by Jami Alden
“I’ve had three years to think about it. Trust me, when you spend most of your time alone, there’s a lot of time to contemplate your life. I just want this over with.”
“I can’t let you quit.” But she could see the resolve on his face. Her heart thudded with panic and her fingertips went numb. He meant it. He was going to give up.
“You can’t leave me, Sean. You can’t do this to me.” Angry tears burned the backs of her eyes, and it felt like a giant fist was squeezing her chest.
For the first time today, Sean looked angry. “I’m doing this for you, Megan. I won’t let you waste your life—”
“No! Don’t you put this on me.”
“Fine,” he snarled. “I’m a selfish fuck. I’m doing this for myself. But I can’t take it anymore, Megan.”
His voice cracked and her heart ripped in half. His eyes were once again dark and desolate, bright with unshed tears. “The first appeals took two years. The next one will take at least that long. Years I’ll spend in a nine-by-nine cell. And once in a while they let me out to walk around the yard like a fucking dog.”
“You’re alive,” she said, unable to choke back her sobs.
“I’m in hell.”
She shook her head, though she couldn’t deny the truth. She and her brother had grown up camping and exploring the wilderness in the Cascade Mountains. Sean was never happier than when he was out in the open air, nothing around but the vastness of nature to explore. For him to be confined to a cage was nothing short of torture.
But she couldn’t let him go so easily.
“Sean, I won’t let you die for something you didn’t do. We just need more time, and when we find out who the real killer is—”
She stopped at Sean’s derisive snort. “Come on, Megan. It’s been three years. Three fucking years and I still can’t remember a goddamned thing about that night. If there were any leads, any trace of evidence against someone else, someone would have found it by now.”
“Don’t say that. Convicts who’ve been on death row for decades have had their convictions overturned cause of new evidence.”
“Yeah, DNA evidence. And the only DNA found on or around Evangeline Gordon was mine.” He shook his head. “Hell, maybe we’re both wrong. Maybe I did do it.”
Megan swallowed back a surge of nausea. “Don’t say that. We both know you’re not capable—”
“You don’t know. You don’t know what I saw when I was deployed. Shit like that changes a person, Megan. You see things, and you kill in the name of your country—”
“Shut up,” she hissed. “Do not spew that shit at me.” She’d heard enough of it during his trial, the experts spouting off about operational stress exposure, posttraumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injuries that could alter a soldier’s behavior. “You think I’m going to change my mind about you? It won’t work.”
Sean shook his head, suddenly looking a hundred years old. Beaten down. Utterly defeated. “All I know is that we’re both stuck. I don’t want this life for either of us.”
Megan could only shake her head as she struggled to swallow back her sobs, tried to conjure the words that would convince him to turn from this drastic course. “Please,” was all she could come up with. “Please don’t leave me alone.”
His firm mouth trembled a little as he spoke. “It’ll be better this way. You have to trust me on that.”
“How can it possibly be better for you to die for something you didn’t do? This isn’t right. This isn’t fair. You have to give me time to fix it.”
He shook his head and pressed the palm of his hand up to the Plexiglas divider. Megan placed her own palm against his. “Some things can’t be fixed. You know that. Sometimes you get dealt a shitty hand, and you just do what you can to pick up the pieces and move on. That’s what I want you to do.”
“No. I don’t know what kind of suicidal bullshit you’re trying to pull, but I don’t accept this. I’m going to talk to your attorneys, and when I come back next week—”
“Don’t come back.”
Megan stopped short, pulling her hand away from the glass. “What?”
Sean swallowed hard and shifted in his seat, straightening up like he was bracing for something. “This is it, Meg,” he said, his voice barely audible through the handset. If she hadn’t seen his lips move, she might have believed he hadn’t spoken at all. “I don’t want you to visit anymore.”
“Shut up, Sean. Of course I’m coming back.”
He shook his head. “I won’t see you.”
She fell back in her chair. He would do it too. He’d refuse to accept her visits, and the prison wouldn’t force him. “How can you do this to me, Sean?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. When he opened his eyes, they held the same peaceful resolve she’d fou swa reassuring just moments ago. “I’m tired of you seeing me like this. I know it kills you a little every time you come here, and I won’t keep doing this to you.”
“It’s my choice, Sean! Believe me, I can handle this as long as I know there’s still a chance you’ll get out of here alive.”
“There is no chance. And it’s time you accepted that.”
She had no words to convince him otherwise.
“I love you, Megan. You know that, right?”
“I love you too! But how can you say you love me and make a decision like this?”
“It’s all going to work out for the best,” he said. “Someday you’ll see.” He kissed his fingers and pressed them up to the glass. “Bye, Megan.”
Before she could react, he placed his handset back in its cradle.
“Sean! Wait!” she screamed, even though he couldn’t hear her through the soundproof glass. Sean rose from his chair and went to the door to summon the guard.
Megan pounded her fist on the Plexiglas, but Sean didn’t so much as look back.
Sean silently followed the guard out the door. With the thick layer of plate glass muting her, he could pretend Megan wasn’t there. He didn’t turn to watch her go. He had to push it away, couldn’t let himself get taken in by her pain. Megan was strong. She would recover.
