Smoke & Mirrors

by Rowe, Julie

  Blackwater frowned at the older man before turning to Kini and giving her a malicious smile. “What, exactly, are you doing in Small Blind?”

  “A public health study. The CDC has any number of them ongoing across the country for a variety of reasons.”

  “A study?” He said the word like he’d never heard it before.

  “Yes. That’s what I do. Collect medical histories and samples. I also track infection, recovery, and vaccination rates across the country. If needed, I may also be one of several public health nurses who conduct educational seminars for hospitals, health centers, and other care providers.”

  As she spoke, the deputy’s gaze became more and more interested. “What are you studying?” He seemed to catch himself, then asked with a sneer, “Or are you not allowed to say?”

  “Of course I can answer your questions. I’m doing a study on the local population and rates of immunity to the hantavirus.”

  “How do you do that?” Blackwater asked with a raised eyebrow. “Give people the disease, then see how many die and how many don’t?”

  Kini’s mouth dropped open. “No.” Her voice rose with fury. “I take a blood sample and we test it for antibodies.” She stopped, gathered herself, and said in a tone that was less heated, “Giving people a disease, for any reason, is unconscionable.”

  “Sounds like something a conspiracy theorist would throw around,” Smoke said into the silence following her words. He got to his feet and stepped away from the medic who’d worked on him and was now packing up his gear. Smoke gave Kini a once-over, checking to see if her medic had taken care of all of her lacerations. “Where’d you pick up that rumor?” he asked, not looking at Blackwater.

  “Probably the post office,” Nana said as she squeezed past the deputy into the kitchen. “Those hens in there cluck worse than a dozen chickens.” She put her hands on her hips and asked the room at large, “Who wants coffee?”

  “Me,” Kini said, putting up her hand.

  Smoke nodded at his nana.

  “What about you, Deputy Blackwater?” Nana asked.

  He ignored her, watching Smoke with an avarice and anticipation that was out of place. “I have a report that says a big man was running around with a military-grade weapon.”

  “Wait a second?” Kini asked. “What about the bombing of my car?”

  “I’m investigating that, but—”

  “But?” Kini asked, her voice rising. “But what? I’m injured.” She hooked her thumb at Smoke. “He’s injured, and that rifle over there doesn’t look all that complicated to me.” She pointed at Grandfather’s old Remington.

  Blackwater looked as if he’d swallowed a chicken bone and it had gotten stuck halfway down. “My information states that the two are connected.”

  “Information?” Disgust and disapproval wrinkled her nose. “Be specific, Deputy,” she ordered. “What information, and who gave it to you?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” he answered, focusing his attention on Smoke. “My source is a confidential informant, but it’s clear that someone bigger than your grandfather, with a weapon commonly used by the military, was running down the road out front.” He flashed his teeth. “I’ll bet that weapon isn’t street legal. I’ll bet it’s in here somewhere.”

  Kini turned to Smoke. “Is he seriously going to ignore the car bombing?”

  Smoke shrugged and deliberately relaxed his body posture. He wasn’t going to give Blackwater any reason to decide his accusations had any merit.

  “Two other deputies are investigating the issues with your car.”

  Kini looked at Blackwater and tilted her head to one side. “Are you feeling okay? You wouldn’t be running a fever would you?”

  “I’m fine,” Blackwater said, his tone sour.

  “Because that would be a reason for your irrational, single-minded focus on Smoke,” Kini said. “Otherwise it’s harassment.”

  Blackwater walked up to Kini until he was towering over her. “Lady, shut up.”

  “I feel like I’m in an eighties dirty cop movie,” Kini said softly, as if she were talking to herself. “Complete with an officer of the law who’s completely clueless about how fast Homeland Security would be here with one phone call.”

  Blackwater stared at her like she’d just accused him of being mentally incompetent. “Homeland Security?” He laughed. “They don’t give a shit about small towns like us.”

  “The CDC falls under their command, and we both work for the CDC.” She paused and said perfectly polite, “They’re going to be very interested.”

  “As far as that military-grade weapon your informant says they saw…” Grandfather pushed away from the counter he’d been leaning on. “There isn’t a house in this town that doesn’t have a rifle or five.” He squinted at Blackwater. “You’d better have a name on the bottom of that report, or you’re going to have a hell of a time explaining to the judge why you aren’t investigating the crime that’s currently visible to everyone within a mile radius.”

  The deputy looked at everyone, one at a time, including the medics who’d paused in their cleanup of their gear to listen to the whole conversation. “Someone will be in to take your statements.” He left as precipitously as he arrived.

  No one said anything for a few moments. The two medics finished gathering their gear and left.

  “What’s his problem?” Kini asked with a deep furrow between her brows.

  “Indigestion,” Smoke said.

  She tilted her head to one side. “Of something he heard or swallowed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Funny.” She laughed softly. “You have a sneaky sense of humor, Smoke.”

  “You’re the only person alive who thinks so.”

  “See, there you go again.” Her smile died. “So, as I see it, we have one important question to answer before anything else.”

