The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  “Hell of a woman,” Clay sighed, watching her tug a huge straw hat over blonde hair just a shade darker than his own.

  “Dad seems to think so.” Jesse rose, slapped Jordan’s shoulder and tucked three more cookies into a napkin. “I guess I’ll head out, too. I have my own work to do.”

  “Thanks for fetching me from the airport.”

  “Not a problem.” Clay’s shoulder got its own slap. “I’ll see you at my place later tonight. Dinner’s set for seven. Jillian will hogtie you if you’re late.”

  “Woman has him whipped,” Jordan muttered when Jesse’d cleared the room, and Clay took a moment to study him. He’d lost a little weight. And dark circles hollowed eyes the same bright shade as his mother’s. “You look like shit.”

  “Always good to see you, too.”

  “I get paid to notice stress when I see it, son. And I’d wager it’s more than just that whuppin’ you took. I’ve taken a look at the files you sent me. That sleep you’re losing is over this case.”

  Jordan tossed the pen he’d been fiddling with onto his yellow notepad. “Three women. Different ages. Different occupations. Different appearances, social statuses, religions. Three women, Clay, raped, violated, their tongues cut out, and left to drown in their own blood.”

  “It’s frustrating, sickening, for you more than some. You’re a caretaker by nature. It’s why you’re one of the few men – few straight men – I know who has houseplants. Why you teach that self-defense class down at the Y. Three women. But the man charged with their deaths is behind bars. You worried your skill in the courtroom isn’t enough to keep him there?”

  “I’m worried,” Jordan said grimly “that he isn’t behind bars at all.”

  “Ah,” Clay said, and thought: of course. The double whammy. A killer on the loose and an innocent man on his way to prison. No wonder his friend couldn’t sleep.

  “You’re the behavioral expert, Clay, but something about this guy just doesn’t play for me. It took a cool head and a… huge sense of entitlement to do what was done to those women. He couldn’t have had any empathy, any feeling for them as human beings. Fuller… hell, he cried when they showed him the crime scene photos of the last victim. I wasn’t there – this wasn’t my case yet – but I watched the video. And he bawled like a damn baby. They were neighbors, but more, I think to his mind they were in love. If the detectives hadn’t found the little shrine he’d made to her in his closet and some of her blood on the floorboard of his car… Maybe he’s just a damn good actor, but I can’t reconcile the manner of these women’s deaths with the nervous – and to all appearances heartbroken – kid we have locked up.”

  “You’ve expressed these doubts to your boss?”

  “Why do you think you’re sitting here, eating my mom’s cookies?”

  Reminded, Clay snagged the plate. “I’ll just bet,” he pointed a cookie at Jordan “that went over well.”

  “Like a lead balloon.” Rocking back in his chair, Jordan rubbed at his stomach. “I’m hoping you can convince me of the error of my ways. If you think Elijah Fuller’s personality fits these crimes – super. Then I’ll eat crow and turn him into a blubbering pulp on the stand. If not… I hope your reputation is good enough to convince everyone we’ve made a mistake.”

  Clay took a bite of cookie. “No pressure or anything.”

  The sound of the doorbell interrupted Jordan’s half-laugh.

  “I guess I need to get that.”

  THE cookie dough turned to lead in Jordan’s stomach when he opened the door. Chip Coleman, one of the detectives investigating his assault, stood on his parents’ front porch.

  “Chip, this is a surprise. Something I can do for you?”

  The man eased the sunglasses from his freckled face. He might look like Opie Taylor, but Jordan knew him to be shrewd as hell. “If it’s not a bad time, I have a few questions.”

  “Of course.” Jordan stepped back, gestured him into the front parlor. “Can I offer you something to drink? There’s, ah, lemonade. Fresh-squeezed.”

  “Nothing for me. Thanks.” Coleman perched on the edge of the toile settee that Jordan had spilled Kool-Aid on as a child, and Jordan gratefully took the wing chair across from him. That damn settee still made him nervous. “You seem to be recovering well.”

