Barbara’s face fell. “That’s not Emily.”
Lance shook his head. “No way, man. She doesn’t look anything like that. Emily’s shorter.”
“Are you sure this is the couple that had the credit card?” Barbara asked.
“Positive,” he said. “We know which register it was, and what time, exactly. It was them.”
Barbara groaned. “So does this mean that we’ve been wasting our time? That we haven’t even gotten close to Emily?”
“Don’t lose hope,” he said. “This is a great lead. We’ll track these people down, find out what they know.” He snapped the lid shut on his laptop, and hurried back to the door. “We’re making progress, Barbara. I’ll be in touch.”
twenty-eight
While Lance showered, Barbara lay down and stared at the ceiling. She needed more rest. For most of the night she’d lain awake, her mind racing with fear.
She held her cell phone in her hand, its charger attached to the wall. If Emily called or texted again, she’d know.
She replayed the Sears video in her mind. Could she be kidding herself? Was the girl in the video Emily?
Sometimes Emily straightened her hair, and she could have cut it. But the girl in the picture looked tired and older. Drugs dehydrated you, wrinkled your skin. She supposed if Emily’s hair hadn’t been washed since she’d left home, if Emily hadn’t had on makeup, if the camera was just grainy enough, if she’d been wearing heels … it was possible that her daughter was the one in the video.
No. It was only now, with her brain tired and muddled, that she was second-guessing herself. Lance had looked at the video, too, and agreed with her. It wasn’t Emily.
But that still didn’t make Barbara feel better. So the couple had wound up with Trish’s credit card. That did nothing to help Emily.
How could Barbara even know for certain whether Emily was capable of murder? Her daughter had changed so much that Barbara didn’t even know who she was.
She mentally reviewed the legal offenses Emily had already committed: driving under the influence, possession of narcotics, identity theft … Would it be such a stretch for her to go from theft to murder? Was that demonic craving in her body so strong that she could kill to assuage it?
Barbara felt the same demons whispering in her ear, twisting her heart, her lungs, her stomach, like cold hands reaching into her, reminding her of impending death.
The only armor she had was Scripture, so she whispered the 23rd Psalm.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil …
Maybe if she said it enough times, it would be true. But she did fear evil. Evil had been boldly stalking and taunting her daughter for years, torturing her before Barbara’s eyes. Now it was even worse.
Barbara closed her eyes and turned onto her stomach. Pushing her pillow away, she lay on her face, pleading with God to save her child. Maybe he was doing this in Emily’s life to work out something that would change her. Maybe the terror of it would be enough to pull Emily back.
But what if she had committed this terrible crime? Guilt burned through Barbara’s veins. Had Emily’s drugs cost Trish her life?
No, that was stupid. Emily hadn’t done anything to Trish. Trish was used to escorting addicts. It was something she was prepared for. She was a match for Emily, wasn’t she?
But Barbara knew that even she, herself, was no match for her daughter. Emily was stronger, more determined, bolder, wilder. So far, she hadn’t found anything that could stand between Emily and her drugs. Maybe Trish had been too much of an obstacle, and Emily had to take matters into her own hands. After all, Barbara didn’t know what had happened at the airport. If Emily had made another call on Trish’s phone, the phone records would have shown it. The police would have followed up. But after she called home, she could have borrowed some stranger’s cell phone and called a friend. Some guy could have met her there. It was all possible, wasn’t it?
She didn’t want to believe it.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow …
She prayed that she would stop fearing such evil … even from her own daughter.
When Lance came out of the bathroom, he gave her a long, troubled look. “That wasn’t her, was it, Mom?”
Barbara closed her eyes. “I don’t know anymore, honey. I really don’t.”
twenty-nine
The pawn shop closest to the Day-Nite Motel had bars on all the windows and an off-duty cop stationed in the parking lot. Kent didn’t know him. He went inside and looked around. Flat screen TVs and computer displays were stacked in shelves on the walls, and another wall was filled with iPods and iPhones still in their packaging, plus dozens of other pieces of electronic equipment. One long counter was filled with rings, with diamonds of every cut and carat.
The owner came out of the back room. “Can I help you?”
He looked like a wrestler, round and built, with more bulk than height. Kent showed him his badge and got his name — Harry Roe.
Roe confirmed that a couple had come in the night before to pawn some things. But when he saw Emily’s picture, Roe shook his head. “I’ve seen this kid on the news. It wasn’t her. The girl that came in is somebody I’ve seen a few other times. She’s older.”
Kent had printed out a blown-up picture of the couple at Sears, so he handed that to Roe. “Is this them?”
Roe took one look. “Yep, that’s them.”
“What are their names?”
“I don’t remember.”
Kent had expected that. Pawn shop owners generally did have memory problems — at least with the police. “Who’d you write the check to?”
Roe hesitated. “I paid cash.”
“Is that right?” Kent doubted that was true. Cash was dangerous, and it could get a guy killed. Most pawn shops kept little cash on hand. Instead, they often wrote checks that could be signed over to others or cashed at grocery stores if no banks were open.
