Rita Herron - Cold Case in Cherokee Crossing

Wade’s hulking shadow filled the doorway. She could smell the sweat and beer and grease from the shop. His breathing got faster.

He started toward her, and she closed her eyes. She had to go somewhere in her mind, someplace safe where she couldn’t feel him touching her.

Then everything went black....

The sound of keys jangling outside the prison door startled her back to reality. The door screeched open, a guard appeared, one hand on the arm of the man shackled and chained beside him.

Hank. God... Her heart stuttered, tears filling her eyes. She remembered him as a young boy—choppy sandy blond hair, skinny legs, eyes too hard for his age, mouth always an angry line.

But he was a man now, six feet tall with muscles. His eyes were cold and hard, his face and arms scarred from prison life. He was even angrier, too, his jaw locked, a vein pulsing in his neck.

He shuffled over to the chair, pulled it out, handcuffs rattling as he sank into it. The guard stepped to the door, folded his arms and kept watch.

She waited on Hank to look at her, and when he did, animosity filled the air between them. He hated her for not visiting.

She hated herself.

A deep sense of grief nearly overwhelmed her, and she wanted to cry for the years they’d lost. She’d spent so much of her life struggling against the gossip people had directed toward her because of her father’s arrest, and then Hank’s, that she hadn’t thought about how he was suffering.

For what seemed like an eternity, he simply stared at her, studying her as if she were a stranger. He shifted, restless, and guilt ate at her.

“You came,” he finally said in a flat voice. “I didn’t think you would.”

The acceptance in his tone tore at her. Maybe he didn’t blame her, but he was still hurt. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit you before. I should have.”

Hank shrugged as if he didn’t care, his orange jumpsuit stark against his pale skin. But he did care. He’d always acted tough, but on the inside he was a softie. When she was little, he used to kiss her boo-boos to make them better.

No one had been here to soothe him the past few years, though.

“I’m so sorry, Hank. At first, there was so much happening—the Department of Children and Family Services the foster system, your trial...” And then she’d had to testify to what she’d remembered.

Her testimony had sealed his fate. “I should have lied back then, said I didn’t see anything.”

Another tense second passed. “You were only a kid, Avery.”

“So were you.”

His gaze locked with hers, the memories of the two of them huddled together out in the rain after their mother had left them returning. I’ll take care of you, Hank had promised.

And he did.

How had she paid him back? By abandoning him.

He cleared his throat. “I tried to find out what happened to you after I got locked up, but no one would tell me anything.”

Avery twined her fingers on the table. “Nobody wanted to take me,” she admitted. “I wound up in a group home.”

He made a low sound of disgust in his throat. “Was it bad?”

Avery picked at her fingernails to keep from rubbing that damned scar. “Not as bad as...the Mulligans.” Nothing had been as bad as living with them.

Of course, Hank might argue that prison was.

“They told me you didn’t remember the details of that night.” Hank lowered his head, then spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m glad. I hated what he did to you. He was a monster.”

Shame washed over Avery. She’d never told anyone except the therapist the truth. But Hank knew her darkest secret.

Avery reached across the table and laid one hand on his.

“I’m so sorry for everything, Hank. I know you killed Wade for me.” Tears clogged her throat. “I...should have spoken up, told someone about what he was doing. Maybe it would have helped get you off, or at least they’d have given you some leniency and a lighter sentence.”

Hank studied her for a long few minutes, his expression altering between anger and confusion. “You still don’t remember?”

She swallowed hard. “Just that he was drinking. That you fought with him, and he tied you up. Then he came in my room.” She pressed a finger to her temple, massaging where a headache pounded. The headaches always came when she struggled to recall the details. “Then everything went black until I saw you with that knife.”

Hank pulled his hand away and dropped his head into his hands. “God, I don’t believe this.”

Avery watched him struggle, her heart pounding.

“Hank, I’m sorry. I should have lied about seeing you with that knife. You always stood up for me, and I let you down.” Her voice cracked with regret.

The handcuffs clanged again, as he reached for her hands this time. The guard stepped forward and cleared his throat in a warning, and Hank pulled his hands back.

“Look at me, Avery,” Hank said in a deep voice. “I didn’t kill Wade.”

“What?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Wade said again, his voice a hoarse whisper.

Avery gaped at him. Was this a last-minute attempt to save himself from death? “But...you told them you hated him, that you were glad you’d stabbed him.”

He leaned closer over the table, his look feral. “I did stab him, but he was already dead when I stuck that blade in him.”

“What?” Avery’s head reeled. “Why didn’t you tell the police that?”

“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.”