“Of course,” she repeated, and reached out to take the phone. But she resisted sitting. “I think I need some fresh air.”
Caitlin studied her with concern. “Let me grab my purse. We can wait outside.”
“You should stay here,” Connie insisted.
“Don’t be silly. I’ll just send Jack a quick text to let him know where I am and… shoot.” She looked at her phone. “It’s dead. And I don’t have his number memorized, so I can’t use yours.” She considered waiting a few more minutes, but then Connie literally swayed on her feet. Caitlin shouldered her purse, and wrapped her arm around her friend’s waist. She really did look like she was about to fall over. “Come on,” she said gently. “Let’s go get some air.”
“I’M not entirely up to speed regarding everything that’s happened,” Elise said as they left the interview room and made their way along the hall. “But something tells me that wasn’t good news.”
“Depends on how you look at it,” Jack said. Despite a few discrepancies for which he still didn’t have an answer, the plot was not only starting to thicken, it seemed damn well about to congeal. “I need to talk to Caitlin,” he said.
“You are not her favorite person right now. You want me to do it?”
“Do I look like a guy who’s going to send a canary into the coal mine?”
“Guys who don’t send canaries tend to end up dead. Just sayin’.”
“I’ll take my chances. But I would appreciate it if you would hang around for a few more minutes, in case we need to talk to the detectives again.”
“You got it. I’m going to step out front, make a few phone calls. Just shoot me a text afterward. If you’re still breathing.”
“You know, Detective Clark may have had a point.”
Elise smiled sweetly, which was of course her version of telling him to fuck off.
She strode toward the front door, and Jack watched several men watch her go. She was beautiful, but he thought it had more to do with the attitude of supreme confidence she projected than the actual arrangement of her features. She didn’t just kick ass and take names, she kicked ass and subsumed the very fiber of her opponent’s being.
No wonder Clark felt threatened. He’d finally met a female he couldn’t charm.
And speaking of un-charmable females, Jack looked around the waiting room for Caitlin. She was nowhere in sight. He moved in the direction of the restrooms, and asked a woman coming out the door if there was a blonde female inside.
“No,” she said, looking at him like he might be shopping for his next victim, and was looking for a sale on blondes. When she moved off, glancing over her shoulder suspiciously, Jack approached the front desk.
“Excuse me. Have you seen a blonde female, about five foot six? She was waiting out here after giving a witness statement.”
The woman manning the desk pursed her lips. “I don’t think so.”
“She was sitting on that bench back there,” said an officer who walked up, dropping a folder on the desk. “But I think she left.”
“Left?” Jack said, his heart delivering a single, hard punch to his ribcage.
“Yeah. Some dark haired woman came in and then they walked out together. The dark haired one looked sick.”
And so was Jack at the moment. “Thank you.”
Without further hesitation, he headed toward the door.
THEY walked down the block. Caitlin texted Lance from Connie’s phone and told him to forget about finding a parking space near the police station. He could meet them at the restaurant on the next corner. Caitlin discovered that Connie hadn’t yet eaten any lunch, which, even though she was experiencing more frequent and debilitating morning sickness, wasn’t a good idea.
“I’m fine,” Connie insisted, glancing around. “You should really get back to the police station. Jack will wonder what happened to you.”
“I told Lance to text him since he has his number. You need food immediately. He and Elise can come join us at the restaurant.”
“Honestly Caitlin, this isn’t necessary. And I really don’t feel good about leaving without waiting for Jack.”
“Look right in front of us,” she said in a low tone. “What do you see?”
“Cops.”
“That’s right. Two of them. And there’s a cop car parked right over there. The restaurant we’re going to is pretty much cop central. Trust me, after the events of the past few days I wouldn’t be walking anywhere if I didn’t think we’d be safe.”
They stopped at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. The afternoon sun turned the humid air into a steam bath, and Caitlin noticed a bead of sweat dripping down Connie’s cheek. “I’m sorry. I should have had Lance pick us up. I thought maybe the walk would help you.”
“What?”
“You’re sweating,” Caitlin said, glancing at the horse-drawn carriage that clopped past, the two women seated inside fanning themselves with their brochures. She guessed this was part of their regular tour route, since she kept seeing the carriages. “And to think this is only June,” she continued. “I’m going to be ready to retreat to the mountains come August. Maybe we can rent a cabin, like my parents did that one time. Remember how Lance and Peyton got into some poison ivy, and were covered in calamine lotion for days? Oh, that reminds me. Peyton wants you to call him. Light’s green.”
Caitlin started across the street but after a couple steps, realized Connie wasn’t with her.
“Connie?” she said as she turned around. Her friend’s face was like chalk. She hurried back over. “My God, honey. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll tell Lance to come pick us up.”
“You talked to Peyton?”
“Yes, he called your phone. He’s been trying to get hold of you apparently. I explained that someone stole it but it was turned in.” She frowned. “Connie, is everything okay? Did Peyton do something? He didn’t hit you up for money, did he?”
“No.” Connie shook her head, sending another bead of sweat flying. She really didn’t look well at all. “No. Nothing. I don’t know what he wants. Did you tell him where you were?”
