Serendipity (Southern Comfort) (23 page)

The escalating tension between Daniel and Sonya, because Daniel had had enough of Fuller.  “‘He’s harmless,’ Sonya would say.  Until I caught him with that camera.”  

Jordan knew the story, but consulted his notes. “You and Mr. Fuller had an altercation on the seventeenth of March, last year.”

“Saint Paddy’s Day.”  Hatcher agreed, and sipped his coffee.  Clay’d made it strong enough to peel the skin from the roof of your mouth, but it seemed to be doing the job.  “You know how crazy the city is.  People everywhere, most of ‘em drunk.”

“Had you been drinking, Mr. Hatcher?”

“Not a drop.  I had to work, missed the parades and whatnot.  But Sonya, she’d been out with friends.  Was going to meet me here, have a little dinner, then we’d head out together for round two.  You know we’ve got this ground floor unit, and when I park and get out of my car, I can hear her singing.  She’s got the window open, like she likes to do.  And she’s in there just belting out some Irish song.  Danny Boy, I think.  Woman carried a tune about as well as a buffalo can do the two-step, but she’s singing anyway.  So I think, hey, I’ll just sneak around to the window.  Throw a rock or something.  Maybe scare her a little so she’ll get fired up.”

“That’s when you noticed Fuller.”

“The bastard.”  Hatcher’s face tightened with rage.  “Hiding in the damn bushes, taking… taking pictures of Sonya through the window.  I’m sorry.”  He grabbed the discarded dishtowel, rubbed it against his watery eyes.    

“You’re doing fine.”

“So, I, uh, confront the little prick.  Pop him one in the jaw, and he squeals like a girl and goes down.  Sonya comes over to the window and starts asking what the hell is going on, and Fuller is blubbering and there’s just this… red haze in front of my eyes.  So I pick him up by the shirt – I don’t really even remember doing it – and just… slam him into the window.”

Jordan had sworn to uphold the law, to conduct himself in a manner befitting a representative of the court, but part of him pumped its fist.  Even if Jordan couldn’t be sure that Elijah Fuller had caused three deaths, his behavior had been reprehensible.  “Fuller was later treated at the hospital for lacerations to the back of his head.”

“Yeah.  Uh, some of the glass flew in and hit Sonya, too.  She got five stitches right about here.”  Hatcher made a slicing motion across the top of his foot.  

“You spent that night in jail.”

“Some of the neighbors called the cops.  I was… I guess I was still working him over, and just got caught up in it and took a swing at one of the officers.  Sonya, uh, she finally agreed there might be a problem and was talking about getting a restraining order.  The cops had Fuller’s camera, the memory stick pretty well filled with pictures of Sonya.  Here.  At school.  Walking through the damn park.  We figured we’d move, get away.  Get the glass replaced and break the lease, who cares?  But a little over a week later she’s dead.

“The same day the stitches came out of her foot.”

AVA stared at the tub of pansies with helpless rage.

They were dead.  Not just withered.  Dead.

She knew – even before Jordan had so thoughtfully pointed it out – that she had a tendency to neglect them.  They always looked so cheerful, their happy purple faces bobbing in the barrel as she breezed in and out the door, and then – whoops!  They’d be drooping.  Forgot to water them, again.

But Jordan had watered them, hadn’t he.  Not four – or was it three? – nights ago.  And now they lay lifeless, leaves shriveled, faces dark.

The bastard had poisoned her flowers.

Ava looked around, noted with little surprise that the lot was empty.  She hadn’t actually seen the goon since he’d confronted her with the knife.  And the thought that he’d been sneaking around her clinic with a can of poison had her furious blood running cold. 

What if it had been one of her patients?

What if it had been one of her friends?

“Okay.” Ava pulled her keys from her purse with shaking fingers.  “Okay, asshole.  You want to make me uncomfortable, that’s one thing.  But enough is enough.”

Riding on nerves, on anger, Ava twisted the key in the lock before stomping toward her car.  She’d parked it directly in front of the door to discourage any more creative tire carving.  Recalling the way Jordan had changed the flat that morning, despite the fact he’d been quietly furious with her, had her own temper snarling and snapping like a nasty little dog.

