The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  Tate’s cousin, Maureen. The pharmacist looked up from the computer as they entered, and though a smile attempted to flutter at the corners of her mouth, the eyes behind her glasses were worried.

  She shook their hands as introductions were made, then quickly got down to business. “I was having some trouble getting into the file that keeps the records of the Inn’s guests so I called Maggie to see if she could help. Or better yet remember the name of the woman you mentioned. Her cell phone’s apparently in a dead zone because I can’t get through.”

  Hell, Clay thought. They didn’t have time for this. And while he was competent with computers he was no technical guru. He turned a hopeful look toward Kim.

  “I’m not much better than you. But why don’t I give somebody in tech support a call and see if they can walk me through it?”

  “Excellent idea.”

  Kim moved to take the chair behind the desk, and Maureen hustled out of her way. “If this doesn’t work, should somebody wake Tate?”

  “If this doesn’t work, we might have to. In the meantime, I’m going to go up to the room where our mystery guest spent the night.”

  The door was unlocked, and Clay pulled a latex glove – an occupational staple – out of his pocket so as not to disturb any prints. From the unmade state of the ornately carved bed, he determined that the daily cleaning hadn’t yet taken place, and thanked whatever stars had determined that at least one thing go their way.

  He wasn’t sure what, if anything, he might find, especially since this woman seemed careful. But at the moment any clue, however small, was better than none.

  He checked the closet, under the bed. In the drawers of the bureau to see if anything may have fallen out of a pocket and been left behind. Unsurprisingly, the place was clean.

  Flipping back the covers on the barely disturbed bed, he noted that not one single hair or detectable fiber was visible to the naked eye. No creases or drool marks on the pillow or residue from that night cream old ladies tended to wear.

  In fact, it looked like no actual human skin had touched the sheets. Bending to sniff the bedding, he found no telltale odor of mothballs. Or rose water. Or sweat. Or anything other than Bounce.

  Finding absolutely nothing even remotely useful in the bedroom, Clay flipped on the lights in the adjoining bath. The shower/tub combo was perfectly dry, the complimentary toiletries undisturbed, and neither the bathmat nor any of the large towels appeared to have been used.

  Okay. So the woman hadn’t bothered to bathe. Not totally strange, considering his own grandmother had done so only every other day, and had positively refused to use the facilities whenever she’d stayed in a hotel. Germophobic, maybe, but not conclusive proof of wrongdoing.

  The sink area also seemed in pretty much perfect condition. No watermarks from overzealous hand-washing, or toothpaste spit on the mirror. Which didn’t exactly fit if she was a germophobe.

  So why hadn’t she wanted to bathe?

  The ripped end of the roll of toilet paper suggested that at least she had normal bodily functions, as the end would have been folded into a neat little triangle if it hadn’t been used.

  Then Clay squatted down, pulled out the wastebasket for an inspection, and was somewhat surprised to see that she’d actually generated some trash. One lone tissue lay crumpled on the bottom of the small bag. He fished it out, opened it gently, trying to disturb it as little as possible. It seemed stuck together with something resembling chewed bubblegum. Or half-dried latex paint. As he sorted through his mental files of what the hell this could possibly be, his phone jangled in his pocket.

  And at the same moment, he heard muffled yelling from downstairs, followed quickly by the echo of footsteps.

  Clutching the tissue, he prioritized the chaos, and chose phone-answering over dealing with whatever was happening downstairs. Computer glitches could probably wait, but a phone call might be vitally important.

  Spying Kathleen’s number on his caller ID, he hoped she was calling with good news. He pressed the phone to his ear as he went toward the door. “What do you have for me, Kathleen?”

  There was a rush of noise – phones ringing, people talking – and he figured she was calling from her desk.

  “We have a positive shot of Max on a surveillance video,” she told him, words tumbling out in a rush “leaving the aquarium with an elderly woman. She kept her face averted, and put on a wide brimmed hat as soon as they stepped outside, so ID is going to be sketchy. But at least we have positive proof of abduction, and it’s enough to issue the Amber alert.”

