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 th
oughts.
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 emergency … 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.
Bo got up, moving slowly, as if walking through water. As if he didn’t know where to go, who to talk to, what to do.
“You should probably notify your wife’s family,” Kent said.
Bo nodded. “Yeah, I will.” The man just stood there, staring into space.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I … just don’t have my car here, so …”
“I’ll get one of our men to take you back to your car at the store. You can’t go into the house yet, though. They’re still working the scene.”
He rubbed his face, his mouth trembling. “Can I see her?”
They hadn’t yet moved the body from where she’d been found. “No, not yet, but we’ll have someone call you as soon you can.”
Bo nodded, staring vacantly, as if searching his mind for a starting point to tackling this nightmare. Kent made arrangements to get him to wherever he wanted to go, then hurried out to his own car and headed for Barbara’s house.
Chapter 10
The test had been over for an hour by the time Emily got to school. She parked farther away than she was used to, since the parking lot filled up early, then tromped across campus to the administration building, where her history professor kept an office. He had a stern policy—no missed tests without a doctor’s excuse—but she clutched her police report in her hand, hoping he would make an exception just this once. Could he give as much weight to a murder attempt as he did to the flu?
She found Dr. Ingles in his office, his door open as he sat hunched over test papers. He was a large man with a bald head and hefty paunch, and he wore a perpetual scowl. She had never had a conversation with him outside of class, so her mouth went dry. She cleared her throat and knocked on the door’s casing.
He looked up at her, then leaned back hard. “Well, well, Miss Covington. Glad to see you finally made it to school today.”
She drew in a deep breath and reminded herself that Georgians liked to hear ma’am and sir. If she could just remember to say it. “Sir, may I talk
to you?”
“You missed your test, Miss Covington. That’s unfortunate.”
She couldn’t tell him straight out that someone had tried to kill her. She didn’t want this igniting the gossip mill like wildfire. “I was leaving on time this morning, when my car caught fire. My brother waved me down and I got out before I was hurt, but I had to wait for the fire department and the police—”
His bushy eyebrows shot up. “The police?”
“Yes … sir.” Why couldn’t she just say it naturally? But the awkward sir didn’t seem to bother him. He suddenly looked interested.
“They came with the fire department. I have the police report here. It’s not a doctor’s excuse, but it proves that it happened.”
He took the report, and she hoped he would just look at the date and time and not read the officer’s scribbled handwriting at the bottom. But that was exactly where his gaze swept. She held her breath as he picked up his glasses and shoved them on, frowning as he read.
“They were there forever,” she said in a soft voice, as if calming a rabid animal. “I told them I had a test, but I had to stay until they were finished, and then the car had to be towed and I had to work out another ride. I couldn’t drive it like that.”
He didn’t seem to be listening. “Wait a moment,” he said, looking up from the yellow copy of the report. “Sit down. Start over.”
At least he was going to hear her out. She went in and sat down, set her books on the seat next to her. His office wasn’t what she often saw in college professors’ offices. His was relatively neat, free of dust, and a shiny green plant of some kind sat under his window, cared for. He had a child’s pictures tacked on a bulletin board and taped to the back of his door. His grandchild’s drawings? He seemed too old to have small children of his own. Maybe he wasn’t as scary as he seemed.
“Sounds like you’ve had a hair-raising morning. Just take a breath and start over.”