The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set

by Lisa Clark O'Neill

  “Bathroom’s all yours,” Beth said, coming out the door. “Want to head over to Clary’s for a big, greasy breakfast to chase the alcohol?”

  “Sure,” Ainsley said. Although she had the feeling that not even Clary’s was going to be able to calm her roiling stomach.

  It wouldn’t be settled until she knew that Sabrina was safe.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AINSLEY knocked on the back door to Jack’s office, the one that connected to the conference room that separated their offices. It allowed her to bypass the reception area and Jack’s personal secretary, who – if she were being perfectly honest – scared Ainsley just a little. The woman had the outward appearance of a cuddly grandma, but her demeanor more closely resembled that of Ainsley’s Catholic high school’s head nun.

  “Unless you’re the Whisky Fairy, I’m not interested.”

  Ainsley rolled her eyes at the closed door. “Come on, Jack. It’s important.”

  “As important as the fact that my damn brother drank the last of my best scotch?”

  “Jack.”

  “Fine, fine. Come in.”

  Ainsley opened the door to see Jack, suit coat and tie removed and shirt collar undone since it was the end of the work day, scowling at the empty bottle sitting on top of his wet bar.

  “Your ex-boyfriend pretends not to care for whisky, and then comes over here and drinks all my single malt.” He shot her a mock sympathetic glance over his shoulder. “Not to bring up a touchy subject.”

  Ainsley ignored that last bit. Since Jack’s brother Jesse – whom Ainsley had dated once upon a time – had recently gotten married, Jack liked to pretend that Ainsley was pining away, secretly heartbroken, instead of happy for Jesse and his wife, whom Ainsley genuinely liked.

  “Bastard could have told me he’d finished off the bottle.” Jack pulled out a different brand and frowned at it, before pouring some into a glass. “I would have sent you out to the liquor store at lunchtime, but I guess this will have to do.”

  “I’m not your damned water boy.”

  “No. If you were you’d be a lot less lippy.” He pursed his lips, considering. “Maybe I should hire a water boy. Only instead of water, he could fetch me liquor. And instead of a boy, he should be a hot woman. A scantily clad hot woman. I think I’ll write this down.”

  He turned fully around, raising his glass in toast to his new plan, but then lowered it when he got a good look at her face. “What’s wrong?”

  That he knew she was upset wasn’t surprising. Part of the reason the man was so effective in the courtroom was that he could read body language like a pro. This was one time that it didn’t bother her. It enabled her to cut straight to the chase.

  “I need to take some time off.”

  “Okay. When?”

  “Now.”

  “I hope your stepmom hasn’t taken a turn for the worse.”

  “No, she’s okay. It’s my cousin. She’s missing.”

  Frowning, Jack gestured her toward a chair. “Have a seat.”

  “I don’t need to sit down, Jack. I just need you to –”

  “Ainsley,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “You’re shaking. Sit down before you fall down.”

  She hadn’t even realized that she was. Given that she had a reputation for being cool under pressure – a former client had referred to her as The Cucumber – Ainsley found that a bit unnerving.

  But not as unnerving as the call she’d just ended with Ben.

  Ainsley sat, and then stared blankly at the glass that was thrust in front of her face. “You know I don’t like whisky.”

  “A flaw which I’ve magnanimously chosen to overlook. Drink it anyway.”

  “Jack –”

  “For once in your life, just do what you’re told.”

  Ainsley glared at him, but she knew that arguing would only prolong the agony. If there was another human being on the planet who was more stubborn than she, it was certainly Jack Wellington. She grabbed the glass and took a sip, grimacing as the liquor burned its way down her throat, landing like a ball of fire in her stomach.

  “Happy?” she rasped out.

  “No, but at least your face doesn’t look like my bedsheets any more. Now.” Jack perched on the edge of his desk, crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me what happened.”

  “It’s my cousin. Sabrina.”

