Made to Be Broken

by Kelley Armstrong

  "You aren't coming, Jack. I appreciate the offer, but you're injured and I really need to be thorough - "

  "And careful. So I'm going. Make sure you are."

  "Are you suggesting -?"

  "Not suggesting. Saying. You aren't yourself. Haven't been since you picked me up. Quiet. Tense. Your mind's someplace else. I thought it was just me. Us. Then you run off. Come back. Inhale dinner. All you can think about is getting back. Back to her"'

  The keys bit into my palm. I loosened my grip. "I'm not running off half-cocked. I'm being careful and I have my priorities straight. I need to search for Sammi now, so I don't have to run off when guests arrive tomorrow."

  "So if you had guests, you'd slow down? Fuck, no. Be climbing the walls." He paused and met my gaze. "I've seen you like this before. With Wilkes."

  "Don't - "

  "You get single-minded. Obsess - " He cut the word off by rubbing his mouth. "Not trying to stop you. Just want to watch your back. Cover your tracks."

  He headed around to the passenger side. I got in and waited for him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Having searched the east side of the campsite, I started a fresh grid on the west. It seemed unlikely that anyone would have taken Sammi more than a half kilometer into the dense woods.

  After almost two hours, I found a patch of disturbed earth less than a hundred feet from the main road. The sun was setting, as it would have been when Sammi walked by, good enough to see, but not to see well. I fought the urge to start digging and simply marked the location by sticking the string roll over a tree branch.

  I headed back for the truck.

  "Need something?" Jack asked.

  I headed at the sound of his voice. In the last two hours, he'd said maybe a dozen words, as he silently poked around, letting me work.

  "Need something?" he repeated.

  "Stuff."

  I retrieved my larger flashlight, and came back to find Jack hunkered down by the disturbed earth.

  "Something dug here," he said. "Be careful. Re mem ber - "

  I slapped the flashlight into his hand, cutting him short. "Shine it on me, so I don't miss anything."

  I pulled on a pair of gloves, crouched, and examined the spot under the glare of the Maglite. It wasn't a large area - less than six square inches of bare earth where something had cleared away the layer of rotting leaves. Claw marks scored the ground, each the size of fork tines. The animal had dug down an inch or two, then given up.

  There was a dark, wet-looking patch in the center of the spot. I picked up a clump of dirt, crushed it between my gloved fingers, and looked closer. It was dry, just darker than the surrounding earth. I ground another clump between my thumb and forefinger. Jack shone the Maglite on it.

  "Blood," Jack said. "Here, let me - "

  "Got it."

  I gently swept aside the disturbed earth. Beneath the thin layer the animal had scraped through, the ground was hard. You can pack a hole as tightly as you want, but you can never cover the signs of disturbance. Blood had seeped into the ground here, but nothing was buried beneath it.

  I took a moment to wipe off my hands, gaze down, not letting Jack see how relieved I was.

  Then I shifted onto my haunches and looked around. Something had come through here, damaging bushes and low-hanging branches to the north, the direction of the road, and to the southwest. I knew the disturbance couldn't have taken place more than a week or so ago because the exposed wood of each break was fresh, and new leaves hung from the broken end of the twigs, still surviving on stored food.

  Despite the obvious signs of passage, the site showed no ground-level indication that anyone had passed this way. Fallen leaves carpeted the ground beneath the broken twigs. Not a single inch of bare earth was exposed. Perfectly undisturbed. Too perfect. All around this patch, dead and fallen leaves lay in heaps and clumps, the earth peeking through. Someone had covered his tracks here.

  I proceeded southwest. I didn't need to search for broken branches and twigs. The too-perfect layer of leaves stretched out before me like a red carpet. Less than fifty feet later, it ended at a clearing.

  I flexed my hands, inhaling to calm my galloping heart, then crept on my hands and knees to the middle and began clearing leaves. Without a word, Jack set up the flashlight to shine on the patch, then started working at the other side.

  Within minutes we'd found a tightly packed patch of upturned earth.

  Staying on my knees, I cleared the area and marked the perimeter of the hole. Two feet wide. Just over five feet long. Once it was clear, I eased back and sat there, staring at it.

