Tempting Evil

by Allison Brennan

  The office no longer existed, but melted metal file cabinets were in evidence, as were a twisted hulk of a desk and a melted computer. Claire didn’t even bother trying to pull out the motherboard—the heat from the fire would have melted the circuits, and the water from the hoses had certainly destroyed anything remaining.

  Faulty wiring…possible, of course. These dockside warehouses were old and rarely did the owners upgrade the interiors. They were used for the temporary storage of goods that came down the Sacramento River shipping lane. Product came, product left—cogs in the wheels of the economy.

  Holman Medical Supply Company would soon be one less cog.

  Claire took pictures of the office and the empty warehouse. She left the building. The soot made her cough, and she happily breathed in the fresh air as soon as she cleared the worst of the debris. She leaned against a cement wall to write down some questions for Holman. She already knew what the arson investigator would rule: arson fire. She also knew what Holman’s answers—his lies—would be.

  When was the last time you were at the warehouse?

  Where is the manifest from the April 29 shipment from Hong Kong?

  Where are the missing goods?

  Holman didn’t know Claire had security tape from the warehouse three down that showed him driving up the day before the fire started. He didn’t know she had a copy of the manifest filed with customs in San Francisco. And he would certainly deny knowing where the missing goods were, though she had a contact who said an unusually large supply of syringes had shown up underground yesterday.

  Ben Holman was just one more pathetic human being who proved that no one could be trusted.

  She drained the rest of her lukewarm latte, stuffed her notebook and camera back into her pack, and stood, hoping the investigator wouldn’t be late. She wanted to interview Holman and file her report with Rogan Caruso as soon as possible so she could meet her veterinarian when he arrived at noon. Dr. Jim made house calls, at least for her.

  “Claire.”

  She dropped her cup and pack, reaching for the gun she carried in a belt holster in the small of her back.

  From behind, someone grabbed her arm, bending it up and back. She aimed a perfect kick to her attacker’s balls, but he anticipated the move and sidestepped it, spinning her around and slamming her against the cement wall she’d been leaning against, knocking the wind out of her.

  “Claire, don’t. I need five minutes. Please.”

  Daddy.

  Tears welled up in her eyes. To force them back she pictured the dead, bloody body of her mother. Fifteen years might have seemed like a lifetime, but the sight and smell of blood was as fresh as if Claire had walked in on the murder this morning.

  It had been three months since her father had escaped from prison during the San Quentin earthquake. Three months and no word. She’d talked to local and federal cops, endured weeks of stakeouts outside her house, sacrificing her privacy. And when she finally believed he was gone for good, he showed up here. While she worked. Like a ghost.

  He looked so much older. Of course he did. She’d never visited him in prison. She hadn’t seen him in fifteen years, since the trial, since she testified for the prosecution against her own father.

  Daddy.

  She pushed against him, but he had her pinned tightly to the wall. Her gun dug into her back, and the pepper spray that was on her key chain was in her pocket, out of reach.

  “Claire, I don’t have a lot of time. The Feds are watching you.”

  “Were,” she said.

  “Are,” he contradicted. “I didn’t kill your mother. I told you before and you didn’t believe me. I need you to believe me now.”

  “I don’t.”

  His face hardened, but his blue eyes watered. Looking at her father was like looking at an older, masculine version of herself.

  She had once loved him so much. They’d done so much together. Biking. Skiing. Camping. She wanted to believe him because they’d been two peas in a pod, as her mother used to say.

  Her dead mother. The mother he had killed.

  Claire knew the truth. It was as much her fault as his, but he still pulled the trigger and killed two people.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, surprising herself. “I should never have told you about Mom’s affair. It was childish of me. I just didn’t know then that everyone lies, cheats, and steals for personal gain.”

  He looked as if she’d hit him. “None of that was your fault, Claire. Your mother had affairs before.”

  “That’s what you said at trial, but—”

  “It’s true.”

  “It was convenient. And no one came forward, did they?”

  She was on a roll. She stared at him, remembered that he had been convicted in a court of law by twelve jurors. He’d been convicted of murder, and few innocent people went to prison.

  “You would have said anything to get out of prison. The D.A. offered you a plea. You didn’t have to get the death penalty! You could have pled guilty. Maybe if you’d just admitted the truth I could have lived with it, but you just lied and lied and—”

  “I wasn’t lying,” he insisted, his jaw tight. “Everything I told you then was the truth. Everything.”

  “The evidence showed—”

  “All the evidence was circumstantial. Someone framed me. I need to talk to Oliver Maddox. I know he spoke to you in January before”—he paused—“the earthquake.”

  “Before you escaped from prison? Let’s call a spade a spade, Daddy, okay? No bullshit. You’re an escaped killer and they’ll shoot first, and frankly, no one gives a shit about your answers.”

  Claire’s insides were twisted and burning. She’d never talked to her father like that, had never raised her voice or swore at him.

  Don’t think of him as your father. He’s an escaped prisoner. A convict. A murderer.

  He pushed her harder against the wall, his face twisted in pain and anger and confusion. “Oliver Maddox has information I need to prove my innocence. The Western Innocence Project was helping me. They were planning to go to the governor with information to get me a stay of execution. Then Maddox disappeared.”