She guessed that was pretty well over, considering he hadn’t bothered to say goodbye before he’d left.

And while she would have liked to say good riddance – she hadn’t wanted to get involved, had she? Hadn’t she told him to leave her be? – Ava was too honest with herself not to recognize the little bump to her heart.

Just a bruise, she told herself, and checked her rearview as she slid her Mustang into the line of traffic in Calhoun Square.  Better to take the hit now, get them both out of the line of fire before someone got seriously hurt.

And it wasn’t like she hadn’t been bruised before.  Her uncle had seen to that, and Michael… well, Michael had been all too eager to abandon the field.

All but righteous now with the rage that threatened to blister anyone who got too close, Ava whipped into Lou Ellen’s drive. So many of her corpuscles had boiled away that she went lightheaded as she slammed into park.

Jack streaked out from under a camellia bush, and Ava’s heart shot up to her throat.

“Dammit.  Jack, how did you get out?”  Fingers tingling from the heat of her rage, from the scare, Ava reached down to scoop him up.  In her hurry to get to work that morning, she’d decided to leave him at home.  Inside, she recalled irritably, where he couldn’t be run over by a stupid car.

Annoyed by the tightness of her grip, Jack dug his claws into her arm. 

“Stop it.  Just stop it right now, you ingrate.  I almost hit you.”

His warning growl let her know he was pissed.  “Yeah, well, get in line, buddy.  I’ve got plenty of damn fool men angry with me already.”

“Problem, Ava?”

Ava glanced up to see Lou Ellen, glass in hand, cropped orange pants and bright green shirt making her look unfortunately like a skinny pumpkin, standing on the veranda with a uniformed young man. 

“No, not at all.  Everything’s just peachy.  Ouch.  Ouch, you little shit.”  With the mark from his teeth burning her arm, Ava dropped the cat to the ground.  He crawled under an oleander to glare, eyes narrowed, tail twitching.

Lou Ellen cleared her throat.  “Seems the peach crop is rotten this year.”

“You have no idea,” Ava muttered.

“Um, if that’s going to be all, Ms. Calhoun?”

Ava looked at the man who’d spoken, noted the Glass Doctor logo on the cap pulled low over short, light hair.  There was a name embroidered on his shirt, but she was too far away to see it.  If she hadn’t been so angry that she was all but deaf, dumb and blind with it, she would have noticed his van parked along the street.

“Yes, I’m sorry.  You need me to sign something, baby doll?”

“Yes ma’am.”  He turned red to the tips of his ears.  “Here and… here.”  He avoided looking at Ava as Lou Ellen took the clipboard. 

Probably a good call, as he’d likely suffer corneal flash burn.

When he’d trotted down the steps and hurried away, Ava sighed and walked toward Lou Ellen.

“I’m sorry about the window.”

“I do believe you frightened that young man.”  Lou Ellen offered her a drink, which despite the brownish color and slice of lemon bore little resemblance to iced tea. But Ava shook her head.  She was volatile enough without adding alcohol.  “And it’s glass, Ava.  Old glass.  Probably needed to be replaced, anyway.”

Ava dropped, simply dropped, onto the rosy brick steps.  And lowered her head to her knees.

The tinkling of ice let her know that Lou Ellen had joined her a moment before she felt the hand stroke down her back.

“Lou Ellen. I’m –”

“Don’t you tell me you’re sorry again, child, or you’re just gonna piss me off.  One of us in a temper is about all I can take.”

Disgusted, Ava felt tears swim into her eyes.  She couldn’t let it make her cry.  She just couldn’t.  “I hate,” she sucked in a breath, let it shudder out instead of tears “that any of this is touching you.”

“Seems to me that if something isn’t touching you in this life – good, bad, what have you – you must not be living right.  Me?  I prefer to take a chance of things getting messy rather than inhabit a sterile box.  Might as well live in one of those damn snow globes that litter Joyce Phillips’ parlor.  The ones with those little Precious Moments creatures inside?  And her a grown woman.  She ought to be ashamed.”

