The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  He found a quiet corner by one of the exits, and then checked to see if he had any texts or messages from either his brother or Kathleen. They’d both gone back to his house earlier – Kathleen to check out the scene, James to talk to the detective in charge.

  There were certain to be investigators and technicians around – and, as he frequently reminded himself – Kathleen herself was a cop. However, he’d be lying if he denied that he was feeling a little uneasy about them being there.

  Not that he thought the shooter was likely to be hanging around the scene. But he’d been less than a yard away from Natasha when the bullet struck, and familiar as he was with the aftermath of violence, watching it happen in front of you gave one a whole new perspective. It wasn’t an experience he cared to repeat.

  There were no messages from James, but there were two from Kathleen.

  Something came up. May be a while before I can talk. Stay put. And don’t give your brother grief if he seems to be hovering. I asked him to. I’ll explain later.

  Justin frowned. He couldn’t say he cared for the fact that Kathleen had basically ordered him to heel, like some sort of pampered lapdog with a pretty bow in its topknot, while she herself was out doing God knew what.

  But, as he reminded himself yet again, she was a cop. Even if he currently found that particular fact less than reassuring.

  Suppressing his annoyance, he opened the second text.

  I love you.

  The final remnant of annoyance vanished beneath a tidal wave of warmth, and Justin leaned one shoulder against the wall, smiling. How long had he yearned for just those words from her, without actively expecting to ever hear them? Or read them, as it were.

  I love you, too he typed back. Even when you’re bossy. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.

  Although really, if Kathleen decided that she wanted to boss him around in more… intimate circumstances? That totally worked for him.

  A yawn nearly cracked his jaw, and Justin blinked, his eyes feeling heavy. The coffee apparently hadn’t done him much good. Maybe he’d head back to the lounge and try to catch a few minutes sleep.

  He started to pocket his phone, then thought about the other part of Kathleen’s message. So she’d told James to hover, had she? Justin snorted. His brother appeared to be falling down on the job.

  But concern began to niggle. James’ character flaws were many, but reliability – especially when it came to his family – wasn’t one of them. And he recalled his brother’s face earlier, drawn into tight lines, his worry and fear palpable.

  He pulled up his contact list, and dialed James’ cell phone.

  Knowing his brother wouldn’t check his voice mail, he didn’t bother leaving a message, but instead tried to reach him at home. Maybe he’d had to wait a while to talk to the detective. Justin knew that crime scenes were frequently a controlled sort of chaos, not unlike the emergency room.

  No answer there, either.

  The hospital cafeteria was closed, so maybe James had stopped off to eat first. Left his phone in the truck.

  Speaking of which, Justin glanced through the glass on the door, toward the parking lot. He couldn’t be sure, since it was a fair distance away, but he thought he recognized the distinctive shape – and color – of his Ford.

  So maybe James was here, and he’d turned off his phone. Justin had seen some of the nurses browbeating people earlier about cellular devices. Better go find him. Perhaps James knew something about whatever it was that Kathleen had found.

  He started to stand up straight, and found that it took a remarkable effort. It wasn’t just his eyelids that felt heavy, but also his limbs. Justin shook his head, then gathered up his energy and pushed off the wall, toward the door. Maybe the cool night air would rouse him.

  The door gave way with a squeak of hinges, and Justin stumbled as he leaned heavily on the push bar.

  Something’s not right. His internal diagnostician warned him that this was more than simple fatigue. Sometimes his life seemed like one big, endless blur of fatigue, and he knew how his body handled it.

  This was not it.

  Drugged, the internal diagnostician said, and Justin thought: no shit.

  He fell to his knees on the sidewalk, everything around him seeming fuzzy, as if the world had been wrapped in cotton wool.

  The coffee. Anne had brought him coffee. And it had seemingly been spiked with some sort of very powerful sleep aid.

  Why? As the answer became clear even to his drug-fogged brain, Justin tried to drag his phone from his pocket. Fighting off the overwhelming need to close his eyes, he sat down so that he could focus his energy on operating the phone rather than keeping himself upright.

  He tried to enter his passcode but his thumbs, unusually clumsy, didn’t want to obey his brain’s commands.

  Damn it. He propped himself against the low wall that served as an elevated planter, and tried again.

  The door behind him opened.

  He heard a deep, feminine sigh.

  Heels clicked toward him across the concrete.

  “You were supposed to fall asleep inside,” a voice scolded, and then brown eyes peered into his, partly frustrated, partly censorious.

  Then Anne shook her head. “I’ll take that,” she said of his phone, neatly plucking it from his hand with her long, manicured fingers. Then she brushed those fingers across his cheek.

  “Go to sleep.” She leaned forward, kissed him gently. “We can talk when you wake up.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  THE large, warm lump behind her groaned.

  “You’re awake?” Shelley said, twisting so that she could glance over her shoulder, much good as it did her. “Finally.”

  “What the hell?” James’ voice was understandably groggy.

  Shelley sighed, figuring he’d need a few minutes to get back up to speed. A very few, she hoped.

  “Natasha’s crazy-ass sister bashed you on the head with a gun,” she told him, her voice sounding hoarse to her own ears “then made me help her load you into the back of my car – you weigh a freaking ton, by the way – and forced me at gunpoint to drive here.”

