In the Presence of My Enemies (An Emily O'Brien novel #5)

By M.R. Miller

Carolyn Mercer is desperate. Her perfect life is about to be ruined unless she falls in line with a self-help group she joined with her new husband. Backed into a corner, she can think of only one person to help her escape her situation – reporter Emily O’Brien, a friend of her ex-husband who blames her for the breakup.
While the two aren’t exactly enemies, they’ve never been friends. Still, Carolyn’s problem isn’t one Emily can leave her to face on her own. Joining the group to see if she can dig up some dirty laundry, Emily finds more than just con men bilking the gullible. The leaders have tapped into dark forces and they will go to any lengths to get what they want.
The deeper she gets, the higher the stakes, with Emily needing to call on her faith to find a way out. But, despite her best efforts, Emily’s intervention leads to deadly repercussions, for her, for Carolyn and for the people they love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.R. Miller
• Release date: Dec 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311968616

M.R. Miller

I was a journalist for about twelve years with a daily newspaper in the Midwest and am now the author of the Emily O’Brien series. When I’m not writing, I enjoy reading, hiking, cooking, gardening and spending time with my family.

Book preview

Prologue

The candlelight did little to pierce the darkness surrounding him, but he didn’t mind. He preferred the blanket of night that enveloped him, that protected him, that gave him strength.

He lifted the vial from the small storage container he kept in his refrigerator. It was cold, and the dark liquid moved sluggishly against the glass. He held the bottom of the vial over the candle, letting the flame warm it. He swirled the container lightly to distribute the warmth.

When it reached room temperature, he opened the vial and tilted it ever so slightly until a drop fell on his fingertip. He studied the blood, which in the light from the candle appeared black rather than red.

He lifted and tasted the coppery drop, savoring the flavor. So many fools were squeamish about blood, not realizing the power there. Blood contained life, and sampling the blood of his enemies gave him power over them.

He smiled slightly, returning the vial to its container and storing it again in the fridge. He paced the dark room’s edges, looking out the large windows to the streets below, still feeling the power of the blood in his veins.

His master was pleased, he knew, with his progress. He had perfectly calculated each step to reach his goal, to bring glory to his cause. He was headed to the ultimate battle, to prove that it was Baal and not Jehovah that was all powerful.

In this day, in this age, in this country, he would show who was really Lord. All he needed was the right opportunity.

Chapter 1

I shut the lid to my laptop feeling like a loser, a loser who was stuck in neutral waiting for something that probably wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t go forward. I couldn’t go back. I was just stuck. Frustrated. Sad. Pathetic.

Since November, I had been writing to Brian Kozlowski, writing lots of emails about my problems and my bad days, about funny anecdotes from work or time with my friends. But all of those messages were still sitting in the draft folder on my laptop because I would never send them. I couldn’t seem to make myself stop writing even though I knew it was probably psychotic.

I looked out the window to the snow-covered landscape that meant winter was still in high gear. I had errands to run today, Saturday, but I really didn’t want to go outside. If I wasn’t out of coffee and laundry detergent – with several piles of clothes waiting to be washed – I would have just made do with the meager provisions in my cupboards.

I put my laptop on the desk in my office, and then went down the hall to get a shower. I turned the water up to almost scalding, and that seemed to help wake me to the fact that I had a life to live outside of Brian. It was time to just let him go.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that. We’ll see what happens next time you get the urge to write an email.

I sighed. To help shift mental gears, I decided to prepare a grocery list in my head instead. I also needed stamps and to get gas. I might even pay to take my Jeep to the car wash, though the more I thought about it I decided it was a waste of fifteen dollars. The Jeep’s clear-coat finish was peeling off on the hood and the doors. No rust yet but I expected bubbles on the fenders any day now. The salt Illinoisans used on their roads was notoriously bad for cars and mine definitely looked it. I decided to dress warm and just pay two bucks to spray it off myself.

As I toweled off, my mind wandered to other errands I might have when I realized it was the last day of January. That meant I needed to get my registration sticker from the DMV. Crap. Why hadn’t I remembered to send the paperwork in to get it through the mail? Or gone online? Now I was stuck going to the most poorly manned office that the government had ever spawned on the absolute worst day of the month.

I dropped a not-so-nice word as I hung up my towel. I stuck my head out the door so I could see the clock in the kitchen. It was quarter to eight. If I really hurried, I could get there when the doors opened and maybe at least be at the beginning, rather than the end, of the line. I skipped drying my hair and just pulled it in a pony tail. I put on a sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes, grabbing my purse and digging through my desk for the stupid registration form. With that in hand and the dog in the basement, I ran out to the garage and started the Jeep. It made a funny little hiccup that I decided to ignore. Then I backed out of the driveway and hurried through town.

