by Vanessa Skye
“Shut the fuck up, Carla!” Jay snapped. “The fact that you would resort to blackmail to feed your ambition is no surprise to me. And we all know that your dropping this little nugget of information on me is hardly altruistic—”
“Jay, I—” Maroney said.
“I said shut up! Now get out of my office.” He stood and pointed to the door. “And if you release this information any farther than the three of us, I will back Detective Raymond’s claims of blackmail, do you hear me? I promise you, your ambition to be state’s attorney will be squashed before it even gets started!”
“Jay, I—”
“Out!” he bellowed.
Carla turned tail and practically sprinted out of the office.
Jay slammed the door behind her.
The few detectives left on the floor at the late hour looked up and then hurriedly looked away again.
Berg walked toward him. “Jay. Thank you. You have no id—”
“Don’t you say anything to me!” He held his hands up as if warding her off.
Berg fell silent and stepped back.
Jay scrubbed his hands through his hair and moved toward his window. It offered a scintillating view of the precinct’s parking lot, but he stared out the window for several long, hard sighs before speaking. “Is this what you’ve been hiding from me, Berg? Who your real father is?”
Berg nodded, even though Jay was still looking out the window and couldn’t see her. “When he first contacted me, I didn’t know who he really was, but I knew a name. Then, after the meeting about the task force, I realized he must have been contacting me because he wanted an in with the department. I would never give him that. You know that! So I told him to stop contacting me, and I told you I couldn’t be involved in the task force. It was a clear conflict—”
“Then why didn’t you tell me that?” Jay’s voice was quiet, dead. He still faced the window, standing ramrod straight with his hands clasped behind his back.
“I-I’m . . . sorry. I don’t know what to say. I couldn’t believe that he was—I mean, I’ve never even met the man. I would certainly never give him what he wanted. Fortunately, the constant calls have stopped now. I think he finally got the message that I have no interest in joining the family business.”
Jay snorted. “You’ve been lying to me for months.”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know the biological father I’d never met was a fucking crime lord in Detroit! I mean, how would I know that? I’ve never had any conta—”
“Not about that.” Jay turned and looked at Berg, his face devoid of all expression. “You lied to me about Feeny and Young, didn’t you?”
Berg stifled a sob.
“You just said that Carla’s been blackmailing you with information about them and your adoptive father. You just admitted in front of both of us that you didn’t realize she even knew about Alexander. So what information has she got on you that’s so bad you’ve been running around trying to make her cases for her? Because I suspect that’s what you’ve been doing. That, at least, makes sense to me and explains why I haven’t even seen you for weeks.”
Adrenaline jolted through her body. It wasn’t just Jay’s questions, but the blank look on his face.
This is bad.
The twitching muscle in his clenched jaw betrayed his simmering anger. She struggled to phrase her answer, knowing nothing she said could make him understand.
“You killed them, didn’t you? The gossip was right all along.” He stared, watching every twitch cross her face.
Just like we’re trained—God . . . the man I love’s interrogating me.
“I didn’t kill Feeny and Young. I was nowhere ne—”
“Semantics!” Jay bellowed and looked at her as though he no longer recognized who she was.
Berg pressed her lips together and bowed her head.
“You visited Young and tipped her over the edge. I witnessed your manipulation of her in the interview room when you were trying to drive her to make a move against you. You were brutal. No one else could have done it. You knew exactly the right buttons to push.” He took a deep breath. “And you told Rivera where to find Feeny in exchange for him confessing, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” he yelled when Berg stayed silent.
Berg nodded slightly. “Why do you care?” she asked softly. “Is society going to miss either of them?”
Jay covered his eyes with one hand. “That was not your decision to make!”
“The justice system made it my decision when red tape and underhanded lawyers meant that neither one of them would pay for what they did!”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” Jay fell silent for a few seconds, the only sound his ragged breathing. “Tell me about your adoptive father. You told me he died of cancer.”
“He was dying of cancer.”
“What did you do?”
“I . . . can’t.”
“Tell me!”
Berg looked away. “I . . . gave him an overdose of morphine. He only had a few weeks to live anyway. I-I just wanted him to die on my terms after everything he did.”
“ ‘You’re dying on my terms,’ ” he muttered. “And now it finally all makes sense. So the dreams you’ve been having—they’ve been about him?”
Berg looked at Jay, tilting her chin slightly and squaring her shoulders.
Jay picked up a paperweight off his desk and hurled at it the window. It punched through without stopping.
The wind howled around the hole for about three full seconds before the entire window shuddered. There was a resounding crack just before the pane shattered and shards of glass fell, tinkling as pieces fell into his office and on the concrete of the parking lot two stories below.
Berg jumped at the sudden violence, immediately worried about the reaction of the rest of the detectives on the level. She watched as Arena hurried over to the door and opened it.
“Is everything o—”
“Get out!” Jay screamed at him.
Arena shut the door and fled the level without another word.
Numerous other detectives followed, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire.
“How could you?” he yelled at Berg. “You became a cop to uphold the law!”
Berg stood up and grabbed the edges of Jay’s desk. “I became a cop to get justice!”
