As discouragement sank its talons into her, Emily wished she had died of an overdose back in her drug days. Her mom never would have had her memories stained by the trauma that had poisoned their lives for the past several years, or the fallout that continued long after she’d vowed to stay sober.
She wasn’t going to see the judge today, so she would have to stay in jail at least one more night. And if the judge didn’t set bond, she would stay indefinitely.
The sounds of steel doors sliding shut vibrated through Emily’s head, her back, her swollen foot. Murder. When she got up yesterday morning, she never would have believed it.
How had a simple movie prompted such an evil sequence of events?
She sat down at the steel table in her cell. Her new Birmingham cellmate — who mercifully was not the crazy woman who tripped her — was out on the work crew. On the desk was a stack of paper and envelopes that the county had given her. She had a pen without a case, just the bendable cartridge and the metal tip. Did they think they’d stab each other with the plastic casing?
She thought of Cass and realized that was a possibility. She was thankful they’d put the woman in lockdown. She should be thankful for the precautions, even on the pens.
Two shrieking, catty voices rose over the noise outside her cell, and profanity flew as something crashed. An alarm sounded and doors clanged open. Guards came running in to break up the fight.
She went to the open doorway and stared out at the common area where the inmates congregated. The guards were forcing two women to the ground, dragging them across the floor. She supposed they’d be taken to lockdown, too. Maybe things would be quiet for a while.
The bond for murder was always high. Her mom would never be able to post it. Even the percentage required — ten, fifteen percent? — would be way more than they could afford.
All this would further damage her reputation, even after they found the real killer. Once word got out that she’d been arrested for killing Cassandra Price, and she was declared a person of interest in Devon Lawrence’s murder, her mother’s job would be toast. The architects would have to cut her loose to keep their clients from walking.
But the damage may have already been done. Guilt-by-association would taint her entire family, no matter how innocent they were.
These thoughts weren’t getting her anywhere. She had to take them captive. Her cellmate’s paperback Bible sat on the desk, and she opened it and thumbed through to Genesis 37, where Joseph’s cruel brothers had thrown him into a pit because they were jealous of him. They had sold him like a piece of property, forcing him into a life of slavery.
She’d studied Joseph’s story in rehab and had taken copious notes about what she’d learned. It had never occurred to her then that she would need it now. But the similarities stunned her.
Joseph had been wrongfully punished, too. But as a slave, Joseph worked hard and was trustworthy, and ultimately was put in charge of his master’s affairs. He didn’t whine about his state or the fact that he’d been unfairly sold into bondage.
Then he, like Emily, was falsely accused and thrown into prison. Had he felt like Emily did now, sitting in a cell and wondering how it had come to this? Had he pled with God for rescue? Had he plotted his escape?
The Bible didn’t say. All it said was that he rolled up his sleeves and got to work, and every job he was given he did to the best of his ability, until finally, he was put in charge of all the inmates. He was a man of integrity, and that integrity guided him even in the darkest places. He worked for the Lord, not for men, so he did his best no matter what he was given to do. He’d stayed in prison for years — all for something he hadn’t done.
Emily closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, then got up and went back to the door to her cell, and gazed out on all the prisoners in the common area, some tough and dangerous, others quiet and grief-stricken, playing cards or reading or doing push-ups or trash-talking. What if God made her suffer through this?
She wondered if Joseph ever felt abandoned by God. How had he managed to trust his creator so?
The story, better than any novel, had climaxed when famine hit, and his brothers came to Egypt to buy food. Instead of hatred and revenge, he gave them gifts and forgave them. “What you intended for evil,” he said, “God intended for good.”
Emily closed the Bible and tried once again to imagine what good could come from her own story. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t see it. Lives would be devastated if she had to stay here. Her mom and Lance would be humiliated and crushed. Her Christian witness, which she’d worked hard on during these months of sobriety, would be tainted.
Maybe she just didn’t have the kind of integrity that Joseph had. After all, she had succumbed to the lure of drug addiction. On her worst day, she was really no better than Bo or Carter. She had lied and stolen and cheated to keep her drugging lifestyle going. No, she’d never killed anyone. But she probably deserved much more jail time than she’d gotten.
The realization made her feel hopeless. She stretched out on her rack and laid her wrist over her eyes. God knew of failure. He had watched David, who really had killed a man after getting the guy’s wife pregnant . . . Peter, who’d betrayed Jesus three times . . . Paul, who’d murdered Christians . . . Mary Magdalene, who’d been a wild child.
Yet they had all been exalted people of faith, talked about for centuries. If they could do it, Emily could. She could still do this, even if God didn’t clear her. And if he didn’t, there would be a reason. A purpose that she would let him fulfill.
She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her palms against her eyes. “God, whatever happens, please don’t leave me. I want to be someone you’re proud of. Someone who doesn’t humiliate my family. I trust you with whatever you’re about to do.”
But the ceiling seemed stone cold. She only hoped her prayers took wing.