Emilie straightened the hemline of the black, businesslike jacket she wore over a black sheath. The ensemble felt like a uniform that didn’t quite fit. She should feel warm in the sweltering heat of a Washington, DC, August afternoon, but all she felt was a bone-level chill. She couldn’t warm up no matter how much coffee or hot tea she drank, and she felt the circling vulture of fear colliding with her shock and grief.
She caught her heel on a step and stumbled, then Taylor stepped closer to steady her as they entered the heavy wooden front door.
Emilie grabbed Taylor’s hand and squeezed tight. She would get through the next hour and then pray that the following week would bring a sea change in her rattled and battered emotions. She’d write her article over the weekend for the Nation’s Post and return to the office Monday ready to forget this week. Then she spotted an enlarged photo of Kaylene with her precious girls, and her knees threatened to buckle. Taylor immediately tightened her hold.
“You okay?”
Emilie shook her head, unable to form words, and then Taylor pulled her into a hug that she couldn’t fight any more than she could return. And they hadn’t even made it into the sanctuary. She allowed herself to soak in the comfort for a moment, then pushed back. “We should get inside.”
Emilie looked around the large entry that was filled with people in small clumps. Did all these people really know Kaylene or the girls? This was supposed to be a private service, and she’d been surprised when Taylor told her they had an invitation. Was it Kaylene’s brother’s way of testing whether she really knew his sister? A small cluster of teenagers caught her eyes. Maybe they had been friends of Kaydence.
Taylor took the lead as they moved through the anteroom to the small sanctuary.
A man stood at the doorway shuffling his feet as he tugged at his shirt cuffs. This had to be Kaylene’s brother, Reid, his face a masculine version of hers. The wariness on his face indicated his discomfort as he settled a hand on an older woman’s back. Maybe a grandmother? Kaylene had mentioned being raised by her grandparents. Reid’s brown eyes were so somber as his gaze briefly met Emilie’s that for a moment she forgot her annoyance that the man hadn’t called her back.
“Hey, girl. You ready to quit staring?” Taylor’s soft words yanked Emilie from her thoughts.
“Ummm.” The flush of heat that started at the base of her neck had nothing to do with the early-afternoon sunshine pouring through a window.
“Do you want to stop and talk to him? Confirm who he is?”
Standing slightly behind Reid was a bear of a man, his attention laser-focused on the people milling about. A bodyguard? She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out, but she did want to meet Reid.
“We’ll greet him, then find a seat.” Just then a crying woman pushed in front of them and embraced the man. The last thing Emilie wanted was to enter the emotional fray of a stranger’s grief. She tugged Taylor toward the sanctuary door. “Let’s leave them alone. We can find him after the service.”
Taylor selected a pew toward the middle, then slid in. Emilie squared her jaw. She would endure every second of the service that honored her client and friend. Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at the alert. It was a reminder that she was supposed to meet Kaylene for coffee Saturday morning. Once Robert had forced the girls to stop piano lessons, the two women had squeezed their consultations in when Kaylene was shopping, giving her plausible deniability if Robert asked where she’d been.
Emilie’s eyes clouded with tears as she cleared the alert, then fixed her gaze on the pulpit. There was no casket or viewing. This was a time to remember Kaylene and start the process of letting go.
The service passed in a blur of meaningless words from a pastor who didn’t know Kaylene. The man tried, Emilie had to acknowledge, but he missed the essence of what had made the woman so special. The way she’d found a courage deep inside, her all-encompassing love for her girls, the little ways she’d found to begin reclaiming her life. He was followed by two people, but she could tell they felt lost and confused. The reality of Kaylene’s death overshadowed their memories of her. How could any of them match the woman they knew and loved with the reality of her death? The images they had with her were superimposed with Monday’s grainy video.
The moment the service ended after a mournful song, Emilie was too glad to let Taylor drag her outside. “I think I’m going to start the weekend early.” She didn’t have the strength to talk to other women with struggles like Kaylene’s. Not today. “I’ve got to write an article.”
“The one that’s refusing to cooperate?”
Emilie nodded, her throat constricting.
Taylor pulled her sunglasses down from her hair. “I’ll check e-mail over the weekend in case you need anything for Monday’s deposition in Virginia Beach. Don’t forget Tuesday’s hearing. We can finish prepping for that over the phone if it helps.”
“I haven’t forgotten the hearing.” Emilie tried to smile. “I’ll get this article knocked out and then be ready to dive back in.”
