The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set

by Lisa Clark O'Neill

  Shit. “You’re sure?”

  “As sure as I can be without asking him directly. For one thing, there’s bruising on the knuckles of his left hand, consistent with striking someone or something, whereas his right hand is unmarred. There are other, more conclusive scientific indications, but they’ll be in the autopsy report.”

  Which meant that Cooper hadn’t shot himself. In all honestly, Ben had been expecting it. There was just something about the scene that hadn’t rung true, particularly with the image of Sabrina on the computer screen, and no evidence of any other association between the two. It seemed like someone wanted them to think that Bree and Cooper were involved, and made a sloppy attempt at creating a chain of evidence.

  Which suggested that someone was in a bit of a panic. Panicked people made mistakes.

  Ben swallowed his own panic that wanted to rise, to clog his throat and choke him. He couldn’t relate everything he’d learned so far to Sabrina. To the fact that it was his sister’s disappearance he was investigating. He just couldn’t do it, and still function.

  So he had to shove it down, as deep as he could make it go, and rely solely on his rationality, his mind, brutally cutting off his emotions.

  Ben thanked the coroner for getting in touch with him, and ended the call. His vision wanted to blur – exhaustion would do that to you – but he blinked his eyes to clear them.

  Then he studied the list again.

  A few of the names he recognized. Several more he did not.

  But one of them…

  Well, one of them stood out. Ben sat aside the list, and stuck his key in the ignition. He needed to head back into town.

  HOT tears blurred Ainsley’s vision as she walked out of the kitchen.

  She’d been involved in enough criminal cases to realize that the evidence was stacking up, and none of it looked good for Sabrina.

  Ainsley came to a stop in the middle of Cal’s living room, drew in a breath that felt like shards of ice compared to the hot moisture on her cheeks. She lifted a hand to brush the tears away, noticed that it shook.

  Shock, she thought as she stared at it. She was in some sort of emotional shock. It was another thing she’d seen enough of to recognize the symptoms.

  She’d held it together for the past several days. Despite coming back to Dahlonega, resurrecting memories she’d rather had stayed not just buried, but cremated, destroyed, obliterated. Despite that, the various physical traumas she’d suffered, and the emotional upheaval of… whatever this was that was happening with Cal, Ainsley had held it together.

  But for whatever reason, meeting Wesley, this man who’d been Bree’s lover – a lover Ainsley hadn’t even known about because she’d been so caught up in her work – had pushed her over the edge.

  Because she suspected – no, feared – that she was never going to hear about him from Sabrina. That she was never going to hear about anything from Bree, ever again.

  Tears coursed down Ainsley’s cheeks, and this time she didn’t try to stop them. It struck her as hideously, monstrously unfair that Sabrina would be taken from her in such a way. A way that simply had to be connected to Carly.

  And Ben – oh God, Ben.

  This was going to kill him.

  Ainsley wrapped her arms around her waist, rocked back and forth. She stood there for several minutes at least, listening to the crackle of the logs in the fireplace, and the murmur of the men’s voices, while she quietly went to pieces.

  And then she pulled it together. Because she knew all too well that no amount of anger, of grief, would bring Sabrina back to them.

  But she could channel both of those emotions into something more productive than tears. Because somewhere in this quaint little town was a man who – for reasons she still didn’t know – had brutally murdered Carly. And then when those journals surfaced, journals which almost certainly contained evidence that pointed to his identity – or at least he feared that was the case – he’d done something to Sabrina, too. Perhaps because she innocently mentioned the journals, and he demanded to know their location. Maybe Bree had gotten suspicious, or…

  Ainsley sighed. There could be any number of reasons. But what mattered now was that they contacted Ben, and told him what they’d learned.

  Blinking her eyes clear, Ainsley hobbled toward the entryway, and the stairs where she’d left Cal’s phone. But when she rounded the newel post, looked down, the phone wasn’t there.

