“I was. I wanted to tell her the whole story, but I guess I spooked her when I left her a message earlier. She wouldn’t talk to me. She accused me of having a thing for her husband.” She glanced at Noel, felt her cheeks warming. “That wasn’t true. Not at all. I only knew him from working at Haven House and haven’t communicated with him since he got out. He was married and way too old for me — ”
Noel squeezed her arm again.
“I talked to Kent Harlan at the Atlanta PD, and he told me to come home, not to do anything else in Birmingham. So I did.”
They went over her timeline, moment by moment. Emily knew her phone records would verify everything. They had her repeat her account of the Strangers on a Train incident at Haven House. Finally, after what seemed like hours of grilling, Noel spoke up. “My client has accounted for her time at length. You have the report of the time she approached Cassandra and the time that Emily’s mother reported their home break-in. Detective Kent Harlan has verified when she returned to Atlanta.”
Emily nodded. “And weren’t there police who talked to Cassandra after she reported me following her?”
“Yes,” Stone said. “I spoke to her.”
“Then they can confirm that she was alive after I left Birmingham. I didn’t see her again. I went straight home. There’s no way I could have gotten home when I did if I’d stayed long enough to kill her.”
The male detective scowled and seemed to study his notes. “Emily, do you own a necklace with your initials on them?” he asked.
Emily closed her eyes. “Yes, but it must have been stolen from my house yesterday. I haven’t even worn it in a couple of weeks.”
“It was found near the body of Cassandra Price.”
“I know. They asked me about it in Atlanta. But that’s all part of the setup.”
The detectives looked unconvinced.
“Don’t you see? It was even part of the movie. There was a lighter with the lead guy’s initial on it, and the bad guy carries it around the whole movie. Bo or Carter — whichever it is — is trying to set me up for this murder. They’re trying to pin all this on me, and they’ve planned it right down to the necklace with my initials. Check them out — find out where they were at the time of the killings and the break-in. One of them did this!”
“According to the Atlanta PD,” Stone said, “Bo was at work at the time of his wife’s murder, and his whereabouts at the time of Cassandra’s have been established as well. Carter Price was at work at the time of his wife’s murder. Dozens of people have confirmed that he was there. You’re the only one who can’t account for all of your time in Birmingham.”
Emily’s heart sank. That couldn’t be. They couldn’t both have ironclad alibis. “No way! Did you ask Carter about the movie, and the conversation they had?”
“Yes, we did. He claims it was all a joke.”
“But it wasn’t, because now both those women are dead!” She slammed her hand on the table with the last word. “I told you this was going to happen. If I were the murderer, why would I do that? Why would I connect these two murders that wouldn’t have been connected? Does that even make sense to you?” Sweat broke out on her temples.
“Tell us about your drug abuse, Emily.”
Here we go. She leaned back. “I’ve been clean for two years.”
“None of that has anything to do with this case,” Noel interjected.
“They tested me when I was booked, so you know I’m clean,” Emily said. “I’ve been working hard and minding my own business until somebody duct-taped a bomb under my car.”
The male cop made a couple of notes, then looked up at Emily. “How many times did you meet Cassandra Price?”
“When Carter was in rehab, twice maybe? They only got visiting days one Saturday a month. I hardly exchanged two words with her either time.”
“How close did you get to Carter?”
“Not close at all. I just knew him.”
“Did he talk about his marriage?”
“Yes. That day he said he hated his wife. Blamed her for his getting arrested and sent to rehab. Bo did, too.”
“Was there ever any flirtation between you?”
“Detectives,” Noel cut in, “my client doesn’t have to — ”
“Wait!” Emily said, leaning on the table. “I have to answer this. They did flirt. A lot of the guys at the rehab did. But I didn’t flirt back. I know they’re vulnerable when they’re in treatment, and the truth is, I think it’s a bad idea to mix men and women in rehab. They focus on each other instead of on recovery, and there are devastating affairs . . . even the married clients. When I was in treatment, all the clients were women. At Haven House, I keep a professional distance. The last thing I want in my life is another addict. I wasn’t even buddy-buddy watching the movie with them. I was behind my desk in the same room the whole time.”
“Did you play a part in that Strangers on a Train scheme, Emily? Maybe plan to make the murders go three ways?”
“Absolutely not! Like I said, why would I call your attention to it if I was implicating myself?”
“Maybe to throw us off when the murders actually happened?”
“So you think I bombed my own car and broke into my own house and wrote on my own wall?”
They didn’t answer, but she knew they were thinking that suspects did things to throw them off all the time.
This wasn’t going well. She felt like Joseph from the Bible, thrown into a jail cell for something she hadn’t done. But she wasn’t as stoic as the famous Joseph, and there wasn’t a pharaoh whose dreams she could interpret.
No good could come from this.
Chapter 32
As discouragement sank its talons into her, Emily wished she had died of an overdose back in her drug days. Her mom never would have had her memories stained by the trauma that had poisoned their lives for the past several years, or the fallout that continued long after she’d vowed to stay sober.
She wasn’t going to see the judge today, so she would have to stay in jail at least one more night. And if the judge didn’t set bond, she would stay indefinitely.
