Where There's Smoke

by Sandra Brown

  “The equipment is modern.”

  “I’m talking about the whole setup. It’s not like you at all.”

  He didn’t have a clue as to what she was like. “Sick people aren’t confined to cities, Randall. I could have had a good practice here.” She folded down the flaps of a cardboard box and sealed it with duct tape. “That is, if I’d been given a decent chance to cultivate one.”

  “Tackett territory.”

  “Indisputably.”

  “I’m curious about something.” He crossed his legs with the negligent elegance of Fred Astaire. “Why in God’s name, when you had the whole continent to choose from, did you elect to practice here? In Texas of all places,” he said with obvious distaste. “Why pick the town where you’d be most despised? Do you have a bent toward masochism?”

  She had no intention of recounting for Randall the last three years of her life. In fact, she had no intention of letting him stay beneath her roof. Before sending him away, however, there was one thing she wanted him to know.

  “It wasn’t easy for me to pick up my career where it left off,” she began. “Even though I had been badly injured and had lost my child and my husband to a bloody revolution, people were slow to forgive. I was still considered Clark’s bimbo.

  “I applied for staff positions at hospitals all over the country. Some even hired me on my credentials alone before linking Dr. Lara Mallory with Mrs. Randall Porter, whereupon I was sanctimoniously asked to resign in the best interests of the institution. This happened a dozen times at least.”

  “So you finally decided to hang out your shingle. I suppose you used my life insurance money for financing. But that still doesn’t explain why you chose to practice here.”

  “I didn’t buy the practice, Randall. It was deeded to me free and clear. By Clark.” She paused for emphasis. “It was one of the last official things he did before his death.”

  It took him a moment to assimilate the information. When he did, he sucked in a quick breath. “Well, I daresay. He was buying absolution for his sins. How touchingly moral.”

  “I can only guess at his motivations, but yes, I think he felt he owed me this.”

  “Now I suppose you’re going to present me with a bill. What do I owe you for accompanying me to Montesangre?”

  “A divorce.”

  “Denied.”

  “You can’t deny me anything,” she said vehemently. “Key and I saved you from imprisonment in that miserable place! Or have you already forgotten? Has your instant fame wiped your memory clean?”

  Gradually a smile spread across his face. It was as patronizing as his tone of voice. “Lara, Lara. So naïve. After all you’ve been through, you still fail to see beneath the surface, don’t you? Hasn’t experience taught you anything? Where there’s smoke… and so on.” His hand made a lazy circular gesture. “Haven’t you learned to look beyond appearances and see things as they really are?”

  “You’ve made your point, Randall. What the hell does it mean?”

  “Do you honestly think that you and that hotheaded pilot precipitated my release?”

  His voice had become soft, sibilant, and smug. It caused the hair on the back of her neck to rise. She had a premonition of dread. “What are you saying?”

  “Put on your thinking cap, Lara. You passed medical school with flying colors. Surely you can figure this out.”

  “In Montesangre…”

  “Yes,” he said encouragingly. “Go on.”

  “Emilio…”

  “Very good. What else? Stretch your clever little mind.”

  The mental barriers were opaque, but once she broke through them, everything was crystal clear. “You weren’t his prisoner at all.”

  He laughed. “Good girl! I hate to sound unappreciative, but don’t credit yourself with saving my life. My ‘five-year plan,’ as I like to think of it, was about to be realized in any event. Your comical misadventure with Key Tackett was merely a fortuitous development that Emilio and I used as our catalyst. It made the denouement so much more convincing.”

  Lara stared at the man to whom she was legally married and knew she was looking into the eyes of a madman. He was perfectly composed, exceedingly articulate, and dangerously sly, the most frightening portrait of a villain.

  “It was all a hoax?” she whispered.

  Randall left the leather love seat and came to stand close to her. “Following that morning in Virginia, I was despised in Washington. Clark had powerful allies, including the president. He was no doubt embarrassed over Clark’s conduct, but he stood by his protégé. To a point, anyway.

