The Enemy Inside (16 page)

She started to cry. She felt hopelessly and irrevocably trapped. “The blackness is closing in and it’s only getting blacker, more final. I can’t outrun it anymore. Even the clubs aren’t keeping it away.” She sobbed.
 

“It’s going to be okay,” Jay whispered, rubbing her shoulder. “I promise. We’ll find a way to make it okay.”

Berg wiped her eyes. “What’s the point? There’s no hope.”

Jay sighed. “I may not know much, Berg, but I’ve learnt over the years that no matter how awful everything looks, no matter how low you get, there is and always will be hope.”

“Make it stop,” Berg pleaded, tears streaming down her face. “Please, Jay. Please make it stop.”
 

Not saying anything, Jay grabbed her and pulled her to his chest, holding her tightly as she cried
.

Jay, Berg, and Jesse awoke on top of her still-made bed late the next morning in a knot of arms, legs, and paws. Embarrassed, both Jay and Berg lay still for a moment, trying to figure out a polite way to untangle their respective limbs.
 

“Sorry,” Jay mumbled, gently extracting himself from beneath Berg. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“Me, too,” Berg said, looking equally ill at ease as she stood and closed her robe to her neck. “I’m going to shower. Help yourself to coffee; there’s a machine in the kitchen.”
 

As Berg rushed to the bathroom, Jesse snorted and stretched out, happy the mattress was finally all his.

Jay wandered into the kitchen and heard the shower sputter, then start. The coffee machine was a sleek stainless steel unit, like the rest of the house, and it took him three attempts and much fiddling about with filters and beans to extract a few tiny drops of dark liquid from it.

By the time he figured it out, Berg was already showered and dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt—long sleeves, he noted, to cover her bruises.
How long has she been doing that?
And I call myself a detective?
 

She walked out of the bedroom, drying her long hair with a fluffy white towel. Jay saw she had lost so much weight that the jeans swamped her skinny frame in excess fabric. “Do you want to shower?”
 

“Sure,” he said. “I can’t get anything decent out of this thing anyway.” Scowling at the machine, he headed off to the bathroom.

“Clean towels are on the rack,” Berg called after him.

By the time he showered and climbed back into his dirty clothes, Berg had made two steaming coffees.
 

He sipped his as he rummaged around the kitchen and made Berg some toast, putting the buttery slices down on a plate in front of her at the kitchen table.
 

“Eat something, for God’s sake,” he said.
 

Berg nodded and took a small bite.
 

“So, now that you’re getting your job back—” Jay said.
 

Berg quickly opened her mouth to argue.
 

“Shut up. You
are
getting your job back. So now that you are, can we please get back to business? I really need a hand from my partner.”
 

Jay watched Berg quickly brush away tears before she shrugged and nodded, sipping her coffee.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For not writing me off. So, anything new with the cases? Regardless what happens to me, I want to find who did this.”

“Not really. Arena interviewed Rogers’s wife and found out he was a regular churchgoing family man. Lived in Montana and then moved to Chi Town five years ago. He married the preacher’s daughter and apparently worked his ass off. Arena even interviewed some of the church friends in the hopes of finding dirt. His employer said he was a model employee. He gave most of his salary to charity. End of story.”

“How helpful.”

“Exactly. He had no secret enemies, mistresses, bank accounts, or drug problems. Not even any speeding tickets, which is pretty amazing for a trucker. And Hamilton took another run at the truckers—didn’t get any further than I did,” he said, looking smug.

“What about the GPS devices and LoJacks on both Taylor’s and Rogers’s rigs?”

“Nothing. Like many truckers, they refused to be monitored when they were hauling cargo, and as neither truck was reported stolen, the LoJacks weren’t activated. Both rigs were found on the side of the road, but there’s no telling how long they were there for. Not long, would be my guess. No matter how remote the area, abandoned trucks would be noticed.”

Berg nodded. “We really need someone inside to spill. The link between the truckers’ murders must be there.”

“Actually, Hamilton and I have an idea about that.”

“Oh?”

“We thought what if a woman had a go at them? Particularly a beautiful woman who is hard to say no to?”

Berg looked confused before it dawned on her who Jay meant. “Oh,” she said, taken aback. “Me! Sure, if you think it might work . . .” She blushed and looked away.

“As I am still on patrol, I might use that time to hit the streets and ask questions of the highway patrol guys. Why don’t you take the truckers and see if they might let down their guard around a lady?”

“Sure. Just tell me one thing first.” She took a deep breath. “How did you find out? About me?”

“How do you think I found out? I’m a detective. I detect things for a living.” Jay raised an eyebrow.
 

Berg glared at him.
 

