Broken (22 page)

Jay sat in the fancy restaurant sipping on a glass of expensive French red wine and waiting for ASA Maroney. He couldn’t stop the grimace as the liquid hit the back of his throat.

He had never been able to tell the difference between a one hundred dollar bottle and the stuff they poured straight from the box at his favorite bar, but after a couple of dates, he knew Carla could.

Watching the door, he longed for a beer. She was only a few minutes late and probably wanted to make an entrance, just like all women except—

Nope, not going there
.

Sure enough, she breezed through the door in a tight, blood red dress that creatively displayed all the right places. Her well-executed entrance wasn’t lost on anyone in the restaurant, man or woman.

“Darling,” she said, kissing Jay soundly on the lips as he rose to greet her.

“Carla,” he replied, pulling out her chair. “You look lovely.”

She really did. Her long blond hair fell nearly to her waist in soft waves, her eyes were a startling green, and her figure kicked all the right goals. She didn’t wear too much makeup, but then again, she didn’t really need it. She was exactly the kind of woman who had always caught his eye and turned his head so why was he feeling nothing but exhaustion? Tonight was their third date, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get excited about it.

“Thank you,” she said as she sat down and took a sip of wine. “Perfect,” she practically purred. “Just what I need today.”

“Bad day?”

“The worst. Even without Feeny and Buchanan, my caseload is overflowing . . .”

Carla’s mention of those particular cases only got him thinking about the very woman he had been desperately trying not to think about for more than two months. He tried to concentrate on what Carla was saying, but failed dismally.

“Jay?” she asked impatiently.

“Sorry, what?”

“You’re obviously distracted this evening. Anything you want to talk about?”

“No, thanks. Just . . . work.”

Carla pursed her lips. She was a smart woman and knew the score. “Like hell it is. You know, I’ve been more than understanding, given the circumstances, but you called
me
for this date, not the other way around. I’ve been waiting for months for you to come to your senses. My patience is wearing thin.”

“I know . . . and I’m trying, I really am. I want this to work.” Jay wasn’t sure if that was even true anymore. He knew he had to move on from Berg, but part of him—hell, most of him—didn’t want to.

“I probably shouldn’t be saying this . . .” She seemed to be arguing with herself before she made up her mind. “I’ve been hearing rumors around the courts. Your girl’s a great cop and all, and she’s got an excellent clearance rate, but her personal life is . . . well, let’s just say she’s clearly got a few problems that anyone could see even without the benefit of office gossip.” Carla lowered her voice. At the end of the day, she was nothing if not discreet. “But the way she handled Feeny . . .” She subtly glanced around the room. “I may be the newest Chi-Town ASA, but I’ve been a criminal lawyer for a long time, and I know someone in trouble when I see it. She’s obviously headed for a fall, Jay, a big one, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. If you don’t disentangle yourself from this situation, she’ll take you with her. Is that what you want?”

Jay shook his head automatically because it was expected. It was what a sane, reasonable person’s response would be. Sadly, he felt as if he was neither of those things anymore.

“Are the whispers I’ve heard about you and Alicia having problems with the previous chief true?”

Jay just nodded.

“Well, my sources tell me he’s far from finished with either of you. He may be down, but don’t assume he’s out. He’s looking for a way to get his old job back, and if your detective keeps going the way she is, he won’t have to look that hard.”

Jay nodded again, but her words barely registered.

Carla stood up. “I’m not so hard up that I need to have dinner with a man who doesn’t really want to be here. I could have just about any man in this city, and I chose you.”

She wasn’t boasting; Jay knew it was fact.

“So you have a decision to make. When you’ve made it, you know where I am,” she said, sauntering out of the restaurant the same way she came in—with all eyes on her.

Chapter Eighteen

The scars of your love, remind me of us,

they keep me thinking that we almost had it all.

The scars of your love, they leave me breathless.

I can’t help feeling, we could have had it all.

–Adele, “Rolling in the Deep”

A
s much as Jay had tried to stick to a full week’s suspension, he had been forced to call his detectives back within five days. Their caseload couldn’t afford to have them off for a full week—the station’s clearance rate depended on them, and so did he.

“Here’s the situation,” he said as the pair settled into the chairs in front of his desk. “Tests showed Emma Young’s baby is remarkably healthy, despite everything Emma’s been through over the last few months, so her parents allowed the ob-gyn to take some DN—”

“And?” Berg said, impatient. The days forced away from her job had been the longest of her life, and she felt desperately out of the loop.

Life as a cop usually afforded her no downtime. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were eaten at her desk or in the car on the way out to a crime scene or to interview a witness. There were never any slow periods, and Berg preferred it that way—with zero time to think.

