Smoke Screen

CHAPTER 6

THE VULGARITY SHOCKED THE ANGER OUT OF HER.

“What?”

“Want me to spell it?”

She looked away, then down at the floor. “I need to use the bathroom.”

The crudity had been intentional, and it had served its purpose. Anger sometimes escalated into stubbornness. If she went tight-lipped on him out of sheer obstinance, then he’d gain nothing.

Now that she was subdued, he could be more lenient. A little more. He knelt down in front of her and used his pocketknife to slice through the duct tape around her ankles, then peeled it off.

“Thank you.” She tried to stand but dropped back into the chair. “My feet have gone to sleep.”

He cupped her elbow and steadied her as she stood up and took a tentative step. “Ouch.”

“Wiggle your toes.”

It was a long minute before she was able to put her full weight on her feet. He kept his hand around her elbow as they shuffled toward the bedroom, where the bathroom was.

“Have you lived here since you left Charleston?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“A raccoon hung around for a few months.”

“You didn’t get married?”

“No.”

They were in the bedroom now. He reached through the open bathroom door to switch on the light. This afternoon before he left, he’d gone over the fixtures with a disinfectant solution. He’d hung a clean towel on the bar. A new roll of toilet paper was on the spool. He’d put an unused bar of soap in a dish he pilfered from the kitchen.

All the while he was cleaning, he’d asked himself why he was bothering. It wasn’t like she was going to be a guest. But now he was glad he’d gone to the effort. It made the room, and by extension him, more presentable.

“Weren’t you engaged?” she asked.

“Yes.” He stood aside and motioned her into the bathroom. He could read the question in her eyes, but he wasn’t going to discuss his broken engagement. Not yet. “Hurry up. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“You haven’t freed my hands.”

“You’ll manage.”

“I can’t go with my hands bound behind my back.”

“I bet you can if you have to go bad enough.”

Once she’d cleared the bathroom door, she kicked it shut. He turned the knob and pushed it open. “The door stays open.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“It is if you want to use the bathroom.”

“You’re punishing me, aren’t you? For…for before. You’re humiliating me out of spite, when all I did was my job.”

“If you’re not going to pee, back in the chair you go.”

She thought it over, then said, “Can you at least close the door halfway?”

He conceded her that much. While she was attending to her business, he moved restlessly around the bedroom. He went over to the window and looked out on a night that was black and still. He fiddled with the sash on the window shade, then batted at it angrily and moved to the bed and sat down.

Damn right he was holding a grudge against her. Giving her a taste of humiliation. Doesn’t taste good, does it, Miss Shelley? If she felt helpless and out of control, good. Because that was how he’d felt five years ago, when she’d entertained her television audience with his personal crisis. Smugly she’d broadcast his degradation with the enticement of a carnival barker.

Thinking of it now made his hands close into fists. He wouldn’t hit her, but he might hit the wall, pound at it in outrage over the injustice of what had happened to him and how Britt Shelley had contributed.

With him in this fractious frame of mind, it wasn’t very smart of her to mention Hallie. Weren’t you engaged? Not smart of her at all to reopen that wound.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed when she used her foot to open the bathroom door. “You-” The word died on her lips. His expression must have conveyed to her the bitterness roiling inside him. He certainly didn’t try to conceal it.

She wavered there on the threshold between the two rooms, looking ready to duck back into the bathroom for safety. Enjoying her apprehension, he stood up slowly. “Turn around.”

“What for?”

“Turn around,” he repeated with emphasis.

Her face filled with distress. “Mr. Gannon, please. I know you probably think that I…that the news coverage I gave the…the fix you got yourself into was perhaps…”

“Exploitative?”

“I was young and green and terribly ambitious. I was trying to build an audience.”

“At my expense.” He began walking toward her and she started backing up.

“It was a long time ago.”

“My memory of it is fresh.”

“You don’t want to do anything now that would get you into even more trouble.” She cried out when he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “Oh, God,” she whimpered. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Putting his mouth directly above her ear, he whispered, “Relax, Ms. Shelley. I only wanted to check your hands, make sure you weren’t bringing something out with you.” He released her abruptly.