  “Hard head.” Jordan smiled.

  “Are you acquainted with City Councilwoman Leslie Fitzsimmons?”

  The smile dissolved in surprise. “Um. Sure. I know Leslie.”

  “Intimately?”

  Irritation followed surprise.

  Leslie Fitzsimmons was the fly in the ointment of Jordan’s romantic past. He’d dated the gorgeous redhead here and there over the period of several months, making the mistake of assuming that they were on the same, very casual, relationship page. Until she’d started dragging him past jewelry stores on their after-dinner walks, and thumbing through Modern Bride while they sat on the beach. Jordan had no qualms about the concept of marriage in general, but a strong objection to marrying Leslie. They’d just never gotten that serious.

  Though Leslie hadn’t seen it that way.

  “We dated. But if you’re asking if we had sex, Chip, I’m afraid that’s none of your business.”

  Coleman boosted his hip to pull a notebook from his pants. “You were seen… speaking heatedly with her in the hallway of the River Street Marriott, on the night of April second. Just after the speech you delivered.”

  Jordan opened his mouth. Closed it. He’d been unhappy to see Leslie’s glaring visage in the crowd that night, and even less pleased by the tearful scene afterward. A scorned, southern, redheaded woman was apparently the temper trifecta.

  But then the date, the location, struck him.

  “You don’t think Leslie had something to do with my head injury.”

  The gray eyes above the aw shucks freckles went hard and sharp as a blade.

  “I’d like to ask Miz Fitzsimmons that very question, if I could run her to ground. But friends, relatives, neighbors – nobody has seen her. Funny thing, Jordan. It seems she’s been missing since that night.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JORDAN lay in the bed where his childhood self had slept, dreamed, and discovered the wonders of his own anatomy. The bed he’d snuck Shelley Eberhart into when he was a nervous and horny seventeen.

  He’d washed the sheets himself – twice – shaking with fear at the thought of his mother discovering what he’d done with the pastor’s daughter.

  He smiled, remembering Shelley fondly. She’d known things, Shelley. And had been happy to spread the wealth.

  But his mother had found out, anyway.

  That storm had eventually passed, along with countless others from his childhood. Amazing, when he looked back on it, to realize how completely, if benevolently, his mother had ruled the house.

  Which was why he stayed in bed until he heard her car pull out of the garage. Judging it safe, he yanked on running shorts and a T-shirt before heading downstairs to breakfast.

  His father sprawled at the table with the morning paper.

  And some suspicious looking white powder around his mouth.

  Tom smiled when he saw his middle son. “You slept in this morning. Feeling better today?”

  “Good as new.” Jordan popped a whole wheat bagel in the toaster, poured coffee into the #1 Dad mug that he’d given his father a million years ago. “But I didn’t sleep in. I hid out.”

  The lines at the corners of Tom Wellington’s dark eyes gave way to deeper creases. “You always were the sneakiest of the bunch.” He sat the sports section aside. “But clever with it. So damn polite and well behaved that it even took your mother a moment to figure out she’d been hornswaggled.”

  Jordan sighed, remembering it fondly. “Half the time, Jesse or Jack caught the blame.” He took a bite of bagel, gestured toward his father. “I learned it all from watching you.”

  Tom pretended ignorance. “Why son, I’m not sure what you mean.”<
br />
  “Do you still hide your stash of powdered doughnuts behind the volumes on tax law?”

  “How the hell do you know about my stash?”

  “I have my ways.” Jordan took a drink of coffee. “But you’re slipping a little in your dotage. You never used to leave the evidence all over your face.”

  “I’ll be damned.” Tom frowned at the powder he’d wiped off with his hand.

  “Undoubtedly. Especially if Mom finds out that you’ve been cheating on your heart healthy diet.” He cleared his dishes from the table, stacked them with the others in the sink. He studied them, considered. “If you take care of these, I should be able to forget that we had this conversation.”