  Ainsley scanned the floor, thinking that maybe it had fallen off her lap when she’d stood up, although she thought she remembered sitting it on the step beside her before scooping Beaumont into her arms. However, it wasn’t on the floor either.

  “What the hell,” she murmured out loud.

  “Looking for this?”

  Ainsley whirled around at the sound of the voice, nearly falling over. But a hand shot out to grab her upper arm, keeping her upright.

  In his other hand he held a gun, which he jammed up under her chin.

  “Not one word,” he whispered. “Or I blow your head off right here.”

  Ainsley stared at the man she’d seen so recently, under far different conditions.

  And knew beyond a doubt that she was looking into the eyes of her cousin’s killer.

  CAL studied Wesley while they waited for Ainsley to return with his phone.

  “A couple weeks ago,” he said “I saw Sabrina coming down the stairs from the hotel, late. She obviously wasn’t expecting to see me there, and was visibly embarrassed. Was she with you?”

  “Yeah,” Wes said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. “Whenever I was scheduled to work at the gallery, I’d stay at the hotel, unless they were booked. Joe…” he cleared his throat. Glanced away. “Joe was a good friend. He knew my place was remote, and so gave me rooms at a bargain basement rate. He could have gotten into trouble if the owner knew, so we kept it on the down low. I, uh, tried to call him to arrange a room for tonight, but couldn’t… well, obviously he didn’t answer.”

  “You said you didn’t take your cell phone with you on this trip?”

  “No. I have a friend that works at the store at Neel’s Gap, and he hangs onto some of my stuff when I don’t want to haul it with me. I hit the shower in the facilities there after I got your call, rather than going all the way home before heading into town. You caught me right as I was coming off the trail and picking up my stuff.”

  Cal considered. “I didn’t know Joe as well as you, but I can’t say he struck me as someone who was… depressed. Did he have any financial problems? Romantic problems? Addictions?”

  “No,” Wes stated emphatically. “None. That’s why… I just don’t understand. I have no idea what’s going on.”

  Cal didn’t either, but he was starting to have some ideas. The timing of Cooper’s suicide seemed awfully damned convenient. Maybe Joe Cooper knew, or saw, something that made him a threat to whoever was responsible for Sabrina’s disappearance. And maybe the man had had a little help killing himself.

  There were still a lot of threads that remained dangling, but Cal felt like he could see the beginnings of a pattern. Somehow, it all tied back in to Carly’s obsession with photography and to the building which housed the gallery, The Tasting Room and the hotel.

  Or maybe just to someone who worked there.

  Beau started barking and whining, and Cal frowned toward the laundry room. Then he switched his gaze toward the doorway. Ainsley had been gone for about ten minutes.

  Cal rolled his shoulders. He didn’t want to crowd her. She’d asked for some time alone.

  But then the itch between his shoulder blades climbed up his neck, raising little hairs along the way.

  His hand automatically reached for his gun, and his voice was low when he addressed Wesley.

  “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  BEN placed a call to Deputy Watson as he navigated the foggy, winding road.

  “Go into
my office,” he said without preamble when she answered “and locate the photo albums. There are some photos I’ve removed, and they’re lying on top. Take a picture of them and then send it to my phone.”

  “Will do,” she said.

  When his phone beeped to indicate the incoming text, Ben pulled over to the side of the road and studied the image, enlarging it with his fingers so that he could better see the bottom picture.

  The image was one of a tractor – an old tractor, no longer in working order, that sat abandoned in front of a field. The field held corn, a whole hell of a lot of it. Hanging on the fence which surrounded the corn, partially obscured by the tractor, was a banner on which the wording was only partly visible. But Ben could see enough of it to extrapolate what it said.

  Johnson’s Corn Maze.

  Deputy Bullock had mentioned that Conway’s daughter’s married name was Johnson, and that her family owned the farm where the area’s biggest corn maze was held each autumn.

  Carly had taken photographs on that farm.

  Someone connected to that family had taken the keys to old man Conway’s vintage pickup and used it to run Cal and Ainsley off the road.