  “That’s great.”

  “And another thing of interest, she had a bandage on her hand, which backs up your theory on the old lady at the Inn.”

  Clay sighed. It was both wonderful and terrible to be right.

  “She certainly was cool about the burn this morning. She just sat there and let Tate bring her more tea.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to call more attention to herself.”

  Before Clay could respond, Maureen burst through the door, harried and out of breath. “You need to come downstairs,” she gasped. “Some kind of virus is eating the computer!”

  CLAY stood by, totally helpless, and watched the information on the Inn’s computer disappear.

  Apparently, someone had attached a virus to one of the files – make that the file, actually – which had activated when Kim finally opened it.

  Whoever took Max was damn clever with computers.

  A clever, computer savvy, non-bathing, burn tolerant, GHB-packing, large shoe-wearing, non-rose water-smelling granny.

  Right.

  No wonder it didn’t add up. As he listened to Kim deal with the computer crisis, he opened up the tissue again and examined it. He’d have to get it to a lab to say for sure, but he’d stake his life on the fact that he was looking at liquid skin. Liquid skin that had been partially melted by hot tea.

  Little old lady, his ass.

  He flipped open his phone and hit redial, knowing Kathleen needed to correct the erroneous info on the Amber alert.

  Clay was very nearly certain Max had been abducted by a man.

  And he was going to tear the bastard limb from limb.

  Kathleen answered on the first ring, asking about the computer, but Clay quickly cut her off. “The computer virus is the least of our problems.” Anger laced his words. He’d been three feet away from Max’s abductor. “I have some very strong reasons to suspect that our infamous little old lady is in reality a very clever man.”

  “What? Damn, that is not good news.”

  “Tell me about it.” Clay watched the computer die, Kim giving up CPR on a string of curses. And Maureen, pacing a hole in the Oriental rug, stopped and gaped at him in horror. “We’re dealing with a cool, experienced offender. And since there’s been no demand for ransom, you know what’s left.”

  “Oh God.”

  “If you have His ear, you might want to bend it. But otherwise, give me everything you have. I don’t think I need to tell you that time is the enemy.”

  “Okay. The parking garage came up empty because their surveillance camera apparently malfunctioned this morning, and the slacker who was working the gate forgot to report it. In the better news department, there’s a bank across the street, and we have a very distant and grainy photo of the suspected getaway vehicle, which, after our imaging guru did his hocus pocus, appears to be a dark-colored pickup truck. Maybe blue, maybe green – it doesn’t look to be totally one solid color. Like it has some rusted parts, or maybe some spots of primer. Unfortunately that’s the best we can do with black and white.”

  “Do I dare hope that any part of the license plate might have been visible?”

  “The guru’s still working on it. But at least the truck itself is pretty distinct.”

  “In what way?” Kim and Maureen were both watching him now. Apparently the words man and experienced offender had caught their attention. Yes ladies, this situation was even shittie
r than they’d previously imagined.

  “Well, it’s one of those old-fashioned Ford pickups. You know the kind that you see at classic car shows after people’ve restored them?”

  Something inside Clay clicked. And his mind began reeling. “Kathleen, tell your guru we need that license plate number now.”

  JR caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.

  He was in the process of changing the sheets because the girl had soiled them during the night, and it wouldn’t do to have his prize virgin delivered covered in her own vomit and urine. Technically, he guessed he should be thankful that she hadn’t asphyxiated while she was drugged. But with Billy Wayne out of the picture it was simply a chance he’d been forced to take.

  He’d taken a lot of chances lately, but look how they’d paid off.

  The girl huddled near the window, dressed in the clothes she’d been wearing when Billy Wayne abducted her, handcuffed to the old radiator. It was difficult to say whether her hollow, half-there look was due to the GHB or the situation. He’d seen it before in the girls they’d taken, but usually not until after they made the video with Billy Wayne.