  Smoke gave her his complete attention.

  “Where am I going to get another car?”

  Okay, that wasn’t what he thought she’d say, but he could roll with it. Blackwater was a waste of time and energy. “We’ll use mine.”

  “Your hog is not going to work.”

  “Jeep.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Why didn’t we use your jeep before?”

  “I wanted to ride with the wind in my hair.”

  Kini glanced at his military short hair then narrowed her eyes. “You’re just digging yourself a hole.”

  “Kini,” Smoke said.

  “Yeah?”

  He looked at her cell phone, the one in her hand. “Call it in.”

  She pinched her lips together. “I’ve been successfully avoiding that until now.”

  “Why?”

  “Besides the fact that I’ll never be able to rent another car again?” She looked at herself and huffed. “How am I going to explain all this? It’s like a shit storm descended on me, and it doesn’t make sense.”

  “It makes sense to someone.”

  “I hate it when people say that. Sometimes bad luck is just bad luck, but repeated assaults and someone blowing up my car…that’s not luck. That’s—”

  “Sabotage,” Smoke finished for her.

  “I’m not doing anything worth sabotaging.” She sounded aggravated, annoyed, and at the end of her rope. “This is a standard, routine public health survey and research assignment. It’s only supposed to take me three weeks. It only took that long in Arizona.”

  She stared at him as if waiting for an answer, but he had none.

  “Could I have insulted someone by accident?” she asked.

  “Insulted someone enough to make them bomb your car?”

  “That would have to be a big insult, wouldn’t it?” She shook her head. “I don’t remember insulting anyone.” She tilted her head to one side. “The guy with the dogs this morning—I never had a chance to do more than introduce myself. As soon as I said I was performing a health survey, he blew up at me.”

  She was right. It didn’t
make sense. Unless…

  Before he could say anything, two sheriff’s deputies called out from the front door, asking for permission to come in and take their statements.

  Grandfather went to deal with them while Grandmother poured Smoke and Kini a cup of coffee each.

  Kini cradled her cup and held it near her face like it was her own personal campfire and she was cold and tired. When the two cops came into the kitchen she didn’t lower the cup, not even while answering questions.

  Smoke kept one ear on her conversation and one on the cop interviewing him, but it was quick and straightforward.

  After about ten minutes, the two police officers left.

  He examined Kini’s face. Some of her color had returned, and her eyes didn’t have that beat-up look to them anymore.

  “Time to call this in,” he said to her. “You call your boss, and I’ll call mine.”

  “Fine,” Kini muttered as she got out her phone and stabbed it repeatedly with her index finger.

  “Now you’re in trouble,” Nana said.

  He frowned. “How?”

  “When a woman says ‘fine’ but she’s visibly upset.” His grandmother winced. “She’s not fine.”

  The woman in question was talking softly with someone on the phone and pointedly not looking at him.

  Great.

  He got his own phone out and called his boss.

  “River.”

  “It’s Smoke. Shit blew up in our faces.”

  “I was about to call you. Some deputy in Small Blind, Utah, just called.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Complaining about a gun-toting vigilante who was stirring up trouble. The description matches you to a T.”

  “Did he mention Kini’s car getting assaulted by a crowbar and blown up by a Molotov cocktail?”

  River paused. “No, that never came up.”

  “We were about to leave. Got the front door open in time to see the whole thing. Three guys in a beat-up truck pulled up beside the car, bashed the window in, and tossed a lit bottle of something in there. Instant fire and a nice explosion.”

  “You didn’t happen to chase the dudes in the truck did you?”

  “I might have. Grandfather also went after it and got a partial plate number.”

  “Where’s your weapon?”

  “In the fridge.”

  River laughed. “Okay. Good. Give me a couple of minutes to call the sheriff’s office back and get this straightened out. That asshole deputy is going to be sorry for leaving details out of his complaint.”

  “Good,” Smoke said and ended the call.

  Kini had headed to the bathroom a half a minute earlier, so he waited in silence.

  Three minutes later, River called back.

  “I told him that if he didn’t get his shit together and look after you and Kini properly, we’d be arriving in force with Homeland Security in tow. At that point, the only thing he’d be in charge of is looking stupid in front of the media.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  While she was in the bathroom, Kini could hear Smoke talking to someone on the phone. No actual words were clear, just the deep rumble and rasp of his voice. It purred over her skin, soothing something battered and bruised deep in her chest.

  Her reflection—sliced, slashed, and smeared with blood—only made her tense up again, so she closed her eyes to the bandages, blood, and bruises that were all she could see and just listened. His voice soothed her anxiety, slowed her breathing and pulse, and allowed her muscles to go lax.

  After a couple of minutes, his voice disappeared. Damn. He had finished his conversation.

  Her conversation with her boss had been better and worse than she had anticipated.

  Better because no one was blaming her for all the punishment her cars had taken, and worse because she’d been tasked with a face-to-face visit with a community leader. A woman who’d called the CDC a couple of hours ago and requested assistance on behalf of the local Navajo.

