Girl Undercover 6 & 7: Emma's Secret & The Truth

by Julia Derek

  Hurrying out of the club, I headed for her apartment building, dashing down into the nearby subway station. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long before a train roared up to the platform. I pushed myself in between all the people filling up the cars. There was a bad feeling growing inside me, getting bigger and more potent with every second that passed, and I wished the train would move faster. The sooner I could make sure that Emma was okay, the better. She had to be okay.

  Ten minutes later, sweaty and breathing hard, I was inside her apartment building, having buzzed several people living there until someone finally let me in. Emma had not opened when I’d pressed her button, which only served to intensify the bad feeling that kept expanding within me.

  I ran up the stairs to her apartment and knocked on her door, over and over. No one came to open. I felt the door knob; today it was locked of course. I found my phone in my purse and dialed Ian; he’d texted me a few times today, but I had been too preoccupied to reply to any of them. He picked up on the second ring.

  “There you are,” he said, his voice light. “I was beginning to wonder if you were mad at me or something.”

  Throwing a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure I was alone, I whispered, “I need you to come to where I am right now and bring the bump keys.”

  “Where are you?” he asked, every ounce of playfulness gone.

  I gave him Emma’s address. “When can you be here?”

  “Give me twenty minutes. I’m at home and it’s rush hour right now. But I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  We disconnected and I kept knocking on Emma’s door, hoping that she was just asleep and that, finally, my knocking would wake her up. But all that happened was that one of her neighbors came out and told me to be quiet. Fortunately, that was all the neighbor wanted; apparently, it was okay if I, a complete stranger, remained in the building as long as I didn’t make any noise.

  Another hallmark of New Yorkers; most of them had seen and heard it all. As long as you didn’t bother them, you were left to do whatever you wanted.

  I went downstairs to wait for Ian to arrive so I could let him inside the building. Fifteen minutes later, he appeared.

  “Hey,” he said as I let him inside. “What’s going on?”

  “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

  Together we climbed the stairs to Emma’s apartment. I walked up to her front door. “I need to get inside this apartment. Talk to the girl who lives here. She’s sick.”

  To my surprise and relief, Ian got to work immediately, not asking a single question. A minute later, Emma’s door opened and we walked inside the dark apartment. I rushed to her bedroom, hoping to find her passed out in bed.

  When I didn’t see her lying there, the knot in my stomach tightened, getting even worse when I heard Ian calling me from the hallway, his voice tense.

  “Gab, I think you should come back here.”

  KEEP READING. PART SEVEN IS COMING RIGHT UP. BELOW IS A DESCRIPTION SO YOU KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT:

  Gabi is devastated when she finds out what happened to Emma and the secrets she has been carrying. Unfortunately, things only get worse in the next days. All of a sudden, the stakes become so high that finding Nick’s killers is no longer a priority.

  GIRL UNDERCOVER

  Part Seven—The Truth

  Julia Derek

  Published by Adrenaline Books

  Copyright © 2015 by Julia Derek

  This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Published as an e-book June 2015 by Adrenaline Books.

  To find out more about the author and to sign up for her new books release, visit JuliaDerek.com

  Cover design by Luly Blazek at Kalosys Art.

  Chapter 1

  Feeling like I was about to throw up any second, I swiveled around and hurried back to Ian. He was nowhere to be seen in the small hallway, but the light in the adjacent bathroom was on, the door to it open. I ran over there and gasped loudly when I saw Ian standing next to a bathtub overflowing with dark pink water and a lifeless Emma lying in it.

  Ian switched off the bathtub faucet from which water had been flowing. As I walked closer and peered into the bathtub, I saw that she was naked and that her wrists were slit. Her arms were crossed under her big chest, as though she was supporting the weight of them.

  “Oh, God,” I mumbled, sinking to my knees and finding the carotid pulse in her neck with two fingers, praying we hadn’t come too late even though it sure looked like it. There was no sign of life in Emma. I kept trying and trying to get a pulse, but it was no use. The amount of blood in the water alone should tell me little blood remained in her body now. She must have been dead for hours already.

  I turned to Ian, still asking because I didn’t want to believe it. “Is it too late?”

  There was a somber look on his face. “Yes, I would say so. Much too late. This woman is dead.”

  My gaze went to Emma’s face, which was so white it had a light bluish tint to it. Her eyes were staring emptily up at the ceiling, her pale lips half open. Out of the corner of my eyes, I noted the sharp knife on the bathroom floor, which was made up of several black, gray and white little tiles. As I took a closer look at the knife, I saw that the blade was covered in blood.

  Oh, God, Emma what did you do? Why? Why didn’t you call me to talk some more?

  My heart ached for her, for having despaired to such a degree that she must have felt no other choice but to take her own life. Then guilt set in, guilt for not having stayed last night, having failed to see just how depressed Emma had really been. I should have been able to sense what she’d had on her mind. She must have decided this was her only option when I had dismissed her claims that Janine would destroy her so easily.

