The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  “Have you considered calling the cops?” Kathleen wondered.

  “Right.” The girl snorted, which caused her breasts to actually jump against Justin’s ear. “And end up a smear on the pavement. No thanks. I’m not going down wearing satin shorts and a Santa hat. Those guys are somebody else’s problem.”

  When the waitress removed her breast from his ear and strolled off with the pitcher of tea, Kathleen boosted her hip to slip the phone from her pocket. “Looks like I’m that somebody else. I think it might not be a bad idea to call for a cruiser to do a little drive-by. And this is why I hate counter-narcotics,” she mumbled. “It’s not neat and clean, like homicide.”

  “Homicide is clean?”

  She waved a hand. “You know what I mean. Somebody’s dead, somebody killed them. Victim, perp. Prohibition gives gangs like that one out there a lucrative black market because idiots like your skeevy blond are determined to cook their brains. It creates its own violence.”

  She glanced out the window, then angled away to cut the glare of sunlight off the face of her phone. Justin pushed his plate away, feeling guilty. He knew what it was like to have his downtime interrupted.

  He’d just opened his mouth to apologize when the plate glass window beside him exploded.

  Justin dragged Kathleen onto the floor and rolled her under the table as glass rained down and screams erupted. The steady rat-a-tat-tat of some kind of automatic weapon spewed bullets like deadly projectile vomit.

  “Not the kind of drive-by I had in mind.” Kathleen’s breath came fast and hot in his ear. “And I’m off duty. My weapon is locked in its safe in the damn car.”

  “I’ve got your phone.” He stretched out his arm to where the phone had fallen in the center aisle. Blood smeared his hand when he picked it up. “Are you hit?” He leaned up just enough to get a look at her face, run his hand over her torso.

  “Glass. Just glass.”

  “Like you can’t bleed out if a piece of glass severs an artery?”

  “I’m fine, except… is that my sandwich under my back? Just – ouch!” She sucked in a breath as his fingers found the two-inch triangle embedded in her side.

  The napkin dispenser had fallen to the floor, and Justin grabbed a handful as he eased up her green sweater. The creamy skin just under her ribcage bloomed bright red around the glass. “This is probably going to hurt.”

  “Thanks for the warn – shit. Shit.” He pressed the napkins to her side when she went white. “Maybe you could just pour some of that salt in there while you’re at it.”

  “Call it in.” He handed her the phone, met her eyes. “Keep the pressure on that wound and stay down.”

  “Justin, I’m a cop.”

  “An unarmed cop who’s bleeding all over her sawmill gravy. Stay down, keep applying pressure. I’m going to see if I can help anyone else.”

  He left her muttering curses and crawled out into the aisle, rising to a crouch to keep glass out of his palms. Cold air rushed in through the shattered windows, scattering paper napkins with its bitter breath. From outside came an aborted scream, then the shrill peal of tires. No doubt the rival gang making their getaway. Inside, Justin thanked God that the assholes with the Uzi or whatever it was hadn’t struck at the normal lunch hour. He and Kathleen both kept odd schedules, and their three o’clock lunch date meant that Jugs was mostly dead.

  Empty, he corrected, thinking of what the scene would look like in the parking lot. Hopefully the restaurant’s patrons had been mostly spared.

  “Oh God. Oh God.”

  Justin looked to the left, saw the blond-haired kid propped against the wall outside the restroom. His eyes were wide in a pasty, acne-scarred face, his trembling legs locked at the knee. A dark stain spread along the front of his jeans. Justin called out as he duck-walked toward him.

  “Get down.” He didn’t know if the thugs were all gone, and this guy was standing right next to a window. “Are you hurt?”

  The kid’s eyes wheeled in panic as Justin came closer. “They shot him. They shot Juan, man. His head… Jesus.” He started sliding slowly down the wall.

  Justin reached out to help ease him down, pressed his fingers to the kid’s carotid and found his pulse. Rapid, which was only to be expected. But instead of the cold, clammy skin that indicated shock, the body beneath his fingers radiated heat.

  “How much did you inject?”

  “What?”

