Downfall (An Intervention Novel)

  Only then did she realize she was still shaking. “Dr. Ingles, I’ve really tried to do well in this class. I study and read everything we’re asked to read, and I like history. It’s interesting, like a novel. I was ready for this test. But I didn’t expect the fire—”

  “It sounds as if it was more than a fire. It says something about a bomb?”

  She swallowed and looked down at her hands. “Okay, but I’d rather this didn’t get around. I have … a reputation already. But somebody taped a bomb to the bottom of my car, and when I started it, it caught fire.”

  He asked her a few questions, and she answered them as briefly as she could. “But I hope you can see that this was out of my control. Will you please let me make up the test?”

  He took off his glasses and handed the police report back to her. “Miss Covington …”

  She wanted to tell him to call her Emily, but professors had a thing about using your last name. It made her uncomfortable, like he was talking to her mother instead of her.

  “I know about your history. I followed the news stories when you were missing. I recognized you the first day you were in my class.”

  She looked at her feet. “Great.”

  He leaned forward and studied her until she met his eyes. “I’ve been inspired by your turnaround. You seem very diligent and focused now, and I find that refreshing. But this is disturbing.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said. “My mom is all freaking out because she thinks if somebody’s trying to kill me I must have gone back to drugs. But I haven’t. I’m at this school every day, and I’m keeping a B average. Trust me—when I was using, I didn’t make As and Bs. I didn’t even show up for school. A lot of the time I didn’t even qualify for Fs. I’m working really hard to stay sober, and I don’t think about drugs all the time anymore. This isn’t my fault. But meanwhile, I’ve missed an important test. Please, will you let me take a make-up?”

  “So you feel you were ready for it this morning?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. I can take it right now.”

  He stared at her, his gaze so piercing that she almost felt he could read her thoughts. “All right, Miss Covington. I have another class taking the test at noon in the same room. You can take it with them.”

  She let out her breath. “Thank you so much.” She got her books, stood. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will,” she said. “I’ll see you at noon.”

  She punched the air with a victorious fist as she left his office. Then she pulled out her phone and texted her mother. He’s letting me make up the test at noon!

  Her second class today wasn’t until one, so she had time to go to the library and focus her thoughts. If she could quit thinking about the bomb, maybe she could even pass the test.

  Chapter 11

  Barbara had loaned her car to Emily, so Kent drove her to work. He wished he could calm her fears. She had missed an important pre-presentation meeting this morning, and that wouldn’t make her look good at work. And complicating her situation further, Kent had strongly suggested that each of them keep quiet about the bomb, explaining only on a need-to-know basis. Whoever had done this was clearly looking for some kind of power, and he probably wanted word to get around. Better to have as little press and word of mouth as possible.

  Kent suspected that the bomber hadn’t really wanted to kill Emily. If he had, it would have been easy enough to do it. According to the CSI who’d worked the scene, the bomb must not have held much gasoline. If it had, the fuel tank would have gone up.

  No, whoever did this had been trying to jerk her around.

  “Are you gonna be okay?” he asked Barbara as they approached her office building.

  “Yeah, I have to be. This is a huge presentation. I can’t drop the ball on it.”

  “But you’re ready, right?”

  “I think so. The presentation is at noon. The deacon leadership and church staff are coming to our offices for a catered lunch, and we’re presenting it then.” She looked out the window, and he knew where her mind was going. “Kent, what if she’s using again? I really don’t think I can go through that again.”

  “Emily looks fine. But I never saw her when she was high.”

  “But this staying out until all hours … I haven’t wanted to give her a curfew because she’s twenty, and I know that if she were in the dorm, she’d stay out late anyway. I wanted her to stay home for just this reason. I want to make sure she’s solid enough in her sobriety before she lives away from home.”

  “Other than the late hours, you’ve had no reason to suspect her. You check her when she comes in, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but … how do you tell the difference between sleepy and loaded?”

  “You can tell, Barbara. You’ve told me yourself that when she was using, she didn’t bathe, didn’t change clothes, didn’t brush her teeth or her hair. She was a mess, didn’t go to school, didn’t come home. She’s not like that now.”

  “No, she’s not.” She took his hand, stroked it with her thumb. “You’re helping. I appreciate your perspective.”

  “Well, if you’re still suspicious, drug-test her tonight.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know how she’d take that.”

  “Her reaction will be telling. If she balks, then you’ll know she could be using. If she’s really sober, she’ll want to prove it. I can bring you a test kit tonight if you want.”

  Barbara nodded. “I guess so.” She sighed. “I hope the insurance company will pay for a rental until we can get her car checked out. I don’t like having to depend on you.”

  Kent smiled. “I like it when I can help.”

  “But you were working a case, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. A woman found dead in her bed this morning. She had two little kids. I had to tell her husband.”

  Barbara gaped at him. “Kent, I’m so sorry to pull you away from that.”

  “No problem. I can get back to it now.”

  “I’ll get Emily to pick me up this afternoon if we haven’t gotten a rental by then.”

  He turned into the parking lot and drove her to the front door. “Call me if you can’t.”

  “I’ll call a cab before I’ll take you away from hunting down a killer.”

