The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  “Understandable.” The door shut with a click. “Has Corelli learned anything pertinent?”

  Kathleen hedged again because the truth was she’d missed the past five minutes of the interview, offering a noncommittal “hard to tell” when Miller joined her at the glass.

  In the interview room, Anthony sat across the table from Doug Johnson, one of the security contractors Sadie had hired. He was pumping him about what he may or may not have seen around Sadie’s house over the past week and a half. It was legitimate from several angles because the security guys had been present at Sadie’s at the same time as the murdered locksmith, and Anthony was leading that investigation, talking to almost everyone who’d had contact with the man on that last day. As there was no factual evidence at this point that any sort of crime had been committed with regards to Sadie and Declan, they had to be cautious about their pretense for asking the man in for questioning. Not that they suspected him of anything, but simply to cover their asses should something unexpected turn up.

  “…afraid I don’t know what else to tell ya,” Johnson was saying to Anthony now, while scratching his head in confusion. Kathleen couldn’t get a good look at his face because he was angled away from the two-way mirror, but the tone of his voice was pure good old boy sure wish I could help. “My partner might have noticed something, but we was pretty involved in the attic that day when the locksmith was in there changing locks. I wouldn’t have seen the man myself if I hadn’t gone down to the van to get a flashlight.”

  Anthony kept following that line of questioning anyway. “You said your partner – Billy Williams – is out of town today?”

  “Yes sir. He had to go see his momma down in Yemassee. She had a stroke here about a year ago and still has some difficulty gettin’ around. But I’m sure he’ll be real happy to answer any questions ya’ll got when he gets back into town. Though I don’t know how much help he’ll be. Like I said, we wasn’t around that locksmith very much.”

  Kathleen glanced down at his card, which proclaimed him to be an installation specialist with Palmetto Security, followed by the cell number at which they’d finally managed to reach him. She hoped he knew his way around an electrical box better than the English language.

  Behind the glass, Anthony had seen the opening he needed to start talking about Sadie, and didn’t hesitate to jump right in. “I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to speak with Ms. Mayhew yet,” he casually mentioned. “It seems she’s gone out of town.”

  “That’s right,” the security specialist agreed. “She’s gone off camping or something with that guy what lives next door.”

  Kathleen’s head snapped up, because that was it – that was what had been bothering her. He or his partner had told Rick last night that Sadie and Declan had gone “camping,” but the question was how did he know? Had she called him? Had he seen her and Declan leave?

  Luckily, Anthony’s thought processes tracked with hers. “She told you that she would be out of town?”

  “Well, not directly. There was an envelope taped to the door, and it held a note and a spare key that said we should just go on and finish up our business while she’s gone.” He scratched at his dark hair again and for the first time looked visibly uncomfortable. “You’re not thinkin’ that Ms. Mayhew has anything to do with that guy gettin’ killed, are you?”

  Anthony just demurred and gave the standard “not able to discuss an ongoing investigation.”

  “Oh, sure. I understand.”

  “So do you have that note?” Anthony continued. “The one Ms. Mayhew left.”

  “Uh… I don’t believe that I kept it. Might be in the trash in the kitchen back at her house.”

  Kathleen would have to go in and do some trash picking ASAP. Luckily she came and went enough that if somebody was watching the place her appearance wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

  Anthony’s questions picked up again just as her phone vibrated against her hip. Swearing silently as she checked the readout, she saw that the call was from Josh.

  “I have to take this,” she said to Miller. “It’s the forensic artist.”

  Miller nodded and Kathleen stepped into the corner, far enough away that she wouldn’t disturb the other detective. “Josh, what do you have?”

  “What I have,” her colleague answered, “is a name for our John Doe.”

  Kathleen felt her brows twitch together as she realized he was talking about their case from New Year’s Eve. “Super,” she said, although right at this moment she couldn’t care less. “But I thought you were working with the property manager over at Coastal to put a face on Matt Garner.” Which was the alias Sadie’s renter had used.

  “Exactly,” Josh agreed. “The two are one in the same.”

  “What?” And okay, maybe she’d said that a little louder than she’d intended. Miller shot her a look of annoyance mixed with curiosity but she was too busy doing mental gymnastics to be concerned. “You’re telling me that the vic we’ve had on ice after that stabbing New Year’s Eve is the man who was subletting Sadie’s house.”

  “According to the manager’s description. I was about halfway through the sketch with her when it really started to seem familiar. I got out a copy of the John Doe composite and compared the two after we’d finished, and she made a tentative ID. But she’s willing to do a visual down at the morgue, just to be sure, so she’s following me downtown as we speak. I just thought you’d like a heads up.”

  “Damn straight.” Now she really had Miller’s attention. “Look, Josh, I have to go, but keep me posted on the outcome. And thanks.” She closed her phone with an audible snap.

  “Did I just overhear what I think I did?” Miller’s gaze was fixed and narrowed.

  “If you overheard the fact that my role in this whole investigation just got real official, then yes, your ears are working.”

  “Shit.”

  Kathleen pushed away from the wall and paced back to the mirror. “Big piles of it,” she agreed unhappily. And if she had any hope of seeing her brother and Sadie alive again, they’d better get the shovels and start digging.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “SHIT.”

