Rita Herron - Cold Case in Cherokee Crossing

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.

* * *

JAXON 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?

* * *

AVERY 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.