  “This is the one who visited not too long ago? The one whose sister…”

  “Was murdered. Yes.” That Ainsely had been the one to discover the body wasn’t something she liked to discuss. The memory was bad enough. Not to mention the memories of what had transpired afterward.

  Jack’s frown deepened.

  “She tried to call me Friday, right after the trial.” Ainsley ran him through the events of that and of the following day, when she’d spoken with Ben.

  “I’ve been in contact with him regularly since then, and there’s been no sign of Sabrina’s whereabouts. Until today.” Bile wanted to rise in her throat, and Ainsley took another sip of whisky. “They found one of her shoes in the woods about a mile from where her car was abandoned. It was covered in her blood.”

  “They’re sure it belongs to her? The shoe and the blood?”

  “They obviously haven’t had time to do a DNA match, but the blood type matches Sabrina’s. And Ben identified the shoe.”

  “So someone was with her before she disappeared, gave a description of what she was wearing?”

  “No.” Ainsley shook her head. “At least, not that Ben knows of. He recognized it as hers.”

  Jack’s dark brows drew together over narrowed gray eyes. “I have to say, I think I’d be hard pressed to recognize one of my siblings’ shoes without a description.”

  “That’s because you’re a man, your siblings are all men, and men’s footwear doesn’t typically have the same variety and visibility as women’s. Not only that, but Sabrina has a very unique style. She often paints her clothes and… bedazzles them, for want of a better description.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. You said her car was abandoned. Was it disabled in some way?”

  “The battery was dead, but her door had been left partially open – meaning the interior light was on – so Ben doesn’t know if the battery died before or after she left the vehicle on the side of the road.”

  “So it’s possible she had car trouble and then set out on foot to get help.”

  “Through the forest?”

  “Shortcut?”

  “Not in the area she was in. Those woods go on for miles. If she set out on foot, she almost certainly would have walked alongside the road, particularly given that she was wearing a modified type of gladiator sandal – not exactly the best footwear for hiking.”

  “Which could explain the blood on her shoe. Easy enough to cut exposed skin in that sort of environment. Easy enough to get lost, too, from the sounds of it.”

  “Except why would she leave the shoe behind? And why leave her purse and phone in the car to begin with?” Ainsley shook her head. “Bree is sometimes absent-minded, but she’s not stupid. She was on a remote stretch of mountain road – which possibly explains why our call had such a bad connection. I thought it was me being in the parking garage, but maybe that’s not the case. Or maybe it was a combination. Anyway, even if she did have car trouble and started walking to find help, there’s no good reason to have left her things behind.”

  Unless she was forced out of the car unwillingly. Or had fled, running through the woods to escape some unknown threat.

  Despite the fact that she hadn’t articulated those possibilities out loud, she could tell by Jack’s expression that he was thinking along the same lines. Being criminal defense lawyers, they’d seen some of the worst of human behavior. Neither she nor Jack willingly took on a client if they suspected the client was guilty of that behavior, but the crimes they stood accused of were often heinous, sometimes unspeakable. Like Timothy Dalton, charged with brutally murdering hi
s unborn child and his wife.

  It changed you, seeing so much evidence of inhumanity. It made it difficult to remain optimistic in situations like this.

  “Don’t borrow trouble until you have more evidence,” Jack advised.

  “I’m trying not to. But that’s a big part of why I want – no, need – to go up there. I have to see things for myself.”

  “I would say that sounds like you don’t trust your cousin, the sheriff, but given that it’s our job to question law enforcement investigations, I understand your need. I’d be doing the same thing myself. And I’m sure you want to be with your family, show support.”

  Ainsley didn’t think her Aunt Denise would particularly welcome her presence, especially under the circumstances, but that wasn’t going to stop her from going. She had nothing against Ben, particularly, and she loved Sabrina. She couldn’t just go about her own life while Bree was missing, possibly hurt – or worse.

  But Ainsley wouldn’t allow herself to think the worst. Not yet, anyway.

