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

“Julie?” It rolled off his tongue when she answered, scoring, no doubt, big brownie points for him.  “This is Special Agent Clay Copeland, with the FBI.  I spoke with you the other day? That’s right.”  He rolled his eyes at Kim.  “The profiler.”

He went through the whole little chit-chat routine, sensing that this woman would respond better to honey than to vinegar, although he had to strain the meaningless pleasantries through his teeth.  Then he got around to the point of the conversation, asking about the dark-haired man and his truck.

“Rob Johns, you say?”  He gestured for Kim to grab a piece of paper and write it down.  “No, he’s not in any trouble,” yet, “but we think he might have some information that we need.  I don’t guess you’d happen to have his address?”

He waited a beat while she answered.  “No, I understand all about your privacy policy regarding customers, and I certainly wouldn’t ask you to violate it.”  And he couldn’t demand it, without the proper court order.  “But listen, Julie, just in case Rob comes in, I need you to do me a favor.  Don’t say anything about our conversation to him, but give me a call at this number.”

He looked over at Kim, who was already on her own phone with the local RA.  Hopefully, within a few minutes they’d know everything there was to know about Rob Johns.

Snapping his phone shut, he started to walk away from the window, but something under the desk caught his eye and stopped him cold.

He bent down, pulled it out, in all its ugly glory.

And very nearly wept over a stupid purple bear.

IT was the vibrations on his hip that woke Josh up.

Actually, the vibrations were technically under his hip, as he was lying face down in the dirt.  The hard rectangle that was his phone dug deep into his flesh, and in reality should have been uncomfortable.  But given the fact that both his shoulder and thigh were on fire, he figured the cell phone problem was pretty minor.

And when he said on fire, he meant ON FIRE.  Like someone had gored him with a poker dipped in molten lead.

“Ugh.”  Even his eyelids hurt.  Way too much for him to attempt to pry them open.  But shit, something was very wrong with this picture, and he knew he had to check things out.

Mustering every bit of energy, Josh willed himself to ignore the pain, concentrating on the facial muscles involved in operating his eyelids.  He twitched and pulled and got the left one open a crack, but the right remained caked together.

What exactly had he done?  Bathed in honey and fallen into a mound of fire ants?

No.  Shit.  This was far worse than that.  Maybe he’d crashed his car.

He tried, really tried, to remember where he was and what he was doing.  And to facilitate that goal, he needed to get his face out of the dirt.

He lifted his head – very slightly – and spat the dust away from his lips, but when he tried to turn it the right side nearly exploded.

“Ah, hell.”  He dropped his face again, because in the grand scheme of things he figured dirt-eating amnesia was better than exploding. Then stuck his tongue out, very tentatively, and tasted the stickiness on the right side of his face.

Which tasted nothing at all like honey, but an awful lot like blood.

His head ached, his leg throbbed, his shoulder redefined pain. And he’d definitely just established that he was bleeding.  Profusely.  Like a stuck pig.

Or more specifically, like someone who’d just been shot.

Ah, hell, he thought again, because it hurt too much to say it.  And because he was now absolutely, positively certain that was what had happened.

Apparently, the saggy front porch had been the least of his worries.

The fact that he’d been shot meant he needed to be able to move his arm, so that he could both radio in for backup and reach his sidearm.

Of course the real ah, hell moment here was that his arm was attached to his shoulder, which was quickly progressing from hell’s seventh to eighth level.  Damn, it hurt.  His hot poker analogy hadn’t been far off, because he’d definitely been pumped full of molten lead.

Prying his right eyelid open through sheer force of will, he realized the sticky substance caking it was blood, and came to the equally unsettling conclusion that he’d been shot in the head.  Or rather, grazed, more than likely.  He’d been grazed by a damn bullet.

After, of course, two others had torn through his shoulder and leg.

And because he was still bleeding profusely and was at serious risk of dying in the dirt, he knew that he had to make his arm work without help from his shoulder.

If he could just get to his radio…

But his cell phone was closer to his hand.  And at this point, closer seemed like a good plan.

Sliding fingers slick with his own blood toward the phone clipped onto his belt, Josh cursed, quite baldly, as the ripping pain nearly destroyed him.  Grinding his teeth together, he called up every reserve of strength he could manage to push a button.

He thought it was redial – hoped, prayed – but given the blood in his eyes and the pain waving his vision, he could have hit nothing at all.  But he hit it again, hoping against hope that it would go through.  Given his incapacitation and the spotty coverage in the area, he figured his chances were fifty/fifty.

He also figured that his chances of whoever shot him coming out from the house and adding a nice little tap to the head for insurance were considerably higher.

Super.

He could have the ignominious distinction of being the only deputy in the history of the Bentonville sheriff’s department to ever be killed in the line of duty.  Maybe they could build a monument to that absurdity in the form of a nice bronze statue