See No Evil e-2

by Allison Brennan

  “But with the Judson case-”

  “Andrew didn’t mention it, and I didn’t want to bring it up with him even though he has to know by now. Will Hooper interviewed Billy Thompson yesterday.”

  “You talked to Stanton?” Connor asked.

  “This afternoon. And I got something out of him.”

  Julia was almost afraid to ask. “What?”

  “They have blood evidence, and the weapon. Pruning shears found on the property.”

  Julia paled. Connor took her hand.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  “It all matches what Emily told us Thursday morning,” said Connor. “Her fingerprints on his desk.”

  “They’re building a case against her,” Julia said.

  “I think we need to turn what we have over to Will,” Dillon said.

  “No,” Julia said emphatically. “As soon as we turn it over, we can’t follow up.”

  “We’re already compromising the investigation,” Dillon said.

  “Good. The judge can throw out evidence right and left and Iris Jones can get the case dismissed.”

  “You’ll be disbarred.”

  “Do you think I care?” Julia pushed her chair back, her hands on the table. “This is my niece! Someone is setting her up. I think it’s Bowen.”

  “Why? He has no vendetta against her.”

  “Maybe it’s not intentional. Maybe he’s leading this little group of his, turning disturbed kids into a bunch of vigilantes.”

  “All the more reason for us to turn over the information to Will and let him get a warrant. And they want to formally interview Emily. They’re going to, sooner or later.”

  “Not until after tomorrow night. Please, Dillon.” Julia turned to Connor, pleaded with him as well. “Let’s see what we can learn tomorrow at the fund-raiser. And I’m going to track down this Michelle O’Dell who was Ridge’s ex-girlfriend, see if she knows something more. Twenty-hour hours.”

  “One more day,” Connor said. “If we can show doubt it’ll be much harder for Stanton to build a case. It’ll give us more time.”

  Dillon relented. “I have no problem keeping Emily under medical observation. I can stand by my diagnosis. But you both need to know you can lose everything. Connor, you could lose your investigator’s license. Julia, the bar is unforgiving.”

  “I know.” She turned to Connor. “You don’t have to help, Connor. I don’t want you to jeopardize your career.”

  Connor stared at her, and she didn’t know what he was thinking. Finally, he said, “Dil, think Dad’s tux will fit me?”

  “Might be a little tight.”

  “Thank you,” Julia said, and sat down.

  “I want to arrange for Will to interview Emily on Sunday. That’ll buy us time because they’ll see we’re cooperating. I can call Iris and have her set it up. That way it’s on our terms. And we’ll do it at the hospital.” Dillon looked at Julia. “Okay?”

  She nodded. “These stacks are still huge.” She motioned to the files she’d copied. “We’ll be up half the night.”

  “Do you have coffee?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t cook. Sorry.”

  “Coffee isn’t cooking.”

  “I’m not home much.”

  Dillon jumped up. “I saw a Starbucks down the hill. They’re probably still open. I’ll be right back.” With his departure, Julia and Connor were suddenly ill at ease.

  Connor pulled Julia up from the table. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Walk?”

  “Stretch your legs. You’re tense.” He rubbed her shoulders as he ushered her out onto the porch.

  “I’m worried, Connor. Emily’s so young and vulnerable.”

  “Do you know her friend Wendy?”

  “Sure. I’ve taken them to the movies, out for dinner. She’s a good kid.”

  “Emily told Wendy about Victor.”

  Julia shuddered, and Connor continued to rub her shoulders. Julia rested her forearms on the porch railing and looked out at the ocean. The sun had long set, only a glimmer of fading light remained on the horizon.

  “My own niece didn’t trust me,” Julia said.

  “I don’t think it had anything to do with trust. Not in the way you think about it.”

  “Then in what way?”

  Connor thought about that. He’d worked with troubled kids for so long-not sexually abused kids, like Emily, but kids from broken homes, from the inner city. Kids with little hope, who chose gang life and crime because that was the only hope they had to get out of poverty. Problem was, they usually ended up dead or in prison.

