Where There's Smoke

Her husband.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“How charming you look.” The former United States ambassador to Montesangre stood as his wife entered the parlor. “Although I liked your hair better when you lightened it. When did you stop?”

“While I was recuperating in Miami. Those were difficult months for me. Hair color wasn’t a priority.”

Lara glanced at Key. Declining to stand when she came in, he was slumped in an upholstered chair, one ankle balanced on the opposite knee, his foot rapidly jiggling up and down. His steepled fingers tapped his lips in time to the movement of his foot. The posture would have looked insouciant on anyone else, but Lara sensed that he was on the verge of exploding.

If Randall noticed Key’s tenuously controlled rage, he gave no indication of it. “Would you like something to drink, darling? We have a few minutes before going downstairs.”

“No, thank you. I don’t want anything to drink. And I don’t see why it’s necessary for me to participate in this news conference.”

“You’re my wife. Your place is by my side.” At the bar, Randall poured himself a club soda. “Mr. Tackett? Anything?”

“No.”

Randall returned to the sofa where he’d been sitting when Lara joined them from the bedroom of the Houston hotel suite. The well-appointed rooms were a considerable improvement over the accommodations in Montesangre.

Well-wishing floral arrangements crowded every available surface. Their mingled scents were sweet and cloying and had given Lara a dull headache. She thought these expressions of congratulations ludicrously hypocritical, having been sent by many of the same bureaucrats and political figures who, five years ago, had been relieved to see Randall and his cheating wife shuttled off to Montesangre, thereby sparing Washington the embarrassment of having them underfoot.

Technically, Randall was still a United States ambassador. When the media was notified by news services in Colombia of his shocking resurrection, the story took precedence over all others and earned the banner headline of virtually every newspaper in the world. His return to life sent the entire nation into a tailspin, the press into a frenzy.

In Bogotá he’d been treated for his wounds, which were more superficial than they’d first appeared. Key had relented and had his ribs X-rayed. Three were cracked, but he’d sustained no internal injuries.

Lara’s injuries were as severe, but not as evident. For fatigue she was prescribed hot, healthy meals and two nights of drug-induced sleep. She’d eaten and slept but continued to look shell-shocked. Her movements were disjointed, her speech distracted. A husband she believed dead had suddenly returned to life. Her entire system had been thrown into shock.

Neiman Marcus had generously offered to outfit her for her first public appearance following her return to American soil. For the newsworthy occasion the store had donated a silk and wool blend two-piece suit, matching Jourdan pumps, and suitable accessories and costume jewelry. The hotel salon had sent the staff to her suite to do her hair, nails, and makeup. On the surface, she was well turned out and appeared ready to accompany her husband to the news conference that was scheduled to begin in half an hour in the hotel’s largest ballroom.

She’d just as soon face a firing squad, she thought.

In a very real sense that was exactly what it would be. Too jittery to sit, she moved aimlessly about the room among the furniture cluttered with floral bouquets. “You know what they’ll dredge up, Randall.”

“Your affair with Clark,” he replied without a qualm. They had informed him of Clark’s death on the flight from Montesangre to Colombia, but he already knew about it. World news filtered in, although little was filtered out.

“I’m afraid that’s unavoidable, Lara,” he continued. “I’ll try to distract them with my story of the last three years.”

“You don’t look all that worse for wear.” Key ceased wagging his foot and tapping his lips. “You look tan, fit, and well fed.”

Lara too had noticed Randall’s superior physical condition. He looked even better than when she’d met him seven years ago, as if he’d enjoyed several months’ vacation in Hawaii rather than three grueling years as a political prisoner.

He pinched up the creases of his new suit trousers, also a gift from Neiman’s. “After the first few months of my captivity, I was treated very well.

“At first, the rebels beat me unmercifully,” Randall told them. “For several weeks they ritualistically whipped me with pistols and chains. I thought this was preliminary to their killing me.”

He finished his soda and checked the time. Seeing that he still had a few minutes, he continued. “One day they hauled me into General Pérez’s quarters. I say ‘hauled’ because I couldn’t walk. They carried me like a sack of potatoes.

“Pérez was pleased with himself. He showed me photographs of my ‘death,’ as they’d staged it. They’d executed a man, God knows who, shooting him in the head so many times it was little more than pulp.”

Lara hugged her elbows. The room was frigid. After sweltering in the tropics for three years, Randall had said he wanted to keep the air conditioning as high as possible.

“You can imagine how devastating it was for me to see those photographs. They also showed me American newspapers reporting my death. They had photos of my funeral. I realized the hell you must be going through.” He looked at Lara with commiseration. “I thanked God you were safe but knew you would be agonizing over the violent way in which I’d died. Knowing that no one would be sent to rescue me was the worst torture of all. As far as anyone knew, I was dead.”

“Did they tell you about Ashley?”

“No. I didn’t learn that she’d been killed in the ambush until I read the newspaper accounts of my funeral. The only comfort I could derive was knowing that you had miraculously survived. If it hadn’t been for the priest—”

“Priest? Father Geraldo?”