Broken (5 page)

Peak commuting time, the station was bustling with hundreds of people milling around the short wooden above-ground platform. Like clockwork, a train arrived every few minutes, emptying passengers before even more people crowded on.

Arena clicked and fast-forwarded the footage. The scene looked like an old black and white comedy as everyone got on and off the electric trains in double time.

“Stop!” Berg blurted.

Arena stopped the footage and backed up slightly.

Berg pointed. “There she is.”

Arena once again clicked play and the scene unfolded.

Wearing black leggings and a long woolen coat, belted high on her waist, Emma Young waited at the edge of the old wooden platform, occasionally pulling her beret further down over her long, blond hair. Scores of waiting passengers milled around her, but Berg noticed plenty of men giving the pretty woman second and even third glances as they waited. Eventually, the train pulled in, and Emma, along with many others, got on. The train pulled out.

“Back it up again,” Berg said.

They watched the scene unfold a few times, but could detect no strange activity.

“Let’s try the next set down.” She reached for the cup on her desk and took a quick swig, but her eyes never left the monitor. “It’s about a twenty minute trip.”

Arena minimized the footage, opened another window, and double clicked on the computer file. He fast-forwarded through the first several minutes then quickly stopped it as they caught sight of Emma.

She stepped off the train, pulled her long coat closer against the cold, and tucked her purse under her arm, clearly preparing for the short walk home.

The detectives watched closely as she stepped off the dinky old platform and out of frame.

Berg studied the small crowd walking with her. “Stop it there.” When the playback stopped, she tapped the screen where the first file sat minimized. “Now, open the footage for the 47
^th
and stop it before Emma gets to the platform.”

Arena clicked the mouse a few times.

“There,” Berg said, pointing at an ordinary-looking man in the first footage file wearing jeans and a jacket over a hooded sweater. They watched as the man leaned against a light pole at the station, waiting as several trains arrived and left, his hands in his pockets.

“He seems to be waiting for something, and it’s clearly not a train,” Arena said.

They continued watching the footage as Emma arrived, waited briefly, and got on the next train. The man joined the crowd boarding the train behind her.

Berg indicated Arena should reopen the next footage file.

The same man was frozen in the frame, leaving the station behind Emma.

“See if you can get a good shot of his face in any of the frames,” Berg said.

Arena fiddled about with the footage for a few minutes, fast-forwarding and rewinding in an effort to get a clear shot of the man’s face.

“The fucking hood’s in the way.” He sighed as he froze the footage. “I hate winter. It’s so much harder to ID suspects. This is the best I can get. I’ll try to enlarge.” He zoomed in on the man’s face but the image was poor quality and grainy, and the top half of his face was hidden in the shadow from the hood. He looked to be average height and build with no discernible tattoos or prominent features.

“Print it out. Someone in her family may still recognize him,” Berg said.

Arena nodded.

“What’s that, on the edge of the frame?” she said, pointing to a large, squat building. “Looks like a storage place on 95
^th
? They’re bound to have surveillance and Emma walked right by there.”

“I’m on it.”

Jay watched from his office as Berg and Arena studied Arena’s computer screen. Berg had moved her chair closer to his and was leaning in and talking to the annoyingly handsome detective.

It was rare that Jay felt threatened by any other man, but he knew full well how feelings between partners could develop seemingly out of nowhere. His feelings for Berg had taken him completely by surprise during the Leigh ordeal, and he hadn’t been able to shake them since.

They hadn’t slept together—yet. They’d come close a couple of times several months before, but he knew she needed to recover from her sex addiction first, and he could wait. He was committed to her recovery.

Jay watched her from his glass office, unable to look away.

Jesus, she is stunning
.

Her dark eyes, long, wavy hair, slightly crooked nose, and full lips were all he dreamed about. He had to keep his distance in the office because he was pretty sure his detectives didn’t want to see him at half-mast all day.

He noticed that she had been wearing increasingly plain suits, and he figured it was in an effort to deter Arena, but they did nothing to hide her banging body. She was tall and slim, but her thin frame belied her power. He had seen that body up close and personal, and wanted the chance to do so again.

Berg brushed her hair over one shoulder and laid her hand on Arena’s arm as she pointed at the screen with the other.

He felt an irrational stab of jealousy as they worked.

Easy, partner.
Berg knows how you feel.

Chapter Four

I wonder if you,

wanted me like I wanted you.

It’s a lonely truth,

that I can’t change you.

And you sure can’t change me.

–Fauxliage, “Let It Go”

T
he girl lay frozen in her bed, her heart pounding against her ribs. She forced herself to lie still as her bedroom door was pushed open slightly—just a crack.

It opened a little farther and a shadowy silhouette, highlighted by the bright lights of the outside hallway, moved inside quickly before being lost in the darkness as the door closed with a barely audible click.

