Emily tried to hold back the tears as Kent intervened for her, telling the arresting officers that he would transport her in and that she didn’t require handcuffs. At least the neighbors wouldn’t see her being marched to a police car like a lowlife criminal.
Her mother was hysterical, yelling at the cops as if they’d killed Cassandra Price and pinned it on Emily.
She tried to think. If Bo was with his mother and children all afternoon, as Kent believed, then Carter had to have done this. Surely when they found Cassandra dead, they’d checked on him first. She thought of the man with leathery skin who looked much older than he was. He’d been skinny and small, not the violent kind. But when someone was in active addiction to a drug, their body screamed out for more. And if they couldn’t get it, they were unpredictable, and anyone who got in their way could be in danger.
But this had been murder, calculated and deliberate, not a crime of passion committed because Carter had lost his temper or craved drugs. And why would he have taken the time to drive here and plant the bomb or break into their home, if drugs were all he really wanted? If he truly hated his wife, why not just divorce her? There were no children to complicate things.
“Emily.”
Emily shook out of her thoughts and looked at Kent, his image blurry through her tears. He came close, taking her face gently in his hands. Her tears rolled out and slid down her face. “Emily,” he whispered, “this may be a rough night. You may have to spend a night in jail. But I’m doing everything I can to prove you’re not involved in this. I need for you to trust God and trust me.”
She blinked back her tears and lifted her chin. “I know.”
“No, Kent!” Barbara cried. “They can’t put her in jail for something she didn’t do. You have to stop this!”
Kent let Emily go, turned to Barbara, and looked hard into her eyes. “Calm down, babe. I’ve got this.”
“She’s going to jail!” she shouted.
Lance tried to cut in now. “Mom, we’ll follow Kent in your car.”
“No,” she said. “I’m riding with them. You bring the car and meet me there.”
“Barbara, it’s probably not a good idea for you to ride with us.”
“Kent, I’m going with my daughter! Period!” She grabbed a tissue out of the box on the end table and wiped her eyes. “I don’t understand why they’d come after her! Are they crazy? Why would she go kill a woman she hardly even knows? She didn’t start this! She called the police. She did everything right!”
Emily wanted to tell her mother to calm down, but she focused all her energy on holding herself together. She had been through this before. The humiliating march into the police station, the booking, the search . . .
She lifted her chin higher. She wouldn’t die. She had survived this before. She wiped the tears off of her face. “I’m ready to go,” she muttered.
Kent walked her out to his car. Emily saw the neighbors standing clustered in their yards. Would they realize she’d been arrested, or would they just think she, Kent, and her mother were going somewhere together? Maybe it looked like a family outing.
An outing where her mother was hysterical and ranting, and police followed behind them.
She supposed she was destined to attract negative attention, no matter how long she was sober. All the hard work, all the right decisions, had done little good. Why had she agreed to move to Atlanta, where her drama had unfolded two years ago? She should have gone someplace new, someplace where they had never heard of her.
She got into the backseat, and her mother climbed in next to her. “Mom, sit up front. The neighbors won’t think anything’s wrong if you’re in the front. I don’t want to look like a convict.”
Barbara only then seemed to notice the neighbors watching them. She got out and slid into the front as Kent got behind the wheel. Was this how her mother had felt when Emily was arrested before? Always before, she’d been too loaded to care.
“Don’t let the police talk to her,” Barbara told Kent as he backed out of the driveway. “I’m getting an attorney.”
“Barbara, I am the police. And Emily has to be the one to ask for the attorney. It’s not like it was with Lance. She’s not a minor. You won’t have any rights here.”
“Then you have to protect her, Kent! You’re the one who’ll be interviewing her.”
Kent was quiet for a moment. “Not when they transport her to Birmingham.”
Barbara seemed to break down then. Emily saw her mother cover her face, her shoulders shaking. Finally, she spoke again. “Kent, please don’t let them keep her. Please. She has to get out tonight.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
Emily closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the seat. Jail. The first time she’d spent a night in jail had been a terrible experience, but this would be even worse, because she hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
Her mother drew in a deep, wet breath and took out her phone. “Kent, who should I call? I don’t know any attorneys here. Is there someone at church? Someone I could trust?”
He was silent for a moment, and Emily expected him to say that it was a conflict of interest for him to give her the name of an attorney. Instead he said, “She’ll need one licensed in Alabama for tomorrow. Call John Stead for tonight, and he can advise her about talking to us. But we’ve already got her story on record, so I’m not sure he can help.”
“I wouldn’t have let her talk to you if I’d known she was going to be considered a suspect!” Barbara’s voice was filled with contempt and accusation. “I feel tricked.”
“Mom, that’s not fair,” Emily said. “I called him.”
Emily heard Kent sigh. “You think I tricked her? That I was scheming to implicate Emily?”
“You can stop this,” Barbara bit out.
“I’m a cop, not a judge,” he returned. “I know Emily didn’t kill anybody, but the police in Birmingham don’t.”
Emily felt the dam break, and her tightly held emotions broke free. This was her fault. All her fault. And already she could see the fallout. “I’m sorry I went there, Kent,” she said. “You were right. You warned me to leave and come home, but I went ahead and confronted her. Mom, don’t blame him. He’s helping me.”
Silence overtook the car as Kent drove. Emily heard her mother’s sobbing breaths in the front seat, saw the muscle in Kent’s jaw popping in and out. Could they overcome this, or would her mother keep holding it against him?
Emily closed her eyes and prayed silently as they drove to the police station. She couldn’t lose it now. She had to get a grip. Had to take these panicked thoughts captive.
She racked her mind for something to hang onto, something that had calmed her before.
When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your love, oh Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.
Since getting out of rehab, she’d used that verse like a constant prayer, and God had always proved it true. She breathed it in, held it ballooned in her lungs, then let it flow out — the words of Scripture. More peace washed over her, and strength filtered through her body and mind.
She clung to it as they pulled up to the police station.