The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  Either that or Alan Wilcox had been watching too many movies and figured this was how he was supposed to do it.

  “Your brother saw what had happened to the girl and apparently succumbed to an attack of conscience, because he snagged the evidence my young paramour had collected and ran, rather stupidly. We thought perhaps that he’d mailed it to you, or maybe hidden it in his apartment. But after months of watching you and a rather exhaustive search, we concluded you didn’t have it.”

  He looked her over carefully. “You don’t, perchance, know where he stashed it?”

  Sam looked at him like he was nuts.

  “I thought as much,” he sighed. “But I guess the point is now moot.”

  “You shot Donnie,” she said, horror and anger mixing to heat the blood which had previously gone cold.

  “Once again, not personally. That hit was executed by my employee – my incompetent employee – who couldn’t even manage to carry that off right. When we discovered the evidence missing and found the deposit bag your brother had been carrying, it was simple to put together. Your brother had gone to ground by that time but we managed to track him, though were rather unsuccessful in taking him out. And… well, I believe you know the rest of the story.”

  He smiled benignly and Sam started to panic, terror rising like gorge in her throat. He’d come to the end of the gut-spilling. What came next spelled serious trouble for her. “Why?” she asked, hoping to keep him talking. “Why did you go to the trouble of coming after me?”

  It was actually a pretty legitimate question. In the grand scheme of things it just didn’t make sense. “Is it because I… accidentally killed that man last night?”

  “Hardly,” Wilcox crushed out his cigarette. It had left a thin film of smoke in the cabin. “I’m afraid I’m not that loyal. But the man you killed – which was nothing short of astounding, by the way – is well known to many law enforcement types as having strong ties to organized crime. And it’s only a matter of time before they make the connection between an attempted mob hit on your brother and what was happening at his place of employment. Which, unfortunately, leads straight to my door. So as I explained, it has become imperative for me to leave the country. It’s inconvenient,” he said coolly. “I’m forced to leave a great deal of my worldly possessions behind. I had an empire built up, one I planned to pass to my son, and your surprising resilience last night robbed him of his birthright. I’ve kept him in the dark regarding some of the more… questionable aspects of the business, but I’m afraid he’s about to find out all about it. And to soften the blow, and make up for some of the trouble you’ve caused, I decided to bring you with us. He’s rather taken with you.”

  Gaping, Sam forgot both her quest for a weapon and her notion to appear agreeable. He was in bed with the mob, had a former lover murdered, attempted to kill Donnie to keep him quiet, and had burned down Josh’s building just so he could bring her along as some kind of sexual pacifier for his son? “You’re crazy,” she told him bluntly.

  He merely laughed, crossed his legs at the ankle. “You were never meant to be hurt by this. I’m not needlessly cruel if I don’t have to be. Like your brother, you simply had the unfortunate luck to turn up at the wrong place at the wrong time. But by bringing attention to my ties to certain organizations of questionable legal status, you’ve brought the whole house of cards down on our heads. And darling if I’m going down, then I’m obliged to take you with me. If it’s any consequence, I’m relieved you weren’t killed. Dane would have been disappointed.”

  Disappointed? Sam thought, wildly.

  Who the hell did this man think he was?

  Clearly the power he’d wielded for so long had given him some kind of God complex. She was suddenly so angry that she almost launched herself at him and to hell with the consequences. But the sudden arrival of a third party brought her imprudent plans to a halt.

  “Dad?” came a muffled voice, obviously from the passageway outside the stateroom.

  “In here, Dane,” he called out. Then he climbed to his feet and looked Sam over coldly, shedding his father-figure skin like a snake. “We can launch now,” he told her, making her realize they’d been in port all this time. “If you scream, fight, or give my son any trouble, I’ll have your brother and your boyfriend both killed tonight.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “IT’S Wilcox,” Josh raged, staring at the burned-out husk of the right side of his building. Aside from the chaos that had reigned when he’d arrived, there were now a whole slew of uniformed officers beating the bushes for Sam. Simms had already canvassed the crowd before he’d placed that frantic call, and a search of neighboring businesses had left them empty-handed. But deep in his gut he knew she hadn’t merely wandered off or left of her own volition.

