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
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
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, beyond 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
“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?”