She squeezed her eyes shut and pretended to be asleep, hoping it might convince the unwanted visitor to leave. There was silence for a moment and her ears strained to hear even the faintest whisper of sound.

All was still.

She could hear nothing beyond her closed bedroom door, so she assumed her mother had once again passed out.

She dared to open her eyes just a fraction, then squeezed them shut again hurriedly.

He was still there.

She could hear his heavy breathing now as he stood over her bed. She could hear the rubbing of fabric. She knew he was touching himself through his jeans. The breathing became rougher, more ragged, as the touching intensified.

She heard the scratch of metal as he lowered his zipper, then a soft thud as the heavy denim hit the floor.

No, no, no.

Eventually, the figure moved closer, pulling back the covers and easing into the warm single bed next to her. He reached down and pulled at her long white nightgown until it was gathered around her waist. He circled her hips with his large hands and moved her closer.

“I love you, Alicia. I love you so much . . .”

She started to cry.

Berg sat bolt upright in her white bed and wiped the tears from her face.

Just a dream. It’s not real anymore . . . the man is dead.

She looked at the clock on her nightstand as she pushed the comforter back and sat up.

4:30.

There was no way she was getting back to sleep so she wandered into her closet and pulled on her long underwear and thick sweats in preparation for a run.

She had run only eight hours ago with Jesse, but another jog was a better plan than lying in bed trying unsuccessfully to forget the past.

Berg tied on her worn running shoes tightly with a double knot and looked at Jess enquiringly. The shaggy golden retriever was still curled up asleep on the unused side of her queen bed.

“You coming?” she asked him.

He didn’t even raise his head off the bed before snorting in her direction, then wriggling his nose under her pillow to hide from the obviously offensive closet light barely illuminating the room.

Definitely a no
.

She headed east at a fast pace on West Van Buren, with no particular route in mind. Her breath fogged in the twenty-degree air, but she was thankful it wasn’t snowing as she jumped lightly over the piles of dirty, old, icy sludge in the gutter that were illuminated by the streetlights.

I love you, Alicia
 . . .

His voice echoed in her head and she wished for a moment that she had brought her cell—she had a Tool playlist on there that could drown out even the most persistent thoughts.

Pulling her hood lower, she ran past the squat, red brick buildings that were characteristic of her end of the street and weaved in and out of the rows of tightly packed parked cars.

Soon enough, the buildings became taller, and the bright skyscrapers and streetlights bathed the still dark road in man-made light as she headed east toward the lake.

Her breathing became harder as she pushed herself faster. Stretching out her legs and taking advantage of her long stride, she huffed over the bridge reaching across the south branch of the Chicago River, through the tall concrete and glass forest, and past the Van Buren Street art nouveau Parisian-style Metra entrance and straight into Grant Park.

Passing Butler Field on her left and the huge Buckingham Fountain on her right, Berg recalled the last time she had been near the large water feature.

Four other detectives from the 12
^th
had joined her and Jay at the scene that night. Cheney, Rodriguez, Abrams, and Connolly had been called out to process the body of a well-known Chicago reporter, Stella Kyrkos. Leigh had later admitted to luring her there and slitting her throat. She claimed Stella’s death had been necessary to silence the reporter once she could trace the leak back to Leigh as the source that ended Chief Consiglio’s police and political careers.

Berg pushed away the guilt she still felt over the young reporter’s death and instead focused on what Consiglio might be doing now. She and Jay had half expected him to come back to his favorite station after Leigh’s death and pick up dictating how to solve crimes to the precinct detectives. No one had seen hide nor hair of him since he had been retired by the Chicago Police Board to a part-time desk job. It was weird.

She was secretly relieved, however, since he had made no secret of his aim to get her and Jay fired. She was certain being out manipulated, particularly by a woman, had truly damaged his seemingly impervious ego. He had left his job and his political dream of becoming Ward 2’s alderman and had never been seen again.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy
.

She turned onto Lake Shore Drive and ran along the bike path intending to loop back around toward Van Buren and then head home.

Only six miles today.

The lake was dark and choppy in the early morning air, the boats in Chicago Harbor bobbing frantically against their moorings as the horizon lightened to a deep blue-gray signaling sunrise was still about an hour away.

She could just make out the single and double scull rowers training as she made her way back to the river and she watched a single rower’s muscles bunch and release under his thick wetsuit as he stroked his way off the lake to the dock. The top of the skiff’s hull appeared only inches above the water level and the craft cut smoothly through the icy river, the splashing of the oars audible in the early morning. His movements were elegant as he guided the craft to the dock with a gentle touch. A familiar pull of desire tugged at her as she watched, but she pushed it aside.

Berg stopped running. “Arena?” She’d said his name more in shock than in an attempt to get his attention. She was mortified she had been checking him out.