The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  There were simply too many repercussions.

  “It’s nothing dramatic,” she warned, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Just your typical love-struck girl falls for ego-centric guy who dumps her the moment he finds out she’s pregnant.”

  “You don’t have to say any more if you don’t want to.”

  But Tate suddenly felt the need to get it out. “Final semester of my senior year in college, I did an internship at the Regency in Atlanta. I was a glorified gopher, but I loved it.” Had loved it more, she recalled, for a certain recurring guest. “Anyway… there’s a spa there that’s absolutely to die for, and some of the suites offer complementary services with return visits, which is a really nice lure for drawing people back. I was working the spa rotation – helping at the desk – when I first met Max’s dad.”

  “One of those repeat guests?”

  “Um-hmm,” she agreed. “He was a sales rep, traveled a lot. And as you can probably guess, he was gorgeous and charming. I was naïve and smitten – young and stupid enough to mistake sophistication for class. As you said, long story short, we had a raging affair that ended in condom failure. When he found out I was pregnant, he…” she swallowed, lingering shame rising like bile in her throat. “Well, that’s when he suddenly remembered that he was married. Separated, but legally married, with no interest in complicating the situation with a child. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Not a very original punch line.”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  Tate couldn’t help but smile at his quick assessment. “I’m inclined to agree. He’s the kind of man who puts his interests above all others, just recklessly crashing through life not really caring what he might break. But if he hadn’t been an asshole, I wouldn’t have my son.”

  AND suddenly, Clay felt like an asshole, because he realized that on some level, he was no better than Max’s dad. Of course, no way in hell would he ever cheat on his wife, nor would he abandon Tate if she were pregnant. However, he was putting his own interests first, because Tate had given him some very valid reasons as to why she couldn’t take their acquaintanceship to an intimate level.

  And here he was, disregarding that, trying to find a way to finagle himself into Tate’s bed.

  Shit.

  He’d already been through all that this morning. He had nothing to offer this woman other than a temporary good time. A long distance relationship was impractical if not impossible, and did he really want to put either of them through that?

  God. Was he actually considering a relationship?

  This was further proof that he’d blown some kind of gasket.

  Relationships were difficult, even under the best of circumstances, and trying to maintain one in the face of both his demanding career and the hundreds of miles between them was nothing short of crazy. He should shuttle this woman back home as quickly as possible, go about the business of putting her out of his mind.

  That was something he usually excelled at. Compartmentalizing was an essential part of his job. To do what he needed to do, not think about the rest. If not, he would have driven himself crazy.

  Kind of like right now.

  He had to put Tate in some kind of off-limits category, because wanting her like this was going to kill him.

  Tate was watching him, albeit surreptitiously, from under the heavy fringe of her lashes. This is the part where he should make some appropriate noises that conveyed noncommittal acknowledgement of what she’d told him.

  Of course, what he really wanted to say was “his loss, my gain.”

  But before he could say anything, Deputy Harding came skidding around the corner. He stopped short, flicked a glance at Tate, clearing his throat as he turned to Clay.

  “Sorry to interrupt your lunch. But one of the search teams has just uncovered something. We think we might have a crime scene for you to look at.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE body lay in a shallow grave, buried amidst a stand of loblolly pines just a couple of miles from the fairgrounds. A tattered, blood-spattered sneaker found nearby had caught the eye of a member of the search party, and after a brief survey of the area he’d discovered a young girl’s partially exposed hand.

  Thankfully, the man had the sense to leave the scene intact and call in the sheriff. Clay asked both the crime scene techs and the coroner to wait for his arrival to begin collecting evidence, as the way an offender left a scene revealed substantial information about his behavior. Outdoor crime scenes, particularly body dumps, were more difficult to process because both the elements and nature’s cleanup crew – insects and small predators – conspired to erase the clues left behind.

  But Clay gathered what information he could, like the fact that this must have been an unplanned attack, because the grave was inadequate. Clearly an afterthought, the girl’s final resting spot was less than twenty-four inches deep. The perp hadn’t brought along any tools to dig with, but instead had used a rock that Clay found tossed aside, and probably his hands. If he’d planned to kill the girl, he hadn’t planned to do it here.

  But Clay suspected that he hadn’t planned to kill her at all. His action had most likely been brought on by a sudden, blind rage – maybe the girl resisted him, or said something to set him off – or he’d accidentally used more force than necessary when trying to subdue her.

  Clay studied the scene, the proximity to the road, and the tread marks that suggested a heavy application of brakes.

  Escape attempt, he mused, probably while the vehicle was moving. The perp slams on the brakes, exits the car, not going to let her get away. Already caused him enough trouble, he thinks, little bitch better step in line. Maybe he hits her in the face – the blood on the sneaker – and then proceeds to pound her into submission.

  But he’d underestimated the force of his blows, and accidentally killed her.

  The crime had occurred right here.

  Clay believed that the offender panicked – killing her was not in his plan – and then sought to conceal the evidence of his misdoing. Not thinking entirely clearly, he left that sneaker above ground instead of tossing it into the grave. Then he dropped the rock, which probably wouldn’t hold any fingerprints but may have managed to snag an epithelial, right next to the gravesite.

