The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set

by Lisa Clark O'Neill

  “Yes.” She stared at her hands. “They gave me epinephrine to stop my asthma attack.”

  He noticed that she left out any mention of other physical traumas she may have suffered, but they would broach that subject at another time. “Call if you run into any problems.”

  “You mean like waking up next to a dead body?”

  One corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “Let’s hope that lightning really doesn’t strike twice.” He extended his hand again. Her palm was cold and damp against his.

  “Take care, Ms. Cavanaugh.”

  He was almost to the door when he heard her laugh softly, without humor. “Right,” she said. “You, too.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  STILL dripping from her near-scalding shower, Caitlin stared at the contents of her hotel room, feeling like Alice having just fallen through the looking glass. The very standard two queen beds, desk, nightstands and dresser looked like an alien landscape. She half expected a disembodied Cheshire grin to appear in midair, or the Queen of Hearts to pop up from behind the armchair in the corner.

  Calling for her head.

  Caitlin lowered herself onto the closest bed, closing her eyes as she fought to make sense of the events of the past twenty-four hours. She wrote novels, romantic suspense novels in which the heroines often found themselves in devastating, untenable and dangerous situations. She’d thought that she was adept at getting into those characters’ heads, in painting accurate mental pictures of what they felt and thought and experienced as their formerly ordered worlds fell apart.

  She’d thought wrong.

  There was no way, none at all, to adequately describe the shock. The sense of pure disbelief. It was a cliché to say that she kept thinking that she would wake up at any moment, realizing this was all a very bizarre, albeit detailed, dream. But that was an accurate assessment. Caitlin truly could not come to grips with the fact that this was happening to her.

  A sob caught in her throat, but she didn’t give in and let it become full blown hysterics. She felt exceedingly fragile, like a window glass that had shattered but hadn’t yet fallen into pieces. She was afraid that the slightest disturbance would cause her to finally break.

  Caitlin practiced some deep breathing techniques that she’d picked up in yoga class. She couldn’t exactly say it cleared her mind completely, but it did help bring the worst of her panic back under control. She desperately needed to be able to think coherently, to attempt to piece together what she could remember from last night so that she could formulate a hypothesis for what happened. It was the not knowing, even more than the horror of finding that man in her bedroom, that freaked her out.

  How long had she been lying there, unconscious, while that man bled and died? Why didn’t she flee while she had the chance, or at least call nine-one-one? How had he gotten in? What had he done – and what did she do – while he was there?

  If she’d been the victim of a date rape drug, a horrible misnomer under the circumstances, and had killed that man in self-defense, well, she’d find a way to live with that. But not knowing exactly what he’d attempted – or worse, accomplished – and not being able to recall a single moment from what had to have been the most frightening moments of her life made her feel even more vulnerable.

  Knowledge was indeed power. And the lack thereof under circumstances like this left one emotionally adrift in a sea of confusion and fear.

  Caitlin opened her eyes, startled when she caught sight of herself in the mirror over the dresser. She almost didn’t recognize the woman staring back. She was pretty sure she’d lost weight recently. Her eyes appeared as huge blue orbs in her head, magnified by the purplish shadows lying beneath them. She’d been stressed even before the events of the morning, a result of the move and of the situation – or situations, really – that had prompted the relocation. All of that stress had brought her immunity down, and she’d caught the nasty cold virus making the rounds in the early spring. Even though she’d recovered weeks ago, she hadn’t been eating or sleeping as well as she should have, and she definitely hadn’t been spending enough time outside, in the sunshine. She had her new book as an excuse, of course, but Caitlin realized that more than that, she’d been suffering from a mild depression. It wasn’t unusual for her to close herself off from human contact when she was deeply involved in a plot, but it was out of character for her not to take care of herself. She was normally very health conscious.

  She was going to rectify that. She would go grocery shopping and fill her basket with healthy foods. She would find a new yoga studio and maybe even head out to Tybee Island and the beach to soak up some sun. She would stop wallowing. She would live.

  Unless, of course, she ended up in jail for murder.

  As she watched her pale, sickly-looking reflection with an odd sort of dispassion, her always active imagination conjured an image of herself in an orange jumpsuit, staring through prison bars. It wasn’t because she had a guilty conscience, she assured herself. She didn’t. The image – and the fear behind it – was stuck there because her attorney had succeeded in scaring the crap out of her.

  Jack Wellington.

  Prison Caitlin disappeared to be replaced by her remembered image of the man, tall, dark and so obscenely polished that his aura was probably reflective.

  And handsome. Caitlin might have been in shock, but her optical nerves still worked. Well, they’d worked when he’d moved close enough for her to see him well, at any rate. The man was the type she wrote about, the tall, domineering alpha male that other men envied and that caused women to either drop their panties or reach for their smelling salts.

  Caitlin didn’t like him.

  His type worked really well on the pages of her books, where she had some control over her characters and could, at least theoretically, bend them to her will. But in real life? In real life, that sort of my way or the highway, type A Mr. Perfect was a pain in the ass. God knows she’d had enough personal experience to say so conclusively.