  “I can take a minute to pick you up, Barbara.”

  She hesitated before getting out. “Do you think they got enough evidence to figure out who planted the bomb?”

  “I hope so. I’ll stay on top of that too, babe. I’ll keep you informed. Let me know immediately if anything else happens.”

  She kissed him lightly, and he watched her get out and waited until she was inside. Though he had been interrupted on his murder case, there was something he liked about being needed by a group of people he loved. They weren’t his family yet, but he felt like they were.

  He shifted in his seat and slid his hand into his pocket, felt for the ring. It was still there. When should he ask her? The middle of a puzzling murder case wasn’t the right time. And the bomb added another element of distraction. No, he wanted to ask her in a way that was memorable, when there was nothing that would shipwreck her joy.

  Driving back to the murder scene, he said a silent prayer that Emily’s circumstances this morning didn’t herald a relapse. If she had stumbled and was using again, the repercussions would be much further reaching than she knew.

  Barbara didn’t deserve that. She’d already been through way more than any mother should endure.

  Chapter 12

  Lance hated going into history late, especially when it was full of football players who loved making him look stupid.

  The door was closed, so he knocked, then stepped inside. Mr. Herman turned midsentence and held out his hand for Lance’s admittance slip. Lance gave it to him. “Sorry I’m late,” he muttered.

  “Care to explain why you are?” Mr. Herman asked.

  Lance wanted to say no, that he’d prefer not to talk in front of the w
hole stinking class, but that would only drag it out. He decided just to blurt it. “My sister’s car caught fire. Big family drama. Fire trucks and everything.”

  There. It wasn’t the whole story, but enough to get him off the hook.

  “That sounds like a valid excuse,” Herman said.

  There was a snicker across the class. “Lance has lots of family drama,” Randall, the second-string quarterback, said. “He’s a big superhero, you know.”

  Lance felt the heat in his cheeks as he dropped into his seat.

  “Yeah, Mr. Herman, he’s a CIA agent and spends his spare time fighting crime and rescuing damsels in distress.”

  The class laughed. Lance ground his molars but didn’t speak. April Pullen, his friend who sat behind him, patted his shoulder.

  “He was shot in the heart just a few months ago,” the tight end said.

  “With a silver bullet,” Randall spouted.

  Lance had learned months ago not to respond when they started down this road. But April spoke up. “Not the heart, the lungs.”

  “Oh, yeah,” the quarterback said. “The lungs. He was dead for four days, and then miraculously revived, so he could return to his life of saving the world from crime.”

  “And then these Martians landed in his backyard and beamed him up.”

  The class was enjoying this. Lance grinned, pretending he enjoyed it, too. “Randall knows ‘cause he was beamed up with me. Too bad about those brain experiments they did on him.”

  Now the class laughed with him.

  “All right, that’s enough, guys,” Herman said. “Lance, we’re glad you made it. I was just telling the students that we’re fixing to have a little quiz tomorrow.”

  Great. Lance got his book out of his backpack and opened it. He didn’t even know what chapter they were in. How would he ever pass a quiz?

  After class, he took his time packing his binder and book back in his backpack, hoping his tormenters would clear out before he left the room.

  “You okay?” April asked him.

  Lance shrugged. “Sure. Just a bad morning.”

  “Don’t let them get to you. They’re jerks.”

  More than once, he’d thought of showing them the scar on his chest, or bringing in his medical records or the newspaper articles about his kidnapping and attempted murder. But it wasn’t worth it. They could see it if they read his Facebook page, but he hadn’t wanted to friend most of them. And few of them had tried. No one had cared enough to even do a Google search about him, which would have confirmed his story. But even if they learned it was true, they’d just find something else to ride him about.

  He’d gotten off to a bad start when word got around that he was the infamous Emily Covington’s brother. Her reputation had a way of keeping the gossip mill churning.

  When Lance mentioned to a teacher in front of a class that he’d been shot in the lung last fall, word spread like wildfire that he wove these outlandish tales because he was jealous of his sister’s notoriety. He’d become the class joke. Every effort he’d made to prove the truth only made him seem more delusional. Eventually he’d quit defending himself.

  Only April, who marched to a different rhythm, had given him the time of day. But that wasn’t so bad, because April was a cute misfit. He stayed awake nights plotting how to cross the threshold from friendship to romance with her. If he could get up the nerve, he planned to ask her to homecoming.

  “Come on, Mr. Spock,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him up. “Tell me about the fire.”

  Feeling better, he got his backpack and followed her out.

  Chapter 13

  Emily found a quiet place at the library and pulled her laptop out to study. Before she loaded her notes, she signed onto Facebook. After what had happened to her today, she wanted to talk to her friends. Her page was private, and her friends were real people she knew—not the strangers who tried to friend her every day. Most of those who had access to her wall were recovering addicts themselves, some that she’d made friends with in treatment, some through AA, and some were graduates of Haven House, the program she worked for. The bomb would freak them out, but they’d be able to relate to her mother’s paranoia about a relapse. The people in their lives watched them constantly and blamed them for every negative thing that happened.

