The Defendant

by Chris Taylor

  THE DEFENDANT

  Book Eight of the Munro Family Series

  Chris Taylor

  Home is where the heart is…

  Detective Sergeant Chase Barrington has never forgotten his high school sweetheart. He and Josie Munro planned to marry as soon as she graduated, but fate stepped in and Chase made the painful decision to end it. Unable to find the courage to tell her the truth, he left town without a word of explanation.

  A decade after graduating high school, Doctor Josie Munro, Child Psychologist, has recently returned to her hometown. When she’s appointed by the court to provide a report on a child’s capacity to stand trial for murder, it’s inevitable that she runs into the lead detective on the case. Unaware of the real reason why Chase ended their relationship, her anger and grief from all those years ago immediately rise to the surface.

  Being a consummate professional, she has no choice but to complete the task she’s been given, but she’s determined to keep Chase at a distance and to get the job over with as quickly as possible.

  As Josie gets to know the child through therapy sessions, she’s torn between doing what the law requires of her against what her heart knows is right. She’s also conflicted over her feelings for Chase. She wants to hate him, but she can’t.

  Will she follow her head or her heart?

  This book is dedicated to my son, Angus, who was the inspiration for this story and as always, to my high school sweetheart, my husband, Linden.

  The Munro Family Series

  (in order)

  THE PROFILER

  (Book One—Clayton and Ellie)

  THE INVESTIGATOR

  (Book Two—Riley and Kate)

  THE PREDATOR

  (Book Three—Brandon and Alex)

  THE BETRAYAL

  (Book Four—Declan and Chloe)

  THE DECEPTION

  (Book Five—Will and Savannah)

  THE NEGOTIATOR

  (Book Six—Andy and Cally)

  THE CHRISTMAS VIGIL

  (A Munro Family Series Novella)

  THE RANSOM

  (Book Seven—Lane and Zara)

  THE DEFENDANT

  (Book Eight—Chase and Josie)

  THE SHOOTING

  (Book Nine—Tom and Lily)

  THE MAKER

  (Book Ten—Bryce and Chanel)

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  Read the back cover blurb of each of the Munro Family stories by visiting Chris Taylor’s website at: http://www.christaylorauthor.com.au/about/books

  PROLOGUE

  Neil Whitcomb felt around for the flask of cheap whiskey wedged between his thighs. In the pitch darkness, he couldn’t make it out, but his fingers finally closed around it. With a sigh, he brought it to his lips and gulped greedily. With one hand, he pulled the steering wheel hard as far as it would go and stamped on the accelerator pedal.

  The car fishtailed across the two-lane highway and into a tight corner. He cackled with delight. Adrenaline surged through him. Spinning the wheel in the opposite direction, he floored the accelerator pedal again. This time, the car shot forward, tires squealing on the asphalt. Whiskey sloshed out of the flask, spilling onto his rough gabardine pants. He cursed and emptied what remained of the alcohol down his throat.

  Scratching the bristle of his prison-short hair, he dug around in the ash tray for a pill he might have overlooked amongst the cigarette butts. His meth high had worn off long ago and if it weren’t for the whiskey, he’d be disgustingly sober. His fingers latched onto the smooth roundness of an ecstasy tablet and he crowed with relief.

  How lucky was that? He swallowed the pill dry, anticipating the waves of euphoria that soon would come over him and make everything right with the world. The very thought of the impending rush was like a powerful stimulant and his mood changed considerably.

  He relaxed against his seat and the constant urge to look over his shoulder eased. He continued to drive along the darkened highway with a renewed sense of purpose, putting considerable distance between him and the jail that had been his home for a decade.

  As the pill began to work its magic, lights buzzed behind his eyes and excitement filled his veins. Now he could focus on taking care of other matters, like the throbbing between his legs.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a woman. He’d never succumbed to the pressure to fuck one of his fellow inmates. The very thought of it repulsed him. Desperate or not, he refused to stoop to the level of an animal.

  The ecstasy tingled in his gut and warmed him throughout. Confidence filled him, flooding every pore. He’d never felt more alive. He turned the car into another tight corner and kept the accelerator pedal flat. The cheap sedan his cousin loaned him might have looked like a piece of crap, but it could get up and go when he wanted it to.

  The highway worked its way through an almost deserted agricultural area. The sporadic lights from farmhouses were few and far between. He couldn’t remember the last vehicle he’d seen, but it was way past late. Most people were probably in bed.

  Neil scoffed. Sleep was for losers. With an E on board, he could drive all night. Ecstasy was good like that. He might even make it over the Queensland border by dawn. New South Wales and Sydney’s Long Bay Jail in particular, would be far behind him, along with the hellish nightmares of the past ten years.

  He took another corner at high speed, enjoying the rush low in his gut. A light glimmered up ahead. In the distance, he glimpsed the hulking silhouette of a farmhouse, visible through a stand of gum trees that grew a little way off the road. A vast area of vacant field surrounded the solitary, lonely building.