He shoved all thoughts of her aside. The emotion that had overwhelmed him at seeing her drained out as quickly as it had filled him, leaving him edgy and overstimulated like he always was after her visits.
The guard wrapped a hand around his arm and steered him through the visitor’s complex and back to the IMU cell block. Sean struggled to slow his breath, quiet his mind as every cell resisted the idea of going back to his hole.
He counted every clank of his shackles as they walked down the concrete blue corridor with its yellow cell doors. One, two, three, four… By the time he got to ten, he knew he wasn’t going to try to throw his cuffed wrists around the guard’s neck.
Eleven, twelve, he heard his guard speak. “What?” Sean said as he lifted his head. Then he realized the guard wasn’t speaking to him, but to another guard escorting a prisoner out of his cell for his exercise hour. It was the guy two cells down from Sean’s, the guy whose screaming jarred Sean from sleep most nights. He didn’t know what the guy was in for, didn’t care.
It was the first time in two years Sean had seen the man’s face. Their eyes met for a split second, and Sean registered a doughy face and a green tattoo creeping up the guy’s neck before he broke contact. He could feel the guy’s stare as the guards continued their conversation. Sean kept his eyes locked on the floor like a wary dog.
Heo interest in making any connection, no matter how small.
The slide of his metal cell door drowned out the squeak of footsteps, and Sean stepped inside. He clenched his teeth as the door clanged shut and put his hands through the slot without being told. Rattle, snick, the cuffs came loose and Sean pulled his hands back inside.
He sat down on his bunk. Stood up. Went to the sink, bent his head to drink from the faucet. Paced the length of his cell, forward and back, tracing the groove that had worn into the concrete
floor from the feet of dozens of poor bastards like him.
Lying down on his bunk, he closed his eyes and tried to conjure up the blue sky and snow-dusted mountains surrounding his father’s fishing cabin. But all he could see was Megan’s face, pale and tight and wet with tears.
And another face, beautiful, delicate, with wide-set dark eyes that he’d sworn were pleading for help. His stomach twisted, and for the millionth time he wished he’d never agreed to go to Club One, where his “friend” Jimmy Caparulo had been working as a bouncer. Wished he hadn’t given in to his friend’s pleas to make amends after what Jimmy had done to Megan.
But he’d gone to meet Jimmy, and that night he’d met her. Evangeline Gordon. Beautiful, mysterious, and in Sean’s eyes, vulnerable, though he’d never figured out exactly why. But she had that lost-little-girl-in-need-of-saving vibe he’d always been a sucker for, and once he’d picked up on it, he couldn’t let it go. Not that she’d given him a whole lot of encouragement. He’d barely convinced her to go on a couple of coffee dates in the two weeks he’d known her, and she never gave up anything about herself other than what he already knew. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from trailing after her to the club, even though Jimmy was off that night and he had no other excuse to be hanging around. She was upset to see him, but she wouldn’t say why. After that, the details went fuzzy. He had a vague memory of her agreeing to leave with him, a blurry recollection of her looking up at him with big, scared eyes and asking if he would protect her.
The memories after that were brutally clear. Her naked body, her cut throat. And blood. On the walls, staining the sheets.
Staining his hands.
He couldn’t protect her. He couldn’t protect himself.
He sat back up, his chest tight, his body coursing with nervous energy. He sprang to standing, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Jumping jacks. Ten. Twenty. A hundred. A thousand. Now jumps—bend, spring, land, until his legs shook and his breath labored. Push-ups, sit-ups, more jumping jacks.
For hours he bounced around the cell, until a tray of food passing through the slot in his door startled him from his frenzy. Ignoring the food, he collapsed on his bunk, his face salty with sweat and tears. He turned his face to the wall.
Megan’s hysteria rapidly gave way to numb purpose. No way was she letting Sean do this, she thought as she stalked away from the main building out to her car. She had Sean’s attorney on the phone before sh even backed out of her parking space.
“We can’t let him do this, Adam,” she said as she turned onto Highway 12. “We have to stop him.”
Adam Brockner let out a long-suffering sigh. “I’m not sure there’s much we can do.”
“Bullshit. There are always options. We can file a writ of habeas corpus, have Sean declared mentally incompetent—”
“Sean’s depressed but he’s not mentally deficient, and no judge will declare him so. We can try to delay, but Sean has made his wishes very clear, Megan. Don’t you think you need to respect that?”
Fury rose in her chest and she clung to it, its fiery sting so much better than the crippling grief at the thought of giving up on her brother. “He’s either suicidal or on some fucked-up martyr kick, trying to save me from myself, and you think I should respect that?” Thick raindrops spattered against her windshield. She forced herself to slow down as red brake lights flared in front of her.
“Sean has his own reasons for wanting to take this course,” Adam said in his low, measured voice that usually soothed her but now raised her hackles. How dare he be so calm? “I spoke with him at length, and I believe he’s decided to accept the inevitable.”
