Downfall

by Terri Blackstock

  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 they’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.”

  When she’d gone home that night, she’d thought it was all a big, creepy joke.

  But maybe it wasn’t. Devon was really dead. And Emily knew too much.

  Emily slammed her computer shut, as if that would make the situation go away.

  What if Bo and Carter had gone from joking around to seriously plotting their wives’ murders? And what if they were behind the bomb this morning? She was probably the only one who could link them to the crimes. It made sense that, if they were going to pull off these murders, they’d want to make sure she didn’t talk.

  Yes, it all made sense. It couldn’t be a coincidence that some stranger had murdered Bo’s wife the day a bomb was planted under Emily’s car. She twisted her hair around her finger.

  What about Carter’s wife? Where did they live? She racked her brain, thinking. She’d met his wife a couple of times. She’d come from Birmingham to see him. Emily opened her computer, googled the Birmingham newspaper, and pulled up the obituaries. She typed Carter’s last name, “Price,” into the search box. Nothing came up.

  It could be too soon. She went to the home page, scanned the list of articles posted today. Nothing about a woman being murdered in Birmingham. Maybe she was still alive.

  Fear filtered through her. Carter’s wife was in danger.

  She grabbed her phone and punched in 911. Then she clicked it off. If she told the police, what would they do? This was out of Atlanta’s jurisdiction. One of the crimes hadn’t happened yet. How could she prove it?

  Kent! She would tell him.

  “Emily?” The girl’s voice behind her made her jump, and she looked up to see a friend from her algebra class. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I was just studying.”

  “Didn’t mean to scare you. You look awful.”

  She suddenly realized sweat was glistening on her face. “I’m fine. Just a little hot in here.”

  “Feels cold to me. They must spend a fortune on air conditioning.”

  Emily watched the girl walk away. She checked her watch. The test was in an hour. What was she going to do? She had to tell somebody about the murder plot. She couldn’t just let this go.

  She pulled out her phone and clicked on Kent’s number. His voicemail came up. She thought of leaving a message, but the whole thing sounded too bizarre. She would wait until she could reach him and explain.

  Quickly, she went back to Facebook, found Carter’s page. She found his wife’s name — Cassandra — but there was no phone number or address. She typed in White-Pages.com and entered “Carter Price.” In seconds, she had a phone number and address.

  Her heart pounded as she did a computer search for the phone number at the closest precinct to Carter’s house in Birmingham. She wrote it on her hand, then packed her stuff back up. She couldn’t make this call in the library, where everyone around her could hear.

  Outside, she went around to the side of the building, set her backpack down, and made the call. Her hands shook as she keyed in the number.

  “South Precinct.”

  Emily cleared her throat. “Uh . . . I’d like to report a crime. Or . . . a possible crime.” She rubbed her forehead. “Is there a detective I could talk to?”

  “Ma’am, if you have a crime to report, we could send a patrol officer to take your statement.”

  She paused as someone passed by, then when they were out of earshot, said, “No, I’m out of town. But I have to tell someone what I know.”

  She held while she was transferred to the Investigative Operations Bureau. A woman answered. “Detective Stone.”

  Suddenly Emily froze. She forced the words out. “Um . . . I asked the person who answered to connect me with a detective, because I have a crime to report.”

&n
bsp; “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  She knew they wouldn’t take her seriously if she did this anonymously. “Emily Covington. I live in Atlanta.” She hoped the detective didn’t recognize her name. “I’d appreciate it if my name were kept out of this. Someone planted a bomb under my car this morning and I think it might be related to this.”

  “A bomb? Did you report it to police?”

  “Yes, I did.” She let out a breath. “But that’s not the crime I want to report. See, I work at this drug rehab on Saturdays . . .”

  “Okay,” the woman said, impatience flattening her tone.

  Emily closed her eyes. She was getting this all out of order. “No, wait. First, I have to tell you that there was a murder here in Atlanta this morning. A guy I know who was a resident at the rehab . . . it was his wife.”

  “That’s not our jurisdiction. You should call — ”

  “No, just listen. I think someone in Birmingham is going to be murdered next.”

