Beg for Mercy (10 page)

Her heart spasmed when Cole called her name. Purely from the caffeine overload, she told herself.

He was dressed almost exactly as he’d been last night, in dark slacks and a white cotton shirt that stretched across his broad shoulders. The only difference was the tie. He’d swapped out yesterday’s navy for a maroon one. He stared at her, his brows knit.

“I have something I need to talk to you about. About the woman Devany found last night.”

“You know, you could have called. You didn’t have to come all the way down here. Not that I’m not happy to see you,” he said. He cleared his throat but regained his cool almost immediately.

“It’s kind of complicated,” Megan replied. “I wanted to go over it in person.”

He nodded and led her back to a small conference room that held a small round table and three padded chairs. “Do you want some coffee?”

Her stomach lurched at the thought. “God, no.”

He motioned for her to sit down. “Let me just get Detective Petersen—”

She held up a staying hand. “I’d rather go over this with just you, if you don’t mind.”

Cole frowned at her but took a seat in the chair across from her.

Megan plunked the accordion folder down on the table.

“What’s all this?” Cole said as he reached for the folder.

“Sean’s case files. I think whoever killed that girl last night might have killed Evangeline Gordon too.” Oh crap, she hadn’t meant to blurt that out so quickly. She hadn’t exactly worked out what she was going to say, but she’d had some vague plan of leading with a question about the television and camera in the trailer, bringing up the similarity to the crime scene at Sean’s house. Hell, maybe even getting the lightbulb to go off in Cole’s head all by itself.

Instead she could see him shutting down in front of her. His eyes glazing over, his mouth tightening, the subtle shake of his head as he looked at her with a combination of exasperation and pity.

“No, just listen,” she said, feeling the muscles in her neck tighten like rubber bands. “There are similarities—the TV thing.” She opened the accordion file and pulled out the crime scene report. “The TV was left on at Sean’s house, just like in the trailer.”

“Megan, you have got to let this go.”

“But look.” She pointed to a paragraph in the report. “The evidence showed that Evangeline was killed in the living room, in front of the television, then moved to the bed.”

“And you think that’s evidence that the Slasher killed Evangeline Gordon and framed your brother for it?”

She fought not to shrink under his barrage. Cole thought she was batshit, and Megan wasn’t even sure she could blame him. Hearing herself say it out loud… her theory sounded crazy to her too. She shook off the doubt. Crazy, maybe. Far-fetched, definitely. But this was the one shred of hope she had, and she wasn’t letting go so easily.

“Look, all I want is for you to look into it. What about the other victims? Was there this camera/TV thing going on with them? What about the wounds? Have you ever compared the autopsy reports side by side to see if there were any similarities?”

Irritation sparked in his dark gaze. “Tell me something. Would I let Sean rot on death row if I thought there was a possibility he wasn’t guilty?”

“But if you’d just—”

Cole’s broad palm slammed down on the table with enough force to make his empty coffee mug jump. “I don’t want Sean to be guilty any more than you do, Megan. That’s why when the first vic was found, I looked at the reports. I compared the autopsy and crime scene information to Evangeline Gordon’s. And I can tell you that the only similarities are that they were both sexually assaulted and killed with a knife.”

She was mute for a moment, struck dumb with shock by what he’d just revealed. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Well we weren’t exactly on speaking terms. And I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” he snapped.

He pushed back from the table, and she knew her time was running out. “Please, just let me see for myself,” she said, wincing at the pleading tone in her voice.

“You know I can’t give you that information with the investigation still ongoing.”

“Please, Cole. No one has to know.” Her hands balled into tight fists, fingernails biting into her palms. She hated him. Hated—being in a position where she had to grovel and beg him for help.

But she sensed a crack in his hard surface. He wasn’t completely immune to her—she’d seen that last night. He still had some feelings for her, still cared a little, even though he’d dropped her like she was on fire after Sean’s arrest.

“I would know,” he said simply.

She swallowed hard, feeling like she’d had a hole blown through her chest. “And you can never bend the rules, even if it might lead to a break in your investigation.” She restacked the papers she’d pulled from the folder, careful to put them back in precise order.

“Actually, technically it’s not my investigation,” he said.

She froze in the act of paper clipping the stack together. “Not because of me?”

He gave her a puzzled look that quickly morphed into understanding. “The feds opened a file after the third victim, and a team fl in from D.C. this morning. My role now is to support their ongoing investigation,” he said with a humorless smile.

Great. A dead weight settled in her stomach along with
the knowledge that the feds would be even less willing to investigate her theory. She packed the files back in the folder and stood. Cole rose too. “Is the agent in charge available?” she asked briskly.

“Don’t do this, Megan. You’re just going to drive yourself crazy, and you’re not going to find what you’re looking for.”