  Kids like Billy Thompson, with the world seemingly against them, who worked hard to accomplish something only to have their dreams dashed because of one misguided, wrong adult. Connor had given Billy no reason to distrust him, but it had taken Connor more than a year to earn the teen’s respect and trust. Some kids never learned to trust anyone.

  Julia hung her head. “I can’t help it, Connor. I should have dug deeper. I should have seen something!”

  A tear slid down Julia’s cheek and Connor wiped it away with his finger. He tilted her chin up, forced her to look at him. Her sudden vulnerability hit him. Her bottomless green eyes filled with raw emotion and Connor’s heart flipped. He’d never seen Julia Chandler stripped so bare, so needy. He touched her full lips with his thumb, wiped away a lone tear at the corner of her mouth. She became a magnet and he moved closer, his chest touching hers, his lips only an inch from hers.

  Connor kissed Julia.

  Lightly. A feather of a kiss. A sign of support, of friendship.

  Friendship? He didn’t kiss women out of friendship. He kissed them because he wanted to take them to bed.

  He wanted to take Julia to bed.

  He stepped back. His body wanted Julia Chandler. His mind said hold on.

  Shut up, he told his brain.

  Julia stared at him, confused, her face flushed. The vulnerability disappeared, but she wasn’t moving away. Wanting her was wrong. How could either of them forget everything that happened five years ago?

  Something brushed between their legs and together, they looked down to see the orange-and-white tabby rubbing up against Julia. She smiled, bent down, and picked him up.

  “Hi, Scruffy. Fits him, don’t you think? He must like you. He doesn’t usually come out from under the porch when people come over.”

  Connor scratched between the cat’s ears. “We met earlier.”

  “He was a stray, but…” Her voice trailed off. “A little boy, not more than six, had nearly kicked him to death. I saw and stopped it, brought him home, then tracked down the boy’s parents. You know serial killers often start by abusing animals?”

  “So I’ve heard.” Connor gave her an odd half-smile, humorous but not ridiculing her.

  She cleared her throat, stepped away from him. “Well, anyway, they didn’t seem to think it was as serious as I did. So I kept Scruffy.”

  Headlights rounded the corner and Dillon pulled up next to the house. He got out of the car with a tray of coffee and a bag. “Dessert,” he said.

  “Time to get back to work,” Connor said.

  Dillon walked up the stairs. “I’ve been thinking about this. We’re going beyond the gray area. We need to be cautious. If Bowen is somehow involved, we can’t jeopardize his conviction with improprieties. We keep an eye on Bowen and play it by ear. Nothing bold.”

  “I’m not going to jeopardize this case. We’re going to nail him,” Julia said.

  “No Fourth Amendment for you, eh?” Connor joked.

  “If I thought every defendant sitting across the courtroom from me was innocent, I wouldn’t be doing my job.”

  “Bowen isn’t in a courtroom yet.”

  It was three in the morning when they found a connection.

  Having read Jason Ridge’s thin file three times, Julia almost missed it.

  SEVENTEEN

  It took Julia three hours Saturday
morning to track down Michelle O’Dell’s parents, Richard and Gina. She debated phoning ahead, but figured she’d get more information if she came to their door.

  The O’Dells lived in a modest San Diego neighborhood near the air force base, filled with post-World War II bungalows. As many houses as had been let go had been remodeled. Julia couldn’t tell if the neighborhood was on an upswing or a downswing. The O’Dells’ place hadn’t been remodeled, but was tidy and well maintained. Flowers flourished in pots and in the ground.

  Julia rang the bell. A woman answered with a cautious smile. “Mrs. Gina O’Dell?” Julia asked.

  “Yes?”

  Julia held out her card. “I’m Julia Chandler with the District Attorney’s Office. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to talk about an old case I’m working on.”