  This one didn’t know how lucky she was to have avoided that particular fate.

  Of course, there was no guarantee that she was headed to anything better. In fact, it could very well be worse.

  Not that it really mattered.

  He was just the broker. What happened to the commodity after he’d provided it wasn’t up to him.

  As he looked at the girl, and at the unconscious boy lying next to her, he saw the flash of tan outside of the window.

  Cautiously approaching from the side, he moved one slat of the blinds.

  “What the hell?” Outside the house, about to go snooping in the barn, was that stupid, pretty-boy deputy. The one who’d used his fancy art skills to draw the composite of Billy Wayne. As if he hadn’t already been a big enough pain in the ass, he was about to discover the vehicles.

  JR leaned close to the girl. “If you so much as breathe the wrong way, I’ll blow your pretty little head off.” He tipped her chin with the barrel of the pistol. “Understand?”

  Her brown eyes, still hazy with the drug, widened into pools of terror. No doubt she recalled, vividly, what had happened to Billy Wayne.

  JR eased up and unlocked the window. It was a little farther shot than he would have liked, but he really had no choice. He had to take the deputy out before he could radio in to the station. And since it was almost certain that others knew he was here, they’d come looking for him after a bit.

  Which meant he would have to move quickly.

  Releasing the safety on his nine mil, he aimed for the deputy’s chest. One shot to take the man down and another to finish him off.

  He’d have to hide the body. And get rid of the car.

  Then he remembered the old fishing hole down the road, and thought two birds with one stone. Just lock the deputy’s body in his trunk, and let him and his cruiser commune with the fishes.

  JR smiled as he squeezed the trigger.

  Laughed as the deputy went down.

  And just because he was having so much fun, fired off two more rounds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CLAY couldn’t simply stand around with his head up his ass, waiting for something to happen. Despite the fact that Kathleen’s computer guy couldn’t yet offer anything conclusive, he had a hunch that he’d seen that truck before.

  And that yet again, he’d been only a matter of feet from Max’s abductor.

  Just let him near the guy once more. The third time would definitely be a charm.

  “Call Josh Harding,” he told Kim after he’d gotten off the phone with Kathleen. “Tell him to drop what he’s doing, and go over to the UPS store on Main Street. We need to know the identity of that man I almost hit yesterday morning, ASAP. The vehicle used to abduct Max was a classic Ford pickup, circa 1940’s, with rust deterioration and two-tone paint.”

  “Well crap,” Kim said, even as she flipped her phone open and dialed. “You think this has something to do with that man? What are the chances? I mean, that is either one hell of a weird coincidence, or this guy’s carried road rage to a whole new level.”

  “No,” Clay said as she waited for Harding to answer. “There’s a bigger picture here that we’re missing. This is just one pine out of the forest, and I think we need to step back and try to bring the whole thing into view.” But the hell of it was that he was too damn close to the case to do anything other than stare blankly at the tree in front of him.

  “Harding’s not answering,” she told Clay after a moment, looking up from her position behind Tate’s desk. “He was going out to canvass one of the quadrants near the Collier crime scene, and he might be tangled up in that. I’ll try Sheriff Callahan and see if he can send someone else.”

  From across the room, Maureen held up her cell phone and waggled it back and forth. “Do you want me to see if I have any luck getting hold of Aunt Maggie? She’s bound to remember the woman’s name.”

  “Sure. That’d be great.” Although he wasn’t sure how much it would help. Obviously, the woman’s name was a pseudonym. But at least it gave Tate’s cousin something positive to do, so that she didn’t just stand around feeling useless.

  Like he was doing right now.

  He walked over and looked out the window, finding it entirely too sunny and blue-sky gorgeous to suit how he felt inside. The cheerful array of rainbow colors decorating the buildings across the street made him want to scream.