She turned, took several deep breaths, swallowed. He watched as her fear evolved into anger. “You deliberately frightened me into thinking-”

“What? That I’m actually the brute you painted me to be?”

“What did you think I might sneak out? A razor?”

He didn’t respond. He hadn’t brought her here to bicker. “We’re wasting time. Go sit down.”

“How long must we keep this up?”

“Until I’ve got from you everything I need.”

“Everything you need for what? What is this leading to? The kidnapping, the Gestapo-type interrogation. What do you plan to do?”

“I plan to make you sit down.” He hitched his chin toward the living area. “If you don’t sit down willingly, I plan to tie you to the chair.”

She marched back to the chair. Once she was seated, he knelt in front of her and took a roll of duct tape from the black bag. She tucked her feet beneath the chair. “Please. I promise not to get up until you tell me I can. Please.”

After a short staring contest, he relented and resumed his place in the other chair. “You never answered my question. Did you have sex with Jay?”

She studied a button on his shirt. At least her gaze landed in that vicinity of his chest and remained there. “I swear to you, I don’t know. My gynecologist examined me, but all she could determine was that there hadn’t been any…any trauma to the tissue.”

Raley gnawed the inside of his cheek, ruminating on that, wondering if he believed her, wondering why he gave a damn whether she and Jay had had sex or not.

“You joined him at the table in the corner of the bar. How was he?”

She laughed softly, but there was a touch of sadness behind it. “Like Jay. Handsome and well dressed. Charming. Flirtatious.”

“That’s our Jay.”

She looked at him curiously. “Was he always like that? Even when you were boys?”

“Always. What did you have to drink?”

She seemed about to ask more about their boyhood friendship but answered his question instead. “He was drinking vodka, maybe gin. Something clear, on the rocks. He’d had two or three. He ordered another when I ordered my wine.”

“From one of the waitresses?”

“She came to our table.”

“Did the same waitress deliver your drinks, or another?”

“I’m almost certain it was the same one. I remember thanking her when my wine appeared, but I was involved in my conversation with Jay, so I didn’t really take much notice.”

“What happened then, after your drinks came?”

“We clinked glasses.”

“Do you think Jay slipped something into your wine?”

“Why would he?”

“Do you think he did?”

“No.”

“Did he have an opportunity to?”

“No. We-”

Suddenly she stopped, her gaze turning inward.

“What?”

“I…” She looked at him, wet her lips. “I just remembered something. I took a cardigan with me. I always do. Air-conditioning.”

“So?”

“The bar was crowded, warm, so I didn’t need my sweater. I remember turning away to drape it over the back of the chair. The chair had a curved wood back, sort of like that one,” she said, nodding toward the one he was sitting in. “My sweater slipped off onto the floor. I bent down to pick it up.”

“Giving Jay enough time to drop something into your wineglass?”

“I don’t know. I suppose. But he would have had to be incredibly quick and dexterous.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe he did. And, anyway, why would he?”

“Right. When he knew you’d go to bed with him without being drugged.”

She stared back at him with teeming animosity, but she didn’t address the insult. He didn’t apologize, but he did say, “I don’t think Jay put anything in your drink, either. Resorting to that would be demeaning to his ego. He was awfully proud of his ability to get women into his bed.” He let that sink in, then said, “If not Jay, who?”

“I have no idea. Maybe someone just playing an ugly prank. But I’m convinced it happened at The Wheelhouse. I was already feeling funny when we left there. By the time we reached Jay’s town house, I wasn’t well at all.”

“Did you tell Jay you didn’t feel well?”

“I don’t believe so. I was anxious to hear what he was about to tell me. I didn’t want him to cut the evening short, saying it could wait for another time.”

“Right. You wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of getting a big story.”

She fired back, “You’re damn right I wouldn’t!”

Raley could have said how well he knew the lengths to which she would go to nail a story, but he let it pass. “Jay lured you with-”

“He didn’t lure me. He said he needed to talk to me. When he told me about his cancer, I thought that was the purpose of the meeting.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had altered, become softer. “Did you know he was sick?”

Something inside him twisted, but he kept his features schooled. “Not until I heard he’d died in bed with you.”

