Mississippi King

by Celia Aaron

  Mississippi King

  An Azalea Novel

  Celia Aaron

  Celia Aaron

  Copyright © 2019 Celia Aaron

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Celia Aaron.

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  Cover art by Perfect Pear

  Cover image by Scott Hoover

  Content Editing by J. Brooks

  Copy Editing by Spell Bound

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Celia Aaron

  About the Author

  1

  The man with the light blue eyes watched as I spun the dial to the safe hidden in my credenza. My fingers shook—and not just from age this time. I entered the combination and pulled at the thick steel handle. It stayed put. I must have fumbled the combination.

  “No games, old man.” His voice sliced through me like a razor, and I couldn’t still the staccato beat of my heart.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll get it this time.” My shaky words barely rose above a whisper. Concentrating harder than I ever had in my life, I spun the dial and held my breath. My fingers worked back and forth until I knew I’d entered the correct combination.

  I pulled the handle and sighed with relief as the metal gave way, a familiar scrape from the mechanism cutting through the quiet office.

  “About fucking time.” The man with the light eyes had stepped closer, his voice right over my shoulder.

  Sweat beaded along my upper lip, and I could smell the acrid perspiration seeping into my dress shirt beneath my suit jacket.

  With another hefty pull, the dark gray metal door swung all the way open, and my breath caught in my throat.

  Empty.

  I fell back into my chair, one of the wheels squeaking along the wood floor.

  “What the fuck is this?” The man with the light eyes didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to.

  “I-I don’t know.” I turned to stare up at him, but my gaze didn’t make it past the gun barrel pointed at me.

  “Where’s the money?” His eyebrows drew together though his hand remained steady, the gun never wavering.

  I shook my head as bile rose in my throat. “I don’t know.”

  “Cut the shit.”

  “I really don’t know.” I gawked at the empty safe, the blank metal walls. “Someone must have broken in and taken it.”

  He rushed forward and slammed the butt of the gun against my forehead. My vision blacked, then sputtered back in skittering sparks as I cowered away from him. Tears welled, and I swallowed my cry for help. It wouldn’t do any good in my empty law office in the dead of night.

  Blood trickled down my cheek, dropping onto my shoulder as I slumped in my chair. “I don’t know what happened to it. A thief must have—”

  “Where’s the fucking money?” His calm tone was like the smooth surface of deep, cold water. Almost soothing. Definitely lethal.

  “I don’t know.” My tears mixed with the blood, the desperate cocktail sliding down my wrinkled face as if I were melting away. And I was. When the man with the light eyes had called asking for the money, I knew this was the end for me, that I was a dead man.

  He pulled a phone from his pocket. Keeping his gun trained on me, he made a call. “It’s not here… Yeah… He claims he doesn’t know.”

  I held my shaking hands up, throwing myself on whatever mercy he had. “I don’t—”

  “Shh.” He shook his head slowly, his crystal eyes sending a shiver through me.

  I quieted as he pressed the phone to his ear again.

  “What do you want me to do?” He stood unnervingly still, getting instructions from his boss as I sat and waited for the life or death judgment.

  “Got it.” Pocketing his phone, he took a step back. “Are you going to tell me where the money is?”

  “I don’t know!” I slammed my hand on my desk to add a little drama to the lie. “Someone took it!”

  He tsked and slid his finger off the trigger guard and onto the slim piece of metal behind it. The smallest bit of pressure would send the hammer hurtling forward, igniting the gunpowder, and expelling the bullet that would end my life. Pressure. How fitting.

  I clenched my eyes shut and forced myself to sit up straight. This was justice. Not the shit I pretended to deal in at my law firm, but the real thing. I’d had this coming long before the man with the light eyes had stepped into my office.

  He gave me a perfunctory nod. His finger twitched in a nearly imperceptible movement.

  The gun roared, and then my world fell silent.

  2

  Benton

  “Mr. King.” Margaret greeted me as I walked into the office. Her iron-gray curls and cloying perfume had been a constant at the front desk of King & Morris for as long as I could remember.

  “Morning, Margaret.” I strode past her, the familiar creaks in the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old floor another reminder of how neither the office nor the people in it ever seemed to change. To me, the stasis was comforting, like a child’s well-loved blanket.

  The double doors to my father’s office were closed, but a light shone through the crack. He was an early riser, so it was no surprise he was already hard at work.

  I glanced at the long line of portraits as I made my way down the hall, each one an image of a King or a Morris lawyer, their hair and clothing styles changing with the decades. Each one gave me a gruff stare, silently telling me to get to work, do a good job, and keep the family names unblemished. I wouldn’t let them down.

