Forbidden (Southern Comfort) by O'Neill, Clark (free ebook reader txt) 📗

mother.  The reporter kept babbling, but Clay focused in – as did the camera – on an interesting tableau in the background.  Clay, with his arm around Max and Tate, was deep in discussion with one of the deputies who’d been among the first responders. The cameraman had the perfect angle to all but zoom in on the badge on Clay’s hip.

Shit, Clay thought again.  Wasn’t that just dandy?  They’d made it seem like he was a participant in the investigation.  So when that little girl’s body turned up in a ditch they could point fingers at the feds.

Then Justin finally woke up to what was happening and cranked up the volume even more.

“Hey man.  You’re on TV.”  His tired voice was mystified.

As Justin – and the rest of the Channel Five viewing audience – watched with interest, Clay dropped a kiss on the little boy’s head before turning his mouth toward the child’s mother.  Then he put his arm around her and squeezed.  Possessively.

Justin’s brow raised as the camera panned back to the reporter, who wrapped up the segment with a grim smile.  “This is Paige Lowell reporting for Action Five News.”

He turned around and smirked at Clay.

“Fun.  Yeah.”

Clay sat there, numb, not because he’d been pretty much name-dropped – those three little initials were like fairy dust sprinkled magically to increase the case’s sensationalism and thus the channel’s ratings – but because he’d just watched his behavior with his own eyes.

And the verdict wasn’t pretty.

He could circle around, backtrack and bluster all he wanted, but he’d just seen the irrefutable evidence.

“Shit.”

It had become his favorite word.

With the sound of Justin’s laughter as an exit score, Clay heaved himself out of the chair and hauled his commitment-phobic, way-too-busy-for-a-relationship, down-for-the-count ass off to bed.

CHAPTER NINE

“WHAT the hell were you thinking?”

Billy Wayne popped the second contact from his gritty eyes, blinking several times before sliding his gaze toward JR.  The smaller man was standing across the room, clutching the remote in his fist.  If Billy Wayne hadn’t already shaved his hair, the heat of his cousin’s glare would have singed it.

JR rarely lost his temper – he was colder than an Eskimo’s tit – and to see him so close to boiling was something of a novelty.

Billy Wayne tossed the disposable lens into the trash can next to the sofa, crossing his booted feet on the cheap oak coffee table.  The place they were using was a dump, and he missed the luxury of his condo in Atlanta.  It had been a long time since he’d lived out in the boondocks like this, and the memories the dingy little house brought back set his teeth on edge.

He didn’t need JR’s attitude to send his own temper simmering.

“I got the girl – a virgin, I might add – and no one made me or followed.  Even if some people saw me talking to her, they’re going to describe me as a dark-skinned, brown-eyed man with a full head of hair.”  He pointed to his bald head, from which he’d recently removed his wig.  “It’s not like they had hidden cameras and facial recognition technology at that damn carnival. Who’s going to recognize me like this?”

Despite the fact that he had an extremely distinct appearance, Billy Wayne was decent with disguises – not as good as JR, who could be old, young, dark, fair  and everything in between – but decent.  The only thing that really tripped him up was his overabundance of muscles, which he stubbornly refused to do anything about.

It was the one legacy from his piece-of-shit father that he didn’t actually hate the man for.  Norman Sparks had beaten and ridiculed him as often as not, but the steroids and weightlifting he’d pushed Billy Wayne into had given him the means to get even.

In fact, he’d taken the first body building trophy he’d won and beat his old man half to death.

Vaguely aware that JR was still glowering, he glanced at the TV.  The news anchor had just titillated the audience by dropping hints about the girl’s disappearance, with the full story coming up at eleven.

True, having their newest piece of merchandise bandied about on the evening news wasn’t exactly standard operating procedure, but all in all Billy Wayne thought that JR was overreacting.  They already had a buyer lined up to take her off their hands, so it wasn’t like they even had to advertise the girl in their usual circles.  They’d simply complete the transaction, the case would grow cold, and that would be the end of the sordid little story.

He said as much, and amused himself by watching steam practically rise from his cousin’s blond head.

Man, he’d charmed a sweet little girl and pushed JR over the edge, while he himself maintained a firm hold on his temper.

Was this a banner night or what?

JR pinched the bridge of his nose and brought himself under control.  This was the second inexcusable miscalculation Billy Wayne had made – the first being beating one of the girls to death because he couldn’t get it up for the camera, then selling the footage as a snuff film behind JR’s back.

He was beginning to think his cousin had gotten careless.

Carelessness and a life of crime were two things that didn’t mix.

Yes, this girl was a good find, and yes, they likely already had a buyer.  But snatching a kid who would be missed right away was not only risky, it was unbelievably arrogant.

Combine arrogance with carelessness and you have a recipe for disaster.  That particular combination brought even the cleverest of criminals down.

And if Billy Wayne went down, he’d try to take JR with him. That was one thing he positively could not allow.

JR watched Billy Wayne watching him, and visibly shook off his rage.  Angry confrontations were not his style, as they were usually counterproductive.

Two pairs of blue eyes held each other’s gaze until the newscast began in earnest.  When a reporter came onto the screen with a Ferris wheel