A laugh tickling her throat now, Ava lifted her face to the evening breeze.  “Those things always creeped me out.  Their eyes look like black teardrops, and their heads are entirely too large for their bodies.”

“There you go.”  Lou toasted her with the glass.  “It’s little wonder those poodles are so nervous.”

Because she felt better, marginally, Ava took a swig since it was there.  “Jesus.”  Her eyes watered.  “I think you forgot the mixer.”

“Why ruin a good drink?  I saw your handsome prosecutor drop by this morning.”

Ava watched Jack slide out from the oleander and dart after the first butterfly she’d seen that spring.  “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure that won’t be happening again anytime soon.  He’s sufficiently annoyed because I wouldn’t call his good friends, the police.  I think he’s ready to wash his hands of me.”

When Lou Ellen didn’t immediately respond, Ava turned to glance at her friend.

“What?”  She knew that look.

“Well Ava, it seems that you’ve managed to piss me off anyway.”  The anger frosting those dark eyes was cool where Ava’s was hot.  “Not everyone is willing to cut and run quite as easily as that pansy-assed Michael.  I’m not sure who you’re doing the bigger disservice, that young man or yourself.  And since I am pissed off, I think I’ll leave you to your sulk and go paint.  I find I’m more creative when I’m annoyed.”

If that was the case, Ava thought as Lou Ellen glided away, the woman must have been happy as ten clams every other time she’d picked up a brush.

“Aren’t I just the bitch tonight?”  Ava watched the butterfly outmaneuver Jack.  Big, hungry predator.  Little, clever invertebrate.

“And you don’t even have a spine.”

Ava decided to wrap up the pity party and find hers.  “Let’s go, Jack.”  She needed to hit the shower, change clothes.

Just what did one wear to visit their father in jail these days?

Ava figured it was time to find out.

“YOU think you can tell me no?” 

Jordan closed his arm around the woman’s neck, pulled her back against his chest to subdue her struggles.  The pretty little brunette’s cornrowed ponytail tickled his chin, her smooth, dark throat soft as butter beneath his hand.  “I said, get in the car.”

“No!”

Her chin dipped into the inside curve of his elbow, forcing him to loosen his hold.  And just like that, her hand shot behind her, aiming straight for his eyes.  Her heel came down hard on his instep as the sharp point of her elbow rapped against his ribs. 

When he fell back, she swiveled, snapped out a kick that caught him squarely in the solar plexus. 

Applause broke out around the room.

“I did it.”  Tasha Van Sant, pretty little brunette, college junior and total sweetheart, bounced on the soles of her size six feet.  Her dark eyes danced with pleasure.  “You’re, like, huge, and I just dropped you on your ass.”

Jordan smiled from his prone position on the mat and accepted her outstretched hand.  “And that’s because…”

“Because the outcome of a confrontation isn’t always about size, or strength.” 

Jordan climbed to his feet, looked at the other students.  “And…?”

“It’s about being aware of your surroundings,” they chorused “and knowing your assailant’s weak spots.”

“SING,” Tasha added, grinning.  “Solar plexus, instep, nose, groin.  Though I think I hit you more in the eye.”

“Eyes work.  And my groin appreciates the fact that you overlooked it.”

“Who said I did?”

With a laugh, Jordan offered her a bow.  “Well done, Tasha.”

When he straightened, Jordan caught sight of Chip Coleman smirking in the doorway.  “Okay ladies.”  Jordan nodded to acknowledge the detective, then turned toward his class.  “That wraps things up for this evening.  Next week we’ll talk about techniques for breaking a wristlock, without breaking your own wrist.”  

After answering a couple last minute questions and deflecting one invitation to River Street for a drink, Jordan grabbed his towel and headed toward Coleman.

“And to think, these women actually pay to wrestle around with you on a sweaty mat.”

“Well, they pay the Y.  I’m just a lowly volunteer.  But somebody has to do it.”

“Jiu-jitsu?”  Coleman rattled the change in his pocket.

“Some.”  Jordan wiped his neck.  “Some Krav Maga. How to use your opponent’s momentum against him.  Situational awareness.  Which, considering I’m talking to the detective in charge of my own assault, makes me sound like a giant ass-hat.”