  Arriving covered in bandages and looking like she’d lost a fight with a porcupine wasn’t going to instill confidence in anyone.

  She left the bathroom and found Smoke talking with his grandfather.

  Actually, the two men weren’t talking so much as standing in close proximity, both apparently deep in thought.

  Her coffee was still hot. Good. “How do you guys do it?”

  The two men stared at her blankly for a moment before Smoke finally said, “Do what?”

  “Communicate telepathically like that?”

  They did it again, glanced at each other, then stared blankly at her.

  She gestured at them. “You just did it again. Spoke to each other without speaking.”

  “That’s not telepathy. It’s body language and knowing how someone else thinks,” Smoke told her.

  “I don’t know, I’m thinking you have some kind of Vulcan mind meld going on.”

  Smoke’s grandfather snorted, but he was smiling.

  Smoke shook his head. “Ready?” he asked her.

  “For what?”

  “Emmaline Haskie.”

  “Oh yes. Sorry.” She gulped at bit more coffee down. “So, where is this jeep of yours?”

  “Other side of town.”

  Did he think she could ride on that monster bike of his and hang on to her tackle box and him at the same time? “Um—”

  “I think we can lash your tool box to the back of the bike.”

  “Oh.” It wasn’t like there was much choice. “Okay.”

  Smoke turned to his grandfather, but the older man spoke first. “A couple people are on their way to fix the window good enough to get us through the night. Take care of Kini.”

  Smoke nodded and led the way out of the kitchen.

  Kini didn’t immediately follow. She stood up a little straighter and said, “I’m really sorry for bringing all this destruction to your door.”

  Smoke’s grandfather shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself for the decisions of others. You have a job that’s necessary and important.”

  He really thought that way. She could see it in the way he met her gaze head-on, in the set of his shoulders.

  Intellectually, she knew what she did had value, but it was also a role that ensured she was never in the same place for more than a few weeks at a time. Most people who did her job, only did it for a couple of years before moving into a role that allowed them a permanent address they actually lived in.

  She’d kept her head down, worked hard, and worked even harder at not thinking about all the crap in the back of her head. Was she a…coward?

  “Thank you. You’re very kind.”

  That earned her a crooked smile and a bellow of her name from Smoke from somewhere outside.

  She rushed out and met him coming back in. “I had no idea you could be loud like that.”

  “I save it for special occasions.”

  How did he say stuff like that without the least hint of a smile?

  She didn’t know what drove her to do it, but she said in a tiny voice, “And it’s not even my birthday.”

  He blinked then said, “I’ve got something much better lined up for your birthday.” His voice had a smooth, chocolate quality that made her hungry.

  Wait. Was he flirting with her? Now? They both looked like they’d just broken out of prison. She wasn’t touching that with a twenty-foot pole. “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “Emmaline has lived in the same house her entire life.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes, then.” She hid a smile. “Did you hit your head during the explosion, because even though I just met you, you don’t usually willingly give that much information out?”

  He gave her a startled glance but only shook his head.

  “Nope, not gonna fly,” she told him with a grin. “That genie is out of the bottle.”

  Smoke put a hand behind her back and urged her out of the door.

  Firemen surrounded her rental car, still working on exti
nguishing the blaze. Smoke guided her past them and to his bike. He used a couple of rubber tarp straps to attach her kit to the back of the bike and got on the machine.

  Kini got on behind him and scooted up until she was plastered against his back and could wrap her arms around his waist.

  God, it felt good to hold him like this. His body heat gave her a level of comfort so strong tears threatened and she managed to get a tiny bit closer, hugging him with her arms and legs.

  He put one hand over hers and pressed them to him. That just made her want to cry even more. He had to take his hand off hers to start the engine and get the bike rolling, but as soon as he didn’t need two hands on the bars, he was covering hers again.

  Giving her the comfort only touch could provide.

  Establishing a connection.

  No questions asked.

  Tears rolled down her face, and she closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see the faces of the onlookers who’d gathered across and down the street. Couldn’t see their expressions of curiosity, condemnation, and suspicion.

  She didn’t open her eyes until Smoke took his hand off hers again to stop the bike at a stop sign. No one was around. All the excitement was behind them.

  Her head hurt and the various lacerations on her body were making themselves known with sharp, jarring jabs.

  They drove through town to his parent’s house, and he parked in front. For several moments, neither of them moved.

  He got off his bike, so very careful not to jostle her. His gaze was sharp as he looked into her face. “Okay?”

  “Not really,” she managed a weak smile anyway. “I’m starting to feel it.” She pointed at various lacerations.

  He studied her for a couple of seconds then nodded. “After this, we’ll come back here for food, painkillers, and rest.”

  “Sounds like paradise to me.”

  He gave her a crooked grin. “You need to get out more.”

  “Ha-ha.” She got off the bike and had to steady herself.

  The door to his parents’ house flew open, and his mother came out at a run. “Oh my God, are you two okay?” she called as she hurried toward them. “I just got off the phone with your grandmother and—” She’d obviously gotten close enough to see both of them clearly, because her jaw dropped.