by Vanessa Skye
“Of course,” Berg said, following Elizabeth to the kitchen. “Wow, Evergreen Park—nice area.”
Elizabeth nodded as she raised a coffee cup questioningly.
“Just black, thanks. I’ll be right back—just have to visit the little girl’s room.”
“Sure.” Elizabeth smiled as she took down some sugar and creamer from a cupboard. “You know where it is?”
“Oh, yeah,” Berg said as she wandered out of the kitchen.
Instead of heading to the bathroom, she snuck back into Elizabeth’s room and picked up the strange photo once more. There was something about the image—despite Elizabeth’s explanation—that made her uneasy. She opened the frame and examined the back of the photo, expecting to see the same studio stamp.
It wasn’t there.
Instead, printed on the back was the brand name of a photographic paper that she knew could be used in home printers. She quickly replaced the photo and backed out of the room, noting that Elizabeth didn’t have a printer.
“So you didn’t find anything?” Elizabeth asked her as she entered the kitchen.
Berg took the mug of steaming black coffee from her and shook her head. “No, nothing. Do you know if your sister kept a diary?”
“If she did, I didn’t know about it.”
“I just . . . I can’t get over it. Her whole attack just makes no sense.” Berg kept her head down, looking into her coffee cup, but positioned so she could watch Elizabeth.
“Oh? How so?” Elizabeth asked, frowning. “Surely you don’t think that animal, Buchanan, didn’t do it? I thought at least that part of this horrible crime was finally over.”
“No, he did it all right. But why?”
Elizabeth shrugged, shifting her gaze up and away as if lost in thought. “Didn’t he think he was in some kind of computer game? And does it matter? I can’t figure out why anyone would want to do that to such a wonderful person like Em. But be honest, even if we knew for sure what his crazy reasons were, would it make any of this any better? Would it make my parents all right again?” she said, tilting her head back down and wiping away tears from her eyes.
“Probably not. I’m so sorry.” Berg felt like she’d offered a thousand apologies at this point, and none of them helpful.
Emma’s own family is trying to move on. Why can’t I?
“You look great, by the way,” she said, changing the subject. “Have you lost weight?”
“Oh, thanks. I’ve been working out with a trainer. Did you know she used to train Madonna?” Elizabeth smiled and ran her hands along her waist, practically preening, until her cell phone interrupted her. “Sorry, it’s my agent,” she apologized, walked out of the kitchen to take the call.
Agent?
Berg quietly set her cup on the counter before she rushed to the living room and picked up the family portrait. Right where she expected it, the studio stamp was clearly visible on the back of the image.
Only Elizabeth’s picture was out of place.
Elizabeth walked in just as Berg straightened the frame. “Sorry,” she said again breezily. “A few different Hollywood studios are bidding for the rights to Emma’s story.”
“Oh, okay,” Berg said before clearing her throat, unsure of what else to add to something that seemed exceedingly morbid. “Anyway, I can’t find anything here leading to the father, so I’m going back to the office to keep on digging. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something. I’m sure it has something to do with the father of that baby, and I can promise you, I won’t stop until I find out what really happened.”
Elizabeth bit her lip as she slid her eyes in every direction but Berg’s firm gaze. “You really think the father had something to do with this?”
“Yes, I do. Why else wouldn’t he come forward when Emma was attacked? Her picture’s been everywhere, the case is well known to everyone in the city and beyond, and it’s all over the news that she’s pregnant.”
“I guess . . .”
Berg caught her hesitation. “Elizabeth, if you know something, you need to tell me,” she said sternly.
“It’s just . . . I swore on my life I’d never say anything. It’s the last promise I ever made Em!”
“Elizabeth! Tell me.”
Elizabeth’s lower lip trembled and she forced her gaze away from the bright sunlit windows, brushing away the tears as she faced Berg full on once more. “I-I-I know who Emma’s boyfriend was. She swore me to secrecy! But if you really think he had something to do with this—”
“I do.”
“It’s her boss. He’s married.”
“I told you,” Arena spat into the phone as he sat in an unmarked police car. “I took the hair to the lab you specified, and it didn’t show up anything!”
The voice on the other end was full of nothing but contempt as it got louder and louder.
“How the fuck can I find that out now? She could be in recovery for a serious stamp collecting addiction for all I know. Fuck!” He took a deep breath and tried to gather himself as his grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Fine,” he snapped. “I’m watching them both, but I have nothing to take them down that doesn’t take me down with them.” He rubbed his face in frustration. “Bullshit! I’ll help you because you’ve given me no choice, but it defeats the purpose if I’m fired with them. And, no, I don’t think Berg was in on it with Leigh. She’d have hardly left O’Loughlin alive, would she?” He rolled his eyes and jerked the wheel. A loud pop of the column gave fair warning he was losing it again. “No, for the last time, I’m not fucking her!”
But I want to be.
He hung up in disgust.
Chapter Twenty
And I want you to know you couldn’t have loved me better,
but I want you to move on, so I’m already gone.