  He’d have to wait for the autopsy to be able to say for sure, but he’d bet money the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

  The body had reached a point of decomp, aided by the rich, loamy soil beneath the pines, that made it impossible to reach a definitive hypothesis simply by doing a visual. But there were no other obvious injuries, such as a gunshot wound, that would suggest his theory was off base.

  Intuition caused the little hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. This kind of rage could be attributed to a number of things, of course. One of them being ‘roid rage.

  Like, he suspected, the man who’d killed the girl in Kim’s snuff film.

  And possibly the same man who’d taken Casey.

  Clay sighed as he looked over the remains of the young girl in the shallow grave. She was approximately early teens, light brown hair pulled into a matted ponytail. Eye color was difficult to tell – they’d turned milky due to decomposition. She’d been thin, possibly malnourished.

  Her clothes looked to have been poor quality, stained and worn before they’d been covered with dirt. There was a small knapsack in the grave alongside her, and after the crime scene techs had photographed everything in situ, Clay used a gloved hand to examine the contents of the pink bag.

  A tube of bubble-mint flavored toothpaste. A yellow Tweety-bird toothbrush. Some hair bands, a brush with rhinestones around the handle, a pair of white cotton underwear, three dollars, and a box of condoms.

  A box of condoms.

  Clay pushed his all too human reaction aside, continuing his search on autopilot. If he let emotion come into play, he’d never be able to do his job.

  Even in the shelter of the trees, the afternoon sun was unbearably hot.
The air was thicker here, the timber a natural windbreak. And death hung over this patch of earth like a sickly pall.

  A cloud of insects droned in a low buzz, drawn from their lassitude by the smell of rotting flesh. They hovered impatiently and Clay swatted at them with his hand. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck, adding to the unmistakable aroma of violent death.

  He himself was somewhat inured to the stench, as were the coroner and most of the crime scene techs. But he couldn’t help but notice that one or two of the deputies on the scene looked a little green. Bentonville – in fact the whole county – was a relatively safe jurisdiction. Murdered, rotting corpses probably didn’t turn up all that often.

  He did a quick visual to see how Deputy Loverboy was holding up, and noticed him over by the road, talking to Tate.

  Tate had insisted on coming along, rather than hanging back at the station or being dropped off at home, in case the body was Casey. Clay knew if that had indeed been the case, she would have wanted to also go to see Casey’s mother, to offer what comfort she could. She was just that kind of person.

  Guilt was going to rip her to shreds if they found Casey like this victim. Whether she should or not, Tate would wonder if she’d missed the opportunity to stop the man before he’d taken the girl from the carnival.

  If she’d paid a little bit closer attention, would she have seen him lead her away?

  If she’d been a little bit more observant, would Casey be safe in her mother’s arms?

  She didn’t have the benefit of professional dispassion, of having been inundated with so much violence and pain and misery that she could let those questions roll off her shoulders. She’d be miserable as she tried to figure out what to do with her misplaced guilt.

  Hell. Like he was one to talk.

  He’d been miserable ever since that asshole in Topeka had fired his gun.

  He needed… something to take the place of that emotion that was even now eating a hole in his gut.

  He looked toward the road again, wiping the sweat from his brow as he straightened from the knapsack. The emotion that was sweeping through him currently was probably just as detrimental to his wellbeing as that misplaced guilt.

  Deputy Harding had his hand on Tate’s arm, and she was nodding, looking relieved. He was no doubt talking to her about the fact that the body wasn’t Casey’s. The physical description was all wrong, not to mention the fact that this girl had been buried in the woods for a good bit longer than a day. Tate had been waiting, very patiently, for the past hour. Hoping that it wasn’t Casey. Fearing that it was.

  Clay could tell from the way she was standing – shoulders slumped, arms limp – that she was now feeling the punch of released tension. The body language equivalent of Thank God. She was taking this entire thing very much to heart.

  Deputy Harding moved his hand to her shoulder, then rubbed a comforting circle on her back.

  The green-eyed monster reared its ugly head as Clay removed his gloves with a practiced snap. He was just about to move in that direction when he heard his name.

  “Agent Copeland?”

  Clay turned at the sound of the coroner’s voice, looking toward where the older man was crouched as he examined the body. His bald head was covered with a fine sheen of sweat, giving it the appearance of a well-polished cue ball. He pushed his glasses up his nose, motioning abstractly to Clay.

  “There’s something I’d like you to see.”

  Right.

  Clay carefully picked his way back toward the gravesite, and with one last glance toward the roadside, refocused his attention on doing his job.

  CASEY Rodriguez stirred, trying to stretch her aching muscles. Her left arm seemed to float completely independent of her body, like a slab of flesh someone had stuck to her shoulder and forgotten to attach to her nerves. But as she shifted, pain lanced like a knife.

  “Oh-oh-oh.” She tried to jerk the limb back toward her side.

  But her arm was attached, attached to something solid. Something that bit into her skin, rubbing it raw.

  Turning her head on an achy wince, Casey blinked the arm into focus. A metal bracelet clamped her wrist, big and ugly and tight. A chain dangled from one end…

  A handcuff. She was handcuffed.