“The two of you didn’t stay in touch after you left Charleston?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t.”

“He was your best friend.”

“Was.”

“You hadn’t seen or spoken to him in five years?”

“No.”

“What caused the split? Your leaving? Or the events leading up to it?”

He wasn’t yet ready to talk about that. He had to get his facts straight on how Jay had died before he could address how he’d lived. “Jay told you he was dying.” She nodded. “Do you think he told you because he wanted a mercy fuck?”

She gave him a withering look. “That’s such a juvenile question. Such a man thing to conclude. I thought so when the two detectives asked me the same.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them no. Jay didn’t have to resort to pity any more than he would resort to date rape drugs.”

“That’s such a woman thing to conclude.”

“He didn’t.”

“Spoken with the voice of experience.”

She was about to retort to that but changed her mind and only stared at him, seething but silent.

“So he didn’t get you there to tell you he had only a few weeks to live.”

“No.” She told him that Jay had dismissed her sympathy. “He said he didn’t have time to talk about cancer and funerals. He said that he had something much more important to tell me, and that the story he had to tell would launch me straight into a network job.”

Raley waited, his heart knocking with anticipation. After several seconds passed, he said, “So what was the career-making story?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit!” He came out of his chair so quickly, she jumped in alarm. “I’m not a competing reporter. I’m not gonna call a network and get the jump on you. You can have your precious story, I just want to know what Jay told you.”

She came out of her chair to face him squarely. “Nothing! He became-”

“What?”

“Nervous. On edge.”

He barked a laugh. “Jay?”

“Jay.”

“Nerves of steel, always in control, never ruffled Jay? That Jay Burgess?”

“Yes. I realize it sounds out of character-”

“No, it sounds ludicrous.”

“I’m telling you, he got jittery and began to sweat.”

He raked the fingers of both hands through his hair, holding it off his heated face for several seconds before letting it go. He propped his hands on his hips and stared at her. “You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you? You see an opportunity and you grab it. You’ve got everybody by the balls and you’re loving it. The police. Me. Everyfuckin’ body. You’re milking this thing for all it’s worth, making up this elaborate story about memory loss when what really happened is that you and Jay got drunk together and then you screwed him to death.”

“I don’t give a damn what you think about me,” she said, one angry word tumbling after the next. “You, who live out here in this…this…shanty that looks like Tobacco Road, have no room to talk to anybody about ambition and what one does with one’s life. Think what you want about me.”

“Thank you, I will. I do.”

“But for whatever else I am, I’m not a liar. If you dragged me out here to beat the truth out of me, then you’ve committed a crime for nothing. You could have got the same truth from the newspaper. I went on record today at that news conference with the truth. You can like it or not, accept it or not, believe it or not. I really don’t give a damn.”

She took another step so they were standing almost toe to toe. “Jay was on the verge of divulging something vitally important to him. But he became nervous and distracted. He began to take notice of people at nearby tables. He glanced toward the bar several times. Even when he was talking to me, he was looking past me, over my-”

She broke off and for several seconds continued to stare into Raley’s face, but he thought she wasn’t really seeing him anymore. She backed away and sat down hard in the chair, staring into near space.

He returned to his chair and sat down, keeping his gaze fixed on her but remaining silent, not wanting to scare away a memory that was creeping back into her consciousness. He had hoped that prodding her, hammering at her as he’d done, would shake loose a recollection. Apparently it had. He waited.

Finally she began to speak. “I once interviewed a man who agreed to talk to me about a labor strike, but only if he could remain anonymous. My sound tech and I electronically altered his voice, and he wore a hood during the interview. And even then, all the while I was interviewing him, his eyes weren’t on me. Through the holes in the hood I could see them looking past me, just beyond my shoulder, anxiously darting from side to side. I even turned my head once to see what he was looking at. I didn’t see anything to be afraid of. But he did.”

Her eyes pulled Raley back into focus. “That’s how it was with Jay. I thought his restlessness meant he wasn’t feeling well, or that he’d become too warm in the crowded bar, or that, despite his dismissal of the cancer, he’d become upset when we talked about it. But now, I think he was afraid.”

“Of someone in the bar?”