  “At Clark’s request, he appointed me ambassador and called in favors in the Senate to have my approval rushed. On the surface, I accepted graciously, humbly, like they had done me a bloody favor. Actually, I despised it as much as you, knowing that it was a legal form of banishment.

  “No sooner had I arrived at my post than I began to devise ways of returning to Washington a hero. Emilio was a bright boy who had his own ambitions, which were fulfilled with Pérez’s death.”

  “Murder.”

  “Whatever. Together, we contrived a plot that would give each of us what he wanted. My ‘escape’ had to be carefully timed and fully capitalized upon. Once I returned to the U.S., rather than harboring a grudge toward my captors, I would insist on being reassigned to Montesangre, reopening the embassy, and reestablishing diplomatic relations with the new regime.”

  Imperceptibly, Lara was edging toward the telephone. “Emilio’s regime.”

  “Precisely. Upon my advice to the president, Emilio’s government would soon be acknowledged. With the endorsement of the United States, he’d have absolute control of his republic. I’d be credited with restoring peace to a hostile nation which could be strategic in fighting the drug wars. After a suitable time, my endeavors surely would be rewarded either with a plum appointment abroad or in Washington. A far cry from the cuckold, hey?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Like a fox, Lara. It’s been well thought out, I assure you. After years, the realization is unfolding even better than anticipated. What I need now is a loving wife to round out my image as an exemplary diplomat.

  “So, darling, you will remain faithfully and meekly by my side, smiling at the press, waving to the crowds, until I say otherwise. Don’t even think of doing anything to jeopardize this.”

  She began to laugh. “You’re a traitor with delusions of grandeur, Randall. Do you honestly think I’m going to participate in this traitorous ‘five-year plan’ of yours?”

  “Yes, I think you will,” he replied calmly. “What choice do you have?”

  “I’ll blow the whistle. I’ll tell them about Emilio’s brutality. I’ll call—”

  “Who would believe you?” He shook his head sadly over her delusions. “Who would trust anything said by the woman caught in adultery with Senator Tackett? You have no more credibility now than you did that morning we left his cottage.”

  He indicated the telephone she’d been inching toward. “I can see you’re itching to call for help. Go ahead. You’ll only make a laughingstock of yourself. Who’s going to believe that a U.S. ambassador started a revolution which was contrary to the interests of the country he served?”

  “ ‘Started a revolution’? What do you mean? The revolution started when… when our car was… No, wait.” She held up her hand as though to ward off a barrage of confusing thoughts. They were crowding her mind so quickly she couldn’t arrange them.

  “You’re slipping, my dear,” he said silkily. “The mental sluggishness must come from living on the frontier. Think, now. I said five-year plan. It took root when we reached Montesangre, not when I was kidnapped.”

  Her heart began to beat faster; she clutched her throat, which had suddenly gone dry. Something was just beyond her grasp. Something she should remember. Something—

  The truth struck her with the impact of a bullet. The fog lifted from her memory and those forgotten
instants immediately preceding the ambush were replayed in slow motion in her mind.

  She was playing patty-cake with Ashley in the backseat. The car approached the intersection. As it slowed down, armed men rushed forward, surrounding it. The driver was shot and slumped forward over the steering wheel.

  She cried out. Randall turned to look at her. “Goodbye, Lara.” Unafraid, he smiled.

  Her breath rushed out in a gust. “You knew!” she screamed. “You and Emilio arranged the ambush on our car! You had our daughter killed!”

  “Shut up! Do you want the whole neighborhood to hear you?”

  “I want the whole world to hear me.”

  He struck her across the mouth. Talking rapidly, quietly, he said, “You fool! I didn’t intend for the child to be killed. The bullets weren’t meant for her.”

  Lara didn’t even stop to consider what that statement implied. She lunged for the camera bag. It was on her desk, where she had left it, undisturbed, since the day she returned from Montesangre.