  She blinked back tears. “After I talked to him, I did a little research. I’m good at that. The Western Innocence Project was never going to take up your case.”

  “That’s not true! Oliver was going to meet with me a week before the earthquake, but he never showed, and then I couldn’t reach him. After that, I got word that my appeal was denied and I was transferred into the general prison population.”

  “They don’t put cops with the general population.”

  “Something happened. Someone got to him—”

  “I haven’t spoken to Oliver since I kicked him out of my house three months ago when I found out he lied to me. He was just a kid jerking your chain. He didn’t have the Project behind him. You were a cop once. You should know how many killers claim they’re innocent.”

  “I am.”

  “Then who did it? In the twenty minutes between when I left the house and called you and you came in and shot—found—Mom and that man, who came in and killed them? And why? You know, Dad, usually the most obvious answer is the correct one.”

  “I’m so sorry, Claire, but you have to believe me. The only reason I care about proving my innocence is to prove it to you. I don’t want you looking at me the way you are. I want my little girl back.”

  “I’m not a little girl.” She found it hard to catch her breath. Not now. Not now.

  “I know.” His voice quivered. “Please, Claire, I’m risking everything coming to you. I need your help. I can’t do this on my own. I went to Oliver’s apartment. He no longer lives there. I went to the campus, and he’s no longer a student. But I couldn’t dig any deeper without drawing attention. I need to find out where he went and what he knew, to get him to tell the truth no matter who threatened him. I know you work for Rogan Caruso. You have access to far more information than I do.”


  “Why would I help you?” She wheezed, trying to catch her breath. The dust from the ground wasn’t making it any easier. Walking around the burned remains of the warehouse had been foolhardy. She should have taken a precautionary puff of her inhaler. And then the stress…

  “I could lose everything I’ve built since you went to prison,” she said, coughing. “My career, my license, my home. I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “Where’s your inhaler? Are you okay?”

  “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  “I don’t have anyone else.”

  “Well, then you don’t have anyone, Dad.”

  A truck turned onto the road heading for the warehouse.

  “Think about this, Claire. You know something, something in the back of your mind about that day. Think about it, Claire. Think about me. I’m no killer.”

  He pushed her down, running in the opposite direction of the approaching truck.

  Claire slowly pulled herself up. She willed herself to get her breathing under control. The wheezing came harder and faster, she couldn’t catch her breath. She reached into her backpack, fumbling for her inhaler. Found it! Two puffs and she instantly breathed easier.

  The truck belonged to arson investigator Pete Jackson. He got out, looked at Claire with a frown. “You okay, Ms. O’Brien?”

  She faked a half smile as she tried to catch her breath. “Fine. The air just got to me.” She showed him her inhaler and then put it back into her bag.

  “My son has asthma. I told you not to go in until I got here.”

  “Sorry. Why don’t you walk me through it?”

  “Why if you already have your conclusion?”

  “Because I need you to prove it.”

  “Lucky for you that I already have the proof your company needs. Found the hot spot and the accelerant. The burn pattern indicates not only arson, but an amateur.”

  “Too cheap to fork over for a professional,” Claire muttered.

  As she followed Pete Jackson into the warehouse she glanced over her shoulder, looking for her father. Tom O’Brien was nowhere to be seen.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t around.

  The Feds had made it perfectly clear she needed to report any contact from her father, or be considered an accomplice. They’d threatened her—jail time, loss of her private investigator’s license, her concealed carry permit.

  The look on her father’s face gave her pause. And his words had sounded…truthful. But he’d had fifteen years to perfect his act. How could she believe him now when she hadn’t believed him then?

  What if he was telling the truth?

  It wouldn’t hurt to at least talk to Oliver Maddox, find out what he knew. Maybe he had proof of her father’s guilt, and that’s why Oliver had stopped talking to her father. If that was the case, Claire would call the Feds and set up a meeting to put her father back in prison.

  Her heart twisted at the thought of turning in her father, and she focused on Pete Jackson’s walk-through.

  Why couldn’t you have just stayed away, Daddy?

  Doug smiled. “It’s just you and me, now.”

  Crying, she ran to the main door.

  Did she think she’d get far in this weather?

  She flung the door open, the blast of cold air filling the room. Doug crossed the room in three large steps and pushed her down, into the snow. If Doug had closed the door, she would have frozen to death just feet away from the cabin.

  But he had other plans for her.

  He grabbed her thick blonde hair and pulled her back into the cabin, slamming the door shut behind them. He locked it.

  “N-n-no,” she sobbed, huddled on the floor in water and fear.

  “No more games,” he growled. He picked her up. At first she didn’t do anything, she was still catching her breath.

  Then she started to fight.

  He almost laughed. This was going to be fun.

  Praise for Allison Brennan

  “Fast becoming a master at delivering complex, layered plots and characters that erupt from the page, Brennan has created a roller coaster ride of chills!”

  —Romantic Times Book Club

  “Brennan does murder better than almost everyone writing in the suspense genre.”

  —Armchair Interviews

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  Tempting Evil is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original

  Copyright © 2008 by Allison Brennan

  Excerpt of Playing Dead copyright © 2008 by Allison Brennan

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Ballantine and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming mass market edition of Playing Dead by Allison Brennan. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  eISBN: 978-0-345-50753-2

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