Intervention

  Barbara hoped the woman’s sunny disposition would rub off on Emily. “Trish, this is Barbara Covington, just hoping for an update on Emily. Please call me when you get this.” She hung up and checked her watch again.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. They’ve probably got the music turned up too loud to hear the phone.”

  That didn’t make her feel any better. Heavy metal and sobriety weren’t exactly soulmates, were they? She caught her mind heading down that negative trail and forced herself to rein it back in. Nothing in Trish’s demeanor suggested that she listened to Metallica. And even if she did, it didn’t make her evil.

  Lance dropped the joystick. “Either that, or Emily bolted and Trish is trying to chase her down.”

  Barbara felt sick.

  Lance grinned. “I’m just kidding, Mom. She doesn’t even know anybody in Georgia. Not like she can get somebody to pick her up.”

  Barbara wasn’t so sure. Emily had a huge network of “friends” through MySpace and Facebook, the online communities that sucked up so much of her daughter’s time. She wouldn’t be surprised if Emily had cyber-friends in northern Georgia. It would be just like Emily to call somebody she thought was a teenaged girl, only to find that it was some perverted middle-aged pedophile thrilled to “rescue” her.

  “Mom, they’re fine, okay? Maybe their luggage was lost and they’re waiting to get it all worked out. Remember that time ours got lost? We had to wait in line for forty-five minutes, and then found out it was coming on the next plane. That’s probably it. They’re probably waiting for the next plane to bring it in.”

  If Lance hadn’t been as concerned as Barbara was, he wouldn’t be trying so hard to think of every possible scenario. But this was getting them nowhere. Deciding to give her anxiety a rest, she retrieved her design board out of her trunk. Lance went back to his game.

  Barbara worked on her presentation for the governor’s bedroom as the next half hour passed. Still no word. She called and left another message.

  Too anxious now to concentrate, she called the rehab to see if Emily had checked in yet. She hadn’t, and they hadn’t heard from Trish.

  Where could they be?

  Another hour passed, and Lance fell asleep on the couch. Abandoning her work, Barbara began pacing. She called and left a third message. As she did, her phone beeped. An Atlanta number.

  Quickly, she switched over to answer the call. “Hello?”

  “Could I speak to Emily Covington, please?” It was a man’s voice.

  “Emily’s not here. Who’s calling?”

  There was a pause. “This is Detective Kent Harlan from the Atlanta Police Department.”

  Her heart crashed like a crystal chandelier. “This is Emily’s mother. What is it? Has something happened to my daughter?”

  “I got this number from her Delta itinerary. Could you tell me how I could reach her?”

  “Why are you looking for her?”

  “I’m at the airport investigating a case.”

  She closed her eyes. What had Emily done now? “What kind of case?”

  “I’m with the homicide division.”

  “Homicide? Who … who was killed?”

  “A woman named Patricia Massey. Do you know her?”

  Trish!

  The room began to reel. Barbara reached out to steady herself. “Dear God, Trish is dead? What … How?”

  “What is your relationship to Ms. Massey?”

  “Emily was traveling with her!” she yelled. “Trish is an interventionist. She was escorting my daughter to rehab. What happened?”

  “Ma’am, we’re not sure. Have you heard from Emily at all since she left Jefferson City?”

  “She called briefly, and I talked to Trish too. They were going to baggage claim. But nothing since then. I’ve been calling for hours, trying to get in touch with them.” Perspiration dripped into her eyes, burning them. “Please … how was she murdered?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t give out that information. But your daughter isn’t here. If you hear from her, I need you to call me. It’s very important that we speak to her.”

  “You’re sure she’s not there at the airport?”

  “No, we’re not sure. We’re looking for her.”

  “Well, didn’t someone witness this? Didn’t they notice Emily?

  She couldn’t have just vanished!”

  “We’re still investigating, ma’am.”

  She looked frantically around the room, trying to think. “I’ll be there on the next flight. But you have to find Emily. She’s in that airport somewhere.” Her mind made random connections.