“What else could it have been?”

“Did you ever turn and look behind you?”

“Actually, I was about to. Maybe Jay sensed it, because he reached for my hand and asked if we could move to his place to continue our conversation. He left money on the table, and we headed for the exit.”

“Did either of you speak to anyone as you left the bar?”

“No. Except to excuse ourselves as we made our way through the crowd.”

“No cross words with anyone? No hostile exchange of any kind?”

“Not even a dirty look.”

“See anyone who looked suspicious?”

“Suspicious?”

“Sinister. Up to no good.”

“I have only blurred images.” After a moment, she shook her head. “No, I don’t recall anyone with clarity.”

“Anyone follow you and Jay from the bar?”

“No.” Then hesitantly she said, “I don’t think so.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“A memory flickered, but…”

He could tell she was trying to snag it, hold on to it, but she failed to. “I don’t think anyone followed us, but I can’t be positive.” She brought her eyes back to his. “I explained all this to the police. Nothing, nothing out of the ordinary happened between the table and the exit.”

“What about on your walk to Jay’s town house? Did you meet anyone along the way?”

“I don’t believe so, although I don’t have a sharp recollection of the trip. I was well looped by then. I vaguely remember going inside his town house and immediately making my way to the sofa, wanting to sit down. Needing to. I wondered how I could have become so drunk over one glass of wine, and I didn’t even finish the glass.”

“So you went to the sofa and…?”

“And, that’s it. I can’t remember anything else.”

“Did Jay join you on the sofa?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Did you start making out?”

“I’ve just told you I don’t even remember if he sat down beside me.”

“Do you remember drinking scotch?”

“No. But I must have because I threw it up the next morning.”

“Jay was good at talking women into doing things they were reluctant to do. Like drinking too much, taking off their clothes. He was an expert at getting a woman out of her clothes. He boasted about his technique.” He watched her closely, interested to see how she would respond.

“If he exercised his technique on me, I don’t remember it. I don’t know how I became undressed, or how we got into bed, or what we did there.” Suddenly there was a catch in her voice. Her blue eyes filled. “Can you imagine how awful that is for me? I realize you have a low opinion of me, but no one deserves to be taken advantage of that way. I don’t know what was done to me that night, but the possibilities of what could have been done without my knowledge or consent make me sick and afraid.”

He didn’t say anything for several moments, then asked her, “Do you think Jay took advantage of you?”

She drew in a deep breath and let it out before she raised her head. The tears were gone, but her nose was running. “I can’t imagine that he would, but I don’t know,” she finished huskily.

He got up and went into the bathroom, pulled a length of toilet paper off the roll, and brought it back with him. He folded it into a square and pressed it against her nose. “Blow.” Her eyes went wide and she shook her head. “Don’t be silly. Blow.”

She blew. He wiped her nose, then went into the kitchen to throw the tissue away and asked her if she wanted more water. She declined.

He returned to his chair. “Tell me about when you woke up.”

She described how Jay was lying on his side, facing away from her. Her head was muzzy, she was confused. She collected her clothes, finding some of them in the living room, then went into the bathroom, where she threw up.

“It should have occurred to me then that I’d been drugged, but this was Jay Burgess. A police officer. A man I knew and trusted. I saw the empty bottle of scotch and blamed myself for losing control and doing something stupid.”

She paused and gave him a pointed look. “Which is not my m.o. I’m not in the habit of drinking myself unconscious and waking up in a man’s bed with no recollection of how I got there. In fact, nothing even remotely like that has ever happened to me before. I like being in control.”

“That I believe.” He said it in a way that didn’t flatter her, and he figured she caught the nuance because she frowned.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I used the bathroom and showered, the two things you’re not supposed to do if you suspect you’ve been given a date rape drug. Consequently, I can’t prove that I was.”

“When did you lose your virginity?”

The question took her aback. “What?”

“How many years have you been having sex?”

“None of your damn business.”

“It’s not that I care, I’m just finding it hard to believe that you can sit there and with a straight face tell me you don’t know whether or not you and Jay did the nasty thing.”

“A condom foil was found on the sofa.”

“Ahh. So you did.”

