The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  Mustering every bit of will that she had left, Casey lifted her head and looked toward the bathroom window.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE hand on her shoulder gently shook Tate into waking.

  Webs of confusion clouded her brain, making it difficult to get her bearings. Something told her to just slip back into unconsciousness and let it all fade away.

  But something even stronger drew her forward. Some reason that she needed to be up and functioning.

  “Max.” She sat up suddenly, rubbed the grit from her swollen eyes. Oh God, her baby was missing, and she’d actually allowed herself to sleep.

  When she opened her eyes her uncle was there. The look on his face made hope bloom, then just as quickly shrivel up and die. He knew something, and she didn’t think it was good.

  “Max?” she said again, fear turning his name into a question.

  Patrick Murphy laid an awkward hand on his niece’s arm. “They found him,” he said, and Tate’s heart turned over in her chest. “Your, uh… friend, Agent Copeland, Clay…he, um, did whatever it is that he does and they figured out where to find Max. It’s pretty amazing, really, when you think about it.”

  “Uncle Patrick,” Tate’s voice was tremulous, as she laid her own hand over his. “Is Max…”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say it. She simply couldn’t put Max and dead into the same sentence without imploding.

  Patrick’s eyes widened and he blew out a nervous burst of air. “Oh no, honey. Lord, I’m so sorry. I should have just come right out and said it. Max is alive, Tate. They’re sure that he’s alive. But the problem is that the man who took him is holding him hostage.”

  Oh, the joy. The joy that crashed into her took her breath. If her baby wasn’t dead then there was hope. Tears of relief streaked down her face. She’d been so afraid of what her uncle would say.

  “Okay.” She used the heel of her hand to dry her cheeks. The rush of relief gave way to worry. “And so he wants what… money?” Like she had big piles of it lying around. She wondered if someone had taken Max by mistake. But then her frazzled mind processed some of what Patrick said. “I thought Kathleen said that he’d been abducted by an old woman.”

  Patrick sighed, admitting his own confusion. “Apparently it was a man in disguise. Your boyfriend could probably explain the whole thing better, but the woman who called – Agent O’Connell – said that Clay thinks you might know the man.” He pulled the composite from his shirt pocket. “She asked me to show you this.”

  Tate took the paper, unrolling it quickly, beside herself that someone she knew would have done something this… unthinkable. But as she looked at the composite – noticing it was almost certainly Josh Harding’s work – she tried to reconcile the image of the light-haired, light-eyed man with someone she should recognize. After several tense moments, she admitted she couldn’t do it.

  “I don’t know him,” she told her uncle, wondering if that was good or bad. “Should I know him?” She looked at the composite again. “I mean if this man took Max, and I’m supposed to know why…” She shook her head, because that made no kind of sense. “Can I borrow your cell phone?”

  She needed to call Clay, to understand what was happening. But then she looked out the window, out at the pure cerulean of the sky. The sky under which a man she didn’t recognize was holding her son hostage. “On second thought,” she threw back the covers and climbed shakily from the bed, “I think that maybe I’d better borrow your car.”

  “HEY.” Clay answered his phone almost casually, but Tate could hear the tremor in his voice. It made her own nerves fray even further. “I’m sorry we had to wake you up.”

  Working against the clog in her throat, Tate made a noise of despair. “Don’t be,” she said fiercely. If I’d held it together better, Justin wouldn’t have had to give me that sedative, and I wouldn’t have been sleeping at all. Sleeping, when Max needs me.” Her breath caught on a sob. “What kind of mother am I?”

  “You can’t be beating yourself up about that, Tate. And we’ll talk about that later. I guess your uncle and your cousin struck out, or else you wouldn’t be calling. Did you, uh, have a chance to look at that composite?”

  “I did. Oh, Clay, you think that this is the man who has Max?”

  “We’re pretty certain.” He cleared his throat, and his voice emerged stronger. “You don’t recognize him, sugar? He’s not someone you know?”