  “If someone killed Trish, they might have hurt Emily. She’s only eighteen and … she might be impaired.”

  “Impaired, how?”

  Was this man deaf? “I told you she was on her way to rehab!”

  “Oh, right. I see.”

  “No, you don’t see. She was fragile and upset, and if she just witnessed a traumatic event, then she could be hiding somewhere, scared to death … ”

  “Mrs. Covington, is your daughter an IV drug user?”

  Barbara hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve found needles once before, but lately I think it was pills.”

  His pause made her regret her answer. “I think it’s a good idea for you to catch the next flight, Mrs. Covington, and it would help if you could bring some current pictures of Emily. When you get here, call my cell phone. Do you have something to write with?”

  She grabbed a pen off the kitchen counter, wrote the detective’s number down, and promised to call when she got there.

  It was almost ten o’clock. Would there be any more flights out to Atlanta tonight?

  She ran into the living room and shook Lance. “Get up!” she said. “Your sister’s in trouble.”

  He sat up, groggy. “What did she do now?”

  “She’s vanished, and Trish is dead!”

  He sprang off the sofa, suddenly awake. “No way!”

  “The police just called. I have to take the next flight to Atlanta.” She ran to the bedroom and grabbed an overnight bag from her closet, unzipped it and threw it on her bed. “Call Jacob and see if you can stay with him.”

  His cheeks were mottled pink. “Mom, I want to go with you.”

  She ran to her closet, but couldn’t decide what she needed. She grabbed something off a hanger and threw it in. “You can’t come. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I get there.”

  “She’s my sister! I’ll go crazy staying home.”

  “Lance, I don’t have time for this!” Her ticket! She fell into the chair at the computer desk and, with shaking hands, brought up the Travelocity site. “The last flight is at eleven, an hour from now. I’ll never make it.”

  “See? You don’t have time to drop me by Jacob’s. But we can make it if we hurry. I’ll go pack.”

  “Lance, call Jacob!” She dug her credit card out of her purse. If she made the reservation online, she could get her boarding pass and probably make it on time.

  “Mom, if you leave me here, I’m liable to get into all sorts of trouble and wind up like Emily. Who knows how long you’ll be gone?”

  “Don’t threaten me, Lance.”

  “I could help find her. I know how to think like her. Besides, this could be dangerous. She could be in a crack house somewhere.”

  Her hands were shaking too badly. She couldn’t do this.

  “Here, let me,” Lance said.

  She surrendered the keyboard and tried not to cry. There wasn’t time. “The eleven o’clock flight. Any seat. Whatever it costs.”

  He looked up at her. “Two seats?”

  She threw up her hands. “Okay, two.”

  “Yes!” he whispered, and deftly entered the information. “Credit card?”

  She tossed it to him, then ran back to her room and finished packing. By the time she was zipping her suitcase, he brought her the boarding passes. It took him two minutes to pack his own duffel bag, and they dash
ed out to the car.

  On the way to the airport, Barbara prayed aloud that God would protect Emily from the forces of hell that stalked her.

  seven

  Detective Kent Harlan pocketed his cell phone and went back to the Lexus, where the body sat slumped in the driver’s seat. Crime scene investigators stood at the doors, photographing the scene.

  There was a handkerchief on the floor in the backseat, next to an empty syringe. They would send them both to forensics to identify what they contained. But he knew chloroform when he smelled it.

  From the looks of things, someone had knocked Massey out with the chloroform … then injected her with something. Without touching the woman’s body, he looked for an injection point. There was a small blood spot on her back. He’d wait for the Medical Examiner to confirm it, but it seemed likely that was where the needle had gone in. There had been no witnesses, but someone walking to his car had seen the woman slumped over her steering wheel and called 911. If the time of her arrival by plane was any indication, she had probably been dead for three hours by that time. Whoever did it had taken her wallet, since it wasn’t in her purse.

