Cold Case in Cherokee Crossing (2 page)

“Because I thought
you
killed him,” Hank hissed.

Avery gasped. “You...thought I killed him?”

“Yes.” The word sounded as if it had been ripped straight from his gut. “He was in your room, and there was no one else there in the house. And you had a knife. It was bloody.”

“What?” Avery looked down at her hands. “But I don’t remember that.”

Hank rubbed hand down his face. “I...I took it from you. You were...hysterical, in shock.”

Avery tried to piece together the holes in her past. “But...I didn’t kill him, Hank. At least I don’t think I did.”

Hank’s eyes narrowed. “You said you blacked out?”

She had lost time, lost her memory. Because she’d stabbed Wade herself?

Her pulse thundered. Had she let Hank go to jail to cover for her?

God... “Hank, tell me the truth. Did you see me stab him?”

“No, not exactly.” Hank rolled his hands into fists on the table, his scarred knuckles red from clenching his hands so tight. “But I heard him going into your room that night. I knew what he was going to do. I’d known it when Joleen left that morning and I’d been dreading it all day.”

So had she.

“So I sneaked a knife under my pillow. But he tied me up like always. I lay there and heard the door open, and I got angry.” His cheeks blushed with shame. “Then I heard you crying again, and I got madder and madder. He was a monster, and I was your big brother. I had to do something.”

“But you did,” Avery said, her heart aching as memories surfaced. “You tried to pull him off me before, and he beat you for it.” She paused, struggling with the images hitting her. Wade on top of her. Wade holding her down.

Or was that another night? So many of them bled together....

Nights of Wade shoving Hank against the wall and beating him with his belt. His fists. A wooden mallet. Anything he could get his hands on.

“I
wanted
to kill him,” Hank said, his voice gaining force. “So I twisted in the bed until I got hold of that knife and cut myself free. But when I made it to your room, Wade was already bleeding on the floor. His eyes were bulging, and he wasn’t breathing.”

Avery’s head swam. “He was already dead?”

Hank nodded. “I thought you’d stabbed him. You were crouched on the bed, crying and shaking. I tried to get you to stop crying, but you wouldn’t. And you wouldn’t talk, either. You just kept staring at the blood, and I heard the siren and was afraid they’d take you away, and you didn’t deserve that.”

A cold chill enveloped Avery. “Oh, Hank, what have we done?”

Silence fell between them, fraught with emotion. They were both lost in the horror of that night.

Finally Avery swiped at her tears. “This is unreal.... You went to jail for nothing. I should have come forward and told everyone what he’d done to me.” Rage and pain suffused her for all Hank had lost. For what they’d both lost. “I’m so sorry.... We have to make this right. We have to get you out of here.”

Despair settled on Hank’s face, the scar on his temple stark beneath the harsh lighting. “It’s too late now. My execution is already set.”

She couldn’t let him die for a crime he hadn’t committed. “No, I’ll find a way,” she said. “I’ll talk to your lawyer.”

Hank grunted. “Not the one I had in the beginning. He didn’t give a crap. But there is a new lady, just out of law school. She came to see me a few weeks ago.”

“Did you tell her what you told me?”

Hank shook his head. “I was afraid they’d come after you and arrest you. There’s no way I’d let you end up in this place.”

Avery’s throat burned with regret, yet her anger gave her strength. “What was this lawyer’s name? I’ll talk to the warden, and then I’ll call her.”

“It won’t do any good,” Hank said, defeat in his voice. “I told you, it’s too late.”

“No, it’s not.” Avery took a deep breath. “What was that lawyer’s name?”

“Lisa Ellis,” Hank mumbled. “But I’m telling you, it won’t make any difference.” He gestured around the room, then at the guard. “I know how things work in here.”

Avery’s voice gained conviction. “I’m not going to let you die for something you didn’t do, Hank. I’ll talk to that lawyer and if she can’t help, I’ll find someone who will.”

Avery stood, anxious to make the phone call. Hank had given up hope long ago because she hadn’t been there for him.

No one had.

It was time that changed.

* * *

J
AXON
IDENTIFIED
HIMSELF
to the warden, a chuffy bald man with thick dark brows and ropes of tattoos on his arms, and explained that he wanted to visit Hank Tierney.

“Yes, you can see him, but this is odd,” Warden Unger said. “Tierney has only had one visitor in the past twenty years until today. Today he’s had two.”

Jaxon straightened his shoulders. “Who else came to see him?”

