Serendipity (Southern Comfort) (31 page)

“Jesse –”

“Give me a second.  Give me a second so I don’t embarrass us both.  Okay,” he said after he pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Okay.”  And the look he turned on Jordan was fierce.  “I want you to be careful.  I know you have a license to carry concealed, and I realize you know most of the self-defense tricks in the book. But you have to be vigilant, damn it.  They already took you down once.”  He glanced away, laid a hand on the butt of his weapon. “If you want, I can see about arranging some protection.”

Jordan snorted, more to cover the sting of emotion than from offense.  “What?  A body guard?  Give me a break, Jesse.”

Jesse’s lips quirked.  “You could always move back in with Mom and Dad until this is resolved.”

“Mom is pretty damn scary.”

The smile faded as fast as it had come. “All jokes aside, Jordan, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”  He looked, as Jordan had, at that snarl of red hair.  “Just promise me you’ll keep your eyes open.”

“Believe me,” Jordan assured his older brother.  “I’ve had my eyes open since I woke up in that hospital bed.” 

The night stretched out, interminably at times, but more productively now that the Bureau had stepped in to iron out the dispute over jurisdiction.  Leslie’s mother was escorted home, to everyone’s quiet relief.  Evidence was collected.  Hair, fibers, soil samples. A beer bottle and a couple of cigarette butts.  There were no useable tire tread marks or footprints because first the heavy equipment and then the workers had compromised the scene. 

Jordan was able to identify the clothing that Leslie was wearing the night of the symposium.

Other than that, other than the red hair, the nametag, positive identification would have to wait on dental records for comparison. 

Cause of death was undetermined pending the autopsy results. But judging from the amount of blood staining the top of her silk blouse, the delicate pink of her fitted jacket, Jordan concluded for himself that her throat had been cut.

And his own throat squeezed shut with the knowledge. 

There were few clues to the identity of the other victims.  But when a cut-crystal rosary was unearthed amidst the delicate bones that comprised a hand, Jordan’s disgust was overwhelming.

The woman – for surely it had been a woman – must have been praying, maybe for mercy, when she’d been killed.

By the time dawn stretched its fingers of pink across the sky, he was gritty-eyed with exhaustion.  Wired from too much convenience store coffee, disillusioned with the world, Jordan sweated out his frustration by taking Finn for a beach run.

Seagulls swooped and shrieked as the dog gave chase with delighted barks, and Jordan pushed himself, punished himself, until he doubled over on the Tybee sand.  He dropped to his knees, not coincidentally, in front of the hotel where he’d spent a weekend with Leslie.   

It seemed right to have to struggle to breathe.

He’d seen plenty of crime scenes, prosecuted some heinous cases.  The darker side of human nature was nearly as familiar as his own hand.

But this was the first time a violent crime had struck quite so close to home.

Things may not have ended well between them, but he’d cared about Leslie once.  Spent time with her. Shared meals, conversations, a bed.

And they’d nearly shared the same fate.  

Jordan started giving more credence to his father’s theory.  Anyone who could so brutally murder an innocent woman would have no reason to spare him.  A third party
surely
had to be responsible for intervening.

But why hadn’t they stepped in to help Leslie? 

Wrapping his arm around Finn’s neck, Jordan watched the sun rise over the water.  Daybreak, he thought.  A new start.

He’d get justice for her, he promised himself, in a way he hadn’t been able to for the three murdered women.

It may not be enough to ease all the guilt, but it was the best he could do with what he had.

“SO handsome.”  Ava stroked her fingers along his spine.  “Yes, you are.  Jack’s a handsome boy.  Now shoo.” 

Ava nudged the cat aside and picked up her coffee.  Gripped it with hands that shook.  Too much caffeine, too much what the hell am I going to do?

It had been all over the news, she thought as she stared blindly at the paperwork before her.  Dead bodies, a mass grave.  The speculation that Savannah had another serial killer on their hands, or that Elijah Fuller had worked with a partner.

Theories, gossip, paranoia ran thicker than pine sap.

She hadn’t seen Jordan.  Nearly two days, she thought, as she sipped coffee she didn’t want, didn’t need.  Nearly two days since they’d sat at the edge of a fountain, talking of gray areas in matters of law.

Ava snorted.  She was in one hell of a gray area, wasn’t she?

She could continue to go on, go along as she had been, compromising not only her own integrity but Jordan’s.

She could tell him what she knew.  And in all likelihood sacrifice her freedom, certainly her livelihood, maybe her life. 

But a woman – people, she corrected.  There’d been more than one in that grave. – were dead. 

Was she to stand by, say nothing?  What kind of coward did that make her?

And the man she was involved with, in love with, maybe.  A good man had nearly been killed.

She couldn’t let it slide any longer, Ava decided, and sat her mug aside to rub her tired eyes.  Whatever the cost. She picked up her pen, frowned down at the paperwork.  Whatever the cost, she would do the right thing.

The cat bumped his head against her hand as Ava signed her name on a check.  “Cut it out.”  She nudged him again.  “If I don’t get these bills paid, we’ll be operating out of a cardboard box in the alley.”

“You always did have trouble managing money.”

The pen slipped out of her hand. 

Later, she would curse herself for that little slip in her composure, but for now she simply picked it back up, placed it carefully in its holder.

And looked into the eyes of her uncle.

Her eyes, she admitted, and the thought of it left her cold.  She had Carlos’s eyes.  But she used the chill to her advantage.

“Actually, I’m very capable.  It’s just more challenging to handle funds when you have to acquire and disperse them through legal means.”

He laughed, low and smooth. And the sound of it scraped her nerves.

He was so handsome, she thought.  Slim, well-dressed.  Just a touch of gray to distinguish his temples.  He’d shaved the mustache he’d always worn since the last time she’d seen him, and the cleanness of it suited his face.

