive away.”

Her timing couldn’t have been better. Just as she reached the curb, there was a break in the traffic. She sprinted across two lanes, the dividing median, and then the other two lanes, and came out on the sidewalk bordering the parking lot of the Holiday Inn.

She didn’t dare look back at Raley, fearing that he would be in hot pursuit. Instead she continued moving purposefully across the parking lot toward the two rooms with the familiar car parked in front of them.

She couldn’t positively identify it as the car that had forced hers off the road and into the river. But she couldn’t eliminate it, either. She also knew that at least one of these men had been at The Wheelhouse, where she had been drugged. All circumstantial, but awfully suspicious.

What she knew with certainty was that they had searched Raley’s cabin and truck yesterday, and that they had doggedly followed him from Jay’s funeral, indicating that they were men whose purpose was shady, and possibly deadly. Nor did she believe for a moment that their being at the notable gay bar tonight was happenstance. Whether they were allies or enemies of Pat Wickham’s, their intentions were contradictory to hers and Raley’s.

The bastards had this coming.

Keeping her eyes trained on the windows and doors of the two rooms, she cautiously approached the car. She glanced around to make certain that no other guests or hotel employees were in sight or looking out the windows.

Seeing no one, she crouched down behind the sedan. The lights were still on inside both rooms. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the windows. At any second the door of either room could have burst open. The occupants might even have been able to hear her heart pounding.

She crept to the left rear tire and ran her fingers along the rim until she located the air valve stem and hastily twisted off the cap. Clutching it in her hand, she duckwalked to the front tire.

She could hear the sound track of a TV sitcom coming from one of the rooms. Had the curtain moved, or was that her imagination? Was the air-conditioning unit beneath the window causing the curtain to flutter?