  A thought took hold in his mind. With a lascivious grin, he moved his hand with purpose toward his crotch. Within moments, his cock swelled beneath his fingers and the pressure in his balls became painful. A couple of more miles up the road, he spied a graveled driveway that led in the direction of the house.

  His hand strayed toward the knife he had sheathed in a leather pouch on his belt. With sudden clarity, he swerved off the road and bumped along the rough dirt track. The light came closer. Anticipation surged through him…

  CHAPTER ONE

  Daniel Logan rolled over in his bunk bed and hoped the squeak of the bed frame didn’t wake his little brother Jason, asleep below him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, unsure what had woken him. A glance out the window on the opposite side of the room assured him it was still night, the darkness broken by only the slightest sliver of a moon.

  A noise from his mother’s room snagged his attention. She always left the door open on the nights his father was away. The noise came again and he realized it was the sound of voices: The deeper voice of a man, followed by his mother’s.

  His heart leaped with excitement. Had his father come home early? Had he finished his truck run ahead of time? Daniel eased out of bed and padded across the room. The floorboards were cold beneath his bare feet, a reminder that winter was on its way. Stepping into the corridor, he tiptoed toward the faint gleam of light that came from his parents’ room.

  The sound of his mother’s fearful cry stopped him cold. His heart thudded. Something was wrong. A man’s voice rumbled again, the words not quite distinguishable. Daniel’s palms went damp. He could barely hear anything over the rush of blood that pulsed through his ears, but one thing was for sure: The voice did not belong to his father.

  Confusion and uncertainty warred in his head. His pulse thumped double time. He stood, stranded in the hall, unsure what to do. His mother cried out again and then he heard what sounded like a slap. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to run.

  Anoth
er gasp. Another sob. He could tell his mother was crying. He drew in a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He was twelve years old, nearly thirteen. With his father away, he was the man of the house. It was his responsibility to look out for her; it was his job to keep her safe.

  With his heart in his throat, he crept forward, inching closer toward his mother’s bedroom. Finally, he came to a halt outside the open door. The lamp on her nightstand illuminated the darkness with a soft and gentle glow, in stark contrast to the terror that glinted in the whites of his mother’s eyes.

  She lay spread eagled on the bed, her nightgown hitched up around her hips. The dark, bulky shape of an unfamiliar man loomed above her. His hands dug into the pale skin of her thighs.

  Fear like Daniel had never known kept him frozen to the spot, mere feet from her doorway. As the reality of the scene unfolding before him became clear, shock pulsed through him. He stared at the two of them, stunned.

  His mother turned her head and saw him and her eyes widened in surprise. Panic and fear etched themselves on her face, a sight he would later remember in vivid detail. Daniel stepped forward with clenched fists and opened his mouth to yell.

  His mother shook her head violently…once, twice, her wild gaze now frantic. He hesitated, all of a sudden horribly uncertain of what to do.

  What was going on? The man loosened his belt and tugged down his dirty pants. Terror surged through Daniel’s veins. His head moved back and forth between his mother and the man. Fear and indecision paralyzed him and kept him rooted to the spot.

  Once again, his mother caught his eye and motioned him to leave. Torn between his need to help her and his fear of the large man who kneeled over her, he hesitated again. For a third time, his mother signaled for him to leave, her expression increasingly desperate.

  Coming to a decision, Daniel spun on his bare heel and ran back the way he’d come, his feet barely disturbing the air. He sped past his room, relieved to see his brother was still asleep. Barely able to hear over the thudding of his heart, he ran into the kitchen and made his way across the room with the aid of nothing more than memory and the slice of moonlight. He avoided the squeaky floorboard near the stove and eased open the back door.

  The shed seemed a lifetime away, but he tore down the steps and across the patchy back lawn. Determination surged through him. Within minutes, he reached the steel shed door and heaved it open. Grabbing the flashlight from its hook on the wall, he switched it on and aimed the thin beam at the gun safe that stood tall and foreboding against the far wall. With hands that trembled, he punched in the security code, beyond relieved that he’d taken notice every time his father had unlocked it.

  Reaching inside, he ignored the Ruger double barrel shotgun and the Winchester .243 for the .22 caliber Browning rifle. He pulled it out and laid it on the shed floor. Shining the flashlight into the bottom of the safe, he tugged the locked ammunition case toward him and felt for the key underneath. His heart pounded and his breath came hard and fast in the silence.

  His fingers closed around the key and he breathed a sigh of relief. A second later, he fit it into the lock and pulled out a handful of .22 caliber hollow point bullets. He picked up the gun off the floor and pulled out the magazine. He plugged in the bullets as quickly as he could, the urgency in his fingers making them clumsy. He swore under his breath and then bit his lip. His mom disapproved of him cursing.

  At the thought of his mother, another surge of panic went through him and he prayed she was all right. It felt like hours since he’d left her.

  Grateful for the times his father had taken him to the rifle range and shown him how to shoot, he thrust the last bullet home and slid the magazine back into place. It locked inside the gun with a decisive click. He tore out of the shed, the flashlight now abandoned on the floor.

