Allison Brennan - See No Evil

Dillon gave Emily a half smile. “Hi, Emily. I’m Dr. Dillon Kincaid. We need to talk.”

Julia unconsciously leaned forward, her left hand on the window, aching to touch her niece. She could hear everything, although the voices sounded slightly tinny through the small speaker.

Emily’s eyes showed fear and skepticism. How could a person so young have so much negative emotion?

“Do you know where you are?” Dillon asked.

“Hospital.” Her voice was rough and Dillon offered her some water through a straw. He adjusted her bed so she could sit up.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” Her voice cracked. She was trying to put on a front, but Julia saw the pain in her eyes.

“You drank a lot last night.”

“I guess.” She drank some more water. “You’re a doctor?” She was looking at Dillon suspiciously.

He nodded. “A psychiatrist.”

“Great.” She closed her eyes and whispered, “Just what I need, another shrink.”

“I need to ask you some questions. It’s important.”

The door opened behind Julia and relief washed through her when Connor Kincaid walked into the ward.

Connor’s collar-length black hair was damp from a recent shower, and along with the chip on his shoulder and bad attitude, he brought into the room a rich, clean fragrance of soap, raw masculinity, and a quick glance that saw everything. He caught Julia’s eye and her pulse quickened.

She turned to focus on Emily. “Thank you,” Julia said quietly.

“I’m here for her, not you,” said Connor.

“I know.” She told herself she didn’t care.

Connor stood next to her, his presence almost overpowering. He was the biggest of the Kincaid brothers-broader, taller, darker. Dillon Kincaid had the Irish good looks of his father-brown hair, blue eyes, and fair skin-while Connor had the dark good looks of his Cuban mother-and the hot-blooded temper of his combined Irish and Latin genes.

It was all Julia could do to stand still. So she focused on Emily and reminded herself that Connor Kincaid hated her and was only here because Emily needed help.

Dillon was speaking in the adjoining room. “Emily, I’m here to help.”

She shook her head. “No one can help me.” How could she sound so full of anguish and defeat? Julia stepped closer to the window. Had Emily really tried to kill herself?

“I can help. Your aunt Julia hired an attorney to protect your rights and interests. I’m part of that. So anything you say to me is between you and me. And”-he motioned toward the window-“your aunt. If you want me to, I’ll ask her to leave.”

“Aunt Jules is here?”

Dillon nodded. “She’s worried about you.”

Tears rolled over her bottom lashes. “Can she come in?”

“Not right now. I think you and I need to talk first. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger. I want you to know that you’re safe here. No one can hurt you.”

Emily’s voice cracked. “Is…is he really dead? It wasn’t a dream, was it?” She sounded hopeful.

“It wasn’t a dream. Victor Montgomery is dead.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “It was so awful.”

“What was awful?”

“I…I saw Victor. He was…dead.”

“You walked in after he was killed?”

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.