Intervention

  “But he didn’t stay clean, right?”

  “No. About three weeks ago he started missing work. When he came in, he looked rough. I suspected then that he was using again.”

  “Did you test him?”

  “No. I gave him a stern warning, hoping he’d pull himself together.”

  “Your receptionist says he’s a bad employee. She didn’t know why you hadn’t fired him.”

  “Yes, the other employees resent him.”

  “You’ve been out this week, right?”

  He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Yeah, doing a little fishing. The business side of my office is still open, though.”

  “Where do you fish?”

  “I sometimes go to Lake Lora.”

  Kent smiled. “You got a boat?”

  “No. I fish off the bank. Actually, I do more thinking than fishing.”

  “Catch anything?”

  “Nothing to speak of.” He hesitated. “I just needed a few days off. I’ve been working really hard and dealing with a divorce. I also lost my daughter two years ago, and that’s been difficult. She died of an overdose.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Pain dragged at Leigh’s face, and he looked down at his hands. “So you understand why I’d have compassion for a guy who had addictions.”

  Kent checked his recorder, made sure it was running. “An overdose, huh? I sometimes work those cases. Was it here in Atlanta?”

  “No, it was in Emerson.”

  He sat up, as if surprised. “Oh, yeah. Sara Leigh, right? Like the cupcake lady.”

  He nodded.

  “Wasn’t she the one who was in treatment, and went out on a pass?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That was Road Back Recovery Center, wasn’t it?”

  Leigh swallowed. “Yes.”

  Kent sighed and tried to soften his voice. “I remember that case. Didn’t I hear that you filed a lawsuit?”

  Sudden awareness flickered in Leigh’s eyes. Clearly, he knew the interview was taking a dangerous turn. “Can I just sign the affidavit? I have some things I need to do.”

  Kent got up, leaned out the door. He retrieved the paper he’d left on a file cabinet beside the door. “Great, it’s ready,” he said, coming back in. He handed it to the doctor. As Leigh read over it, Kent kept talking. “Yeah, this case looks pretty cut-and-dried. When did you first hear about it?”

  Leigh swallowed. “I don’t know. The day after it happened, maybe … on the news. Do I sign here?”

  Kent leaned forward. “Yes, right there. So where were you that day?”

  “What day?”

  “The day of the murder, October 2nd. Were you at work?”

  Leigh’s face came up, and Kent noticed beads of sweat forming over his lip. “I was at home. Piddling around the house … Detective, do I need a lawyer?”

  The last thing Kent wanted to do was put an attorney between him and the truth. “Hey, you’re not under arrest. I basically ask the same question of everyone involved with the case.”

  Leigh signed the paper, then got up. “Then I’ll leave now.”

  He held Kent’s gaze for a moment. “Look, Detective. I realize that my lawsuit against Road Back Recovery Center might implicate me somehow in your case. But that’s absurd.”

  Kent felt his phone vibrating and glanced down. He had missed calls from Barbara, and a text from Andy.

  We searched the house. She’s not there.

  His heart sank. Now he’d have to let Leigh walk out of here. Kent slid the phone back into his pocket.

  “Did you hear me?” Leigh asked. “I’m not a killer. I pursued justice through the courts. Now, Tredwell could have done it, thinking he was helping me out. If he was thinking through a haze of drugs … ”

  “Did you two talk about it?”

  Leigh seemed to think too hard. “About the lawsuit, yes. He probably realized I’ve been depressed since the verdict. Who knows what goes through an active drug user’s mind? Maybe he thought I’d helped him out, and he owed me or something.”

  “Did you give him any reason to think he owed you a debt? One you expected to have paid?”

  “Absolutely not.” The color flushed back into his face. “You know, I think I’ll contact a lawyer. If you have any more questions, you can contact him.”

  “No problem. Let us know who you retain.”