  Under the concealment of darkness, she plunged her hand into the bag. Her fingers closed around the butt of the revolver. She withdrew it and swung around, aiming the barrel at the center of Randall’s chest.

  “This is your last chance to change your mind.”

  Janellen smiled at Bowie. “I’m not going to change my mind. I’m absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure of my decision. Besides, you were the one with cold feet, the one dead set against it. I finally wore you down, so I’m not about to back out or let you, either.” She linked her arm with his and nestled her head on his shoulder. “Just drive, Mr. Cato. I’m anxious to get there.”

  “If anybody sees me driving your car—”

  “It’s dark. Nobody’s going to see us. If someone does, they’ll probably think that Key asked you to protect me from reporters again.”

  “Yeah, I saw them all over town today.”

  “They were hoping to catch a glimpse of Mr. Porter.” The reminder intruded on Janellen’s happiness and caused her to frown. “Mama watched him on the news. Seeing him really upset her.”

  “Why should it?”

  “Because it calls to mind the scandal, Clark, all that. She skipped supper and went upstairs to her room.”

  “You waited until Maydale got there before you left?”

  As prearranged, he and Janellen had met at the Tackett Oil office. “Yes. She came to spend the night. I told her I was going to Longview to attend a self-improvement seminar.”

  “What about Key?”

  “Key never gets home before noon, sometimes not even then. He claims he’s playing poker till dawn with Balky out at the landing strip. It’s easier to sleep out there than to drive home, he says. Anyway, he’ll never know I’m gone.”

  Bowie glanced nervously at every car that passed. “This sneaking around doesn’t feel right. Something terrible is bound to happen.”

  “Honestly, Bowie.” She sighed with affectionate exasperation. “You’re the most pessimistic, fatalistic person I’ve ever met. A few months ago you were the one with the record, but I was living in a kind of prison. Both our fortunes have changed.”

  “Yours will if you stick with me long enough,” he said glumly. “You’ll lose your fortune.”

  “I’ve told you a million times that I don’t care if I do. My family had lots of money, but we weren’t happy. There was no love between my parents. That antagonism affected my brothers and me. We felt it even before we were old enough to understand it.

  “It made Clark an overachiever who couldn’t forgive himself even the most insignificant mistake. Key went too far the other way and lives like he doesn’t give a damn about anything, although I believe that’s a defense mechanism. He doesn’t want anyone to guess how deeply he was hurt by our father’s death and Mama’s rejection.

  “And I became a shy, introverted dullard, afraid to voice an opposing opinion on anything. Believe me, Bowie—money doesn’t buy happiness and love. I’d rather have your love than all the riches in the world.”

  “That’s ’cause you’ve never had to do without the riches.”

  They’d been over this ground so many times they’d trampled it to death. She was determined not to let an argument cast a pall over the happiest night of her life.

  “I know exactly what I’m doing, Bowie. I’m beyond the age of consent. I love you to distraction, and I think you love me the same.”

  He glanced at her and answered with deadpan seriousness. “You know I do.”

  “That gives us the strength to face anything. What can possibly happen to us that we can’t combat?”

  “Oh, damn,” he groaned. “You’ve just tempted Fate to show us.”

  “Bowie,” she said, laughing and nuzzling his neck, “you’re a sight.”

  Darcy spotted Key the moment she entered The Palm. He sat alone at the end of the bar, hunched over his drink like a stingy dog with a bone.

  She was in a buoyant mood. Fergus was at a school board meeting, which traditionally dragged on for hours. She loved school board meetings. They liberated her for an evening out.

  Heather was on desk duty at the motel. Odds were highly in favor of her taking home the crown of homecoming queen this coming Friday night.

  Darcy had spent over seven hundred dollars to outfit Heather for the occasion. Fergus would have a fit if he knew, but she considered the expenditure a good investment. If Heather won homecoming queen, it would boost her chances of getting into the best sorority when she went to college. Fergus might not appreciate the subtle way these things worked, but Darcy did.