Emilie climbed into her car and drove home. As soon as she walked inside, she tossed her purse on the kitchen counter and poured a glass of iced mint tea. The refreshing coolness soothed her as she gulped it down. She slipped downstairs and changed into a comfortable maxi dress with a cardigan. The lower temperature of the basement should help wake her up and get her mind moving. The shadows felt deep, and even a dozen lit lavender and vanilla scented candles couldn’t chase the gloom from her space. She turned on instrumental praise and worship, but it couldn’t press back the weight of grief and guilt.
Before she could get down to the business of writing, she had to make sure Rhoda was okay with her spontaneous afternoon off. She went back upstairs and retrieved her purse from the kitchen, pausing to dig for her phone.
When she couldn’t find it, she gave up and dumped the contents on the counter. As she reached to snag a tube of lipstick rolling toward the edge, she spied a folded piece of stiff paper. She opened it and stared.
I HAVEN’T DISAPPEARED FROM YOUR LIFE
Emilie reread the note, the block letters swimming along the page.
She flipped it over but saw nothing distinguishing about the paper, nothing to indicate where it had come from.
Was this someone’s idea of a bad joke?
It must have been slipped into her purse at the memorial, since she’d cleaned out all the paper detritus before the service. Who would have done it? There were enough people present that there was no way she could know who had left the note for her. She slipped it into the junk drawer. Should she contact the police? Though the note caused her pulse to race, she knew that no one else would take such a benign message seriously. They’d discount her concerns, as they had before. She closed the drawer with a sigh and headed back downstairs.
Until last April, article ideas and the actual writing had flowed in a steady stream. Now her mind refused to cooperate. She’d turned in a few pieces, but not nearly of the quality she’d produced before, and her editor was placing enormous pressure on her to up her game. No one seemed to understand that stumbling onto a scandal like the one involving the son of a Mexican drug lord murdered at his father’s order while in US custody was a once-in-a-lifetime scenario. Not to mention that she’d only gotten on to the story through Hayden’s involvement in the case. How was Emilie supposed to replicate a coup like that without her own life being threatened? No one else seemed to consider that when they demanded more from her.
Each time she sat frozen at her computer, her panic grew.
Time and deadline extensions were expiring, and she didn’t know how to recover.
An hour later Emilie still stared at a blank screen as her emotions roiled.
Enough.
She must write this article.
She plugged in her noise-canceling headphones and took a deep breath. Her editor expected a blazing exposé on a pork barrel bill careening through the Senate. Instead, she wanted to write an essay about how blind people were to the crisis of domestic violence. Yeah, her editor would love that.
Words had always been Emilie’s strength. She could string them together in a way that changed judges’ minds and congressmen’s hearts. But tonight she couldn’t get two words to make sense, let alone make the legislation interesting.
Nothing filled her mind but Kaylene’s image.
She knew she could not write in any way about the Adams family. Rhoda had been crystal clear. It didn’t matter that Emilie’s thoughts were locked on the tragedy and how to avoid a repeat. If she wanted to continue to help women through the Haven, she had to focus on her clients, not the larger realm of public opinion. Her two careers had to remain separate.
If only her mind could agree.
Pushing back from her desk, Emilie stood and then took the stairs two at a time. She’d get her blood moving and then her brain would cooperate. She grabbed a pair of tennis shoes from beside the back door and dropped her cardigan. Two minutes later she was on the sidewalk, arms swinging, as she took off for the Potomac, stretching her stride against the restraint of her maxi dress. A little time outside would help.
Questions filled her mind as she walked. Where had God been when Kaylene and her girls needed Him? Wasn’t He the protector of the innocent and defenseless?
When she returned to the town house after walking a couple miles, sweat pooling at the small of her back, the air-conditioning smacked her. Before she headed back downstairs, maybe she should find something enticing in the fridge. She opened the door and then stared at the containers and bottles.
While she might believe Kaylene would never try to murder her girls, long experience with her shelter clients had proven the unexpected and unthinkable could happen at any moment. People who were adamant they could never go home, did. Women who swore they’d never let an abuser near their kids, did. And the abused snapped.
She also couldn’t ignore the video images. They were irrefutable, at least in the court of public opinion. Would the police talk to her? Probably not, since she was an attorney without a client. But maybe Detective Gaines would. He’d at least told her about Kaylene on Monday.
She pulled out her phone and left a message for him. Since it was already Friday afternoon, she doubted she’d hear from him over the weekend. But maybe on Monday she would. And maybe then she could accept the truth.
Emilie rubbed the back of her neck where tension had gathered. She had to do something to distract herself. As long as she stayed focused on Kaylene, she was a frozen wreck.