“How can I not, Cole? How can you stand there and tell me I shouldn’t do everything I possibly can to help my brother?” She tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowing. “Then again, I guess that’s the difference between you and me. You have no problem turning your back on the people who need you.”

Cole watched as Megan exited the conference room and brushed past Petersen with a nod. The front of her hair was pulled back in a clip, leaving the rest to tumble down her back, bouncing and shifting as she moved through the office at a sharp clip.

Every male eye was glued to the bounce of her round ass. While Cole couldn’t blame them, that didn’t stop him from wanting to punch every single one in the face.

“What was that about?” Petersen asked. Cole noticed she, too, was admiring the last glimpse of Megan before she disappeared from view. Though she and her partner had recently celebrated their anniversary, Cole supposed Petersen couldn’t be faulted for looking. She turned to face Cole.

“She thought she had some information that might be relevant. Turned out to be nothing.”

Petersen stared at him like she knew he was hiding something. “What was all that about giving up on people you care about?”

He shook his head. “Just bullshit. Nothing important.” He wasn’t about to let Petersen see how hard Megan’s parting words had hit their mark. He and Petersen were friendly and worked well together, but they didn’t go around sharing painful experiences from their pasts.

So unless she’d done some digging on her own, Petersen wouldn’t know that Megan had scored a direct hit with her reference to another woman he’d failed—his high school girlfriend, his first love who had been murdered while Cole was out of town on a college scouting trip. Kelly had wanted to join him, but Cole had wanted to hang out with the basketball coach who was recruiting him and the other team members without having to make sure she was having a good time. So he’d left her behind in their hometown of Billings, Montana.

He’d revealed all of this one night over dinner with Megan, when she’d asked him why he’d become a cop. He’d never told anyone the truth before—that the unsolved murder of his girlfriend ate at him, drove him, until he abandoned his original plan to study civil engineering and studied criminal justice instead. Obtaining justice for other victims had helped him make peace with the fact that Kelly’s murder was still unsolved.

Tight="0em"peace had allowed him to move on, even though Kelly’s death had left permanent scars. At the time, Megan had taken his hand in hers as her eyes gleamed with sympathetic tears.

“Whatever,” Petersen said, jolting him back to the present. “I just wanted to tell you Agent Whitmore called. He had a couple questions about your report.”

Cole nodded and went back to his desk to return the call from the FBI. As he filled in the gaps and clarified a few points, Cole couldn’t ignore the gnawing sensation in his chest where Megan’s comment hit its mark. He tried to brush it off, knowing she was lashing out. It was nothing he should take so seriously.

But her dig picked away at the scar tissue, exposed the festering guilt over the fact that it had been nearly twenty years, and the guy who did it was still out there.

Guilt ate at him now, and not just over his inability to find Kelly’s killer.

He’d let Megan down too. No matter how he justified it in his head, no matter how certain he was that he’d done the right thing arresting Sean, the way he’d treated Megan in the aftermath still didn’t sit right. Convincing himself it was best not to talk to her, refusing to return her calls because it could only get uglier between them. And when she’d leaked details of their relationship to the press, he’d told the world there was no way his feelings for Megan were strong enough to influence his treatment of the suspect.

The way they’d quoted him made it sound like he hadn’t cared for her at all, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. But he’d told himself it was better to let her think that, better to let her hate him if that’s what she needed to do.

Now he couldn’t chase away the regret, and seeing her again made him wish he’d acted differently. It didn’t matter if he thought he was doing the right thing at the time.
When it came down to it, he’d watched her world blow apart and left her to dangle. He still couldn’t keep from failing the people he cared about.

Fuck it.
This was no time to get maudlin. Megan wanted his help, and it was long past time he gave it—even if his instincts told him it wouldn’t bring her anything but more grief.

Cole knew she wouldn’t get anywhere, that she was chasing ghosts. He knew that better than anyone. She was only going to drive herself crazy or get herself into trouble. And none of it would keep her brother alive.

He hoped by stopping her in her tracks he could shut her down, keep her from getting her hopes raised only to get them crushed. He should have known better. Megan had never lost faith in her brother’s innocence, in her belief that Evangeline Gordon’s real killer was still out there.

Why should Cole expect that to change?

He grabbed his phone and dialed before he could think better of it. He was taking a huge risk, and if anyone found out he’d leaked the reports, he would be in deep shit.

But right now he couldn’t see any other way to help Megan put this behind her once and for all. The only way was to give her exactly what she claimed she wanted: the truth.

Floating. Helpless.

Megan was right back where she started. The flash of insight, the rush of hope smacked down with one blow of Cole’s big, broad palm.

Now, after talking to the FBI agent in charge of the
investigation, Agent Tasso, she was even more deflated. As Megan was the first person Devany called after finding the body, he was interested in talking to her. But as predicted, he’d brushed off the idea that the Slasher murders could be related.