  I stood, hands shaking as I brushed dirt from my pants.

  "I need - " The words snagged in my throat. I'd been working so long in silence it was hard to speak. I cleared my throat. "I have to go back to the truck and get - "

  Jack stepped up beside me, holding a shovel. I hadn't even noticed he'd left.

  "Here," he said. "You sit. Rest. I'll - "

  "No."

  I took the shovel and scraped off layers of dirt, rather than digging. If Sammi was here, I'd need to replace everything as it had been and find a way to lead the police search in the right direction.

  About nine inches down, the tip of my shovel revealed a pale nub, glowing in the reflected flashlight beam. I bent and, working with my gloves on, finger-scooped around the object until I could see it. A toe. A small toe with chipping purple nail polish.

  I moved back, drawing in a ragged breath.

  "Want me to -?" Jack began.

  "No."

  I crawled to the other end of the hole and began scraping away at the earth. Soon, yet another pale nub showed through the inky earth. A nose. Using my fingers, I cleared away the final layer of dirt. Then I leaned back and sat there, looking down at Sammi. A bloody gag covered her mouth. Her eyes were open, those beautiful violet orbs streaked with dirt and filled, not with shock or fear, but rage. A last snarl at the world that had ignored her.

  Jack's fingers brushed my arm. I instinctively pulled back, then stopped, letting his fingertips rest there, warm against my cold skin, my jacket long since discarded.

  "I didn't even like her," I whispered, staring down, trapped by the force of Sammi's final rage.

  "You gave her a job."

  "Because I felt sorry for her. She knew that and she hated it. Hated me for it. Can I blame her? That's all she ever got in her life. Pity and antipathy."

  "First is better than the second."

  "Is it?" I glanced up at him. "I could have helped her. Really helped her. Not just given her handouts and patted myself on the back for it. Girls like Sammi..." I shook my head and looked back at that paint-chipped toenail, unable to look at her eyes again. "People see a pretty girl with a short skirt and a big attitude, and they think they know her. They think they know the type. Girls like Sammi... like Amy... People think they've got them all figured out."

  His fingers wrapped around my forearm. "She's not Amy, Nadia."

  "I know that," I snapped, yanking away. "I just meant that I knew better. I knew, from Amy, what it must have been like for Sammi. I could have done more."

  "Didn't have to do anything."

  I looked at him.

  He shrugged. "Just saying..."

  I knelt and started digging again.

  "Nadia..."

  "I need to find her."

  He lowered himself beside me, awkwardly, struggling with the cast. "You know it's her. You don't need to - "

  "Not Sammi. Her baby. I need to find her baby."

  He nodded, straightened, and started scraping at the earth as I dug with my hands.

  To Sammi's killer, the baby would have been inconsequential, a minor obstacle to be removed. Before he had his fun with Sammi, he'd have killed Destiny to silence her cries. To minimize effort, it would make sense to bury the baby's body in the same grave.

  I dug down within an inch of Sammi's body, still wary of disturbing her, in case someone later found h
er. When I uncovered nothing on top of her, I dug on either side, going down until the earth went hard, less than a foot lower.

  "Baby's not here," Jack said.

  I stood and looked around.

  "Nadia - "

  I shook off his restraining hand. "There's only one thing in the world Sammi cared about, Jack, and I'm not leaving until I give that back to her. Yes, I know, that doesn't make a lot of sense. But I need to, okay?" I tossed him the truck keys. "You go on, and I'll walk back."

  He handed them back. "Let me help search."

  I followed the killer's trail back to the road, being careful to watch for cars as we neared it, dousing the light when we heard one. We checked for disturbed earth, both on and beside his route. We hunted until the ground blurred and the trees shimmied, and I started stumbling over my own feet.

  When I tripped over a fallen tree, Jack grabbed my arm, jerking me back to my feet.

  "Baby's not here," he said.

  "She has to - "

  "Think about it. Already dug one hole. Why dig two? She's here? Gotta be in that hole."

  "But I looked - " I stopped. "Under Sammi."

  He nodded.

