by Неизвестный
“Make love to me.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Yes. You can.”
Cami reached out, touched him, caressed him. Kissed him. Brought him down on top of her. She knew exactly what he liked, exactly what excited him. She knew everything about Skip, all the way down to his darkest needs. Those needs were what she played on now, knowing he would bend to her will.
He groaned and spread her legs. She was already wet, waiting to be fucked.
“Do it hard. Make it hurt.”
“No—”
“Yes.”
He liked to hurt her, and he hated himself for it. Cami played on that. Gave the pain up to him willingly. Made him crave more.
He bit her until she cried out, making him pump into her harder. Squeezed her breasts until she gasped; bruises would show later. He was getting closer, closer…
She wasn’t. She closed her eyes and pictured putting her mouth on Victor Montgomery’s cock, making her victim hard, making him want her.
He had quivered between her lips. He’d held her head down tight and she couldn’t breathe. She let go of him.
“Don’t stop.”
“I want you to fuck me.”
He had groaned, his eyes alight with sick desire. Desire she had put there.
The power flowed through her then. Knowing that now he was as alive as any man could be, and in two minutes he’d be dead.
Her lover dug his nails into her ass and pushed himself into her as he came.
When she remembered the moment of the judge’s death, her breath quickened, her desire peaked, and she joined her occasional lover for the ride over the top.
The phone rang thirty minutes later. Skip continued snoring in her bed.
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.”
FIVE
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, beyon
d 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.
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.”
SIX
“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.
Julia Chandler.
She leaned against the porch’s support beam. As Connor stared Julia straightened, her casual manner all too brief, layering on the take-no-prisoners prosecutor image she had perfected. Top to bottom, she was a piece of work. Richly textured blond hair, put up tight on her head so no one knew how long it really was; aristocratic bones, long and elegant; a curvy figure hidden underneath sensible, expensive lawyer suits. And those legs. Those legs never ended.
She looked tired, and her makeup was less than perfect. Several strands of long, wavy hair had escaped, softening her pretty face. He put that aside. He didn’t care about her, her appearance, her life. She’d helped destroy his career, everything he believed in, everything he thought he was.