T
he deadliest snakes were often beautiful.

Thank God, she could only think.  Thank God Katie had gone home for the evening.

“Nice place you have,” he commented as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out one of the black clove cigarettes Ava knew he hadn’t purchased legally. 

“I don’t allow smoking in the building.”

“Nice,” he continued, eyeing her over the flare of the match he struck despite her warning.  “Ambitious of you, to set up your own practice.  You always had your ambitions.”  He gestured to the framed diplomas on the wall. “College, veterinary school.  The kinds of things that take lots of funds.  Your father, he worried he couldn’t support you well enough to indulge those ambitions.  It’s why he came to work for me, you know.”    

She wanted to scream.  She wanted to rage, to throw things at him, to hurt him as he liked to hurt her.  It wasn’t true.  Her father had gotten caught in Carlos’s web before Ava had taken her first step. Long before she’d had a notion of where she wanted to go, what she wanted to be. But it didn’t stop the little thread of guilt that wanted to tangle her up with him.               

“Cat got your tongue?” he asked as the smoke from his cigarette caused Jack to skulk into the corner and hiss.

“What do you want, Carlos?”

“Want?”  He leaned against the doorframe, insolent, lethal.  “You’re my only niece. I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Why didn’t you just ask one of your goons?”

“Ah.”  He strolled closer, tapped his ash into her coffee mug.  “You wound me, querida. Visiting your father, claiming you’ve been harassed.”  When his gaze flicked up to hers, Ava’s heart tripped like a hammer.  “My men were supposed to watch out for you.  You could have let me know one of them became… overly enthusiastic.”

She hadn’t seen the goon in the T-bird since she’d come back from Atlanta.  There was that night, the night she and Jordan… she’d suspected someone was outside, she remembered.  But apart from that, she’d been left alone.

And she’d been feeling relieved, maybe even smug.

But now all she felt was sickened.  “What did you do?”

“It’s of no matter.”  He tapped his finger to her nose.  “The problem has been taken care of.  He won’t be bothering you again.”

Slowly, because she wasn’t entirely sure her legs would hold her, Ava raised herself from the chair.  “Out.  I want you out of here, you bastard.  I won’t let you put his blood on my hands.”

“Who said anything about blood?”

When she bared her teeth, he merely grinned.  “There’s the Martinez spirit.  I’ve always enjoyed you, Ava, contrary to what you might think.  You and me, we’re more alike than you realize.”

“Guess I better schedule that exorcism, ASAP.”

He laughed, delighted, and stuck the cigarette between his lips.  But as he took a final drag, his easy expression hardened.  “Pleasant as this has been, I think it’s time I showed myself out.”   The butt plunked down in her coffee.  “Take care of yourself,
little Ava
.  And take care of your new boyfriend.  I would hate to think that your relationship with me would cause you to… lose another man.”

He slithered down the hall, and Ava listened for the sound of the back door before allowing herself to crumple.

He knew.  Carlos knew about Jordan.  Almost certainly knew what he did for a living.  Maybe – probably – knew that he was the man his men had mistakenly abducted. 

There were medical records, surely a police report – it was certainly an open case.  Assistant district attorney assaulted.  Oh yeah, that would heat the cops up.

And Carlos likely had a snitch on the force.

Money – its lure, its lies – corrupted even the best intentioned.

  And if he knew about Jordan, knew the details of the case, he’d know Jordan had been dropped off at the ER that night.  And, of course, he’d know from Ricardo that the man they’d abducted had disappeared from the club’s parking lot.

The same night she’d been called there for a meeting.

Shit, shit, why hadn’t she thought, why hadn’t she realized it was really a simple puzzle?  Take a few pieces, fit them together, and que pasada, you’ve got the big picture.

“Ava?”

Jordan filled the doorway her uncle had vacated only minutes ago, and all the blood rushed out of her head. 

“Whoa, what the hell?” 

Hands, she felt his hands on her.  Strong, steady.  Lifting her.  Settling her back into the chair.  One of them tapped her cheek, just a little tap – pat, pat – and gray dots swam across his face as she tried to focus. 

“There you are.  There’s my girl.”

“Jordan.”  Her vision cleared.  Seeing the concern on his face, realizing how she must have looked folding like an accordion onto the floor, Ava fluttered her hand shakily.  “I…” She had to think fast.  “I guess I got a little light-headed.”

“No kidding.”

S
HE
was white as a corpse, Jordan thought angrily.  And he’d seen enough of them lately to know.  Pale, pasty, limp beneath his hands. 

What she looked, he concluded, was terrified. 

He sniffed, noted the stench of cigarette smoke in the air.  But this stench had the kick of something spicy, like those things the Goths had smoked before the FDA had them banned. 

Ava didn’t smoke.  One-eyed Jack, who glared at him from on top of the filing cabinet in the corner, sure as hell didn’t smoke either.  The sign out front indicated the clinic was a smoke-free building.

So someone else had been in the office, quite recently if he was any judge. 

Someone who’d scared the hell out of Ava.

His lips thinned, but he kept his tone light.  “Got some bills here, I see.  I always get a little sick when I pay mine, too.”

“What?”  She blinked at the desk.  “Oh, right.”  

“How about we get you some water?”  He glanced at the mug on her desk, saw the black cigarette butt sticking out of it.

It rankled, that after everything they’d talked about, everything he’d said, she still seemed to be holding out on him.  He wanted to shake some sense into her, demand that she just trust him, for God’s sake, but he’d tried that approach before and all it had gotten him was her cold shoulder. He reminded himself that he had Evan looking into Sheppard.  He figured he’d know all about the ex soon enough.

Well, maybe not soon enough, he amended as she seemed to struggle to pull herself together.  Because Ava was hurting right now.