But she could barely make a living in Jefferson City, and Emily had way too many drug triggers there. And yes, she liked living near Kent. They’d grown closer since she’d moved here, and it looked like they might have a future together.
She’d been adrift since her husband died six years ago. Kent had brought joy to her life and a new outlook. He’d also helped her land a job here working as an interior designer for an architectural firm. It was a dream come true — and she was good at it. She was making even more money than she’d made during the best years of having her own business. She had so much debt from Emily’s drug days and the decline in her business, that the extra income was much needed. Her head was above water for the first time in years.
“Can you at least give me a ride to school this morning?” Lance asked Emily. “I hate riding the stupid bus.”
“Can’t,” Emily said. “I’m running late. I have to leave in a few minutes and I won’t have time to take you. Test today.”
“If I had a car my life wouldn’t be so miserable.”
Barbara smiled. “It won’t be that much longer.” He’d worked all summer mowing lawns to earn as much as he could, and she had agreed to match whatever he raised. But that still wouldn’t be enough to pay for a reliable vehicle.
Thankfully, Lance didn’t ask Barbara to take him to school. She had to go in early, too — to get her ducks in a row before her big presentation today. They were bidding on a new sanctuary for Three Roads Baptist Church, one of the largest Baptist churches in Atlanta. The architects depended on her to sell the deacon leadership and church’s senior staff on her colors, finishes, stained glass, and ideas for the architectural details that would make it a glorious place to worship.
In spite of her fatigue from last night, she was ready. If nothing went wrong, they would surely get this account.
Chapter 6
Emily felt guilty walking out to her car. Lance stood at the end of the driveway, waiting for the big yellow torture chamber they called a bus.
She got in and put her coffee cup in the drink holder, her books on the seat. She adjusted her rearview mirror, turned the ignition —
A pop shook the car, startling her. Suddenly, she saw Lance waving at her, arms arching wildly over his head. Confused, she rolled her passenger window down. “What is it?”
“Fire!” Lance yelled. “Get out!”
Emily jumped out. Smoke, white and thick, floated out from under her car, and as she stumbled back, she saw the small flames, way too close to the gas tank. Lance dropped his backpack and dashed into the garage, then reappeared with a fire extinguisher.
Emily stood back as he sprayed foam at the origin of the fire under the car. It went out, leaving only a cloud of smoke.
Out of breath, Lance leaned into the car and turned off the engine. His cheeks were mottled red as he stumbled back. Emily gaped at the car, stunned. “What was that?”
She hit the concrete and looked under her car. There was duct tape stuck to the wheel well, broken glass scattered in the foam, the smell of gas. A cord ran from the duct tape to the front of the car. Lance bent down and crawled closer. “Dude, that’s a bomb!”
No way. Something must have come loose . . . a wire . . . a belt . . . But duct tape? Emily moved into the foam and reached for the cord, but Lance grabbed her hand. “Don’t touch it. Call the police. They should see it just like that. Want me to call Kent?”
“No, I’ll call 911.” But she didn’t. Instead, she just crouched there, staring. A bomb under her car? Who would do that? It could have killed her if the flames had gotten to the fuel tank. Why would someone want her car to explode?
She heard the rumble of the school bus a couple of blocks up the street. “Bus is coming,” Lance said. “But I’m not going. I’m staying with you.”
Emily didn’t argue. She didn’t want to be here alone if someone was trying to kill her. What if there was another booby trap somewhere?
She got her purse out of the car and dug out her phone. Would the police even believe her, if they knew of her past? Her face had been all over the news here when she was missing two years ago, and lots of people still remembered her. Her DUIs in Jeff City would be on their computers like neon reminders that she used to live dangerously.
Swallowing the fear, she made the call to 911. When she was assured that the police were on their way, she handed her phone to Lance. “Will you call Mom and tell her?”
Lance took the phone as the bus squeaked to a stop. He waved it by. The voices of the kids faded as the bus huffed past.
