The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set

by Lisa Clark O'Neill

  Firelight cast shadows that danced along the hardwood floor, and Cal looked away, briefly closing his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to see anything if he didn’t protect his night vision.

  Skirting the couch, he approached the big double window from the far side, easing the blinds away from the glass. The yard was nearly stygian at the edge of the trees, but enough moonlight crept through the clouds that he could see fog moving up from the creek, rolling across the grass like a carpet. The light he always left burning outside his workshop did little to dispel the gloom.

  Nothing moved.

  Cal waited, scanning as much of the yard as he could see. If it was an animal that had caught Beau’s attention, it had either moved off or was standing immobile, alerted to the possibility of danger by the dog’s sharp barks.

  But Cal didn’t think it was an animal. And he didn’t think that the yard was as empty as it appeared.

  He glanced back toward Ainsley, pointed a finger at her and made a general hand motion that indicated she should stay put. She made a face, but nodded. She was smart enough to realize that in her current condition, she would be more of a hindrance than a help.

  She had his phone. If necessary, she could call nine-one-one.

  But Cal was going to make sure that wasn’t necessary.

  Ainsley snapped her fingers at the dog, who scrambled off the sofa and toward her. When she had him safe on her lap, she looked back at Cal, mouthing the words: Be careful.

  Cal nodded. Feeling the calm that was the product of both training and experience – and that was in sharp contrast to the episode at the old Cross store – he hustled toward the laundry room, and the side door located there. The side porch was sheltered on one end by the outside wall of the kitchen, and thus meant he wasn’t exposing himself more than absolutely necessary.

  Cal peered through the window set into the door, determined that the porch itself was clear, and then disengaged the alarm before easing the door open. Closing it behind him, Cal descended the short flight of stairs and rounded the back corner of the house. He crouched behind an old-fashioned Rose of Sharon bush that anchored one end of the porch, listening. The fog both muffled and amplified sound, making it more difficult to pinpoint the direction from which it originated.

  But he was pretty sure the soft grunt he heard came from just on the other side of the bush, somewhere on the back porch.

  Cal rounded the corner, both arms raised in a classic triangle stance, his firearm unerringly trained on the shape huddled beneath the living room window.

  “Freeze, motherfucker.”

  But the shape didn’t move. Cal waited a beat, two, three, and then issued a warning again. The shape – and he was fairly certain it was human – could be bluffing. He/she could be waiting until Cal dropped his guard, came near, before he attacked.

  Cal inched his way closer, until the shape began to define itself into something definitely human, definitely male. Darkish hair. Jeans and hiking boots and a grey sweatshirt.

  A grey sweatshirt that he’d seen just a few short hours ago.

  “Wes?”

  Another grunt was his only response, and Cal closed the distance between himself and the back porch stairs, gingerly making his way up them.

  “Wes?” he said again, still cautious. After all, he and Ainsley had determined that the other man had opportunity and possibly motive in regards to Bree’s disappearance.

  Not to mention Carly’s murder all those years ago.

  Wesley turned his head, bringing a hand up toward it as if the movement caused him pain. And it probably did. The last time Cal had seen him he was unconscious, being loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Cal said.

  The other man stirred, obviously struggling to sit up. Cal weighed caution against common sense and compassion, and finally crouched down beside him.

  A white bandage covered most of Wes’s head, with spots of what looked to be fresh blood seeping through it.

  “Jesus, man. Why aren’t you still in the hospital?”

  “Needed to talk…” Wes said, sitting up straighter. “Talk to you.”

  “And that couldn’t have waited? Or been managed with a phone call?”

  “Didn’t have my phone,” Wes said. “Couldn’t remember your cell number. You don’t have a home phone.”

  All of which was plausible. Cal was pretty sure that Ben had Wesley’s cell phone. “How did you get here?”

  “Cab. Dropped me off at the end of your drive. I thought I was heading up the front walk, but… got turned around.”