“I told him I was at the police station. But he already knew about… about Harold Cox. Someone at home told him. I guess Harold’s relatives said something. Though God only knows what they’re saying.”
Caitlin wanted to sigh, because she hadn’t even thought about that. The gossip in her hometown. Although if Peyton said Harold tried to rape her, which had to be accurate, then maybe the story hadn’t blown entirely out of proportion.
“But I should call him,” Connie continued in that odd voice. “And you should really go back to the police station. Find Jack. Stay with him.”
“Connie,” Caitlin said slowly, moving out of the way of a couple of pedestrians as they walked past. She guided Connie to a nearby bench positioned in the shade of a palmetto tree. “What’s going on? You’re starting to worry me.”
“Nothing. Nothing.” She repeated, her tone strident. “I just need to call Peyton back, and I can’t always be responsible for your safety. You shouldn’t even be out on the street like this. Jesus, Caitlin, you were attacked in broad daylight once already. And I don’t care what Jack did to annoy you, he shot someone for you last night. Do you have any idea the personal risk he took? The concern he must have for you to be willing to kill another human being? Do you?”
Several people looked toward them as Connie’s voice rose in volume, and one woman holding the hand of a small girl actually crossed the street. If the two cops who’d been in front of them hadn’t already moved on, Caitlin thought they probably would have been asking if there was a problem.
And Caitlin wondered the same thing. Connie hadn’t been acting right for days, and Caitlin attributed it to the stress of the situation, coupled with her pregnancy. But her heart seemed to climb into her throat as another possibility presented itself, like when you picked a Scrabble letter from the box and all of the other letters you had, formed a word you
hadn’t even considered.
“Connie.” She had no idea even where to start. “I do appreciate the risk that Jack took. And am thankful it didn’t come to him actually having to kill that man.” Feeling at a loss for words, a rarity for her, she groped around for the best way to phrase this. “Did you –”
But the question died in her throat as Connie’s phone rang, and her friend reacted to it like a live snake.
Caitlin glanced at Connie’s purse. And then met her best friend’s eyes. “I think you’d better answer.”
JACK looked around the immediate vicinity of the police station, but spotted neither Caitlin nor Connie. He pulled out his phone.
When Caitlin’s voicemail picked up without even a ring, he hung up and tried again. Same outcome.
“Damn it!”
Switching gears, he called Lance Cavanaugh.
“Jack,” he said by way of greeting. “Looks like Caitlin and Connie aren’t here yet, but I asked for a table for four. Will you be able to join us?”
Jack’s brows drew together. “Join you where?”
“Ah, lunch.” He gave him the name of a restaurant a block over.
“I just tried to call Caitlin and it went straight to voice mail. She’s with you?”
“No, she texted me about five minutes ago from Connie’s phone to say that Connie didn’t feel well and she thought she needed to eat. They’re going to meet me here. And crap, I just saw that she sent a second text asking me to let you know. Sorry about that.”
Jack could actually feel his temper spike, even as he headed in that direction. “Walking?”
Lance waited a beat. “Yeah. And before you say anything, I called after I got that text and she told me that they were already halfway there, and there were cops all over the place since it’s so close to the station.”
“And last night she was just going to the ice machine in her hotel, where no one was supposed to know where she was staying. But someone did know.”
This time Lance’s pause was significantly longer. “You said you thought someone followed us. Or you.”
“Which at the time was a logical suggestion. But now I’m wondering if it isn’t even simpler than that.”
“What could be simpler?”
“Hearing it from the horse’s mouth.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You had Connie’s phone delivered to the hotel, right?”
“The previous hotel,” Lance said immediately. “And the only person I talked to was my secretary. She doesn’t even know what’s going on, only that I’m in Savannah visiting Caitlin. Aside from the courier service I used – which I’ve used extensively before and trust their confidentiality – she wouldn’t have told anyone else. Certainly not some random person who called to ask, or Lydia Fasteland, for Chrissake.”
“What about other people in your office?” Jack walked around a couple who were leisurely holding hands and discussing where they should eat for dinner. “I’ll take your silence as an answer.”
The other man’s voice shook when he finally responded. “You can’t think that someone from my company, the company our parents founded, would want to hurt my sister.”
“There are whole lots of reasons why people do things, and in my line of work I’ve heard most of them. Hang on,” he said as he approached the intersection. “I think I see them sitting on a bench. I’ll call you back.”
“NO,” Connie said. “No.” she added a headshake to reaffirm her statement. “Not here. Not now. I want you to go back to the police station. Now. Wait for Jack to drive you and do not leave his side. I’ll go on to the restaurant.”
“Connie –”
“Do it!”
The hitch in her voice alerted Caitlin to the fact that Connie was approaching hysterics. They’d been friends too long – all their lives – for her to not recognize the signs.
“Whatever happened,” Caitlin said in a rush, before Connie could start talking over her again. “It’s going to be okay. We just need to –”
“No. No. There is no we here. You are going back to the police station.” She stood up, grabbing Caitlin’s arm. “Now. Go!”
