See No Evil

THIRTEEN

Julia sat up abruptly, disoriented. She wasn’t in her own room. She wasn’t in her house. Her head was thick with sleep and a dull fog. How many beers had she had last night?

She looked around, fearful she’d done something really stupid. Like sleep with Connor Kincaid. Alcohol stripped away inhibitions, and he’d been kind to her. She’d confided in him things she hadn’t been able to share with anyone else.

And he was really, really nice to look at.

“Dumb,” she mumbled. She’d handed Connor Kincaid ammunition to use against her down the road. Why did she feel she could trust him? He’d made no secret what he thought of her.

But he’d actually been nice last night.

She glanced around the living room. It didn’t look like she’d done anything stupid. And she remembered the night before, talking with Dillon about Emily’s case, eating Mexican food with Connor, him driving her home-but she wasn’t home.

She’d fallen asleep in his truck. When he woke her up, she’d looked at his porch and said, “This isn’t my house.”

“I know. I asked, but you fell asleep. Where do you live?”

“La Jolla.”

“That’s thirty minutes from here. And I’m beat.”

“Take me to my car,” she said.

“You’re too tired to drive.”

“I have my second wind.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Come inside, I won’t bite.”

He’d unfolded the couch and it became a bed. He tossed her a blanket and said, “Sleep tight.” Then he went to his own room and shut the door.

She thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she was wrong. She’d slept surprisingly well, dreams of Connor infiltrating her thoughts. Betrayed by her subconscious.

“He’s too sexy for his own good and you haven’t had a man in-” How long? Years? “-a long time.”

“Are you talking to me, Counselor?”

She jumped when Connor came out of the kitchen. His collar-length black hair was wet and slicked back, his face clean-shaven, and the smell of soap and a mild cologne wafted out to her. Had she spoken aloud? No. Maybe.

“Just thinking,” she mumbled.

“You think loudly. Coffee’s ready, then I’ll take you to your car.”

“Um, thanks,” she mumbled, but didn’t move.

“I don’t do breakfast in bed,” he said. “Unless I’m the one being served.” He winked and crossed his arms.

She glared at him. All niceties from the night before went right out the window. Fine, if that’s how he wanted it. She slid out from between the sheets and stood, hand on her bare hip. Her panties barely covered her, and she’d been told her legs were her best feature. She crossed the room to where she’d tossed her skirt the night before, Connor’s eyes heating her back and everything below her waist. She blushed, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing his perusal had gotten to her. She stepped into her skirt, pulled it over her rear, zipped up the side.

She whirled around and was about to give him a lecture on manners when she closed her mouth. The raw sexuality and desire on Connor’s face startled her. This predicament was certainly unplanned. She swallowed as his gaze moved up her body to her face.

Then he turned around and went back into the kitchen.

He was attracted to her, no doubt about it. But physical and emotional attraction were two completely different animals. They’d had a past, a brief past, but too much had happened since. He would never truly forgive what she’d done, and she couldn’t be sorry for it. She was sorry he’d lost his career, but not that a bad cop had been stopped and the death of two girls avenged. Connor’s career was collateral damage.

Ten minutes and a cup of coffee later, Connor took her to her car. “What are your plans today?” he asked, his first words since seeing her half-naked.

“First to my office to see if I can sweet-talk Frisco into getting me a copy of Victor’s autopsy report. I gave him a huge case when Stanton put me on leave; he owes me one.”

“Frisco?” Connor asked.

“He’s a DDA, like me.” Did Connor sound jealous? No. Her imagination. “Then to the courthouse. I’m going to pull all of Victor’s recent cases and Garrett Bowen’s court filings. It’ll take all day, but it needs to be done. Especially if I can make any other connections to Billy Thompson or Emily.” It sounded like a long shot.

“Dillon wants to see the files as well. Meet me at his house tonight.”

It sounded like an order and Julia cringed. “And you?”

“I’m going to talk to Emily about her friends, then head over to her school.”

“Maybe I should do that,” she said.

“You know the court system better than I do,” Connor countered. “It would take me weeks to pull those files. And Emily and I have a rapport. I promise I’ll go easy on her.”

Connor met Dillon at the hospital. “How did Emily do last night?” he asked.

“Very well. Aside from being underweight, she’s healthy. Dr. Browne wants to discharge her, and I stalled. I don’t know how long I can keep her here-Browne wants to move her to the criminal psychiatric wing downtown.”

“You can’t-”

Dillon interrupted Connor’s admonition. “Of course not. She’s here for at least thirty-six more hours. Hooper was here thirty minutes ago wanting to interview her, but I said she wasn’t mentally ready. I can’t put him off indefinitely.”

