The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  Declan stared at her with an unreadable expression.

  “Whatever,” he finally conceded.

  “Thank you,” Kathleen said pleasantly, tugging on her jacket. One just had to push the right buttons to get her brother’s temperamental machinery working.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  DECLAN watched her walk over to lay the plan out for Sadie, whose head began to whip back and forth in protest. So vigorous was her denial that she nearly flung herself right off the stool.

  Christ, she really was drunk.

  Not that surprising, since she had the body mass index of a gnat.

  With a put-upon sigh he grabbed his car keys from the hook beneath the register, coming around the bar to stage his intervention. Kathleen obviously needed to get on with her night, and Sadie obviously needed a keeper.

  The fact that he’d been elected was just the cherry in his shit cocktail.

  “Come on, Dorothy,” he said when he reached her, openly mocking the shiny red shoes she wore. “Click your heels together three times and I’ll make sure you get back to Kansas.”

  Sadie’s nose scrunched up in her baby doll face and she glared at him with eyes like blue lasers. “If you think I’m going anywhere with you, Declan Murphy, you’re even stupider than you look.”

  “I’m out of here,” Kathleen said, clearly eager to be out of firing range.

  Dec glanced at Sadie after his sister left. Her dainty chin was up, her narrow shoulders back, and she looked ready to do battle. A pint-sized warrior princess anxious to slay the mighty dragon. And the prospect was so damn tempting that Declan had to fight to suppress a grin of challenge. Engaging in any more of their verbal skirmish was just following that roadmap to disaster.

  “There are a whole lot of things I could say to that, Sadie Rose, but the fact is I’m no longer twelve. And as amusing as seeing you again has been, I think it’s time we acted like grownups. Now just come along like a good little drunkard and let me get you settled in at your hotel.”

  Sadie blinked at the admonishment, obviously surprised by what she was hearing. Not that he could blame her. If things were the way they used to be, he could have sparred with her all night. But the intervening years had changed him.

  “You’re right,” she admitted, not quite able to meet his eyes. “And I appreciate you taking time away from your duties to drive me to my hotel. I’m afraid I haven’t indulged in a while, and… misjudged my upper limits.” Concentrating fiercely, she slid down off the high-backed stool.

  Declan tried not to feel sorry that she wasn’t spitting at him any longer, because inevitably this was best for both of them. He wasn’t the same boy he’d been all those years ago, and it was safer for her to understand that.

  Safer for which of them he wasn’t entirely sure.

  And if Sadie was now acting stiffly polite with him, and he sounded like a curmudgeon, well it just made it easier for him to remember his personal boundaries. Family friends and one night stands didn’t mix. Plus the less he hung around Sadie, the less chance of dredging up the past. He spent enough time dwelling there, anyway.

  They passed the ride to the hotel in a somewhat uncomfortable silence, him feeling more and more like he’d just kicked a puppy and Sadie sitting quietly if a bit unsteady in her seat. Contrary to what he led his family to believe, he didn’t get off making other people miserable. It just made things… easier for him, somehow.

  Easier to keep everyone at arm’s length.

  Declan noted with some surprise that the street was oddly deserted, with few cars passing them in either direction. The wavering flames of gas lamps adorning the pastel confetti of historic buildings made it look more like New Year’s 1865. Moonlight dripped liquid silver from the sky, and Dec was struck by the otherworldly beauty of the city to whose charm he was usually inured.

  Then he hit a rough patch of cobblestones that the Jeep’s faulty suspension didn’t handle smoothly, sending Sadie bouncing toward the ceiling again and again. She began to look a bit pale, quickly morphing into something greenish, and he suspected that a pint or two of Smithwick’s was about to make a reappearance.

  He took the turn into the hotel lot a little quicker than he normally would have, just in time for Sadie to wrench open the passenger door with a grimace.

  For such a tiny woman, she sure made a big spectacle out of throwing up.

  He wanted to reach over and comfort her somehow, maybe rub the creamy skin that showed along her spine where her shirt had pulled away from the anchoring denim. But he jerked his hand back as she started to sit up.