  Justin pushed up the sleeve of the kid’s sweatshirt, found track marks. But at least the stain on his pants wasn’t blood. Apparently he’d pissed himself during the shooting. “Looks like the glass and bullets missed you, but what’s the point, when you’re killing yourself?”

  “Juan’s head,” the kid repeated, and Justin dropped his sweatshirt back into place.

  “There’s nothing I can do for you here, but at least keep your head down until the cops arrive.”

  “Cops?” The kid looked panicked, and scrambled to gain his feet. But before Justin could grab him, he heard “Help me” from somewhere at his back.

  Justin wheeled, glass crunching under the heel of his sneaker. The junkie nearly knocked him over in his hurry to get away, but Justin braced against the paneled wall. The kid wanted to get his head shot off too, Justin figured it was his business. Making his way around the corner he saw one long leg sticking out from behind a booth, blood turning the white sock and shoe crimson. An empty pitcher lay across the aisle, chunks of ice floating in the brown pool of spilled tea. Abandoning his crouch to move into a hunched run, he found himself looking into the shocked and terrified face of his waitress.

  “Help me,” she repeated faintly, and Justin saw the blood oozing between the red-tipped fingers she pressed against her chest.

  “I will.” Shit, what was her name? Something with an “N.” Natasha. “Natasha, I’m a doctor, and I’m going to take a look at your wound okay?”

  “A doctor?”

  “That’s right.” He eased her fingers back, saw the neat little hole piercing her tight shirt just above her right breast. Her teeth started to chatter.

  “Am… am I going to d-die?”

  Not if he could help it. “I’m going to take care of you, Natasha. I’m just going to ease you up a little to see if – I’m sorry,” he said when she drew in a pained breath, but he managed to find the exit wound high on her shoulder. “I know it hurts, but the bullet passed all the way through, and that’s good. It’s the ones that stay in there and rattle around that you have to worry about.” He checked her pulse, found it thready. She was losing a hell of a lot of blood.

  “Natasha. Oh my God Natasha. Is she okay?”

  Justin looked over his shoulder, met the frightened ebony eyes of one of the other waitresses as she crawled around from the back of the bar. “She will be. Are you hurt?”

  “Just scared half to death. Me and a couple of the others, we got behind the bar when they started shooting. Hannah – the bartender. She called the cops.”

  “Good. What’s your name?” he asked as he pressed his hand firmly to Natasha’s wound.

  “Shelley.”

  “Shelley, I want you to go back behind the bar, see if you can find some plastic wrap and some kind of tape. I need to seal up the bullet hole in Natasha’s chest.”

  “Got it.” She crawled away, the pom-pom at the end of her Santa hat bobbing with each movement.

  “Here.”

  Justin flicked a glance toward the knife that appeared at his side, along with a slender, familiar hand. “I thought I told you to stay down,” he said to Kathleen.

  “I guess I fell up. I’ll cut her shirt away while you apply pressure. Sorry about this,” she said to Natasha as she sawed through the clingy fabric.

  “N-not like I’m m-modest.”

  “With this body, why should you be? You hit anywhere else?” She pulled the ruined shirt away, and looked at the blood running down the woman’s leg.

  “Looks like one grazed her thigh,” Justin glanced
over. “Grab some of those napkins on the floor.”

  “C-cold.” Natasha’s gold-shadowed eyelids started to drift, but Justin got right in her face and called her name.

  “Stay with me, Natasha. That’s it, focus on my eyes. Kathleen, can you get my jacket for her?” He nodded to the windbreaker tied around his hips just as Shelley came back with the supplies.

  “It’s just masking tape,” she said nervously and held that and the plastic out to Kathleen.

  “It’s perfect, Shelley,” Justin said. “Now can you take over holding that stack of napkins on Natasha’s thigh so that Detective Murphy can help me with this? That’s great.”

  Kathleen spread Justin’s jacket over Natasha’s bare, trembling legs, Shelley’s hand included. “What do I do?” she asked Justin.

