The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

And because where one found Mac, it was fairly common to find Kathleen, Justin scanned the parking lot.

  And saw her, her bright hair shining like a beacon under the harsh glare of one of the lights which illuminated the expanse of asphalt, talking with a blond-haired man in a long coat while they watched her car being loaded onto a tow truck.

  Concerned – okay, he was just a little pleased at what he thought of as providence, but mostly concerned – he tucked his hands into his pockets and strolled over. When he got within hailing distance, Kathleen glanced his way.

  And the look on her face had all pleasure evaporating.

  “Kathleen?” He picked up the pace, breaking into a trot. “What’s wrong? What happened?” He grabbed her hands. “Are you okay?”

  “Hello, Justin,” she said, her voice brisk. Professional. And she slid her hands from his. “I’m fine.”

  She’d suffered a shock, he could see that for himself. Her face was white as bone.

  “Hey, Justin. Fancy meeting you here.” At the familiar sound of the masculine voice, Justin turned, recognized Clay Copeland. Not only was Clay Kathleen’s cousin-in-law, but he was one of Justin’s better friends.

  “Clay,” he said, realizing that the other man had been all but invisible to him up to that point. Then he flushed a little at the vague sense of amusement in Clay’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

  Clay glanced at Kathleen before answering. “Visiting the new family member. She’s a cutie. Spit up on me the moment I picked her up. Guess she figured I needed to be broken in before my own baby gets here.”

  At sea, because there were clearly undercurrents here that he couldn’t quite understand, he met his friend’s dark eyes, which broadcast a whole lot of I’ll catch you up later.

  “Ah.” As Kathleen had moved just slightly away, her eyes glued to the tow truck, he strove for normality in his tone. “Yeah, I swung by the maternity ward on the way out. Maureen was resting, but the baby was, ah, letting her indignation be known in the nursery. Seems she has the Murphy temperament.”

  A uniformed cop strode over, cleared his throat. “Excuse me for interrupting. Are you ready to leave, Detective?”

  “Yeah. Yes.” Seeming to snap out of it, Kathleen straightened her spine. “I’ll be right there.” The man moved off toward his cruiser, and Kathleen glanced at Clay. “Thanks, Clay. You’ll…?”

  Her voice trailed off, but Clay seemed to understand the question, and simply nodded. “Of course.”

  Then Kathleen turned her gaze on Justin, and he saw the dulled remnants of shock, layered over by anger and what he thought might be fear.

  It was the fear that kept him from taking umbrage at her tone.

  “Justin,” she said, her voice even and a touch remote. “I’ll call you.”

  When she strode off toward the waiting cruiser, he gave himself a moment to deal with the irritation, the rebuff, before turning back to Clay.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Clay sighed. “You want to follow me back to the Inn?” His wife and her mother ran a bed and breakfast, and Clay and Tate lived in the carriage house behind the main structure. “No point in standing out in the cold any longer than we have to. I can sweet talk Tate into making coffee,” he said with just the smallest of smiles.

  “You know my weakness,” Justin said.

  “Yeah, I do. And I’m not talking about the coffee.”

  When he turned, strode off toward his SUV, Justin could only think: Shit.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “THANKS, Tate” Justin said as Clay’s wife placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of him.

  “Cream, no sugar, right?”

  “Yeah. Perfect.”

  She sent Justin a sunny smile. “Decaf for you,” she told Clay. Then she leaned down, her long dark hair swinging forward as she placed a kiss on Clay’s cheek. “I’ll be in the den if you need me.” She placed her hand against the small of her back in the timeless gesture of heavily pregnant women. “I’m going to go check Max’s homework and then do a little reading.”

  He rubbed his hand over her rounded abdomen. “Tell Max I’ll be in to say goodnight in a bit.”

  When she waddled off – there was really no other way to describe it – Justin looked at Clay over the rim of his mug. “You look like the cat that ate the canary.”

  “Beautiful wife, an awesome son that was like a bonus gift.” Clay had adopted Max, then five years old, when he’d married the boy’s mother. “And a daughter on the way. It’s more than I ever expected.”