  The security tape showed two women walking to the car, loading suitcases into the trunk. The deceased had gotten into the driver’s side while the other one finished her cigarette. The second one — the girl that he assumed was Emily Covington — had gotten into the passenger side. She hadn’t stayed there for more than a couple of seconds before she jumped out and ran. Tape from other cameras showed her running across the garage, then getting into a black sedan with an unidentifiable tag and a driver he couldn’t see.

  “Get anything?” Andy, his partner, asked.

  Kent looked up at the man who’d just busted through thirty yesterday. He had bags under his eyes, testifying to his birthday celebration. Kent had passed on the party. At forty-five, he’d grown fonder of his sleep than boozing it up at bars. Besides, it always brought him down to see Andy’s happy marriage and all his happy friends. It was sweet enough to give you cavities.

  “Yeah.” He glanced at the notes he’d taken while talking to Barbara Covington. “Emily Covington is an eighteen-year-old addict. According to her mother, she was being escorted to rehab by Patricia, nicknamed Trish, who was an interventionist.”

  Andy’s chin came up. “Interesting.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  “So the girl was about to get the rug pulled out from under her. Took matters into her own hands.”

  Kent went back to his car and got his laptop, opened it and rewound the security tape. The girl was a small, skinny kid. Not much taller than five-foot-two or three. If her mother hadn’t just told him she was eighteen, he’d have sworn she was thirteen or fourteen.

  Andy crossed the garage to Kent’s car, leaned in. “So was the girl an IV drug user?”

  “Her mother wasn’t sure. Said she’d found needles once.”

  Andy shrugged. “What would the mother know, anyway? She probably knows about one percent of what the girl’s been doing, and what she does know, she’s probably in denial about.”

  “True, but if the girl had needles, you’d think security would have picked up on it before she flew.”

  “Addicts are really good at smuggling. And security guards miss stuff all the time.”

  Kent thought of Barbara Covington’s voice. She didn’t sound in denial, though she was clearly distraught. She also didn’t sound like the foul-mouthed mothers of some of the drug addicts he encountered. Crack moms who had crack babies, and raised them to be crackheads themselves. No, she sounded more like the members of his own family, who hadn’t seen addiction coming until it crashed down on them like a crane load of bricks.

  And then it was too late.

  Barbara Covington’s declaration that she was coming here meant she might actually be a decent person — someone clearly concerned about her child.

  “So the girl has a motive,” Andy said. “Didn’t want to go to rehab, was probably jonesing for a fix. When we find her, she’ll probably have the stolen wallet on her. Ready cash for a drug buy.”

  “Not to mention the credit cards,” Kent muttered. “Get a list of the cards Massey was carrying and any charges made on them today. Hopefully, the girl will be sloppy and use them. Emily Covington’s mother is coming here on the next flight out. I told her to bring pictures.”

  “Good. I’ll get Emily’s driver’s license photo and check for priors, while I’m working on the credit cards,” Andy said.

  Kent looked around.

  “I’ll wait here. If she’s in the airport somewhere, we’ll find her. Maybe we can lock her up in time to get a few hours’ sleep.”

  eight

  Barbara and Lance reached the airport twenty minutes before departure time — ten minutes after everyone else had boarded. Thankfully, there wasn’t a line at security, so they made their way through and reached the gate before the doors were shut.

  “We’re in 14A and B,” Lance said as they boarded.

  They greeted the flight attendant and walked down the aisle of the half-empty plane. Barbara found their seats and shoved their bags into the compartment above them, then dropped into the window seat.

  Lance sat down next to her. “We made it.”

  She closed her eyes. She hadn’t realized until now that she was drenched in sweat. The air conditioner on the plane made her shiver. She pulled her phone out of her purse and checked to see if Emily had called.

  Of course she hadn’t. She didn’t have a phone. Barbara had sent her across the country without any means of communication.

  Emily, where are you?

