Cold Case in Cherokee Crossing. Rita Herron

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.

      “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.”

      * * *

      JAXON’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