Allison Brennan - See No Evil Read online

  Emily took a deep breath. “Oh God, it’s true. It’s all my fault.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Julia tensed, touching the window with both hands. “No, Em. No.” But she remembered that Dillon was on the side of the defense this time. He wouldn’t be testifying against Emily. Still, she ran through all possible scenarios. Maybe having Emily committed, at least temporarily, would help. Protect her. Legal precedents churned in her head and she almost missed Emily’s next words.

  “I planned it. Exactly like that. I thought of it, I pictured it in my mind. But it was so much worse, so much blood.”

  “Oh God,” Julia said, blinking back tears. She turned to Connor. “Don’t let her confess.”

  “She’s not,” he said, not taking his eyes from Emily’s face.

  “How—”

  “Shh.”

  Dillon looked Emily in the eye. “Did you kill Victor?”

  She shook her head violently. “No, God no. No. But I wanted to! I wanted to so bad. You don’t know what it was like living with him. And I thought about it, about killing him. About him being dead. About how it would feel to take away his power over me.”

  Dillon took Emily’s hand and squeezed. “Emily, this is important. Did you ask someone to kill Victor for you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Were you threatened in any way? Did someone threaten to hurt you or someone else if you didn’t let them into the house?”

  Her expression was confused. “You mean did I let someone in to kill Victor?” She shook her head vigorously. “No.”

  “If you were threatened, I promise around-the-clock police protection. No one can hurt you in here. We have a guard outside, this room is secure.”

  She kept shaking her head. In a small voice she said, “I didn’t let anyone in yesterday. No one threatened me.”

  Julia’s heart dropped. It would have been a good defense. No jury would convict a teenager who was scared and let in a killer. And as she thought it, she knew it couldn’t have happened. Santos’s men would never have left a witness alive.

  “Did you try to kill yourself last night?” Dillon asked.

  Emily’s jaw dropped and she looked at Dillon directly for the first time. “Kill myself? Absolutely not. Never. I didn’t—Why would you think that?”

  “You took several Xanax on top of a substantial amount of alcohol.”

  She shook her head. “No. I didn’t—I hate that crap. I took Tylenol.” But she averted her eyes. Why was she lying?

  “Before or after you drank a pint of rum?”

  “After.”

  “And?”

  She closed her eyes, bit her lip. “I was drunk. I didn’t try to kill myself. Believe me, I didn’t… I didn’t want to. I was—I don’t know. I just couldn’t believe what I saw. I was scared but numb. Like I wasn’t in my body, that everything was in my head, but I knew it wasn’t. I’m not explaining this very well.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I—” She stopped.

  “Tell me from the beginning, if it’s easier.”

  “Yesterday afternoon is so fuzzy.”

  “Tell me how you remember it.”

  “I got home from school, but I didn’t go into the house. I just sat in the garage. For over an hour. Just sat there.”

  “Why didn’t you want to go in?”

  “Victor was home.”

  “But you have to be home because of your probation, correct?”

  She nodded. “I have to be inside by six p.m. And on Wednesdays my mother is out late and Victor is home early…”

  Her voice trailed off and Julia knew what she was going to say. Her stomach dropped and her fists clenched. “That bastard!” She almost hit the window, but Connor’s hand shot out and grabbed her fist. Held it. His hand was hot and dry.

  Emily’s lip quivered and Dillon asked quietly but firmly, “When Victor and you were alone at the house, what happened?”

  “He—” She stopped, cleared her throat, her eyes rimmed with tears. “He made me give him oral sex.” Her voice was flat.

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  She shook her head, averting her eyes. “I was scared.”

  “That’s why you ran away three years ago?” Dillon asked.

  “Y-yes.”

  “It’s been going on for over three years?”

  She nodded.

  Dillon’s voice was soothing. “What did your stepfather do to you?”