  “Callahan’s down in Beaufort,” Kim informed him after she concluded her brief conversation. “Wrapping up some of the loose ends from the William Wayne murder. Deputy Jones is busy tracking down some of the records for the offenders that came up as possible matches for that partial print, and the other deputies are otherwise engaged. Apparently, even the dispatcher called in sick. We want to talk to the lady at the UPS Store, we’re going to have to do it ourselves. Did she strike you as the kind of woman who’d be willing to dole out that information over the phone?”

  “As long as she can call ten friends and tell them all about it, she’ll tell us anything we want to know.”

  “All hail the small town gossip.”

  Clay got the store’s number from information, and tried to remember the woman’s name as it connected. Something with a “J”, he thought. Like Jenny or Jane or…

  “Julie?” It rolled off his tongue when she answered, scoring, no doubt, big brownie points for him. “This is Special Agent Clay Copeland, with the FBI. I spoke with you the other day? That’s right.” He rolled his eyes at Kim. “The profiler.”

  He went through the whole little chitchat routine, sensing that this woman would respond better to honey than to vinegar, although he had to strain the meaningless pleasantries through his teeth. Then he got around to the point of the conversation, asking about the dark-haired man and his truck.

  “Rob Johns, you say?” He gestured for Kim to grab a piece of paper and write it down. “No, he’s not in any trouble,” yet, “but we think he might have some information that we need. I don’t guess you’d happen to have his address?”

  He waited a beat while she answered. “No, I understand all about your privacy policy regarding customers, and I certainly wouldn’t ask you to violate it.” And he couldn’t demand it, without the proper court order. “But listen, Julie, just in case Rob comes in, I need you to do me a favor. Don’t say anything about our conversation to him, but give me a call at this number.”

  He looked over at Kim, who was already on her own phone with the local RA. Hopefully, within a few minutes they’d know everything there was to know about Rob Johns.

  Snapping his phone shut, he started to walk away from the window, but something under the desk caught his eye and stopped him cold.

  He bent down, pulled it out, in all its ugly glory.

  And very nearly wept over a stupid purple bear.

  IT was the vibrati
ons on his hip that woke Josh up.

  Actually, the vibrations were technically under his hip, as he was lying face down in the dirt. The hard rectangle that was his phone dug deep into his flesh, and in reality should have been uncomfortable. But given the fact that both his shoulder and thigh were on fire, he figured the cell phone problem was pretty minor.

  And when he said on fire, he meant ON FIRE. Like someone had gored him with a poker dipped in molten lead.

  “Ugh.” Even his eyelids hurt. Way too much for him to attempt to pry them open. But shit, something was very wrong with this picture, and he knew he had to check things out.

  Mustering every bit of energy, Josh willed himself to ignore the pain, concentrating on the facial muscles involved in operating his eyelids. He twitched and pulled and got the left one open a crack, but the right remained caked together.

  What exactly had he done? Bathed in honey and fallen into a mound of fire ants?

  No. Shit. This was far worse than that. Maybe he’d crashed his car.

  He tried, really tried, to remember where he was and what he was doing. And to facilitate that goal, he needed to get his face out of the dirt.

  He lifted his head – very slightly – and spat the dust away from his lips, but when he tried to turn it the right side nearly exploded.

  “Ah, hell.” He dropped his face again, because in the grand scheme of things he figured dirt-eating amnesia was better than exploding. Then stuck his tongue out, very tentatively, and tasted the stickiness on the right side of his face.

  Which tasted nothing at all like honey, but an awful lot like blood.

  His head ached, his leg throbbed, his shoulder redefined pain. And he’d definitely just established that he was bleeding. Profusely. Like a stuck pig.

  Or more specifically, like someone who’d just been shot.

  Ah, hell, he thought again, because it hurt too much to say it. And because he was now absolutely, positively certain that was what had happened.

  Apparently, the saggy front porch had been the least of his worries.

  The fact that he’d been shot meant he needed to be able to move his arm, so that he could both radio in for backup and reach his sidearm.