  “Leave me your files,” Jack said. “I’ll reassign your current cases or handle them myself until you get back. Just make sure I can contact you. If cell reception up there is spotty, give me the number of a landline where I can reach you. And check your email.” He raised an elegant eyebrow. “Assuming they have internet capability up there in the sticks.”

  Ainsley swallowed, wanting to answer his snide remark in kind, keeping their relationship on its normal tit for tat basis. But that he would basically just say go, I’ve got this touched her. It also spoke to the kind of man Jack really was. True, he could be an arrogant jerk, but when it really counted, he was a rock.

  “You’re not going to go all female and cry on me, are you?”

  “Go to hell.”

  He smiled. “I’ve got a reserved front row seat in the hand basket.”

  “Of that I have no doubt.”

  Ainsley sat the glass of whisky on the little side table next to the chair, chagrined to note that she’d drunk most of it. She’d have to eat one of the breakfast muffins she kept in her office before driving home.

  Then she stood, facing her boss. “Thank you for handling things. And for talking me through different scenarios – it helped me think logically, rather than simply panic.”

  “I would say any time, but I hope the circumstances are never repeated.”

  “Me, too.”

  She’d already lost one cousin. That was more than enough.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IF autumn in Savannah was more of an idea, here in the mountains of North Georgia it was a many-splendored reality. In this part of the country, at least, Mother Nature was putting on one of her most impressive shows.

  Despite the fact that she was bone-weary from having gotten up before dawn to head out, Ainsley’s tired eyes opened wide after she turned off of Georgia Four Hundred onto Chestatee Street and began the gradual ascent into town.

  “Wow.”

  She’d been so intent on not missing her turnoff that she hadn’t paid much attention to the scenery up to this point. But the sun had climbed high enough in the sky that it looked like a careless giant had tipped over paint pots, coloring the hills in shades of gold and red and amber.

  Mesmerized, Ainsley gawked as she drove along the road that followed the creek. Sunlight glinted off the water, brilliant bursts of diamond among the multihued leaves.

  Without giving herself a chance to reconsider, Ainsley pulled off the road into a gravel parking lot. She looked at the sign on the little building, which advertised it as a tube rental business, currently closed for the season. A bright yellow leaf drifted lazily down from the branch of the nearest tree, landing on her windshield.

  Ainsley stared at it and then swallowed, a flood of memories causing her throat to constrict.

  It had been autumn when they’d buried her grandmother. And though Ainsley couldn’t remember much about the funeral, she distinctly remembered crunching through the leaves littering the ground beneath the large oak tree in the cemetery. There were some deciduous trees in Savannah, but nothing compared to here in the mountains. The falling leaves had struck her as particularly melancholy.

  Margaret, are you grieving

  Over Goldengrove unleaving…

  She’d been studying poetry in school at the time, and that poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins became stuck in her head during the service.

  Ah! As the heart grows older

  It will come to such sights colder…

  She might be older, Ainsley considered, but the thought of losing a loved one was no less shattering to her now than it had been as a teen. Especially this particular loved one.

  Please be safe, Sabrina. Please.

  Ainsley glanced past the leaf, through the trees putting on their stunning display, toward the water. Yahoola Creek. The same creek that she and Sabrina had tubed on and played in when they were children.

  The same creek where she’d discovered her cousin Carly’s body.

  Reaching toward her keys, Ainsley turned off the ignition. Her hand trembled slightly, but she opened her door anyway. She hadn’t been near this particular body of water since that day – had only been back to Dahlonega once during the intervening years, and that for her grandmother’s funeral. Even when her dad had had to come up here to handle legal issues with the estate, he hadn’t brought her with him.

  At that point in time, she wouldn’t have wanted to come.

  Ainsley stepped out of the car, closed her eyes and simply inhaled. The mingled scents brought back even more memories, but good ones. There was something about the air in the mountains, something crisp and cool and fresh that you simply couldn’t find in the coastal areas around Savannah. The air there had a weight to it – partially humidity, and partially what Ainsley always thought of as the heaviness of history.

