The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set

by Lisa Clark O'Neill

  Malice

  A Southern Comfort Prequel

  Book One

  Lisa Clark O’Neill

  With special thanks to Brian Koch for his incredible graphic design and for being a rock; to David Rusev for his photography skills and for his patience with answering my questions about all things Russian; to Sandra Clark for her eagle eye and too many other things to enumerate; and finally to Kristina Costello and Catherine Hudson for their very helpful feedback.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Other Novels by Lisa Clark O’Neill

  The Sweetwater Trilogy:

  Mr. Write

  Admit One

  Circumstantial Evidence

  The Southern Comfort Series:

  Serendipity

  Forbidden

  Deception

  Nemesis

  Obsession

  Coming soon:

  Avarice

  CHAPTER ONE

  IF there were any benefit to living as a homeless man, it was the ability to scratch your ass on a public street without having people look at you as if you were crude. Mostly because people looked past, around and through the homeless.

  An unfortunate fact, but one that currently worked to the benefit of FBI agent Jesse Wellington.

  Cursing the cold December rain which had started sometime around two a.m. and hadn’t let up since, Jesse proceeded to scratch his left cheek. Sitting in a wet cardboard box in the alley half the night had given him a rash.

  Muttering to himself, Jesse pushed his shopping cart to the mouth of the alley, hunching his six-three frame to better project the image of a harmless old man. Not that anyone was paying any attention. Aside from people’s tendency to avoid looking at the homeless, they also – mostly – had the sense to stay out of the rain. The street was basically deserted. This part of Savannah wasn’t exactly bustling with activity at this time of the morning under normal circumstances, given as it was toward activities that were better conducted under the cover of darkness. The weather kept all but the most intrepid locals tucked away inside.

  The repeated thump of ball hitting pavement drew Jesse’s attention to the bulldozer-sized man shooting hoops on the corner. Rain slid off his bald head, water splashing from the cracked court every time he dribbled. Seemingly heedless of the uncomfortable damp, the man tried for a three pointer. The ball hit the rim, bouncing off and rolling toward Jesse.

  He bent sideways and scooped it up.

  “Hey, old timer,” the bald man called. “That’s my ball.”

  “And I wouldn’t have it if you could hit the broad side of a barn.”

  Eyes narrowing, the man sauntered across the court, mile-wide shoulders back, ham-sized hands spread in a contentious gesture. He was a walking, talking poster boy for Badasses of America.

  But he pressed his wet black T-shirt against his wrinkled nose as he drew closer.

  “Shit, Wellington,” he said in an undertone. “Did you sleep in the dumpster?”

  Jesse indicated his old, wet Army jacket, a tattered relic that he’d picked up at a thrift store and which probably hadn’t been laundered since the Nixon administration. “You try wearing this and see if you don’t smell like ass. Some of us weren’t tucked up inside a cozy apartment all night, watching the goings-on through binoculars.”

  “I’d hardly call that place above the tattoo parlor cozy. And might I remind you that you volunteered for this.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Mostly because Jesse hated surveillance, the unutterable tedium of it, and the opportunity to disguise himself as a bum and keep an eye on the back door to the building seemed more proactive.

  Not that he’d accomplished much of anything other than freezing his ass off and giving himself a rash. The subject of their interest hadn’t shown hide or hair since he’d disappeared into his apartment above the Fluff & Fold laundromat yesterday afternoon. It reminded him of another case he’d been involved with recently, in which he’d taken down a killer who was holding a woman hostage behind a row of washing machines.

  “I need to stay away from laundromats,” Jesse muttered.

  “What?”

  Jesse waved a hand to indicate that it wasn’t important. The laundry machines running at all hours of the day and night generated too much white noise for their audio equipment to be effective, so at this point they were stuck doing surveillance the old fashioned way – they watched and they waited. “Losevsky has to show his face sooner or later.”