  Sadie grimaced and lifted her foot, because she was pretty sure that was what she’d just stepped in.

  Declan paused, his breath wheezing out in tired pants, and looked down at the malodorous pile she’d just tread on. “Deer,” he pronounced off-handedly.

  “Thank you for clearing that up. It would have ruined my day if I’d gone around thinking I’d stepped in, say, raccoon poop, by mistake.”

  The socks she’d borrowed from him were filthy and torn, no real protection any more from the elements. Not that they ever really had been, but she gave Dec credit for trying. With a sound of disgust Sadie gripped the elastic top of first one then the other between her fingers and gingerly pulled them off.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, glancing up at Declan as she bent toward the mess. “But I’ll just take my chances with bare feet.”

  He failed to comment and she looked at him harder, noted the pallor of his skin beneath exertion’s flush. Sweat plastered his shirt to the broad planes of his chest, and lines of strain bracketed his mouth like parenthetical reminders of the ordeal he’d weathered. “We should take a break,” she suggested gently. “You’re hurting.”

  They’d been walking – interspersed with hiding – for what was surely hours, after crawling from that log. And since they hadn’t had any water since that shared single bottle the previous night, dehydration wasn’t helping their stamina.

  They couldn’t keep pushing it like this for much longer.

  “I’m fine.” Dec’s eyes were glassy as they avoided meeting hers. At her snort he finally shifted his gaze, met her frown of disapproval with determination. “I’m not going to lie and say it doesn’t completely and totally suck, because it does. Completely. And totally. But the pain’s… you know, bearable. Every once in a while it feels like I want to curl up and cry like
a little baby, but then it just…. Never mind.”

  He looked off in the distance.

  “Just what?” she asked, burying the nasty socks under a pile of decaying leaves. No need to leave a trail if they could at all avoid it.

  Dec’s lips thinned and he looked uncomfortable. “It’s nothing. Let’s go. We’re almost around that point we saw earlier, and I don’t want to lose momentum. There’s got to be something on the other side.”

  Sadie ignored his protests and stood immobile.

  He grew irritated and heaved out a sigh. “Just drop it, Sadie.”

  “It just what?” she asked again, not dropping it.

  He drew another deep breath that said she was really trying his patience, but he caved and gave her an answer. “When it gets too bad, like maybe I can’t take it anymore, the pain seems to… dissipate. Like it’s a weight, and suddenly it’s being lifted just enough so that I can go on.” His eyes darted toward her, then scurried away, like a pair of nervous woodland creatures. “Feel free to laugh any time now, but try to keep it quiet. I don’t think I can manage another break and run like we did last time.”

  He turned his back to her and started walking away, broad shoulders drawn upward in tension.

  “I’m not laughing,” she said, catching up to him. “Why would I laugh?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Because I sound like a woo-woo idiot?”

  She thought about that for a minute, trying to ignore the sharp scrape of pine straw against her bare feet. “Who cares if it sounds woo-woo as long as it’s helping you deal with the pain?”

  The shoulders relaxed incrementally as he continued to walk in front of her.

  “You’re right,” he said eventually. “It just… feels weird.”

  “It feels weird because you’re accustomed to being masochistic.”

  He stopped so suddenly she ran into his back. “You’re psychoanalyzing me now?”

  “I’ve been psychoanalyzing you since birth. I could practically write a book. But this whole I am an island of guilt unto myself thing you have going on just gave me some new material to work with.”

  He shot a wry look over his shoulder.

  “You’re not an island,” she told him quietly.

  “Thank you, John Donne.” But he turned enough to press a kiss onto her grimy forehead. And slipped his hand into hers so that when they continued it was side by side.

  They trudged along, and fatigue rode in on the coattails of adrenaline, an unwelcome guest who showed up uninvited to the party, lingered well past the point of decency and ate all the hors d’oeuvres. Sadie wished she could kick it to the curb.

  “I’d kill for a double espresso,” she said, stepping wearily around some thorny bushes which Declan considerately pointed out.

  “I’d kill for a freakin’ boat. A gun wouldn’t offend me. Barring that, a functional cell phone.”

  “Too bad Billy didn’t drop my cell along with the key to the handcuffs. Hey,” she exclaimed suddenly, noting the fluid body of brown moving sluggishly past the edge of the trees. “That looks like a river.”

  The tide had turned during their march through the forest and waves lapped gently against the banks, causing the cord grass to sway in an undulation of brown that would turn verdant with the approaching spring.

  Sadie’s heart lodged in her throat following an unexpected rush of emotion. She wanted to see that grass turn green with a ferocity that was startling.

  Declan’s arm came around her shoulder and she turned her face into his chest.

  “COULD be the Edisto,” he suggested, trying to recall what he knew about the various waterways around the area. Across the channel a great blue heron unfurled his wings in graceful flight, Dec’s eyes following its path with envy. What he wouldn’t give for a set of feathers just now. “But regardless, a river this size is bound to have docks, probably a few landings, especially if we follow it toward the ocean. This kind of waterway is prime boating territory.”