“His sister.” The warden scratched his head. “Obviously with the execution date approaching, she wanted to say goodbye.”

Or perhaps that lawyer Director Landers had mentioned had spoken with her.

The warden twirled the pen on his desk. “What brings you here?”

“My director wanted me to make sure the execution is still on.”

Warden Unger nodded. “Good. Thought you might be working for that pansy-ass attorney out to get a stay.”

“I take it that means you think Tierney is guilty.”

Unger shrugged and dropped the pen. “A jury convicted him. My job is to make sure these animals in here don’t slit each other’s throats, not argue with the court.”

A buzzer sounded on the warden’s desk, and his receptionist’s voice echoed over the speaker.

“Warden, Avery Tierney insists on seeing you right away.”

Unger glanced at Jaxon and Jaxon nodded in agreement. “Send her in.”

Jaxon had studied the files on the case before he’d driven to the prison. Avery Tierney had been the only person at the house when her brother murdered their foster father.

She was nine at the time, and according to the doctor who’d examined and interviewed her afterward, she’d been in shock and too traumatized to talk.

The door opened, and the warden’s secretary escorted Avery Tierney in.

Nothing Jaxon had read in the file prepared him for the beautiful woman who stepped inside. Avery Tierney had been a skinny, homely-looking kid wearing hand-me-downs with scraggly, dirty brown hair and freckles. She’d looked lost, alone and frightened.

This Avery was petite with chocolate-brown eyes that would melt a man’s heart and curves that twisted his gut into a knot.

Although fear still lingered in those eyes. The kind of fear that made a man want to drag her in his arms and promise her everything would be all right.

She looked back and forth between him and the warden. “Warden Unger,” Avery said, her voice urgent. “You have to help me stop the execution and get my brother released from prison.”

The warden cleared his throat. “Why would I do that, Miss Tierney?”

A pained sound ripped from Avery Tierney’s throat. “Because he’s innocent. He didn’t kill Wade Mulligan.”

Chapter Two

Jaxon forced himself not to react. Avery was obviously emotional over losing her brother, and desperate now that his execution was less than a week away.

Warden Unger gestured toward Jaxon. “This is Sergeant Jaxon Ward with the Texas Rangers. Sit down, Miss Tierney, and tell us what’s going on.”

Avery’s brows pinched together as she glanced at Jaxon. “You came to help Hank?”

Jaxon gritted his teeth. “I came to talk to him,” he said, omitting the fact that he’d actually come to confirm the man’s guilt, not help him.

Avery didn’t sit, though. She began to pace, rubbing her finger around and around her wrist as if it were aching.

His gaze zeroed in on the puckered scar there, and his gut tightened. It was jagged, ridged—maybe from a knife wound?

Was it self-inflicted or had someone hurt her?

* * *

A
VERY
TRIED
TO
ignore the flutter in her belly that Jaxon Ward ignited. She had never been comfortable with men, never good at flirting or relationships. And this man was so masculine and potent that he instantly made her nervous.

His broad shoulders and big hands looked strong and comforting, as if they could be a woman’s salvation.

But big hands and muscles could turn on a woman at any minute.

Besides, she had to focus on getting Hank released. Sorrow wrenched her at the thought that he’d been imprisoned his entire life for a crime he hadn’t committed.

“Miss Tierney?” Sergeant Ward said. “I understand you’re probably upset about the execution—”

“Of course I am, but it’s not that simple. I just talked to Hank and I know he’s innocent.”

That was the second time she’d made that statement.

“Miss Tierney,” the warden said in a questioning tone, “I don’t understand where this is coming from. You haven’t visited your brother in all the time he’s been incarcerated. And now after one visit, you want us to just believe he should be freed.”

“I should have come to see him before,” Avery said, guilt making her choke on the words. “I...don’t know why I didn’t. I was scared, traumatized when I was younger. I...blocked out what happened that night and tried to forget about it.”

“You testified against your brother,” Jaxon said. “You remembered enough to tell the police that you saw him stabbing Wade Mulligan.”

A shudder coursed up her spine as she sank into the chair beside the Texas Ranger. “I know,” she said, mentally reliving the horror. The blood had been everywhere. Hank had been holding the knife, his T-shirt soaked in Wade’s blood.

“But Hank just told me what really happened.” She gulped back a sob. “He said he found our foster father on the floor, already dead. He thought I killed him, so he covered for me.”