  Also plausible. Confusion was a symptom of many head injuries.

  “They discharged you?”

  “Nope. Left anyway.”

  Against medical advice. Cal believed it. Wes almost certainly had a concussion at the very least, and twenty-four hours of observation would be standard. Cal debated, but then holstered his sidearm before extending his hand. In his current condition, he doubted that Wes was a threat, even if he wanted to be.

  “Come inside,” he said, pulling the other man to standing, and then supporting him with an arm. “You look like hell.”

  “Feel like it.”

  The kitchen door was at the end of the porch, so Cal headed in that direction. It was locked, and his keys were lying on the counter that was just visible through the glass, so he raised his fist and rapped on the glass.

  “Ainsley!” he called, hoping she could hear him. He didn’t want to have to lug Wes around to the other side of the house and the open laundry room door.

  Several moments later, Ainsley came into view, hurrying as quickly as her injured ankle would allow. She didn’t have her crutches, because she still had Beaumont cradled in her arms.

  When she saw them, her eyes went wide, and then she flipped the deadbolt, pulling the door open and standing aside to let them in.

  “Wes Fisher,” Cal said “in case the bandage on his head didn’t give him away. Wes, this is Sabrina’s cousin, Ainsley Tidwell.”

  “Heard about you,” Wes said, speaking with obvious effort as Cal helped him to a chair.

  “From Sabrina?”

  He started to nod in answer to Ainsley’s question, and then squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes. Sorry. Shit, my head hurts. But Jesus.” There were tears in the other man’s dark eyes when he opened them again. “I had no idea she was missing until I came into the gallery, bumped into one of the waitresses in the hall. She asked if I’d heard. I hadn’t, of course, because I hadn’t talked to anyone but you, Cal, since I’d gotten back. I was out hiking, camping, doing my own thing, and I didn’t even bring my cell phone with me. I didn’t want the distraction.” His voice caught. “I shouldn’t have left her.”

  “Left her?”

  Wes looked at Cal. “Last week – Friday. The day you went out of town. She wanted to go look for some stuff to use for her jewelry –”

  “Were you the one who was with her at the old Cross store?”

  “Yeah.” Wes sounded surprised. “You know about that?”

  “We guessed that she was there. And that she probably wasn’t alone.” Cal glanced at Ainsley, whose face was pale with worry. “You need to sit down. I’m going to put the dog in the laundry room.”

  He took Beau from her and did just that, ignoring the animal’s whimpers when he shut him in his crate. “Sorry,” he said, looking through the grate. “It’s just for a little while.”

  When he came back into the kitchen, Ainsley was sitting in the chair across from Wesley, studying him.

  “Are you and Bree lovers?”

  “Yeah,” Wes said. “For a few months now.”

  “She didn’t tell me.”

  “I know. She said that you were really involved in some big case, and she wanted to wait until after the trial to talk to you about it, because you get laser focus and she didn’t want to distract you.”

  She stared at Wesley, seemingly oblivious to the tear that rolled
down her cheek.

  Cal laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t beat yourself up,” he murmured before looking hard at Wes. “First things first: What happened in the storeroom?”

  “I don’t know,” Wes said. “It’s… I don’t know. I bumped into Deirdre – the waitress. First she told me about Joe killing himself –”

  “Wait.” Cal held up a hand. “Joe? You’re talking about Joe Cooper? He killed himself?”

  “That’s what Deirdre said. Joe shot himself a couple nights ago. You didn’t know?”

  “Shit. No.” Cal rubbed a hand over his face. “I was out of town, and then I haven’t spent much time at the gallery since I got back. And Ben wouldn’t let anyone talk to each other when I was there today. Keeping possible witnesses from getting their statements confused, I guess, in case you didn’t make it.”

  “Well there’s a comforting thought,” Wes said.

  “Who’s Joe?”

  Cal looked at Ainsley. “He’s the night manager of the hotel in the building.”