  Miron Losevsky was the little toad who lived above the laundromat. The management company he worked for maintained the Fluff & Fold and a string of others like it, as well as some self-serve car washes. All cash-rich operations. They suspected, quite strongly, that the businesses served to launder more than dirty clothes and cars. They were part of the legitimate business front for one particularly nasty Russian import, whose real business was anything but. Massage parlors that functioned as prostitution rings, drugs – the man had his fingers in any number of criminal pies. They knew that much, but they didn’t know him.

  The Ghost, as some members of the task force had taken to calling him, because the bastard seemed to be able to disappear at will. His identity was hidden behind dummy corporations and grunts like Miron who did his dirty work.

  They wouldn’t even know that much if one of the girls who worked – involuntarily – at one of the massage parlors hadn’t escaped and subsequently been picked up by local law enforcement. Her name was Irena, and though she’d been terrified of the cops, she was more terrified of being returned to her former “employer.” With the help of a translator they’d learned that like many of the victims of human trafficking, she’d been promised a better life in the U.S. When that better life turned out to be sexual slavery, her life and – more effectively – the lives of her family back in Russia had been threatened in order to keep her in line.

  They’d gotten Losevsky’s name from her, as he was one of her regulars. She didn’t know who Losevsky’s boss was, though she said one of the other girls had spoken of servicing him.

  That girl hadn’t lived long afterward, but Irena refused to say more on the subject, and no amount of cajoling or legal threats could persuade her. Whatever she’d seen had been sufficiently horrifying to ensure her silence.

  Unfortunately, by the time they had enough information to raid the parlor, a convenient fire took the building and any evidence it might have contained to the ground.

  And Irena – who was supposedly safe in police custody – had been shanked by another inmate at the jail.

  Realizing they had a bit of a problem, the locals gave the FBI a call.

  Because they didn’t want a repeat of the fiasco with the massage parlor, they were taking a more covert approach to surveilling Losevsky. Without their witness’s testimony, they had a lot of suspicions but no actual grounds for bringing him in.

  Jesse scratched at the straggly gray wig covering his dark hair, and Brian took the ball back. “Why don’t you head out, grab some coffee, something to eat? I can call Bristol in, have him back me up for a while.”

  Because the thought of coffee – and possibly even a shower – sounded like nirvana, Jesse opened his mouth to agree. But then the glass door to the Fluff and Fold banged open, discharging a woman who yanked at her long dark hair, shouting her head off in hysterical Spanish.

  “La sangre! La sangre!” She ran into the street, looking wildly over her shoulder.

  “That means blood,” Brian contributed uneasily, and the hair on Jesse’s neck stood up. “She just wal
ked in a few minutes ago.”

  “Let’s go. Now.” Jesse unholstered his weapon from beneath the grungy jacket that he wore, holding it against his leg as he ran toward the open laundromat door. After a nod from Brian he went in high, Brian going low. A tinny version of Deck the Halls piped from the speakers, but the room appeared empty aside from the basket of clothes turned over on the floor, presumably dropped by the woman.

  “There,” Brian said, gesturing with his chin.

  A choir sang follow me in merry measure as they approached the artificial Christmas tree covered in shiny tinsel. The angel topper held an unfurled scroll that declared Peace on Earth.

  Blood dripped from the ceiling, staining her white dress.

  Jesse grimaced, then examined the ceiling. The blood was obviously leaking through from the floor above. “Stairs are in the back, through that door.”

  In this type of situation stairwells were like a barrel, whoever entered them the fish, but they had little choice. With a hand signal, Jesse indicated he’d take the lead, Brian bringing up the rear. In contrast to the bright overhead light and artificial cheer of the laundromat, a bare light bulb shone, casting grim-looking shadows. Jesse spotted Miron’s front door, a crack of weak, watery light indicating it was open.

  “FBI,” Jesse announced as they gained the landing. Though from the smell creeping out the door like a malodorous fog, he was pretty sure whoever’s blood that was couldn’t hear him. “We’re coming in.”

