Page 30

chapter

twenty

The interrogation room smelled 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 me everything 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 it deep 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.”

“You’re a liar and a killer,” Goodwin said flatly. “We both know it. So, why don’t you make this easy on us both and tell me what happened with her?”

“Nothing. Happened.” Jax enunciated each word. “Because I never met her.”

“Then why are her hair fibers on a jacket at Valor Ridge?” Goodwin slammed his hand on the table. “Explain that.”

Jax blinked, his mind racing despite the fog of exhaustion. Hair fibers? That was new. And specific.

“Which jacket?” he asked carefully.

Something flickered in Goodwin’s eyes—triumph, perhaps, at getting Jax to engage. “We went out there with a warrant and found it stuffed behind the trash cans at the kennel. Dark blue canvas. Military style. Ring any bells?”

It did. Half the men at Valor Ridge owned similar jackets. He had one. River had one. So did Ghost. And Anson. And Jonah.

Jesus. Had one of them killed Bailee?

No. As soon as the thought entered his head, he shook it away. No fucking way.

Jonah didn’t have that kind of violence in him.

Ghost did, but he had it on a tight leash, and this type of overkill wasn’t his style. He was a cold-blooded son of a bitch. If he’d killed Bailee, it would’ve been with a quick, clean bullet to the head, and nobody would’ve found her body.

Sure, River claimed he killed his best friend in a premeditated act, but Jax suspected there was more to that story and that was just River’s guilt talking. The man who wore bunny slippers around the bunkhouse didn’t have the stomach for a murder this messy.

And Anson…

Well, Jax didn’t know enough about the quiet man to pass judgment, but he was gentle with the horses and that wolfhound of his. If he had this ugliness in him, wouldn’t the animals sense it?

Goodwin leaned in, his breath hot and stale. “I’m going to prove it’s your jacket. And when I do… boy, they haven’t executed a prisoner in Montana in twenty years, but I’ll make damn sure you’re the first.”

Jax met his gaze unflinchingly. “Lawyer,” he said.

A muscle twitched in Goodwin’s jaw.

“Lawyer? You need Jesus. You’d be better off asking for Pastor Glenn.” He gathered the photos, shoving them roughly back into the file. “Get comfortable, Thorne. You’ll be our guest a while longer.”

Jax had thought nights in the bunkhouse were bad, but that was like a damn five-star hotel compared to nights in county lock-up.

The concrete building took on a smothering silence at night, broken only by the occasional snore from the drunk tank or the squeak of the night guard’s shoes as he made his rounds.

Jax lay on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes, listening to the building settle. The scratchy wool blanket did little to ward off the cold seeping through the thin mattress, but physical discomfort was the least of his concerns.

In the quiet darkness, his mind became his enemy, circling through all the ways this could go wrong, all the people who would be hurt if he didn’t find a way out.

Echo would be spiraling without him. He knew it like he knew his own heartbeat.

Three days were an eternity to a dog who’d spent most of her life expecting abandonment.

Was she eating? Had she retreated to the farthest corner of her kennel, eyes wary, body tense with the certainty that everyone she trusted would eventually disappear?

She’d been making such good progress. A week of sitting in silence before she’d stopped growling at his approach.

Three more days before she’d take food from his hand.

And another three before she’d pressed her head against his palm, a gesture so tentative it had broken something inside him.

Just a couple of days ago, she’d ventured out into the main yard without pressing against his leg, had even allowed Walker to pet her.

Two steps forward, and now this—a setback that could erase a month of patient work.

Fuck.

His thoughts drifted to Valor Ridge. What was happening there? Had Goodwin already started pressuring Walker to kick him out? Or pressuring the county to shut them down?

The other guys would be caught in the crossfire.

Men who’d found stability and purpose at the ranch, who were slowly rebuilding lives shattered by war, trauma, and bad choices.

Men like Bear, who’d finally started getting weekend visits with his son.

Like Anson, whose leatherwork was beginning to sell in local shops, as well as one over in Hamilton and another up in Missoula.

Like River, who needed the stability of the ranch more than any of them.

They didn’t deserve to lose everything because Jax couldn’t control his temper.

The thought left him feeling hollow, like someone had scooped out his insides and replaced them with cold, dead air.

Maybe Goodwin was right.

Maybe he was already dead inside.

But then he remembered Nessie’s face when Murdock grabbed her. That flash of raw terror. And Oliver’s eyes, wide with confusion and fear as they dragged Jax away.

No. He wasn’t dead yet. And as long as he was breathing, he had to fight.

Too bad the lawyer assigned to him was—as River would say—“as worthless as tits on a bull.”

When the guard led Jax into the interrogation room the next morning, he wasn’t the least bit surprised to see a kid barely out of law school, drowning in an ill-fitting suit. The kid had a nervous pen-clicking habit that made Jax’s teeth itch.

“Mr. Thorne, you have quite the... history.”

“You read my file. Congrats.”

“I can try to get the assault charge reduced,” the lawyer—Miller, Matthews, something with an M—continued, “but with your prior conviction and the sheriff’s testimony...” He trailed off, adjusting his glasses. “And there’s the matter of the murder investigation.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Right, of course.” The pen clicked faster. “But Sheriff Goodwin seems convinced otherwise.”

Jax leaned forward, making the cuffs jingle against the table. The lawyer flinched.

“Listen carefully. I’ve done terrible things in my life, but I did not kill Bailee Cooper.”

The kid swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “Sheriff Goodwin is... well, he’s convinced you’re hiding something.”

“I’m not.”

“Then maybe you should tell me what happened when you assaulted Deputy Murdock. Exactly what happened, from your perspective.”

Jax sighed, leaning back against the metal chair. His shoulder ached from sleeping on the concrete slab they called a bed. “I was at the bakery. His deputy grabbed Nessie and scared her. I reacted.”

“Ms. Harmon,” the lawyer corrected, scribbling notes. “And she corroborates your version of events. Several patrons do as well. There’s even video evidence.”

“Then why am I still here?”

The lawyer—Matthews, that was it—looked up, blinking owlishly behind his glasses. “Sheriff Goodwin has... concerns... about your relationship with Ms. Harmon. Given your history with women.”

Something cold slithered down Jax’s spine. “What exactly did he say?”

Matthews cleared his throat. “He suggested that perhaps Ms. Harmon isn’t aware of the... extent... of your previous conviction, and she needs to be informed before he feels comfortable releasing you.”

So that was Goodwin’s play—turn Nessie against him. Make her afraid. Make the whole town afraid.

And it would work, because fear always worked.

Jax leaned forward again. “Get me the fuck out of here. Now.”