  She didn’t look at Dillon, but Julia knew she was telling the truth. Her cheeks were red from embarrassment, humiliation. Her hands twisted in the bed-sheets. “Six months after he and Mother got married I saw him watching me swim. It freaked me out, but he went away. Then it happened again. And again. And I couldn’t go in the pool anymore unless I knew for sure he wasn’t at home.

  “One day a couple months later, I was in the pool house showering. I thought I was alone, completely alone because it was a Wednesday and the servants had the day off. I opened the shower door to grab a towel and he was there. Naked. I screamed and he slapped me. He raped me. Right there on the bathroom floor.”

  Next to Julia, Connor squeezed her hand, his own anger radiating from his tight body. “I’d have killed him,” he said, his voice a low, vicious rasp. “He deserved what he got.”

  Julia couldn’t disagree, though she was the last person who believed that anyone should take justice into their own hands. She wondered what she would have done had she known Victor raped her niece.

  Julia would have turned him in. Had Victor Montgomery prosecuted and thrown in prison, where maybe he would see what it was like to be raped. Three years ago, Emily had been under fourteen, which meant special circumstance sexual assault. Montgomery would have been locked up in maximum for ten-to-twenty and required to register as a sex offender.

  But Julia knew what the victims went through. They were scared, true, but more than that they were deeply humiliated. The hurt didn’t end with the physical pain. They suffered emotionally for the rest of their lives. On top of that, Emily would have had to talk to a judge, possibly take the stand and testify. Her word against a respected jurist. And now, three years later, any physical evidence was gone. No proof. Even a mediocre attorney could rip Emily’s story apart.

  “Why didn’t you tell someone?” Dillon asked Emily quietly.

  “I don’t know. Who’d believe me? And… I tried to forget. I didn’t want to think about it. Ever. And then, a month later, he was there, outside my bedroom when I was leaving for school. He told me I was a good girl because I kept my mouth shut, and so he knew I’d liked it.” Tears streamed down Emily’s face. “He said he’d have a surprise for me when I got home from school and not to be late. That’s when I ran away.”

  Dillon said, “When you came home after you ran away, when did your stepfather start hurting you again?”

  “He didn’t touch me, not like that. Instead he”—she drank more water, coughed—“he made me give him a blow job every Wednesday afternoon. I started drinking to get rid of the taste.”

  She had no more tears, her voice was a monotone.

  “And one day I read a newspaper article about a rapist he put in prison. He was quoted. ‘When a woman says no, she means no.’ And I realized then, I’d never said no. I just did what he told me. It was all my fault. And I got drunk and spray-painted the courthouse.”

  Dillon tried to reassure Emily. “It wasn’t your fault. You are not to blame for what he did to you.”

  “Goddamn bastard,” Connor whispered, his body radiating the same tension building within Julia. He dropped her hand and paced.

  Dillon reassured Emily, and steered her back to what happened yesterday at the house. The day Victor was murdered. “You said you came into the house but didn’t hear your stepfather. I don’t understand what you meant.”

  “Every Wednesday I come home as close to six as possible. Hoping he’d be busy. But he always heard me, like he was waiting. Watc
hing through the security camera. He would call out for me. He now had something on me. He said if I didn’t come and do what he wanted, he would call my probation officer and tell her I was habitually breaking curfew. I had no choice.”

  “But yesterday he didn’t call for you.”

  She shook her head. “I thought he was on the phone. Maybe had company. I ran upstairs and was so happy. I locked my door. Safe. And stupid. I got some rum. I know I’m not supposed to drink, but it numbs me, makes the bad stuff go away. I can forget about him, forget everything.”

  “This is important, Emily. I want you to think hard. Why did you go downstairs?”

  “My flask wasn’t full, so I ran out of rum. I thought I could sneak down to the parlor and get a refill. So I did.”

  “What time was that?”

  She thought, then gave a halfhearted shrug. “Six-thirty. Maybe later. I’d taken a bath when I got home. I put on my robe and went downstairs. Barefoot, so he couldn’t hear me. Tiptoed. Filled the flask and put it in my pocket.

