The Good Daughter

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Austin, Texas

B
ELL NOTES
of Baccarat crystal…soft strains from the Steinway grand. Thick Persian rugs resting on gleaming teak floors, heavy damask drapes, priceless antiques…the silken swish of cocktail dresses as tastefully subdued as they were costly. Civilized, intelligent conversation devoid of any mention of sex, controversy or—God forbid—money.

Such was the scene in her parents’ Tarrytown mansion, a gathering like so many others that had formed the backdrop of Chloe St. Claire’s charmed life. A world of privilege taken wholly for granted, even, until the last eighteen months, by Chloe herself.

“You will help me with the Christmas auction, won’t you?” said one of Chloe’s mother’s oldest friends.

“Of course,” Chloe murmured, taking a sip of champagne to head off a burgeoning yawn.

“Bless you,” the woman said, patting Chloe’s arm. “You’re such a good girl. Dolores and John have every reason to be proud.” She glanced around the room and smiled. “And this is a wonderful show of support for Roger. You and he make a lovely couple.”

“We’re not—” Just then, Chloe’s mother neared, and her protest went unheard as the two women exchanged air kisses.

“Darling,” said Dolores St. Claire, resplendent in Valentino red. “Your father needs to introduce you to someone. You don’t mind, do you, Helen?”

“Of course she must go. We’ll talk soon, Chloe, dear.”

Of course.
Chloe saw her father with Roger and one of his banker friends. The political season was in full swing, and the prominent banker’s support in Roger Barnes’s upcoming race for district attorney could make a big difference. John St. Claire nodded at her, a clear invitation to join them and play out her role as Roger’s political asset. She was halfway across the room—

When the pager inside her Judith Leiber purse buzzed against her hip.
Oh, dear.
The dispatcher wouldn’t be paging her unless it was an emergency.

Chloe pressed one hand against a stomach suddenly tight with nerves. Whatever it was, she couldn’t refuse—her supervisor had left her in charge for two weeks. Pasting on a smile and handing her glass to a nearby waiter, she prepared for the disapproval that would be silent but fierce from both her parents and Roger. Even after eighteen months, they were still assuming she’d come to her senses and leave a job they considered both unnecessary and sordid.

They were baffled at her decision to take the police-department psychologist job her graduate-school adviser had suggested, and she couldn’t explain what she herself didn’t understand. The world in which she worked was
completely foreign and should be repellent. She was their good daughter, her life comfortable, her road already mapped out.

What she learned in this job and what she witnessed was at times raw, heartbreaking and horrifying. But despite her parents’ hope that it was merely a minor detour, this unlikely rebellion had become fascinating and…important.

T
HIRTY MINUTES LATER
, Chloe ducked under the stark yellow crime scene tape. Ahead, spotlights cracked the night into a scene she wondered if she’d ever see without feeling the impact.

In the brightly lit center would be a body and, likely, blood. Where light faded into darkness, too many people would be standing around while the forensics team did its work. A circus, with death as the star attraction.

Somewhere in the midst of it all would be an officer who’d killed a fellow human being, whether from noble motives or dark. That the motive was likely honorable wouldn’t matter; few people, police included, escaped a psychic shock from the act of taking a life.

Her job was not to counsel at the crime scene, merely to debrief per police department regulations in the event of a “critical incident”—any situation in which the potential for post-traumatic stress syndrome was high. She’d have her chance to counsel later, but not to care now was hard; not to want to help was impossible. She knew all too well that by the time the officer visited for follow-up, the barriers would be back in place, the mask perfected. The cop who’d suffered, no matter how good
his reason for shooting, would be less reachable. Less willing to admit the roller coaster his emotions were riding.

Detective Vince Coronado would be tougher than most, she already knew. He was a legend in the department, a cop’s cop. He wouldn’t come to her by choice—few of them did. They called it “being sent to the Arctic Circle,” the deep freeze away from the action. Her office had power over when—and if—they returned. None of them liked it, and a lone wolf like Coronado would be worse.

