See No Evil

to give her credit for chewing and swallowing, before draining her water glass, and then his.

“I warned you,” he said.

“Next time, I’ll listen.”

They ate in silence, and Connor was surprised when the tension dissipated. Julia cleaned her plate, drank another beer, and lost the ghostly pallor she’d had since arriving at Dillon’s earlier in the evening.

They stared at each other in silence. Connor asked softly, “What happened with your brother? I heard he died in a car accident.”

She nodded, picked up her beer, and took a long swallow.

“Were you there?”

She nodded.

“And?”

Julia’s face contorted in pain and anger. “I was driving the car.” Softer, “I killed him.”

“You didn’t kill him.”

“I know that road like the back of my hand. Every bend and turn. It was my car, my road, and-”

Connor regretted bringing it up, but he couldn’t stop now. He didn’t have to know the truth; he wanted to know.

“It was raining and I skidded. Crashed into a tree.” Her voice was quiet, matter-of-fact, as if she were a witness on the stand. “I swerved, acting on instinct-self-preservation-and turned the car. The passenger side slammed into the tree trunk. We were going about forty. Matt-” her voice hitched, she took a deep breath, then said, “Matt was crushed. He died there, before the paramedics came. Before anyone came.”

Connor took her hand. It was soft yet firm, feminine yet strong. “It was an accident.”

Julia couldn’t believe she was telling Connor Kincaid, of all people, about the night Matt died. Her chest tightened-is this what a heart attack feels like? The pain was real, hot, twisting and climbing, taking over.

“He was my best friend,” she said quietly, not able to look at Connor. “My only friend.”

And it was true. She’d distanced herself from her family; and by doing that, she had also separated herself from the friends she’d grown up with. If she could call any of the wealthy families her parents allowed her to associate with her friends. Matt was her only true friend, her brother, her mentor, her savior in so many ways. When he was gone, she had only her work. And Emily.

“I’m sorry about your brother, but it was an accident.”

“So?”

“You weren’t drinking-if you were, you’d have been disbarred and probably imprisoned. It was raining, but I’ll bet if I went up to that road the posted speed limit would have been forty.”

Julia stared at Connor. She remembered five years ago when he was a hot-tempered cop stuck in the middle of an internal investigation he wanted no part of. He was still hot-blooded, but age-and experience-had calmed him.

Or had it? What did she really know about Connor Kincaid’s life since she told him his choice was testify or prison?

And for the first time in the last five years she wondered if she had made the right decision.

Connor had gone against orders and involved himself in the takedown of crooked cops he was ordered to stay away from. Not only that, but he broke more laws than Julia could count on both hands.

Laws must be upheld. They had to mean something. If they could be disregarded at any time, whatever the reason, wasn’t that the first step toward anarchy? The law grounded Julia, gave her strength and purpose. But Connor Kincaid was a good man, and maybe she should have looked more into giving him a second chance than laying down the rule of law and lecturing him on right and wrong.

Julia had broken no laws when Matt was killed, but she harbored more guilt than most criminals. She didn’t understand why her niece didn’t confide in her about the rape, but she did understand why Emily didn’t turn Victor in.

And for the first time, she began to understand the rocks Connor Kincaid had been wedged between when he broke the law for justice.

She was on the other side of the door. Connor hoped she wasn’t naked, that she had the sense to sleep in her clothes.

He had locked his door. Not that Julia Chandler would step foot into his bedroom, but it would make him pause long enough to unlock his door and think about what he would be doing if he touched her. Stop long enough to remember.

He still couldn’t believe he’d brought her into his house. He never brought women home. Of course, Julia wasn’t really “a woman,” someone he was dating or thinking of dating or sleeping with or thinking of sleeping with, or any other foolish thing like that. She was a district attorney and she’d hired him.

Yep, keep the facts firmly planted in mind. Don’t think about her long legs or big eyes or silky hair or the way her head fell against his shoulder when she drifted off to sleep in the truck. Don’t think about those lips and how much he wanted to kiss them. Don’t think about Julia naked and underneath his body asking him to make love to her.

Damn, he needed a shower. Cold.

Remember that she forced you to give up everything you believed in, everything you ever wanted to be.

How could he forget? She’d manipulated him into an internal affairs investigation he wanted no part of. He wasn’t going to turn on his own. He’d wanted to handle it his own way.

Two dead girls sealed his fate.

In the heat of the summer, Connor Kincaid had gone out on a call. He’d just taken his detective exam and was awaiting results, hoping to land in the gang resistance detail. He had hope for some of these kids. Not all of them, not most of them, but a few of them. That was all he needed. They were the consummate underdogs, kids whose fathers were dead or in prison and whose mothers worked two jobs or did drugs or plain didn’t care. Many of these kids were in foster care, a system so broke that it would have to be destroyed completely before it could be rebuilt. Connor learned early on that he had a knack for working with these kids. But for now he was a street cop, one of the best.

The call came from the San Diego Mission de Alcala, the first mission in the California chain and an active Catholic parish and tourist attraction. But it was now five in the morning and he was coming off graveyard shift, first responder to the tragedy.

The dead girls were huddled together in a pew in a small chapel off the main church. They’d broken into the church instead of going to the hospital or to the resident pastor who lived in a small bungalow on the far side of the Mission. One look and Connor knew why they hadn’t sought medical care for their extensive injuries. They were illegals. They didn’t want to be sent home.

The young priest had a long face, made more homely and sad when looking at the girls. “This isn’t the first time.”

“Excuse me, Padre?”

“The young girls-they bring them over the border every day to sell their bodies for a chance at freedom. When they don’t perform, they are killed. Disposed of like garbage.” He looked at Connor, imploring him with eyes so blue they seemed heavenly even surrounded by death. “But you know of this, don’t you?”

“Me? I have nothing to do with this. I agree it’s-”

The priest shook his head. “Your kind. The police. If you look where you don’t want to look, you’ll see the truth.” Again, the priest stared at him and Connor, not a particularly religious man, felt for the first time that maybe someone with more authority than the priest was speaking to him.

“People believe what they want to believe. They see no evil because they don’t want to. But evil is out there, and this is the result.” The holy man gestured to the dead girls. “You might not see the evil, Officer Kincaid, but you can see its handiwork right here.”

Quietly, Connor kept tabs on the investigation of the girls’ deaths. Almost immediately they were put in the cold case file. Two illegal Jane Does. No one cared.

Connor couldn’t stop thinking that but for his birth in the land of opportunity, he and his brothers and sisters would be fighting to come to America. Or dying under Castro’s brutal regime like nearly everyone on his maternal family tree.