Emily’s mind raced as he called their mother. This couldn’t be real. Someone was playing a joke on her. It couldn’t be a real bomb, just a smoke bomb, something to scare her. There was no one in Atlanta who would deliberately want to hurt her, was there?
Back in Jefferson City, she’d run with a pretty rough crowd. She’d even made a few drug dealers mad when she went into their lair and dragged a friend out last year. But Jeff City was five hundred miles away, and almost a year had passed since then.
She heard Lance connecting with her mother. “Mom? You’re not gonna believe what happened. I’m standing here waiting for the bus and Emily gets in her car, and . . .”
Arms crossed, she paced up the driveway, avoiding the foam on the concrete, and tried to think. Yes, she had a few friends in the drug culture here, but only because she worked part-time at a local rehab. She’d needed a job when she moved here, but people were reluctant to hire her. Though she’d been cleared of any wrongdoing after her face was plastered all over the news, people weren’t entirely sure that she was trustworthy. Some of them couldn’t remember how the case had ended. They only knew that she’d been a suspect in a woman’s death.
Then she’d had the idea to apply at the Haven House Treatment Center not far from her area of town, and they’d hired her to work in the office on Saturdays. Some of the clients could be unpredictable if they were using again after graduating from the program. Some might even resent her being part of the staff that controlled their lives for twelve weeks. But she was never in charge. She only checked visitors in and out, answered the phones, and searched and breathalyzed clients when they came back from passes.
Would anyone come after her now to kill her? She shivered, though the air was muggy and warm. Where were the police?
“Emily, Mom wants to talk to you.”
Sighing, she took the phone. “Hey.”
“Emily, what’s going on?” Panic, anger, and accusation rippled in her voice.
Emily bit back the urge to defend herself. “I don’t know. The police are on their way. The fire department, too.”
There was a pregnant silence, then her mother blurted it out. “Emily, what have you dragged us into now?”
The words hit her harder than the bomb had. She heard sirens in the distance. “Mom, I don’t know what’s going on! I didn’t drag us into anything!”
“People don’t put bombs under your car for no reason! Have you been hanging out with those people again?”
“What people?”
“Drug dealers! Crazy addicts!”
“Mom, you know I haven’t.”
“I knew when you were staying out so late that something wasn’t right. And working in that place with all that temptation.”
Emily couldn’t take anymore. She saw the fire trucks turning onto her street. “Mom, I’ve gotta go. They’re here.”
She clicked off the phone, knowing it would only set her mother off, and walked to the end of the driveway to meet them.
Chapter 7
Barbara ran two red lights and a stop sign getting back to her house. As she rounded the corner to her block, she saw the police cars and fire trucks parked against her curb. Her throat constricted, and acid burned her stomach.
She stopped behind one of the police cars, saw the foam on the ground and the charred places lapping up from the undercarriage of Emily’s car. Emily could have been killed!
She burst
out of the car as Lance came toward her. “Mom, it was strapped on with duct tape. Had a cord going to the engine.”
The idea of someone stalking into their driveway and tampering with Emily’s car made Barbara speechless. She went to Emily, pulled her into a rough hug, then stepped back and looked at her eyes. Was this a sign of relapse? Crazy, inexplicable things happened all the time when Emily was using. They didn’t happen to people who led sober, orderly lives. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. If Lance hadn’t been here, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Barbara turned back to the car. “Emily, who did this?”
Emily looked self-consciously at the cop she’d been talking to. “Mom, if I knew I would tell them.”
Barbara stepped toward the crime scene investigator who lay on his back on a tarp, taking pictures of the bomb residue under the car. “What kind of bomb was it?”
“Homemade device,” he said. “Pretty crude. A cord and a jar of gas, rigged to spark when the ignition was turned. Could have been a lot worse.”
The uniformed cop standing near the car turned to Emily. “Has anybody threatened you lately? Anybody who might have something against you?”
