Free Malice by Danielle Steel

privacy, and she followed him there, as he juggled his books and his coffee. “So what's the story?” he asked as she sat in the room's only extra chair and sighed. She really wanted him to take it. And for the moment, Grace was doing absolutely nothing to help herself. She really needed someone as good as David.
    “She shot him at slightly less than two-inch range with a handgun that she says she ‘found in her hand,’ and then it went off, and she shot him. According to her, for no reason in the world. They were just one happy family, except for the fact that they'd buried her mother that day. Other than that, no problems.”
    “Is she sane?” He looked interested, but only mildly. Most of all, he loved a challenge. And he liked kids in particular. All of which was why Molly wanted him to take the case. He was the only chance Grace had. Without him, she was lost, if she even cared. But Molly cared, a lot, she wasn't sure why, but she did. Maybe because Grace seemed so beaten and so helpless. She had already given up everything, all hope, even her own life seemed unimportant to her. And Molly wanted to change that.
    “She's sane,” Molly confirmed to him, “deeply depressed and not without neurosis, but I think for good reason. I think he was abusing her, sexually and otherwise.” She described the kind of internal damage and bruises they had found, and her state of mind when Molly saw her. “She swears he never touched her. I don't believe her. I think he raped her that night, and I think he'd done it before, maybe even for a long time, and maybe without her mother there, she'd lost her only protection and she panicked. He did it again, and this time she lost it and shot him. He had to be right on top of her for her to shoot him at that range. Think of it, if he'd been lying on top of her, raping her, and she had the gun, it would have been just that kind of range when she shot him.”
    “Has anyone else thought of that?” He was intrigued now. “What do the cops think?”
    “That's the problem. They don't want to hear it. Her father was Mr. Perfect Community Loved by Everyone Attorney. No one wants to believe that the guy might have been sleeping with his own daughter, or worse, forcing her. Maybe he held the gun on her, for all we know, and she got it away from him. But something has gone on in that girl's life, and she just won't tell me. She has no friends, no life outside of school. No one seems to know much of anything about her. She went to school, and she went home, and took care of her dying mother. The mother died a few days ago, and now the father's gone, and that's it. No relatives, no friends, just an entire town who swears the guy is the most decent man they ever knew and couldn't possibly have hurt his daughter.”
    “And you don't believe them? Why not?” After working two cases with her, he had learned to trust her instincts.
    “Because she won't tell me anything, and I know she's lying. She's terrified. And she's still defending him, as though he's going to come back from the dead and get her.”
    “She won't say anything?”
    “Not really. She is frozen in pain, it's written all over her. Something terrible has happened to that girl, and she won't give it up.”
    “Not yet,” he smiled at her, “but she will. I know you better than that. It's early days yet.”
    “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but we don't have much time. The arraignment is today, and they're going to assign a P.D. to her case this morning.”
    “No family attorney, or associate of her old man to take care of it for her? I would think someone would turn up.” He looked surprised as the young doctor shook her head.
    “His law partner claims that he was just too close to her father to want to defend her, since she's the killer. He also says there's no money left, because of the mother's illness. Just the house, and the law practice. And he might just inherit all of it, now that she can't, and he claims her