Beg for Mercy by Jami Alden

Talia snapped before Megan could finish. But Talia’s irritation was aimed at the man who had greeted Megan and fetched Talia for her. He had gone behind the bar and taken down a highball glass from the bar and was filling it with water. She marched over to the bar and snatched the glass out of his hand. “I have that all set up for tonight. You can get your drink in the back.”
    He snatched the glass back, put it to his lips, and drained it in three deep swallows. Whatever had those two bristling at each other went way beyond a conflict over what glassware to use.
    Talia glared at the man for nearly a full minute before turning back to Megan. “Our new head of security seems to think he can do whatever he wants around here.”
    The man ignored Talia and refilled his glass.
    “Sorry. You were saying?”
    “This is going to sound crazy,” Megan started again, “but I have a… hunch—for lack of a better word—that last night’s murder and Evangeline Gordon’s death could be related.”
    Megan wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Talia’s expression closed even further. “I don’t see how that’s possible, since Evangeline’s murderer was convicted. There was no disputing the evidence,” she said pointedly, though not unkindly.
    Megan forced herself to unclench, to not fly off the handle at Talia. No love lost between them, but if there was any information to be gained from Talia’s memories of that night, she’d get a lot further if she minded her manners. “I know that’s what everyone thinks. But there are similarities, and I don’t know where to start except at the beginning. The night you claimed you saw Sean follow Evangeline out of the club.”
    “I didn’t claim anything,” Talia replied, her voice dripping icicles. “I
saw
your brother. I
heard
Evangeline tell me that he’d been hounding her for a week before she died.”
    “Maybe there’s something you missed, something you don’t even realize you saw or heard. Something that wasignored because it didn’t help the prosecution’s case,” Megan said, hating how her voice pitched higher with every syllable.
    Something in Talia’s cool expression flickered, a crack in her porcelain facade, but it was gone so quickly Megan wondered if she’d imagined it. “I told the police and the prosecution everything I knew before and during the trial. Many times over. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do. Brooks,” she snapped.
    “Yes?” The big man was leaning on the bar, watching their exchange like an anthropologist studying a foreign tribe.
    “Do your job. Escort Ms. Flynn out.” Without another word, she spun on her stiletto and
tap tap tapped
her way back to the club’s shadowy depths.
    Feeling like her lifeboat had been punctured by a harpoon, Megan didn’t even protest as the man gestured her toward the door. She started to hurry out, but he stayed her, curving one massive hand around her biceps. “You shouldn’t walk around here alone, even at this time of day.”
    She let him accompany her silently across the street, all the while her mind racing, grasping, trying to figure out the next step. All she could see in front of her were brick walls.
    As the man reached out for her keys to unlock her car, the sleeve of his T-shirt slid up, revealing the bottom edge of a tattoo on his left biceps. Without thinking, she grabbed his arm and leaned in for a closer look. It was a black-scaled snake coiled around a beret-wearing skull with a sword stabbing up through its mouth. Sean had a similar one in the same location, but his skull was minus the beret.
    “You’re Special Forces,” she said.
    “Green Beret,” he confirmed.
    “My brother was too. Captain Sean Flynn, seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment.”
    “Major Jack Brooks,” he said. “I heard about your brother. Hate to see a fellow soldier end up like that.”
    Megan jerked her hand from his arm and waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t, just stared down at