When I got to the DMV, it was even worse than I feared. The lot was full. I snagged one of the last spots and pushed my way into the crowded lobby. The doors had just opened and the woman behind the counter was reminding everyone to take a number. I looked to the wall where the numbers hung. Great. I was twenty-three. I looked behind the counter and only three people were working. This was going to take forever. I found a spot in the waiting area near the back, sat down and slouched in my seat, stretching my legs out in front of me. I reached in my purse to get out my book. I always carried one in my purse, mostly because of my job.

As a reporter for a small-town newspaper, I could spend an inordinate amount of time waiting, sitting in the hallway while a school board was meeting in closed session, having a seat while a source finished up a phone call even though I was on time for my scheduled interview, stuff like that.

During my first four years at the Winston Chronicle, I’d spent most of that waiting time in schools. As the education reporter, I covered board meetings, and those almost always involved a closed session portion of the meeting. Translation: I had to wait in the hall. Now, I had a little less time to wait. I was about three months into my new beat, covering crime. The reassignment had not been my idea. When my friend and coworker had been murdered this past fall, my boss had decided I was the logical person to take her place. Logical because I’d spent seven years working the crime beat for the Chicago Daily Journal where I’d made a name for myself before I got married. Back then I was Lee Walker, and I’d been a heartless wench who hadn’t minded wallowing in the dirt. I was good enough with a gun that I wasn’t afraid of some punk who threatened to look me up after I covered his arraignment for raping an old woman at the train station. The problem was I also hadn’t cared about other people in general.

I’d already grown tired of that lifestyle when I met Alex. I had planned to bury the name Lee Walker, along with my past, and live happily ever after. That would have worked just fine had Alex not been murdered two years ago. Now it was back to just me, but this time around I had a lot more people who cared about me. My church, friends, even family now. God had certainly changed things in my life. Which is why I shouldn’t be so grumpy about sitting at the DMV.

Number eight, the woman behind the counter called. I sighed. Nope, I couldn’t quite get myself in a good mood today, blessings or not.

After about a half hour of reading, I glanced up and began looking at the other people in the lobby. The line was now up to number seventeen, which was good. Barring anyone coming to the counter with some complicated problem, I should be out of here soon.

I noticed a woman a row ahead kept glancing over her shoulder at me. She was in her late forties, early fifties with wiry brown hair and a perpetual frown. She looked vaguely familiar. I tried to place her but I came up empty. She didn’t look friendly so I decided it was probably better if I didn’t remember her anyway.

After another ten minutes, her glances had changed from frowning to outright hostility. She clearly knew me and apparently our encounter had not been a positive one. When our eyes met, she sat up straighter and jutted her chin in my direction, whispering something to the woman next to her who appeared to be her mother.

Number twenty-one.

The woman got up and stalked over to me, not caring that she knocked over someone’s cup of coffee resting near his feet or that she stepped on a man’s foot as she stomped down her work boots in her effort to reach me.

You, she screeched, pointing a finger with a talon-like nail in my face. You have no right to even show your face in public, you blood-sucking vulture.

Oh boy. I didn’t know what to say but I was now mentally going through my last few visits to the courtroom for trial coverage. When someone called you blood-sucking or a vulture, especially both in the same sentence, it usually meant you wrote something they didn’t like in the paper. Now that I was on the crime beat, that happened more than when I was just in the schools.

My Stevie would never in a million years do those things you wrote about him. Not ever. You’re just looking for something to sell that rag of a paper you work for.

Stevie. She must have meant Steven Glowicki. He’d been arrested a month or so ago for trying to pick up a thirteen-year-old girl online and get her to meet him for sex. Only the thirteen-year-old was actually a police officer. Little Stevie had been a little upset when he showed up at the park where he was soon met with black and whites placing him under arrest. His car had a stack of kiddy porn in the back seat and a rape kit in case the thirteen-year-old wasn’t ready to give up her virginity. I’d covered his first court appearance last week, where his mother had sat front and center.

Ma’am, I began.

Filthy, perverted mind to even think such things, let alone write them. Do you realize he’ll never get a job in this crummy town now? You’ve ruined him.

I closed my eyes and tried to remain calm, though that was becoming increasingly difficult with so many people now staring. The women working the counter at the DMV apparently didn’t hear or didn’t care about what was going on so no such luck getting her thrown out of the place.

Trampy, little whore. Someday you’re going to get yours, she screamed.

I was still okay. Until she shoved me.

Then I reacted.

I reached up and grabbed her wrist before she could shove me again. I was done being patient.

