Beg for Mercy (2 page)

Megan gave him a feeble imitation of an understanding smile, her sexual gud imming by several watts.

“What’s the address?”

Megan’s stomach seized as she heard Jorgensen give Cole the number and street.

She had to have misheard.

Cole disconnected the call, zipped up his pants, and reached for his shirt. “I’m sorry, Megan, but I have to go—”

“Did he just say the address is Forty-five Appleton Street?”

He didn’t confirm. His face was cold and wiped clean of all expression.

“Cole, that’s my brother’s address. What’s going on?” Panic roared through her veins, stealing her breath, replacing the heat of arousal with the cold bite of fear. Cole was a homicide detective. There was only one reason he would be called to Sean’s house. She sprang from the couch and grabbed his arm. “Is my brother dead? Did something happen? You have to tell me!”

Cole grabbed her in a brief, fierce hug. “I don’t know the details. I’ll call you as soon as I can.” He pulled away, and when she looked up, she saw that he’d gone into full-on Robocop mode. He reached for his phone and his jacket. “Just stay here and wait for my call.”

The door hadn’t even closed behind him before she grabbed her phone and dialed her brother’s house. Straight to voice mail. “Sean, pick up!” she yelled, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her. She yanked on a fleece pullover and stuffed her feet into flip-flops, dialing Sean’s cell phone as she rushed out the door.

Her call went straight to voice mail and she left another message.

She slipped on the damp wooden stairs that led out, barely catching herself before she tumbled down the last two to the paved driveway below. She took a deep breath and gathered her trembling legs under her before continuing.

Please God, let everything be all right. Please let
Sean be okay.
Sean had done ten years in the military, including his last tour in Afghanistan. He couldn’t have survived that only to return home and…

She wouldn’t let herself think it. Her fingers shook so hard she could barely get the keys into the ignition. She made the drive in five minutes flat.

Her heart seized in her chest as she pulled over. Flashing lights from an ambulance and two Seattle PD squad cars created a swirling eddy of blue and red in the twilight. Cole’s Jeep was parked behind a black-and-white, but he was nowhere in sight.

Neither was Sean. Megan sprinted across the street, hearing the harsh catch of her breath and the pounding of her heart in her head. The ambulance blocked the driveway. She skirted around and saw two EMTs standing by the back door.

“What’s happening?” she said. “Is someone dead? Is my brother dead?”

“Hey, you can’t be here,” one of them said.

“Somebody tell me what the hell is going on.”

Neither responded, but the two men shared a look.

She didn’t realize she’d started screaming Sean’s name until a uniformed cop got right up in her face.

“Hey, this is a crime scene.” The cop, with his blond hair sticking out from under his cap and ruddy cheeks, looked barely old enough to shave.

“This is my brother’s house,” she yelled, and tried to shove past him. “You have to tell me if he’s okay.”

The cop grabbed her by the shoulders and gently but firmly made her move. “Back it up.”

“Get your hands off of me!”

“Is there a problem, Officer Dicks?”

Megan whipped her head in the direction of the familiar voice just in time to see Cole’s partner, Nick Jorgensen, rounding the ambulance.

“Megan?” He motioned for the cop to let her go but caught her as she attempted to sprint up to the ambulance. “You need to get out of here.”

“Is my brother in there, Nick? Is he dead? You have to tell me.”

His closed, careful expression didn’t provide any reassurance. “Megan, go home. Wait for someone to call you—”

“Not until I know—” She stopped when she saw Sean appear in the doorway. The constant strobe of emergency lights made him fade in and out. He looked out of it, like he didn’t know exactly where he was.

“Sean,” she yelled, a half sob, half laugh, so relieved to see him alive she almost fell to her knees. Sean’s head turned at the sound of her voice. He took a step toward her, his leg nearly buckling under him as he stumbled on the first step.

Someone jerked him hard from behind, halting his fall. Then Sean staggered forward a few more steps as though someone was pushing him, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Other details became clear in that split second, her brain registering them in a series of high-definition freeze-frames.
Snap.
She saw that her military-neat brother was wearing a torn khaki undershirt stained with reddish brown streaks.
Snap.
Her brain registered those same streaks on his pants.
Snap.
A spattering of it across the part of his arm she could see with his hands handcuffed behind him.

Oh my God. Blood.

Snap.
The man walking behind her brother, shoving him down the sidewalk, was none other than her would-be lover, Detective Cole Williams.

Megan leaped from her frozen stupor. She tried to shake off Nick, but he held her arm in an iron grip. “Sean, are you all right?”

Cole’s dark eyes locked on her for a fraction of a second. He didn’t make a move in her direction, but intead steered Sean to a squad car. Sean’s mouth moved, but the words were obliterated by the din of radios squawking and shouted orders. Neighbors came out to their front stoops to gawk.

Megan’s stomach lurched as she watched Cole with her brother. She had been at the scene of enough arrests to recognize someone being Mirandized.

“Let go of me!” She shoved at Nick and yanked until her shoulder threatened to pop from its socket, but he wasn’t about to let her go anywhere. “Cole, tell me what’s happening.”

He shoved her brother into the back of a black-and-white and slammed the door behind him.

“Cole, answer me!”