  We returned to the site. Checking beneath Sammi meant fully uncovering and moving her body. I crawled over the hole, keeping my knees on opposite sides of her body and, wearing a fresh pair of gloves, I brushed away the final layer of dirt. When I was done, I backed off the shallow grave and looked down at her.

  "What's wrong with this picture?" I murmured.

  "You tell me," Jack said. "You're the cop. Were."

  I jumped at the sound of his voice, having forgotten, yet again, that he was there. I told myself it was just that he was so quiet. The truth was, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd kept up a running commentary for the past few hours. My attention was focused entirely on Sammi.

  "She's dressed," I said. "Fully dressed."

  Some sexual predators did reclothe their victims. Behavioral experts saw that as a sign of remorse, the killer's twisted attempt to put everything back together, give their victims some final dignity. It was also often a sign of an opportunistic kill, where an inexperienced killer saw the perfect victim and acted on impulse. Yes, a beautiful teenage girl walking down a wooded road at dusk did make the perfect victim. But one with a baby stroller? A baby whose screams could give him away? And no inexperienced killer would have covered his tracks so well.

  "Pants zipped, button done up, belt fastened," I mused. "I don't think he ever undressed her. So this isn't what it seems."

  Jack only grunted.

  I shook my head. Questions could wait.

  When I reached to turn Sammi, Jack got on the other side, wordlessly helping. We lifted her and laid her to the side. I sifted through the disturbed earth.

  "Destiny isn't here," I said.

  Another grunt.

  I turned to Sammi. Her hands were tied behind her with rope. I checked her feet. As I expected, there was no signs of binding. She'd been gagged, her hands bound, then shoved into the forest to the killing site. A gun at her head. Her killer forcing compliance by threatening to hurt Destiny? I pushed the scene from my head.

  "Just because she wasn't raped, doesn't mean it wasn't sexual," I said, working it through. "He could get off on torture, mutilation... But there's no sign of that."

  I lifted Sammi's shirt and saw only a bruise on her shoulder. The splotches of blood on her shirtfront probably came from her nose, judging by the blood-soaked gag.

  "Her nose looks broken. He hits her, she goes down, she's crouched over, nose streaming blood into the dirt back there. Then he subdues her and drags or carries her here. But why punch her in the nose? That's a fighting blow."

  "Incapacitating."

  I glanced back at Jack.

  He shrugged. "Gotta stop someone from fighting back? Three spots. Two for a woman."

  I nodded. "Nose, solar plexus, or, on a man, the groin. One sharp wallop and you deliver blinding pain. But if it's sexual, he'd pull a knife or beat the crap out of her. Maybe when she attacked him, he lashed out on impulse, right hook going straight for her nose. Point is, if that's where all the blood comes from, there wasn't any torture or mutilation. And how did he kill her?"

  "How's her throat?"

  Strangulation. Right. I checked.

  "No marks, which doesn't completely rule it out, but..."

  My gaze kept sliding back to her broken nose. Something wasn't right. Yes, it was definitely broken, but the angle was wrong. It was almost as if -

  Using a tissue from my pocket and dew from the grass, I cleaned the strip of skin between Sammi's nose and her gag. There it was, an undeniable bullet hole, complete with muzzle burns. A gun pressed to her upper lip, trigger pulled.

  "CNS shot," Jack grunted.

  A bullet through the central nervous system. "But that's - That's not a thrill kill. That's... a professional hit."

  A line of sweat dribbled down the side of my face. I swiped at it.

  Why would anyone want Sammi dead?

  In a passionless, efficient murder like this, the reason had to be equally cold and calculated. A professional hit is done for two reasons. First, you've wronged some very powerful people. But Sammi was just a kid living in small-town Ontario. She couldn't possibly have pissed off anyone with the clout to order a hit.

  The second most common reason for hiring a professional killer is more common, and the one I won't deal with. Murder for personal gain. Have your wife killed for the insurance money. Your business partner for his shares. Your parents for your inheritance. Your romantic rival for a woman. But Sammi had nothing. The killer hadn't even emptied her wallet. Then, the truth hit me so hard I gasped.

  Something was missing.

  "The baby," I whispered.