  My secretary’s desk was empty as I strode past. I mentally made a black mark against Jenny for it. Other than death, there was never any good excuse for missing work. I’d been out of law school for ten years, never missed a day at the firm.

  “Hey, tight ass, was wondering when you’d show up.” Porter sat in my office chair, his dusty boots propped on my spotless desk. “Can’t believe I beat you here.”

  “Put your feet down and get out of my office.” I smoothed my tie, even though there was no chance at it having a wrinkle. Not on my watch.

  The morning sun streamed through the wide wood shutters along the side of my office, and a slight twitch pulled at the corner of my eye as my valuable time ticked away.

  “Don’t be a dick.” Porter swung his feet down but snagged the hat off his head and dropped it on my keyboard. I could almo
st feel the grime from it transferring to the keys.

  “What do you want?” I unbuttoned my dark suit coat and crossed my arms over my chest.

  “First, I’d like it if you got the stick out of your ass.” He grinned, his easy charm lost on me. “Go ahead and move that to the top of your to-do list. Second, we need to talk about Dad’s birthday party.”

  I ignored his initial request and moved on to the birthday party. “What about it?”

  The clacking sound in the hallway told me Jenny had finally arrived.

  “Sorry I’m late, Mr. King. A logging truck spilled all over the—” She walked into the room and stopped, her gaze stilling on my brother. “Well if it isn’t Sheriff King.”

  Porter flicked his badge and winked at her. “Yes, ma’am, here to maintain law and order. It’s my job around these here parts.”

  She giggled like a schoolgirl, a rose hue rising into her spray-tanned cheeks.

  I didn’t have time for this. “Porter, this isn’t even your jurisdiction. We’re inside the Azalea city limits.”

  Porter cocked his head to the side, his eyes squinting as he tried, and failed, to do the math. “So that means…”

  “That means you have to defer to the city police department. You’re the county sheriff. This is the city.”

  His grin resurfaced. “I know that, man. I’m just yanking your chain.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “You’re wasting my time. I have work to do.”

  Porter plucked my fountain pen from my desk and twirled it in his fingers. “We need to talk about Dad’s birthday.”

  “Can I get you boys some coffee, drinks, anything?” Jenny practically purred the words.

  Porter gave her an up and down perusal. One I’d seen too many times to count. This wouldn’t end well.

  “Yeah, I’d like to take a drink of y—”

  “No thank you, Jenny.” I turned to her, her gaze roving back and forth between us. “We have family business to discuss. Please close the door on your way out.” I punctuated the word “out” with a stern glare. At least she followed my instructions—but only after swaying her hips so hard I thought she might knock something out of joint.

  Once the door clicked shut, Porter whistled. “You hit that yet?”

  “No, of course not. We have a strict no-fraternization policy, and she’s only twenty-three.” And I’m simply not interested in vapid women who gossip more than they work.

  “Oh, come on. She’s not too young for you, and definitely not for me. You’re what?” He tapped his fingers on his chin. “Thirty-two now? Why do you act like it’s seventy-two? You’re worse than Dad. At least he flirts with Widow Brewer every chance he gets. Not to mention what he gets up to with ol’ Letty. Let’s see. The last girl you dated was, hmm.”

  I hadn’t seriously dated anyone in a while. Dating was a distraction, and all the women in Azalea who gravitated toward me were focused on getting their Mrs. Degree with a specialty in King. No, thanks. “I have things to do. Unlike some people who lucked up on a position that was way out of their skill range, I actually have to work for a living.”

  He smirked. “I totally have the skill set to be sheriff.”

  “You worked as a process server for a couple years, and now, thanks to this foolish county, you’re a glorified process server with a badge.” I walked the rest of the way to the desk, snatched his hat from it, and handed it to him. “If you want to discuss Dad’s party, we should wait until Charlotte is back in town.”

  “Yeah, but I had this great idea. You know how he was the king of Mardi Gras over in New Orleans when he was, I don’t know, twenty or something?”

  I shook my head. “I think that story was made up.”

  He shrugged, the black radio attached to his shoulder wobbling a little. “Whatever. How about we throw him a Mardi Gras party? Let him be the king of ceremonies again. He’d love it! Maybe we could even find a date for you. Some gal who likes stuffy types. A librarian or something.”

  “Out.” I tossed his hat onto the visitor’s chair and walked around to him. He stood and ran a hand through his dark blond hair. “I thought we were really having a moment there. You were going to open up to me about why you’ve always had a corn cob wedged between your cheeks, then we were going to discuss party planning, curl our hair, maybe stay up late and talk about what boys we liked.” He stepped out of the way as I swiped the grit off my desk.