  Clay, who was a behavioral specialist with the FBI, had seen more than his fair share of death, of evil. Justin knew his family was his saving grace.

  But it was Clay’s expertise on the darker aspects of human nature that Justin needed now. “What happened? And don’t try to evade, in the interest of thinking Kathleen should be the one to tell me. Obviously, she’s pulled inside her professional shell, and God knows when she’ll poke her head back out.”

  “You know her well,” Clay said.

  “If I didn’t, I’d be a lot more pissed at the way she blew me off. But when something hurts or scares her, on a deeply personal level, she either resorts to wisecracks or that sort of rigid professionalism. What hurt her, Clay?”

  Clay blew over the surface of his coffee. And then told Justin about the doll.

  “What kind of sick son of a bitch would do something like that?”

  “A sick son of a bitch,” Clay agreed. “Someone who wanted to make a very clear, very pointed statement. To come at Kathleen, using an area in which she’s especially vulnerable.”

  Anger, fear – both too common to Justin lately – burned through him. “Why?”

  “Kathleen is a cop,” Clay said equably. “Lots of people have a beef with law enforcement. This was rather specific, so obviously someone has a specific beef with Kathleen.”

  “Somebody she’s arrested,” Justin guessed. “Did Mac receive a similar statement? Threat,” Justin corrected. Because how could she not see it as such?

  “No. Not yet, anyway.” Clay sipped his coffee. “I know you’re looking for answers, but I don’t have many to give you at this point. Could be someone she and Mac have tangled with, professionally.” He acknowledged Justin’s suggestion. “Could be they targeted Kathleen rather than Mac for retribution because, of the two, they see her – the female – as the weaker link. That’s inaccurate, in my opinion, but then not everyone knows her as well as we do.”

  Justin studied his friend a moment. “But you don’t think so.”

  Clay tilted his head to the side. “It seems Kathleen isn’t the only one you know. I don’t think so, particularly, although I reserve the right to change my opinion after the evidence has been examined. I think that whoever did this is in fact threatened by what they perceive as Kathleen’s strength. Her profession, her self-assurance, something about her is threatening to this individual. When you’re engaged in a battle, and your opponent is stronger or better-positioned than you, what do you do?”

  “Find their weaknesses and exploit them.”

  “Exactly. In this case, it’s psychological warfare, and the opposition scored a direct hit. You saw how shaken up she was. Tough homicide detective almost literally brought to her knees by a simple child’s plaything.”

  “A bloody child’s plaything that resembles her new – and defenseless – niece.” Because he had family and friends in the field of law enforcement, and because he himself tended to be analytical, he considered the evidence. “That was quick action. The doll. Maureen only had the baby a matter of hours ago. It has to mean that someone has been paying close attention to Kathleen, her family. So, run to Toys ‘R Us or whatever, pick up a doll, douse it in blood – and where the blood came from is another question – in the short window that she was visiting that niece. Someone needs to check out the local toy stores.”

  Another flash of humor lit Clay’s eyes. “That’s been taken into consideration. Det
ective.”

  Justin winced. “Sorry. I know you know how to do your job.”

  “Well, this isn’t really my job, but as it’s my family involved, I consider it my business. Kathleen, as established, was a little shaky, but Mac was on top of it. He was leaving to check out the toy stores that were still open when you saw him driving off.”

  Justin thought of how Kathleen must feel, knowing that her job – most likely – had drawn some very unwanted attention to her family. And her family had had more than its fair share of unwanted attention already. “Her protective gene will be in overdrive.”

  Clay nodded. “She was going home, getting some things together. She plans on spending the night at the hospital.”

  Justin nodded. He’d expected no less. “I’ll swing back by. See if there’s anything she needs.”

  “Justin,” Clay said as Justin started to rise from his chair. There was a note of caution in his tone. “She’s a little raw just yet. So try not to take it personally when she shakes you off again.”

  When, Justin thought. Not if.