  Leigh got up, and Kent followed him out of the interview room. Leigh said good-bye and hurried toward the front doors. As he watched him go, Kent saw Barbara and Lance standing at the sergeant’s desk across the room. She spotted him, pushed through the desks, and came toward him.

  “Kent, I’ve been trying to call you ever since the news broke about an arrest.” She stopped and followed his gaze to Dr. Leigh. “Who is that?” she whispered.

  He frowned. “Shhh. Let’s not talk right here.”

  “But you were interviewing him, right? Were you working on our case?”

  “Not now.” He left her standing there and got Andy on the phone, asked him where he was. He was just pulling up out front. “Dr. Leigh’s on his way out. He has on a yellow polo shirt, khaki pants. Follow him.”

  “I’m on it,” Andy said.

  Kent hung up, keeping his eyes on the door.

  “Who was that?” Barbara demanded on a whisper. “Why do you want Andy to follow him?”

  He sighed. “He’s the doctor who employs Tredwell.”

  “And Tredwell is the one you’ve arrested?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s the doctor’s name?”

  “I can’t share that with you, Barbara.”

  “I’ll find out.” She looked at the affidavit in his hand. “Is that his signature? Dr. Greg Leigh?”

  Kent rolled his eyes. Why did Leigh have to be the one doctor who wrote legibly? “Barbara, leave it alone. We’re making progress here. Things are very delicate. If you get in the way, you could blow the whole case. Now, I’ve got to go. I have my hands full.”

  Kent left her and ran up the stairs to his office to call Andy. “Are you on him?”

  “Yeah. He’s in the black Infiniti. Tag’s still covered so you can’t read it. Looks like mud, but my guess is it’s brown paint. I’m putting you on speaker.”

  Kent heard the sudden hiss of the speakerphone.

  “He must realize he’s being tailed. He’s trying to lose me.”

  “Stay with him!”

  “I’m trying. Did you get anything out of him?”

  “Not enough,” Kent said. “What about the search?”

  “Nobody was there. We went in and did a quick search of every room. No sign of Emily. I don’t think he’s been holding her there.”

  “Where are you?”

  “On 401. He’s flying. Maybe I should pull him over for speeding.”

  “No, then we’d never find her.”

  “Aw, no!” He heard Andy curse. “Unbelievable! He pulled off at the Pine Street exit at the last possible second. I couldn’t get over. I’ve lost him.”

  Kent groaned. “Can you get off at Spring Street? Maybe you can find him.”

  “I’m doing it now. But if he knew he was followed, he’s not going to be easy to find.”

  Kent wanted to throw something. “I could put out an APB. Get some uniforms on it. But we can’t arrest him yet.”

  “I’ll keep looking,” Andy said. “Maybe I can double back and intercept him.”

  “Meanwhile, I’ll go talk to Tredwell again. Make him think Leigh exposed him. Maybe that’ll make him talk.”

  thirty-eight

  Fuming, Barbara drove Lance back to the hotel so she could look up Dr. Greg Leigh. As Lance surfed the TV for reports of Emily, she Googled Leigh, hoping to find a phone number and the location of his office where Tredwell worked. Several hits came up. Fascinated, she read newspaper articles about his daughter Sara dying of a drug overdose, and the lawsuit he’d filed on behalf of several other parents agains
t Road Back Recovery Center. Her chest tightened.

  If he had such a strong connection to Trish Massey, why had Kent let him walk away?

  She wrote down the names of the other parents involved in the lawsuit, then Googled each of them. It was basically the same story. They had paid Road Back’s high fees with hopes of curing their addicted children, only to have them return to the streets. None of the others had died, but their family members all felt that malpractice had been committed at the rehab center, and that there had been false advertising to get them to send their children there.

  In one of them she found a link to a MySpace page, and she went there and read a woman’s account of her own trials with her addicted child. Barbara could have written it herself. The woman’s struggles with her son had brought her to the brink of suicide at least three times. Barbara had never entertained the idea of suicide, because she didn’t want to heap more baggage on her children. But she certainly understood why some people did. The woman had found a support group that helped her through it. There was a link for the group. Barbara clicked the link, and the welcome page came up.