  Silence, then, “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “A few months ago when I was at work, some of the residents were watching Strangers on a Train. Have you seen that movie?”

  Detective Stone sighed. “Ma’am, could you get to the point? What crime has been committed?”

  She paced as she spoke. “The movie is part of this. It’s about two guys who talk about swapping murders, right? One guy suggests that he’ll kill the other guy’s wife, if the other character will kill his father. So after we watched the movie, these two guys came up with this hare-brained scheme to kill each other’s wives. I thought they were joking, but today I find out that one of the wives is dead.”

  There was a pause. “What’s the name of the woman who’s dead?”

  “Devon Lawrence. But like I said, she was here in Atlanta. The other wife lives in Birmingham. I’m afraid she might be next. Her name is Cassandra Price, and her husband is Carter Price. I think he’s going to kill his wife! Or . . . not him, but the other guy. The one whose wife is already dead. Bo Lawrence from Atlanta.”

  The woman was quiet again. Emily hoped she was taking notes. “Okay, so you think they’re going to kill each other’s wives. We have no jurisdiction over an Atlanta case, and nothing has happened here yet if I’m understanding you.”

  “Do you really want to wait until she’s dead? She’s a nice woman, but her husband has a drug history. He may not be thinking clearly. Isn’t there something you can do?”

  The woman didn’t answer. “Ma’am, could you tell me how we can contact you?”

  Emily hesitated. “I gave you my name, and my number is on your caller ID. Are you going to do anything about this or not?”

  “I’ve taken down the information you’ve given me. I’ll have someone patrol that area.”

  “The reason I asked for a detective is that I thought you might be able to go by and warn the wife. I thought you might be able to look into where Carter was when the Atlanta woman was murdered.”

  “Yes.” There was a long pause again. What was she doing? Waving another detective to her desk to get a load of this insane story?

  “Well, thank you for the information, Miss Covington. We’ll follow up.”

  Hope flowered in her stomach. “Will you really? And you’ll do it fast, since it could happen any time?”

  “Ma’am, give me your contact information.”

  What were they going to do? Come pick her up? She wanted to hang up, but she knew they already had everything they would need to find her. She gave them her address and phone number, then hung up. What if the woman hadn’t taken her seriously? The story was too confusing, too outrageous. What if they didn’t act in time? What if Carter’s wife wound up dead, and there was something Emily could have done about it?

  But she already had done something. Still, she couldn’t count on the Birmingham police. How did she know they would stop Carter and Bo?

  And the bomb . . .

  Would Bo have taken the time to plant the bomb, letting his own children find their mother’s body? Or had it been Carter? Carter only lived two hours away.

  If Emily called and warned Carter’s wife, what would Carter do? Maybe he’d realize it was too late and get cold feet, knowing that any attempts on his wife’s life would be traced back to him. It might save this woman’s life. But then he and Bo might come after Emily with a vengeance.

  This whole thing was ludicrous. Was it even possible that these men who seemed to like Emily would want to kill her now? Yes, they were addicts, but they’d seemed like good guys when they were sober.

  But there was no guarantee they’d stayed sober. In fact, they probably hadn’t.

  She closed her eyes. This was a test, she thought, even bigger than her sobriety. This test demanded that she do the right thing.

  She tried calling Kent again. For the second time, his voicemail kicked in. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she waited for the beep. “Kent, this is Emily. Please call me. I might know who planted the bomb.” She paused, then said, “It’s a guy in Birmingham named Carter Price. I just talked to the police there. Call me and I’ll tell you everything.”

  She hung up and thought of calling her mother. She checked her watch. Her mom would be setting up for the presentation by now, and she was probably already welcoming the church people in. She didn’t want to mess her up again, not on such an important day. Her mother had lost her entire business because of all the emergencies that drew her away when Emily was using. Now she had a second chance at a job she loved, and this was the account that would give her job security for several years, if they won the bid.

  Besides, she’d insist that Emily just sit still and do nothing. And Carter’s wife could die.

