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

might be able to carve out some time today to come down to the station and help us out.  We put out some feelers last night to some of the other law enforcement agencies in the area, and, well… we’re beginning to think that we might have a situation that could benefit from your expertise.”

Ask and ye shall receive, Clay thought.  It was his job to be on hand to assist the locals if they should need it.  And concentrating on work should help keep his mind off Tate.  “Absolutely,” Clay answered, sitting up in the bed and glancing toward the alarm clock on the nightstand.  Eight a.m.  There were still almost twelve hours left in that critical twenty-four hour period.  He didn’t hold out a lot of hope that they’d find Casey Rodriguez within that time, but he was thankful that the Sheriff was proactive enough to want to bring him into it.

“Give me thirty minutes to shower and get changed and I’ll head out.  Give me the station address.”

The man rattled it off and Clay snagged a pen from a holder on the nightstand and jotted it down on the handy little notepad.

“Got it,” Clay said.  His blood juiced at the thought of getting back to work, and that worried him even more.  He’d come here to get away from work and now he was going to work to get away from here.

Somewhere along the line he’d gotten completely messed up.

He was just about to end the call when the deputy cleared his throat.  “Uh, I don’t mean to sound indelicate, Agent Copeland, but… is Ms. Hennessey with you, by any chance?”

Clay knew what the deputy was going to ask.  He wanted Tate to come down to the station house and look through some mug shots.  Maybe help a police artist work up a sketch.  This is where he should tell the man that Tate was not here, and that he should try to reach Tate at her home.  They could arrange an appointment on their own time, and it didn’t have anything whatsoever to do with Clay.

Tate had made it clear that she had no intention of continuing to see him, and as a gentleman, he should respect that.

As a commitment-phobe, he should applaud that, running as fast and far in the opposite direction as he possibly could.

As an agent of the federal government, he really shouldn’t lie.

“Ms. Hennessey is… unavailable at the moment.”  Hey, it was an accurate piece of information.  The fact that she was across town and not merely in the shower was simply a matter of semantics.  “But I’m assuming you’d like her to come in as well?”

“Yes, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“Not at all.”  Clay did some rapid thinking.  “But it may take us a little while to get there.  We’ll need to make some arrangements for her son.”

Man oh man, he was so full of it.  Not to mention being a scheming, calculating idiot who didn’t know enough to get out when the getting was good.

He said his goodbyes to the deputy, stared at the rotating ceiling fan.

The last part of his sanity crumbled.

He opened his phone again to call Tate.

TATE frowned at her reflection in the hall mirror as she stabbed an earring through her left lobe.  Even with an application of concealer, the skin beneath her eyes was a particularly unappealing shade of lavender. Visible proof of her restless night. After Clay left, she’d lain awake for what seemed like hours.  Her body felt tight and achy, and her mind… her mind bounced from contemplating how differently the time would have passed if she’d let him stay with her to imagining – all too vividly – what could happen to a young girl in the clutches of a twisted, narcissistic adult. Sick, feeling guilty for even beginning to think of her own physical needs at such a time, Tate felt tears roll down her cheeks and soak her pillow. The day had brought too many bad memories to the surface. Her experience at camp.  Her mother, so distraught and overprotective and very, very angry. The nightmares. The subsequent trial, during which whatever scraps of innocence she’d maintained had been tattered and torn to bits.

When she finally managed to fall asleep, her dreams had been full of muscle-bound men with leering faces painted like clowns, of the Ferris wheel lights – no longer lovely, but gaudy and bright and sinister – spinning faster and faster until she’d awakened with a scream clawing its way out of her throat.

She’d practically fallen out of bed, and raced to Max’s room, to find him sleeping soundly.  Her baby. She’d spent the rest of the night curled up on the floor beside his bed.

Tate couldn’t fathom what Casey’s mother was going through right now.

Hell, she thought, and stabbed the other silver hoop through her right lobe.  Sheer hell.

When Clay had called earlier, she’d been hopeful that it was with good news. Instead, here she was, getting dressed to go down to the police station to look at mug shots. She felt… not dirty, exactly.  But stained.  As if the filth that had altered her life so drastically that long ago summer had never quite washed off.

When the knock sounded at the back door, Tate smoothed her damp palms over the skirt of her sundress.  She was nervous, she realized.  Though whether it was due to her upcoming task or to seeing Clay again, she couldn’t say.

She pasted a smile on her face and opened the door.

To a very well-dressed and armed federal agent.

“Good morning.” Clay’s brow quirked over his sunglasses when she just stood there. No doubt with her mouth agape.

“Oh. Right.  Good morning.”  God, she sounded like an idiot.  She’d known he worked for the FBI, of course.  But for some reason, the sight of him in that dark suit, weapon holstered beneath his jacket… he looked so unbelievably responsible.  It was a strange thing to get