  “We’ve got a sucking wound, which means air is moving in and out with each breath, so I need you to tear off two pieces of that plastic, maybe about four inches each. Thanks,” he said when she’d finished. “Now when I move my hands, I want you to spread the plastic against the wound, as tight to the skin as you can get it. Perfect. Almost done here, Natasha.”

  Kathleen watched him tape up three sides of the plastic with masking tape, talking to the waitress to try and keep her conscious. Blood dripped from his hands, stained his gray sweatshirt, pooled on the tile, but his fingers didn’t slip or fumble.

  “And the other side,” he said, and they repeated the process on her shoulder just as the first sirens sounded outside.

  “Thank God.” Shelley’s relief was palpable as she pressed disposable paper products to her friend’s leg, arms shaking from the effort. Fear had bleached her caramel-colored skin to a grayish white. “I didn’t think they’d ever get here.”

  “A little under seven minutes,” Kathleen said, glancing at her phone. “Justin, I’ll need to go talk to them.”

  “You still bleeding?” He looked over his shoulder to gauge the size of the stain on her sweater.

  “Not much. It’s just a little cut, and I’m keeping the napkins in place.”

  When he’d satisfied himself that she wasn’t lying, he gave her a brief nod. “Go ahead. We’re okay here.”

  Kathleen laid a hand on his shoulder as she rose. “You know, I’d say you’re a hell of a lot more than okay.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  KATHLEEN ached. A lot.

  Not unexpected, she allowed, considering her “little cut” had ended up requiring fifteen stitches. And – more problematic – she’d chipped a bone in her elbow when Justin had thrown her to the floor. She hadn’t even felt anything until hours later.

  But boy, was she feeling it now.

  Giving up on the report she’d been not really typing for the past twenty minutes – her left arm was pretty much useless – she glanced around the squad room to see if anyone was looking her way. All clear. Her partner, Mac, had disappeared in the direction of the break room, and their other cubicle mate, Josh Harding, was hunched over his sketchbook, engrossed in a forensic sketch. She cleared her throat, coughed, and stared at the back of his perfect head to make sure he wasn’t using the sketchpad as a prop, like she’d been doing with her computer. But he didn’t even look up when she slammed her desk drawer. Satisfied, she popped one of the pain pills she’d foolishly told Justin she didn’t need, swallowing it dry because she’d already drunk all her coffee.

  She really wanted more coffee.

  Between getting x-rayed, stitched up and dealing with the detectives from narcotics and the SLED liaison who’d come on board because of the gang association – not to mention the inevitable string of phone calls and visits after her family had seen the whole fiasco on the news – she’d spent a pretty sleepless night.

  But getting more coffee meant getting up. And until the pill kicked in, she was pretty much stuck in her chair. One of the downsides of being a female in a male dominated profession was that you had to be – or at least appear – tougher than most of the men. Not that the guys she worked with were Neanderthals; in general, they were highly evolved. And Josh – gorgeous, kind, talented and fashionable Josh – was next door to family.

  But he and most of the other detectives were still men. Slaves to their DNA. And somewhere, in some dark little hole in the back of their minds, she knew a lot of them thought of the female officers and detectives as the weak links. To be protected, or in some cases, scorned.

  So she’d just sit here until she didn’t feel like whimpering.

  Angling herself toward the wall, Kathleen eased her jacket aside to gingerly lift the bottom edge of her turtleneck. The tape around the stitches was starting to itch, which was annoying. Her splotchy, pale skin was annoying, too. And the bulky bandage taped over her splotchy, pale skin reminded her of a maxi-pad, which annoyed her even further.

  She grabbed a pen off her desk, thinking that maybe she could just slide it under the edge of the tape, wiggle it a little to get some relief.

  “What are you doing?”

  Only excellent control and years of conditioning prevented her from jumping at the deep bass of Mac Washington’s voice. “Plotting world domination.”

  “With a pen?”

  “Well, it is mightier than the sword.”

  She lifted her eyes, met the impassive darkness of his, and let her turtleneck fall back into position. “You need something?”

  “I need many things. This came for you.” He tossed a manila envelope on the desk.

  “What is it?”