She swept her hair behind her ear. “No, I can’t think of anybody.”
“Anyone you might owe money to?”
“No, no one at all.”
“Do you gamble? Use drugs?”
“No, neither.” Emily gave her mom a guilty glance. “I did have a drug problem,” she added, “but I’ve been sober for about two years. I can promise you that I haven’t used since we moved here, so I don’t have any drug connections here.”
“Other than the ones at the rehab,” Barbara said.
The officer’s expression turned critical. “You’re still in rehab?”
Emily huffed and shot her mother an angry look. “I’m not in the rehab she’s talking about. I work at Haven House.”
“I knew she shouldn’t take that job,” Barbara said. “I knew this was bad news, being around other addicts who — ”
“Mom, stop!” Emily’s cheeks blotched crimson. “Stop freaking out!” She turned back to the cop. “I don’t really counsel the clients or anything. I work in the office on Saturdays. Answer the phone, check out visitors, give breathalyzer checks when people have passes. Nothing that would make anybody want to kill me.” She checked her watch. “I have a test in a few minutes. Am I gonna be able to drive my car?”
“No!” Barbara cried. “Emily, it was on fire! You can’t just hop in it and take off.”
“Then what am I gonna do? Dr. Ingles won’t let me make it up without a doctor’s excuse.”
“We’ll get a police excuse. It’ll have to do. They’ll tell him you couldn’t take the test because someone tried to blow you up!”
Emily grunted. “I can’t tell him that.”
“So you’re in college?” the cop asked her. “Is there anyone at school you’ve made mad? Any rivals?”
“No!” she said. “Really, I can’t think of a single person.”
Barbara wasn’t satisfied. “You have to find who did this. We won’t be able to sleep at night. Someone came into our driveway . . . they wanted to kill her.” She thought of the danger Emily had been in two years ago, when a maniac had come so close to ending her life. But he was dead. It couldn’t have been him.
How could this be happening again? She’d believed the danger was behind them. She studied her daughter’s eyes again. Emily had been coming in so late at night. Staying up into the wee hours. She hung out with college kids who were testing their wings, probably hanging out in clubs, and others in recovery whom she’d met in AA. She claimed the group kept her anchored and gave her the necessary support to stay sober. Barbara had seen the positive results, so she’d put aside her fears and allowed her to do whatever would help her stay clean. But what if one of them had lured Emily back into drugs?
Her life was so fragile.
Drug dealers did things like this. Drive-by shootings. Revenge executions. Car bombs weren’t common or she would have heard about them more on the news, but if someone was trying to get her to pay money she owed and wanted to scare her . . .
“Maybe it was just some kid pulling a prank,” Lance said, cutting into her thoughts.
Yes, a kid! She dragged her renegade thoughts back. Just some neighborhood punk who’d picked their house at random. Barbara brought a hand to her forehead. “Are we even safe in this house? Is this person going to come back?”
“We’re examining the evidence. He probably left fingerprints. Hopefully we’ll be able to track him down soon.”
“But fingerprints would only help if it was someone who had a record, right? What if this person isn’t in the system?”
“Trace evidence can still help us identify the perpetrator. We’ll do our best to find him.”
She paced up the driveway, massaging her temples.
“Mom,” Lance said, “get a grip. Let them do their job. Why don’t you go in and sit down until they’re finished?”
“It’s a bomb!” she shouted, her voice cracking. “Someone tried to kill your sister. Don’t tell me to get a grip!”
Why was she yelling at her son? Lance was just trying to calm her down. But she couldn’t be calm.
Barbara decided to call Kent. He should be told about this. At the very least, he could make sure the police followed up. Maybe he could even solve it himself.
Chapter 8
The rat-tat-tat of the Avenger’s fingers did a drumbeat with the rap song blaring from his radio as he drove to the street where the Covingtons lived. If he was lucky, he’d see police cars and fire trucks there with ambulances, just like he’d seen at the murder scene. He loved the power. He, alone, had caused all this commotion, and had police teams dispatched to two separate areas on the same morning.
