Circumstantial
Evidence
The
Sweetwater Trilogy
Book
3
Lisa
Clark O’Neill
Genre:
Romantic suspense
Date
of Publication: February 26, 2015
ISBN:
1508605998
ASIN:
B00U1FH2L4
Number
of pages: 475
Word
Count: 95,000
Cover
Artist: Brian Koch
Book
Description:
As
Chief of Police in Sweetwater, South Carolina, Will Hawbaker has seen
more than his share of violent crime. But none of it has prepared him
for the aftereffects of a young boy dead at the hand of his mother’s
boyfriend. And when the suspected killer turns up dead himself, it
raises more questions. Could this crime which has already shaken the
town be even more sinister than it appears?
Camellia
Abernathy has seen her own share of heartache following the violent
death of the husband she only thought she knew. In returning to
Sweetwater, her childhood home, Cam hopes to pick up the pieces of a
shattered life for both herself and her young son. One piece of that
life includes Will Hawbaker, the man who not only launched the
investigation which uncovered her husband’s double life, but with
whom she’s been in love since they were teens.
A
rapid fire series of events turns both Cam and Will’s lives upside
down, drawing them together even as they find themselves in the
crosshairs of a killer.
Excerpt:
The
fog was so thick you could slice it with a knife and serve it up a la
mode.
Will
Hawbaker scrambled over fallen logs, wading through a sea of saw
palmettoes as deep as his waist. The maritime forest was nearly
impenetrable, with boggy patches of ground to catch the unwary in its
earthen grip, sucking the boots right off your feet if you weren’t
careful.
Will
paused, shining his flashlight around, the beam a feeble weapon
against the moonless night. It was hours yet until daybreak, when the
sun would burn off the fog like the wispy vestiges of a bad dream.
And
this was definitely a bad dream. One Will wished he could wake up
from.
Even
at this time of night the air felt like a slow cooker, baking him
from the inside out. Sweat rolled down his temples, his back, causing
his shirt to cling and his hair to drip salty tears on the fanned
leaves of the nearest palmetto. Mosquitoes droned just outside the
protective zone of the repellent he’d applied, black clouds
swirling through the white.
Nearby,
an owl hooted.
This
was an uncomfortable environment for an adult, even one who was
accustomed to putting himself in danger.
For
a child, it had to be terrifying.
“Sam!”
Will called out, listening as his voice seemed to be absorbed by the
soup-like air.
He
heard barking, but couldn’t tell if it was coming closer to him or
moving away. The team from the Sheriff’s Department with the
bloodhounds had set out at the same time he had, but they’d all
headed in different directions.
They
had a lot of forest to cover, and not a lot of time. The twenty-four
hour window, that critical time after an abduction, was closing fast.
Hearing
something – had that been a whimper? – off to his left, Will
turned the flashlight that direction.
“Sam?”
Even
though no response was forthcoming, Will began moving toward the
sound. If the child was hurt, he may not be able to answer. If he was
frightened – and why the hell wouldn’t he be? – he may be too
terrified to make his hiding spot known.
“Sam!”
Will called as he shoved a small sapling out of his way. “I know
you must be scared, buddy, but I’m here to help you.”
And
because the kid probably didn’t believe jack shit coming from
adults right now, especially adults he was supposed to be able to
trust, Will didn’t bother to mention anything about being a cop.
That wasn’t quite the vote of confidence it once was, anyway.
Better to try something on the boy’s level.
“I
hear you like dogs,” he said, his voice radiating calm even as he
viciously kicked at a vine that wanted to tangle him up in its thorny
grip. “Do you hear the dogs barking? They’re looking for you,
too.”
Fingers
of fog tickled the back of Will’s neck, teasingly cool against his
overheated flesh.
Mother
Nature was definitely female, Will thought sourly. Soothing and
confounding at the same time.
“I
like dogs,” Will said conversationally, because what the hell. If
nothing else, maybe the boy would get sick of hearing him yapping and
tell him to shut up. “You hear those bloodhounds barking? They’re
out here looking for you, too. Kind of like Timmy and Lassie.” Will
paused, wondering if the kid even knew who that was. Given that this
was the age of animated sponges living in undersea pineapples,
probably not.
“That
was an old show I used to watch, about this awesome collie that was
always saving this kid Timmy’s butt. I thought it would be cool to
have a dog that could get help when you did something dumb like fall
down a well, but I couldn’t have one when I was a kid. My mom
didn’t want one. She thought it would mess up the house and was too
much responsibility.”
His
mother didn’t particularly want him or his siblings either, for
much the same reason. But that was beside the point.
“Your
mom told me that you’ve been asking for a dog.” Will stopped,
shone his flashlight toward the base of the enormous oak tree off to
the right. Was that a flash of red he’d just seen?
“But
that you two had been debating about that responsibility thing, too.
And that line about a boy who can’t even pick up after himself not
being responsible enough to take care of a dog? I heard that one too,
and it sucks. But the thing is, your mom is kind of right. I think
she’s willing to give you a chance though. She told me that when
you get back home, safe and sound, she’s taking you to the pound,
first thing.”
“Liar!”
Will
froze. It had been the merest whisper of sound, ephemeral as the fog
itself. He half thought it was wishful thinking on his part.