  In her uncle’s car, Tate used her free hand to hold the composite against the steering wheel as she drove. He was handsome, blond… and totally didn’t ring any bells.

  “Not that I can recall,” she told Clay, raising her eyes to gage her distance from the car in front of her. The last thing she needed was to rear-end somebody and have yet another delay keeping her from her son. “Should I know him, Clay? Did you have some reason to think I would?”

  “Behaviorally speaking, it makes sense.” He hesitated, and Tate knew that what was coming would be bad. Her stomach clenched. Max.

  Her baby.

  “I’m not sure how much your uncle or cousin was able to tell you, but we believe this man is the perp we’ve been looking for. His partner is the one who abducted Casey.”

  “No.” Heart leaping like a wild thing, Tate almost sideswiped the next car. The man driving laid his hand on the horn, sending her a dirty look that she was blind to.

  “Tate? Where are you?”

  “I’m driving,” she admitted, trying to keep her shaky hands on the wheel. “I’m on my way to Bentonville.”

  “No. No. Sweetheart, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “What do you mean it’s not a good idea?” And the words were pure anger. All the helpless rage she was feeling boiled up to spill over Clay. “You just told me that some perverted child molester has my son, and you’re telling me to… what? Go home and wait? Do nothing while he violates my b-baby?”

  Her voice broke. She couldn’t help it. “This is like… my worst nightmare come to life.”

  “Believe me, I know. It’s unthinkable for any parent, but given what you experienced as a child…”

  His words trailed off, and Tate couldn’t stand it. She shoved the images from all those years ago out of her head.

  “Tate.” The renewed energy in Clay’s voice cut through her misery. “I know this is unbelievably difficult, but I need you to listen to me for a moment. Can you think of any reason, any reason at all, for the man in that composite to know what happened to you at camp?”

  “What? Why would he? And what does that have to do with Max? Why did that man take Max?”

  “I don’t have time to go into the full psychological explanation, but I believe he’s seeking revenge on everyone he construes as having screwed things up for him. You saw his partner with Casey, you started this whole ball rolling, so to speak, and he decided to make you pay. However, the means he used – abducting Max – and the risks he took to go about it, suggest some kind of more personal connection to you. It’s too out of character for him to take those risks for this to be just some passing irritation. He… despises you, wants to punish you in the worst possible way. I believe he knows you, and has some knowledge of the summer you saw the camp director molesting that boy.”

  Tate blinked, thinking that was absurd. How could anyone she knew be capable of this? “It’s not something I go around discussing.”

  “Then could it be someone who had a personal connection to what happened? I’m assuming the camp director went to prison. Did he have a son? Or how about the boy you saw with him?”

  Tate blew out a frustrated puff of air. “Donald Logan wasn’t married and didn’t have any children as far as I know. And the boy he molested… his name was Timothy Russell. But surely you don’t think it could be him. Why on earth would he hate me for putting a stop to what was happening?” She nearly missed the exit to Bentonville, and jerked the steering wheel to the right.

  “The psychology that goes along with
child abuse – particularly sexual abuse – is complicated stuff. The abuser can twist the situation until the child believes that what has been done is an act of love. But because the child knows that it’s inherently wrong, his confliction over the situation results in a whole stockpile of anger just looking for a suitable outlet. If the victim isn’t counseled, they might misplace their anger by turning into abusers themselves.”

  “So you think that this man might be one of the boys Logan abused, he turned to a life of crime, and somehow found out that I had been the one to see his accomplice? And he remembered me?” She laughed, completely without mirth. “I don’t mean to question that you know what you’re doing, but that just seems so far-fetched.”

  “Truth’s stranger than fiction, sugar. Can you think of anyone, anyone at all, who might fit the bill? The more I know about the man inside that house with Max, the better chance I have of knowing what needs to be done to get Max out.”