  Oh, God, why didn’t I stay? I could have saved her…

  A look of concern came over Ian’s features. “Gabi, are you okay?” Making me stand up, he pulled me close to him.

  “Not really,” I whispered. “I could have prevented this from having happened.”

  He embraced me then and I let him, snuggling up against his chest. I was feeling so, so low.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked softly, stroking my hair. “Who is this woman? I can tell you know her. I must say she does look quite familiar. Should I know who she is?”

  “She is—was one of the trainers at Nikkei,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

  “Ah, yes, now I do recognize her. Did you know her well?”

  “Um, it’s complicated…” I froze as something suddenly struck me.

  What if this isn’t a suicide? What if someone has murdered Emma and just made it seem like she killed herself?

  I pushed myself away from Ian’s chest and took one more look at Emma’s lifeless body, checking for signs of anything that would suggest that it wasn’t a suicide. My eyes traveled up and down her heavy body, and then to the knife on the floor. I sank down to my knees again to get a closer look of the way she’d slit her wrists. Both of them were slit diagonally several times. Was that the way you’d do it if you did it to yourself? Why so many times? Would you have the energy, not to mention the will to inflict yourself with all the pain all those cuts must have given you? I had no idea. In my years as a cop, this was the first time I had found someone who had used this method to commit suicide.

  I ripped off a big chunk of toilet paper from the roll attached to the wall next to the toilet, and then fished up one of her arms from the water.

  “What are you doing?” Ian asked as I kept checking the wounds on her wrists, making sure I wasn’t actually touching her skin with my hands. “Do you think someone else might have done this to her?”

  I let go of Emma’s limp hand and gazed up at him. He’d read my mind.

  “Yes, that was exactly what I was thinking,” I confirmed. “What do you think?” I got to my feet again.

  “I suppose it’s
possible, but I can’t tell just by looking at her right now. Do you know anything about her mental state?”

  I sighed heavily. “Yeah, I do. And it wasn’t good. She was very, very upset yesterday when I spoke to her. I came over to her place to try to calm her down. She had a miscarriage earlier in the morning. She was thirteen or maybe fourteen weeks pregnant.”

  “How long did you stay?”

  “With her? Maybe an hour.” Darkness settled in as a renewed wave of guilt swept over me. “I didn’t realize she was so incredibly depressed that she was considering suicide… I thought she was just hysterical after having lost the baby. After we had spoken for some time, she seemed much calmer, much better. She agreed she needed to sleep. I thought she’d feel better if she got some rest, so that’s why I left. But I should’ve stayed.”

  I gazed down at the many small tiles on the floor, for the first time discovering how much water was there. It seeped all the way into the narrow hallway outside. Looking at Ian, I asked, “How did you know she was in here?”

  “I slipped on the wet floor outside, so I pushed the bathroom door open to see if the water had come from there. And there she was.” He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t beat yourself up so much, Gabi. If she had her mind set on killing herself, there would have been nothing you could do. Unless she told you what she had on her mind. Did she?”

  “No, she didn’t say anything along those lines or I’d have stayed.”

  “Let’s check her apartment to see if there are any signs of a break-in or a suicide note somewhere. Most people leave one if they decide to kill themselves.”

  “Okay,” I said and we left the bathroom. “Why don’t you check the kitchen and the hallway while I go over here and check?” I indicated the living room and the bedroom that was on one side of it, already walking in that direction. I heard Ian walk into the kitchen opposite the bathroom.

  Nothing about Emma’s apartment gave the appearance of having been broken into as far as I could tell as I scanned the living room area and the part of the space that made up her bedroom. I knew I needed to be careful not to touch anything, or I might leave fingerprints that might implicate me in Emma’s death when the NYPD came here later to go over the apartment. Even if it looked like a suicide, surely they would not rule out the possibility that it might in fact be a murder. Then I remembered how I’d not only spoken to Emma on the phone as recently as yesterday, but how I’d been at her place too. I didn’t need to be all that careful in her living area at least; it was only to be expected that traces of me would be found there. The bathroom and especially her body were another story—even if prints on human skin were next to impossible to recover.

  When I felt I was done searching for signs of foul play and had yet to spot any suicide notes, I walked into the hallway and the kitchen where Ian had remained.

  “Are you finding anything of interest?” I asked as he looked through Emma’s cabinets, using a piece of tissue to open them. His prints would be impossible to explain to the cops, so I was glad he hadn’t forgotten to use something to cover his fingers.

  “Nope,” he said and turned to me. “How about you? Any suicide notes anywhere?”

  “No, no suicide notes and no signs of fights or burglars.”

  “Okay, then we should leave. I’ve already wiped the bathroom for any prints we might have left as well as the front door. It’s better that someone else finds Emma in this state and reports it than that you do it. Especially since it looks like it might be a murder after all. Are you sure you didn’t spot any suicide notes anywhere?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t see anything that looked like that. And I agree it would be better if someone else found Emma. There’s only one problem—one of her neighbors saw me banging on her door a little while ago.” If the cops were thorough and asked Emma’s neighbors if they had seen anything unusual today, surely the neighbor would remember. And talk.