His wide shoulders were vibrating with tension as he stalked up the lawn toward her, giving a nearly imperceptible nod at Nick. The grip on her arm eased.

She ran, not toward Cole, but to the squad car where Sean waited. She could see his face in the window, panic in his eyes. “Sean, Sean, it’s going to be okay.” Strong arms wrapped around her waist before she could reach the car. “No, let me go! I need to talk to him!” she screamed. In another second the squad car pulled away from the curb.

Megan wheeled on her captor, shoving at Cole’s chest. “How could you? How could you arrest my brother?”

“I told you to stay home—” he started, his low, too-calm voice kicking her fury higher.

“Fuck you! You can’t expect me to stay home and wait by the phone. You should have told me what was happening—”

“Megan, I can’t give you details—”

“I told you this was my brother’s house!”

“I have a job to do. I can’t break the rules. Even for you.”

His eyes were flat, black chips of ice. Megan stepped back, unable to believe this was the same man who had spent the day laughing and flirting with her. The same man who less than half an hour ago had his hand up her skirt and his mouth on hers, holding on to his control by a thread as he slid her panties down her legs.

Right now he stared at her as though she was just another freak who’d showed up at a crime scene.

Rage dissolved into fear, leaving her desperate. “You have to help me, Cole. Help me get him out of this.”

Cole’s look thawed a degree, but his mouth stayed in a straight, bitter line. “I don’t know what to tell you. Sean’s in big trouble.”

“No! There has to be something you can do.”

He shook his head. “You really want my advice? Get a damn good lawyer.”

She went numb.

Cole looked over her head and spoke to someone behind her. “Get her out of heres dfont>

“Come on, miss, let’s get you home.” Male hands gripped her arms, pulling her toward the street as the man she loved turned his back and walked away.

Seattle Tribune, January 20, 2008

D
ECORATED
W
AR
V
ETERAN
S
ENTENCED TO
D
EATH

A King County jury has formally sentenced thirty-year-old Sean Flynn to the death penalty after being convicted of raping and killing a young woman.

Flynn was convicted last month of the aggravated rape and first-degree murder of Evangeline Gordon, twenty-one, who Flynn met at Seattle nightclub Club One. Gordon was seen leaving with Flynn on the night of June 4. Her body was found the next day in Flynn’s house.

Flynn’s was the first case in which King County prosecutors sought a death sentence in nearly a decade.

Flynn’s attorneys say they plan to appeal the verdict.

Outside Walla Walla, Washington, Two Years Later

A
n all-too-familiar tight feeling settled in Megan’s stomach as she took a right turn off Highway 12 in Walla Walla and the towers of the Washington State Penitentiary, aka the Walls, came into view.

The sight of the squat brick buildings never failed to send a wave of dread through her, as it had every single Saturday for the past two years, ever since Sean had been sentenced.

It still struck her as surreal, impossible that Sean could ever be convicted of murder, much less sentenced to the death penalty.

She’d been devastated when she’d learned that the prosecutor planned to ask for death in Sean’s case. Prosecuting attorney Mark Benson had been up for reelection and had been reeling under the upsurge in violent crime. He seized on Sean’s case as the perfect opportunity to take bold action and set an example. To show that no one, not even a decorated war hero with an otherwise spotless record, could escape due punishment for his crimes.

Despite Sean’s continued assertions of innocence and the support of the best attorneys they could afford, it had taken a jury less than two hours to return with a guilty verdict.

Even Megan, in her weaker moments, was forced to admit it looked bad. If she hadn’t known her brother to his very soul, she might have questioned his innocence too. The victim, Evangeline Gordon, had been killed by multiple stab wounds, and there was little question the weapon was the Randall knife Sean and the other members of his Army Ranger regiment had had specially made. Evidence of sexual assaultad he final nail in Sean’s coffin, as had the testimony from the victim’s friend that he had been stalking Evangeline before she died….

Seemingly irrefutable evidence that gave the judge and jury ample reason to levy the ultimate penalty.

Megan refused to believe in her brother’s guilt. She
knew, with every fiber of her being, that Sean was innocent. The man she knew wasn’t capable of what they’d accused him of. Sean was fiercely protective and would never deliberately hurt a weaker person. He would never hurt a woman, much less rape or kill one.

Too bad no one else gave any weight to her assertions that Sean, who had been drugged along with the victim, had been framed by the real killer.

She’d taken her story to anyone who would listen, until almost everyone outside of Sean’s attorneys had written her off as delusional, unwilling to face the truth.

But she knew the truth, she thought as she took the turn toward the prison. The truth was that Sean wasn’t guilty, and Megan didn’t care if people dismissed her as a whack job. She wasn’t going to stop until Sean was free.

A dream that still felt impossibly out of reach.

Gloom had settled like a wet wool blanket on her shoulders on the drive here. Now she struggled to shrug it off and put a goddamn smile on her face. Though she’d had hours to prepare herself, she was still practicing her cheerful pep talk as she checked in at the entrance and pulled into visitor parking. She checked her reflection in the rearview mirror and made a feeble attempt to conjure a smile that didn’t look like a grimace.

Suck it up, Flynn,
she scolded herself.
Sean’s already got it bad enough. He doesn’t need you coming in looking like death warmed over.