“Excuse me,” she said to the beefy uniformed officer in front of her, stepping around the last barrier between her and center stage. At the sight of the body, Chloe closed her eyes briefly, then opened them by sheer will. Coronado was around here somewhere, and she could not betray the slightest emotion. This was part of her job, no matter how little she thought she’d ever get used to the odd vulnerability death conferred, the reminder of just how fragile life is.

She felt a gaze upon her and looked up. Strong jaw clenched, Vince Coronado radiated power—and danger. He was dressed for his undercover role, jeans soft with age clinging to muscled thighs, broad shoulders encased in a loose Hawaiian shirt. Though his clothing might be casual, Chloe could see nothing soft on this man, nothing about his manner that didn’t intimidate, until she glimpsed the dark curls on his neck glistening with sweat, making a lie out of his cold blue stare. He wasn’t unmoved. He was human.

And his eyes weren’t cold, she saw, drawing closer.
They were blanked out, a common reaction. The mind refused to accept the full impact of taking a life, however despicable.

That would come later.

It would rattle him—it rattled all of them, whether they admitted it or not. Cops either developed armor to keep the pathos and pain of their jobs at a distance or they didn’t make it. But killing cracked those shields, and the man inside suffered, a cave creature forced into white-hot desert sunshine.

She noted Coronado’s position. He was set apart, as though no one wanted to be contaminated. Shooting in the line of duty always triggered an Internal Affairs investigation and presentation to a grand jury. It meant time away from the job and being a pariah until the officer was cleared. That was one of the hardest parts of a fatal shooting for a cop: spending time on the other side, being a suspect. No longer automatically one of the good guys. She glanced at his empty holster; one of the first acts by a superior was to take a cop’s gun away, rendering him not only suspect but feeling naked. The roller-coaster ride commenced.

“Detective, I’m Chloe St. Claire, department psychol—”

“I know who you are.” Each word was a bullet. Coronado stared into the distance, hands tucked in the front pockets of his jeans, hard cop firmly in place. “Where’s Bradley?”

“He’s out of town.” Senior staff psychologist Rick Bradley had left for a much-needed vacation, avowing confidence that Chloe could handle herself despite being
relatively new on the job. Refusing to let him down, she tried again to return to her script. “Detective, our conversation is not part of the investigation into this incident. It is confidential and intended only to assist you in dealing with what has happened and with the days to come.”

One curt nod. “I know the drill.”

She’d heard that he’d been involved in a fatal shooting once before in his career and had been exonerated. Pretending it didn’t affect him was the natural instinct for a cop, but the healing would only go harder. She suspected that this man felt things more deeply than he’d ever admit. No matter how much he’d wanted the person on the ground dead, he couldn’t like what would happen from here.

Just as she was about to speak, a blond man, medium height, stepped up to his other side. “Hey, buddy. How’s it going?”

Coronado jerked his head in her direction, and the second man noticed her for the first time. “Oh— Sorry, Doc.”

“Hello, Mike. Good to see you.”

Mike Flynn, Narcotics veteran and confirmed bachelor, had never been one of Chloe’s clients, but his reputation for doing solid work while seemingly never having a serious thought was widespread in the department. He had helped her a few months back in an intervention with a troubled cop on his detail, and she’d been impressed with the brain behind the playboy facade.

Right now his eyes spoke of concern for a friend.
He nodded at her and squeezed Coronado’s shoulder. “Catch you later, man. Bye, Doc.”

“Goodbye, Mike. Detective?” She eased back from the bright circle and held her breath to see if Coronado would follow. He had no choice, really—debriefing after an incident was standard department policy—but she wouldn’t underestimate this man. His walls were thick and very, very high. Perhaps he understood that she was trying to give him privacy, though, because he took the necessary steps to close the distance between them.

She kept her voice soft and calm. “I know you’ve been through this before, but I’d like to go over a few items for you to think about, then hear what you have to say.”

He stood there like a solid block of granite, gaze stoic.

Chloe pressed on, remembering the cauldron of feelings she’d barely glimpsed before he’d slammed a lid on them. “It’s human nature to second-guess yourself, particularly in reaction to extreme consequences. You may ask yourself what you could have done differently, how you could have prevented this. It’s normal for emotions to be volatile, to range from anger to sadness to anxiety, because you know you’re under scrutiny, no matter how convinced you are that this incident was unavoidable.”