  “Is it just me, or is there suddenly an awful lot of bad juju in that place?”

  “It’s not just you. Keep going with your story, Wes.”

  “Well, obviously I was upset at the news about Joe. He was a good friend.” His eyes filled, but he blinked back the tears. “And then when she mentioned that Bree was missing, I pretty much lost my shit. I went back into the gallery with the intention of calling you to see what you knew. And then after that…” He made a gesture to indicate that it was a blank.

  Cal had dealt with enough head wounds to understand that amnesia surrounding the time of injury was common. Sometimes the memory came back, and sometimes it didn’t.

  It would have been helpful if Wes could say either: Oh, I was climbing on the shelves to reach something on top and they fell over or so-and-so snuck in the back door, cracked me over the head and then dumped the shelves on top of me to disguise what they’d done.

  But since it didn’t look like that was going to happen, they’d take what they could get.

  “You said you shouldn’t have left her. When did you and under what circumstances?”

  “That Friday… we went to the store and I helped her get some of the old cash register keys. For her jewelry.”

  “Did she cut her foot coming in the window?”

  “Yeah,” Wes sounded surprised again. “You figured that out, too?”

  Cal didn’t want to mention the fact that Ben had found one of Sabrina’s blood-covered sandals in the woods, because he didn’t want to derail Wesley’s train of thought. “And what happened after you left the store?”

  “I met her there at the store, and she wanted to check out another abandoned property after that. The old mill. But it was getting dark, and she’d hurt her foot, so I convinced her to wait until I got back from my trip, and then I would go with her. She agreed. Reluctantly, but she agreed. Can I have some water?”

  “Absolutely.” Cal went to the fridge, pulled out a bottle. “And after you spill your guts, I’m going to strongly recommend that you check back into the hospital. In the meantime, let me know if you feel sick to your stomach or dizzy.”

  “Thanks.” Wes accepted the water. “Anyway, as I drove off, she was sitting in her car, making a call. She waved at me through the window. That’s the last I saw her.”

  “That was probably the call to me,” Ainsley said to Cal. “The timing is about right.” And then she turned to Wesley. “Did you see anyone else as you were leaving? Or tell anyone where you were going to be, what you were doing at the store?”

  “I didn’t see anyone, no. I mean, I’m sure I passed a few random cars, but nothing that stood out. And as for telling anyone, Bree told me she had permission. I don’t know who she talked to, Tanner Cross or someone who worked for him, but someone gave her the okay.”

  Ainsley exchanged another look with Cal. Obviously, Sabrina was fairly close friends with someone out at Crossings, which would explain the phone call placed from the winery.

  But they still didn’t know who.

  “The photo you took of Bree – the one in the upstairs hall of the hotel,” Ainsley clarified. “Was that your composition? And what I mean by that is, was that your idea?”

  “No, actually. That one was all Sabrina. I don’t usually do portrait photography – I’m more of a landscape guy, mostly do contract work for some outdoor magazines, as well as the prints at The Mother Lode. But she got the idea from somewhere and… well,” he lifted one shoulder. “I wasn’t exactly going to turn down the opportunity to take pictures of a hot woman, naked in the moonlight.”

  “So you weren’t dating at the time you took that photo?”

  “No. We were friends. We’d worked together several times at the gallery. After… well, let’s just say that that session had some very interesting results.”

  “You were in the photography club with my cousin in high school,” Ainsley said. “My other cousin. Carly.”

  Wes looked taken aback. “Yeah. But I didn’t know her well. I was kind of a dork in high school. Actually, I probably still am, but I’m okay with that. And Carly was more interested in… well,” he gestured to Cal. “Guys like him.”

  “You never had an assignment,” Cal asked “like the photo you took of Sabrina?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I don’t mean naked. Just something with the moon.”