  To an old iron bed.

  Rising up, muscles screaming, head pounding, Casey scrambled away as best she could. The bed was lumpy, the springs broken down, and her feet slipped on sheets gone clammy. The air in the room sat dense and heavy, the stink of her own sweat was like something spoiled. Dim light crept sulkily through the slats of yellowed blinds, serving only to illuminate the room’s faded neglect.

  So hot, she thought, looking around. Where the heck was she?

  The clank of metal on metal had her eyes going wide, tears stinging as she looked back at the handcuffs. Panic didn’t allow her to feel the pain of rent flesh when she yanked as hard as she could.

  Gotta get away, she thought, desperately. Gotta get out.

  But the blood seeping down her arm stopped her. It welled, then rolled, dripping off her elbow to stain the ratty white sheets.

  Frightened, confused, Casey wiped at the blood which stung the burns on her forearm. The burns she’d gotten when grease had splattered from the frying funnel cakes.

  The funnel cakes.

  There’d been a man at her mother’s trailer. Smiling at her even when her mother leaned over, offered up a serving of cleavage. Smiling at her as she walked by to throw away her sister’s trash.

  Smiling at her next to the Ferris wheel…

  It was the last thing she could remember.

  “Oh, God,” Casey whispered, trembling.

  Everything her mother told her had come true. She’d flirted with that man, shamefully encouraging him, even though he was old enough to be her dad. It had to be him who had her. Who’d chained her to the bed.

  Was he going to kill her? Or merely… do things?

  Tears mingling with sweat, Casey wiped her face, considering which fate was worse. To be kept alive as some sicko’s toy, or maybe just shot through the head.

  No. Please. She really didn’t want to die. But at the thought of what that man could do if he kept her alive, she began to cry in earnest. And with sobs racking her slender body, didn’t hear the heavy footsteps on the stairs.

  When the door opened, fear turned her insides liquid.

  “Oh good,” the man said, acres of pale skin gleaming ghost-like in the dimness. “I was thinking it must be about time for you to wake up.”

  THE sun hovered just over the horizon by the time Clay drove his Four-Runner over the bridge, the pinks and oranges of impending sunset the final strokes on the day’s canvas.

  A day, he mused, that had turned singularly ugly.

  He’d tried, several times, to talk Tate into allowing one of the deputies to see her home, but the damn fool woman had insisted on waiting for him. He saw the strain of that etched in the line between her eyes, but her determination hadn’t faltered. Ridiculous as it was, he got the impression she was worried about him.

  Like he’d never seen a teenage corpse.

  And that concern, combined with the stench of senseless death and his own reservations about just what, exactly, he was doing, served to provide a fairly uncomfortable silence on the ride home.

  He could tell Tate wanted to talk. But not about her feelings regarding what happened. Uh-uh. Oh no.

  She wanted to talk about him. She’d been looking at him funny ever since he’d told her about Topeka.

  Which one of them, exactly, held the degree in this relationship?

  Relationship.

  There was that freaking word again.

  Somehow this entire thing had gone way off track.

  When had he gone from pursuing this woman with the single-minded but reasonable goal of mutual pleasure, to worrying about her being offended if he didn’t open up and spill his guts? He’d told her about what happened, game over, enough said. Being with Tate w
as supposed to be a nostrings-attached vacation from reality, and he damn well didn’t need to be bringing along a luggage cart full of baggage.

  And why the hell was she looking at him like that, all sweet and quietly supportive, when what she should have been doing was hightailing it the other way?

  He was no good for her; she deserved so much better. Better than a man who could maybe schedule a few days for her a couple of times a year.

  She’d been right. There was no way they could do this. He’d end up hurting her, and Max, and … hell, probably himself in the long run. He should make the break now, while it could still be clean and painless, and leave someone like Deputy Harding free to fill the vacancy he left behind.

  Tate needed a good man, one who’d be there to hold her at night, and though Harding was a cop – not the easiest career for a relationship – he at least had the benefit of being local.

  Shit.

  Who the hell was he kidding? He’d sooner cut off his own hands than push her toward Josh Harding. And wasn’t that just ridiculous? The desire to rip out the throat of any male who even sneezed in her direction?

  Clay tried not to glance toward Tate as they drove past the old market, stopping to allow a group of tourists clutching sweetgrass baskets to shuffle across the street. “What’s so funny?” she asked when he laughed.

  “Life,” he answered, knee-jerk. “I figure it’s better to laugh than to cry.”

  It was the completely wrong thing to say. “I didn’t mean –” he tried to backpedal, but she was already speaking over him.

  “I’ve noticed that,” she said. “You use humor as an anesthetic.”

  “Yes, well why do you think they call the stuff the dentist gives you laughing gas?”

  He pulled into the parking lot behind the B&B, and left the engine idling.

  “Do you want to come in?” Tate offered hesitantly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Grab some dinner? Talk?”

  Well, well, well. Clay cocked a brow in her direction. Just what he’d been waiting to hear all day. Because underneath all of those polite dinner and conversation noises, Tate’s body language suggested that wasn’t all she had on her mind.