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

Tate had insisted on coming along, rather than hanging back at the station or being dropped off at home, in case the body was Casey.  Clay knew if that had indeed been the case, she would have wanted to also go to see Casey’s mother, to offer what comfort she could.  She was just that kind of person.

Guilt was going to rip her to shreds if they found Casey like this victim.  Whether she should or not, Tate would wonder if she’d missed the opportunity to stop the man before he’d taken the girl from the carnival.

If she’d paid a little bit closer attention, would she have seen him lead her away?

If she’d been a little bit more observant, would Casey be safe in her mother’s arms?

She didn’t have the benefit of professional dispassion, of having been inundated with so much violence and pain and misery that she could let those questions roll off her shoulders.  She’d be miserable as she tried to figure out what to do with her misplaced guilt.

Hell.  Like he was one to talk.

He’d been miserable ever since that asshole in Topeka had fired his gun.

He needed… something to take the place of that emotion that was even now eating a hole in his gut.

He looked toward the road again, wiping the sweat from his brow as he straightened from the knapsack.  The emotion that was sweeping through him currently was probably just as detrimental to his well-being as that misplaced guilt.

Deputy Harding had his hand on Tate’s arm, and she was nodding, looking relieved.  He was no doubt talking to her about the fact that the body wasn’t Casey’s.  The physical description was all wrong, not to mention the fact that this girl had been buried in the woods for a good bit longer than a day.  Tate had been waiting, very patiently, for the past hour.  Hoping that it wasn’t Casey.  Fearing that it was.

Clay could tell from the way she was standing – shoulders slumped, arms limp – that she was now feeling the punch of released tension.  The body language equivalent of Thank God.  She was taking this entire thing very much to heart.

Deputy Harding moved his hand to her shoulder, then rubbed a comforting circle on her back.

The green-eyed monster reared its ugly head as Clay removed his gloves with a practiced snap.  He was just about to move in that direction when he heard his name.

“Agent Copeland?”

Clay turned at the sound of the coroner’s voice, looking toward where the older man was crouched as he examined the body.  His bald head was covered with a fine sheen of sweat, giving it the appearance of a well-polished cue ball.  He pushed his glasses up his nose, motioning abstractly to Clay.

“There’s something I’d like you to see.”

Right.

Clay carefully picked his way back toward the gravesite, and with one last glance toward the roadside, refocused his attention on doing his job.

CASEY Rodriguez stirred, trying to stretch her aching muscles.  Her left arm seemed to float completely independent of her body, like a slab of flesh someone had stuck to her shoulder and forgotten to attach to her nerves.  But as she shifted, pain lanced like a knife.

“Oh-oh-oh.” She tried to jerk the limb back toward her side.

But her arm was attached, attached to something solid. Something that bit into her skin, rubbing it raw.

Turning her head on an achy wince, Casey blinked the arm into focus.  A metal bracelet clamped her wrist, big and ugly and tight.  A chain dangled from one end…

A handcuff.  She was handcuffed.

To an old iron bed.

Rising up, muscles screaming, head pounding, Casey scrambled away as best she could.   The bed was lumpy, the springs broken down, and her feet slipped on sheets gone clammy.  The air in the room sat dense and heavy, the stink of her own sweat was like something spoiled.  Dim light crept sulkily through the slats of yellowed blinds, serving only to illuminate the room’s faded neglect.

So hot, she thought, looking around. Where the heck was she?

The clank of metal on metal had her eyes going wide, tears stinging as she looked back at the handcuffs.  Panic didn’t allow her to feel the pain of rent flesh when she yanked as hard as she could.

Gotta get away, she thought, desperately.  Gotta get out.

But the blood seeping down her arm stopped her.  It welled, then rolled, dripping off her elbow to stain the ratty white sheets.

Frightened, confused, Casey wiped at the blood which stung the burns on her forearm. The burns she’d gotten when grease had splattered from the frying funnel cakes.

The funnel cakes.

There’d been a man at her mother’s trailer.  Smiling at her even when her mother leaned over, offered up a serving of cleavage.  Smiling at her as she walked by to throw away her sister’s trash.

Smiling at her next to the Ferris wheel…

It was the last thing she could remember.

“Oh, God,” Casey whispered, trembling.

Everything her mother told her had come true.  She’d flirted with that man, shamefully encouraging him, even though he was old enough to be her dad.  It had to be him who had her.  Who’d chained her to the bed.

Was he going to kill her?  Or merely… do things?

Tears mingling with sweat, Casey wiped her face, considering which fate was worse.  To be kept alive as some sicko’s toy, or maybe just shot through the head.

No.  Please.  She really didn’t want to die.  But at the thought of what that man could do if he kept her alive, she began to cry in earnest. And with sobs racking her slender body, didn’t hear the heavy footsteps on the stairs.

When the door opened, fear turned her insides liquid.

“Oh good,” the man said, acres of pale skin gleaming ghost-like in the dimness.  “I was thinking it must be about time for you to wake up.”

THE sun hovered just over the horizon by the time Clay drove his Four-Runner over the bridge, the pinks and oranges of