  “Well, she can try.” He’d known her for years, knew her moods. And he wasn’t that easily shaken.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” Justin said, and took his coat from the back of the chair.

  “No problem,” Clay said, and just before Justin disappeared through the door: “Good luck, son.”

  The way things had been going lately, Justin figured he was due.

  KATHLEEN stared blankly at the TV mounted in the corner of the waiting room. She considered it fortunate that the little room was located almost directly across the hall from Maureen’s room, otherwise she would have had to bunk in the chair next to her sister’s bed. Not only did Maureen need her privacy and her sleep while she could grab it, but Kathleen wasn’t quite ready to tell her sister about the doll. Today had been one of the happiest days of her sister’s life, and Kathleen would be damned if she’d mar it.

  Guilt had her climbing to her feet, too restless to settle. Luckily no one else seemed to be delivering offspring at this particular moment, and since visiting hours were long past she had the place to herself. Spotting the coffee setup on the short stretch of counter in the corner, she considered whether or not it was wise to pump more caffeine into her already jittery system.

  Tea, she compromised, taking one of the little packets, plunking it into a Styrofoam cup. Tea was supposedly soothing. Or so Sadie told her repeatedly.

  Sadie. Kathleen closed her eyes as she thought of her other sister, if not of the blood, then in law and certainly of the heart.

  Should she warn her family of the potential danger?

  Kathleen knew, knew, not to panic, or jump to conclusions before the evidence had all been gathered, the leads followed. This could be no more significant than a sick prank, payback by a pissed-off perp. Or even the pissed-off relative of a perp. That made a sort of twisted sense: hurt my family, I’ll hurt yours.

  Running through the lineup of pissed-off relatives she’d dealt with recently, Kathleen considered, discarded. Considered again.

  Joe Palmer – brother to the man who’d been murdered by his wife, using slow-acting poison – came to mind. Not only had the man been having an affair with his brother’s wife, but Kathleen strongly suspected he’d anticipated benefitting from the hefty life insurance policy she’d stood to receive. So, he was short an economic windfall, and he’d also lost the woman he’d by all accounts coveted since before his brother even married her.

  Jealousy, passion, betrayal, monetary loss – all factors in a perfect emotional storm. He’d been verbally abusive, threatening when she’d handcuffed Marissa Palmer and read the woman her rights, to the point that he’d spent that night cooling off in jail himself.

  Maybe he’d cooled off, and decided to try a stealthier approach.

  Kathleen needed to call Mac. Call Mac, get him to locate the whereabouts of one Joe Palmer. Maybe the threat was just that, and empty, but she couldn’t – wouldn’t – take chances with her family. She needed, hell she needed to figure out how to provide protection for Maureen, the baby. Tate was probably okay. Clay was a federal agent, and he’d secured the carriage house, the Inn with a top of the line system. But Sadie – Sadie was alone in that big old house a lot of the time, with Declan often working late into the night. She’d have to talk to them, warn them all to be extra vigilant. She’d have to –

  “Kathleen.”

  Emotion swirled inside her at the sound of the familiar voice. Chagrin. Irritation. And something that felt like relief.

  “Kathleen,” he repeated, closer now. A warm hand brushed her hair aside, rubbed some of the tension from the back of her neck. Then he reached around her, taking the empty Styrofoam cup that she hadn’t realized she still held in her hand.

  With a final squeeze of her shoulder, he moved to the machine that dispensed the coffee, and filled the cup with hot water.

  Saying nothing, he simply placed the cup in her hand.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I work here.”

  “Not right now you don’t. You were leaving.”

  “I left,” he said, easily enough. “And I came back.”

  Because she was glad, unbearably glad that he had, she had no choice but to take offense. “You talked to Clay.”

  He nodded. “I did.”

  “I said I’d call you.” Setting the tea she didn’t really want aside, she stabbed a hand through her hair. “I don’t appreciate you going behind my back, talking to the menfolk about how best to comfort the little woman.”

  “If you see any little women in need of comfort, be sure to point them out.”