  Someone had lured her away from the scene and abducted her for their own purposes.

  He clutched his drawing – the one Sam had apparently refused to leave the burning building without – which they’d found leaning abandoned against a lamppost. “He’s probably been waiting for the opportunity to snatch her after she survived that attack last night.”

  Suspecting what he did about Wilcox’s feelings for Sam, and considering what the man who’d assaulted her had said about feeling regretful over having to kill her, he was relatively certain that she’d been more collateral damage than the intended victim of that particular hit. “Hell, maybe he even grabbed her as some kind of ass-backward attempt to keep her safe. She inadvertently offed a mob cappo so there’s always the chance there’s a price on her head. He may not have enough say in the organizational structure to prevent them from making her a target. We need to find him, Kathleen. I guarantee it will lead us to Sam.”

  Kathleen ran a hand through her hair, already disordered from the frequent gesture. “As inclined as I am to go along with that, we’ve got no cause to issue an APB. No hope of getting a search warrant. You know as well as I do that we’re working on no more than a theory. Until we have the evidence to make a solid connection between Wilcox and Vincent Santone, getting the lieutenant to sign off on going after one of the most prominent families in the city stands about a popsicle’s chance in hell. We’ve no proof they’ve been running numbers at the Roadhouse other than hearsay and speculation. No way to show a positive link between that and the hit on Donnie Martin even if we did. And only your admittedly biased opinion that Wilcox has a thing for your fiancée. I don’t doubt that that’s what’s happening, but it’s going to take some investigative work to prove it. Right now any defense attorney worth his salt could make a case for Sam running off. That she was in cahoots with Donnie and got out of town before the shit started flying. Before we can convince the higher-ups otherwise, we need some kind of proof she’s been abducted. If you’re right, and Dane Wilcox has her, there’s every chance she’s relatively safe. You go off half-cocked and you’re going to have not only the lieutenant and the chief but also the feds all over your ass.”

  “So what would you have me do?” Josh’s voice shook with frustration and fury. “Sit around with my head up my ass while waiting for the rest of you to gather evidence?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she soothed, raising a hand to deflect Mac as he approached them.

  Josh jerked his phone out of his pocket and hit redial with no real hope. He’d been calling Sam’s cell for the past hour, knowing it was fruitless but unable to stop. Wilcox had probably taken her phone from her. The bastard. Josh was going to rip him apart when he found –

  “Hello?”

  “Who the hell is this?” Josh had reached his outer limits. If that voice belonged to Wilcox he was going to kill the man through the phone.

  “Harding?”

  Josh’s heart ricocheted wildly in his ribcage. “Simms?”

  “Yeah, it’s, uh, me. Turner and I were canvassing the restaurants a couple blocks over and we, uh, heard the phone ringing. Took a chance and decided to answer.”

  The hope that had
sprouted to life momentarily shriveled and died in his chest. They’d found the phone, but not the owner. “Where did you find it?”

  “In a dumpster behind the Crab Shack. It was lying there next to a purse. I didn’t recognize it as hers until you answered.” There was a pause, and it was pregnant. Josh just knew there was a hell of a whammy coming. “Turner just went through the garbage and he came up with something else. God, I hate to tell you this man, but it looks like we found her clothes.”

  As black rage roiled through Josh, a looming Mac caught his attention. “This is Denny Thompson.” He gestured to a scrawny man nervously clutching a cell phone. “He thinks he may have captured footage of your fiancée being abducted by one of the firefighters here at the scene.”

  “THIS is crazy.”

  Sam was unbearably relieved to hear those words spill from Dane’s mouth as he stared at his father in unmitigated horror. Alan Wilcox had just given his progeny the rundown of events that had led to Sam being naked in the middle of his bed. It was clear by the total absence of color in Dane’s face that he was almost as pole axed by the situation as she was.