  Tom shook his head. “I’ll tell you what, son. I’ll take care of the dishes, because that’s just the kind of guy I am. And I won’t tell your mother that, against doctor’s orders to take it easy, you’ve gone running again.”

  Jordan dropped a loving hand on his father’s shoulder before heading out. “It’s a comfort to me that we understand each other so well.”

  THE park was alive.

  Tourists, with their maps, their digital cameras, strolled in pairs or less orderly groups. Teenagers roamed, sneering from their skateboards at lovers embracing in quiet shade, while parents pushed plump babies in colorful strollers.

  Frisbees were tossed, blankets napped on. Students from the Savannah College of Art and Design conducted an impromptu show with buckets of sidewalk chalk.

  Jordan ran. Sweated out some of his frustration. What the hell did it mean that Leslie had seemingly vanished into thin air?

  She’d been angry with him, certainly. But furious – and foolish enough – to attempt to hurt him?

  And how did that explain the other woman from that night?

  Engrossed in thought, Jordan almost didn’t register the bark of greeting.

  “Well, good morning to you, too.” He pulled the tennis ball from his pocket, grinned when the dog shifted into a crouch. Then lobbed it with the sureness of arm that had helped his high school baseball team clench the state title.

  Matted fur flew as the dog shot off like a rocket.

  When he brought it back, dropped it at Jordan’s feet, Jordan decided that today was the day. They’d tiptoed around each other long enough, and it was time to make things official.

  A short while later he looked in the rearview mirror and saw a furry grin looking back.

  And wasn’t it going to be fun to show his mother what he’d brought home?

  It was surely one way to convince her he should head back to his own place.

  “Okay.” He turned around to have a little man to man talk with his dog. “Don’t get too excited over the fancy digs, or the size of the garden, because this is not where we’re going to live. The truth is we have a renovated loft over what is currently a florist’s shop.”

  Jordan held up a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Trust me – my brothers have already covered all that manhood impugning ground before. But we’re going to stop in here, horrify my mother just enough so that she kicks us both out, and then we’ll head home.”

  Waltzing in the kitchen door had some obvious advantages, but he decided to ring the front doorbell.

  A large copper pot filled with lilies had materialized on the verandah, reminding him that tomorrow was Easter. There’d been lilies on his parents’ doorstep this time of year for as long as he could remember.

  He depressed the quietly lit button, grinning at the ragged looking animal at his feet.

  As if on cue, the dog thumped his tail when his mother appeared, aiming his snout right for her crotch.

  Perfect.

  “Can I keep him, Mom, can I, can I?”

  Addison nudged the snout aside. “Where on earth did you find this… creature?”

  “At the park,” Jordan explained, looking down at the dog with affection. “We’ve been seeing each other on the sly.”

  Addison studied the animal, then her son. “I imagine you think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  She bent down then and rubbed a hand between the animal’s ears. “Well, the boy looks better after his run today, doesn’t he?” Jordan winced, realizing he’d forgotten to change his clothes. “I guess he’ll survive if I allow you to take him home.”

  She held out a hand, and was rewarded with a paw.

  “Oh, he’s a keeper,” Addison laughed as she shook. “Does he have a name yet?”

  “We tossed around a few possibilities on the way here. Finn seems to have stuck.”

  “Well, if you’re set on this, you should get him checked out by a vet. Let me give Joyce Phillips a call.”

  “Ah, jeez, Mom. Not the poodle lady.”

  “Don’t be rude, Jordan. I’m sure she has an excellent veterinarian.”

  A smile twitched at his lips. “Does she still have that yippy little tan one – what was its name? Cupcake? Do you remember the time that Jesse took the electric razor and …” his voice died off as he caught his mother’s mutinous expression.

  “Sorry. Tell Mrs. Phillips that I would appreciate her vet’s number.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  AFTER double checking the address, Jordan pulled his car into the parking lot of the small brick-faced building. The place was… homey, Jordan guessed. Not merely functional and utilitarian, as so many commercial buildings were.