  Mrs. O’Dell opened the door. She was a trim, attractive woman in her late fifties, but moved with the pain of arthritis. “Ms. Chandler, please come in. May I get you coffee? Water?”

  “You don’t need to go to any trouble. I won’t be long.”

  Mrs. O’Dell waved her comment away. “Come into my kitchen. It’s the coziest room of the house, and I have cookies in the oven.”

  “Thank you.”

  The short hall that led from the entry to the kitchen in the back of the house was filled with pictures, floor to ceiling. Half were old black-and-whites of ancestors; the other half were of a girl growing up. Julia stopped to look at a pretty girl in pigtails, this picture taken when she was eight or nine, her two front adult teeth too large for her face. Another picture showed a more mature, beautiful girl of about sixteen with long blond hair and exquisite blue eyes. Michelle grew from pretty girl to beautiful teenager. She could have been a model.

  Mrs. O’Dell noticed Julia looking at the photographs and smiled. “That’s Michelle, my daughter. Beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “Very.”

  “Smart, too. She’s at Stanford.”

  “Impressive.”

  Julia sat at a fifties-style table, called “retro” today and available at stores like Ikea, but this was an original. The red vinyl on the chairs had been painstakingly cared for.

  Julia sat in the chair Mrs. O’Dell indicated and didn’t object to the coffee she poured. After her late night, she could use a cup. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “What can I help you with?”

  “Do you remember a friend of your daughter’s? Jason Ridge?”

  Mrs. O’Dell shook her head slowly. “Poor boy. His death was so tragic, so sudden. She lost her two best friends the same year.”

  “You knew him well?”

  “For a time. He and Michelle met at a dance, and he was smitten with her. A lot of boys were, but Jason seemed smart, too. Michelle didn’t particularly care for boys her own age, much to my dismay. She said they were immature and dumb. When she brought Jason home regularly, we were pleased.”

  “According to the newspaper reports, Michelle and Jason were no longer seeing each other when he died.”

  “They’d broken up about four months before that. But they were still friends. He came over several times after they broke up. I think he still wanted to work things out, but Michelle…” She sighed and smiled. “It was okay. Eighteen these days is too young to be serious. And Michelle had been accepted into a special Stanford program. She graduated a year early. Very smart, my girl.”

  “I’d like to talk to Michelle about Jason, but I couldn’t find her number at Stanford.”

  “Can I ask why? Is there something wrong?”

  “No, not at all. But I’m investigating another-” Julia fumbled. She hadn’t expected to have to make up a story. “Um, another similar death and I wanted to ask people who knew Jason before he started using steroids if they saw a change in him prior to his death.”

  Mrs. O’Dell said, “It’s a shame that young people today have so much pressure on them to succeed. Jason’s father pushed him, harder than I felt was healthy. But I wasn’t his mother, I couldn’t very well tell the man to go easy on the boy. I think that’s why Jason liked coming over here. The peace.”

  “You have a lovely home.”

  She beamed in the praise. “It’s small, but we don’t need anything more. We’ve been here for thirty-two years, since the day we came home from our honeymoon.”

  “Is your husband home?”

  “He plays golf on Saturdays. He’s retired military. Supply sergeant, not combat, but the pay and benefits were good. We could have moved, but why? Now that Michelle is in college, we can travel a little and afford to send her to a top school. We don’t need a bigger place.”

  She rose and shuffled to a desk in the corner of the kitchen. She copied information from a Rolodex card onto a notepad and brought it to Julia. “Here is Michelle’s phone number and address at Stanford. She lives in an apartment off-campus.”

  “Does she visit?” Julia wanted to meet with her face-to-face. She could better assess answers when she could look the person in the eye.

  “Not as much as I would like.”

  Julia finished her coffee. “Thank you so much for the coffee, Mrs. O’Dell.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  Mrs. O’Dell walked Julia to the door. She was about to say her good-byes when she remembered something Mrs. O’Dell said when she first asked about Jason. “You said Michelle lost her two best friends the same year. Jason and who else?”