  Never one to use words when a brief gesture would do, Mac moved his shoulders. It was like watching a mountain shrug. Then he moved around her desk, headed toward his own, and Kathleen pulled the envelope toward her. With her right hand. Really, this bone chip thing wasn’t for sissies.

  She looked at her name, printed on the package, with no other indication of the contents or sender. She had a toxicology report pending, but that kind of thing was usually marked. Maybe someone had just gotten lazy. Further annoyed, she ripped open one end.

  And dumped a pile of hot pink cotton onto the desk.

  Confused – was this evidence from one of her scenes? Why wasn’t it sealed? Labeled? Why had it been sent to her instead of the lab? – Kathleen cautiously grabbed the pen again to lift the shirt from the desk. Maybe if she could see the front, she’d remember.

  “Oh. Very funny.” A pair of airbrushed breasts pointed perkily at her surprised face. Realizing what was up, she abandoned the pen and grabbed the edge of the T-shirt, flipping it over to get the full effect.

  SOMEONE WENT TO JUGS AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT.

  Only the “went to” was crossed out, the words “got shot at” written above it in permanent marker. From the skill of the lettering, Kathleen decided she needed to move that door she considered next to family further down the street.

  “Hot pink, Josh?” she said to his back. “Come on. You of all people should know that clashes with my hair.”

  Giving up on his distracted ruse, Josh laughed and rolled his chair around, blue eyes dancing. “Hey, Mac picked out the T-shirt. Blame him.”

  Kathleen pushed her own chair back. Her partner’s grin was white – and rare – in his normally serious dark face.

  “C’mon, Kathleen. You were at Jugs, for God’s sake.”

  Kathleen felt her lips twitch, but she firmed them up. “They have good wings.”

  “To say nothing of their breasts,” Josh piped up from behind her.

  She shook her head, but inside, she felt a fizz of relief. The guys wouldn’t be razzing her if they didn’t see her as an equal. After nearly a decade on the force, she shouldn’t still worry about that, but it was one of those facts of her life she couldn’t avoid. “You know this is in really poor taste.”

  “Put a little sawmill gravy on it, it should taste fine.”

  She opened her mouth to fire a sarcastic retort back at Josh, but the phone on her desk started to ring.

  “Saved by the bell,” Mac rumbled.

>   “Charleston Police Department, Detective Division. This is Detective Murphy speaking.” She aimed an arch look at Josh, who wiggled his eyebrows before turning around.

  “Murphy, it’s Rutledge.”

  “Hey Gage.” She recognized the smoky voice of the detective from narcotics she’d spoken with last night. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’ve got an OD at the hospital, no ID, matches the description of the blond from the scene yesterday. Touch and go whether he’s going to make it, but we’d like to question him if he pulls through. You think you could swing by, give us a visual?”

  “Sure.” Her brows drew together. “But are you at MUSC? Because Doctor Wellington should be on shift, and he got up close and personal with the kid. He’d be able to make a positive ID for you.”

  “We asked around, and Wellington’s in surgery. Nasty accident on Seventeen, sounds like he’s going to be tied up for a while.”

  “Okay. No problem. Just give me about ten minutes to finish a couple things up.” Kathleen hung up, tested her left arm, relieved to find it didn’t scream in protest when she lifted it. Bless Justin and his drugs, after all.

  “Fallout from the drive-by?” Mac asked as she hung up.

  “Yeah, they’ve got a potential witness, turned up at the hospital.”

  “You want me to drive you?” Mac glanced at her suspended arm. Kathleen lowered it as normally as possible.

  “Nope, I can handle it. Just call me if that tox screen comes in. Bill Palmer’s wife is hiding something, and I’d bet dollars to donuts she was feeding him poison. He had those funky lines on his nails. We’ve got to get a warrant to search that house.” She didn’t miss the look Mac threw at Josh when she turned back.

  “You know, I have to head that way,” Josh said casually. “Molly has her four month checkup today, and I told Sam I’d meet her at the pediatrician’s office.” He referred to his daughter and wife. “So I’d be happy to drop you off.”