  There was no less history here – this part of Georgia had factored strongly in the gold rush – but there was also an untamed quality that seemed to defy humanity’s paltry efforts at civilization. The mountains, the forests and streams, were wild things. Things that had their own soul.

  She opened her eyes, feeling a little steadier. She’d missed this, she realized. In avoiding the area – or rather, in avoiding the more unpleasant memories associated with it – she’d denied herself the pleasure of a place, and people, she loved. Sabrina tried, unsuccessfully, to get Ainsley to visit for the past few years. Ainsley begged off, citing work – and not wanting to upset her Aunt Denise – so Sabrina had come to her instead. There was more to do for two outgoing young women in the city, anyway. And if they grew bored with the city, there was always the nearby beach.

  At least that had been her excuse.

  It bruised Ainsley’s ego to admit that it was fear that kept her away more than anything. The fear of dredging up those memories.

  And it distressed her to realize that if Bree hadn’t disappeared, Ainsley probably wouldn’t have set foot in this town – or more likely this whole area – ever again.

  She hated to think of herself as a coward.

  Ainsley closed her car door and locked it. Then she tucked her keys into the pocket of her jeans, crunching across the gravel parking lot which bordered the creek bank. There was a path, covered with a heavy layer of wood chips, that descended toward the water. It wasn’t especially steep, but Ainsley’s boots were more for decoration than they were for trekking through the wilderness. She had a pair of hiking boots in her car, but she was afraid that if she went back now, she’d lose her nerve and keep going.

  Because the idea of losing her nerve was intolerable, she kept her arms slightly out for balance, and carefully made her way down.

  She heard it before she saw it – the sound of water bubbling over rock. There was nothing quite like it, not even the quiet roar of the ocean as waves crashed into shore. The latter she’d always considered a sort of lullaby, but the former – well, she was no Hopkins, but it was a sound to stir the soul.

  Ainsley
had been slightly worried that it would trigger some kind of panic reaction – throwing her back mentally to that horrible day – but instead it made her smile, just a little. How often had she and Bree laid in their beds with the windows open in the spare bedroom at Granny’s house, listening to the noises of the creek, watching lightning bugs decorate the nighttime sky like summer’s version of Christmas lights, talking about… everything?

  It was another good memory. A happy memory. She clung to it as she reached the water.

  The creek looked the same. Wide and mostly shallow, with big rocks forming rapids that gave way to deeper pools near the edges.

  It was in one of the pools that she’d discovered Carly.

  Shuddering slightly, Ainsley steeled herself, stared down the length of the creek. Not too terribly far from here, she thought. Her grandmother’s property – sold ages ago – was, if she remembered correctly, just down the road and tucked into the trees on the opposite side of the creek. The mulched path which had brought her to the edge of the creek extended all along the water, probably so that the rental company’s customers could walk back after reaching the end of their tubing excursion.

  Ainsley stared at it, telling herself that she needed to get checked into her hotel, grab something to eat, call her dad to tell him that she’d arrived safely. Call Ben and tell him she was here – and probably listen to his displeasure at what he would likely perceive as her attempting to stick her nose in his investigation. Which is why she hadn’t told him beforehand that she planned to come.

  She should do all of those things, get settled, gain her bearings, and then confront the biggest ghost of her past.

  But Ainsley had never been very good at doing what she should do. Her father frequently told her that she was at least two parts mule. So instead of doing all of those other, sensible things, she straightened her spine and set off down the path.

  The woodchips gave beneath her boots as she walked, sinking slightly into the damp soil. It must have rained recently. In fact, now that she thought about it, the creek seemed a little high, the rapids moving at a more, well, rapid clip than usual. Even though the temperature was relatively mild, the water would be icy cold. Her mind veered to the thought of Sabrina, lost somewhere, out in the elements, and her heart squeezed with worry.