Broken (17 page)

“Maybe. You want me to call back?”

Berg smiled and nodded, telling Arena exactly what she wanted.

Maybe I’ll move up that timetable after all.

Chapter Fourteen

God only knows how much I’d love you if you let me,

but I can’t break through at all.

–John Mayer, “Heartbreak Warfare”

J
ay caught up with Berg just as she was leaving the office the following week. “You going to the hospital?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, never missing a step.

“You mind if I tag along?” he asked.

Berg sighed. “I guess not.”

While tempers had cooled in the two weeks since Jay had sent Berg home for losing it with Feeny, things were still strained between them.

“Haven’t you got a station to run?”

“Yeah, but I need a break from my desk.”

They reached a sedan and Jay got into the passenger side.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “It’s not your job to be there when they turn off Emma Young’s life support.”

“Yes, it is. She’s about to be dead because of a violent crime. I need to see this so I can remember why I stop this kind of shit from happening,” she said bleakly.

“Hey, you caught the guy. Give yourself a break.”

“I guess . . .”

“What?”

“There’s something not right about the crime. This guy is obviously not all there, and there’s no motive. The state’s attorney-appointed psychiatrist just told me he thinks the guy’s just a gamer freak who had a break with reality. So what would prompt him to do this? He had no connection to her whatsoever.”

“Carla’s saying his public defender’s pushing her to agree that Buchanan’s not competent to stand trial,” Jay said.

Berg ground her teeth together at Jay calling ASA Maroney ‘Carla.’

“What about that fantasy game crap?” Sounding a lot more like her old partner than her new captain, he was oblivious to Berg’s jealousy as he started running the case. “The general consensus is he was acting out the game in real life, killing what he considered to be an evil queen who had escaped the game. Emma apparently bears an uncanny resemblance to the queen’s avatar, whatever the hell that is,” he said.

Berg sighed. “I know this kind of random thing can happen, but it just seems . . . wrong, to me.” She still hadn’t been able to put her finger on what it was that was off about the crime. “I’m going to visit him in prison tomorrow and interview him again.”

“You don’t think he did it?”

“No, he definitely did it. DNA proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt, plus patrol found his clothes with Emma’s blood all over them in a dumpster, and the gas can with his fingerprints all over it. What I want to know is
why?
”

“What does Arena think?”

“Since when do you care what he thinks?”

“I don’t. I’m curious.”

“He thinks the case is nicely wrapped up, and I’m looking to make things complicated. And he thinks I don’t believe in random crimes.”

“You don’t.” Jay smiled. “You’ve got great instincts, but unless you can get more on the guy or the crime, I don’t see what else you can do. Maybe it is what it is—random. It does happen.”

Berg sighed. “I guess.” She needed to let it go. She was becoming obsessed.

Jay frowned. “That was your third ‘I guess’ in as many minutes. Are you okay?” he asked with concern.

“Sure, apart from the fact this poor girl’s about to die.”

“I mean
really
okay. We haven’t talked about . . .” Jay cleared his throat. “. . . the night I found you at The Pub?”

“I’m fine,” Berg snapped. “I was having a beer.”

“No, you weren’t. I know why you were in that bar by yourself. You’ve told me before that it was one of your . . . places. Do you think it’s a good idea to go back there?”

“I was just having a beer!”

Jay stared at Berg as she drove. “You can lie to yourself, but not to me. You were about to slip—admit it! And then there’s what happened between us after . . .”

Berg ignored him and pulled into the hospital’s parking lot. “We’re here.”

Walking toward the room, they expected to find it devoid of people, except for Emma’s family and a doctor.

What they found was a veritable press conference.

“What the fuck?” Berg muttered under her breath.

Jay and Berg pushed into the room, coming to a stop near the empty back wall, where Arena was already standing.

“What’s he doing here?” Arena said, pointing at Jay.

“Hi, we may not have met, I’m your captain.” Jay offered his hand and rolled his eyes. “By way of my being
your boss
, I can pretty much go where I fucking wa—”

“What is about to happen here today,” Elizabeth Young spoke loudly, as tears streamed down her face, “is the terrible result of a violent crime perpetrated against an innocent victim who can no longer speak for herself. We are allowing the media to film this today in the hopes that Chicago and the entire country, maybe even the world, will watch and say, ‘no more!’ This kind of violence will no longer be ignored or glorified in popular culture. We as a people will stand up and fight for our right to be safe on the streets and in our own homes. Our rights to see violent criminals locked up never to see the light of day again, so they can’t get out and keep reoffending, and as a deterrent for anyone considering this kind of act.”

What is she . . . that doesn’t apply in her sister’s case. Buchanan’s got no criminal record at all.

Cameras flashed continuously as Elizabeth talked. Film camera crews jostled for position, switching between shooting Elizabeth as she spoke, to Emma’s still form on the bed, to their clearly devastated parents sitting quietly in the corner.

“Earlier this week the victims’ advocate group, Enough is Enough, contacted me and asked if I would lend my voice to the cause. Because I do not want Emma’s death to be even more meaningless than it already is, I have invited you here today so you can watch me do what my parents cannot bring themselves to do—to finally end my sister’s all too short life.” Elizabeth took a deep, shaky breath. “Maybe, if the world can witness the final breath of a victim of crime, a beautiful victim who should still be living and breathing and enjoying her life, we can bring the focus back to where it should be—back to the rights of victims and their families, not to the rights of violent criminals to live full and rewarding lives when, by their own actions, they lost the privilege to any such thing!”