  There might be something she could work with in that, depending on Dane’s mettle. She had no idea how much of his father’s dealings he was actually privy to, but based on the fact that he’d literally swayed on his feet when he’d heard about Donnie and turned green when he saw Sam’s bruises, she at least had to find comfort in the fact that she hadn’t completely and utterly misjudged him.

  He had been truly fond of Donnie – that much was evident in his immediate reaction.

  And apparently, and to her utter chagrin and surprise, he was actually more than a bit fond of her.

  There would be no living with Josh if she ever got out of here.

  Trying not to think of Josh lest she break down and lose whatever edge she might be able to gain, Sam marshaled her will to do whatever she had to. She would appeal to Dane’s sense of both decency and justice, and if that didn’t get her anywhere she’d have to resort to feminine wiles. If she acted terrified and helpless – not entirely removed from the truth, although she was feeling more hopeful by the moment – maybe Dane would be overtaken by that streak of protectiveness that he’d showed glimpses of in the past.

  “Dad, we can’t just… disappear.” Dane threw his hands out to his sides in frustration. “Are we supposed to drift around the Caribbean for the rest of our lives with no more than the clothes on our back?” He looked awkwardly toward Sam. “Samantha doesn’t even have that much.”

  “I hadn’t realized you’d find that to be a problem,” Alan said drolly as he faced his son from across the room. Tension crackled in the air between them, sparking at the smoke which still lingered like a haze. “And besides, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to live the life I have without a contingency plan? I have numbered accounts and several homes you know nothing about. Disappearing won’t be a problem.”

  Dane looked considering and Sam didn’t like that. Then she almost cheered because he shook his fair head. “There has to be a better way to handle this. You’ve got lawyers that eat feds for breakfast. You can’t just –”

  “Yes,” Alan ruthlessly cut him off. “I can. It’s time for you to grow up. The silver platter you’ve been served from since birth has come at a bit of a steep price. I’ve done a tremendous amount of business with the mob, done them a lot of favors. But the fact remains that I’m not really one of them – they know that they can’t entirely trust me and I sure as hell can’t trust them. Don’t think that they would hesitate to kill me or you or your precious Sam if they thought any of us might talk. I know too much, you’re guilty by association, and she’s a thorn in their side. I’m doing you a favor by getting you out of here, which I’ll kindly thank you to remember.”

  Dane seemed to shrink in the face of his father’s wrath, standing stock still for several moments. “You know best,” he finally acquiesced, causing Sam’s fragile hope to shatter.

  “That’s better.” Alan wiped the spittle from his lip, straightened the loosely-knitted sweater that had gone askew. Once again the very image of class, he smiled fondly at his offspring. “I’ll go take care of getting us started. You can acquaint yourself more intimately with our lovely companion.”

  His knowing laugh turned Sam’s stomach. Catching the look of revulsion on her face, Alan shot her a glare before turning to Dane. “See that you keep her in line, son. If she causes a single problem you can rest assured, I’ll throw her to the sharks.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  JOSH’S hand shook as he held Denny Thompson’s cell phone, watching his worst nightmare unfold on the screen.

  “I was, uh, filming the fight that broke out,” Denny babbled beside Josh, enormous Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. With his whacked-out hair and high-strung demeanor, he looked sort of like a human version of Bill the Cat.

  Thank God for technology, Josh thought grimly as the grainy footage swung wildly about.

  “Um, I was moving over there,” Denny gestured to the lamppost which appeared on the screen, “when I saw the fireman bend over and, you know, like scoop the woman up. I thought maybe she had, like, smoke inhalation or something and it was, like, such a heroic moment that I thought I should, you know… film it.”

  He swallowed audibly when Josh emitted a low growl.

  On the screen, Sam suddenly slumped against the fireman’s chest as he moved swiftly away from the crowd.

  “I can’t make out his face,” Kathleen said from over Josh’s shoulder. Between the poor quality of cell phone video and the man’s hugely concealing array of protective gear there was almost no way to distinguish anything pertinent about him.