–Kelly Clarkson, “Already Gone”
Berg hurried back into the station to collect Arena, who looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ve got an asshole to interview.”
Arena was staring at his desk morosely and started at the sight of her. “What? Oh, yeah. Sure.”
“What’s up with you?” Berg asked, frowning.
“Ah . . . nothing, I guess. Let’s go.”
They drove downtown to the tiny design company called Graphix where Emma had worked for more than a year.
“Wow. The receptionist and the married boss. How original.” Arena scoffed on the drive after Berg explained what Elizabeth had told her.
“Well, it was original enough that we missed it the first time around,” Berg reminded him. “You remember the interview we did with him and his staff? Did anything strike you as being out of place then?”
“Nope. He seemed as upset and concerned as any normal boss would be,” Arena replied. “He had an alibi and I got no hint from anyone about there being a possible affair. And besides, so he was having an affair with her, so what? Doesn’t mean he had anything to do with her death.”
“What the fuck? Come on. A married man whose mistress gets pregnant? Do you know how many mistresses have turned up dead for just that reason? There’s a huge motive right there!”
“Okay, I admit it looks bad. But where does Buchanan fit in? Why go to all the trouble of organizing a murder for hire? Why not just organize a date and pop her off then?”
“To keep himself out of it, obviously. Their relationship was so secret that absolutely no one knew about it except her sister, then he finds out she’s pregnant, but he can’t take care of the problem himself, lest he leave any evidence behind. So he finds an unlikely assassin and pays him off. Feeny just did it and nearly got away with it!”
“But there was nothing in Buchanan’s bank statements to suggest murder for hire and no cash in his apartment. Besides, the guy lived like a recluse—he was hardly some kind of crack assassin. He left so much evidence behind he may as well have left us a map to his place with a big X on it!”
“So maybe the lover p
aid in cash and it’s stashed somewhere. I don’t know. All I’m saying is we need to keep an open mind. This case may not yet be solved.”
The new receptionist at the business looked dazed when Berg and Arena flashed their badges and asked to see her boss. She silently ushered them into his office. “Coffee?” she asked timidly.
“That won’t be necessary, Sara, thanks,” he said, motioning that she should leave.
Tim Hudson was a good-looking man of no more than thirty. He had dark brown hair that he kept on the long side, deep brown eyes, a light olive complexion, and a thin build. He stared at them in a resigned fashion, his dark eyes sad.
“You planning on fucking her, too?” Berg asked without preamble, nodding toward the new secretary who had just shut the door behind her.
Tim didn’t even bother denying it. “I heard about Emma,” he said, picking up a framed picture and staring at it. His desk was full of family photos—he and a pretty brunette each taking turns posing with a toddler with the same dark hair.
“Is Emma’s baby yours?” Berg asked.
Tim sighed. “I hope so,” he said before breaking down, placing his head in his hands and heaving in sobs. “Jesus, I loved her so much! So much.” He gasped between sobs.
“So much so you had her killed?” Berg asked, unmoved by his display of emotion.
He looked up, shocked. “What? No. No! When we found out she was pregnant, I was going to tell my wife. We were going to be a family. We were so happy—she was so happy to get out of that house.”
“Sure you were. And yet, your little problem conveniently went away, didn’t it? Now your wife never need know,” Arena said.
Tim’s eyes flashed in anger, even through the tears. “I loved her. More than anything. You couldn’t help but love Em, she just . . . she brought it out in you. We didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’t want to hurt my wife, but . . .” He looked at Berg, then Arena, then back at Berg, the hope evident in his eyes and voice. “Do you think the baby will live? When I heard about the attack, I assumed the baby hadn’t made it. It would be nice to have a small part of her w—”
“Please! You lied to us! You had no intention of stepping up for custody.” After all that had happened to this girl, her family, now this baby, Berg wasn’t about to back down. She wanted her click.
“I contacted a lawyer weeks ago. Check with him yourselves,” he said, handing over a card. “If the baby lives, I want custody.”
Berg stashed the card in her pocket without ever breaking eye contact. “Let’s stick to the conversation at hand. Speaking of counsel, let me remind you that you are entitled to get a lawyer and have this conversation in a more formal setting.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Hudson replied.
Arena nodded. “Did you ever meet, or speak to, Jon Buchanan?”
“No.” There was no hesitation in his body language or voice.
Arena shifted and stepped a few inches closer in the process. Consciously or not, he cut an intimidating figure as he pressed for more information. “Did you ever hear Emma say anything about him?”
“No, I didn’t know who that was until I saw on the news—”
“Then you won’t mind if we search your computer and bank accounts and take a DNA sample?” Arena asked.
“Not at all. Please, I want to know if I’m the father. I want to be involved in my son or daughter’s life. I owe that to Em.”
Berg walked to the door and waved in a couple of patrol officers waiting outside. She spoke quietly, indicating which files and computers they should seize.
“Sure, sure. Only, please, detectives, please give me the chance to tell my wife before she hears about it from you or the media. Please?” he begged as the officers loaded his equipment and paperwork into boxes.
“You can contact her when we’re done with the interview,” Arena said.