  Tate looked at the composite again, wondering how she was supposed to recognize anyone after all these years. And how did they even know for sure that this was what he really looked like? Her uncle had said that this man used disguises. That he had in fact checked into the Inn, dressed like an old lady. Tate shuddered, thinking about the fact that she’d been so close, and hadn’t even realized. She’d felt so bad when Mrs. Walker spilled the tea on her hand…

  “Oh my God.” Her stomach turned, and she studied the drawing closely, pulling off to the side of the road to give it her full attention. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as she slammed the car into park.

  The eyes, she thought. Something about the set of the mouth…

  “What is it? You remember something?”

  Tate’s hand shook as she straightened out the paper. “I could be wrong,” she said, heart sinking at the possibility. “But there’s a chance this could be Lifeguard John.”

  KIM was on the phone with one of the Bureau’s information specialists, who was turning up everything they could possibly get on Jonathan Robert Walker.

  Clay had no doubt that was the man inside with Max. The pieces of the puzzle fit.

  From what he could piece together, Clay determined that Walker was probably a classic case of a neglected child falling victim to an opportunistic child molester – in this case a revered camp director who worked with several churches to create a program for underprivileged youth. In reality, a pool of needy, vulnerable children for him to systematically abuse. At Donald Logan’s trial, it had been determined that the man had been molesting boys from the church program for years.

  From the information he’d been able to glean from Tate, Clay determined that Walker had started out attending the camp around the age of ten, and had returned every summer thereafter, eventually moving into a position of counselor by the time he reached his late teens. That was several long years during which his abuser twisted their relationship into something that approximated caring. To a child who probably had virtually no adult attention or interest in his life, that relationship – however wrong – became a critical part of his identity.

  When Tate witnessed Logan molesting Timothy Russell, a major thread of Walker’s sense of self began to unravel. When Logan was convicted and sent to prison – publically accused and punished for his criminal behavior – it forced Walker to face that what had happened between them was wrong. Psychologically, however, he couldn’t handle it. So instead of feeling anger toward the perpetrator of the crimes committed against him, he embarked on a life of using the repeated and systematic abuse of others in the most clinical way possible – as a means of gaining wealth. It both gave him an outlet for his abnormal and aggressive sexual tendencies, and yet at the same time allowed him to believe that he was firmly in control of them.

  Until another thread began to unravel.

  Almost a decade ago, Logan was murdered in prison.

  Then just last year, another thread.

  His accomplice – and though they didn’t yet have positive identification, Clay felt certain that the other man was either a friend or relative from those early days, possibly someone who’d shared similar abuse – had begun a series of mistakes which led them to flee Atlanta and take up their business in Charleston. Where, ironically enough, they’d run into Tate. Who’d driven a significant nail into their business coffin by witnessing Casey Rodriguez talking to her abductor. By drawing in himself, and the FBI.

  By completely unraveling Walker’s life.

  Hence, he’d gone after Tate in the worst way imaginable – by abducting her son.

  And Clay had no doubt now that the man had intended to take Max out of here alive, because in his mind – even if Tate had no idea what was happening – he would be hurting her every time he abused Max. Killing Max would have been too simple, not fitting enough punishment for what he saw as her crime. By taking Max and forcing him into the same kind of twisted relationship he himself had had with Logan, he was both punishing Tate and creating a new sense of purpose for himself. And in some ways, attempting to justify his feelings for Logan.

  But now, with his latest plan being thwarted after he’d gone through so much trouble to set it into motion, Clay strongly suspected that Jonathan Walker was going to come unglued. He felt there was very little chance of them using negotiation to talk the man down.

  He was not going to let Max out of there alive.

  Realizing this, feeling sure of his conclusion, Clay trotted over to the van near which Agent Beall was standing. Heart racing, he stepped into the other man’s line of sight. “He’s not going to negotiate,” he told him baldly. “We’re wasting our breath trying to get him to talk.”

  Beall looked him up and down. “Thanks for that newsflash.” Then he turned to study some information the computer had spit out.