  As the plane backed away from the gate, she closed her eyes and prayed again. Guard her, Lord. Protect her from others … and from herself.

  And then she prayed for the family of that poor woman who lay dead at the Atlanta airport. Guilt surged through her that she’d been so judgmental about Trish. She’d judged her smoking, her drinking Red Bull, her plan for getting Emily from Point A to Point B. She’d even judged the amount of money Trish charged for her services, though Barbara had certainly been willing to pay it.

  Now Trish was dead. It didn’t even seem real. Her head throbbed, threatening to explode.

  “Mom, do you think it could be a joke?”

  She opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Some kind of prank. Emily has a lot of sick friends. Maybe some crazy dude pretended to be a cop.”

  If only. “No, he sounded official. Older. Not a kid.”

  “There are a lot of older dopers. They could be getting a good laugh out of it right now.”

  “Then why hasn’t Trish called? Why hasn’t the rehab heard from her?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Emily did get somebody to pick her up in Atlanta, and Trish is avoiding your calls because she doesn’t want to get in trouble for losing her.”

  No, there would have to be too many people working together to pull that off. The idea made no sense. “Even if that were true, Emily’s in danger. If she called some stranger to pick her up there, then God knows what kind of mess she’s in.” The plane accelerated down the runway, and she held her breath as they became airborne. “Nobody would play a prank like that.”

  “Emily’s friends would.”

  Well, that was true. If Lance was right, they’d still have to find Emily, but at least Trish wouldn’t be dead. As soon as they got to Atlanta, she’d call the police department and confirm that Kent Harlan really was a detective on the force.

  Lance bent over and grabbed his backpack, fished out a notebook. Studying for school? She doubted it. She watched as he opened the cover and skimmed the first page. Emily’s handwriting was unmistakable.

  “What is that?”

  He shrugged. “I grabbed her journals. You should read them. They’re crazy. I brought two, and they’re chock-full of her confessions.”

  “You read her journals?”

  “Yeah.” He said it like she was stupid to as
k. “She leaves them out so any fool can read them. When she remembers to, she hides them in her bottom dresser drawer.”

  “So when she doesn’t have them out, you just dig through her things?”

  “Hey, I wanted to know what kind of stuff my sister was into. I wasn’t just being nosy.”

  “Who do you think you’re kidding, Lance? Give me that.”

  She took the journal and opened it, dreading what was inside. Emily’s words hit her full force.

  If I were to write a story, my mother’s disapproval would be a character all its own. It would be the villain pressing down on my miserable victim, time ticking as it grew closer to doing her in. Only, the miserable victim would be me.

  Barbara almost closed the journal. How could she be the villain? Why was it always the mother’s fault? Tears came to her eyes, but she gritted her teeth and read on.

  But I wouldn’t be kidding anyone.

  I’m not a bad person; I make bad choices. I could have been a contender, as that wrestling guy in that old black and white flick says. Or was it boxing? I could have been a big shot, a person of substance, a woman of means. I could have called the shots. Now I just shoot up.

  In my head, I’m Anna Nicole Smith, misunderstood but glamorous, dancing before strobe lights and flirting with the camera. I’m the starlet who never seemed to realize what the world was saying about her, the one before her body lay decaying in some morgue because there was money on the line. In my head, I’m an heiress, a sappy-go-lucky clubber, a tragic talent who remains undiscovered.

  But in the head of my disapproving mom, I’m the worst kind of failure. I’m the one all the scripture was written for. The one David was thinking of when he wrote about the wicked getting theirs.

  My mother cries over those verses, because she hopes I won’t get mine.

  There was a time when I was younger, before I’d signed my own death warrant, when I gazed through the windshield each time my mother picked me up, assessing her expression. Her face was a color wheel on a silver Christmas tree. Yellow, happy; red, angry; blue, distracted. Sometimes as I got in the car I would see that evil twin of hers, Disapproval, and she’d pull up my neckline and threaten to toss my favorite shirt. Cleavage was a punishable offense.