Krista Slater hasn’t seen Sean Flynn since the day she got him released from death row. Since she was the one to put him there in the first place, she knows Sean will be anything but happy to see her. Too bad recent events have driven her to his door, in search of the key that will unravel a conspiracy that goes deeper than either of them could ever have imagined.
There at the end of the drive was Sean’s cabin, a small but sturdy looking log structure with a porch that wrapped around it, with seats on the east-facing side to take advantage of the breathtaking view. A stream of silvery smoke piped up from the metal chimney on top.
On the other side of the cabin was a huge metal shed with an ancient blue pickup truck parked out front. Krista followed the thunk-crack sound to the back of the shed, and as she rounded the corner she stopped dead as Sean Flynn came into view.
The thunk-crack was from the ax he wielded as he split firewood on top of a thick stump. Impervious to the chill of the mountain air, he’d stripped off his shirt, and Krista’s mouth went dry as his muscles rippled and bunched with the steady swing of the ax. The tattoo on the inside of his right forearm undulated as his big hand gripped the handle. The skin of his back and shoulders was a deep burnished tan, and as Krista took a step closer she tracked a bead of sweat as it rolled down the deep groove of his spine to the waistband of the jeans hanging off his narrow hips.
Oblivious to her presence, he tossed the wood onto the growing pile and bent to grab another thick log. Krista couldn’t stop herself from staring at the hard line of his glutes flexing against the soft denim.
Heat curled in her belly and rose in her cheeks. She forced an image of Jimmy Caparulo’s bloody headboard into her brain. She was here to talk to Sean, not ogle him, and hopefully get some much-needed answers in the process.
She cleared her throat to get his attention, and it was hard not to gape all over again when she was hit with the full force of Sean’s piercing green stare. He really was an amazing specimen of masculine beauty. Krista had been struck by it from the beginning, but it was easy to ignore when she believed he was guilty of brutally raping and murdering a woman.
Then, his chiseled features and black Irish beauty had made him all the more repulsive, as she’d convinced herself he’d used his good looks to charm Evangeline Gordon into trusting him, paving the way to her doom. Now that she knew beyond a reasonable doubt he was innocent…she was anything but repulsed.
After several seconds she realized his full lips were moving and she forced herself to focus.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said, dark eyebrows drawn tight over the bridge of his nose.
Krista kept her gaze locked on his face, not on the arrow of dark hair that bisected what had to be an eight-pack ridging his abdomen. She held out the stack of catalogs. “Mail call.”
The green eyes narrowed, and Krista could feel the hostility radiating off him. “You didn’t come all the way here to deliver my mail.” His grip tightened around the ax handle, and Krista’s skin prickled. She knew in her gut Sean wouldn’t hurt her. Still, she was out in the middle of nowhere with a man who hated her. And he was holding an ax.
Krista took a step back and rolled onto the balls of her heels in case she needed to run. Maybe cornering Sean on his own turf wasn’t such a bright idea after all.
Her tension uncoiled a notch when Sean leaned the ax against the stump and reached for the shirt draped across the back of a plastic lawn chair.
Krista bit back a sigh when the muscles disappeared under a layer of blue-and-black flannel. “You’re right. I wanted to talk to you.”
“You didn’t need to come all the way out here.”
“I called. Several times.”
“Maybe you should have taken the hint when I didn’t call back.”
He turned his back and started stacking the logs against the side of the cabin, underneath the overhang of the metal roof.
Krista moved closer and picked up the scent of clean sweat and wood smoke emanating from him. “I assume you’ve heard about Jimmy Caparulo?”
Sean froze for a second and then resumed stacking. “Megan called me right after it happened.” He shook his head. “Goddamn crazy Jimmy,” he muttered, but Krista could hear the catch in his voice.
“What if I told you I’m not sure it was a suicide?”
He straightened and pinned her with a hard stare. “What are you talking about?”