  Mrs. O’Dell’s face clouded. “Shannon. What a lovely girl. So sweet. She committed suicide. Devastated her parents. They ended up divorcing and moving away, they couldn’t bear the memories.”

  Julia couldn’t help but think about Emily. She’d been on the fast track to an early death as well. Though she believed Emily hadn’t meant to try to kill herself, she still needed help and guidance.

  “I’m sorry. It must have been devastating for Michelle.”

  “She hides her pain well. I sent her to counseling, though. When tragedy like that hits, you need to learn how to deal with it. And she wasn’t talking to us, so I knew it bothered her more than she let on.”

  Julia thanked Mrs. O’Dell again and left. She drove around the corner, parked, and dialed the number written in Mrs. O’Dell’s careful script.

  “You’ve reached Michelle. I’m not in right now, please leave a message. Bye!”

  Julia hung up without leaving a message. She’d try again later.

  She debated going by the Ridge house, then decided she’d wait until tonight.

  She went to the library and pulled every article she could find about Garrett Bowen and Jason Ridge. There were several articles about Bowen’s psychiatry practice and she put those aside to give to Dillon. He’d probably be able to pull out the important information faster than she could.

  One article about a teen suicide popped up. Julia expected to see Bowen’s name, and was surprised to see Jason Ridge quoted.

  “I don’t know why Shannon would do that. She was so beautiful and nice and she did good in school,” Jason Ridge, a junior at San Diego High said. Jason said they shared English and Biology classes together, and Shannon was a cheerleader for the football team where Jason plays varsity-level quarterback.

  Nothing else in the article referred back to Jason, and it probably didn’t mean anything. Julia skimmed the rest of the article. Shannon Chase had been sixteen and hung herself in the foyer of her house when her parents went out for dinner and a show one night. No one suspected foul play. She’d left a suicide note, the content not disclosed in the article.

  Julia gathered up her copies and left when she realized it was getting late. Dillon and Connor would be picking her up shortly and she still needed to shower and change.

  Connor. He’d kissed her yesterday. Could she even call it a kiss? No, it was more like sympathy because she was so upset about Emily.

  It wasn’t a kiss.

  She could still feel his body hot against hers. His overpowering presence. The way his hard muscles and dar
k, probing eyes left her weak-kneed and wanting much, much more than a simple kiss.

  Stop thinking about him.

  Right. That was proving impossible the more time they spent together.

  EIGHTEEN

  Julia was too damn sexy in that dress.

  She sat in the passenger seat of Dillon’s Lexus on their way to Bowen’s house in the prestigious Rancho Santa Fe area. Her hair done in a sort of fancy twisty thing with some loose curls hanging down and some pinned on top. Her makeup was impeccable, highlighting her aristocratic features and lush, red lips. But it was the dress that did Connor in, a green number that hinted at all her curves without showing a damn thing.

  Connor didn’t really like the fact that Dillon was playing Julia’s escort. Their plan was solid: Connor would check in with them, then disappear and do his own thing-namely search Bowen’s office for any material regarding Wishlist. Dillon and Julia would tag Bowen, identify Jason Ridge’s parents, and work that angle in a diplomatic manner.

  But Connor wouldn’t mind having the beautiful counselor on his arm instead of his brother’s. They’re not out on a date, he reminded himself, though would he care if they were?

  Yes.

  He hadn’t meant to kiss Julia yesterday. But today it was all he could think about.

  “What do you think, Connor?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Daydreaming, obviously,” Julia said. “I said I couldn’t reach Michelle O’Dell today. I talked to her mother, though, and she was very nice. Michelle attends Stanford. I tried her a couple times, her answering machine was on. I’ll try her again tomorrow morning.”

  “Call her early, if she’s a typical college student she’ll have stayed up all night and be sleeping late on Sunday,” Dillon suggested.

  “Good idea, I’ll do that.”