  That same someone had also likely been in the old Cross store.

  And, if Ben was making the right connections, that someone also worked for Crossings winery.

  As manager of The Tasting Room.

  “Fuck!” Ben yelled, his voice reverberating around the interior of his SUV. That bruise on the man’s face? Far more likely the result of a fight or a struggle than someone tripping over their damn cat. Hadn’t the coroner said that Joe Cooper’s knuckles showed signs of having struck something?

  Ben’s fist connected with the dash, smashing buttons, busting his own knuckles, but he didn’t feel any pain. He’d been face to face with the man. The man who’d almost certainly killed his sister…

  Jesus. Ben hit the dash again. Maybe he’d killed both of them.

  And yet he’d let the piece of shit walk away.

  He’d thanked the man for his help.

  Shaking with fury, Ben forced his throbbing fingers to move, and he placed a call to dispatch. “I’m issuing an APB for…” Shit, what was the man’s first name? “Michael. Michael Johnson.” He gave a brief description. “He’s the manager of The Tasting Room on the square. I don’t know if he’s armed, but consider him dangerous.”

  Ben ran through a few more details before shifting his SUV into drive. “I’m on my way back into town,” he said. “ETA fifteen minutes.”

  When he ended the call with dispatch, he quickly returned Cal’s – or Ainsley’s – call. He doubted they would be going back to the gallery tonight, but he didn’t want to take a chance on them bumping into Michael Johnson and not being aware of the full extent of the situation. If Ben was right, Johnson had already tried to kill them once.

  And Wesley Fisher. Ben would stake his career on that.

  The call connected, but immediately went to voice mail.

  “Damn it, Elias,” Ben said when prompted to leave a message. “Call me back. And if you happen to come across Michael Johnson, the manager from the Tasting Room, do not engage. But consider him dangerous, and call 911 immediately. Shit,” he said as he hung up the phone, placing both hands on the wheel and punching the gas, despite the hazardous conditions.

  He’d already come to the conclusion that Johnson was panicking. And like any cornered animal, that made him unpredictable.

  FEAR and anger warred inside Ainsley as she allowed herself to be herded into what had once been her grandmother’s sewing room. A small space located behind the stairs, it now stood mostly empty except for a few stray chairs and some boxes that Cal obviously hadn’t gotten around to unpacking.

  The man – she didn’t know his name, though she certainly recognized him as the one she’d seen working in The Tasting Room – peeked into the hall before closing the door most of the way. And then gestured her toward a rolling desk chair.

  Ainsley glanced at the chair, and then back at him.

  “At the risk of sounding like a character from Scooby Doo, you can’t seriously think you’re going to get away with this.”

  “I don’t see any meddling kids, do you?” He smiled at his own little joke, but his eyes kept darting toward the hallway. “After all, I’ve gotten away with murder for almost twenty years. As a defense attorney, I’m sure that pleases you. Go, team.”

  Anger got the upper hand. “Fuck you.”

  “When Carly said that to me, I took her at her word. Sit. And if you scream, I’ll kill you. Notice the silencer?” He nodded toward the end of the gun. “They won’t hear the shot, but eventually Elias will come looking for you, and I’ll kill him, too.”

  Because his face had gone instantly stony, and his eyes looked more than a little wild, Ainsley sat. She didn’t doubt that he would carry through on his threat.

  Ainsley closed her eyes, drawing in breaths that she hoped would calm the fury that caused her entire body to shake. She couldn’t let him taunt her. Had to keep a clear head so that she could think of a way out of this.

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “Pin everything on Wesley Fisher, of course.” He pulled a plastic baggie from his pocket, displacing Cal’s phone as he did so. It clattered to the floor, and he jumped back as if he’d just encountered a live snake.

  Ainsley watched as he hurried back toward the door, peering through the crack into the hallway. His chest rose and fell rapidly. He wasn’t as calm as he tried to sound.