  “Everything was weirdly quiet in the house. I was drunk, I knew it, but I was scared ’cause something was wrong or out of place, but I didn’t know what. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Victor’s library door open. He never leaves it open when he’s in there. And I had to know where he was. If he wasn’t in his library, was he looking for me? I was very quiet. I walked down the hall and looked in the room.

  “He was dead. I’d imagined it before in my head, just like this, but there was so much more blood. So much more.”

  On her bed, Emily began to rock back and forth, back and forth. Julia clasped her hands together to force herself to remain calm and not burst into the hospital room.

  “It was like I was in a trance,” Emily said. “It took forever to walk across the room, but I did. I had to look closer. He was dead. Just like I dreamed.”

  “Did you touch him?”

  “I think… I think I did touch his desk, maybe his arm. It was unreal, seeing him dead. I thought I was hallucinating. This was a drunken nightmare, and I’d wake up in the morning and Victor would still be alive.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I ran, slammed the door shut—I don’t know why. It’s not like he could chase me. He was dead. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I was scared. It was exactly like I’d planned. I’d wanted to kill him. I wanted to! But I didn’t. I don’t think I did. I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.” Emily rolled over and curled into a ball, sobbing.

  Dillon soothed her, assuring her he would return and no one would hurt her. He left the weeping girl. Julia, too, felt comforted by Dillon’s soft, rhythmic words. Her heart rate slowed, and she was better able to process the evidence without the cloud of too many emotions.

  Julia turned to Dillon when he exited Emily’s room. “Can I see her?”

  “Yes, in a minute.” He looked at his brother Connor. “What are you doing here, Con?” The three of them stood in the observation room outside Emily’s room.

  “Ms. Chandler hired me.”

  Dillon said, “Good. I’ll need to talk to Emily again, and we need someone to follow up on what she tells me. She said she ‘pictured’ Victor’s murder, that she planned it. I need to know exactly what she means by that. Maybe she did plan it, talk about it to someone else.”

  Julia shook her head. “The police will be all over her for it. She didn’t mean that.”

  “We don’t know what she meant until she tells us,” Dillon reminded her.

  “This is an obvious case of sexual abuse,” Julia said, her voice cracking. “Stanton won’t prosecute, even if she was somehow involved.” She cleared her throat. “I need to be with her.”

  “Julia, we still don’t know exactly what happened,” Dillon cautioned her.

  “Are you saying she’s lying?” Julia exclaimed.

  “No.”

  Connor interjected, “What Dillon means is that Emily was impaired yesterday. She might not have all her facts straight. We need to verify everything she says, find out exactly what she meant about ‘planning’ Victor’s death.”

  “Whose side are you on?” Julia asked them. “I thought you were here to help her, not interrogate her—” Julia stopped herself, rubbed her face, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “You haven’t slept, you’re stressed, it’s understandable that you’re edgy. Go in, talk to her. What Emily really needs right now is family support.” Dillon paused. “Where’s her mother?”

  Julia glanced at Emily through the observation room’s window. She’d stopped crying, but her body was still curled into a ball. She looked so small. “Crystal… she has issues.”

  “Everyone has issues, Julia.”

  “Crystal is defined by her status. With men, with money, with society. Having a child didn’t fit into that.”

  Reluctantly, Julia continued. She didn’t like thinking about Crystal and her brother, Matt, and her problems with her brother before he died.

  “Crystal and Matt were in college and she got pregnant. I’m convinced she deliberately got pregnant because of who Matt was. His connections, his money, his name. They married and everything seemed okay for a while.”

  “A while?”

  “Matt adored Emily. Adored her more than Crystal, or so Crystal thought. She played all these mind games with him—pretending to be ill, pretending to have secret admirers—every game in the book. Eventually, Matt tired of it. I don’t know the details. He knew I didn’t like Crystal so we rarely talked about his marriage. It had been a sore point in our relationship, something I regret because we lost so much that we had before Crystal came into the picture. But I knew something was going on. Matt asked me to review all the legal documents that Emily was associated with, and he made me executrix of her trust. Then… he died.”