“Murder is not justice!”
“The hell it isn’t! Feeny was not going to spend any significant time in prison for ordering the murders of his wife and mistress. He was going to walk! I did what I did to secure his conviction, and I’d do it again. Rivera ordered his murder, and someone else carried it out, not me. If the gang hadn’t killed Feeny, then his innocent kids would have been at the top of their hit list instead. And Young was going to serve maybe a couple of years in an institution for killing her sister and attempting to kill her sister’s baby before she manipulated her way out. Don’t you care about that? Don’t you care that they were going to get away with two of the worst crimes we saw last year? If Elizabeth wasn’t dead, the baby would be. It was her or the child, so, yes, I chose the baby. I don’t think that’s wrong!”
“For fuck’s sake! How can you not see that that’s wrong? Sometimes we lose, Berg. The justice system isn’t perfect. Sometimes the bad guys get away with it.”
Berg stilled. “You’re okay with what my adoptive father did to me? You’re okay with the fact that I tried for years to pursue him in the justice system, but because of lawyers and loopholes, a lack of evidence, and his fucking money, he never spent a single day inside a prison cell? Not a single fucking day!”
Jay sighed. “Of course I’m not okay with that. But you just admitted to me that you’ve been, either directly or indirectly, involved in the deaths of three people. That makes you no better than they are!”
“Good luck getting a conviction,” Berg said bitterly.
Jay turned away, his hands on his head. “You think this is about getting a conviction, Berg? I don’t even know who the fuck
you are. This whole time, this whole relationship, and I never had a fucking clue that you were capable of this!”
“Bullshit! You found me on a roof about to take out Elizabeth Young.”
Jay turned. “You . . . you were sick. The infection from the miscarriage—”
“The infection didn’t make me do that. If anything, the infection stopped me because I passed out before I could pull the trigger!”
“You wouldn’t ha—”
“Yes, I would have!”
Jay looked away.
“You’ve never asked me outright about Feeny or Young. You didn’t want to know the answer. Don’t deny it!” Berg’s voice broke. She took a deep breath, gathering herself together.
Not yet. Don’t break yet.
“Some people . . . some people just need killing, Jay. For justice. So their victims can get some kind of peace. Some people just deserve to die to prevent other, innocent people from dying. We all know it. I gave the justice system a chance. It let me down. It lets a lot of people down.”
Jay was fighting back tears. “I don’t believe that. I-I can’t believe that.”
“You’ve never been so broken that you’d have to try to believe that. You think people are good. Well, guess what? They’re not! And the evilest among us need to pay for their crimes when the justice system fails their victims. You might not believe it, but I do.
“If you think I can let a child rapist, a craven murderer, and psychopath get away with their crimes and be given the opportunity to do it again then you’re not the man I thought you were, and you’re right, you don’t really know me at all.” She wiped the tears from her face. “This is me, Jay. Me. I have a darkness within me. I-I want—scratch that—I need to get justice for those the justice system fails. It’s taken me a really long time to accept myself, just as I am. And I’m not fucking sorry about any of it! I’m not sorry my rapist is dead. I’m not sorry a murderer is dead. Just like I’m not sorry I shot Leigh in the head and saved your life. And if you can’t understand that about me, then we have nothing more to say.”
Jay faced her. “You’re right. I don’t understand, so we don’t have anything more to say to each other. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Berg gasped as the insult landed.
“This relationship is over. I’ll let you know when I’ll be by to pick up my stuff.” He brushed past her and headed to the door, his lips curled in disgust.
“This is why I didn’t tell you,” Berg whispered, gesturing to his face. “I didn’t want to see that look on your face when you found out who I am. The look my mother gave me my whole life.”
Jay, clutching at the doorframe, turned, his head bowed. “I . . . maybe if you’d told me what you’d done. Maybe if you hadn’t lied to me from the very beginning, we could’ve had a chance. But now we’ll never know.”
“Jay?” Berg said, sliding the ring off her shaking hand. She held it out to him.
“Keep it. It’s yours.” He walked out the door and out of the level without looking back.
You always knew he’d leave, her mother whispered. You’re no better than your father.
Chapter Eleven
Berg tried to concentrate on the report she was writing, but her head swam from lack of sleep. As little as six months ago, the lack of one night’s sleep wouldn’t have bothered her in the slightest because she had been so used to going without any rest because of the panic attacks. But since Jay had moved in, the attacks and depression had subsided, and she’d been sleeping so much better that she felt it badly when she missed even a few hours now.
She had stayed up all night on the couch hoping Jay would come home. Hoping he’d calm down and want to talk to her. But he hadn’t. She hadn’t heard a single thing from him since he’d left his office after their fight. His cell was off, and she doubted he would have picked it up even if it were on.
She picked up her now cold coffee with a shaky hand and took a sip, her eyes glued to his office. It was almost nine.
Surely he’ll be in soon.
There was no way she was letting him walk away from the best thing she had in her life.
No way.
He had told her to keep the ring, so she had reason to hope. She looked down at it still glittering on her finger. She wouldn’t take it off easily.
