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over. Years past. In a time as dead as the bastard who had tortured them. The cells were gone, the house destroyed, all of it wiped away as though it had never been. Wiped from everything but their memories. Lora Leigh
    Heather’s Gift
    29
    He collapsed on the cell cot, holding his head in his hands as he fought the lash of memories that were as brutal as the whip that had once been used on them. He didn’t remember it all. He never did. The rapes he remembered. The drugged, hallucinogenic hours that they were forced to…
    Bile rose in his throat. He had screamed that first time. They all had. And the bastard had laughed. Sneering as he forced them to hurt each other. He swallowed tight, hard. He had destroyed them in ways he could have never imagined. Even his death hadn’t stopped the horror.
    God, he wished Martinez would hurry. Goddammit, how long did it take to dust the fucking place and check fingerprints? Hell, it should have been pretty damned easy to tell he had just arrived there.
    He had no idea how Mark Tate had finally found his just reward, but it was no more than he deserved. Not that Sam wouldn’t have killed the bastard if he’d had the chance. He tightened his hands as they dropped to his knees. Opening his eyes, he stared down at his fists as though they belonged to someone else. For just a moment, they were dripping with blood—his and someone else’s. Then he shook his head and the blood was gone. All he saw was the faint, thin lines that crossed the backs of his broad, rough hands. They criss-crossed back and forth like a design of horror. A reminder. A signature of evil. The same small, spider-thin scars covered other parts of his body. Tender, sensitive parts.
    He breathed in hard and deep. If he didn’t get out of here, he was fucking going to go crazy.
    “Sam.” Sheriff Martinez stepped into the cell area, leaving the main door opened as he approached.
    Sam raised his head slowly, fighting for control in front of the other man. Josh Martinez had gone to school with the August brothers, knew them all as well as anyone did, Sam guessed. But the other man didn’t have a clue the hell he was going through right now.
    “Let me outta here, Josh,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t kill the bastard. You know I didn’t.”
    “Forensics didn’t find any of your prints, and whoever called and reported the murder hasn’t come forward. I’m letting you go, but I’d suggest getting a lawyer, man.”
    He unlocked the door, the keys rattling, taunting Sam with the misty memories that wailed in his mind.
    Sam fought to keep from shaking as he rose from the cot and left the cell. The air was oppressive in the cell area, thick, menacing.
    “I don’t need a fucking lawyer,” Sam bit out as he strode quickly for the door. “I told you, I didn’t do it.”
    Not that the bastard didn’t deserve to die, Sam thought vengefully. Mark Tate had been a waste of human flesh.
    Lora Leigh
    Heather’s Gift
    30
    “That’s not good enough, Sam.” Josh slammed the outer door closed behind them, following Sam through the small sheriff’s office as he walked quickly for the exit. He needed air, and by God, he needed it now.
    “It will have to be.” Sam turned back, ignoring the frustration he glimpsed on the sheriff’s face. “I wasn’t there, Josh.” But he knew he would have killed the bastard if he had the chance.
    “It’s easier than you think to frame a man, Sam,” Josh warned him quietly. “Be careful that you don’t let someone do it to you. If your prints had been on just one thing in that room, then I would have had to arrest you.”
    Sam took a deep breath. “Coincidence,” he muttered.
    Josh shook his head slowly, his brown eyes narrowed, thoughtful.
    “I don’t think so. I checked it out myself. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like you were there. And a lot of trouble to make the scene as bloody as possible.”
    Sam’s stomach rolled. He remembered the blood,