Allison Brennan - See No Evil

She glanced at caller ID. It was him.

“Hello,” she said quietly.

“You’re not alone.”

“He’s asleep.”

“We have a change in plans.”

“You said no-”

“This isn’t up for discussion.”

“But-”

He sighed and she tensed. “Who’s kept your secret for nearly two years?” he said, his voice low, and she wondered if he was alone. “Good, you understand. She’d kill you and I wouldn’t be able to stop her. I wouldn’t want to, Cami, because that means you’re being foolish. So listen to me. Meet me at my place, ten a.m., and I’ll give you the details.”

“All right.”

He laughed. “Don’t sound so concerned. You’re great at improvisation. In fact, you’re a damn good actress. If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.” He hung up.

She put the phone down. She wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. She wouldn’t be able to get him out of her mind.

He was the only man she really wanted, but he refused to have sex with her. Yet, he’d said.

“Wait until we’re done with the final execution. Then I can give you what you want.”

Cami looked at Skip. He was a distant second, but he’d have to do.

She woke him. “Make it hurt, Skip.”

Emily was sleeping a deep, physically exhausted sleep.

Because Julia flashed her badge, recited her credentials, and acted like she had a right to ask questions, Emily’s doctor spoke to her.

“Borderline alcohol poisoning-her blood was at.28-and we pumped her stomach,” Dr. Browne said. “Fifteen hundred milligrams of Xanax was recovered, which is approximately three pills. More may have been absorbed into her bloodstream depending on when she took them, but if she’d taken more than six or seven with that amount of alcohol she’d likely be in a coma. We’ve sent a blood sample to the lab and the report will come back tomorrow.”

“Has she regained consciousness?”

“More or less. When her stomach was pumped she came to for a few minutes. She’s sleeping, but it’s largely a drug-induced sleep from the pills her body absorbed.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No.”

“I’d like to sit with her.”

“I can’t allow any police interviews tonight. She’s being monitored twenty-four/seven and the police have put a guard at her door.”

“I just want to sit with her.” Julia added softly, “She’s my niece.”

Dr. Browne nodded, her warm eyes suddenly sympathetic. “I don’t think she’ll wake up, but if she does I’ll need to examine her in private.”

“Of course.”

“Where’s her mother?”

Julia tensed. “Home.”

Mother was just a word to Crystal Montgomery. The irony that Matt had married a woman so much like their own mother was not lost on Julia.

Julia left the doctor, nodded to the police guard outside Emily’s room, and walked in.

Emily was in the psychiatric wing of the hospital. She couldn’t wrap her mind around Emily trying to kill herself. She honestly didn’t think her niece would do it, no matter how depressed she’d become. Julia could see her accidentally overdosing. She’d talked to Emily about the drugs Dr. Bowen had prescribed and she thought she’d convinced her to stay off them, but Emily had so many problems with Crystal, then with Judge Montgomery after Crystal remarried three years ago, that Julia suspected the prescriptions were a comfortable fallback. A sanctioned escape.

Had Julia been wrong about the drugs? She wasn’t a doctor. Maybe Emily really needed some of the many pills Bowen had prescribed.

Julia rubbed her forehead with her palm. What had she been thinking? What had she been doing? Trying to be a part-time mother to a disturbed teenager? She wasn’t a mother, and at the rate her love life had been going she’d never be one unless she was artificially inseminated. Maybe childlessness was a good thing, because the one child in her life, the one kid she cared about, was suffering. And she might have had something to do with it.

Could a half-dozen prescriptions be good for a sixteen-year-old? Julia had never heard of most of them, though she’d researched a bit to understand. When she was depressed, take this one. When hyper, this. When she couldn’t sleep, something else. Different pills for different moods, to regulate her temperament. What had Dr. Bowen hoped to accomplish? What had he hoped to fix? The fact that she’d run away, or that she’d vandalized the courthouse? And how could pills fix problems when all Emily really needed was someone nonjudgmental, someone she trusted, to talk to?

That was the crux of it: Emily had never talked about why. In court, Emily had said she’d been drinking and didn’t know what she was doing. Julia hadn’t fully believed her then, but Emily never expounded on her admission and Julia hadn’t pressed.

She should have. She should have done a hell of a lot more than leave Emily in a house without love.

Julia had grown up in one of those. It was ego shattering.

She finally approached the hospital bed, her eyes wet with unshed tears, staring at the too skinny, fragile teen. Her blond hair was limp and tangled. Dark circles ringed her eyes. She had an IV and was hooked up to some sort of monitor-it tracked her vital signs. Julia couldn’t look at Emily any longer without breaking down, so she watched the electronic heart-beat as she held her slender hand, the faint beep beep soothing her.

If her brother, Matt, were alive, none of this would have happened. Matt had adored Emily, worshipped Crystal. At least he had until about six months before his death. Julia made it a point to never criticize her sister-in-law-the one huge fight between her and Matt had been shortly after their marriage, and it was clear then that Matt would always choose his pregnant wife over Julia.

Julia couldn’t, wouldn’t, force him to make that choice. So she swallowed her pride and tapped down on her worry and fear that Matt had made a terrible mistake.

Crystal was a brilliant actress, but she couldn’t keep the act going indefinitely. Cracks appeared in the marriage script. Eventually, Matt saw her for who she was: a money-worshipping narcissistic bitch who didn’t care one iota about Emily or even Matt, beyond his ability to keep her in luxury.

If it weren’t for that awful car accident, Matt would be divorced and Emily wouldn’t be living in that loveless house with Crystal and Victor.

Julia couldn’t fathom that Victor was dead. She’d sort of liked him. At least she thought he’d be a good influence on Crystal and provide stability for Emily. He was a respected jurist, a judge she’d always liked to draw for trial because he was tough on criminals while being compassionate to victims. In her experience, that was a rare combination.

But he also liked wealth and social position, and last summer he’d brought up in conversation the subject of Emily’s trust, which put Julia on full alert. She’d dismissed him without comment, then just last month he’d asked her to come to his chambers, she thought to discuss a pending trial; instead, he’d handed her an analysis of Emily’s trust fund that he’d hired a friend to produce.

“Ted is an established financial planner. He says Emily’s trust is too conservative, that she could be seeing far more interest if she manages the stock more aggressively.”

“As the executrix of Emily’s trust, I’m comfortable with the firm we currently have managing it.”

Victor attempted to sweet-talk her, but by the end of the conversation he was quietly angry. “You’re making a mistake, Julia.”

“No, I’m not.”

That conversation made her realize that there was only one person looking out for Emily’s interests, and that was Julia.