  He thought the whiskey barrels spilling over with pansies a nice touch.

  But on closer inspection Jordan noted that the pansies weren’t so much spilling as they were drooping. His gardener’s heart, which he secretly – very secretly – had inherited from his mother, cringed.

  “Let’s just hope she takes better care of her patients,” Jordan murmured as he unhooked his seat belt. Grabbing his cap off the dash, he turned toward the backseat. “Well, I’m not going to lie to you. We’re at the vet’s.”

  Finn dropped his head onto his paws.

  “Look, I hate going to the doctor as much as the next guy, but at the risk of sounding like a cliché, this is for your own good. You need a bath and a haircut. And in the interest of full disclosure, there might be a few shots involved.” Jordan clipped the new leash in place and wrapped the other end around his hand. “Sorry pal. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be man’s best friend.”

  The front door jangled as Jordan walked into an empty reception room. Empty, he thought with a small degree of panic, except for the bored-looking gray cat lounging on the counter. He tightened his grip on the leash, just in case Finn developed notions, but thankfully his dog was too busy balking in the doorway to worry about the cat.

  “Come on,” he muttered, giving another aggressive tug on the leash. “Let’s try to make a good first impression, shall we?”

  When he’d basically pulled the animal over the threshold, Jordan took a look around the room. Bags of animal food and supplies lined sturdy wire shelves along the back wall, and full color posters depicting the life cycle of the flea, the ravages of heartworms, and – to his mild horror and utter disgust – actual photographs of people who’d been infected by their animal’s untreated tapeworms decorated the walls.

  Apparently, Doctor Ava Martinez had never heard of Monet’s Water Lilies.

  “Well, let’s get this over with.” He depressed the service bell on the front desk.

  AVA cursed when she heard the little ding that let her know there was someone in the waiting room. It always made her feel like a cheap motel clerk being summoned to rent a room by the hour. But when Katie was out of the office, she’d yet to come up with a better solution.

  Distracted, she stole a glance at her watch to realize it was time for her next appointment, and was rewarded by a swipe from one very large, very angry cat.

  “Now, now. That wasn’t very nice, Lambchop.” The horribly misnamed feline glared back, docile as a hyena. She gripped him by the scruff of the neck, careful now to keep her other hand out of reac
h, and depressed the syringe into his hindquarters.

  “There. All finished.” She quickly and efficiently scooped the yowling animal under her arm before he could flay the skin from her bones. “Let’s just get you back –”

  The ring of the bell had her shifting Lambchop to avoid a wicked display of teeth. She called out, hoping she managed to keep the irritation from her voice. “Be right there!”

  If there was one aspect of her job that she hated, it was handling the owners of her patients with diplomacy. Animals, at least, conformed to some fairly basic rules of behavior. It was the humans you had to watch out for.

  But if she wanted to grow her practice, she needed to polish up her ass kissing.

  When the bell rang again, she gritted her teeth, and wrangled the feline AntiChrist into his cage. Just because the idiot in her waiting room lacked both patience and manners didn’t mean she was entitled to tell him off.

  No matter how badly she wanted to.

  Burying her annoyance beneath a false smile, she stalked toward reception, coming up short at the sight of a tall man holding onto a blond dog while goggling at Jack’s eye patch. Her lips twitched with genuine amusement until the man swung around.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rush you. I was just so surprised to see the, uh, eye patch that I accidentally…” His apology lost steam as he noticed Ava’s horrified expression. “Hey, are you alright?”

  Icy needles of panic pricked Ava’s skin. How the hell had he managed to track her down?

  Her car. He must have recognized her car. Why had she parked it out front today?

  Because she’d almost been late opening up. She’d entertained herself by leading one of the goons in a big circle around the city, because their very existence was still pissing her off.

  And now her little show of temper had come back to bite her in the ass.