  She didn’t doubt that Mr. Wellington knew what he was talking about – Lance wouldn’t have retained anyone but the best – but his bedside manner left a lot to be desired. Caitlin could only hope that the police cleared her as quickly as possible so that she didn’t have to deal with Jack Wellington any longer than necessary.

  Because he was on her mind, Caitlin pushed herself to her feet and retrieved her new, prepaid cell phone from the top of the desk. They’d activated it for her at the store, but she hadn’t taken the time to familiarize herself with it beyond sending a quick text to Connie with her new number and the address of her hotel, as the cab was waiting outside. She held it close to her face to look it over, noting that it was bare bones, with texting capability as its most impressive feature. Because she didn’t feel like talking, she located Jack’s number from the card he’d given her, sending him a text instead. He answered a few minutes later with a terse Got it followed by Don’t talk to anyone outside your immediate family about your situation.

  Caitlin frowned. Who was she going to talk to? Reporters? Strangers she encountered on the street? Beautiful day we’re having. I may have killed a man last night.

  People wouldn’t think she was psychotic at all.

  She guessed he expected her to sit in her hotel room for the next two days, staring at the walls. If she had her computer or even her flash drive, that might not be such a bad thing. She could lose herself in work – or try to at any rate. She was honest enough about her mental state to realize that it would take a herculean effort to concentrate right now.

  Really, all Caitlin wanted to do was to shut the blinds tight and curl up under the covers, to pretend like none of this was happening. To escape reality for a little while. But not only had she done far too much of that lately, her mind was also far too active. Her imagination might be a blessing when it came to her work, but it could also be a curse. Visualizing all of the possible things that might have occurred in her bedroom last night made her flesh crawl wit
h horror.

  Shuddering, Caitlin tossed the phone onto the bed as if it were a live thing. She should probably call Connie again, let her know she was all checked in, but instead she felt a sudden urge to get out. Out of the room. Out of her own skin.

  She would take a walk. A long, long walk.

  Except that she’d injured her heel.

  Caitlin lifted her foot to rest on her opposite knee, examining the bandage. She’d had to shower with her left leg mostly out of the tub enclosure in an attempt to keep her stitches dry. The doctor had put some sort of numbing cream on the area, which had long since worn off. It ached. Walking anywhere – particularly in the cheap slip ons she’d bought at the souvenir shop – probably wasn’t the best idea.

  She looked at the TV. She guessed she could watch a movie. If she couldn’t get out of her skin, maybe she could at least get out of her head.

  Grabbing the remote, Caitlin pressed the power button, and began surfing through the mostly mindless drivel that passed for televised entertainment these days. Sports, sports, so-called reality shows that were probably more fictional than one of her books. The national news programs were mostly a compilation of talking heads yelling about the upcoming presidential election, and that would only drive her to throw herself out the window.

  Caitlin started to give up, but then the inset picture on the screen behind one of the newscaster’s head caught her attention. She leaned closer to the TV to verify what she saw.

  It was her street. Her house.

  Oh God.

  Realizing it was a local newscast, Caitlin turned up the volume, trying to hear the woman’s words over the rush of her own blood.

  “… in the four hundred block of Price Street. It’s unclear as to whether this was a home invasion or a domestic disturbance, but at least one person appears to be dead. Action News will have more details as they become available. In other news…”

  Bile rose in Caitlin’s throat as the words domestic disturbance ricocheted around her head. She wanted to scream at the reporter that she had never even seen the dead man, let alone had any sort of relationship with him that might qualify as domestic. It seemed like enormously irresponsible journalism to broadcast that kind of thing without having any idea whatsoever as to its accuracy. But she wasn’t so naïve as to think it didn’t happen that way all the time. Especially in this age of the internet and instant information. People wanted to know, and they wanted to know now. And the media wanted to be the first to deliver it. It was all a race, and if the truth or reputations got trampled along the way, well, that was just the price everyone paid for immediate gratification.

  Feeling sick, Caitlin turned off the TV. She knew that even if – no, when – she was cleared, that the question of what really happened would linger in some people’s minds. There were those who thrived on finding a way to blame the victim, because it made people really uncomfortable to think that bad things could happen through no fault of their own.

  It was human nature.

  Caitlin stared at the blank TV screen, and then looked out the window. Injured heel or no, she had to get out. She would go crazy if she didn’t.

  Pulling up her mental map of the city, she guessed that Forsythe Park wasn’t too far away. And though it wasn’t exactly the North Georgia hiking trails she’d grown up with, at least there were trees. She needed trees, and nature, and familiar things that made sense. Nature could be brutal, but there was comfort in the fact that it operated according to a system of demonstrable checks and balances. Humans far too often acted with no discernible rationality whatsoever.

  And as much as Caitlin tried to hold herself apart from human drama, she currently seemed to be caught in a nasty, sticky web of it.

  Almost frantic now, Caitlin tore open the bag of clothes she’d bought from one of the tourist traps near the hospital, grabbing the first things that came to hand. She didn’t really care what she looked like. In fact, she actively hoped she looked like hell.

  The last thing she wanted to attract was any sort of male attention. She’d had enough of that over the past year to last several lifetimes.