  “How about if we drag one of these hollow logs in and just drift.”

  Declan frowned, even though Sadie had made the suggestion in jest. The water was probably freezing, but given how exhausted they both were, the idea of drifting was damned appealing. However, on the water they’d truly be sitting ducks, not to mention the fact that there was a damn good chance they’d drown.

  He snorted. “Put you out on that water in the sun and your bleached hair would stand out like a beacon.”

  “I told you, my hair is highlighted. Not bleached.”

  “Semantics.”

  “Such a big word. I guess they taught you more in barkeep school than how to hire busty barmaids.”

  She bumped into his back again.

  He peered at her from his superior height.

  “My degree is in business management, with a minor in English, thank you. Running a successful restaurant the size of Murphy’s is no joke. And I would be offended if you hadn’t said that because you’re jealous.”

  “Jealous?” she harrumphed, hurrying to catch up again after he’d taken off. “Doug must have hit you a lot harder than I thought.”

  “You’re worried that I slept with Terri.”

  That got Sadie’s blood flowing, and color rushed into her cheeks. “Like I care?” She was silent for several beats. “So did you?”

  “No. I won’t lie and say I didn’t consider it, but it’s been years since I was stupid enough to have sex with someone I work with. Particularly now that I’m technically the boss and that could get me sued for sexual harassment. More importantly however, is that you came home. And when I told you I love you, that sort of comes with the whole fidelity package.”

  That brought her head whipping around.

  “Shocked the hell right out of me, too. Not to mention the effect it will have on the female population of Charleston. Let’s just say that fidelity is one of those fancy words I did not learn in college.”

  Sadie blinked at him in astonishment. “It’s amazing you’re able to maneuver so well considering the weight of that ego you have to carry around.”

  He grinned, but it faded quickly. “All jokes aside, I’m serious about this Sadie. There’s a lot in my past I’m not proud of, but… as someone pointed out to me recently, I was raised better than that. And frankly,” he shifted uncomfortably, “after, um, making love for the very first time in my life I can’t imagine going back to having sex.”

  Sadie gaped, which Declan found gratifying. “After you get over feeling like all the air has been sucked from your lungs, you’ll realize it’s not so bad.”

  SADIE searched her brain for an appropriate retort, but she seemed to have been robbed of the power of speech. Declan leaned close to her ear.

  “You remember that life-affirming fornication you promised me earlier? Well I’m going to show you what I’m really capable of without all my old baggage getting in the way. And when I come inside you this time, sweetheart, I guarantee it will be on purpose.”

  With that he pressed his lips to the sensitive underside of her jaw.

  Fire ignited in Sadie’s belly. Or more accurately, a region slightly farther south.

  She swayed toward him, a moth helpless against the lure of the flame, then turned her face up to his, absolutely willing to kiss him.

  Except when her eyes blinked open, he wasn’t there.

  Frowning, she pivoted as she looked around her. That damn back was already growing smaller as he moved ahead, considerately clearing the path for her bare feet.

  “You coming?” he called back to her casually, as if he hadn’t just rocked her world.

  She tried to muster some indignation, but found herself smiling instead. Until she saw him stop, shoulders tensed, before he crouched and motioned her forward.

  Sadie nervously scurried toward him. Praying that whatever he’d seen wasn’t potentially lethal.

  A fishing shack came into view as she rounded the bend in the river. With its newer metal roof, level front porc
h and a pair of double-hung windows, it was a big improvement over the one they’d been held in. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled to where Declan was hiding.

  “Do you think anyone is there?” She peered through a tangle of vines toward the windows. There was no discernible movement, no sounds to be heard except for the occasional splash of various creatures into the nearby water. A fire pit sat off to one corner, though it was impossible to tell whether the bricks were blackened from distant or recent use. “Maybe they have a phone.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  That earned her a quelling look. “Not while I’m still breathing.”

  She started to protest the ridiculousness of that, but something in his eyes made her close her mouth. He needed to do this, she realized. He needed to protect her.

  So she sank back on her heels and nodded. “Be careful.”

  “Stay put,” he ordered as he climbed to his feet, and she would have rolled her eyes if she hadn’t been so frightened. What if this cabin belonged to the brothers, too? It was unlikely, but still a possibility. Or maybe it was inhabited by some backwoods crazy.

  Banjo music drifted through her head.

  She watched Dec make his way around the outside, crouched in a way that had to be hell on his ribcage. Damn fool man and his heroic tendencies. He climbed the stairs, and her heart climbed in her throat with every step that he ascended. Her pulse raced and her palms began to sweat. She waited fearfully for gunfire to ring out.

  But he straightened after peering in the windows.

  And once again motioned her forward.

  “NO utilities,” he said when she reached him, relief palpable on her pretty, dirty face. “There’s a propane generator to supply power, but I saw no sign of any phone lines.” Which was almost as big a disappointment as the fact that the dock he’d seen had no boat to go with it. “But there’s water, at least, so we can cross death-by-dehydration off the list. And I for one,” he sniffed his armpit, “wouldn’t be averse to some kind of shower. Because even if we manage to avoid the asshole with the gun there’s a strong chance our mutual BO will kill us.”