He walked over to a television on a shelf, looked on the back. “Where’s the serial number on this baby?”
The man stiffened. “Come on, man.”
“You wouldn’t be buying stolen goods in here, would you? I’m shocked. Maybe I need to get a crew in here to take a look around.”
“All right, just a minute.” Roe went to a back room and came back with his spiral checkbook. He opened it, flipped back a couple of pages. Sliding his finger along the register, he came to the entry in question. Turning the register around, he showed Kent. “Right here. Wrote it to a dude named Gerald Tredwell. And I’m not lying when I say I don’t know the girl’s name.”
Kent made a note. Gerald Tredwell.
Back at the department, Kent checked the database, hoping the name wasn’t an alias. Within minutes, a mug shot came up. Tredwell, who worked as a registered nurse at a local medical clinic, had some prior arrests — a couple of DUIs, a possession charge, and a felony distribution charge awaiting indictment. Currently, he was out on bond.
Kent had an address now, and he didn’t think it was bogus. He called Andy, who was out following his own leads. “I’ve got the name of the guy who was in the Sears video. Pawn shop owner wrote him a check for a bunch of stuff last night. Name’s Gerald Tredwell. Works as a nurse.” He finished filling his partner in.
Andy returned the favor. “I just went through the list of credit card purchases, and called some of the online companies they ordered from. The items were ordered in Trish Massey’s name, and shipped overnight to an address on Forest Avenue. Buyer left instructions for the delivery guys to leave the packages at the door. Whoever had the card must have picked them up there. My guess is they planned to pawn the stuff.”
“Did you go to the address?”
“I’m here now. Vacant warehouse.”
“Forest Avenue. That’s only three blocks from where Tredwell lives.”
“Want to meet me at his house?”
“How about an hour? First I want t
o go to the jail and see if any of the guards recognize the girl in the picture. The more we know when we show up at Tredwell’s, the better off we’ll be.”
Taking the picture he’d printed from the Sears video, Kent drove back to the police department and crossed the street. He found some of the guards from the women’s jail in the break room, feasting on birthday cake. He showed them the girl’s picture. “You guys remember this girl ever coming through here?”
One of them took the picture, showed the others. They all agreed it was a repeat offender named Myra Marin. “She keeps this as her second address,” she said. “Tries to vacation here for a few weeks every year, just to keep her life interesting.”
He went through the database and found Myra’s mug shot. Yep, same girl. She was out on bond, awaiting a court date that was a month away. The charge was possession of a controlled substance. He got her mug shot and made a copy of the couple in the Sears video, then faxed them to the cab company and asked them to get the driver to identify her.
As he headed over to the warehouse, he got the call back from the driver. “Dat is de girl I drove dat night,” he told him. “De man too.”
So Kent had been wrong about Emily getting into the cab.
What else had he been wrong about? Maybe she wasn’t a killer. She wasn’t the one with Trish’s credit card, and she wasn’t the one who’d gotten in the cab and gone to buy drugs.
Could it be that she really was running for her life, after encountering Tredwell in Trish’s car?
So who was Tredwell, and why had he chosen Trish? Was he one of her former residents? A drug dealer she’d messed with and failed to pay?
Whatever the reason, Kent felt certain he was closing in on Trish’s killer … and it wasn’t Emily Covington.
So where was Emily? The video suggested she’d gotten away from the killer in that Infiniti, but maybe he’d caught up to her.
Or maybe she was so traumatized by what she’d seen, that she’d gotten her ride to drop her off somewhere to buy drugs. Maybe she was lying somewhere in an intoxicated stupor, oblivious to all the activity surrounding her.
Or Barbara was right, and she’d fallen into a kidnapper’s clutches.
She could be dead already.
thirty
While Lance worked on getting the addresses for Emily’s Atlanta MySpace friends, Barbara listened to the voicemails on Lance’s phone. There were dozens from news sources all over the country. Several from friends back home, leaving their messages of encouragement and hope and their promises to pray.
As she listened, her own phone rang. Her heart jolted. Emily? She grabbed it off the bed table and looked at the caller ID. It was her assistant, Fran.
Her spirits flattened. Fran had left several other messages, and since she was holding down the fort at Barbara’s design studio, Barbara supposed she needed to answer. She clicked the phone on. “Hi, Fran.”
“Barbara! I can’t believe I finally got you. I’ve called a million times!”
“I’ve been a little busy.”
“Have they found Emily?”
“No, she’s still lost.”
There was a heavy sigh and a long pause. “Barbara, you need to come home. She’s jerking your life around again. Can’t you see that?”
Fran had never had a child on drugs. Her understanding of the trials of a family racked with addiction was limited to what she’d seen on talk shows. But she had lots of opinions about the subject.
“Fran, I’m not coming home without Emily.”
“So if you find her, you’re not even gonna put her into treatment?”
“I don’t know. One thing at a time.”
Fran cleared her throat. “Barbara, I really hate to be the skeptic here, but you’ve got to face the fact that Emily probably killed that woman.”
