Page 30 of Finding His Redemption

As soon as he was out of the saddle, Lazy Susan huffed like she was relieved and dropped her head to chomp at the sparse grass, as if nothing happening around her could possibly be more interesting than her next meal.

Sheriff Goodwin stepped forward, his blue eyes scanning Jax from head to toe like he was cataloging evidence. “You Jaxon Thorne?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

“That’s me.”

“Sheriff Hank Goodwin. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Walker straightened, his weathered face giving nothing away. “About what, Hank?”

“This have something to do with the buzzards circling Coldwater Creek for the past day?” River asked, uncharacteristically icy.

Goodwin didn’t look at Walker or River. He stared straight at Jax as he stepped off the porch, boots thudding on the steps. His badge caught the sunlight, and the glint was sharp enough to make a man blink.

He stopped a little too close to Jax. “You know the service road off Ridge Road?”

Jax shook his head. “No.”

Goodwin’s smile was so sharp it could cut glass. “Yes, you do. You were walking right near there yesterday.”

That monster of a rooster crowed from the chicken coop, and the silence that followed was so complete Jax could hear the flies buzzing around the trash bins by the kennels.

Goodwin stepped even closer, and Jax felt the old instincts snapping awake, the part of him that counted exits, measured angles, and prepped for violence. It was muscle memory, bone deep.

“We found a body out there.”

Walker straightened away from the railing, and Boone crossed his arms over his massive chest. River stepped closer behind Jax, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other men had stopped working and were also closing ranks around him. X, Jonah, Anson, Bear, and Ghost.

The solidarity should have been reassuring. Instead, it made Jax’s chest tighten. These men barely knew him, but they were willing to stand with him anyway. It was more loyalty than he deserved.

Jax kept his hands at his sides, but his fingers twitched. He wanted a cigarette, but he didn’t smoke anymore. “I didn’t see anything.”

Goodwin studied him, head tilted, as if he could spot the truth hiding under Jax’s skin. “That right? Funny thing, you being new in town and all, and the girl gets dead same day you show up. What were you doing on that road before dawn?”

Escaping.

But he couldn’t say that, so he kept his mouth shut. He knew every word could be twisted, every response used against you. Better to stay quiet and let them hang themselves with their own assumptions.

“Is it illegal for a man to take a walk now, Sheriff?” River asked.

Goodwin ignored him, never breaking eye contact with Jax. “You got a record, son. Long one. Drugs, assault, attempted murder, plus a whole mess of other things they couldn’t pin on you. Can’t say I’m thrilled to have you in my jurisdiction.”

“That’s enough,” Walker said. “You want to question my men, you do it proper. With a warrant and lawyers present.”

“This is just a friendly conversation, Walker. No need for lawyers. Yet.” Goodwin tilted his head, studying Jax like he was already sizing up the rope for the noose. “Unless Mr. Thorne here has something to hide.”

Every time a cop got that look, it meant they’d already decided you were guilty. Evidence was just window dressing.

He remembered his first night in the Lost County jail in California, back before the trial. The way Sheriff Ash Rawlings had stared him down in the interview room, like he was an animal brought in for rabies. It had taken hours for Rawlings to break him, but break he did.

Goodwin took a step back. “Nessie Harmon saw you on the road. Says you helped her fix a tire. But here’s what I’m stilltrying to figure: did she give you an alibi or put you at the scene of the crime?”

Jax’s throat felt like sandpaper. “She what?”

Of all the people to throw him under the bus, he hadn’t expected it to be her. The woman with the kind eyes and the smart kid.

“Told me she saw you walking alone on that road around six a.m.,” Goodwin elaborated, watching Jax’s face for any reaction. “Said you looked... distressed.”

Had she really said that? Or was Goodwin twisting her words, fishing for a reaction?