“I spoke to Jimmy the afternoon before he died,” Krista said. She was close enough to see the bump on the bridge of Sean’s nose from where it had been broken. She didn’t remember him having it during the trial. It must have been another souvenir from prison. She watched him closely, gauging his reaction to her news. “He told me he had information about Nate Brewster, but he couldn’t tell anyone before because Nate threatened to hurt Jimmy’s aunt if he told. I was supposed to meet with him Wednesday night, but he never showed. When I went to his house, I found out he was dead.”
“And you think someone killed him to keep him quiet?” Sean raised a skeptical brow.
Krista shrugged. “It seems like kind of a crazy coincidence, don’t you think?” She could read nothing in Sean’s stare. “Any idea what he wanted to tell me?”
Sean shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“When he talked to me, he said he should have said something sooner, that it would have helped you.”
His mouth pulled tight, and Krista fought the urge to smooth the deep lines that grooved his cheeks. “He sure as hell could have helped me by not testifying at my trial, but he’s a good three years too late for that.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Jimmy was messed up. He saw some things…We all saw some things…” Sean’s voice trailed off and his gaze blurred, became that thousand-mile stare. The look of a man who was there but not there, too caught up in the horror replaying in his head to see what was in front of him.
He shook his head to clear it and ran a hand through his dark hair. It had grown beyond the short buzz he’d worn in prison, long enough to wave a little as the sweat dried. “I’m sure Jimmy thought he knew a lot of things, but I guarantee it was just paranoid ramblings. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some work I need to finish up.”
Krista reached out and grabbed his arm as he went to turn away. Corded muscles rippled under her fingers, the heat from his skin singeing her palm. She snatched her hand back as an electric buzz pulsed through her body. “I don’t think Brewster was acting alone when he framed you and killed those women,” she said.
Sean folded his arms across his chest. “One phone call from Jimmy told you that?”
“No. But Brewster’s computer was tampered with after he was killed and before the police seized it. We could tell files had been deleted, but so far no one has been able to restore them.” She pulled out another copy of the bank statement Benson had blown off. “And two days ago the investigator I’ve been working with found this.”
Sean’s eyes narrowed as she pointed out the correlation between some of the large deposits and the other murders.
“Nate was a sick bastard, and who knows, maybe he was working for hire. But even if that’s true, what does that have to do with me?”
Krista drew back. Even when she’d been convinced Sean was evil incarnate, she’d never thought him thick. “Other people might have been involved in covering up for Nate after he framed you for Evangeline’s murder. Doesn’t that matter to you?”
“I’m out of prison and the man who tried to kill my sister is dead. That’s all I care about.” But the cold, closed look on his face was that of a man who didn’t care about much of anything at all. “If what you think is true, I’m sure the cops are more than capable of getting to the truth of it.” Was that a note of sarcasm in Sean’s voice?
“They’re not investigating, and that’s the problem,” Krista said, irritated that she had to tilt her head back so far to look him in the eye. “You’re the only link I know of between Nate and Jimmy, and if there’s any chance—”
Sean cut her off. “I don’t know anything. And even if I did, the last thing I want to do is dig all that shit up again. Now, I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave.”
Krista shook her head like she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “If I’m right, the people working with Brewster are still out there, getting away with it, getting away with hurting Jimmy—”
“People get away with shit all the time,” Sean said coldly. “And innocent people take the heat for things they don’t do. You know that as well as I do.”
That arrow hit her straight in the chest and exploded on impact. “Then you should want to make this right as much as I do.”
Sean shook his head. “If you need to clear your conscience, that’s your problem. I just want to get on with my life and forget the last three years ever happened.”
Ignoring her protests, Sean turned his back and walked to the shed. Krista followed after him, cursing as her foot hit a stray log that hadn’t made it into the woodpile. “Sean, wait.” She tried to catch him as he went through the door. The door slammed in her face with a metal clank, followed by the snick of a bolt sliding home.
She tried the door. Sure enough, the bastard had locked her out. She pounded the metal wall with her fist, cursing as pain radiated up her arm. A second later she heard the high-pitched whine of some kind of power tool surging to life.
She knocked and kicked for several more minutes but got no response.
She gave the door one last kick and slumped down onto the stump, weighing her options. Sean Flynn thought she’d give up so easily? He must have forgotten who he was dealing with.