  He raced across the yard, his heart still pumping hard. The sound of his mother’s cries froze his blood. The scene in the bedroom replayed itself in slow motion and he moved across the lawn with increased urgency, his breath harsh in his ears.

  His mother’s room materialized in front of him and his vision was filled with the shadow of the stranger as he leaned over Daniel’s mother. The man’s bare buttocks clenched and flexed in a regular rhythm while his mother lay still and whimpered.

  Fury raged through him, consuming him in its white-hot heat. A red haze clouded his eyes. The weight of the gun was heavy in his hands, but he lifted it and looked through the scope, aiming the crosshairs at the back of the man’s head.

  Time stood still. All noise receded—his mother’s harsh cries, the man’s guttural grunts—all of it melted away. Nothing existed but the gun and its target. He increased the pressure on the trigger. Slowly, slowly he pulled it toward him.

  He barely heard the sound of the gunfire. It was the slightest little pop. The target dissolved into a mass of blood and brain matter. He lowered the gun slowly, numb, his body limp and exhausted. A second later, he was overcome by his mother’s relentless, bloodcurdling screams.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The strident ringtone of his cell woke Detective Sergeant Chase Barrington from a dead sleep. The ringing cycled three more times before he managed to locate the phone amongst the clutter on his nightstand.

  “Barrington,” he muttered, still half asleep.

  “Detective Barrington, it’s Sergeant Haynes from the Watervale Police Station. We’ve received an emergency call from a farmhouse out on Bruxner Road. There’s been a shooting. The boss is already on his way. He needs you out there.”

  Chase cursed under his breath. He should have known better than to indulge in alcohol while he was on call. A few drinks after work with his boss and friend, the Local Area Commander, Riley Munro and Riley’s wife and kids, had put him in a melancholy mood. He’d come home later than he’d planned and then spent a few more hours polishing off the bottle of Jack Daniels he had on the shelf of his liquor cabinet.

  He was twenty-nine years old and had no family to speak of. As an only child with both of his parents deceased, lately he’d found himself yearning for something more permanent than the occasional fling with a girl he met on a Friday night at Watervale’s popular drinking establishment. The night out with Riley and his family only served to underscore his loneliness.

  He sighed quietly. It wasn’t like he was playing hard to get. He was a regular at The Bullet and quite often went there in the hope of finding someone special. The problem was none of the girls he got friendly with were Josie Munro. It was a problem he had no idea how to solve.

  He grimaced and pushed the thought of her out of his mind. After getting directions to the crime scene and reassuring his colleague that he was on his way, Chase ended the call. Hoisting himself out of bed, he padded naked to the bathroom, flicking on the light as he entered. He stared at himself in the mirror and winced at what he saw.

  His eyes were bloodshot. His hair was askew. He looked like he’d been on a bender. He shook his head in disgust. He was getting too old for this shit.

  Leaning over the sink, he splashed cold water over his face and scrubbed at the whiskers on his chin. He shaved before he’d left for Riley’s house, but the stubble never remained hidden for long—a result of his Italian heritage. His surname, ‘Barrington,’ sounded like it had come from a long line of British descendants, and it did, but his mother had been born in Florence.

  He reached for the towel that hung on the bath rail and swiped it across his face. Running his hands through his unruly hair, he did his best to return order to the thick tangle of curls. It was too early in the morning to worry about a hairbrush. Besides, he’d had way too little sleep to care.

  Returning to the bedroom, he glanced at the clock on his nightstand. Three forty-six. He threw a wistful glance toward his rumpled king-sized bed and then resolutely headed for his closet and began to dress.

  * * *

  Chase spied the small, non-descript mailbox on the side of Bruxner Road and turned his unmarked police vehicle int
o the dirt driveway. A few minutes later, a tired weatherboard farmhouse, in dire need of a coat of paint, came into view. A tidy yard and garden in stark contrast to the dilapidated state of the house, was visible through the criss-crossing red, blue and white light beams of the emergency vehicles at the scene.

  He came to a halt next to an ambulance which was parked right outside the front door. At least three other squad cars crammed into the front yard. As if they’d watched for his arrival, two of his colleagues appeared from inside the house and met him on the porch.

  “What have we got?” he said by way of greeting.

  Sergeant Ian Crowne shook his head. “It’s not good.”

  Probationary Constable Luke Dawson looked chalky, his lips matching the pallor of his skin. A second later, he pushed past Chase and vomited all over the lawn. Chase grimaced. It didn’t bode well for what he was about to find. Shouldering his way through the front doorway, he made his way down a hall of bare floorboards polished to a dull gleam and headed in the direction of the low murmur of voices.

  A row of family photos on the wall in the corridor caught his eye. Pictures of two smiling young boys were proudly displayed in heavy wooden frames. A wedding photo of a youthful couple gazing at each other with love hung on the opposite wall. The innocence of the photographs was in stark contrast to the violence that had recently occurred in the home. Swallowing a sigh, Chase continued down the hall and came to a halt outside the bedroom at the very end.