Where There's Smoke

Darcy had closed their house and left town. Gossip was rampant. Some said she held vigil over Heather’s grave by night and the prison by day, hoping for a chance to kill Fergus. Others said she had gone completely ’round the bend and had been committed to a psychiatric hospital. Still another rumor was that she’d latched on to a minor league baseball player and was shacked up with him somewhere in Oklahoma.

“As I understand it,” Lara said, “Fergus tapped into the old flare lin

e.”

“Right. They were common. They burned off the gas from a well. Then Granddaddy decided to market the gas in addition to the oil. He tapped off that line. Anyway, flare lines became illegal. Fergus knew about the one on that well, reopened it, and extended it to his motel. He had free gas for years and probably laughed up his sleeve about it.”

Again they ran out of conversation. When the silence became uncomfortable, Lara reached for her ignition key. “Well, I’d better run. I’ve got frozen things in the trunk.”

“Before that morning, did you know that Clark and your husband were lovers?”

She didn’t expect the question. Her hand fell away from the ignition.

He squatted down beside her car door so that their faces were on the same level. Loosely clasping his hands, he rested his wrists on the open window. “Did you?”

“I had no idea,” she answered softly. “When I saw them, I went numb. But only for a moment. Then I went a little crazy. Became hysterical.”

“Who called the press?”

She didn’t even consider avoiding his questions or glazing her answers with euphemisms. “The phone on the nightstand beside my bed rang. I woke up and answered it. The caller identified himself only as one of Clark’s close friends. He called him a few ugly names.” A spasm of pain flashed across Key’s face, but Lara went on doggedly.

“He asked if I knew that Clark had dumped him in favor of my husband. Then he hung up. I took it for a crank call and turned to tell Randall about it. But he wasn’t in the other twin bed. I got up and went looking for him.”

She bowed her head and rubbed her forehead with her thumb and index finger. “I found them in Clark’s bedroom. Later, I figured that same caller must also have notified the media and told them that an explosive news story was about to break at the cottage. Anyway, reporters arrived within minutes of my discovery. Clark became almost as hysterical as I. It was Randall’s idea to make it look like…” She raised her shoulders and sighed. “You know the rest.”

Key muttered epithets to Ambassador Porter. “Why didn’t the guy on the phone come forward to contradict the tabloid stories about you?”

“I suppose he lost his courage,” she replied. “Anyway, he accomplished what he wanted. He brought down Senator Tackett.”

“You could have exposed them, Lara. Why didn’t you?”

She laughed mirthlessly. “Who would have believed me? Randall had had affairs with women. Many of them. They would have sworn that he was wholly heterosexual, and he was.”

His brows furrowed with perplexity.

“He knew about Clark’s sexual preference, and used it,” she said. “One favor in exchange for another, I suppose. Randall wasn’t above that sort of cruel manipulation. He used Clark. He used me. He’d do anything to get what he wanted.”

“Like pretending to be dead for years.”

“Yes. And it didn’t bother him at all that our daughter was killed in a crossfire.” She hesitated to broach the next subject because it was sensitive for several reasons. “Key…” She averted her eyes from his. “I didn’t trust Randall to tell me the truth about his bisexuality. In fact, I suspect that he was also Emilio’s lover. Anyway, I ran extensive blood tests on Randall and me while I was still in the first trimester of my pregnancy. I didn’t want to transmit the AIDS virus to my child.

“Both of us tested negative, but I never took another chance. The night I conceived Ashley—which was only a few weeks before the incident—was the last time I slept with Randall.” She met his direct gaze. “The very last.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“But you have a right to know.”

His unwavering gaze was disquieting. They were surrounded by noise and confusion, yet a ponderous silence stretched between them. She found comfort in the sound of her own voice.

“Back to my credibility—the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is a myth. Before I fully recovered from the shock of finding my husband in bed with another man, I was branded an adulteress who’d been caught in the act. If I’d come forward with the truth, it would have been regarded as nothing more than a vicious counterattack.”

Sadly she shook her head. “Once I was photographed in my nightgown, being hustled from Clark’s cottage by my husband, I was labeled.”

“I thought my brother had more integrity than to let someone else take the rap for him.”

“He got swept up into Randall’s lie, just as I did. The consequences of it were so extreme that he really couldn’t consider telling the truth.

“But, unlike Randall, it ate on his conscience. Giving me the medical practice here in Eden Pass was his way of making restitution, of telling me he was sorry.” She smiled wanly. “Don’t be too hard on him, Key. He’d lived as a closet homosexual for years. That must have been a terribly lonely and unhappy existence.”