Elizabeth positioned herself near the power supply for Emma’s life support system. “Emma, I loved you so much . . .
we
loved you so much.” She looked over at her devastated parents. “We will never forget you, and we will love you for the rest of our lives.” Wrapping her shaking hand around the cord, she prepared to pull it out.

The media outlets crammed closer for the best possible shot of death.

Berg felt sick at the opportunistic scene.

“Wait!” Emma’s doctor said, jostling through the jammed door into the overcrowded room. “Wait!”

Elizabeth, shocked, yanked her hand away from the cord and the entire room, media and family alike, turned to the doctor and waited expectantly for a last-minute miracle.

“I need to speak to Emma’s family—privately,” the doctor said pointedly to the throng.

The media remained motionless, unwilling to remove themselves and miss even a second of the real-life drama that was unfolding before them.

The doctor looked pissed. “I’m not continuing until all the media is out of the room!” she insisted.

Jay snapped into action. “Okay, you heard her, guys. Get out,” he said, ushering the salivating reporters to the door.

Irritated muttering followed in their wake. There were so many of them—every major news station in Chicago looked to be represented. It took a few minutes for them all to file out.

“Come on, let’s go,” Berg muttered to Jay and Arena.

“Actually, you can stay, if it’s all right with the family,” Dr. Reilly said. “What I have to say may be pertinent to the investigation.”

Emma’s parents nodded their assent.

“What is it, doctor?” Emma’s father said, pushing past his wife and their other daughter, who actually stumbled and nearly fell. “Do her test results show an improvement in brain activity? Is she coming back to us?”

“Daddy, you know that’s imposs—”

“Shut up, Elizabeth!” Alex yelled. “Go and stand over there with your mother.”

Elizabeth scowled, but did as she was told.

“Now, doctor, tell me, is my precious Emma improving?”

Berg suddenly realized that she had yet to hear Emma’s mother, Marilyn Young, speak. Between her husband and remaining daughter, the poor woman might as well have been mute.

Dr. Reilly shut the door on the eavesdropping media firmly. “No, I’m sorry, she’s not,” she said, putting them out of their misery quickly. “But the tests did show something unexpected in her blood work.”

“What?’ Elizabeth asked, impatient. “I thought we did all that.”

Alex silenced her with a single glare.

“The blood work to date was to check oxygen levels and other things so we could monitor her progress. This time, we did a full blood panel and found elevated HCG levels—the hormone that is present in pregnancy.”

The doctor opened the door again and waved in a nurse, who was pushing an ultrasound machine.

The nurse pulled up Emma’s gown and pulled down the blanket until it was all modestly arranged, and squeezed some gel onto her lower abdomen.

The doctor took the wand from the nurse and started moving it around on Emma’s skin, over the gel. “We may not be able to see anything this way—it depends on how pregnant she is. If we can’t, we’ll have to do an internal ultrasound, in which case, everyone but family will need to step outside.”

Berg, Jay, and Arena all nodded.

The doctor turned up the sound on the machine and pointed with her free hand to the screen. “There is the sac and the baby. Good strong heartbeat,” she said, nodding.

Emma’s parents, initially devastated at the doctor’s prognosis for Emma, were now glued to the ultrasound screen. Hope bloomed on both their faces.

Berg thought they looked almost as delighted as any regular expectant grandparents would be.

“Emma’s going to have . . . a baby?” Alex asked softly, almost knocking over a clearly shocked Elizabeth for the second time in his haste to get to the doctor.

“That’s hard to say. Pregnancies in coma patients are not unheard of, but they are complicated and unlikely to go full term. But, from what I can see, this fetus looks perfect for a pregnancy of around sixteen weeks. We’ll have to do some more tests, of course.”

“Is this . . . baby . . . even viable?” Elizabeth asked, before quickly adding, “I don’t want to get my parents’ hopes up for something that may not even be possible.”

“Like I said, we’ll do some more tests to find out how things are progressing, and in the meantime, you should talk about what you want to do. Discuss if you even want to see the pregnancy out,” Dr. Reilly said, glancing at the detectives.

“Why wouldn’t we want to keep the baby?” Mr. Young interjected, incredulous. “Of course we want Emma’s child! Our precious daughter still lives in this baby!”

Berg stepped forward, willing to explain. “I think what the doctor is trying to say is . . . you need to consider just whose the baby might be. Pregnancy is the most vulnerable time in a woman’s life and the most likely time to suffer from a violent crime. And despite what the media would have you believe,” she said, nodding her head toward the horde outside, “the violence done to pregnant women is not done by strangers. In ninety-nine percent of cases, the father of the child does it. The baby’s father is most likely Emma’s attacker, too. He hoped to kill both her and the baby.”

Realm of Blood
, my ass
.
Buchanan planned and attempted the murder of his girlfriend and their baby then set up an incompetency defense, the asshole.

Emma’s parents looked at each other in horror, then down at Emma.

“Well, what do you know,” Jay whispered to Arena. “I guess this isn’t a random crime after all.”

Chapter Fifteen

But the demon and me were the best of friends from the start.

–Kings of Leon, “Revelry”

T
he next morning Berg and Arena pulled up to the Cook County Department of Corrections buildings—or Cook County Jail to those familiar with it—parked the unmarked sedan and wandered inside the main gate to start the long and laborious sign-in process.

Because they were detectives they were spared a ride on the secure pass machine, which X-rays newly bonded inmates and visitors to prevent contraband from finding its way inside the prison.