“Now,
I’ve got no reason to pull your leg about that, son. Dogs are a
pretty serious business. A lot more serious than putting away your
Legos and getting your dirty clothes in the hamper. You’ve got to
make sure you feed them and water them and take them for walks… but
maybe you’re not ready for all that responsibility.”
“Am
too!”
That
was definitely no figment of his imagination.
Covering
his relief with a look of exasperation, Will followed the voice with
the beam of his flashlight.
Nine-year-old
Sam Bryant peered back at him from one of the branches of the oak
tree.
“Pretty
good climber, are you?”
The
kid looked terrified, but defiant. “Yes. But my mom…” his voice
trembled on the word “tells me that I’m going to fall and break
my head.”
“Your
head looks pretty hard to me.”
“She’s
dead.”
“Excuse
me?”
“He…”
the kid’s whole lower face started to quiver. “He said my mom was
dead. So you’re lying about the dog.”
Will
swallowed the curse he wanted to say, but silently wished all the
seven plagues to be visited upon the man in question. Hopefully while
he was naked. And staked out on a fire ant mound. Why the hell would
he say such a thing?
“He
lied,” Will told the boy. “He’s the liar.”
He
was Matthew Hastings, Sam Bryant’s mother’s boyfriend. After a
particularly nasty argument over Hastings’ belief that Sam’s mom
was coddling him too much because she was squeamish about Sam
learning to hunt, Hastings decided to take the kid out into the woods
anyway while his mom was at work. He’d abandoned him there, with no
food, no water, and little hope of finding his way out. Apparently
this was meant as an illustration of the importance of developing
survival skills.
Luckily
they’d managed to track Hastings car to this area, a stretch of
uninhabited woodland used primarily for a hunting club.
Hastings
seemed to have abandoned his car along with the boy, which meant he
was in the wind somewhere. But the important thing was that they’d
found Sam, alive and in one piece.
At
least he looked to be in one piece.
“Sam,
I need you to listen to me, okay? Your mom is fine. She’s worried
sick, but she’s fine. But I need to know if you’re hurt
anywhere.”
“I’m
thirsty.”
“I’ll
just bet.” The kid had been alone in the woods for almost eighteen
hours. Given the fact that it was August in South Carolina,
dehydration was a given. Will pulled a bottle out of the pocket of
his cargo pants.
“Lucky
for you I brought some water with me. Now, I have to contact the
other people who are looking for you, so that everyone knows you’re
okay. Can you climb down from there, or do you need help?”
“I
can do it.”
“Good
man.” But because Will didn’t want to take any chances, he moved
closer to the base of the tree even as he thumbed on his radio.
“Found him,” he said, and gave his approximate coordinates. “I’ll
give you a status report on his condition just as soon as I have a
chance to check him out.”
Fog
swirled, obscuring his view of the boy, the tree, and Will moved his
flashlight around in an attempt to see through it. “Sam?” he
said, but received no answer.
“Sam?”
he said again. “Be careful climbing down.”
That
would be just what they needed at this point, for the kid to fall out
of the tree and actually break his head.
Concern
niggled. “Sam? Maybe you should just stay put, buddy, and let me
help you.”
Will
closed the final distance to the tree, but he tripped over an exposed
root near the base and nearly went sprawling.
“Some
help I am,” he muttered. “Pretend you didn’t see that,” he
called out. But still the boy didn’t respond.
“Sam?”
Will aimed his flashlight toward the branch of the tree where he’d
last seen the kid sitting. Empty. He started moving the beam lower.
“Sam!”
he said one more time when he saw no sign of the boy on any of the
branches. The nerves that had so recently calmed began to jump
beneath his skin. Shit. Had the boy fallen? He shone his flashlight
at the ground, the boiling fog making it nearly impossible to
distinguish shapes, around the side, back toward that root he’d
tripped –
“Oh
Jesus. Oh no.” Will stumbled the two steps that would take him to
where the boy lay, dropping down on his knees beside him. How could
he have fallen without Will hearing a thing?
“Sam?”
Will reached out, turned the boy over.
And
felt the blood drain out of his head.
The
boy hadn’t fallen. He’d been shot.
And
he’d been dead for quite some time.
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About
the Author:
One
fine day in the not-too-distant past, Lisa Clark O'Neill left
Wittenberg University with a BA in English, which she promptly
neglected. After working as an interior designer, decorative artist,
and Montessori art teacher (there may have been a BA in art as well,)
she finally settled into the role of mother to two very fine
children.
However,
two years of doing the stay-at-home-mom brain cell melt drove her to
pull out a pen and one of her old college notebooks.
That
turned into six manuscripts.
Lisa
spent subsequent years avoiding housework by burying her nose in just
about every romance novel she could get her hands on, after
completely falling in love with the genre. Her own work falls into
the romantic suspense sub-genre, with strong comedic undertones.
Lisa
currently lives in the Atlanta area with her family, her dog, her cat
and her daughter's pet rabbit. When she isn't attempting to keep the
rabbit from eating the woodwork, she's hard at work on her next
novel.
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Ooooh. Cam was married to a man whose double life was uncovered by a man she'd been crushing on since her teenage years. That could have all sorts of drama in the story! Especially if Sweetwater is a small town. Anytime anything happened where I grew up (very small town), it was all anyone would talk about for weeks. Can't imagine the gossip that this could've caused.
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