  Jesse shouldered the door aside, crouched low and Brian went past him. The room was a living/dining combo, an absolute pigsty, and visibly empty. Brian moved to the adjoining galley kitchen, examined it and then shook his head at Jesse. Steeling himself, Jesse eased toward the bedroom. The door was closed, but the room wasn’t quiet. After a couple moments listening at the door, Jesse determined the sound came from a TV.

  But he wasn’t about to take chances. He waited for Brian, then kicked open the door.

  The smell nearly knocked him over. Excrement. Blood. Death.

  “Shit,” Brian swore, the color draining from his face. “Oh, hell.”

  Jesse, whose stomach was much stronger than Brian’s, felt a little sick himself.

  “Clear the bathroom,” he said, because it needed to be done and because Brian looked like he needed a moment to get his gorge under control.

  When the other man moved away, Jesse forced himself to look at the bed.

  Miron Losevsky had been tied to the frame, spread-eagle, and then filleted like a fish. Blood soaked through the mattress, pooling on the floor and dripping through the laundromat ceiling beneath. Duct tape covered his mouth, and a few intrepid flies crawled and buzzed around what was left of his body.

  Jesse studied the wall behind the bed, the ceiling. No arterial spray. So the perp hadn’t cut Losevsky’s throat and then carved on him. He’d carved him first, let him bleed for a while, and then severed the carotid artery just to make sure the poor bastard was really dead.

  “How’d this happen?” Brian said from behind him. “We’ve had this place under twenty-four hour surveillance.”

  “Hell if I know.” But the thought of it pissed him off. Someone had snuck in here – and they would discover how – murdered Miron Losevsky in the vilest possible way, all while he’d been right outside, scratching his ass.

  Literally.

  Jesse spotted some square, brightly colored sheets of blotter paper on the nightstand and stepped as carefully as possible around the bed. The paper, perforated into individual tabs measuring about a quarter of an inch square, bore a smiling brown bear.

  “Drugs?”

  Jesse nodded in response to Brian’s question. Hallucinogens – usually LSD or a chemical relative – seemed to be the Ghost’s particular niche. Given the drug’s popularity with the artsy crowd – a significant part of Savannah, which boasted one of the most successful art and design schools in the country – it was a profitable niche, indeed.

  “Looks like the same design the Counter Narcotics Team has been tracking.” The brown bear, of course being a well-known symbol for Russia, dating back to the age of the tsars.

  “Maybe Losevsky was sampling the merchandise a little too freely,” Brian suggested.

  Jesse glanced at the remains of the man on the bed. “Maybe. Maybe this is his boss’s way of sending a message.”

  “I’d say it’s a pretty effective one. Messy, but effective.”

  “Not that messy,” Jesse said as he studied the carpet. “This much blood, you’d think he would have tracked it.” A blade was an intimate weapon, one frequently used in anger, in passion. But even if there was anger here, it was icy. Controlled. Forensics would come in, vacuum, find any stray hairs or fingerprints – maybe the duct tape would be good for that, unless he’d worn gloves – but the scene, for all its brutality – did not look like the evidence bonanza typical of most fatal stabbings.

  “Shit,” Brian muttered.

  Jesse heard the siren, too. Evidently the woman who’d run out of here earlier had found a squad car and alerted them.

  “We better go down and meet them,” Jesse said. “Let them know who we are. I don’t feel like getting shot today.” They didn’t exactly look like officers of the law at the moment, and the last thing they needed was a run-in with a trigger happy beat cop who wasn’t aware of the situation.

  He turned, but the TV on the dresser caught his eye.

  It took him a moment, but then his fist clenched of its own volition as what he was seeing registered. “Son of a bitch. Son of a freaking bitch.”

  “What?” Brian’s bulk eased up behind him. “What’s wrong?”

  Jesse jerked his chin toward the screen.

  From between two buildings, a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man emerged, terrorizing a busy city.

  “You have to be kidding me.” Brian’s tone echoed Jesse’s.

  Jesse wished it was a joke, he really did. But it wasn’t the least bit funny. Because it meant that they had a real problem.