  “Oh God,” she muttered, crumpling against the seat in a boneless slump. “Well, that was pleasant.”

  “Not from where I’m sitting. But I do appreciate the fact that you didn’t blow chunks in my Jeep.”

  Her head flopped toward him as if unattached to her spinal cord, and she looked at him with a satisfying glare. Her eyes might be glassy, but the flames shooting out of them let him know that she was at least partially alert and coherent. “Please, don’t overdo the sympathy, Murphy. You’re embarrassing me over here.”

  “Honey, you don’t need me to embarrass you. You’ve done a fine job of that already.”

  Muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “spawn of Satan,” Sadie picked up her bag and shoved him in the shoulder. “Move your ass, Murphy. I want to get out already.”

  “I wasn’t aware that your door didn’t function.” Keeping a civil tongue where Sadie was concerned was turning out to be harder than he imagined.

  She looked at him as if he were a half-wit. “I’m not stepping in… that.” She made a vague gesture toward the pile of vomit. “Now let me out, or I’m climbing over.”

  If she wasn’t drunk and if he were stupid, that might be sort of fun. Nevertheless Dec climbed out and held the door with mocking flourish.

  “You prince,” she deadpanned, stumbling slightly. And when she swayed on her first full step he closed his eyes and prayed for deliverance, because he was obviously going to have to escort her.

  “Take my arm,” he sighed, punching the remote to lock his car.

  “I’d rather not.”

  With what he considered the long-suffering endurance of your average saint, Dec decided to forgo the argument and simply scooped her off her feet, trying not to get turned on in the process. It helped that she protested loudly and reeked malodorously and generally made his life as difficult as possible. Something for which she seemed to have a specific gift.

  This was the price he paid, he supposed, for allowing Kathleen to consider him human.

  The hotel lobby was packed, as their New Year’s Eve celebration was just winding down, and elegantly dressed couples mingled happily before retiring to the comfort of their rooms. He figured he and Sadie were pretty conspicuous even if he hadn’t been carrying her, as he was turned out in a beer-stained T-shirt and she smelled unpleasantly of vomit. The older folks who kindly held the elevator for him realized their mistake only after the doors were closing. They stepped to the far corner of the elevator as soon as discreetly possible. When a hotel employee pushing a room service cart joined their party from the elevator’s rear access, the cramped quarters made the situation uncomfortable.

  Nothing like being stuck in a six-by-six box with the smell of recycled beer.

  Declan did his best not to laugh when the older woman reached into her bag and quietly sprayed perfume in their direction.

  If Sadie weren’t so bombed that she was now resting her head against his shoulder, he’d no doubt that she’d be mortified almost past bearing.

  “What floor, honey?” he asked, feeling ridiculously tender toward his stinky burden.

  “Hmm? Oh. Five.” She reached out and swatted at the elevator buttons. Unfortunately her coordination wasn’t the greatest, so she hit almost every available number. From behind him he heard a small groan. They stopped at two, then three before losing the room service waiter; the distinguished o
lder couple fleeing on four.

  By the time they reached Sadie’s floor she was softly snoring against his chest.

  “Sadie,” he jostled her just a little. “What room?” It took another round of playing shake-the-drunkard before he could rouse her enough to get an answer.

  “Wha…? Oh. Five-twenty-one. Key-card is in my back pocket.”

  Which didn’t do a damn bit of good to know, since she was wearing plastered-on jeans.

  “You’re going to have to get that yourself, Sadie.” No way in hell was he putting his hands all over her ass. The feel of her in his arms was already too tempting, vomit-like aroma notwithstanding. He sat her on her feet in front of the appropriate door, and grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger. She needed a little help with focusing. “Key-card, Sadie.”

  Sadie fumbled her hand to her pocket, producing the thin plastic rectangle and slapping it into his waiting palm.

  When he tried it, it didn’t work.