  But the fact that he was jumpy didn’t make Ainsley feel any better. A skittish killer was every bit as deadly as a cold, methodical one. And often more difficult to predict.

  So she kept quiet as he scanned the hall, although she did gauge the distance between her chair and the phone. Too far to make a grab for it, and with her current boot-induced clumsiness, she’d never be able to do it inconspicuously anyway.

  Swinging back around, he looked at her, and then darted a glance toward the phone. “Good call, if you’ll forgive the pun. I would have shot you if you’d tried. Here.” He took a cloth from the bag, held it out as if she’d sneezed and he were offering a tissue. “Put this over your mouth.”

  Ainsley frowned at the rag.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do it!”

  She swallowed, watching the hand that held the gun as she considered her options. Basically, she had two. Cooperate or don’t.

  “No.” She looked into his dark eyes. She had little doubt that the rag contained chloroform or some other drug designed to knock her out. And if she were unconscious, she’d be totally at his mercy. The thought of which made her sick.

  “I’m not going to make this easy for you,” she told him. “Go ahead and shoot me.”

  His mouth twitched, and the eyes that held her gaze narrowed. “Just like your cousin.”

  “Which one?”

  “Both.” He sneered. “And look at what resisting got them.”

  “What did you do with Sabrina?” she said before she could stop herself.

  “Not nearly as much as she deserved.” He frowned as he fingered the scratches on the bridge of his nose. “She should have trusted me. I…” but he trailed off. Listened.

  Beaumont had started to bark.

  He circled around until he stood behind Ainsley’s chair, the gun pressed to her temple.

  “Not a word,” he breathed into her ear.

  And then he held the rag over her face.

  CAL eased his way into the living room, his back against the wall.

  Aside from Beau’s whining, the house was too quiet. Not that he expected Ainsley to be sobbing hysterically – he pegged her more as the type who did her crying in silence.

  But there was a quality to the quiet that experience had taught Cal to recognize. It was a quiet that threatened, that suggested some sort of danger lie in wait. As if the air itself held its breath in preparation.

  Cal moved forward
enough that he could see around the corner, toward the entry hall and the stairs.

  Both were empty.

  Maybe Ainsley had retrieved the phone and gone into the powder room to wash her face and pull herself back together.

  But he didn’t think so.

  For one thing, there was no sound of running water, of activity of any kind, emanating from the direction of the bathroom. For another, there were those hairs on the back of his neck.

  Cal hesitated, swore viciously inside his own head, and then moved back toward the laundry room and kitchen. The dog’s barking was a distraction, but he let it go for now.

  Instead, he grabbed a pen and paper and wrote quick instructions for Wesley. When he was finished, he turned the pad of paper toward the other man.

  Someone in house. Leave through laundry room. Take dog. Go to neighbor’s and call 911.

  The other man’s gaze jerked up after he finished reading, his eyes wide with fright.

  But when he opened his mouth to speak, Cal gave a quick shake of his head. Having an injured man and a barking puppy here just made for two more targets and a host of complications. Plus, without his phone, he had no way to call for backup. Getting Wes and the dog out of here was the best course of action at the moment.

  Wes looked pale, but he gestured to indicate that he understood. Cal schooled his voice to sound normal when he called for Beaumont to shut up. There had to be an explanation for why the dog suddenly stopped barking, and preferably one that wouldn’t alert whoever was in the house that the jig was up.

  Cal covered the laundry room as Wes slipped inside, scooping up Beaumont into his arms before heading toward the outside door. The dog, happy with any form of human attention, licked the other man’s face, his tail frantically wagging.

  “Hurry,” Cal mouthed, and Wes nodded. Then he and Beaumont were gone.

  Cal immediately turned his attention back toward the main body of the house, and what waited for him there.

  Ainsley. The very thought of something happening to her caused his entire body to tighten with a fury he couldn’t allow himself to feel. Emotion clouded judgment, and cloudy judgment led to mistakes. Fatal mistakes.