Cavanaugh Pride

Suddenly grabbing his arm, Julianne dragged him over to the side, away from the investigator who had made no secret of listening to the exchange. It killed her to beg, but if she had to, she would.

“Please, I’m asking you not to take me off the case. That girl in the Dumpster is the only family I have. I had,” she corrected. Even as she said it, she could feel her heart twisting in her chest. I’m sorry, Mary. I’m so sorry. “She’s in there because of me.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You’re not going to be satisfied until I rip myself open in front of you, are you?”

This woman could raise his temper faster than anyone he’d ever encountered, but his aim wasn’t to irritate her. He had only one focus. “My only interest is in solving the case. Now if you have anything to contribute that might be helpful—”

The words, propelled by her guilt, rushed out. “If I’d taken her with me instead of leaving her with her father, she wouldn’t have run away, wouldn’t have tried to support herself by resorting to the world’s oldest profession.”

He didn’t buy that. There was always another choice. “Lots of other ways for a woman to earn a living besides that,” he told her.

Julianne knew she would have never resorted to that, but she wasn’t Mary. Mary’s demons had branded her. “Not if she thinks she’s worthless. Her father didn’t just steal her innocence, he stole her soul. And I let him.” She pointed toward the Dumpster. “That’s on me.”

His eyes held hers. Frank could all but feel her misery. “You knew what was going on?”

“No, but I should have.” If she hadn’t been so involved in making a life for herself, she would have realized what was going on, would have understood the desperate look in Mary’s eyes.

If there was the slightest case for her staying, he thought, White Bear wasn’t going to do either of them any good by blaming herself for something she had no control over.

“Listen, I’m not up on my Navajo culture, but I don’t recall hearing that the tribe had a lock on clairvoyance. If you didn’t know, you didn’t know. What happened to your cousin isn’t your fault.” But he could see that his words made no impression on her. It was as if they bounced off her head.