Savage Redemption - By Alexis Morgan Page 0,18
and prepared to take notes.
“Okay, Kat, start talking, and don’t stop until you’ve told me everything. Start with what got you arrested in the first place, continue past the point where you snuck out of my bed and keep going right up until yesterday, when I found you bleeding in the dirt.”
She’d already let her eyes drift shut. When she spoke, she sounded tired beyond belief. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want the details, Conlan? Knowing them won’t change anything—not what happened three years ago and not what the final outcome will be.”
“I still want to know. You owe me that much after—”
Damn, he didn’t want to go there, not with her. Some debts could never be repaid. Her death, however justified in the eyes of the law, wouldn’t give him back the two years of his life that had been stolen.
He leaned back in the chair, feigning a calm he certainly didn’t feel. “Rafferty has given you what you came here for. Now we need to know who might be coming after us for helping you.”
Kat remained still, her eyes closed, with only her rapid pulse and shallow breathing giving her away. The dark circles under her eyes gave her a bruised look but did nothing to diminish her beauty. Despite the passage of time, he hated that he still remembered the silky softness of her hair and the taste of her kisses. Those memories belonged to his past, but he wouldn’t have a future until they dealt with the present. He’d give her a little time to gather her thoughts before pressuring her any more. But one way or another, he was going to finally get some answers.
* * *
He wasn’t going to let it go. She’d known three years ago that Conlan O’Shea had been born with a double dose of stubbornness, and that obviously hadn’t changed. It was part of what had made him so good at his job as a Coalition chancellor assigned to investigate violent crimes. Once he’d caught a scent, Conlan was hardwired to follow the trail to hell and back if that was what it took to find the truth. Coupled with a streak of honor that couldn’t be bent, broken or borrowed, he’d been a force to reckon with.
Conlan had taken pride in doing his job well, and she’d stolen that away from him. The truth wouldn’t change things, but maybe it would help him heal.
“You read my file.”
It was a statement, not a question. The first time they’d met, he’d been pouring over the details of her case as she’d shuffled into the interview room. Shackled and cuffed, she’d been too busy concentrating on not falling on her face to take much note of him at first. He was just another in a long line of people who had the power of life and death over her. Up until that point, nothing she’d said had swayed their opinions at all. There’d been no reason to think Conlan would be any different. The sooner they got the interview over, the sooner the nightmare would end.
Permanently.
That attitude had lasted until he’d closed the folder and stared at her from across that narrow table. She could still remember her irrational belief that he might see past the words on the page to the truth. Her truth. Her innocence.
They would have both been better off if he’d simply signed off on her case and let her rot in prison until she was executed. Instead, he’d given her that most dangerous of gifts: hope.
And here he was again, still waiting for her to explain where it had all gone wrong. Fine. But where to begin?
She opened her eyes, careful to keep them trained on the ceiling above her bed. “Nothing’s changed, Conlan. No matter what they said, I didn’t firebomb my lab. I also didn’t kill anyone. The information in the file was accurate as far as it went. It was the court’s interpretation of those facts that was the problem.”
The jerk actually laughed, even though there was little actual humor in the sound. “If we let every felon out of jail who claimed that was true, the prisons would be empty.”
Okay, enough was enough. “Look, Conlan, we both know you’re not going to believe anything I tell you, so go away and leave me alone. Wake me up when the Coalition chancellor comes for me. I wouldn’t want to sleep through my execution.”
She turned on her side to face away from him and those icy