Southern Comfort - Fern Michaels [1]
Sally Pritchard Kelly was the wind beneath his wings. She was the reason he got up in the morning, the reason he was still sane considering the fact that he was a homicide detective. Because of Sally and the kids, he didn’t carry his work home with him. When he walked in the front door of his mortgaged-to-the-hilt house, he was in another world. Worn, comfortable furniture waited for him. Sally always waited at the door for him, a smile on her face and smelling of a summer day. Always. He couldn’t remember a single day in all the years they were married that she hadn’t greeted him with a smile and a kiss on the lips. A real kiss that said she loved him, missed him, and now things were the way they should be because he was home. There would always be a warm meal in the oven if he was late. Didn’t matter how late he was. Sally would curl up on the couch and wait. Sally was the constant in his life.
Prettier than a picture, he always said. He loved the freckles that danced across her nose, loved the crooked eyetooth she refused to have straightened. There wasn’t one thing he didn’t love about his wife because, in his eyes, she was perfect. At this point in his reverie, even if he was so tired he couldn’t think straight, his eyes always misted up. He’d just curl up and die if anything ever happened to his beloved Sally. Well, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon; they had at least another fifty years to look forward to. Both he and Sally came from families where longevity was the rule.
Tick could feel his eyes start to droop again, so he pressed the stereo unit and turned up the volume. His and Sally’s favorite song was burned on every inch of the CD, so he could play it over and over. “Mustang Sally.” He started to sing along with Wilson Pickett at the top of his lungs, “Ride, Sally, ride!”
He was two streets away from where he lived on David Court when he saw the strobe lights shooting upward to the sky. Blue, red, and white just like it was the Fourth of July. But it wasn’t the Fourth of July. He knew what the lights meant. Good cop that he was, he knew he was going to have to stop to offer any assistance if needed. Sally, the kids, and sleep would have to wait just a bit longer. He turned off the CD player and turned the corner, and his world came to a screeching halt. He saw the barricade, the yellow tape, the crazy arcing lights, the crowds of people, and too many police cars to count.
All parked in front of his house, in the driveway, on the lawn and sidewalk. He slammed on the brakes, threw open the door, and lunged forward. He heard his name being called from all directions, arms trying to reach him, someone trying to tackle him. He plowed ahead, driven by an energy he didn’t know he possessed. And then he was in a vise grip, unable to move. The more he fought and struggled, the tighter the hold became. He looked up to see the face of the man holding him and was stunned to see his captain, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Easy, Tick, easy.”
Tick ground his teeth together. He had to show respect to the captain. “Did someone rob my house? Where are Sally and the kids? Captain, I asked you a question.”
“Tick . . . I . . .”
Rising onto his toes, Tick reared upward, loosening the hold his captain had on his arm. He sprinted forward as fellow officers rushed to prevent him from entering the house. He evaded all of them.
The house was deathly silent. The crime-scene personnel took that moment to stop what they were doing and stare at the man who looked like the wrath of God. “Where are they?”
Someone, he didn’t know who it was, pointed to the second floor. Tick took the steps two at a time. It looked to him like there were a hundred people in his small upstairs. He bolted down the short hall to his bedroom. In his life he’d never seen so much blood. He saw her then, his beloved