She didn’t want to break down in front of them. They needed to see her strong, courageous. They needed to see a peace that passed all understanding.
But inside, a silent rage boiled, threatening to ruin her ministry and her image. Worse yet, it threatened to ruin God’s image.
When the girls finally left, she breathed relief, no longer feeling she had to be the mature, settled one. While her relatives talked quietly among themselves, she slipped into her bedroom and turned on her computer. As soon as it was fired up, she navigated to GrapeVyne.net, the online community that had occupied so much of her sister’s time. Signing in with her sister’s name and password, she brought up her page.
Friends had posted hundreds of notes to her dead sister, so many that they’d pushed Ella’s final Thought Bubbles far down the page. Krista scrolled down and found her sister’s last public thoughts.
Thinking about becoming a brunette.
Krista smiled. Ella was never satisfied with herself. A real blonde dyeing her hair brown? Her friends responded by telling her she was crazy.
The Thought Bubble before that made her smile fade. It was the statement that might have cost Ella her life.
Riding my bike to Sinbad’s. Dying for a soda, and Dad won’t keep them in the house.
Ella had never come home from Sinbad’s. Her bike had been found overturned in the street near the convenience store, her cell phone and purse lying on the ground. Some of the contents of her purse had scattered out, and her hand mirror was shattered into dozens of pieces.
Any predator with a computer would have been tempted by that Thought Bubble. Why had Ella felt compelled to tell everyone where she was going and when?
Krista scrolled down as she’d done so many times since her sister’s disappearance and saw Ella’s habits and schedule posted in various Thought Bubbles throughout the day. She’d posted dozens of pictures of herself, some with her school jersey on. Some of her posts mentioned her school, her teachers, her after-school activities, her friends. She posted often during the day, using her cell phone.
The killer had access to this information, and he was somewhere here, hidden among her GrapeVyne friends. Krista clicked on Ella’s Friends and saw a list with pictures of over eleven hundred people. What had her sister been thinking, to post private thoughts to over a thousand strangers? Why hadn’t Krista realized it and stopped her? She’d tried to give her sister her space, but she should have been spying on her, demanding to be added to her Friends List so she could monitor what was going on.
She scrolled down through the faces, searching for someone who looked evil. Someone who could stalk and rape and bury alive a young girl in a shallow grave out in the woods.
The friends all looked benign and young, but it was subterfuge, she knew. He was there, somewhere. He was watching, enjoying the fallout. He may have even added his condolences to the others on Ella’s Vyne.
Then it hit her. She could talk to him. If she posted a note to him, he would read it.
An inner fire hit her face, burned her eyes, tightened her lips. Her heart kicked against her chest. She put the cursor in Ella’s Thought Bubble, and typed,
You think you got away with this, but I’ll find you. I’ll hunt you down like the animal you are.
She hit send. There was a 140-character limit, but she had more to say. She waited for the box to empty and her note to flash up on the screen. Then she added,
You’ll wish you’d never heard the name Ella Carmichael, and you’ll suffer the way she suffered.
Then she signed it, Krista Carmichael. She hoped he was reading it already.
Books by Terri Blackstock
Predator
Double Minds
Soul Restoration
Emerald Windows
Shadow in Serenity
Intervention Series
1 | Intervention
2 | Vicious Cycle
A Restoration Novel Series
1 | Last Light
2 | Night Light
3 | True Light
4 | Dawn’s Light
Cape Refuge Series
1 | Cape Refuge
2 | Southern Storm
3 | River’s Edge
4 | Breaker’s Reef
Newpointe 911
1 | Private Justice
2 | Shadow of Doubt
3 | Word of Honor
4 | Trial by Fire
5 | Line of Duty
Sun Coast Chronicles
1 | Evidence of Mercy
2 | Justifiable Means
3 | Ulterior Motives
4 | Presumption of Guilt
Second Chances
1 | Never Again Good-bye
2 | When Dreams Cross
3 | Blind Trust
4 | Broken Wings
With Beverly LaHaye
1 | Seasons Under Heaven
2 | Showers in Season
3 | Times and Seasons
4 | Season of Blessing
Novellas
Seaside
Other Books
Miracles
(The Listener/The Gifted)
The Heart Reader
of Franklin High
The Gifted Sophomores
Covenant Child
Sweet Delights
ZONDERVAN
Downfall
Copyright © 2012 by Terri Blackstock
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EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN: 978-0-310-28927-2
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blackstock, Terri, 1957-
Downfall : an intervention novel / Terri Blackstock.
p. cm.—(Intervention series ; bk. 3)
ISBN 978-0-310-25068-5 (softcover)
I. Title.
PS3552.L34285D69 2012
813’.54—dc23
2011035013
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Terri Blackstock, Downfall (An Intervention Novel)
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