Broken (45 page)

“You can’t get in that way,” a soft voice said from behind her.

Berg whirled around and she almost fell over.

“It’s a one-way door,” Elizabeth said, emerging from the dark end of the alley behind some buildings. Metal flashed in her hand as she wandered into the path of a dim streetlight.

“What?” Berg leaned forward, double stepping to the side when she lost her balance.

“Stay right there,” Elizabeth said, raising the gun. “Unless you want to die where you stand.”

Berg might have been drunker than she’d ever been in her life, but she wasn’t stupid. “You’re not going to shoot me in the middle of an alley.” She scoffed. “About three hundred people will be on you seconds after they hear the shot!” She stepped within spitting distance of the young woman. “Besides, go ahead and shoot me, I don’t give a shit. You’ll be saving me the trouble of doing it myself later.”

“I was afraid you’d say that, which is why I have brought along a little plan B,” Elizabeth said. She bent down and picked up what looked like a large purse from behind her. “I believe you know it as baby Emma.” Elizabeth cocked the gun and pointed it at the sleeping baby. “Now how do you feel about it?”

Berg gagged but stopped where she stood.

“I thought so. Now hands behind your head, and come with me.” Elizabeth motioned toward a generic black sedan partially concealed in the darkness of the alley, and then aimed the gun at baby Emma. She gestured with a quick nod. “Get in the driver’s seat.”

The doors were unlocked and Berg complied.

“Don’t put on your seatbelt.”

Berg obeyed, watching Elizabeth climb into the back of the car directly behind the driver’s seat.

She kept the gun trained on Emma and looked into the rearview mirror at Berg. “I think this will serve as extra incentive for you not to try anything as you drive.” Elizabeth carefully clicked in her seatbelt, but didn’t lock the baby capsule into place, instead casually placing the baby, unrestrained, on the seat next to her. “Now follow my instructions.”

Berg started the car and followed Elizabeth’s directions carefully. “Where are we going?” She could hear her words slurring together as she struggled to keep the car on the road.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

“Guess I pissed you off today, huh?” Berg said.

“You’re not smart enough to piss me off,” Elizabeth retorted. “And you were wrong anyway. By the end of tonight, I think you’ll find that you were very wrong about every rude thing you said to me. One thing in particular, in fact. I do have the courage to look into someone’s eyes as I kill them. Two someones, even.”

Berg winced. “She’s just an innocent baby. Let her go.”

“Not a chance. You don’t care about your own life, but for some reason you do care about this little bastard’s. You’re going to find you were also wrong about my criminal intelligence. I’ve come up with a way to get rid of both of you at the same time.”

“Please!” Berg scoffed. “I may be drunk, but there’s no way you can kill me, let alone the baby, and still walk away. No one’s that smart! You’ll be the first suspect CPD picks up.”

“I
am
that smart. After all, I did walk away from the murder of my own sister, so I’m pretty sure I can come up with a way to off a drunken, self-destructive cop and a helpless baby.”

“You’ve completely gone off the deep end!”

Elizabeth laughed. “Pathetic words from a pathetic, broken woman. And here’s another news flash for you—not only did I get that sad gamer to kill my sister for me, but I got him to commit suicide afterward. A quick visit from me acting as his legal counsel, and he killed himself not five minutes later. He actually thought he was living in the game and would be resurrected on the outside to play again. If only I could do a true crime exposé on myself. Now
that
would be a good show!”

“So you were the woman who visited him before he died?”

“Yep,” she said smugly.

“You’re not as smart as you think. Your own mother tricked you,” Berg argued. “She knew you’d come after little Emma again.”

Elizabeth turned away from the rearview mirror, angling to look to Berg’s face instead. “I must admit, I was surprised by the breathing monitor in the crib. I have no idea how she afforded it. I cut off all their money. She paid for her mistake soon enough, though. It didn’t take much convincing for me to get my father to believe that
she
was the one trying to hurt the baby and trying to blame it on me. He was happy to commit her. I think I’ll pay her a little visit soon and get her to kill herself, too.” She shifted back to watching Berg’s eyes in the small mirror. “What do you think? I think the baby’s luck has finally run out tonight, though. A bullet to the head is hard to dodge.”

“And I’m guessing you made an attempt on Emma’s life while she was in the hospital.” Berg glanced at the flashing eyes singing back at her.

“That fucking cunt just kept refusing to die!” Elizabeth yelled. “She survived the attack, then I tried to smother her with that stupid pillow and that didn’t even do it. Guess we know where the baby gets it from.”

“You’re crazy!” Berg exclaimed. “Your sister and her baby did nothing to you.”

“The hell they didn’t!” Elizabeth retorted. “This is all her fault! Her and her pretty eyes and her perfect body and her straight teeth . . . my parents were perfectly happy with me until she came along. They think kids don’t remember anything, but I did. She ruined everything! She made me do it. Taunting me with everything they gave her, being so self-righteous that she’d found a husband before me.
I’m
the older sister! It’s her own fault she’s dead. If she’d just left me alone, none of this would’ve happened. Pull into the lot on the left.”

They drove north on South Morgan Street in the historic city neighborhood of Bridgeport.

Berg guided the car into the parking lot of what looked like an old warehouse. CHICAGO COMMUNITY CABLE rested on the roof of the four-story red brick building in bright neon lettering.

“Congratulations, detective, you’re going to be the subject of my very first nationally syndicated show. It’s going to be awesome,” Elizabeth said. “Get out.”

Berg climbed out of the car, careful to show her hands and not set Elizabeth off or put the baby in more danger.

Elizabeth climbed out with the capsule, still aiming the gun at the tiny baby. Emma had slept though the entire exchange and Berg was concerned she had been drugged.