Barbara wished she’d ignored the call.
“Emily’s a criminal, and until she sits in prison for a few years, she’s not gonna turn around.”
The muscles in Barbara’s face went rigid, locking around her mouth, her lips.
“Even then she may not,” Fran went on, “but it won’t be your fault, Barbara. You’ve done everything you can.”
“I have to go,” Barbara managed to say.
“No, wait!”
Barbara hesitated, swallowing hard.
“I didn’t call about this. I really didn’t. I’m sorry I got off on it. I’m just trying to help.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Okay, fine. The real reason I called is to tell you that the governor’s office has moved the presentation up two days. Instead of Friday, it’s going to be Wednesday.”
“No!” Barbara yelled. “We’re not ready!”
“I tried to tell them.”
“Do they know about Emily?”
“Sweetie, everybody knows about Emily.”
She sighed. “I can’t meet that deadline. Unless I find Emily in the next hour and work around the clock until then, it can’t happen.”
“Tell me what I can do to help,” Fran said. “I don’t exactly have your eyes, but I’m creative. Is there a list somewhere of furniture I can photograph for the board? Do you have the swatches you’re planning to use for the other rooms? And where is the board for the master bedroom?”
“It’s at my house. You can go over there and get it. There’s a key in my top desk drawer. But it’s not finished. We’re talking eighteen rooms. I can’t do them all on the boards. I have to be there.”
“All the more reason to come home. You deserve this, Barbara. This is your big break. If it doesn’t work out, we’re both out of a job. I don’t think I have to remind you of that.”
Barbara wondered why she did anyway. “I’m fully aware.”
“I just want to be able to help you in the best way I can, but you’ve got to tell me what to do.”
“I don’t have time to think about it right now. I’m in a crisis.”
“You’ll be in a worse crisis when you don’t have an income and you’re out having to interview for jobs with furniture stores. Emily’s not going to care. She’ll just keep milking you for everything you’re worth. And it won’t be much.”
Maybe that was true, but she resented Fran for saying so. “All right, let me make some phone calls. I’ll let them know that we need a few more days.”
“They said that they were sorry for your problems with Emily, and they knew this was bringing more hardship on you, but it couldn’t be helped.”
“Well, that’s just great. They know I’m the best person for that job. The governor’s wife loved the work I did for her sister. She told me if she had her way, it would be me.”
“Maybe you should call her.”
“I will.”
“Okay, so what should I be doing in the meantime?”
She tried to focus her thoughts. “I was going to name the bedrooms after some of the past governors in Missouri. I was going to get in touch with their families and find out what their design styles were, and see if they’d donate any of their memorabilia. It would be interesting, kind of like in the White House, with the Lincoln bedroom … ”
“I could make those phone calls.”
“Yes, good,” Barbara said. “Then get back to me. And pull out every design board I’ve got in my studio. Email me pictures of them. I can use some of the models from those boards to save time. If I can, I’ll look online for the furnishings that would work for each room. If I can get pictures online, maybe we can use them on the board. Maybe it’ll be close enough.”
Even as she said the words, she closed her eyes. It wasn’t good enough. She wanted it to be knock-dead professional, something that went beyond what everyone else was doing. Presidents had different, distinctive styles, but governors? There wasn’t time to collect antique pieces from their collections in time for the presentation.
Besides getting the boards together, she needed time to practice her presentation so that it would be polished an
d fluid. She couldn’t just direct their eyes to pictures, colors, and swatches. She needed to sell them a concept … and build their confidence in her skills and her aesthetic.
How in the world could she focus on that, when her daughter was lost out there?
There was no power in her voice when she said, “I’ll let you know what they say.”
“All right, Barbara. I’ll get right on it. Oh, and one other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“My paycheck?”
Barbara touched her forehead. How could she have forgotten? It wasn’t Fran’s fault any of this had happened. The single mom needed to feed her kids. “I’m sorry, Fran. I totally forgot.”
“It’s okay. Any way you can drop a check in the mail?”
“Yes, I’ll do it today.”
“Better yet, I could text you my account number and you could deposit it at a branch there. I looked online and there is one in Atlanta. Do you have time to do that?”
“I’ll make time,” she said. “Forgive me, Fran. I promise I’ll do it today.”
“No biggie.” Fran paused again. “I’m praying for you, Barbara. Praying for Emily to do the right thing and turn herself in. And for you to let her sink or swim. Practice tough love. That’s what the experts say.”
Barbara wondered how many of the talk show “experts” had children they were willing to watch run off a cliff. “There’s a killer involved, and a dead woman. Emily was seen running for her life.”
“Of course she was. She didn’t want to get caught,” Fran said.
Anger fired through Barbara again. “Sorry, I have to go now.” She clicked off the phone, wishing people would offer her kindness instead of advice. Their wisdom and judgment were like razors slicing through open wounds. They had no clue what they would do in her shoes.
They’d probably do as many wrong things as she had.
She tossed the phone onto the bed and dug into her purse for her checkbook. She’d have to go looking for that bank.
thirty-one