Jaxon and the warden exchanged skeptical looks. “Hank is desperate, Miss Tierney,” Jaxon said. “At this point, self-preservation instincts are kicking in. He’ll say anything to convince the system to reevaluate his case. Anything to stay alive.”

“But you don’t understand—” Avery said.

“He confessed,” Warden Unger said, cutting her off. “Besides, the psych reports indicated that your brother was troubled. Other foster parents testified that he was violent. Mulligan’s own wife stated that Hank was full of rage.”

“Yes, he hated Wade and so did I.” Avery’s anger mounted. “We both had good reason. Wade used to beat Hank, and he...” She closed her eyes, forcing the truth out. Words she’d never said before. “He abused me. Hank was only trying to protect me that night. He took beatings for me all the time.”

Jaxon leaned forward. “Protecting you and hating his abuser give him motive for murder,” he pointed out. “Although I’m surprised Hank’s attorney didn’t use that argument in his defense.”

“So you read his file?” Avery asked.

Jaxon shrugged. “Briefly.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Warden Unger said. “Hank Tierney confessed.”

“Because he thought I killed Wade,” Avery admitted in a broken voice. “That’s the reason he confessed. He thought I stabbed Wade, and he didn’t want me to go to jail.”

* * *

J
AXON
’
S
PULSE
JUMPED
at the vehemence in her voice. “Why would he think that you killed Mulligan?”

Avery stared down at her fingers, then traced that scar on her wrist again, a fine sheen of perspiration breaking out on her forehead.

“Because Wade...was coming into my room that night.” Avery’s voice trembled. “Joleen, our foster mother, left earlier that day, and Hank and I both knew what that meant.”

Jaxon had a bad feeling he knew as well, but he needed her to say it. “What did it mean?”

She visibly shuddered. “It meant we’d have a bad night,” she said in a faraway voice. “That Wade would be drinking.”

The pain in her eyes sent a shiver of rage through Jaxon.

“He’d hurt you before?”

She nodded again. Which meant Hank could have planned the attack, that it was premeditated. According to the transcript of the case, Hank had never expressed any remorse for what he’d done.

Hell, Jaxon couldn’t blame Hank. Knowing his foster father was hurting his sister could make a fourteen-year-old boy stab a man to death and not regret it.

Avery sucked in a shaky breath. “I tried locking the door, but that only made Wade madder and he tore through it with a hatchet. And that night...I heard him yelling at Hank. Hank tried to fight him, but he tied Hank in his room.”

Jaxon’s jaw ached from clenching it.

“Then I...heard the door open and...”

The images bombarding Jaxon made him knot his hands into fists. But he didn’t want to frighten Avery, so he stripped the rage from his voice. “What happened then?” he asked softly.

She lifted her gaze, her eyes tormented. “I don’t remember. I... Sometimes when Wade came in, I blacked out, just closed my eyes and shut out everything.”

The warden was watching her with a skeptical look. But Jaxon had grown up in the system himself. He knew firsthand the horrors foster kids faced. The feelings of abandonment, of not being wanted. The abuse.

“What
do
you remember?” he asked.

She ran a hand through the long strands of her wavy hair. Hair the color of burnished copper. Hair that he suddenly wanted to stroke so he could soothe her pain.

“The next thing I remember was seeing Hank holding that knife.” She straightened and brushed at the tears she didn’t seem to realize she was crying. “But it could have happened the way he said. Someone else could have killed Wade. Then Hank came in and thought I did, so he stabbed him and took the blame to protect me.”

“But you were the only two people in the house,” Jaxon said. “You and Hank both said that.”

Avery looked up at him with a helplessness that gnawed at his very soul. “But there had to be someone else,” she said. “Hank only confessed because he thought I stabbed Wade. I can’t let him go to the death chamber for protecting me.”

Jaxon wanted to believe her, but there hadn’t been signs of anyone else at the house.

And without evidence or proof of her story, there was no way to save her brother.

* * *

A
VERY
SENSED
THE
warden was not on her side. He’d obviously heard hundreds of inmates declare their innocence.

Death row inmates in the last stages of their lives probably always made a last-minute plea of innocence.

But she believed her brother and had to help him.

Because the person who’d really killed Wade Mulligan had escaped.

Her heart hammered.

What if I did kill him?

The thought struck Avery like a physical blow. Hank must have had a reason to think she did....

He’d mentioned that she had a knife.... She didn’t remember that.

Did she have blood on her hands?