Elizabeth indicated that Berg should head toward a side door of the building. “Open it.”

Berg tried the handle—it was locked. “I don’t have the key,” she said.

Elizabeth sighed. “So dumb. You still don’t get it, do you? You’re a cop, I’m sure you have skills, even in your current state. Kick. It. In.”

Berg stepped back, aimed carefully, and shattered the lock on her first kick.

“Good. Now be sure to touch the door and frame will you?” Elizabeth said with mock politeness.

Berg followed her instructions, weaving slightly as she tried to keep her balance.

“Excellent,” Elizabeth said. “Go inside.”

Berg staggered down the long hallway, past thick, insulated double doors that led to various huge, heavily soundproofed soundstages. “Is this where you record your cable show?” she asked.

“Obviously.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes and gestured quickly with the gun. “Get inside.”

SOUNDSTAGE 6 was printed on the door in large letters.

Berg walked inside.

“Step back,” Elizabeth said.

Berg noted Elizabeth was careful to stay out of the soundstage and wondered why as she turned around, hands raised, unwilling to take her eyes off little Emma. She stumbled to the center of a huge room, one side dominated by large black mounted cameras, the other side by a television set.

A single light illuminated a news desk made of light honey-colored wood. Behind it sat a comfortable-looking red desk chair. On the wall, the large, flat screen television was mounted with the words REAL PEOPLE, REAL CRIME—HOSTED BY VICTIMS’ ADVOCATE ELIZABETH YOUNG on it.

“Welcome to my work,” Elizabeth said proudly as she sat the baby down, aiming at the baby’s carrier with one hand while she spread her free arm wide, and showed off. “Tonight we’ll be doing a show on what happens when cops go rogue. We’ll both be the stars of this episode. Of course, it will be painful for me, but I think it makes for better ratings when the host lends a personal note to the show, don’t you? I smell an Emmy!”

“Please.” Berg scoffed. “Be my guest. Record yourself killing an innocent baby and an unarmed cop. It’ll make the investigation go faster.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Jesus—you’re
so
fucking dumb. You obviously don’t recognize this.” She pointed the gun away from the baby and turned it back and forth so Berg could get a good look at it.

Berg gasped. “Is that
my
gun?” It looked like her personal .22 revolver—the sidearm she always kept safely locked away in her bedside drawer. “How did you get that?”

Elizabeth practically crowed with laughter. “
Now
she starts to understand. Thanks to your indiscreet boyfriend and a faulty door, I knew just where you were headed. I convinced your neighbor I was your captain ex-boyfriend’s sister, come to collect his personal effects, but sadly I dropped the key he gave me down the drain. She handed hers over after a few tears on my part. I must say, she didn’t seem surprised at the demise of your relationship. How sad. Nice dog, by the way.”

Berg glared at Elizabeth, fear for both Vi and Jesse ripping through her.

“Now . . .” Elizabeth looked as if she might start clapping with excitement when she bent to look in Emma’s carrier, rocked it with the barrel of the gun, and asked in a high-pitched baby voice, “Don’t you want to know how tonight’s episode unfolds?”

Berg shook her head—she had a pretty clear idea already.

Elizabeth snapped her attention back to Berg and flashed a smile in complete contrast to the insanity of the situation. “A poor, sad cop, devastated at the end of her career and her relationship—and with an unhealthy obsession with a guiltless woman—goes on a bender and has a psychotic break. She tracks down this poor woman at her work—while she is babysitting, no less—and shoots both the woman and the poor, innocent baby. Sadly, the baby doesn’t make it,” she said, contorting her face into a mockingly sad pout. “But the woman is only wounded. She fights back, wrestling the gun away, killing the cop. What a story!”

Still holding the gun on the baby, she gave little Emma a hard pinch, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and dialed. “Please help us!” she said through clenched teeth with Emma now screaming in the background. “I’ve been shot! Detective Alicia Raymond—she broke in, and she’s trying to kill us! Please help us. I have a baby here. A baby!” Elizabeth gave the address between sobs, ended the call, and flung the phone away as Berg inched forward slowly.

Without another word, Elizabeth cocked and turned the gun, shooting herself in the leg. She gasped at the pain and almost collapsed, but righted herself with a grunt and quick shake of her head. She leveled the gun at the baby once more. “I know you’ll enjoy this part of the story in particular. Say goodbye to baby Emma,” Elizabeth said flatly, cocking the gun once again.

“No!” Berg screamed, lunging at the woman.

Startled by Berg’s sudden dive, Elizabeth had to make a split-second decision. She aimed the gun at the flailing detective and fired.

The bullet hit Berg directly in the chest.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Grant my last request,

and just let me hold you.

Don’t shrug your shoulders,

lay down beside me.

Sure, I can accept that we’re going nowhere,

but one last time let’s go there,

lay down beside me.

–Paolo Nutini, “Last Request”

J
ay followed Elizabeth’s dark sedan in the unmarked police minivan, making sure to stay far enough behind without losing the vehicle completely. He silently thanked Berg for driving like a grandma—she made it easy on him, even in the busy traffic.

“Why can’t I drive and you listen to the ramblings of a sociopath?” Arena whined, one side of the headset pressed to his ear as he listened to the broadcast from Berg’s concealed wire.

“Because Berg told me that even people requiring guide dogs could tell that you were following them,” Jay retorted. “Maybe it’s time for a refresher course, huh?”

“Shut your face,” Arena grumbled, putting down the headphones. “We’ve got enough. Let’s take her down. Ready?” he asked the two members of SWAT riding in the back of the van with them.

“Ready.”

They went through a final weapons check.

“I cannot believe this actually worked,” Arena said, shaking his head.

“Are you doubting my lady?” Jay said as he drove.