A flicker, so quick she might have imagined it, at the mention of scrutiny. For a man of action, as Vince Coronado certainly was, to be answering the phone, hearing complaints over traffic tickets would be torture.
This was a man who was used to chasing the bad guys, to street action, and plenty of it.

“You may feel guilty—”

“Not a chance,” he interrupted. “Krueger deserved far worse. He murdered a child. Made his last moments hell.”

“But that wasn’t your fault.”

His head whipped around. “No? Think again.” If anything, his jaw clenched tighter. “I waited too long for proof, and now a boy is dead.” His eyes were the blue of cold fury. “My only regret is that I didn’t make this bastard suffer more.”

“You feel responsible, protective of a child—”

“Don’t try to crawl inside my head, Doc,” he snapped. “You might not like what you see.”

“Detective—” She placed a hand on his forearm, felt his muscles tense. The move was pure instinct to comfort, yet she knew it was a mistake the moment she did it. But because he’d feel like a pariah already, she wouldn’t draw back.

That didn’t mean he hadn’t unnerved her. Chloe swallowed. “I’m not naive. I’ve heard a lot. Seen a lot.” Yes, her life had been sheltered until she’d taken this job, but in these eighteen months, she’d learned more than she would have dreamed about the darker side of human nature.

Coronado scanned her attire, then pinned her with a stare as merciless as a laser. “You sure as hell don’t look like you belong here, Doc.”

Wishing that she’d had time to change from her
cocktail dress, she stepped back. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

He leaned closer. “Can they?”

Chloe fought to stand her ground. “I’d like to see you again.”

A second perusal of her body was slow and sure. Intentionally insulting. “Me, too.”

He was itching for a fight, and he’d use whatever it took to make her back away. Very well, she’d done what was required tonight. The rest would have to wait.

“Tomorrow morning, in my office. Nine o’clock.”

“Five o’clock, and we’ll adjourn to this little place I know.” A dimple flashed in a cocky smile sure to break hearts. The smile stopped short of his eyes.

Clearly her window of opportunity had vanished. There’d be no more revelations, and he wouldn’t accept comfort. “Ten o’clock, Detective. It’s my final offer.”

“Offer?”

“I can make it an order if I have to. You said you understand the procedure.” She exhaled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He gave one curt nod, his gaze already shuttered, his shoulders braced against what was to come.

With an inner sigh, Chloe left. At the edge of the crowd, she glanced back. He stood alone in the darkness, an invisible circle keeping everyone at bay. Help might be available—

But this man was nowhere close to taking it.

“C
ORONADO
.”

Vince looked up at the sound of a voice full of bad
associations. “Newcombe.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Should have expected you’d be in the middle of it.” The Internal Affairs investigator pursed his lips. “You identified yourself as an officer?”

“Have the rules changed, or do you just break them for grins? I don’t have to talk to you yet.”

“You didn’t tell him.”

Vince ground his teeth. “He knew I was a cop.”

“How?”

“Go to hell, Newcombe.”

“Hey, I’m just doing my job.” Newcombe smirked.

Vince bristled and took a step forward.

“Say, fellas, having a little chitchat?” Mike Flynn shouldered between them.

Vince tried to push past him. “Not now, Mike.”

Mike didn’t budge, gaze narrowed in warning, then swiveled back to Newcombe. “Nice night like this, sometimes a fella just wants to be friendly, shoot the breeze with his buddies.”

“Beat it, Flynn.”

“Get lost, Mike.” Both men spoke in unison.

“Nope, I don’t believe I’m going to do that, guys. See, I’m thinking that Vince doesn’t need to hang around any longer, this not being the hearing or anything official.”

Newcombe broke off his study of Vince to shoot Mike a heated glare. A tic in his jaw made the mole on his left cheek jump. “I’m going to enjoy this, Coronado.”

Vince’s hands clenched as he slowly and deliberately uncrossed his arms. “But you’ll lose again. Go
find somebody dirty, Newcombe. You’re wasting your time here.”

“We’ll see, hotshot. I’m just warming up to the task.”