Forbidden (Southern Comfort) by O'Neill, Clark (best affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

chair?  Hold the phone up so I can hear the sound of the waves.  A little vicarious relaxation is better than none.”

Clay chuckled mirthlessly, cursing the headache he had brewing.  “Actually, I’m sitting in the Bentonville, South Carolina sheriff’s office, entangled in the search for a missing girl.”

“What? How on earth did you get involved in something like that?  You’re supposed to be sipping drinks that come with little umbrellas and ogling hordes of bikini-clad babes.”

Clay indulged himself in that image for a moment or two, but the only bikini-clad babe he could envision was Tate.

“It’s a long story,” he summed up, knowing that if he mentioned Tate and Max and the carnival he’d be answering Kim’s questions for an hour.  “But anyway, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.  I’d like to get a look at the film we discussed last week.”

After a couple beats of silence, Kim said “You think there’s a connection between my snuff film and your missing girl?”

“I don’t know.  I started thinking about our conversation, and the perp in this case seems to be a mid-thirties male with a body builder’s physique –”

“And my perp was also a mid-thirties male with a body builder’s physique.”

“Yes, well, you know that putting two and two together doesn’t necessarily make four. But I got a look at him last night, and I want to compare what I saw to your footage.  It’s likely nothing, but I’d still like to check it out for myself.  Do you think you could e-mail it to me?”

“You got a look at him?  Where?”

“At a carnival.  But anyway –”

“You went to a carnival last night?”

Clay sighed, rubbing the tension that had shifted to the back of his neck.  “As I said, it’s a long story.  How long do you think it will be before you can get me that footage?”

“Tomorrow morning,” she answered after only a moment of hesitation.

Clay’s shoulders slumped, disappointment running a brief course through his veins.  “Is that the best you can do?”  Kim was busy, he understood, and this case wasn’t her priority, but he’d hoped to get this taken care of today.  He either wanted to rule out a possible connection so that he could rethink the emerging pattern, or make the connection and offer both the Bureau and the sheriff’s department a promising lead.

“I’m afraid so. I have to wrap things up here, and it will take me at least six hours to get there.  That would put me in Charleston too late to do any good today.  But I’ll be raring and ready to go first thing in the morning.”

“Wait a minute.”  Clay shook his head, trying to figure out where they’d gone off course.  “I asked you to e-mail the footage, not hand-deliver it.”

“I realize that.  But I’m all finished with this trial, and if there’s a break, I want to be in on it.  I’ll bring the disc and the autopsy report from our dead vic, and my notes pertaining to the case.”

“Kim, that’s really not necessary.  I don’t want you to come all this way based on what’s little more than a hunch.”

“My ass,” Kim disagreed.  “Your hunches are usually better than someone else’s smoking gun. Is this sheriff that you’re working with territorial?”

“No,” Clay assured her.  “That’s why he asked me to come in on this so early.”

“Good. Then he won’t have any problem with my participation in the investigation.  That way you can back out and get on with the drinking and lying on the beach.  This case isn’t really ISU fodder anyway.   These guys do what they do for the almighty dollar.  That’s more my area of expertise than yours.”

It was true, Clay silently acknowledged, although he felt there was more to the man he’d seen last night than just your run-of-the-mill felon.

“Okay,” he finally agreed.  “I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon weeding things out and trying to make sense of this from my end, and when you get here tomorrow morning give me a call.  We’ll compare notes, watch the footage, and if there’s a connection, I’ll gladly dump this thing in your capable hands.”

JOSH Harding angled the sketch toward Tate, and watched as she chewed the inside of her cheek.  “The jaw line,” she said hesitantly.  “I think it should be a little more… square.”  Josh deftly wielded the pencil, a new face emerging from the strokes.

She sat back in her chair.

“You’re really very good.  I had no idea that I’d noticed that much detail.  And for you to be able to put it on paper…” her voice trailed off, and she lifted her gaze to his.  “That’s amazing.”

Josh felt his cheeks suffuse with color.  He wasn’t sure what it was about this particular woman that made him regress to seventh grade, but his palms began to sweat.  “Thanks.”  It was a rather uninspired comeback.  What he really wanted to say was you’re amazing, too.  Would you consider bearing my children?

Needless to say, that didn’t come out.  He wasn’t entirely certain what the deal was between her and Agent Copeland, and quite frankly, he didn’t want to piss the guy off.  He came across as all amiable and polite, but Josh had seen him glancing over in his and Tate’s direction a time or two with murder in his eyes.

While Josh was no wimp, and could well take care of himself, he didn’t want FBI, spelled out in bullet holes, decorating his ass.

So he’d bide his time, and wait until the guy cleared out.

As if thinking of the devil could conjure him, Copeland chose that moment to open the door.  He leaned in, smiling warmly at Tate.

“It’s after one, and I was thinking you must be hungry.”

“Oh.”  Tate looked at her watch.  “Now that you mention it, I guess I am.”

“Sheriff Callahan says there’s a sandwich shop next door.  What do you say we grab a bite?”

“Sounds great,” Tate agreed, and then shifted her gaze toward Josh.  “Would you like to