  He grunted, and she felt him shift then fall still again, the movement probably bringing him pain. “Why?”

  “Because she’s crazy?” If her tone was acerbic, Shelley thought she was entitled, given the situation.

  “Yeah, but…”

  He trailed off, taking a series of rapid, shallow breaths, and Shelley felt a flash of sympathy. Only a flash, though. She knew his head had to feel like a ripe melon that had recently been smashed, but he’d just have to deal. If they didn’t get out of here before Anne came back, they were both toast.

  And why was she thinking in food metaphors at a time like this? Maybe because she was trussed up like a Christmas goose.

  “From what I can gather,” Shelley told him in answer to his unfinished question “you were focusing on the wrong sister.”

  There was a pause as this was assimilated. “Oh. Shit. You mean… I don’t know her name.”

  “Anne.”

  “Anne. Okay. You mean Anne is the one who’s been stalking Justin?”

  “Well, she didn’t exactly come out and say so, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Bitch is a bunny-boiler if I’ve ever seen one. She had access to my car keys,” she informed him. “The extra set. Because she’s been hanging around our apartment. I even caught her in my room one night,” she said, almost to herself, as she recalled the night in question. “And no doubt she’d love to pin running a cop off the road on me if she possibly could. And whatever else she’s been up to,” she added darkly.

  “A lot,” James said. “She’s been up to a lot. And none of it good. Shit. Where are we?”

  “In the back of my car, which is parked inside what I believe to be a garage. I heard that mechanical noise that garage doors make followed by the sound of another car starting when she left. As to the exact location of the garage, I don’t know,
because she tied me up, blindfolded and gagged me before we got here. Well, actually, she made me tie up my own feet while she held the gun on me, which was infuriating, let me tell you. Anyway, we’re somewhere north of where we started out.”

  “You obviously managed to get the gag out.”

  “And that sucked, let me tell you. My mouth is dry as dust.”

  “Did you try screaming?”

  “No, my voice always sounds like sandpaper. Of course I tried screaming.”

  She couldn’t see him, but somehow she knew he was smiling.

  “No wonder my head hurts. But since that obviously didn’t bring any concerned neighbors out to investigate, we can probably assume that we need to go with Plan B.”

  “Exactly. And since I came up with Plan A – screaming my head off – it’s your turn.”

  This time she didn’t even have to guess, because he laughed.

  “Ow.”

  “I’ll be happy to get you some Tylenol or something once we’re out of here.”

  “Gee, thanks.” He shifted again, testing his bonds, and Shelley knew the moment when he figured out what was what.

  “We’re tied together,” she said, just in case he needed it spelled out for him.

  “Yeah, I got that. Reduces your chance of escaping if you’re tied to two hundred pounds of dead weight. Smart, actually.”

  “You can give her a badge when you see her. Can you sit up?” she asked hopefully.

  “Yeah. I think so. Give me a sec.” He took a deep breath. “On the count of three? One, two…”

  They moved, with much awkwardness and difficulty, into what could loosely be described as a sitting position, back to back.

  “My knees are touching my ears,” he muttered, and Shelley figured he was pretty cramped. Her cargo hold wasn’t designed to accommodate two bodies, particularly when one of them was built like Thor.

  “If we can turn so that I’m facing the hatch, I think I can get my foot under the handle.” Maybe.

  “Turn?” James said, his tone incredulous. But then he sighed. “Okay. You need to move to your right. Three count again?”

  “That works.”

  Except that it didn’t. Their limbs, having been held immobile for so long, didn’t want to cooperate.

  “I have new sympathy for sardines,” James said after a minute. “But let’s try this one more time.”

  “Okay.” On the count of three, they heaved and grunted and uttered lots of things that probably shouldn’t be repeated, but managed to shift just enough that Shelley’s feet were facing the door.

  “I got this.” Feeling around with the tip of her shoe, since the blindfold prevented her from seeing what she was doing, Shelley tapped along the metal.

  “I would tell you whether you’re getting warm, but when I look over my shoulder all I can see is your hair.”

  “Well, when I was choosing a hairstyle, I didn’t exactly anticipate a circumstance like this. Hey. I think I got it.” Her toes sank into a small depression. “Hold on. I’m going to have to push back against you some.”

  “I think I can handle it.” His tone was dry.

  Shelley leaned back, and lifted with her toes, but nothing seemed to happen. She readjusted her shoe, pushing back harder, causing James to grunt. The hatch, however, remained stubbornly closed.

  “Crap. I think she locked it.”

  “Is there a lock mechanism that can be released manually?”

  “Not back here,” she told him. “I need the remote for that. Or the lock thingy on the driver’s side. The other locks are childproof.”

  “Do you have kids?”

  “No. That’s just the way it came,” she said when he snorted. “And I didn’t bother to take the time to disengage it.” She started trying to figure out some other way to get out when she felt more than heard James sigh.

  “We have to turn around again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have a tool on my keychain that cuts seatbelts, but you’re going to have to help me get it out of my pocket, and we have more room the other way.”

