Allison Brennan - See No Evil

The door opened with a quiet swoosh. Julia startled and glanced over her shoulder, expecting a nurse or the doctor she’d spoken with earlier. Instead, it was Officer Diaz.

“You have a visitor,” he said.

She glanced at her watch. Two in the morning. Where had the last two hours gone? Had she dozed off?

She kissed Emily on the cheek and quietly left. Emily was in the psychiatric observation ward. The nurses’ station in the center of a larger room monitored all patients through windows looking into the individual rooms. It pained Julia that Emily was under suicide watch, but it was in her best interest.

Diaz nodded toward defense attorney Iris Jones, who stood beside him.

Iris didn’t look like she’d been woken from a deep sleep. In fact, she was impeccably dressed in a gray Anne Klein suit and matching blouse. Her black hair was pulled into her customary ponytail, and her makeup had been sparingly applied. She could have been any age between thirty and fifty, but Julia knew that Iris was five years older than she was, thirty-nine. Iris’s beauty and diminutive height were misleading-she was a force to be reckoned with, the only defense attorney Julia had lost a trial to.

“I have a room down the hall that’s secure,” Iris said, brushing by Diaz. Julia gave him an awkward smile as she followed, felt his disapproving glance. Consorting with the enemy, he probably thought. Julia couldn’t let other people’s opinions influence her. Emily needed her rights protected.

Iris closed the door behind them. “What do you know?”

Julia filled her in on everything she’d been told and observed at the Montgomery house. “Detective Hooper thinks the evidence is damning.”

Iris waved a hand. “See, you look at things from the eyes of a prosecutor. All I see is a bunch of circumstantial evidence that means absolutely nothing. Did they find the murder weapon?”

“I don’t know. But…the way Victor was killed. It would take more than one person.”

“Which proves another point: Emily didn’t have to be involved at all. Two or more people entered the house and killed Victor either before Emily got home from school, or while she was upstairs.”

“They think she tried to kill herself.”

“Conjecture. Do they have a doctor’s report on that?” Iris glanced at her notes. “I was late because I was doing a little research. Emily was on probation, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And seeing a shrink? Garrett Bowen?” Iris smiled. “Interesting guy. I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t trust anyone, Iris.”

Instead of being insulted, Iris grinned. She tapped her notes. “We need our own shrink, and we want our person to talk to Emily first. I’m going to petition the court first thing in the morning. And I’m going to ask that you be appointed as Emily’s temporary guardian until the situation is resolved.”

“Crystal will never agree-”

“She doesn’t have to. She’s on record as believing her daughter is guilty of murder. That’s what you told me, correct?”

“Yes, but it was phrased in the form of a question, so-”

“Leave that up to me, Julia,” Iris said, dismissing her. She put her pen down and stared at Julia, making her feel distinctly uncomfortable. But Julia refused to squirm. She stared right back.

“Okay, let’s lay out the ground rules now. You don’t like me because you think I work for the bad guys.”

“You do.”

Iris raised her hand to silence her. “Do you think Emily is a bad guy?”

Julia felt tears spring to her eyes. She rubbed them. “No.”

“Do you think she’s guilty?”

Julia hesitated. “No.”

“But?”

“No buts.”

“You don’t know, do you? But that’s okay. You don’t have to know. What you want is to protect her rights. She’s a minor child who has a troubled past and she has rights. But because she’s a minor, she needs a guardian and I’m confident I can prove Crystal Montgomery is unfit to make decisions on Emily’s behalf during this time.” Iris glared at Julia. “My question to you is, can you do it?”

“Of course I can,” Julia snapped. “She’s my niece. My brother is dead, I can’t-” She stopped. There was no way she was going into detailed family history with this woman. Iris’s job was to protect Emily’s rights. That’s it. “I love Emily. I will do what I have to do to protect her.”

Iris nodded. “I’d like to retain Dr. Dillon Kincaid for the defense.”

“Kincaid? He usually works for Stanton.”

“Unfortunately.” Iris fanned herself. “What a hottie. I’ve hired him for psychiatric evaluations and he’s good at his job. His credentials are impeccable. But I want him because he usually works for your people. If we hire him to evaluate Emily, they can’t use him for their side. We want him on our team. We’re building our case, Julia.”

“Okay.” Julia had worked with Dillon several times-for the prosecution. She respected him greatly, and if anyone had to probe Emily’s psyche, she’d rather have Dillon do it.

“Good, because I already called him. He’s meeting us here at nine this morning.” She glanced at her watch. “Six hours. Glad I don’t need a lot of sleep. Next step, we need to bring in a private investigator. We need to verify everything the police say and do, follow up on our own leads, interview friends, neighbors on our own. Our goal is to find holes in the prosecution.”

“If it gets that far!” Julia had been pacing. She finally sat down, defeated. “They may not even charge Emily. They might not have a case against her.”

“True, but when was the last time you heard of a detective telling someone to get an attorney? They know something we don’t.” Iris made a note. “I have Bruce Younger on retainer. He’s a top investigator, the best I have-”

“I’ve already called Connor Kincaid.”

Iris didn’t hide the surprise in her eyes. “Yet another Kincaid? Isn’t Connor the cop you screwed in the Crutcher case?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Iris,” Julia said, feeling weary. She explained the history. “Three years ago Emily ran away from home. I hired Connor to find her. He told me if Emily ever needed help again to call him.”

“Why did he agree to help in the first place?”

Julia squirmed under Iris’s scrutiny. “Emily was just a kid. Thirteen at the time. And-” She shrugged. She’d asked Connor because she trusted him and knew he was good. But she’d had to appeal to his sense of family and honor to get him to agree to work for her. She felt guilty she’d compared Emily to his own teenaged sister, but it worked and that’s what counted.

And then he’d found Emily and brought her home and she hadn’t spoken to him since.

Iris started with another question, then stopped. “Why didn’t Emily’s mother hire the investigator?” she asked.

Julia’s jaw tightened. “She thought it was a stunt for attention and that Emily would come home on her own when she was hungry.”

“Was it? A stunt?”

“No.”

“Then why did she run away?”

“I don’t know,” Julia admitted. Emily had refused to talk about it.

“Well, we just nailed Crystal Montgomery’s coffin shut. You’re as good as in as Emily’s guardian.” Iris glanced at her watch. “I’m going home for a couple hours, make some calls, then come back here before nine. If you can bring in Connor Kincaid, more power to you. He knows cops, and we can use some inside information. But I’ll admit, I’m surprised he’s given you the time of day.”

“Late night?”

Connor Kincaid halted within arm’s reach of his front door, keys in hand. He knew that voice. A low rumble, quiet, too damn sexy. Slowly, he turned and faced her.