  Clay grabbed the older agent’s arm. “Look, what I mean to say is that he will not let Max go. He will not be talked down. The longer we wait, the more time it gives him to hatch whatever plan he’s in there hatching. He’s going to… kill Max, and look for a means of ending this on his own terms.”

  Beall squinted as he digested that opinion. “You think he’s suicidal?”

  “No,” Clay disagreed. “I don’t. But I do feel that if that were the only option left available to him in order to stay on top of the situation, he would take it. My guess is that given no other choice, he’d choose death over going to prison. And he’d be sure to take Max with him.”

  “So what are you suggesting we do?”

  Clay took a deep breath, and just said it. “I know how this is going to sound, but I need to go in there.” Beall started making negative noises, but Clay talked over him and forged ahead. “I know about his background, and I have a personal connection to Max. I’m also Max’s mother’s lover. He has a need to wreak vengeance on her, and if he has me, there’s a real chance that I can provide at least enough of a distraction that one of the snipers can move in and take him out.”

  Disbelief radiated. “I’m pretty sure I’ve already given you the answer to that proposition, Agent Copeland. Look, I can appreciate what you’re going through –”

  “No,” Clay said. “You really can’t.”

  “But,” it was Beall’s turn to bulldoze Clay. “This is precisely why you shouldn’t be part of this. Your judgment simply cannot be trusted.”

  “What other choice do we have?” Clay shouted, in a rare display of losing his cool. “Just sit out here and wait for him to kill him?”

  “I’m not,” Beall said evenly “going to give the okay for allowing a federal agent to sign his own death warrant.”

  “Better me than that little boy! How is it going to look, sir, when they show Max’s body being carried out of that house in a black bag, right alongside your face on the five o’clock news?” Clay gestured toward the news vans which were being held back at the end of the driveway. “You know how that’s going to play? A whole hell of a lot worse than an agent being killed in the line of duty.”

  Cl
ay could tell that he’d struck a chord with the older man, and lowering his voice, stepped closer. “I’ll make it look like I didn’t have your approval. I’ll stomp off right now, you can climb into the van, and when your back’s turned I’ll approach the house. You can make all kinds of angry noises and no one will be the wiser. It will help make the situation tenable for you, and may even play well with our HT. If he believes I’m that desperate,” which he was, truth be told. Totally desperate. “It will add to his feeling of control. Come on, sir.” Emotion stripped Clay’s voice bare enough to break. “What do you have to lose?”

  Beall’s eyes narrowed as they assessed Clay’s, and he gave a brief nod before moving back. “The answer is still no, Agent Copeland.” He said it loud enough for others to hear. “Now don’t come to me with this nonsense again.”

  Beall struck off toward the back of the van, and Clay hung his head, defeated.

  Then affixing an angry mask to his face, tried not to smile as he stormed off.

  JR emerged from the tunnel’s back entrance at the edge of the field. Sapling pines and saw palmettos grew thick, affording cover as he crept out. Moving closer, on hands and knees, toward the tree line that meant salvation, he pulled out his binoculars and studied the scene.

  Cops and federal agents were scurrying about like rats in a lab, and as he shifted the field glasses higher he picked out one, two…three snipers positioned in trees near the house, waiting for him to actually be dumb enough to pass in front of one of the windows. Or perhaps step out onto the porch to offer them all some iced tea.

  Scanning toward the driveway, he saw several news crews gathered like vultures, waiting for some flesh to pluck.

  Ha! Weren’t they going to be happy when that damn house blew all to hell?

  JR lifted his head briefly, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth as he considered a slight problem. How could he be sure that one of the pigs actually fired off a shot toward the house?

  Damn. Why hadn’t he considered that before? He would have, if he hadn’t been penned in, the surprise of it all making him sloppy. How the hell had they found him so quickly, anyway? Was it that damn pretty boy he’d shot? He probably should have gone outside and given him an insurance tap to the head, but the guy had looked like a goner.