  Wes automatically started to deny it, but then took another sip of water and obviously thought back. “No. Not that I can recall, anyway. And I think I would remember because you need at least a 400mm lens and a tripod to get halfway decent moon shots, and the stuff we did in high school generally wasn’t that advanced. But I seem to recall something about one of the contests… this was the Y’s photography club, not the high school.” He briefly squeezed his eyes closed. “I think there’s a grouping of them hanging in the gallery there. They do a different subject matter every year. It’s been a while since I’ve been over to have a look at them, but I’m almost certain there are some moon shots there.”

  So maybe they were getting closer. “Did Sabrina tell you about the journals I found?”

  “From Carly? Oh yeah. And the photo albums. She was really emotional at first, and then after she had a good cry she came up with the idea for the jewelry.”

  “They’re gone.”

  Wes looked confused. “What’s gone?”

  “The journals.”

  “Maybe it’s the knock to the head, but I don’t understand.”

  “Someone broke into my shed and took the journals over the weekend. Do you know if Sabrina told anyone else about them? Did she tell her mom?”

  Wes grimaced. “Unfortunately. She regretted it, because her mom started making noises about you keeping their private family property from her and how you had gall buying her mother’s house in the first place, considering what you’d done to Ben back in high school, and blah, blah. So Bree hung up on her. Sorry,” he added for Ainsley’s benefit. “I know she’s your family, but the woman’s kind of a pain in the ass.”

  “You’ll get absolutely no argument from me.” Then she glanced at Cal. “So she did know about the journals.”

  “That might explain the break in,” Cal agreed. “But I’m still not convinced.”

  “Wait. You think this has something to do with Bree’s disappearance?” Wes said. “Finding Carly’s stuff, I mean.”

  “Let’s just say that I find it more than a little coincidental that Sabrina disappearing followed right on the heels of me telling her about it. And some other stuff has happened that lends the theory credence. We need to call Ben. Let him know what’s going on. He’s going to want to talk to you, Wes.”

  Wes grimaced. “I know I should have called him before I left the hospital, but a guy doesn’t look forward to telling a man with a badge and a gun that he’s been banging that man’s sister. And I don’t mean it like that,” he quickly said to Ainsley. “I really care ab
out Bree.”

  “I left your phone on the stairs,” Ainsley said, standing up. “I’ll go get it.”

  “You just stay here,” Cal said. “There’s no need for you to walk.”

  “No, really. I’ll do it. I’d… like just a moment alone.”

  Cal frowned, but didn’t make any further protest. The more they learned, the less likely it seemed that Sabrina had simply suffered car trouble and gotten lost in the woods. It didn’t look good for her, and Cal knew how devastating that thought was to Ainsley. Hell, it punched him in the gut, and he and Sabrina were only friends.

  He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose two members of your family in such a way.

  “So you and Bree’s cousin…” Wes said, drawing Cal’s attention.

  Cal nodded. “Oh yeah.”

  “Thought so. Well, at least Ben’s full ire might not be directed at me. Jesus,” he said, closing his eyes again. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Cal looked at the other man with sympathy and then glanced toward the doorway, resisting the urge to check on Ainsley.

  She deserved her moment alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  BEN scanned the list Cross had given him after he climbed into his SUV, using the light of his dash by which to read. His cell phone beeped, and he pulled it off his belt to look at it. It reminded him that he’d missed a call from Cal – or more likely from Ainsley – while he was talking to Tanner and Jason.

  He started to return the call, but another one came through. The coroner’s office. As it was after hours, Ben figured it was important.

  “Paulson.”

  “Ben, this is Aaron Rainwater. I have the results from the autopsy on Joe Cooper. I know you’d planned to stop by tomorrow, but I wanted to go ahead and give you a heads up.”

  “Which leads me to believe your findings aren’t consistent with suicide.”

  “Well, the contact wound is consistent with the gun being held very close to his right temple, and the downward left-to-right trajectory is furthermore typical of right-handed shooters. There is also powder residue on his right hand. The problem, however, is that Joe Cooper was not right-handed.”