“So what do you think?” Arena asked Berg as they closed the door to give Hudson some privacy for what would no doubt be a very uncomfortable phone call to his wife.
The interview had lasted just over an hour and Hudson had satisfactorily answered all the questions they threw at him. His assertions that he had contacted a lawyer weeks ago also checked out.
“If he’s lying, then he’s the best liar I’ve ever seen,” Berg said, frowning. “I don’t think he gave us anything we can get an arrest warrant for, but let’s see what the technicians say about his computer, cell records, and bank accounts first. We’ve told him not to leave town.”
“Agreed. He actually seemed excited about the baby, poor schmuck.”
“I know, and I thought motive was all stitched up when we found him. Shit. Back to the drawing board.”
“What drawing board, Berg? I know you think something more is going on here, but maybe it was just a random computer game nerd who had a break with reality, you know?”
Berg stared at him with a dark scowl, slowly lifting her arms and crossing them.
“I know, I know,” he said, defeated. “You don’t believe in random crime.”
“Not in this case.” Her distain was unmistakable and only slightly refocused when her cell rang. “What?” she snapped. “Fuck. We’ll be there as soon as we can,” she said, moving for the elevators before the call had ended.
“What?” Arena said as he followed Berg.
“Emma just coded.”
“Is she all right?” Berg asked, barging into Emma’s room without even knocking. She had spent so much time in that godforsaken hospital room she felt like part of the miserable little family.
“They think so,” Emma’s father, Alex, answered.
“And the baby?”
“They’re not sure, Alicia.” Alex had wrapped his arms around his torso as if he could physically hold himself together. “They managed to stabilize her very quickly, but she’s just off having tests so they can check the baby out further. There’s still a heartbeat, so that’s good news.”
Berg slumped into the nearest chair and breathed a sigh of relief.
If these poor people lose this baby, too . . .
“What happened?” she asked as Arena made himself comfortable in the chair next to hers.
“We don’t know. She was stable, so we took the opportunity to duck down to the cafeteria and get something to eat. Next thing you know, she’s coding.”
“Thank goodness Lizzy came in to see her,” Marilyn said softly. “She noticed Emma was turning blue and called in a nurse straight away. The baby may have been in danger for several minutes, though. They’re not sure.”
“Didn’t her life support machine indicate something was wrong? Shouldn’t there have been some kind of an alarm?”
“It didn’t go off, and they can’t give us an explanation as to why,” Alex said.
Berg had never seen anyone so resigned. Life had dealt such serious blows to him and his wife over the past four months that it almost seemed as if nothing could shake him anymore.
“They’re replacing the life support machine, and a nurse will be with her at all times from now on. We’re not going to take any chances with the baby. That’s my last ray of sunshine,” he said, apparently forgetting that his wife and remaining daughter stood not three feet away.
“About the father . . .” Berg stood to deliver the next round of surprising news to the family. “We think we’ve tracked him down.”
Alex jerked as if he’d been physically struck. “You found him? How?”
Elizabeth, having kept that particular secret to herself, looked stricken.
Berg felt sorry for the young woman and the flip side of favoritism that she had clearly endured her whole life. “Through our inquiries,” she said without any guilt. “It’s looking like it could be Emma’s boss.”
“We have his DNA for comparison. The lab’s running it now,” Arena said.
“Tim?” Alex asked, looking shocked for the first time in weeks. “She was seeing Tim? But he’s . . . married. She would never . . . it can’t be.
She would’ve told me.” He paced back and forth, babbling. “I thought she was . . . we were best friends, she would have . . . how could she do this to me!” He stopped pacing and glanced at each member of his audience.
Unsure how to handle the awkward outburst, Berg stayed focused on the legalities. “Um, let’s wait and see what the lab says. We’ll know more then.”
“Well, I guess we needed to know. Do you think he’ll want custody?” Alex asked, looking worried.
“Let’s just see if he’s the father, and then we can go from there,” Berg repeated. No point in getting them upset for no reason. Emma could’ve been fucking the entire tristate area for all they knew.
Emma was wheeled back into the room.
“How is she?” at least three people, including Berg, asked.
“She’s okay,” the doctor said. “The baby, too.”
Emma’s parents’ bodies sagged as the relief washed over them.
“And I also know the sex of the baby,” the doctor said. “If that’s something you’d like to know?”
“Of course!” Emma’s father said, looking delighted.
Berg noted he didn’t even look at his wife, much less bother consulting her.
“It’s a girl,” the doctor said, smiling. “Emma’s nurse will be here soon for the first shift. But, fingers crossed, everything will be all right and we can get your granddaughter out in about five weeks.”
“A baby girl,” Alex whispered in awe. “We’ll call her Emma. Little baby Emma,” he cooed at his still daughter’s stomach.
“Well, congratulations,” Berg said. “We’ll leave you to it.” She had a bad feeling.
They exited the room and ran into Jay as he rushed around the corner.
“I just heard,” he said, looking worried. “How is she?”
“Whatever happened doesn’t seem to have set her back,” Berg answered.