Cold Case in Cherokee Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page A

Just a seed, but enough to drive him to want to know the truth.
    “I had my reasons for confessing.” Hank turned to leave, his chains rattling in the tense silence, his labored breath echoing in the room.
    “Did you kill Wade Mulligan?” Jaxon asked bluntly.
    Hank froze, his body going ramrod straight. Slowly he turned back to face Jaxon. The agony in his eyes made Jaxon’s gut knot.
    “I wanted him dead,” Hank said, his voice laced with the kind of deep animosity that had been built from years of thinking about the monstrous things Mulligan had done. “I hated the son of a bitch.” He shuffled back to the table and sank into the chair.
    “Every night I lay there in that damned bed across the hall from Avery, staring at the ceiling just waiting. The old lady would take her pills and pass out. He’d wait a half hour or so, wait till the house was dark and he thought everyone was asleep.” Hank traced one blunt finger over a fresh bruise on his knuckle. “But I couldn’t sleep, and I knew Avery couldn’t, ’cause we both knew what was coming.”
    Jaxon gritted his teeth.
    “Then I’d hear that squeak of the door....” Hank’s voice cracked. “At first, I was so scared I crawled in the closet and hid like a coward. But one night...I heard Avery crying and something snapped inside me.” He balled his hands into fists, knuckles reddening with the force. “I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to do something.”
    Jaxon’s stomach churned as he imagined Avery at nine, lying helpless at the mercy of that bastard. “What happened then?”
    “I ran in and tried to drag him off her.” Hank’s voice shook, his eyes blurry with tears. “He knocked me off him and beat the hell out of me. Used a belt that night.”
    “It happened more than once?”
    Hank dropped his head as if the shame was too much. “Yeah. After I started fighting back, I couldn’t stop. But the beatings got worse. Then he started locking me up at night, tied me to the bed so I couldn’t come in and stop him.” He groaned. “I had to lie there like a trussed pig and listen to that grunting, the wall banging. I wanted to kill him so bad I imagined it over and over in my head.”
    Hank lapsed into silence, wrestling with his emotions. Sweat trickled down the side of his face.
    “Tell me about the night of the murder,” Jaxon finally said.
    “The old lady was gone, left for a couple of days.” Hank sucked in a deep breath, his eyes glazed as if he were thrust back in that moment. “I knew it was going to be bad that night, that he’d stay at it till dawn. So earlier, I hid a kitchen knife in my bed, under my pillow.”
    “He tied you up?”
    Hank nodded. “But then Avery screamed, and I got mad. I twisted until I got that knife and cut the ropes.” He jerked his hands as he might have done that night. “Then I tiptoed to the door and peeked into the hallway. Avery’s door was cracked.... I could hear her crying....”
    Jaxon swallowed. If he’d been Hank, he would have killed the animal, too.
    “Then what happened?”
    Hank pinched the bridge of her nose. “I had the knife in my hand, and I tiptoed across the hall. I wanted to sneak up on him, stop him once and for all. Make him feel pain for a change.”
    He paused, his expression twisting with horror. “But Mulligan was on the floor at the foot of Avery’s bed. He...was staring up at the ceiling, his eyes wide like he was dead. Blood soaked his shirt, and he wasn’t moving....”
    Jaxon leaned forward, trying to visualize the scene. “He’d already been stabbed?”
    Hank nodded. “Blood was on his shirt and the floor. One of his hands was covered in it where he’d grabbed his chest.”
    “Where was your knife?”
    “In my hand.” Hank slowly lifted his head, eyes cloudy with confusion. “Then I...saw Avery holding one.”
    Jaxon would have to check the police reports to see if there was any mention of a second knife. And he needed to look at the autopsy reports.