  Although she drove a new car every other year, belonged to the country club, wore expensive clothes, and lived in the largest house in Eden Pass, she still was excluded from the inner social circles.

  She was determined that Heather would reverse that. Heather would be her ticket into every tight clique even if she would have to enter through the back door.

  Key’s posture smacked of potential danger, but she decided to approach him anyway. So what if the last time she’d seen him she’d spat in his face and he’d threatened to murder her? Things weren’t going so well for him these days. Having been brought to heel, he might be in a more receptive mood.

  She slid onto the barstool next to his. “Hi, Hap. White wine, please. Put some ice cubes in it.” The bartender turned to get her drink. She glanced at Key. “Still mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “Oh? You’ve learned how to forgive and forget?”

  “No. In order to be mad, you have to give a shit. I don’t.”

  She quelled her anger, smiled at Hap as he served her wine, and took a sip. “I’m not surprised that you’re in such a bear of a mood.” As she turned toward him, she brushed his knee with hers. “Must’ve been quite a shock to discover the dead husband was alive.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I guess not. It’s a touchy subject. Did you at least get to screw her before Ambassador Porter got dumped in her bathtub?”

  Key’s muscles tensed, telling Darcy he had. She was treading on thin ice, but the one thing she couldn’t tolerate from a man was indifference. She’d rather be verbally or physically abused than ignored. Besides, she was curious.

  “Was she as good as you expected? Not as good? Better?”

  Better, she would guess by the way he tossed back the remainder of his drink and signaled for Hap to pour him another. Gossip around town was that you’d have to be real stupid to cross Key Tackett these days. He was truculent. Testy. Spoiling for a fight.

  Just yesterday, at noon, right in the middle of Texas Street, he’d threatened to shove a journalist’s camera up the guy’s ass if he didn’t get it out of his face. Later, he’d gotten into a fight at Barbecue Bobby’s with a redneck from out of town who’d parked his pickup too close to the Lincoln to suit Key. Witnesses said it’d be a while before the redneck ventured into Eden Pass again.

  Reputedly, he was on the brink of dru
nkenness at any time of the day or night, and he spent hours at the country airstrip with that dimwit Balky Willis. Someone said he was taking target practice at 4:00 A.M. on the lights at the football stadium, but that was unsubstantiated.

  If Lara Mallory’s performance in bed had disappointed him, he wouldn’t care that her husband had turned up alive and well. On the contrary, the better he liked her, the angrier he’d be over the turn of events.

  From what Darcy had heard and could now see for herself, Key was good and pissed.

  Jealousy made her reckless. She dared to probe another tender spot. “Guess you know now why your brother was willing to risk his career for her.” His jaw flexed. “Wonder how she compared the two of you and which one earned the most points. Did y’all discuss your merits?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Darcy.”

  She laughed. “You did, then. Hmm. Interesting. Three people in one bed can get awfully crowded.”

  Key turned his head and fixed a heavy-lidded, bloodshot stare on her. “From what I hear, you’ve been one of a trio more than a few times.”

  Darcy’s temper flared, then instantly subsided. Her laugh was low, seductive. She leaned closer, mashing her breast against his arm. “Damn straight. Had quite a time for myself, too. You ought to try it sometime. Or have you?”

  “Not on this continent.”

  Again she laughed. “Sounds fascinating.” She trailed her finger up his arm. “I’m dying to hear all the slippery details.”

  He didn’t dismiss the suggestion out of hand. Encouraged, Darcy reached for her handbag and took out a latchkey. She dangled it inches beyond his nose.

  “There are distinct advantages to being a motel proprietor’s wife. Like having a skeleton key that’ll open the door to every room.” She ran her tongue along her lower lip. “What do you say?”

  She leaned back a fraction so he’d be certain to see that contact with his biceps had aggravated her nipples to stiff points. “Come on, Key. It was good between us, wasn’t it? What else have you got going?”

  He finished his drink in a single draft. After tossing enough money on the bar to cover his drinks and Darcy’s wine, he pushed her toward the door.