She had worked, cracked, and solved what was arguably the biggest CPD case of the decade last year, but she’d received no thanks or special commendations. Two days after she had shot Leigh, and high on exhaustion after keeping a vigil at Jay’s bedside for forty hours straight, she had walked into the station, business as usual.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a vacation, and she didn’t want another one, forced or otherwise.

“Buchanan was not that baby’s father. And we have no leads into who is,” Jay said. “Find out who the father of the baby is. The case is all but closed with Buchanan’s death, but I want to tie up any loose ends that could unravel.”

“
We’ll
look into it,” Arena said.

Jay glanced at him in frustration then tilted his head. “Hey, what happened to your face?” he asked, as if he just now noticed the deep black eye and bruised jaw. “And where do I send the thank-you note?”

“It’s nothing,” Arena said. “Just a difference of opinion.”

“A difference of—what kind of opinion? With a fellow cop? A civilian? Your differences of opinion could get us sued, you know!”

Arena snorted. “And your transformation into paper pusher is complete. Twelve months ago it was you wandering into the captain’s office with a black eye, if I recall correctly?”

Jay’s face went red as he stood up.

“It’s nothing, Jay.” Berg stood as well and held a hand out as if she could push his anger down with the gesture alone. “You don’t need to be concerned. It won’t come back on the station. I can vouch for it.”

Jay opened his mouth, about to ask her how she could be so sure, when his attention focused and he narrowed his eyes. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Are those 
bruises? 
On your
face?
”

“No. Let’s go, Arena,” Berg said and pulled the detective out of the office.

Jay felt as if his legs had lost all ability to hold him, and he practically dropped into his seat after they left, his head in his hands.

Berg had done her best to cover it up with makeup, but Jay had been able to make out the faint bruise on her cheek—a bruise his experience told him was made by an open-handed slap of a right-handed person.

Arena was right-handed.

He cursed himself out silently for not seeing it sooner. Berg not wanting anything to do with him made perfect sense if she was fucking Arena.

Jay knew that, on her bad days, she liked it rough—the picture of her strung up and beaten at that sex club had been permanently branded onto his brain. And Arena . . . that asshole, would be only too happy to help her work out her demons, Jay had no doubt. The spoken and unspoken rules about fucking your partner wouldn’t stop him in the slightest. Neither would the fact that she had been trying her best to recover from her darker needs.

Fuck.

He’d been so naïve, mooning over Berg and she had already moved on.

He looked down at his pile of paperwork, ignored it, picking up his phone instead, and dialed quickly. “Carla?” he said. “I’m ready. Let’s do this thing.”

By the end of the week, it felt as if Berg hadn’t left her desk at all.

There had to be something they’d missed in the Young case. Something, anything, that pointed to a more obvious motive. Logically, Berg knew, that all the evidence they had should be enough, but now, with Emma’s unknown lover floating around out there . . .

She heard a throat clear behind her.

“Oh, hi . . .” Berg said awkwardly, swiveling around. She wasn’t really sure what she should call the glamorous woman in the fine pinstriped suit and sexy platform pumps who had appeared out of nowhere.

Carla?

Ms. Maroney
?

What she really wanted to call her—
ThatfuckingbitchdoingJay?

“Detective Raymond. I was wondering if we might have a word?”

“Sure, of course. Need clarification on one of my cases?”

“No. Can we go somewhere a little more private?”

“All right.” Berg scanned the area and saw that Jay wasn’t in his office. She led the way. “Is in here okay?”

“Mmm. Appropriate, really.”

Berg ushered the woman inside and shut the door.

Carla made herself at home in Jay’s chair, leaving Berg standing awkwardly in front of her. “I’m going to cut to the chase. You and Jay, is it really over?”

Berg was stunned. For several long seconds, she could do little more than blink. “Ah, it’s not so much over as it never even got started,” she said.

“Good. He said much the same. I wanted to check because I think I can give him the life he wants, the life he deserves . . . the kind of life that you aren’t capable of giving him, despite how much you might want to. Am I right?”

Berg stared at the woman in front on her—this woman in all of her
never a strand out of place, wouldn’t dream of needing braces, I look like I walk runways
glory, and wanted to kill her. With every fiber of her being, she wanted the wench dead and bleeding at her feet.

She shook off the impulse and simply nodded.

Carla was right. Jay deserved the kind of life this woman could provide. A perfect life. After the debacle with his late wife, Renee, then the back and forth with Berg . . . he deserved a little peace. He deserved a loving wife who would give him the rug rats he wanted, the white picket fence—the whole thing.

“Good. Then we’ve reached an understanding.” Carla rose, straightened her suit, and clasped her hands in front of her. “It would be in Jay’s best interests, don’t you think, if he’s under no illusions about the two of you? Let him go, and let him move on. I’ll make him happy, I promise.” Carla didn’t wait for an answer. She turned and swooped out of the office with the self-assurance of a woman who knew her place in the world and was confident that she deserved to be there.