Ma’am, your son is in jail because he made some very bad decisions that put him there. I didn’t make those decisions for him. I didn’t force him to troll the Internet for a young girl. I didn’t force him to meet her at a park. What I did was my job, keeping the public informed about crimes in the community. Trust me; I didn’t enjoy writing about your son’s dirty mind.

She pulled her wrist out of my grip. How dare you touch me! Did you see her grab me? She began looking around for support and while there were a few nods, most people just rolled their eyes.

She…

Look, lady, give it a rest, the guy with the spilled coffee said. She didn’t do nothin’ to you. Now go sit down. No one wants to hear about your kid’s problems. It’s bad enough we got to sit here on a Saturday morning.

Number twenty-three.

I got up and walked away from Mrs. Glowicki. Thanks, I said over my shoulder to the guy with the spilled coffee. As I walked to the counter, I glanced back to see she’d returned to her seat, though she was still glaring at me. I bought my sticker and left, glad to be out of there.

I finished my errands. Then I went home to put my groceries away and finally get my laundry off the floor and into my closet and drawers. I tried to put Mrs. Glowicki out of my mind, but a nagging voice kept reminding me that this was why I had wanted to stick with the education beat. Soon I was feeling sorry for myself again. I should have just stayed home and paid extra for buying my sticker late. I didn’t want to do this again, the crime beat. But it was too late now. Bill Marshall, managing editor at the Chronicle, had hired a new education reporter, and Sarah was doing great.

After I’d finished my housework, I changed into sweats and flopped onto the couch to watch TV. No baseball yet so after flipping through the channels twice, I settled for an old Bruce Willis action flick I hadn’t seen for awhile and spent the next hour mindlessly watching it. I was just thinking about making some popcorn when my doorbell rang.

I shut off the TV and absently straightened my pony tail, which was probably a mess since I had been stretched out on the couch. I opened the door and just stared, suddenly very conscious of my grubby clothes and flyaway hairs. I had a flashback to my high school days when I was a tomboy and religiously teased by one of the school’s beauty queens. Different person but the discomfort level was the same.

Hello, Emily. I hope I haven’t come at a bad time.

Carolyn Mercer was the definition of poise and sophistication, even in jeans. Her jacket was open, revealing a cashmere V-neck sweater framed by a necklace with a pendant that I was pretty sure was a real diamond. Her high-heeled boots were leather and her dark-washed jeans were cut to flawlessly show her figure. They probably were made by some designer I had never heard of and cost more than I earned in a month.

No, it’s fine. Come in.

She stepped inside, glancing curiously at my home. Once upon a time, when Alex was still alive, he and I had socialized with his best friend, Craig Caldwell, and his wife, Carolyn. Back then we’d lived in a farm house about twenty minutes outside of Winston. It wasn’t long after we’d met that Craig and Carolyn broke up because she met someone else. It had been a messy divorce, and Craig had never really recovered. Just saying Carolyn’s name made him grimace like he ate a bug.

It’s very nice, she said of my new place.

How did you find me?

I have my ways, she replied, giving me an enigmatic smile, followed by a chuckle. Actually, I just asked around. I still have some connections here.

That didn’t exactly inspire any warm and fuzzy feelings, but I decided not to dwell on it. I offered her a seat in my living room.

Coffee? Coke? Water?

No, I’m fine.

She sat primly on the edge of my recliner so I went back to my seat on the couch. I couldn’t figure out why she was here. We’d never really been friends, only thrown together because our husbands had been pals. We suffered through some long dinners, trips to the symphony and a disastrous attempt at playing golf before the guys decided it was better for them to hang out on their own. Actually, some of that may have had to do with Carolyn spending long hours in her family’s downtown Chicago apartment while she was working in the public relations department of her father’s very large law firm, a firm Craig had adamantly refused to join. Eventually, she found someone who would – I thought his name was Dane or Dean, but I wasn’t sure.

Well, I said to fill the awkward silence. What brings you out this way?

She opened her mouth, and then closed it, crossing her legs and shifting in the chair. You know, I think I will have some coffee.

I got up and put a pot on to brew, glancing at her as I took out two mugs, the half-and-half and a bowl of sugar.

Anything in your coffee?

Cream and sugar, thanks.

I nodded and made up her mug the same way I did mine. As I waited for the coffee to finish brewing, I stood in the archway between my kitchen and living room. My black Lab, Marty, had moved his lazy butt out of my bedroom when he’d heard company was here – he hadn’t had time to bark incessantly – and now had his head planted on Carolyn’s lap. A bit horrified that she might not like being drooled on, I began to shoo him off, but she waved me away.