  JACK pocketed his phone before climbing from his car and staring at the house in front of him. The front façade featured red, white and blue… buntings, he thought they were called, draped from the porch railings. A decorative wreath hung on the door. The two story brick residence looked very festive and very domestic.

  Jack shook his head. Those were two adjectives that he wouldn’t have ever thought of associating with his brother, Jesse. But he guessed that’s what marriage would do to a man.

  All the more reason to avoid it as long as possible.

  Not that Jack was against the institution. He’d been raised by parents who loved each other and their five boys, and family was extremely important to him. But he was in no rush to take on the responsibility of either a wife or children.

  For one thing, he couldn’t imagine when he would find the time.

  The sound of male laughter drifted from the back yard, along with the smell of cooking meat. At least that much hadn’t changed. Jack followed both around the side of the house, stopping when he encountered a new fence. A new picket fence. Painted white. He practically expected Ward Cleaver to wave at him from the other side.

  “It’s called a latch,” said a droll voice. “If you lift it, the gate will open.”

  Rather than the Beav’s dad, Jack found himself looking into the amused blue eyes of his younger brother, Jordan. Not surprisingly, Jordan was sprawled in a lawn chair on the other side of the fence, drinking beer from a bottle.

  “Jesse has a picket fence. You don’t find this alarming?”

  “Why do you think I’m drinking?”

  “Because it’s a family barbeque. It’s what we do.”

  Jordan lifted his beer in acknowledgement. “There is that. And thank God Mom didn’t object to Jesse putting bourbon in the barbeque sauce. It just wouldn’t have been the same.”

  “Why would she have… never mind,” Jack said, realizing what Jordan was getting at. Jesse’s wife, Jillian was pregnant. And being their first baby – and more importantly to his mother’s mind, her first grandchild – she’d gone round the bend as far as promoting an environment conducive to fetal health. Jesse had to come to Jack’s house to smoke cigars, lest their mom smell the presence of one at Jesse’s. She’d probably lock him in a cellar until the baby was born.

  Jack lifted the latch, being sure to close the gate behind him. Along with the wife and the house and the fence, Jesse had also acquired a dog. An embarrassing little excuse for a dog that had belonged to Jillian’s former neighbor. When the woman passed away recently, none of her relatives wanted the animal. Jillian stepped in before it could be sent to the shelter.

  “Why are you all the way over here?” Jack wanted to know.

  “Dad was talking about his new juicer again.”

  “Shit,” Jack said with feeling. “He didn’t bring it with him, did he? Last time I was there he tried to get me to drink spinach.”

  “And the absurd thing is that he doesn’t give a crap about eating healthy,” Jordan added. “He just likes gadgets. And torturing us.”

  “He’ll grow bored soon enough,” Jack said, hoping it was true. “In the meantime, I’m going to tell him that the only plants I’m willing to drink are the fermented and distilled variety.”

  “The beer is in that big silver tub thing on the patio,” Jordan said helpfully.

  Jack started to head that direction, and then looked over his shoulder. “And where’s the whiskey?”

  Jordan appeared bewildered. “I don’t know. Ask Jesse.”

  Jack looked at him over the top of his sunglasses.

  “I think he used it all in the sauce. Fine,” Jordan grumbled when Jack only continued to stare. The whiskey Jack was referring to was a twenty-one year old single barrel that they only broke out on special occasions, and was not something that Jesse would waste by dumping it in barbeque s
auce. It was, however, nearing the end of the bottle. As it was Jordan’s turn to buy the next one, he’d been attempting to nurse it.

  “It’s behind the framed photo of you and Jesse in your high school football uniforms that’s in his office,” Jordan admitted.

  “That’s kind of passive aggressive. Still regretting that you decided to play baseball?”

  “Hey, I helped pitch my team to the state championship. Baseball got me a scholarship.”

  “To a state school, the inferiority of which is the only reason I can discern that you waste your law degree slaving away for the man.”

  Jordan flipped him off.

  “Is that behavior becoming of a public servant, Mr. Assistant District Attorney?”

  Jack ignored his brother’s comments regarding exactly where Jack could shove the whiskey bottle, heading toward the small cluster of female backyard inhabitants, because he knew what was good for him.

  Three women occupied cushioned chairs beneath a striped patio umbrella. He first offered his attention to his mother, Addison, dropping a kiss on her cheek, and then did the same for his very pretty, very pregnant sister-in-law. “Jillian. I suppose everyone has already told you that you’re glowing.” And she was. With her pink sundress, her reddish blonde hair piled on top of her head and her fair skin flushed with health, she looked like a strawberry confection. “Of course, they’re probably a little afraid to say anything else, since you’re the approximate size of the Hindenburg.”

  “Jack!” his mother hissed in horrified tones, but Jillian merely lifted an eyebrow.

  “And much like the Hindenburg, you’re full of hot air.”

  Jack grinned. He fully approved of his brother’s choice of a wife. She wasn’t some wan, shrinking violet, and gave as good as she got.

  For some reason the image of his new client flashed into his mind, but he shoved it back out. This was family time.