And they didn’t yet know the half of it. As he drove, he imagined the pain Emily was suffering. Possible burns on her lovely, fair skin. The disfigurement of that pretty face of hers. The fear that he would be back . . .
He felt a thrill as he turned onto her street and saw two police cars and a fire truck lined up out front. He laughed and turned the music down so he wouldn’t call attention to himself. Shoving on sunglasses so he wouldn’t be recognized, he drove by at a normal speed.
Emily stood in the front yard with foam on the ground near her like newly fallen snow. She wasn’t harmed at all. Clearly, they’d put the fire out before anyone got hurt.
Okay. That was fine. The bomb had worked, anyway.
He tried to think what would happen now. They wouldn’t be able to trace the bomb back to him. He’d been careful to avoid leaving fingerprints. It was just a bottle, gasoline, duct tape, and an electrical cord. Nothing that could identify him.
Emily would be paranoid now, constantly looking over her shoulder, fearing whoever was trying to kill her. And that was what he wanted. She and her sweet little family would be living in fear.
He’d enjoy playing with them for a while before he finally ended it.
Laughing aloud, he ramped his music back up, drove a few miles away, then pulled into an alley and snorted a line. He was superhuman, in control, sovereign over his subjects. Invincible and unstoppable. He hadn’t slept in two days — not since he’d declared his freedom — and didn’t remember when he’d last eaten. He didn’t require what ordinary mortals needed to survive.
Life had never been more fun.
Chapter 9
Kent had ignored the phone vibrating in his pocket as he interviewed Bo Lawrence about his wife’s background. Whoever it was could wait until he was finished.
But then Rick, the front desk sergeant, stuck his head into the interview room. “Kent, Barbara’s on the phone. She says it’s an emergency.”
That never happened. Barbara understood that if she called and he didn’t answer, he was in a situation in which he couldn’t take the call. For her to call the police precinct and tell Rick it was an eme
rgency . . . something had to be seriously wrong.
He excused himself, stepped out of the room, and asked Rick to get Bo a bottle of water or coffee. The man had shed quite a few tears since reality had sunk in, and was probably getting dehydrated and thirsty. If they kept him comfortable, he’d be more willing to talk.
He found a quiet place in the stairwell, pulled out his cell phone, and sat on the steps as he dialed Barbara’s number.
She answered quickly. “Kent?”
“Hey, babe. Sorry I haven’t been answering. I was working a case — ”
She didn’t wait for him to finish. “Someone planted a homemade bomb under Emily’s car — ”
He sprang to his feet. “What?”
She spilled out the story, her voice raspy with tears. He couldn’t stand the thought of her so distraught. “Kent, I don’t know what’s going on. She’s been staying out late and hanging out with AA friends — ”
“That doesn’t mean she’s relapsed, Barbara. She’s a college kid. They stay out late.”
“But this is crazy. It’s one of those drug-addict things, you know? Ridiculous, inexplicable things happening to her. I don’t know what to do.”
Kent glanced back toward the interview room. He supposed he could let the husband go and pick up with him again later. The man should probably look in on his kids, talk to his wife’s family . . .
“Look, I’m coming over. Tell the men who are there to wait for me. I want to see the scene, talk to the CSI.”
“Good. We have to find who did this before they really hurt her.”
“We will.” He pushed through the door back into the precinct room. “So she wasn’t burned or hurt in any way?”
“No. She’s just shaken up.”
“That’s a miracle,” he said. “God’s looking out for the kid. Just remember that. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
He cut off the phone, went back to the interview room. Bo had already finished off his water, and sat with his face in his hands. “Bo, I’m gonna let you go now, but stay around the area in case I need to talk to you again. And if you think of anything else we should know, or if you hear anything that could be a lead on this case, call me at this number.” He handed Bo a card with his cell phone number on it.