She whirled around as she caught movement out of her peripheral vision, but it was Detective Smith entering, not Jay. Berg frowned when, instead of heading to his small corner desk, he unlocked the door of Jay’s office and dumped his keys and wallet on the desk, reaching to flick on the hard drive of Jay’s computer.
Berg jumped up and headed in, turning on the overhead lights since the office was darker than usual thanks to the sheet of plywood nailed over the broken window.
“Um, hi, Smith. What’s going on?”
Smith looked up from the monitor. “Hi, Berg. What’s up?”
“You tell me.”
Smith shifted in his seat and looked away. “Jay called me last night. He appointed me interim captain of the 12th while he takes some personal time. McClymont signed off on it.”
“Oh.” Tears stung her eyes, and she hoped it didn’t show. “Did he say where he was going?”
Smith looked at her sympathetically. “No, sorry. And he didn’t say how long he’d be away. But I’m sure he won’t be able to stay away for long.”
Berg nodded.
You’re no better than your father.
“You guys must’ve had one hell of a fight,” he said, looking at the boarded up window. “Don’t worry, Berg. He’ll be back.”
Berg smiled wanly. “Thanks. And hey, congratulations on your new position. It’s well deserved,” she said and meant it.
Smith smiled. “Thanks. I guess thirty years of experience counts for something after all, even if it’s just for a short time. Jay’s a good guy.”
Berg nodded. “He sure is.”
“I’ll be holding a briefing shortly to get caught up on all our outstanding cases. Will you be there?”
Berg shrugged. “Sure.” She went back to her desk and the reports she wasn’t really paying attention to.
“Are you okay?” Arena asked as he sat down at his desk and sipped his steaming take-out coffee.
“Yeah,” Berg said.
“Bullshit. No you’re not. I saw that fight yesterday. I mean, I know O’Loughlin has a temper, but . . . wow. What’d you do?”
“None of your business.”
Arena kept staring at her, sipping his coffee every now and then, and waiting her out.
“He left me,” she whispered.
Arena nodded. “I figured as much. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I thought you two, at least, would make it,” he said, the muscles in his jaw twitching.
“You and Maroney, too?”
He nodded once. “Yeah. It must be going around. She was in some kind of mood last night and ticked I hadn’t told her about the baby.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Arena shrugged. “Whatever. It wasn’t working out anyway.”
“Sometimes, Arena, I really wish I had your attitude to life.” Berg’s desk phone rang, and she answered it quickly, unsure what else to say to Arena. “Yeah. Okay, on the way.” She hung up. “We’ve got a body at an elementary school in Union Park.”
Arena rubbed his face. “God. Tell me it’s not a kid. I can’t deal with a dead kid today. It will end me.”
Berg wanted to hug Arena, in full agreement with him. “It’s not. A student teacher, apparently. The janitor found her on the grounds this morning.”
It took twenty minutes to go four blocks in morning rush hour, and the forensics team was already on site by the time Berg and Arena arrived.
Parents had been notified to keep their children away from school, so the area was relatively quiet as the detectives walked up to the cordoned-off crime scene.
A pretty young woman of no more than twenty-five lay on her back, naked on the
grass in front of the brick, two-story school opposite the famous Union Park sporting field. Her arms and legs were thrown wide, her olive skin pallid, and her dark brown hair wet from the melting frost.
“Has the crime scene been photographed?” Berg asked one of the techs as she snapped on a pair of latex gloves.
The tech nodded.
Berg crouched down to get a better look at the victim—her blue eyes were starting to cloud over, and her olive-tinged skin was already blue. She tried moving the young woman’s head for a clear angle of the wound Berg assumed was under the matted blood and hair on the left-hand side of her skull, but the victim didn’t move.
“She’s in full rigor,” she said as Arena adjusted his own pair of gloves and stood back, taking in the bigger picture. “She must’ve been attacked shortly after classes finished yesterday afternoon.”
Berg made note of the various wounds all over her body, including the blood on her thighs, rope burns around the wrists, and what looked to be a boot print on her chest. “Looks like another rape in the same vein as the Robertson case.”
Arena nodded. “I was just thinking that myself.” He crouched down and peered at the boot print on the victim’s chest. “I can’t make out a specific imprint, but Dr. D might be able to make it out under the blue light at autopsy.”
Arena stood and Berg followed, snapping off her gloves.
She scanned the campus once more and sighed. “Let’s get to the interviews and let the guys take her to the morgue.”
***
It was late in the day before Berg and Arena finished at the school and headed back to the precinct.
“You still think it’s related to the Maggie Robertson rape?” Arena asked as Berg drove.
She shrugged. “There are some superficial similarities I don’t want to immediately discount—the rape, the boot print, and a knock on the head, which I bet is what killed her. Maggie was attacked on a college campus almost five miles from here, though. And Maggie survived.”
Arena flipped through his notes. “I’ve firmed up the time line leading up to the attack. Student teacher Victoria Lampert stayed late to get a start on preparing today’s lessons, according to her supervising teacher, who left around four yesterday afternoon. Victoria was interning in the second grade as her last requirement to graduate.”