  Emily’s heart raced as she sat on the steps next to the side door of the library. Maybe if she just called Cassandra and talked to her for a minute, warned her what had happened, she could save her life. But what if Carter answered?

  If he did, she would tell him that she was letting him know about Bo’s wife. Maybe somehow she could convey to him, without saying it, that she knew what he was up to.

  Not allowing herself any more time to think it through, she called the number.

  It rang once, twice . . .

  . . . three times . . . four . . .

  Finally the voicemail clicked on. It was Cassandra’s soft, southern voice. “We’re not here right now, but leave a message.”

  Now what? Should she leave a message? It was better than nothing.

  Emily waited for the beep, cleared her throat. “Uh . . . Cassandra, I’m calling to warn you that something bad might happen to you. I think your husband is planning to have you killed. I know this sounds freaky, but please get out of town, and don’t trust anybody.” She hung up, willing her heart to stop hammering against her sternum.

  No, she should have said more. Why couldn’t she think better on her feet?

  Unbidden, that old familiar craving roared up inside, making her long for something to calm her nerves.

  Quickly, she snatched the thought back. No, she wouldn’t let her mind go there. She wasn’t in bondage to drugs anymore. They muddled her thoughts, loosened her inhibitions. They’d almost destroyed her life.

  She was a new person. But she was still carrying that old Emily on her back. No matter what she did, she couldn’t shake it off entirely. But she couldn’t be deterred by her cravings or her pain. Cassandra Price’s life might depend on her.

  She shoved the laptop into her backpack. She’d have to bail on the test. She headed to the parking lot and got in her mother’s car. She started it, then realized she had to at least call Dr. Ingles.

  Like everyone else she’d called today, his recorded voice answered. She waited for the beep. “Dr. Ingles, this is Emily Covington. I wanted to let you know that something has come up about what happened this morning, and I have to go take care of it. I’m not going to be able to take the test at noon. I hope you’ll give me another chance.” Her voice broke. “I’m really s
orry, Dr. Ingles. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She hung up and wiped her face, knowing her professor wouldn’t believe her. He would think she just wasn’t prepared, that she was giving him a creative load of bull, a step up from my dog ate my homework or my grandmother died.

  It didn’t matter. This wasn’t about her. She had to put Cassandra first. She had to go to Birmingham and save Cassandra’s life.

  Chapter 14

  To Lance, the school cafeteria was a smorgasbord of anxiety. He walked into it each day full of dread, unless he saw April saving a place for him. Then he breathed out ten pounds of relief, hopeful that he could survive the half hour.

  Today he didn’t know if she planned to eat. She’d been depressed about problems between her parents and claimed she had no appetite most of the time. He looked around at the cliques sitting together — the proverbial popular girls hunched in gossip circles, the jocks nearby trying to get their attention, the weedheads munching with groggy eyes, the misfits huddled defensively together or scattered on the edges of the other groups.

  Though he used to be a jock at his old school and had never given that status a second thought, Lance figured he fit the misfits most closely now. Funny how one move could change your whole life.

  But he hoped he hadn’t been quite as oblivious in Jeff City. His youth group at church had breached some of those walls, so he’d been friends with people from every group. At least, he thought he had. But maybe he just hadn’t noticed the ones in pain on the outskirts of the crowd, longing for a place to belong.

  The church they had chosen here was smaller, with a youth group that wasn’t as close. So the class warfare carried into it, too, making him less drawn to it.

  Gratitude relaxed him as he saw a hand waving over the crowd, trying to get his attention. April, saving him a seat. He waved and got his tray, then went toward her, his eyes on the seat next to her. But before he could get there, a bad-news dude named Tyson took the seat.

  Lance’s stomach sank. Tyson was one of those people who should have graduated from high school two years ago, but petty things like jail kept getting in his way. He could have taken his GED and been done with it, but Lance suspected he was here because the school was a prime drug market, and Tyson considered himself an entrepreneur. Lance thought of sitting somewhere else, but he couldn’t leave April to Tyson’s fake charm. He took the seat across from her. “Hey, what’s up?”