  Chapter Twelve

  After we reburied Sammi the same way the killer had left her, Jack drove us back to the lodge. If I thought there was any chance he'd let me walk, I would have tried. Riding with him might mean having to talk about what we'd found, and I couldn't bear that.

  I didn't need to worry. He never opened his mouth. Yet somehow that silence was worse. It sat, between us, a vacuum of words unsaid, sucking up the air in the cab. I inched as close to the door panel as I could get, staring out the side window, ticking off the seconds until the drive ended.

  The landscape flew past so fast I wasn't even sure what road we were on. The truck jerked and swayed, struggling to keep a grip in the dirt. My head slammed into the seat as the tires found every rut. I knew if I looked over at Jack, I'd see him clutching the wheel, praying he could get us back before I broke down into tears, wondering how in God's name he'd been stupid enough to get mixed up with me again.

  When we reached the lodge parking lot, he slammed on the brakes so hard, I'd have a seat belt bruise come morning. Then he just sat there, the engine idling, making no move to turn it off.

  I reached for the door handle.

  "You're not gonna call the cops," he said.

  A statement, not a question. Informing the police was a perfectly logical next step, but my chest tightened at the very thought. Excuses rose to my lips. Maybe I'd left some trace evidence. An anonymous call was too risky - they'd figure the killer had an attack of conscience. And it'd fall under the White Rock OPP jurisdiction. Those guys couldn't find a killer if he left a blood trail to his house.

  Excuses, and poor ones. Jack had made sure I'd left nothing. As for the call, he could make it, using any accent from a pay phone in Peterborough. And whatever I thought of the White Rock OPP, they wouldn't ignore a body.

  What stopped me from making that call was the memory of Amy's death. My father and the other police thought they had an airtight case. They'd arrived on the scene moments after Amy died, before Drew Aldrich had a chance to run or hide evidence. And they had me, an eyewitness. They'd been so confident of a guilty verdict that they hadn't allowed me to testify in court, saving me from the hell of cross-examination.

  Aldri
ch's defense had ripped their airtight case to shreds. My father and Amy's had rushed to the scene not as cops, but as grief-crazed relatives of the victim. They'd tried to follow procedure, but emotions had been running high and mistakes were made. What really happened, the attorney had argued, was kinky teen sex turned tragic.

  Amy and Drew had sex. She'd wanted him to choke her - the jury got a lesson on breath control sex play. The innocent younger cousin looked in, saw what looked like her cousin being strangled and raped, and ran for help. Amy realized she'd been seen and, fearing punishment, lashed out, explaining cuts on Aldrich. He'd instinctively tightened his grip and accidentally killed her. Then her father and uncle, believing the younger cousin's story, fabricated evidence to support it.

  Years later, examining the evidence, I couldn't believe the jury bought it. But they had. It fit their view of the world. Drew Aldrich was a decent young man who'd gotten mixed up with a wild teen seductress and let his hormones override his common sense. If he'd been the sadistic rapist killer the crown portrayed, surely he'd have done something to me. They just weren't buying the argument that he'd been planning to rape me, too, and I escaped before he could.

  I'd watched Drew Aldrich walk away. I'd seen Amy denied justice. I wasn't letting that happen with Sammi. I didn't trust the White Rock police not to let their views of Sammi color their investigation. I would turn over this case, just as soon as I had the evidence needed to point them in the right direction and give them no excuse to shelve it.

  I told Jack that - about needing evidence, not about Amy. He listened, then nodded, "Yeah. Probably a good idea."

  I went for the door handle again.

  "Wanna walk?" he said. "To the lake? Sit? Talk?"

  "I've made up my mind, Jack - "

  "Not about the cops. Just... talk. About what happened."

  My shoulders tightened. The obligatory offer, made at the last possible moment so, if I hesitated, he could escape before I said "actually, that sounds good..."

  "No, thank you," I said.

  I opened the door.

  "Nadia..."

  I stopped.

  "Think you should. We should. Take a walk. Talk or don't. Just... do something."

  I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see him gripping the door handle, ready to make his escape. But he was turned my way, one hand on the wheel, the other a few inches from my leg. The offer sounded genuine and his eyes said it was. Hope fluttered.