The sounds of steel doors sliding shut vibrated through Emily’s head, her back, her swollen foot. Murder. When she got up yesterday morning, she never would have believed it.
How had a simple movie prompted such an evil sequence of events?
She sat down at the steel table in her cell. Her new Birmingham cellmate — who mercifully was not the crazy woman who tripped her — was out on the work crew. On the desk was a stack of paper and envelopes that the county had given her. She had a pen without a case, just the bendable cartridge and the metal tip. Did they think they’d stab each other with the plastic casing?
She thought of Cass and realized that was a possibility. She was thankful they’d put the woman in lockdown. She should be thankful for the precautions, even on the pens.
Two shrieking, catty voices rose over the noise outside her cell, and profanity flew as something crashed. An alarm sounded and doors clanged open. Guards came running in to break up the fight.
She went to the open doorway and stared out at the common area where the inmates congregated. The guards were forcing two women to the ground, dragging them across the floor. She supposed they’d be taken to lockdown, too. Maybe things would be quiet for a while.
The bond for murder was always high. Her mom would never be able to post it. Even the percentage required — ten, fifteen percent? — would be way more than they could afford.
All this would further damage her reputation, even after they found the real killer. Once word got out that she’d been arrested for killing Cassandra Price, and she was declared a person of interest in Devon Lawrence’s murder, her mother’s job would be toast. The architects would have to cut her loose to keep their clients from walking.
But the damage may have already been done. Guilt-by-association would taint her entire family, no matter how innocent they were.
These thou
ghts weren’t getting her anywhere. She had to take them captive. Her cellmate’s paperback Bible sat on the desk, and she opened it and thumbed through to Genesis 37, where Joseph’s cruel brothers had thrown him into a pit because they were jealous of him. They had sold him like a piece of property, forcing him into a life of slavery.
She’d studied Joseph’s story in rehab and had taken copious notes about what she’d learned. It had never occurred to her then that she would need it now. But the similarities stunned her.
Joseph had been wrongfully punished, too. But as a slave, Joseph worked hard and was trustworthy, and ultimately was put in charge of his master’s affairs. He didn’t whine about his state or the fact that he’d been unfairly sold into bondage.
Then he, like Emily, was falsely accused and thrown into prison. Had he felt like Emily did now, sitting in a cell and wondering how it had come to this? Had he pled with God for rescue? Had he plotted his escape?
The Bible didn’t say. All it said was that he rolled up his sleeves and got to work, and every job he was given he did to the best of his ability, until finally, he was put in charge of all the inmates. He was a man of integrity, and that integrity guided him even in the darkest places. He worked for the Lord, not for men, so he did his best no matter what he was given to do. He’d stayed in prison for years — all for something he hadn’t done.
Emily closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, then got up and went back to the door to her cell, and gazed out on all the prisoners in the common area, some tough and dangerous, others quiet and grief-stricken, playing cards or reading or doing push-ups or trash-talking. What if God made her suffer through this?
She wondered if Joseph ever felt abandoned by God. How had he managed to trust his creator so?
The story, better than any novel, had climaxed when famine hit, and his brothers came to Egypt to buy food. Instead of hatred and revenge, he gave them gifts and forgave them. “What you intended for evil,” he said, “God intended for good.”
Emily closed the Bible and tried once again to imagine what good could come from her own story. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t see it. Lives would be devastated if she had to stay here. Her mom and Lance would be humiliated and crushed. Her Christian witness, which she’d worked hard on during these months of sobriety, would be tainted.
Maybe she just didn’t have the kind of integrity that Joseph had. After all, she had succumbed to the lure of drug addiction. On her worst day, she was really no better than Bo or Carter. She had lied and stolen and cheated to keep her drugging lifestyle going. No, she’d never killed anyone. But she probably deserved much more jail time than she’d gotten.
The realization made her feel hopeless. She stretched out on her rack and laid her wrist over her eyes. God knew of failure. He had watched David, who really had killed a man after getting the guy’s wife pregnant . . . Peter, who’d betrayed Jesus three times . . . Paul, who’d murdered Christians . . . Mary Magdalene, who’d been a wild child.
Yet they had all been exalted people of faith, talked about for centuries. If they could do it, Emily could. She could still do this, even if God didn’t clear her. And if he didn’t, there would be a reason. A purpose that she would let him fulfill.
She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her palms against her eyes. “God, whatever happens, please don’t leave me. I want to be someone you’re proud of. Someone who doesn’t humiliate my family. I trust you with whatever you’re about to do.”
But the ceiling seemed stone cold. She only hoped her prayers took wing.
Chapter 33
Barbara had seen Emily in prison clothes before, but defeat assaulted her as her daughter was brought into the courtroom with her hands chained together in front of her. Barbara caught her breath when she saw that she was limping, her left foot swollen inside the orange prison-issue flip-flop. When she met Emily’s eyes, she saw dark circles and fear.
In the brown prison clothes and chains, her hair stringy, Emily looked like any of the guilty defendants paraded through here for the judge to see. He wouldn’t know that Emily wasn’t like them — that she was a college journalism major with a future.