  Welcome to Parents of Prodigals. Post here about your experiences with bad rehabs, and the ones that actually work.

  Quickly, Barbara created a username that didn’t identify her as Barbara Covington — SavvyMom — and joined the group. Within minutes, she got a welcome email. She was in.

  The email told her she could go to the website and view the archives.

  “What are you working so hard on, Mom?” Lance asked.

  She clicked the link. “Just trying to get into the head of the man Kent was interviewing.”

  “Is he involved in the case?”

  “Could be.”

  She got into the archives and typed in Leigh. Two dozen emails came up, from the man himself.

  Something has to be done, he wrote. Places like this shouldn’t continue getting away with the racket they call rehab. My daughter overdosed while she was on an afternoon pass. Those morons, who didn’t care whether she got sober or not, gave their residents afternoon passes to go wherever they wanted. Plus, the whole time she was there she was doped up on anxiety medications. Genius doctors got them addicted to more stuff than they were on when they came in. One time, she claimed she sprained her ankle, and they gave her pain meds. It was the most asinine way to treat addictions. It’s just a moneymaking enterprise, with no concern for changing people’s lives. You send them there, pay a fortune for them to go, hoping that they’ll get sober and clear, that their brains will heal. That when they get out, they’ll make the right decisions. But how can that happen when they’re giving them passes before they’ve even made up their minds to stay clean? My daughter might be alive if I had chosen more wisely. I don’t intend to sit by and let other people get caught in this trap.

  Barbara stared at the words. So she had chosen foolishly too. The rehab she’d put so much hope in wouldn’t have been Emily’s answer, after all. She had simply Googled “drug rehab” and “Christian,” and Road Back was the first to pop up. From these parents’ accounts, she saw that the Christian part of it was minimal. There was a Christian workbook the residents could go through if they chose, and one of the counselors went to church. That was the niche that got them the hits on the website. And the phone calls. And the fortunes people invested in the program for their children or loved ones.

  She didn’t blame Dr. Leigh for being so angry, but what did he have to do with Trish’s death? Was he angry enough to kill her? And what did that mean for Emily?

  She read back through each of his messages, some of them written during the time when he was working on the malpractice suit. Then she finally came to the one after the judge had ruled that Road Back was not at fault for Sara’s death, or the failure of any of the other residents to recover.

  “I’m flabbergasted,” he wrote:

  Absolutely flabbergasted. I thought I could depend on the justice system to do something about this. Now more and more addicts are going to die, if not quickly, over a period of years. A long, slow, cruel death through addiction. No one is going to be helped there. They have to be stopped.

  Someone had written in reply,

  We just need to start a campaign to educate people about it. Set up a clearinghouse for this information, and figure out a way to have our site come up first when people Google “Christian rehab.”

  There wasn’t a reply from Dr. Leigh. He hadn’t posted again. Had he chosen another course of action to deal with his desire for vengeance? She decided to try to connect with him, so she hit “reply” to his last email. His email address came up in her To box, and she quickly drafted an email.

  Dear Dr. Leigh,

  I’m so thankful for this email group. I was about to send my son to Road Back until I saw all these messages. I’m sorry for your daughter’s death.

  She doubted she would get a reply. At least not today. The man was probably back at work, seeing patients.

  She turned back to Lance. The news channel was doing a story on the economy. “Nothing about Emily,” he said.

  Not good. She had to keep Emily’s face before people as much as possible. “Maybe we’d better do another press conference,” she said. “Do you think anybody would come?”

  Lance rolled his eyes. “Mom, they’re calling off the hook and leaving all these messages. You checked them. You know they want to talk to you. I think we should go back on.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, I’m part of this family.”