She wished Brockner was in the car with her so she could hit him in the face. “An innocent man is going to be executed, and all you can say is it’s inevitable?”
Thick silence hovered over the line.
“You think he did it,” Megan said, disbelief sharpening her tone even as she wondered how she could be so stupid. She’d just assumed… had never bothered to ask him flat out if he believed Sean did it.
“You can’t deny the evidence is damning,” Adam said.
Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.
“But you defended him.”
“I can believe a client is guilty and still believe the state has no right to kill him. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. You should know that by now, Megan. And he’ll never admit it out loud, but I think Sean has finally come to terms with his guilt. And even though I don’t agree with how the state wants to deal with it, I respect Sean’s decision.”
“Sean is not guilty,” she said through clenched teeth. “And if he really believed it, if he remembered something after all this time, he would tell me.”
“Would he? Your brother is very protective of you. Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.”
“I know Sean better than anyone,” she snapped, and disconnected the call.
But as her car flew down the highway, an ugly thought emerged from a dark corner of her mind.
Was it possible she could have been wrong all this time? Was it possible she was as self-delusil as the press, the police, hell, most of her friends had painted her?
No. She mentally yanked that sprout out by the roots and poured cyanide on it to boot. Yes, the evidence was damning, as Brockner had said. But from the beginning, she’d always thought it too damning. Too neat, too tied up in a convenient bow for the police.
Her brother was smart, ex–Special Forces, trained in covert operations. She believed that if Sean wanted to murder someone, he wouldn’t have been nearly so stupid about it.
Too bad no one wanted to listen to her theories. Not even the few people she should have been able to count on to at least hear her out.
A vision of hot, dark eyes turning cold, lips full and red from passionate kisses going tight and mean. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, shoving Cole’s image out of her head. Even thinking of him made it hurt to breathe.
No time for wallowing. No time to spare even one conscious second of thought on that asshole.
Unconscious… that was another story. Megan had long ago ceded control of her dreams, in which Cole Williams popped up more frequently than she’d like, in scenarios that left her alternately sobbing with heartbreak or burning with unfulfilled desire—in pain and unsatisfied either way she sliced it.
In real life, Cole didn’t want to listen to her theories—no one did. So be it. Megan knew in her soul that Evangeline Gordon’s real killer was still out there. Lurking like a dark stain, a creeping shadow no one could nail down.
She just needed a break. A tiny shred of something to point her in the right direction. As her Honda ate up the miles between Walla Walla and her apartment in Seattle, Megan whispered up endless prayers, for something, anything, a single clue. Before Sean got what he wanted and it was too late for them all.
Chapter 3
He moved the TV a few inches to the left and studied the screen. Still not quite right.
He reached up to the bookshelf where he’d positioned the camera in the trailer’s cramped bedroom and tilted it slightly down. He checked the TV again.
Perfect.
Blood rushed to his groin and a smile stretched across his face. At this angle, the camera displayed the bed from headboard to footboard, close enough to capture every detail but with enough vertical and horizontal clearance to make sure no heads or other body parts would be cut off from view.
He would be able to see everything.
He squatted in front of his laptop, which was connected to the camera and placed one shelf below. A few keystrokes and they were rolling, the computer recording everything about to be displayed on the screen.
Time to retrieve the talent.
She was huddled against the wall, long, black hair spilling over her face as her head lolled forward. He reached out a gloved hand and tilted her chin up. Her eyes were dark, lazy slits that showed no recognition of where she was or what was about to happen.
He hefted her onto the bed and positioned her against the pillows. He did a quick check to make sure the camera had a clear view of her face. He adjusted the latex cap on his head, grimacing as it pulled at his close-cropped hair.
It was hot and made his head itch, but it ensured no stray strands of hair would escape. He diligently shaved his body whenever he was called into action, but he’d be damned if he’d walk around looking like a cue ball.
“C’mon, sweetheart, time for your close-up.”
She shook her head and moaned, but otherwise didn’t stir.
He reached in his pocket, pulled out an envelope of smelling salts, and ripped it under her nose. Her head snapped back and whacked against the trailer’s wood-paneled wall. Her dark eyes went wide, instantly alert, though unfocused as they looked wildly around the unfamiliar room.
Then her gaze landed on his face.
And she knew.
His already burgeoning cock went rock hard, tenting out his sweatpants. God, he loved that moment of shocked realization, the split second when they realized exactly what was about to happen.
He was the bogeyman, the grim reaper. The one who came after you if you pushed too far. He left his message in slash marks and pools of blood, and yet some girls never learned. He was still summoned to practice his craft.
He’d started the cleanup work years ago, allowing him to channel his appetites in a way that helped the organization. He knew his appetite for the wet work made them uneasy. He knew they saw him as a loose cannon, a barely caged beast.
He liked letting them think that.
And he loved the opportunity to indulge in his specialty.
Fear. Pain. His weapons against chaos.
Later he would watch this moment, stroking himself to climax again and again as he savored her look of fear. Of recognition. The moment when she realized this man who she’d known, who’d even been a protector of sorts, was the monster of her worst nightmares.