For a second panic seized her.

What if she discovered she had stabbed Wade, and that she’d let her brother take the fall?

Bile rose to her throat.

“Avery, are you all right?”

Sergeant Ward’s gruff voice made her jerk her head up. His deep brown eyes were studying her with an intensity that sent tingles along her nerve endings. It was almost as if he were trying to see inside her head, trying to read her soul.

She felt naked. Vulnerable. Raw and exposed in a way she hadn’t felt in years.

Because she’d just confessed about the abuse, which meant others would be asking questions. And if Hank’s case were reopened, she would have to go public with her statement.

Shame mingled with nausea. Could she open herself up to that kind of publicity? Then everyone would know....

“I’d like to talk to Hank myself.” Sergeant Ward turned to the warden. “Can I do that now?”

The warden’s scowl cut Avery to the bone. “Sure. But you’re wasting your time. In all the years Tierney has been here, this is the first time he’s ever claimed innocence.”

“What kind of prisoner has he been?” the Texas Ranger asked.

The warden pulled up his record on his computer. “A loner. Kept to himself. Got into fights a lot when he first got here.” He scanned the notes. “Prison psychologist said he kept saying he was glad Mulligan was dead.”

Avery’s chest ached with the effort to breathe. “Was he abused in prison?”

The warden folded his hands on his desk. “Lady, this is a maximum-security facility. We do our best to protect the inmates, but we’ve got rapists, murderers, pedophiles and sociopaths inside these walls. They’re caged up like animals and have a lot of testosterone and pent-up rage.”

Avery bit her lip. She’d heard horror stories of what happened to prisoners, especially young men. And Hank had only been a teenager when he was arrested. Not able to defend himself.

“When he was sentenced, he was only fourteen.” Sergeant Ward said. “Why didn’t he receive psychiatric care and chance of parole?”

Warden Unger grunted and looked back at the computer. “The prosecuting attorney showed pictures of the gruesome, bloody crime scene, a dozen stab wounds altogether. That was enough for the jury to see that Tierney was violent and dangerous enough to be locked away forever.”

Avery rubbed her wrist, a reminder of her past.

And how far she’d come.

At least she thought she’d survived. But she’d been living a lie. Never moving forward.

Ignoring her brother who’d fought and lied and risked his life to save her.

The system had failed them by placing them with the Mulligans.

Shouldn’t the fact that she and Hank were being abused have factored in to the court’s decision? Hadn’t anyone argued for Hank that he’d been protecting himself and her?

* * *

J
AXON
STOOD
,
BODY
TAUT
. Avery Tierney was obviously upset and struggling over her visit with her brother. Had Hank Tierney manufactured this story as a last-ditch effort to escape a lethal injection?

Was he guilty?

An uneasy feeling prickled at Jaxon’s skin. If Avery didn’t remember the details of the murder, could she have stabbed her foster father, then blocked out the stabbing?

Damn. She’d only been a child. But if the man had been abusing her, and she’d fought, adrenaline could have surged enough for to fight the man and inflict a deadly stab wound.

Not likely. But not impossible.

The more believable scenario was the one the assistant district attorney had gone with when they’d prosecuted Tierney. They had concrete evidence, blood all over the boy and his hands, and those damning crime photos. For God’s sake, Hank was holding the murder weapon and had admitted to stabbing Mulligan.

And Hank and Avery were the only two people in the house at the time.

“Talk to Hank and you’ll see that he’s telling the truth,” Avery said. “Please, Sergeant, help me save him.”

Man, that sweet voice of hers made him want to say yes. And those soulful, pain-filled eyes made him want to wipe away all her sorrow.

But he might not be able to do that. Not if Hank were guilty.

Avery touched his hand, though, and a warmth spread through him, a tingling awareness that sent a streak of electricity through his body.

And an awareness that should have raised red flags. She was a desperate woman. A woman in need.

A woman with a troubled past who might be lying just to save her brother.

He’d fallen into that trap before and almost gotten killed because of it. He’d vowed never to make that mistake again.

But the facts about the case bugged him. Considering the circumstances, the kid should have been given some leniency. Offered parole. He’d been fourteen. A kid trying to protect his sister.

Unless those circumstances hadn’t been presented to the jury.

But why hadn’t they?

His boss would know. But hell, Landers wanted Hank Tierney to be executed.

Because he believed Hank was a cold-blooded killer?

Or because he’d made a mistake and didn’t want it exposed?