He’s fine. Such a pretty boy, she said in baby talk. Yes, such a pretty boy.

Yuck. But Marty just lapped it up. I went back to the kitchen and glanced across the hall to my room. The cat was sleeping on my pillow. I knew she wouldn’t come out for a stranger so I was safe from any potential embarrassment there.

The coffee was done so I poured the two cups and brought them to the coffee table in the living room. I ordered Marty to get in a corner, which he did reluctantly. I handed Carolyn her mug, sat down and waited. She sipped the coffee quietly for a few minutes, took a deep, quaky breath and began.

I need your help.

I raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t been expecting that at all.

"My help?"

Yes. I don’t know who else to ask. I’m afraid Dean … and I … may be in a bit of trouble. Or not. I’m not sure. But I need someone to help me, and I thought of you.

Me? You’re kidding, right? What kind of help are you looking for?

I need you to investigate some people, to tell me if they’re legitimate.

Is this for an investment or something? Because I can’t even balance my checkbook.

Not exactly.

Are you talking about something criminal?

She was quiet for a couple seconds. Maybe not criminal. Unethical.

I’m not sure how I can help you. I mean, there have to be dozens of very good private investigators in the city of Chicago. Much better than a small-time newspaper reporter.

But I don’t want them. I want you.

Why?

Two reasons. One, I trust you. This is very … delicate. I can’t afford for anyone to ever find out about this. Daddy would be furious if any of this ever turned up in the press.

Umm…you do realize that I am a reporter, right? I mean, I did just say that.

But not for a Chicago paper. And this wouldn’t be for print. And I know if I asked you to keep it quiet, you would. That’s just the way you are.

What’s the second reason?

Your expertise … on a certain subject matter.

I thought about that. I could only think of one thing. Baseball?

No, she said, looking at me like I’d suggested juggling knives. Religion.

I lifted my eyebrows. Religion?

Yes.

Wait. How do you know that about me? I didn’t go to church when we used to hang out together.

We still have some mutual friends, you know. I’ve heard.

I sat back against the couch and sipped my coffee, letting this request settle. I had never particularly liked Carolyn, and I was pretty sure the feeling was mutual. Coming here to ask me for help was probably not her first choice. She had to be pretty desperate.

I can pay you.

I snorted. Not in a million years would I let you pay me.

You don’t know what I’m asking yet.

I know that if you’re asking me for help I would give it without expecting something in return.

So are you saying you’ll help me?

Her eyes were pleading, her lower lip trembling and against my better judgment I didn’t just say no.

I’m not saying yes. Not yet. I need to know a lot more about this before I commit.

Marty got up and trotted to the front door, looking expectantly as if he was waiting for a guest. I got up to see if someone had come to the door when the bell rang. I was on my way to answer it when I saw the Jaguar in my driveway.

Crap.

I just stood there.

Aren’t you going to answer it? Carolyn asked.

I looked at her dumbly but before I could respond the door swung partially open.

Emily? Craig called. Are you home?

I reached over and opened the door the rest of the way, dragging Marty back at the same time.

Oh, hey, Em. Whose car is parked in front of your…

He trailed off as he glanced in my living room and saw my guest. I watched his jaw begin working as his teeth clenched. I shoved Marty back into the kitchen.

Carolyn, he managed.

Hello, Craig.

She got up and took a business card from her purse. She gave it to me. I see this isn’t a good time. Call me, and we’ll talk some more.

All right.

Thank you.

She looked again at Craig, dipped her head and scooted by him out the door. He just stood there staring as she went down my front steps and along the sidewalk to the Mercedes pulled up at the curb. She started the car and drove away.

When his eyes swung back to mine, they hurtled accusations. What was she doing here?

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure.

I tipped my head to indicate he should come in, and then I shut the door behind him. But he didn’t move from the hallway, just stood there with his arms crossed. I sighed.

She said she needed my help.

And?

And that’s all I know. She didn’t give me any details. She took off when you showed up.

And are you?

Am I what?

Going to help her?

I don’t know. I don’t know what she wants yet.

You know, as my friend, the right answer to that would be no.

So if I help her, then I’m not your friend anymore? Is that what you’re saying? What is this, second grade?

She slept with another guy and left me.

I know.

You don’t even like her.

I know.

So why is this even a possibility?

Because when someone who doesn’t like you very much humbles herself enough to ask you for help, it’s kind of hard not to at least think about giving it.

Emily…

Just zip it, okay? What did you want, anyway?

Nothing, really. I just was coming home from playing basketball with a couple guys at the high school gym. I thought I’d stop by and say hi.

Okay, then. Hi. Time to go now.

"I thought maybe we could order some