Allison Brennan - See No Evil

“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. Watching 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?”