Page 72 of Finding His Redemption

The last thing he saw before Goodwin shoved him through the door was Oliver’s trembling lip and Nessie pulling her son protectively against her side.

chapter

twenty

The interrogation roomsmelled of stale coffee and floor cleaner. Jax kept his expression neutral as they chained him to the metal table bolted to the floor. Standard procedure for violent offenders, which he technically was.

Goodwin dropped a file on the table between them. Crime scene photos spilled out—a young woman’s body, broken and discarded by the side of a dirt road. Blonde hair matted with blood. Defensive wounds on her hands. Fingernails torn from clawing at her attacker.

“Bailee Cooper,” Goodwin said. “Twenty-two years old. Found three weeks ago off Ridge Road near Coldwater Creek.”

Jax forced himself to look at the photos, to acknowledge the horror without letting it inside. He’d seen worse in Afghanistan. He’d seen worse in California.

The thought transported him back to another interrogation room, and another sheriff, Ash Rawlings, pushing crime scene photos across a table. Women with their throats slit. Bodies posed. The Shadow Stalker’s victims.

“We know it was you, Jax,” Rawlings had said, his gruff voice soft, almost sympathetic. “And some of these kills were in Nevada. They have a death penalty, but if you tell meeverything now, maybe we can work some kind of a deal to keep you in California.”

All he’d heard was “death penalty,” which sounded like a plan to him, so he’d confessed.

Goodwin was no doubt aware of that and thought that if he pressed the right buttons, Jax would confess again.

“Where were you the morning of April 28th?” Goodwin demanded.

“Same answer I gave you when you came to the ranch to question me on the 29th. Driving across the country from California with Walker. And you already know Ghost can verify when I got to the ranch that night and when I left for my walk that morning.”

Goodwin’s lip curled. “Walker would lie for any of you broken toys he collects. And Owen Booker does what Walker says, so that proves nothing.”

Jax didn’t rise to the bait. Control was survival. He focused on his breathing, slow and measured, even as rage simmered beneath the surface.

The sheriff leaned back, studying him. “You know what people say about you? That you’re a dead man walking. That the lights are on, but nobody’s home.” He tapped his temple. “That whatever made you human died in that desert overseas.”

Jax said nothing. He’d heard worse. Hell, he’d thought worse about himself on his darkest nights.

“Know what I think?” Goodwin continued. “I think you’re a time bomb. Tick, tick, tick.” He mimicked the sound, watching for a reaction. “Only a matter of time before you blow again. And this time, Vanessa Harmon and her boy are going to be collateral damage.”

At the mention of Nessie and Oliver, something hot and dangerous flared in Jax’s chest. He tamped it down, buried itdeep where it couldn’t touch him. Where it couldn’t make him do something stupid.

Again.

“You done?” he asked, his voice steady despite the rage building inside him.

“No.” Goodwin pulled out more photos. Close-ups of Bailee’s injuries. The stab wounds. The ligature marks on her neck. The bashed-in skull.

Ghost was right—whoever did this to her either hated her or was a truly sadistic bastard.

She’d been a pretty girl once, with a soft, round baby face. Christ, she was so young, and it twisted his stomach to see what happened to her up close and personal.

“She was strangled first,” Goodwin said, tapping one particularly graphic image. “When that didn’t work, she was stabbed ten times. And, finally, as she lay there dying, he picked up a heavy rock and dropped it on her head. He would’ve had to have been strong. And he’s almost certainly had training in how to subdue a person.”

Like a Navy SEAL, he didn’t need to add. The implication hung heavy between them.

“You got addicted to the thrill of the kill in the Navy, didn’t you, Jax?”Rawlings had asked him years ago. “And you couldn’t stop when you got home, so you started attacking women because they were easy prey for a guy like you.”

Jax’s temples throbbed with the beginnings of a migraine. He could feel sweat beading at his hairline despite the chill in the room.

“Dewey said Bailee had been seeing someone secretly,” Goodwin continued. “Someone she was ashamed of. What do you think, Thorne? Young woman like Bailee, alone and vulnerable. Maybe you offered her some comfort? Maybe things got rough?”

“I don’t know Bailee Cooper,” Jax repeated. “I’ve never met her, never spoken to her, never touched her.”