Southern Poison by T. Lynn Ocean Read Free Book Online Page A

put on the CD player, mentally recapping the evening’s events. When we finished, he slipped a leash on Cracker and we headed outside. Strolling along the sidewalks without a destination, we found ourselves in downtown’s old residential area in front of the Camellia Cottage bed andbreakfast. Its bloom-laden veranda caught our attention, as did the laughing couple stretched on their backs in a giant rope hammock. Arms extended, the young man held a giggling toddler up in the air above them.
    “It’s a little scary,” Ox said, “the prospect of being solely responsible for a vibrant, opinionated, self-sufficient girl. You always hear people say how fast they grow up, but the sentiment never hits home until you’re suddenly looking into the face of your own sixteen-year-old daughter, wondering when she stopped playing with matchbox cars and started wearing eyeliner.”
    I found his hand. “I’m here to help.”
    His fingers tightened around mine. “Thanks. That means a lot.”

SEVEN
    A thermos of
spicy Bloody Marys would have been excellent liquid courage for my foray into the mobile food cart business but I resolved to drink bottled water instead. Sobriety might come in handy. I’d familiarized myself with the compact grill, lunchbox-sized steamer, cash register, and more important, the electronic toys Ashton had installed, including hidden video cams and a nifty miniature fluoroscope imaging system mounted inconspicuously beneath the fold-down serving counter on the passenger side of the truck. With the push of a button, it would give me a flash outline of a customer’s body on a small notebook computer, which of course would reveal any metal objects—translation: weaponry. It is the same technology that has some airline passengers complaining about a lack of privacy, since fluoroscope images can reveal surprising detail of private body parts. I could learn, for example, whether a walk-up male customer tucked it to the left or the right as I served his coffee with extra sugar. Not that I would use an expensive antiterrorism contraption for such petty purposes. Unless I got really bored. Or the man was particularly hunky.
    The drive to Sunny Point carried me through Southport and the passing scenery could have been any small beach town with a hodgepodge of shops and lots of signage: directional road signs for the ferry that cruised between Southport and Fort Fisher, colorful advertisements hawking sunset cruises, kayak rentals, and deep-sea fishing excursions, and an array of real estate billboards. I cruised past a few groceries, the all-important high-pressure car wash to remove sand and salt, and a liquor store, which most certainly had all the fixings for a good Bloody Mary. I ignored the impulse to turn in. A mix of older, modest homes with crushed oyster shell drives and newer, much bigger homes with elaborate entrances occupied the land bordering the Cape Fear River. A touch of early post-dawn chill blew from an awakening sky and, other than the fact that it was six thirty in the morning, it was a pretty decent day to sell food on the side of the road.
    I reached my destination and swung in, just off the intersection of Highway 133 and Sunny Point Road. A large brown sign on elevated posts declared: UNITED STATES ARMY MILITARY OCEAN TERMINAL SUNNY POINT MAIN GATE . Just for kicks, I continued east toward the bowels of the ammo dump. It was another mile to the two real main gates: one for general admission and the other for truck deliveries. The general gate was closed up tight so I forked right to the other gate, which was guarded by several square badges from AJAT Security. They weren’t soldiers, but they weren’t your average contract security workers, either. There were five of them and these well-paid men were armed with everything from holstered semiautomatic pistols to a Mossberg shotgun, and that’s just what was visible. During the Clinton administration when military bases across the country