  “A car accident, right?” Dillon asked.

  It had been the worst night of Julia’s life, and she couldn’t go into the details for fear of cracking. The guilt scratched at her, trying to control her again. She pushed it back. “Six years ago. It was awful. Losing him, then battling Crystal just to see my niece. Very unpleasant.” Unpleasant? Julia sounded like her mother. That entire year had been Hell.

  “And what’s Emily’s relationship with her mother?”

  “Crystal doesn’t have real relationships. Unless you can do something for her. It’s all about connections. Crystal’s only connection to Emily is through my brother, a dead man she certainly never loved.”

  Dillon sighed, made some notes. “I don’t think it’s in Emily’s best interest to go home,” he said, “but circumstances may change in the next few days. Right now, the best thing for Emily is to keep her here. But I don’t think she’s suicidal. I’m going to put her under a nondisclosed medical observation for seventy-two hours. That should give you,” he said to Connor, “some time to follow up on her comments.”

  “First place I’d go is to her shrink,” Connor said.

  “I’ll talk to him,” said Dillon. “He won’t give you anything.”

  “And you’ll share?” asked his brother.

  “Of course.”

  Connor nodded. “The police have the house and Emily’s possessions as evidence, but I’ll follow up with her friends, her school, her affiliations, anyplace and anything to find out who she might have talked to about her feelings toward Victor. Verify her whereabouts yesterday, her state of mind. I’ll call around to see what kind of evidence Will and Gage have. I still have a few friends on the force.”

  “We should regroup tonight and compare notes, go from there.”

  “Can I see her now?” Julia asked, only half-listening to Dillon and Connor’s plans.

  Dillon nodded. “Yes, but then go home and get some sleep.”

  She just shook her head, then glanced at Connor. “Thank you.”

  Connor watched Julia enter Emily’s hospital room. The two men observed the young girl carefully. Her response to Julia was warm and tearful.
They embraced and both women cried. Connor felt distinctly uncomfortable. He’d never thought Julia Chandler capable of real emotion. He knew she cared about Emily, though she’d played the runaway situation a lot differently than this.

  “Emily has been very forthcoming,” Dillon continued, “but there’s something she knows and either can’t remember or doesn’t want to say.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Dillon said, “I was surprised to see you, considering your history with the counselor. Why are you doing this?”

  “I like the kid.” When Dillon didn’t say anything, Connor added, “I found Emily when she ran away. I didn’t know—she never let on what Victor had done to her.”

  “What was her state of mind back then?”

  “She was living on the streets. She was scared, tired, and using drugs. She cleaned up, promised she wouldn’t…” Connor sighed. “Maybe I just didn’t see the signs. I knew she didn’t want to go home. I should have found out why.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it, Connor. Julia’s guilt is enough for everyone.” Dillon paused. “Tread carefully.”

  “Don’t I always?” Connor smiled.

  “Can you say that with a straight face?”

  The outside door opened and Officer Diaz stepped into the observation room. Dillon asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “The press is all over the building. I just thought you’d want to know.”

  “Thanks,” Dillon said. “We’ll go out the doctors’ garage. It’s secure.”

  Connor watched Julia and Emily talking. He could barely make out what they were saying, but Julia was trying to convince the girl that she should have told her about the rape.

  “I would have taken care of it, honey.”

  “I was scared, Jules.”

  Jules. He remembered Emily always called her that. Never “aunt.” More like an older sister. Friend. Confidante.

  But Emily hadn’t confided in anyone, and the pretty teenager was now the prime suspect in a murder case.

  EIGHT

  DR. GARRETT BOWEN WAS a renowned leader in anger management. Expert witness and oft-appointed court psychiatrist, he handled an array of celebrity and charity cases, from the rich to the poor and every stripe in between.