  He slid it again, then a couple more times, while Sadie held up the wall for him. Finally getting the idea, he turned to her, suppressing a sigh. “Are you sure you’re in room five-twenty-one, Sadie?”

  A look of confusion passed over her face. Thinking that he’d earned his place in heaven with this night, he waited with the soul of patience.

  “Maybe it was five-twelve. There was a five, a two and a one.”

  Declan closed his eyes, counted backward from ten, then started off down the corridor. When he came to the right room he stroked his goatee with his left hand while sliding the key-card with his right.

  Almost punched the air in triumph when the light turned green.

  From behind him, a small, blonde cherub wandered up, ruining her magical appearance with a loud, un-cherub-like burp.

  He let his forehead hit the door as he opened it.

  “Come on, Sadie Rose. Time for night-night.” He took in the standard hotel room décor as he entered, the local artwork a passing nod to location. The bed was made up neatly, all white and fluffy and inviting, and Dec pretended it was made from nails so that he wouldn’t be tempted to inspect it more closely.

  Following along passively – which was a banner event, right there in itself – Sadie kicked off those Wizard of Oz shoes, dropped her purse on the floor and stumbled past him. She headed straight for the king-sized instrument of torture, but he stuck out his arm to create a detour, thinking that she at least needed to gargle with mouthwash so that she didn’t knock herself out in the morning. She wandered toward the bathroom, where he located a small bottle of greenish liquid, ripped the safety seal from its lid and held it out to her with the order not to drink it.

  She didn’t, thank God, just rinsed and spit, surprisingly neatly. Declan then filled one of the little glasses by the sink with tap water, making sure she guzzled it down. She complied, gulping audibly, and then ruined the smooth rhythm they had going by bringing her hands to the fly of her jeans.

  “Sadie?” he started questioningly, thinking maybe she’d forgotten he was there.

  “Can’t sleep in these,” she told him, wriggling them down her hips with a back and forth shimmy.

  Dec would have exited the bathroom like he’d been shot from a cannon, if not for the fact that she was blocking the doorway. Since laying his hands on her to brush by wasn’t even an option, he examined the interesting outward curve of the shower rod and counted the bath towels – the hotel had been generous – while she wrangled with her jeans for what seemed like hours.

  Days. Entire geological periods passed before she was through with them.

  When they were finally no more than a denim puddle on the floor, she stepped out of them with minimal clumsiness and made a beeline for the bedroom. He caught only a glimpse of slim, pale legs and round buttocks as she went.

  Declan took a couple deep, calming breaths before following her with reluctant footsteps.

  “Okay. Well, bye,” he said without even glancing at her, because he really didn’t need another look at her bare legs.

  A muffled sound came from the general direction of the bed, either “dumb beer” or possibly “come here,” and while it made a certain sense that it was the former he rather feared it might be the latter. So he edged that direction without actually looking at the bed or its occupant, stopping a good five feet away so that he didn’t stub his toe and accidentally fall into it.

  Because that certainly wouldn’t be good.

  “Thank you,” came the soft voice of gratitude.

  And it undid Declan to hear those words so gently spoken, maybe the first time he’d heard them from that quarter, so he grew stupid and looked down at their speaker.

  She was sprawled on her stomach – which was good logistically, in case she vomited again – but bad, bad, bad for him because that cute ass was right there, where he couldn’t miss it.

  And – sweet Jesus – she was wearing a thong. A little scrap of red lace that peeped from between her round cheeks like Cupid’s arrowhead.

  Cheeks that were the perfect size to fill his big, itchy palms while he…

  The screeching sound of his mental brakes echoed shrilly around his head. Dec swallowed hard, then tore his eyes away and brought them to the cheeks he should be viewing, where dark lashes feathered softly above a mouth already parted in slumber. She looked so damn angelic lying there on that fluffy white cloud of a bedspread that he felt like a swine for admiring her ass.

  Not to mention all the other stuff he’d half been contemplating doing.

  “You’re welcome,” he answered softly, though there was really no point since she was past hearing him.