  “So?” Ian said. “You came to check on your friend and left when she never came to open. You hung around in the building for a while, hoping that she might show up, but eventually you gave up. I don’t think I saw anyone see us opening the door. Did you?”

  I thought about the two of us standing outside Emma’s front door, Ian opening it with the bump key, it taking seconds only. As far as I could remember, no one had seen what we’d been up to. I told Ian so.

  “In that case, you should leave with me right now,” he said, “and let someone else find Emma.”

  He was right; it was the best thing to do. There was nothing I could do for Emma anyway. She wouldn’t suddenly wake up from the dead just because I wanted her to.

  “Okay, let’s go then,” I said. I walked up to the closed front door and peeked out through the peephole to make sure the stairwell was empty. No one seemed to be out there.

  “We should leave one at a time,” I whispered to Ian. “I can go first.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Ian said. “Go now then if the coast is clear. I’ll be down soon after you.”

  I opened the door quietly and snuck out of Emma’s apartment, walking with light steps. Fortunately, the stairwell outside was as quiet as it had appeared.

  I hurried down the stairs, keeping my head down as well as pretending to scratch my forehead just in case someone would see me; that way at least they wouldn’t get a good view of my face.

  Soon I was out on the street. There was a big drugstore on the other side of the multi-lane road that ran outside Emma’s apartment building. I went there and texted Ian that I was on the second floor. Then it struck me that maybe it was better if we weren’t seen together at all, so I walked back downstairs and left the drugstore.

  Marching down the street, I looked for a subway station while checking the time. It was only ten past six, which meant that any moment now I should receive a text from my client wondering where I was. In fact, I was surprised the man hadn’t already texted me; he was always on time and if I was a couple of minutes late for his session, I could count on an annoyed text lighting up my phone.

  I texted him, telling him that I was late, but that I would be there in ten minutes as I was only two stations away from the club. He was my only evening client, which meant I could make up the time I had missed by going longer with this client. Well, if he was able to stay longer. Most of the time, people could.

  When I was done training, I would go to Rolf’s office and tell him that I’d called Emma to check on her since I was worried she wasn’t okay. When she didn’t answer, I went over to her place and banged on her door for several minutes. Then I’d tell him I was really worried something wasn’t right with her. Hopefully, this would prompt him to call the cops and them to go over to Emma’s place and find her.

  There were two texts in my phone when I got out of the subway at Nikkei—one from Ian wondering where I was and one from my client, telling me that he’d been stuck in the subway for the last thirty minutes and hadn’t had any reception. So by the time I was back inside the club, twenty minutes past six, he had only just arrived.

  I was struggling to maintain my composure while training the man, doing my best to act normal. Having found Emma like that really bothered me and the last thing I felt like doing at the moment was train a person. It felt like the session would never end, but finally it did of course, twenty minutes past seven.

  As soon as I had said goodbye to my client, I rushed over to Rolf’s office. But it was dark behind the glass part of his door, so it looked like he had already left for the night. I should have known; he rarely stayed long after seven.

  Well, I can always call 911 and tell the operator I’m worried something’s not right with my friend, I thought as I walked down the stairs toward the cafeteria. After all, I had been at Emma’s place the night before and knew how upset she’d been. My story would fit perfectly with the circumstances. Even so, I would not leave my name when I called. The harder I could make it for the NYPD to reach me, the better. Surely, if they did their job righ
t, they would soon enough find out that I had been in touch with Emma the day before and question me anyway. All they needed to do was check the girl’s phone records, something any half decent detective would do.

  When I reached the cafeteria, I walked into one of the enclosed phone booths there and placed the call. I told the dispatcher that I thought something had happened to my friend and that I needed someone to go check on her. After giving Emma’s address, I cut the call short and left the club.

  I slept fitfully that night even though I had taken my usual heavy-duty sleeping pills. When my alarm clock woke me the next morning, I felt anything but rested. Pushing myself out of bed, I went into my living room and switched on the TV, putting it on Channel One. I was hoping to hear news about Emma while getting ready for work.

  It was only when I was almost ready to leave that the anchor mentioned a thirty-four-year-old woman having been found dead in her apartment last night and that it appeared to be a suicide. That was it.

  Hmm, I thought as I left my place. I would have to ask Ian to look into the police report written up about Emma, see if the case was considered closed or if an investigation had been launched to check if she had in fact been murdered. See if the NYPD even suspected that something criminal had taken place. I pulled out my phone to text him that I needed to see him later. We didn’t have a session scheduled for today—he no longer trained as often—and I couldn’t count on just bumping in to him at the club.

  He responded by the time I was entering Nikkei, telling me he’d be home after four.

  I didn’t even get inside the trainers’ lounge before Laurie, the trainer with the strawberry blond hair, stopped me, looking all distraught. “Hey, Jamie. Did you hear what happened to Emma?”

  I decided to play stupid. “No, what happened?”

  “Apparently, she committed suicide.” Laurie stared at me with huge eyes.