  “Lance, this isn’t about us.”

  “No, it’s about Emily. But I have stuff to say.”

  She sighed and glanced back at the computer. Her email showed that she had one message in her Inbox. Already? She clicked on it and saw that the reply was from Dr. Greg Leigh. Her heart jolted. “It’s from him! The doctor Kent was interviewing!” Lance sprang up, and Barbara opened the email. He stood over her, reading over her shoulder.

  Dear SavvyMom …

  “SavvyMom?” Lance asked.

  “It’s my username.” She started to read.

  Thank you for writing with condolences about our daughter. I’m not Greg. I’m his ex-wife, Joan. Somehow I inherited his email in the divorce.

  I recommend that you go to Sonya Minn’s clearinghouse for information on the rehabs that might work for your son.

  “Your son?” Lance bit out. “What did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t want him to figure out it was me.”

  “Thanks a lot. His ex-wife, huh? That figures.”

  “No, this could be good. She could give us information about him. Maybe even more than the police got out of him.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “So ask her some questions. Tell her who you are.”

  “No, that’s not a good idea. What if she’s still friendly with her ex-husband? If she mentions my name and he has anything to do with all this … ”

  “Right,” Lance said.

  She didn’t want to blow this chance. She hit “reply,” and typed:

  I know you’re busy and probably don’t want to do this with a stranger like me, but I could use a listening ear. I see that you’re here in Atlanta. Any way we could get together for coffee and talk?

  She sent it off and waited for a reply — almost holding her breath. Within five minutes, one came back.

  I have an appointment in a few minutes, but there’s a Starbucks in the Buckhead Barnes & Noble, where I could meet you in a couple of hours. Say, two o’clock?

  Barbara wrote back,

  Perfect. See you then.

  As she sent it off, she jumped out of her chair and hugged Lance.

  “Way to go, Mom. But she’s gonna recognize you as soon as you walk in, you know.”

  “Maybe. If she does, I’ll confess. But at least she won’t have time to tell her ex before we talk.”

  thirty-nine

  Barbara pulled her hair up into a ponytail and wore sunglasses to the bookstore, hoping that people wou
ldn’t recognize her and get in her way.

  She and Lance got there before Joan and picked out tables in the Starbucks area. Barbara bought Lance a Caramel Latte and let him sit alone in the corner, playing on the laptop. He’d be so hopped up with caffeine that he probably wouldn’t sleep at all tonight. Why hadn’t she ordered him a Decaf?

  She took a table across the room, watching the door for any sign of someone who might be looking for her. Finally, a woman came in alone, and Barbara lifted her hand in a wave. The woman had short brown hair and was very thin. It was the kind of thin that came from grief, not vanity.

  “SavvyMom?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it’s me.” She stood up and shook Joan’s hand. “I’m Barbara. Thank you for coming.”

  Joan studied Barbara as they sat down. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “No, I do.”

  Finally, Barbara lowered her sunglasses. “You may have seen me on TV. I’m looking for my daughter.”

  Her eyes rounded. “Yes, the Covington girl. Emily, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that in your email? I thought you wanted to talk about rehab … for your son.”

  “Yeah, I lied. I have a lot of press people tracking my every move.”

  “I understand,” Joan said. “I know what you’re going through.”

  Somehow, Barbara felt that she did.

  “I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Would you like a coffee?”

  Barbara still had some. “No, thanks.”

  “I’ll get one. Be right back.”

  As Joan went up to the bar to order, Barbara met Lance’s eyes. He mouthed, “Did she recognize you?”

  Barbara nodded.

  After a moment, Joan got her coffee and came back. “So, are you any closer to finding your daughter?” she asked as she sat down.

  “No, not at all. I’m just grasping at straws, basically. I guess I felt a common spirit on that email loop, and I … I don’t know. I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “I’m glad you did. I can’t imagine going through it alone. At least I was still married when we were looking for Sara.”