  A brown smudge marred the edge of my planner. No way that was coming out.

  “If that’s all you have to discuss—”

  A knock sounded on the door, and Jenny’s voice rang out. “Mr. King?”

  “Yes?” Porter and I answered in unison.

  I shook my head. “You’re Sheriff King now, remember?”

  He plopped his hat on his head. “Right you are, big brother.” He opened the door for Jenny whose cheeks somehow seemed even pinker, her lips too red.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Kitston is here to see your father, but he isn’t answering his phone. Would you mind checking on him? I’d go myself, but…”

  “He scares you, huh?” Porter’s voice was conspiratorial. “Afraid he’ll chase you around the office like an episode of Mad Men?”

  She laughed and placed her hand on his forearm. “You’re so funny.”

  I stifled my irritation and walked toward the front of the office as Porter and Jenny trailed behind me, their tone hushed. I knocked on Dad’s door. No answer.

  “Dad, Mr. Kitston is here about his will.” My voice seemed to stop at the wood, but surely he would have heard me. I glanced over at Porter as a cold sensation rushed up my spine. “Maybe he’s not here?”

  He shrugged and turned his attention back to Jenny. “Now, about that coffee, sweetheart.”

  I gripped the right door handle. “Dad? I’m coming in.”

  Pushing the door open, I found Dad sitting at his desk. Everything seemed exactly the same as I remembered it.

  Except the smell. And the blood everywhere. And Jenny’s piercing scream.

  3

  Arabella

  I stuffed half a donut into my mouth and logged onto my computer. The office was just waking up from the overnight shift. Azalea, Mississippi had its fair share of inebriates and ne’er-do-wells, two of which were hanging out in the drunk tank; otherwise, the days were slow and the nights slower.

  “You save me one?” Logan dropped into his chair across from me and yawned.

  “Nope,” I spoke through the donut and worked on biting all of it into a more manageable shape in my mouth.

  He rubbed his eyes. His dark hair was desperately in need of a comb, and I suspected he hadn’t changed clothes in days.

  “You tie one on this weekend?” I swallowed and wondered for a second if it would all go down. Maybe I’d be in the Azalea Gazette: “Azalea Detective’s Death by Donut.”

  “I hit Crawley’s Saturday night, yeah.” He rubbed his jaw, and I noticed the small bruise appearing there.

  Pointing, I asked, “Who was it this time?”

  “This?” He gingerly touched the bruise. “This was when Brenda saw me talking to Vorayna.”

  “Brenda did that?” I whistled. “I didn’t think she had it in her.” I tapped random keys, trying to wake my dinosaur of a computer.

  “She’d been drinking tequila.”

  “Ah-ha.” I sipped my coffee and considered getting him a cup.

  Then he grinned. “Don’t worry. I got them to play nice. Real nice. All three of us.”

  My coffee consideration poured down the drain, and I returned to banging on my keys and mouse.

  “You go out this weekend?”

  “Yeah.” I met his dark brown eyes. “You know me. Just a party a minute.”

  “So that’s a no.” He squinted.

  “No. Vivienne caught a cold at daycare, and she snotted and was generally miserable from about Friday at five till this morning at about seven.”

  “Lucky you.”

&
nbsp; I tipped my coffee cup to him. “You know it.”

  “What are we working on today, fearless leader?”

  I wrinkled my nose. Logan had a few years on me. I was thirty-one to his thirty-four, but we’d both started working for the Azalea Police Department the same year. We’d worked the city beat—both of us in a car during the sweltering summers—for a few years until some of the older guard retired, leaving two detective spots open within six months of each other. I got promoted first—mainly because of the rumors that Logan had slept with one of the retiring detective’s daughters on the old man’s desk.

  I cycled through our handful of cases in my mind. “You’re still on that okra theft case, right?”

  He groaned. “That’s not a thing.”

  “Millie Lagner says it’s a thing, so it’s a thing.”

  “No one is sneaking into her garden at night and taking her okra. They’re also not stockpiling alien goods in her garage. It’s not happening. None of it. And it’s definitely not worth the time of the great City of Azalea’s second-best detective.”

  My computer finally flickered to life, and I entered my password, then began the five-minute wait for it to wake the rest of the way up.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think. It’s our job to investigate any and all crimes in the city limits.”

  “This is just stupid.” He rubbed his face, the scratchy sound of his stubble reminding me of the last time I had seen Dale. He’d been haggard, in need of a shave, and strung out like a clothesline.