  “Wait. You have a tool that cuts seatbelts – meaning it almost assuredly cuts through rope, too – and you’re just now mentioning it?”

  “I forgot about it, okay? My mom got it for me after she saw some story about a girl who was trapped by her seatbelt and couldn’t get out of her burning car and… anyway. I just remembered I had it. Given the fact that there’s a lump on my head the size of Mount Rainier, maybe you could cut me some slack.”

  “Fine,” Shelley said after a moment, allowing that he had a point. “On the count of three…”

  It was a little easier than the first time they’d turned, but not by much. Panting and sweating despite the fact that the only heat source in the garage seemed to be the man behind her, Shelley drew in a breath.

  “Okay. Now how are we going to get your keys out of your pocket considering our hands are tied behind our backs?”

  “I’m wearing scrubs,” he said. “No front pockets in the pants, so the keys are in my back right pocket. If I sort of push them up from the bottom, maybe you can grab them.”

  “I can grab them,” she said, determined. “My fingers are pretty dexterous.”

  James’ chuckle, when it reached her, was low. “Too bad I don’t have front pockets, then. Okay, here we go.”

  She felt him fumbling around in between their bodies, and tried to make herself as limp as possible so that she wasn’t inadvertently providing resistance. After a minute or two, he grunted again and said: “Can you reach them?”

  In theory, it sounded pretty simple, but given how closely they were tied and the fact that her hands had started to go a little numb, it took her several tries to grasp the piece of metal she could feel poking above the loose fabric.

  “Got them,” she said, feeling triumphant.

  “The tool is sort of a smooth oval shape with an opening at one end that offers access to the blade. But be careful. The blade is protected, but extremely sharp. Try to keep your fingers out of the opening.”

  “Don’t cut my fingers off. Got it.” Shelley carefully sorted through the contents of the key ring, identifying them by touch.

  “My phone wasn’t in my pocket,” James said. “I’m assuming she took it.”

  “Yes, and mine too. I… ouch!”

  “I told you to be careful.”

  “Yeah, well, you distracted me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. It just nicked me. Now what?”

  “Now you need to use the blade to cut through the ropes.”

  “Me? I’m blindfolded, remember? I’m just as likely to cut off a pinkie.”

  “The blood will make it easier to get the ropes off. Hey, I’m kidding” he said when she stiffened. “I would offer to do it, but my hands are too big to maneuver in such a tight space, and besides, dark as it is in here, I might as well be blindfolded, too. Just work on my bindings. I promise not to get mad if you cut me.”

  “Damn chivalrous of you,” she muttered, but she felt around, and – very carefully – began to saw. After a minute or two, the first rope gave way with a snap. “Hey, I did it!” But when she started on another one, she felt something wet.

  “Oh my God. You’re bleeding.”

  “It’s okay,” James said, and though she knew it had to hurt, he hadn’t made a sound. “Just a nick. Keep going.”

  With even more care than she’d exercised before, Shelley sawed through the next rope.

  “That’s good,” James finally said, and she felt him moving behind her, and then he took the keychain from her hand.

  “Shit, that feels better,” he said, and she gathered that he’d cut through the ropes binding his feet. Then his heat was gone from her back, and she felt his hands in her hair as he untied the blindfold.

  “Hi,” he said, his teeth gleaming very faintly while she blinked at him like an owl. Without thinking, she leaned forward and planted a smacking kiss o
n his lips.

  When she would have pulled back, he put his hand behind her head, holding her in place as he took the kiss deeper. One thing she could say for sure, the man had a hell of a pair of lips.

  “Save that thought.” When he bent his head to the task of sawing through the ropes that bound her feet, she could just make out the lump rising through his dark hair.

  “Oh. Ouch.” She gestured to the wound when he looked up.

  “I’ll live. Scoot around so that I can free your hands.”

  She did, and when they were free, Shelley shook out the pins and needles before running a hand through her hair. “What do you say we get out of here?”

  “Best idea I’ve heard all night.”

  James climbed over the seat, agile despite his size, and reached between the front seats to reach the driver’s side door. The locks popped with a click. “Meet you outside,” he said over his shoulder, going out the back door as Shelley let herself out through the hatch.

  Her legs when she climbed out were like rubber.

  There were no windows, but her vehicle’s interior light was sufficient illumination. James studied the garage doors. “No handle from the inside,” he said, then he turned around to see if there was a switch somewhere on the wall. There wasn’t.

  Nor was there much of anything else in the garage that could be of use. The place was barren.

  Both of them turned to look at the door which apparently led into a dwelling of some sort, then they looked at each other.

  “I don’t think we have much choice,” James said, and Shelly was forced to agree with him. No telling what they’d find on the other side, or if the door would even open.

  “You first,” she said, and the look he turned on her was sardonic. He’d just opened his mouth to reply when the chain mechanism which lifted the garage door began to make a whirring sound.

  “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing her hand and running for the door.

  She wasn’t about to argue over which one of them should go through first.

  KATHLEEN’S phone vibrated against her hip, and she removed it from her pocket. Mac drove – they were on their way back to the station to look at the full toy store video – and so she could check the text without pulling over. It was from Anthony.