  The footage stopped, and Josh’s gaze sharpened on the phone before moving quickly to slice right through Denny. “That’s it?” he asked in a dangerous undertone. Poor Denny’s eyes turned to liquid pools of fright.

  “What? Oh, uh, no.” He hit another button on the phone. “That’s just the first video. I took another.”

  The screen flickered, and as they watched the fireman disappeared around the corner into an alley, where only the tail end of a fairly large red vehicle – maybe a fire marshal’s truck – was visible from the vantage point of the camera. After a moment the truck’s brake lights came on and the filmmaker swung his phone back toward the dissipating fight.

  “That’s all,” Denny squeaked uneasily, sounding like a man uncertain of whether he’d done wrong or right, but Josh didn’t have time to soothe the guy’s jitters.

  “Could you make out the plate?” Kathleen asked.

  “No, but if I get the clip on my computer the enhancement software might be able to pull out something usable.” He turned to the nervous civilian. “You can e-mail this footage?”

  “Oh yeah,” Denny agreed, happy to be useful. “I e-mail my mom stuff all the time.”

  “Excellent,” Josh handed the phone over and pulled a card out of his pocket. “Send those two clips to this address and you’ll be the hero of the hour.”

  AFTER his dad left the cabin Dane stared into space for several moments before swinging his gaze toward the bed. Body language radiating tension, he looked Sam over with obvious embarrassment. Unsure what to do, of how best to play the cards she’d been dealt, Sam waited quietly for him to make the next move. He obviously cared for her, after his own fashion, but whether that was enough to make him willing to help her still remained to be seen.

  “Here,” Dane said after a moment, going to one of the drawers built into the paneling. He pulled out a soft blue T-shirt and tossed it her direction. Sam picked it up and he politely turned his back. “I… have absolutely no idea what to say to you. Sorry my father’s a bastard? Hope you enjoy the Caribbean?” He laughed, but it was not a sound of amusement.

  When he’d given her sufficient time to make herself decent, he turned slightly, his shoulders slumped. “I had no idea, Sam. No idea what all he was involved with. A little gambling,
I thought. What’s the harm? I had no idea that was just the tip of the iceberg.” He looked at her with real apology in his expression. “I never would have wanted to see Donnie hurt. Never could have lied to you all those months if I’d had anything to do with what happened. I guess that’s why Dad kept me ignorant. He figured I didn’t have what it took. And he’s right,” he said, bitterly. “I’m… spineless.”

  “You’re honest,” Sam corrected him, feeling a degree safer now that she was partially clothed. The T-shirt reached halfway down her thighs, and she wrapped up in the comforter before easing off the bed. “Mostly, anyway.”

  Dane slanted her a questioning look.

  Sam fingered the borrowed T-shirt and smiled at him in embarrassment. “It’s not quite as fancy as the negligee you sent, but I can honestly say it’s much more appreciated.”

  At the blank look on his face, Sam rolled her eyes in consternation. “Seriously, Dane, you can drop the innocent routine. Finding out your father tried to have my brother killed trumps your misguided attempts at seduction.”

  When his brows snapped together in irritation, she worried that maybe right now was not the time to call him on that. But then he crossed his arms over his chest. “Someone sent you a negligee?”

  “A very nice one,” she agreed, feeling bemused by his apparent ignorance. Was he acting or was he truly in the dark? “And two dozen roses. Pink ones.”

  “And you suspected me?”

  At his tone Sam felt a blush stain her cheeks. “Actually, I thought you had nothing to do with it. It didn’t seem quite your style.” She tugged on the comforter awkwardly, feeling ridiculous for making the assumption. But in the scheme of things it had made sense.

  If Dane hadn’t sent them, who did?

  “You’re right,” he agreed, rubbing a hand over his chin. “It’s not. Once I’d gotten you into bed, sure, I’d buy you lingerie, but to do so beforehand would be tacky.”

  Seeming to realize what he’d inadvertently admitted, he stopped rubbing and winced at her in consternation.