“It would appear so, but I don’t know. My doctor-”

“Why would you need clinical proof? Wouldn’t you know? Even hours later, wouldn’t you just feel it?”

“Would you?”

“I’m not a woman! My body doesn’t get penetrated.”

She bit back whatever she was about to say. Looking away from him, she compressed her lips and forcibly composed herself. When she looked back at him, she said, “It didn’t feel to me as though we’d been intimate. But I can’t swear to it. And does it even matter? Isn’t that a little beside the point?”

“I guess so. Jay still wound up dead.”

He stood up and took his knife from his pants pocket, then stepped around to the back of her chair. “Thank you,” she said with meaning as he cut through the tape binding her hands.

“Don’t get too excited. We’re not finished yet.” He wrapped his hand around her biceps and headed for the bedroom, hauling her along behind him.

“What are you-Wait! You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“It won’t hurt. Unless you fight me.”

He gave her a light push that sent her stumbling toward the bed. She broke her fall against it but bounced up and dashed toward the door. He hooked his arm around her waist as she ran past him, lifted her against his hip, and carried her to the bed, unceremoniously dumping her onto it.

Being caught at the waist had knocked the breath from her. It took a couple of seconds for her to regain it, then she was all fight again, kicking at him with all her might, flailing her arms in her effort to connect with his head.

But it was never any real contest. He straddled her thighs to make her thrashing legs ineffectual, then plucked the roll of duct tape from his shirt pocket, where he’d temporarily stowed it. Leaning away from her slapping, scratching hands, he ripped off a strip with his teeth, caught her left hand, and pulled it up to the bedpost. In seconds, he had her wrist taped tightly to the post at the level of the mattress.

He came off her and blotted his cheek with the back of his hand. Seeing fresh blood, he said, “You scratch me again and I’ll tape your hand to the top of the headboard. It won’t be nearly as comfortable.”

“Go to hell.”

Confident that she couldn’t do too much damage or go very far in the amount of time it would take him to go through the cabin turning out lights, he did so. When he reentered the bedroom, she was standing at the side of the bed, tugging frantically on her left hand as she tore at the tape with the fingernails of her right, accomplishing nothing except to pull the bed several inches away from the wall.

“You plan to drag the bed all the way back to Charleston?”

“Damn you! Let me go!”

Raley unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them down. That shut her up. She stared at him aghast. “What are you doing?”

“Taking my clothes off, what does it look like?” He toed off his sneakers, stepped out of the jeans, and removed his socks. He unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, pulled it over his head, and tossed it onto the nearest chair, then bent down and picked up the roll of tape.

“Get back on the bed.”

She shook her head, then said hoarsely, “No.”

He was on her before she could plan an effective defense. In seconds, she was on her back on the bed. He straddled her again while he wrapped the duct tape around their joined wrists, her right to his left. Again he bit off the end with his teeth.

“You might manage to gnaw off the tape on your left wrist,” he said, “but you can’t get free of me.”

“Maybe not,” she said between gasps of breath. “But I can make life very unpleasant for you.”

He should have recognized her wicked smile as a warning. As it was, he was almost too late to react when she raised her knee toward his crotch. She missed his balls by a margin so narrow, he caught his breath in anticipation of the pain that, fortunately, never came.

Frustrated that she’d failed, she screamed up at him, “Get off me!”

Instead, he stretched out fully, leaving himself less vulnerable by pinning her legs down with his. She was hampered but not defeated. She continued to buck like a colt, trying to throw him off. He lowered his face to within inches of hers, close enough to exchange angry breaths but far enough so they could keep each other in sharp focus.

“Stop that!” he ordered.

She didn’t of course.

“You want to know why I brought you here?”

“I think I know why,” she replied, panting from her exertion.

“You don’t know shit. I’ll clue you in. But you’ve got to stop fighting me first.”

Instantly she became still, but if looks could kill…

“I brought you here because I believe you.” Her blue eyes went wide. “I’m probably the only person in the state who does.”

“What?” she gasped.

“Yeah. I believe your memory was deliberately wiped clean.” He pressed down on her harder, for emphasis, to make certain she was paying attention. “Because the same thing happened to me.”