Connor looked through the window. Emily was sitting up in bed, looking out the lone, barred window. She looked so much like Julia they could be mother and daughter.

“Let’s get some answers about Wishlist,” Connor said.

They walked into her room and Emily gave them a half smile.

“Good morning, Emily,” Dillon said. “I brought an old friend with me.”

Emily’s pale face lit up when she saw Connor, then her eyes clouded. “Hi,” she said sheepishly.

“How’re you doing, kid?” He sat at the end of the bed. “Holding up okay?”

She sat up and touched his hand. Tears welled in her eyes and Connor hoped she wouldn’t cry. He didn’t handle female tears well at all. “Do you know…everything?”

He nodded, squeezed her hand. “Why didn’t you come to me? I would have done anything to help you. So would your aunt.”

Emily’s bottom lip trembled. “I know. I just…” She didn’t look at him or Dillon. “I just couldn’t.”

“She loves you, Em,” Connor said softly, not wanting to push the kid too hard.

“I just wanted to be strong with her. She’s so smart and beautiful and perfect. I felt, oh, I don’t know. Tainted.”

Dillon sat on the chair next to the bed. “I told you yesterday that nothing Victor did to you was your fault. You were attacked. No one blames you, except yourself. You need to stop thinking this was your fault.”

“I know, but-” She stopped, took a deep breath. “Anyway,” she changed the subject, “you’re here for something. What?”

Connor said, “We found an e-mail you wrote a couple months ago to a group called Wishlist. In it you described how you wanted to kill the person who hurt you the most. Your stepfather was killed in the same manner. Is that what you meant yesterday when you said you planned it?”

She nodded. “I never meant for it to happen. It was supposed to be just an exercise to get rid of the anger. And then…I saw.” She closed her eyes and lay back on the bed. “I saw it all. I touched his blood. I was so drunk I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Dillon said.

“No!”

“And you didn’t plan it.”

“No, but-”

“You didn’t really mean for it to happen. Someone asked how you would get back at the person who hurt you the most.”

She nodded. “Right, but isn’t it my fault anyway?”

“No, it’s not.” Dillon made her look at him. “Emily, we need to know everything about Wishlist.”

She frowned. “Like what?”

“How did you join the group?”

“Dr. Bowen recommended it. It’s an anonymous listserv where we can talk about things that happened to us and what makes us angry and how we feel about it. At first, it sort of helped.”

“But?”

“I don’t know. It started getting weird. I don’t know why I wrote that about Victor. I might have been wasted. I remember that day, though. Victor made me, you know, do that to him, and I felt sick and disgusted with him and me and my mother. But I couldn’t tell Dr. Bowen-he tries to be all understanding, but it’s an act. I’m a specimen to him, you know, like a bug under a microscope.” She looked at Dillon, gave him a half-smile. “I know you’re a shrink, but you don’t make me feel like that.”

“I’m glad.”

She didn’t say anything for a minute. “That day…I just lost it, totally. I was in the garage, thinking how to destroy his precious car. I picked up a wrench and came this close to smashing his headlights. Then everything cleared. He wanted me to react. He was pushing me to do something stupid again. Everything he said that humiliated me, the things he made me do, the way he made me feel, it was all to get me to be stupid so he could get control of my money. I realized then how truly evil he was, about how I’d love for him to be dead. I wrote that e-mail out of anger, and I think Victor was surprised that I didn’t act out. It empowered me and I realized it wasn’t that long before I would get my trust fund and could leave. I’ll be eighteen the day before I graduate from high school. Thirteen months. And the day I graduate I’m flying to Europe with all my money and never setting foot in that house again.”

She crossed her arms, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with determination, her inner fortitude revealing itself. She looked more like Julia now than before.

Connor asked, “Did you ever reveal your identity to the Wishlist group?”

She vigorously shook her head. “Never.”

“Sometimes,” Connor continued, “you reveal yourself in small ways. Not your name or address or school, but maybe some of your history. For example, vandalizing the courthouse. If you mentioned that in the group, someone might have figured out who you were.”

“Are you saying that someone in my group killed Victor?”

“We don’t know,” he quickly said, “and you shouldn’t talk about it. We’re looking into everything right now.”

“Are you a cop again?”

“No. Your aunt hired me.”

“Jules?” Her eyes widened. “She must be worried.”

“She’s tough,” Connor said. “She wants to make sure you’re protected.”

“She thinks I’m guilty,” Emily said softly.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Then why hire a lawyer for me?”

“To protect your rights.”

Emily looked at Dillon. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“Yes,” Dillon said, “but I’m not an attorney. Julia hired Ms. Jones because she wants to make sure no one can hurt you. Trust me on this. She doesn’t think you had anything to do with Victor’s murder.”