  He backed away from the bed in a few quick strides, shutting the door behind him with a definitive click.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  YELLOW crime scene tape fluttered in the remnants of the night breeze, the dying kiss of the year that lay behind them. Gathered nearby were the usual assortment of beat cops, tired-looking reporters and a contingent of the morbidly curious. One misguided bystander even had the bad taste to blow on her paper noisemaker.

  Nothing like a brutal murder to liven up a holiday celebration.

  Kathleen Murphy looked at the dead man sprawled in the corner of the convenience store men’s room and absorbed the details. The guy looked young, probably no older than mid-twenties at the outside – although the Opie factor might have skewed her estimate. Looking at his freckles she felt a twinge, as she always did, for a young life cut violently short.

  The victim was face-down, possibly having fallen that way when the door was forced open. Given the way the blood had settled to form bluish patches, she gathered this was the position in which he’d expired. From the trail of blood outside and the sticky pool of the same near the threshold, it seemed clear that he’d been stabbed prior to locking himself in the restroom – where he’d likely hoped to escape his assailant.

  Pulling out her penlight, Kathleen examined the outside lock, noting the telltale scratches that indicated it had been picked. So someone stabbed John Doe, and either wanted him dead or wanted something he had badly enough to risk discovery. There was a chance this was a random mugging, since no wallet had been located in the victim’s possession. Mac had gone through the pockets of his jacket, coming up with no more than a fast food receipt from a McDonald’s in Mount Pleasant, just across the river. But most street-type criminals wouldn’t pick a lock just to pick a pocket. Especially on New Year’s Eve, when the sheer number of drunken rubes milling about was the mugger’s equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

  And judging by the position of the wound, this vic had been attacked from behind, so the question of assailant identification shouldn’t have been an issue.

  Unless the assailant was already known to the vic.

  Personal vendetta, maybe? They’d have to get a handle on the victim’s identity before they had a prayer of determining who might have had it in for him, or why.

  Or it could have been a drug deal gone bad. This
part of town wasn’t exactly a narcotics hotbed, but that kind of shit happened anywhere people lived, a black market that never ceased to thrive. They’d have to wait for a tox screen on the victim to see if there was any indication he’d been using.

  Regardless, something about this particular scenario suggested more than a random act of violence.

  “Hey.”

  Kathleen looked up from where she’d been checking the lock to see a familiar silhouette approaching her. Josh Harding, the force’s forensic artist, moved into the flickering light thrown by the bathroom’s fluorescent. Impeccably turned out as usual, his bright blue eyes met hers in greeting above lips molded into a frown. She knew he and his wife had plans at one of the fancier hotel’s galas tonight, and he was obviously less than happy about leaving his bride alone in their room. In fact, on closer inspection, his shirt was uncharacteristically rumpled and the top button stuck through the wrong hole.

  Obviously, the call couldn’t have come at a worse time.

  Sliding her tongue across her teeth, she tucked it in her cheek. “Josh. You didn’t need to get dressed up on my account. And I definitely thought you had more class than to show up for a date with another woman’s lipstick already on your collar.”

  Used to her irreverent cheekiness, he didn’t even bother to respond. “Your partner bellowed, so I’m here. Though I must have forgotten my bells.”

  Kathleen grinned at the apt description. Mac didn’t have much to say in general, but when he did talk you certainly knew it.

  Josh ran a hand through his stylish dark hair, peeking around her shoulder toward the men’s room. “No ID on the vic?”

  “Not yet. We’re waiting for the M.E.’s approval to move him, but from the way it looks he’s been picked clean. The cashier in the store said he had a wallet on him earlier, and we’ve checked the perimeter, but there’s been no sign it was dropped or thrown. No murder weapon, either.” She gestured to the victim’s outstretched hand. “When forensics gets here they can print him and we’ll run ‘em. Maybe we’ll get a hit and you won’t have to sketch him.” Whenever there was an unidentified corpse in one of their cases, it was Josh’s job to work up a likeness of the victim which could be distributed to local media and other law enforcement agencies as a means of identification.