  The irritation that had been stiffening her spine fled on a huffed laugh. Sagging against the counter, Kathleen crossed her arms.

  “You didn’t need to do that, Justin. To come back, I mean. I can handle this.”

  “Maybe I needed to come for myself.”

  She studied his face, so familiar, but somehow so… different. And realized from his expression that he was absolutely sincere. “You know,” she told him, “when I declared my intention to join the police force, my dad did everything he could to talk me out of it. From detailing the history of law-flouters in our family beginning when Murphy’s was a speakeasy during Prohibition, to appealing to my latent sense of femininity by saying that men were turned off by women who wore a gun to work. In reality though, it was the danger that he feared. As a parent, he didn’t want to see his child deliberately placing herself in harm’s way. So I told him fine. I’d decided to be a logger.”

  Justin waited a beat. “A logger.”

  “Yep.” Idly, Kathleen picked up her tea again and bobbed the bag in the steaming water. “It was either that or working on a fishing boat, though given the prominence of that industry in the area – and my dad’s love of baiting a hook – I didn’t think it would have quite the same impact. So I told him I was going to be a logger, and that I’d found a job opening in Oregon.”

  His lips twitched. “I hear the Pacific Northwest is lovely.”

  “You bet. It probably has something to do with the fresh air from all of those enormous trees. Which, of course, I would be cutting down using chainsaws and various other pieces of heavy machinery. You gotta be careful how you handle those babies though, because one wrong cut and…” She used her free hand to mime a tree falling over, squashing the hapless lumberjack beneath. “Splat.”

  “Not even my surgical skills could fix a splat. My guess here, is that you, in your very Kathleen way, were demonstrating to your father that there are more dangerous jobs than being a cop.”

  “I made a chart, complete with corroborating evidence from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing that cops usually aren’t even in the top ten. Being a farmer is more dangerous – statistically speaking – than being a police officer. And I knew, all along, that I wanted to be a homicide detective. That would take me even further out of the danger zone, as it’s the patrol offi
cers that are more likely to encounter the unexpected. And really, with a couple of notable exceptions, I’ve found myself in very few truly threatening situations over the years. Hell, the closest I’ve come to being shot was sitting in a restaurant with you.”

  Justin, being Justin, figured out where she was going. “Kathleen.” He reached out, took the tea which had become a sort of absurd conversational prop, and set it aside. Then he grasped her empty hands in his.

  His were warm. He was warm. And when he pulled her closer, she realized that she was shivering.

  “Kathleen.” He said her name again, and brushed a thumb over her cheek. “I can’t know, because I’ve never been in your situation, but I can guess how you must be feeling. The danger you’ve faced on the job up to now, however minimal or extreme, has been acceptable to you because you chose your career with your eyes wide open. Obviously, you’d done your research. You knew the risks. But what you didn’t count on is that your career choice could impact your family directly. That they could be at risk. And while I want to tell you not to be foolish, because you know that tonight’s incident is not your fault, there’s no way to convince you not to feel what you feel. Emotions, particularly visceral emotions like guilt and fear, don’t tend to listen to reason.”

  She blinked, horrified to feel the sting of tears behind her eyes. The guilt, well, there wasn’t much she could do about that in this instance. But the fear was unacceptable. “I hate being afraid,” she found herself admitting.

  “Everyone’s afraid of something at one time or another. It’s perfectly human.”

  “And perfectly weak. Fear is the flight response. It means you’re the prey. And if I’m going to be the prey, I might as well hand over my badge.”

  “What bullshit.” His tone was brisk. “Kathleen.” He tilted her chin up so that she had little choice but to meet his gaze. And this time his tone held exasperation. “Do you really think that, because you’re a detective, you’re not allowed to be afraid?”

  It wasn’t so much that she was a detective. It was more that she was a female detective. And yes, she knew that shouldn’t make a difference, but then Justin wasn’t a woman working in what was – despite what the politically correct bureaucrats would have everyone believe – still mostly a man’s world.