  As Ghostbusters continued to play, Jesse seethed. Not only was this evidence that the task force had a leak, but the bastard was cocky enough to let them know it. “He’s thumbing his nose at us,” Jesse said. “He thinks this is some kind of game.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  JILLIAN Montgomery had always heard that when life gave you lemons, you were supposed to make lemonade.

  She wondered what you were supposed to do with acorns.

  She straightened from her post-run stretch, rubbing the spot on her scalp where the missile had landed. Looking up, she spotted a familiar gray form lurking behind a curtain of Spanish moss.

  He shook his bushy tail at her.

  “Is that any way to greet me?” She’d run out of trail mix a few days ago, and the squirrel she’d nicknamed Killer due to his aggressive personality clearly wasn’t happy. “I’ll go to the store this afternoon, you demanding little rodent.”

  “You really shouldn’t encourage him, dear.”

  That admonition indicated that her neighbor, Mrs. Franklin, had been watching from her window. Jillian turned to see the elderly woman hobble onto her front porch, holding Ruffles the dog in her arms. Although really, dog was something of a misnomer. The little animal looked more like a rodent than the squirrel.

  Mrs. Franklin’s floral housecoat flapped in the brisk November breeze. The riot of gray curls around her head gave her the look of an aging medusa. “Mr. Pratt said that your little friend is becoming a nuisance.”

  It was Mr. Pratt, her neighbor on the other side, who was the nuisance.

  “If Mr. Pratt is worried about the squirrels getting into his birdseed, he should use the new feeder I got him last month. It’s guaranteed to keep them out. I made sure before I bought it.”

  “I know that, dear. But you know how some old people can be. Set in their ways.”

  She could probably write a book on the subject, after living between those two. At least Mrs. Franklin was sweet. Mr. Pratt was the
type who needed a lawn so that he could yell at kids to get off of it.

  “If I stop feeding the squirrel,” Jillian pointed out “it seems to me that he would be more likely to get into the bird feeders.”

  Mrs. Franklin gave a little shrug. Jillian didn’t think she actually cared about the squirrel or Mr. Pratt’s feeders. She just liked to have something to gossip about.

  “Are you sure it’s safe for you to be out running around the neighborhood by yourself, what with all the crime lately? It’s terrible, I tell you. Decent people having to be afraid to go out their own front door. Pretty girl like you, I just hate to think what could happen.”

  The crimes were mostly vandalism, nothing overtly violent, but she was touched by the older woman’s concern. “I always carry pepper spray with me.” She held up her wrist to show the bracelet she wore, which contained a concealed canister. Jillian had learned, the hard way, not to take her personal safety for granted.

  Unconvinced, Mrs. Franklin sniffed. “I’d feel better if you had a man with you. Or at least a dog. You could take Ruffles with you any time you want.”

  Jillian eyed Ruffles, who shivered despite his little sweater. She wasn’t sure how exactly he would defer an attack, unless the assailant tripped over him.

  “I appreciate it,” she told her neighbor, reminding herself that the woman really did mean well. “And I’ll keep that in mind. Have a nice day, Mrs. Franklin.”

  Jillian gathered the neglected mail from the box and started up the steps. The curtains twitched in the front window next door, and Jillian barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. Rather than pretending like she hadn’t seen Mr. Pratt spying on her, she stopped and gave a little wave.

  The curtains twitched closed.

  She lamented, for possibly the hundredth time, that Mr. Pratt’s brother – the elder Mr. Pratt, Robert – had suffered a stroke six months ago, precipitating this extended visit from his younger sibling, Adam. The older brother was a sweetheart. The younger, not so much.

  Dropping the mail on the entry table beside the matryoshka – the wooden nesting dolls she’d inherited from her mother – Jillian looked up at the sound of a squeaking stair tread. She frowned as her housemate staggered toward her. With her freckled face and ruffled pajama pants, Katie resembled Little Bo Peep with a hangover.