  She logged on to Facebook and saw that several of her friends were also online. She clicked on her friend Sara, whom she’d met at Haven House, and sent her an instant message.

  You won’t believe what happened to me this morning.

  Instead of taking the bait, Sara’s instant message came up. Did you hear about Bo’s wife?

  Emily frowned. She only knew one Bo. He, too, had been a resident at Haven House while Sara was there, but they’d both been out of treatment for several months.

  No, what about her?

  Sara’s answer came back quickly. She was murdered in her bed this morning!

  Emily sucked in a gasp and slid back from the computer, staring at the IM. Murdered? Bo’s wife was dead?

  She thought of those two little kids that Devon had brought to Haven House to visit him on Saturdays. One was just a baby, the other a preschooler.

  Check out this article, Sara said.

  Emily clicked on the link, and it took her to the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s website. The article had been posted online only an hour ago— “Atlanta Woman Found Murdered.”

  Devon Lawrence, 30, was found dead in her home this morning after an apparent break-in and robbery. Her four-year-old child discovered her body. Devon’s husband, William (Bo) Lawrence, 43, was notified at work at the JR’s 24/7 on Broad Street. “It looks like someone came in the side door to the carport,” he said. Several items were stolen from the home. Their 46-inch flat-panel TV was left untouched, however.

  Emily brought her hand to her mouth, unable to breathe. Poor Bo. His wife murdered … her little girl discovering her …

  He must be in shock.

  A memory assaulted her. Emily’s mouth went dry, and she looked around, making sure no one was reading over her shoulder. Her thoughts flew back to an afternoon she’d been working at Haven House, when Bo had talked about his wife.

  But surely he hadn’t meant the things he’d said.

  They’d been watching that Hitchcock movie, Strangers on a Train, in the common room. It was a slow day, since some residents had broken rules and the whole group had lost their visiting-day privilege. Since she didn’t have to check visitors in and out, she’d watched the movie with them from her desk, separated from the common area by a counter.

  In the black-and-white thriller, two strangers meet on a train and get into a conversation about the people in their lives who’ve wronged them—a promiscuous wife and an overbearing father. The Robert Walker character, Bruno, says he’d like to kill his father, but he’d never get away with it. His obvious motive would point police to him.

  Then he gets starry-eyed, and tells the other man of an idea he once had.

  “Two fellows meet accidentally, like you and me. No connection between them at all, never saw each other before. Each one has somebody that he’d like to get rid of, so they swap murders. Then there’s nothing to connect them. Each one has murdered a total stranger. Like, you do my murder, I do yours For example, your wife, my father. Criss-cross.”

  By the end of the movie, all the residents had gone out to smoke, except for Emily, Bo, and Carter. They’d laughed about the runaway merry-go-round at the climax of the flick, and Hitchcock’s trademark cameo appearance.

  Their conversation went back to the murdered wife and how she deserved what she had gotten. Then Bo had made the comment that, until now, Emily hadn’t given much thought. “It is a solution, you know. If it weren’t for my wife, I could do what I want. I can’t divorce her because she’d take the kids.”

  No, he hadn’t meant it. He’d just been blowing off steam. Hadn’t he?

  From there, Bo and Carter had begun trashing the women the
y’d once loved.

  Then Bo had said, “We could do this. I could kill your wife, Carter, and you could kill Devon. Ain’t nobody who’d figure it out. We wouldn’t even be suspects. Think about it. We live so far apart. I’ve only met your wife on visiting days here, and we ain’t said two words to each other. Nobody would suspect me if she was murdered. And you could make sure you had a rock-solid alibi, so they wouldn’t suspect you.”

  Emily didn’t find it funny. “Come on, guys.”

  Carter wasn’t smiling. “She ruined my life. Called the police on me, had me arrested.”

  “Mine, too,” Bo said. “I wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t for her.”

  “You said yourself that you had drugs in the house, out in the open where the kids could get to them,” Emily pointed out. “She did the right thing.”

  “But she started this whole thing. Judge sends me to rehab, and I’m stuck here for three months. Now I have a felony conviction, all because of her. Divorce is no good,” Bo said again. “She’d bring up my drug use and my arrests, and I’d be toast. She’d take the kids and I’d never see them. She’d poison their minds against me.”

  “Well,” Emily said with a dismissive laugh, “then of course, you have to kill her.” Shaking her head, she went around the counter and got the DVD out of the player. “They wouldn’t let you watch this movie here if they knew it was giving you ideas. You guys are insane.”

  “It could work,” Carter said to Bo. “It could actually work.”

  “Yeah,” Bo said, chuckling. “But if we do it, we have to kill Emily, too. She knows too much.”

  Emily laughed as she went back to her desk. She understood rehab talk. People with too much time on their hands often fantasized about stupid things.

  Bo stood up and looked at her over the counter. “Hey, Emily.”

  Emily turned back. “What?”

  Bo was grinning. “We could take care of somebody for you, too. Got an ex-boyfriend you’re sick of? Your mother, maybe?”

  “No thanks. I don’t sit around dreaming up murders. And the fact that you do tells me you need a lot longer than twelve weeks to get that kind of thinking out of your head.”