Kent sat next to Barbara, his foot tapping a nervous, quiet drumbeat. Tension still hung between them, though she hadn’t been able to stay mad at him when he offered to drive her to Birmingham. He was only trying to do the right thing by taking himself off the case. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t blame him anymore. He was a man of integrity, and that was why she loved him.
They sat through the other capital murder and violent crime cases — a man accused of causing brain damage to his three-month-old baby after shaking him, a woman who’d murdered her cousin over a man, a gang member who’d gunned down an enemy. How could they lump Emily together with these thugs?
Finally, it was Emily’s turn before the judge. The lawyer Barbara had hired met Emily at the bench. Emily limped to the podium where she was supposed to speak into a microphone. She stood with shoulders slumped. From the back, she looked broken.
As Emily entered her plea — not guilty — and the attorney requested that she be released on bond, Barbara burst into tears. Barbara couldn’t hold it together. She shaded her eyes and looked down as tears assaulted her again. She fantasized about springing up and screaming out that Emily was innocent. But the last thing she wanted was to make Emily’s situation worse.
Kent reached into his sport coat, pulled out a handkerchief, and handed it to her. She took it gratefully and wiped her nose, her eyes.
“I’ll set bond at five hundred thousand dollars, pending indictment,” the judge said. “Emily, you can return to Atlanta, but you’re not authorized to travel more than one hundred fifty miles from Birmingham, and if you’re indicted and fail to appear, you’ll forfeit the bond money and be incarcerated without bond.”
Barbara touched Kent’s arm. Was the judge really going to let her come home . . . for half a million dollars?
As Emily turned to leave, she turned back toward Barbara, her mouth twisted and her forehead pleated. She appeared on the verge of tears as she limped toward the door. Her eyes seemed to ask, Five hundred thousand? What are we gonna do?
Court adjourned, and as the others in the pew-like seats got up to leave, Barbara sat frozen, unable to move. Kent took her hand. “It’s okay, babe. Ten percent of that is all we have to come up with.”
“Fifty thousand dollars? I don’t have that! Where am I gonna get it?”
The guard asked them to clear the room, so Barbara got to her feet. She straightened her skirt and jacket and forced herself to move. She felt Kent’s hand on her elbow, steadying her as she went out to her car. “I’ll help with this,” he said before they got in. “I have equity in my house. I can get a credit line.”
She thought about that for a moment. Yes, a credit line. That was a possibility. “I have equity, too. At least that much. I can get a second mortgage.”
“I don’t want you doing that,” Kent said. “Just let me.”
She grunted and gaped at him. “Why would I let you do that?”
Her question seemed to hurt him. He swallowed and slipped his hand into his pocket. “Because you’re family to me. I love you. I love Emily, too. I want to do it.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she stepped closer to him. “I can’t let you do that, Kent.”
“Why not? She’s innocent. We’ll get it all back once she goes back to court . . . one way or another.”
One way or another? She lost it then, right there.
He put his arms around her and pulled her close. She shut her eyes and rested her chin on his shoulder. Though her burden seemed crushing, it felt as though he was helping her lift it. She wasn’t in this alone. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered.
She wept into his shirt, comforted by his arms. But she couldn’t let herself fall apart like this. She had to be strong. If she was going to get Emily out today, they had to hurry back to Atlanta and figure something out.
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She drew in a long, cleansing breath and forced herself to straighten. “I can’t stand here crying. Emily’s stuck in there until I come up with the cash. Let’s go.”
They got into the car, and Kent pulled out of the parking lot into the traffic streaming by.
“I’ll go to the bank and try to get it,” she said. “If I can’t, you can help. But only then.”
“I wish you’d let me do more.” They got to a red light, and he took her hand. It was rough, strong, rock solid.
She brought his hand to her face, kissed the knuckle. “I love you for wanting to. But I need a lot more from you than money. Solve this crime, on-duty or off. Stop the person doing this. Don’t let them destroy Emily.”
Kent knew better than to make that promise.
Chapter 34
Back in Atlanta, Barbara asked Kent to go into her house with her while she gathered all the papers the bank might require. He went back to work while she went to the bank.
At her branch, each loan officer was already helping another customer, so she waited on an uncomfortable couch and fidgeted until one of the loan officers came out.
The woman who would decide Emily’s fate had a beehive hairdo and unfriendly eyes, though she offered a business smile. “Were you next?”
“Yes.” Barbara sprang to her feet, dropping the papers that were on her lap. Feeling like an idiot, she stooped down and scooped them up — the appraisal for her house, the financial statements, her tax returns. She stacked the pages haphazardly, followed the woman back in, and took one of the chairs facing the desk. She noticed a newspaper sitting on the credenza. Had Emily been mentioned in the paper? She hadn’t taken the time to look yet.
There was no way the local reporters would keep an item like that off the front page — if it wasn’t there today, it would be tomorrow.
She drew in a deep breath. “Uh . . . I was thinking about maybe getting a line of credit on the equity in my house. The appraisal is fairly recent. I just bought the house a few months ago.”