“How can she not? I had everything to do with it. I’m the one who wrote the e-mail in the first place. I set things in motion.” She looked from Dillon to Connor and said defiantly, “But I’m not upset he’s dead.”

“Emily, this is important. Has anyone from Wishlist tried to meet with you in person? Either at your house or a public place?”

“No, never.”

“You said Dr. Bowen put you in contact with this group. How?”

“He gave me an e-mail address and a code word.”

“Do you remember the code word?”

“A Bible verse. Isaiah 35:4. I remember because he said I had to put in the colon for it to work. I wasn’t going to because I really didn’t want him knowing things about me, but he promised it was completely anonymous and he’d never bring it up in our sessions, that he didn’t know who most of the people on the loop were and he wasn’t the only shrink who referred people to the group.”

Connor touched Emily’s cheek. “You’re strong, kid. We’re going to get through this, okay?”

“What’s going to happen to me? Am I going to be arrested?”

“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Dillon and Connor left Emily’s room and Connor said, “I’ll bet they have a Bible somewhere in the hospital. The verse might mean something.”

Dillon shook his head. “Twelve years of Catholic school and you don’t know the verse?”

“In one ear.” Connor shrugged.

Dillon quoted, “Say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.’”

Faye didn’t mind playing hooky from school because she was always bored in class. Though she and Skip went to the same school-Robbie attended a different private school in downtown San Diego-they drove separately to the La Jolla beach. Cami was already there, but they had to wait for Robbie.

“He’d better be clean,” Cami warned.

“He is,” Skip said. “He has a twenty-minute drive. Give him a break.”

Robbie was late but sober, and Cami went through the plan meticulously. Her excitement surprised Faye. She hadn’t been nearly as excited about the previous murders. But Faye wasn’t as sure about this one.

The victim was too close to home.

“Skip, you have the gun, right?”

“Check.”

“Loaded?”

He looked at Cami, his mouth tight with anger. “I’m not stupid, Cami. Don’t treat me like an idiot.”

“That’s not what I-”

“Right.” Skip rolled his eyes.

Faye interjected. “We can’t start arguing. This is serious.”

“Exactly,” Cami said, crossing her arms over her ample chest. “This is the pinnacle of the plan. Once we execute it, we’ll be truly free of him. It’s perfect.”

“No plan is perfect,” Robbie said, speaking up for the first time.

“You’re not using again, are you?” Cami asked, an undercurrent of anger in her tone.

“Not now.”

“You have to stay clean. At least through tomorrow night. I can’t have you screw this up.”

“I won’t.” He glared at Cami. “I have it under control.”

“You’d better.” She turned away, but Faye didn’t miss the anger in Skip’s eyes. All directed at Cami. She feared he knew what she and Cami had discussed yesterday. At least Cami’s part of the conversation.

She took Robbie’s hand. She didn’t want to kill him. She really didn’t want to kill him. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “I’ll handle Cami.”

He softened a bit. “She’s a bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

Robbie didn’t understand Cami like Faye did, but that was okay. Faye knew how to control her friend, that was all that mattered.

“There’ll be a lot of security, so we ditch the gun.”

“Why?”

“You don’t want to be caught with it,” Cami said as if Robbie was an idiot. “It’s part of the plan.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea to connect the judge’s death with this,” Skip said.

“It’s a perfect idea. The police will never know what’s happening. It’s our swan song, as they say. And if anything goes wrong, you know the escape plan.”

“It’s risky.”

“That’s the thrill!” Cami stood and paced, kicking sand up with her bare feet. “If I can’t trust you guys, I’ll do it myself!”

Faye got up and touched Cami on the arm. “Cam, they’re just getting out the fear. Remember what we talked about? If we go into it scared, we’ll make a mistake. Talking purges the fear.”

Cami nodded, frowning. “Maybe we should do it alone. Just you and me. Alone.” She glared at the two boys sitting in the sand a distance away.

Faye shook her head. “We need all four of us for the plan to work. You know that.”

Cami sighed. “I’m just excited and nervous.”

“It’s going to work. But not if we start turning on each other.” She frowned at Skip and Robbie. “That goes for you two as well.”

If they looked at her with a sense of awe or wonder that she seemed to be taking over Cami’s role as leader, Faye barely noticed. She was emboldened after being with her secret lover last night, especially since Cami didn’t know about the relationship, or their history. After all, Faye had been his first recruit, not Cami. He had only sent Cami to “recruit” Faye in order to give Cami a sense of control and power.

But Faye held the real power. And after last night she now understood what her role was. The secret thrilled her. Cami thought she was the one in his confidence. Cami didn’t know shit.

For someone as smart as Cami, she could be so dense about some things. Cami thought she had nothing to fear.