“You’re hurting my arm. Connie, stop,” she hissed, because they were really beginning to attract attention. Caitlin glanced up, and over Connie’s shoulder saw Jack striding toward them. Her heart simultaneously rose and sank.
“Connie, Jack’s here,” she said, hoping that would help calm her. But Connie seemed to be in the grip of some sort of blind panic, and started pulling on Caitlin.
And then the shot rang out.
JACK froze, the normal reaction to hearing a loud bang in the middle of the afternoon on a busy Savannah street.
But when the sound registered, he started running toward Caitlin. “Get down!”
She was already falling to the ground, however, and he was faced with the horrible possibility that she’d been hit.
“Caitlin!” he yelled, fighting his way past the people who were screaming and running away. “Jesus, no.” Blood began to pool on the ground beneath her.
“Connie, it’s Connie,” she said when he was practically on top of her, and Jack realized it was her friend who was bleeding. Caitlin had simply gone down with her when she’d fallen, since they’d been essentially attached. “Help, help her, Jack. Please.”
“We need cover.” There was a service courtyard beside them, surrounded by a brick wall. “Get behind that.”
“I can’t leave her.”
“I’ve got her. Caitlin,” he snapped when she didn’t move. “I’ve got her. You go before the shooter makes another attempt.”
Her eyes cleared and she nodded, ducking low as she made a dash for the shelter provided by the wall. “Jack. Hurry.”
Taking just a moment to make sure no one was standing on the corner with him in their sights, Jack slid his arms beneath Connie. She moaned.
“I’m sorry,” he said, scooping her against him. “I have to move you somewhere safe.” He looked to see where she’d been shot. The blood seemed to be coming from her left side.
She murmured something, but Jack didn’t hear her, as the noise along the street was almost deafening now, with people yelling and several horns honking, and then the wail of sirens.
He made himself as small a target as possible, moving quickly toward the wall behind which Caitlin had disappeared a few seconds ago.
Connie murmured again, and this time he understood her. “Baby,” she said. “Baby.”
“The baby is going to be just fine,” Caitlin said as he knelt down. She briefly met his gaze, and Jack read the horror in her eyes. Connie was pregnant. And she’d been shot in the abdomen.
“Put her head in your lap for a second,” Jack said, laying her down on the broken pavement. “I’m going to have a look. I’m sorry,” he addressed Connie as he rolled her slightly onto her right side, lifting up her shirt. “I’m going to try not to hurt you.”
The blood was so fresh that the shirt wasn’t sticking yet, though Jack was extra gentle anyway. What he saw made him blow out a breath. “It’s a through and through, so at least the bullet isn’t still in there.”
“Freeze! Hands in the air!”
Jack lifted his bloody hands in response to the commands coming from behind him.
“Three unarmed civilians here, officer,” he said as he looked over his shoulder. He hadn’t brought his gun with him into the police station, for obvious reasons, and therefore wasn’t carrying now. “One of whom is a pregnant female with a gunshot wound to the lower left abdomen. If you could call for medical assistance, we’d appreciate it.”
“Shit,” said the cop, who was obviously responding to the shooting. “Jefferson!” he called out to a second officer who came around the corner, weapon drawn. “Tell the paramedics we got a GSW on a pregnant female. You happen to see where the shot came from?” he asked Jack. “We’ve got conflicting reports from people.”
“My best guess is the parking garage directly
across the street. But I can do you one better. I might be able to give you a description of the shooter.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CAITLIN stood in front of the vending machine, trying to remember why she’d come down here. Coffee?
She’d already consumed what felt like a gallon. Maybe a little food to soak some of it up. Crackers or something.
Although that seemed right, she continued to simply stand, staring at the assortment of cellophane-wrapped crap that they probably shouldn’t be serving in a hospital. People here were already sick enough.
The noise behind her caused her to turn around, her hand immediately going to the new can of pepper spray she’d bought, since she wasn’t going anyplace empty handed. She would have brought a gun if she’d owned one and thought she could get it past hospital security.
And would gladly use it if she encountered the person responsible for putting Connie in the position of fighting for her life.
But instead it was Jack, backlit from the brighter light in the hallway. The cafeteria was closed, so the vending area in front of it was half in shadows.
“I’m surprised to find you here,” Jack said.
“I’m not going to avoid vending machines for the rest of my life. Or street corners. Or my own damn bedroom.”
He waited a beat. “I don’t believe that anyone said you should.”
“But I had to psych myself up to come down here. And if Lance wasn’t out of his mind with worry over Connie, he probably would have tried to stop me. As it is, I located a security guard and played dumb about my ability to follow basic directions so that he would escort me down here.”
“That was smart. And I should mention that he’s still standing just down the hall. The security staff was all alerted to keep an eye out.”
“So he knew who I was before I played dumb?”
Jack pursed his lips. “Possibly.”
“Great. I feel ridiculous. And I can’t go anywhere without feeling like a moving target.” She jabbed a finger into her chest. “I’m wearing a bullet proof vest!”
“Which shows that detectives Clark and Donaldson are doing their jobs, and taking the threat to your life seriously.”
The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set Page 87