“Actually,” he said, coming clean, “I tailed you after the hearing, but I lost you. It was just dumb luck that I ran into you last night. That woman, Cindy, dragged me there. I was about to leave when I saw you . . .”

“Dragged you there?” Berg looked skeptical, before his first statement sunk in. “And you fucking tailed me? Why?”

“Because you’ve been so fucking evasive I didn’t know what else to do! You said you were innocent, but you lied about where you’d been, and your neighbor told me you had been going out most nights and you kept denying it. I had to try something to find out what was going on before Consiglio did!” He banged on the kitchen table with a clenched fist.
 

Berg rocked back in her chair and folded her arms angrily.
 

“I just wanted to know what was going on. And, I was worried about you.”

Berg scowled for a long moment, before nodding. “Okay.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I lied to you. If you still want to be my partner, I promise to never do it again.”

“Okay, then.” Jay smiled. “I’ll be your partner if you eat your toast.”

Chapter Sixteen

Berg felt she had drawn the short straw. Heading to the notorious truck stop in the Sleepy Hollow suburbs, she suddenly realized that talking to a group of truckers on her own maybe wasn’t the best idea they’d ever had.
 

While she had turned physically defending herself into an art form, a group of more than three large truckers intent on causing her harm might be too much for even her to handle. She was fatalistic and never much minded the idea of death; it sounded peaceful. But she wanted to find out what happened to the hitchhikers and the truckers before she checked out.

Jay was busy taking advantage of his demotion and interviewing the highway patrol before they would reconvene at Berg’s place that afternoon.
 

Day of rest, my sweet ass
. Even though her evening with Jay had been the best night’s sleep she’d had in months, her eyes still felt dry with emotion and exhaustion.
 

Reaching her destination, she screeched to a halt in the front lot of the stop. It was not the first time she had been to Sleepy Hollow.
 

One of her nicer foster families had taken their six charges out to visit the old village one day, many years ago. All crammed into a minivan, her foster parents had driven around the pretty pattern of meandering roads. They told their disinterested children stories about the area, trying, she guessed, to educate them while doing activities that were free—fostering children did not make for a wealthy lifestyle.
 

They had sat under a huge old tree and enjoyed a picnic of slightly stale sandwiches before heading back to the city. Berg smiled at the memory. They were good people, and they had tried their best with a young teenage girl who didn’t know how to be loved.
 

Berg came back to the present and focused on the truck stop that was an eyesore on the picturesque village. The wooden shack was dwarfed by a huge parking yard, and there were about eight rigs of varying age and color parked in the lot. Berg noted six men sitting at various tables and booths in the stop as she walked into the restaurant.

The place smelt of old cooking oil tinged with sweat, and Berg was sure she could smell the testosterone, too. Every single diner looked up from his meal, and a few low whistles sounded as she walked confidently up to the stained counter and ordered a coffee.
 

Berg had spent the drive considering how she would tackle the difficult assignment and decided that, instead of seeking them out as a cop, she would let the truckers approach her as a woman. It didn’t take long—it never did. Berg was at the counter for a few moments before the first of the six tried his luck.

“Whatcha doin’ here, good lookin’?” he said, twirling a toothpick he was nibbling on.
 

Berg noted he looked to be in his mid-twenties.

“Awful strange place for a beautiful lady such as yourself to be frequentin’.”

Berg wanted to set up a task force to search for the guy’s
G
’s. “What can I say? I love the atmosphere here. So . . . friendly.” She looked around and took a swig of possibly the worst coffee she had ever tasted in her life. She thought if coffee grounds had been swept up off the floor, had sawdust added, and then been percolated through an old sock worn by a leper, it would have tasted better than what she was currently sipping.
 

“You’ve got no idea just how friendly it can be here, baby.”

Berg ignored him and sat at the nearest tall bar stool, crossing her long legs. “Actually, I’m wondering if you knew Danny Taylor and John Rogers, two of your fellow drivers who recently met their maker?”

Twisting his features into a show of sadness, the young man nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I heard ’bout them. Real shame. I knew of them, but didn’t have much to do with them personally.” He dragged the word
personally
out into what sounded like six or seven syllables. “Colt, over there’s your guy,” he said, pointing to a grizzled trucker sitting on his own at a corner booth. “He’s been doing this longer than most of us been alive. He knows everything ’bout everyone. Hey, Colt! This lady wants to speak to you!”
 

Colt, who was busy eating, looked annoyed and grunted.
 

Bingo. Hello, Mr. King Of The Jungle
. “Colt?” Berg repeated, standing and starting to move away. “Thanks for your help.”

“Hey now, missy, where you going?” The young man grabbed her wrist as she passed. “My truck is parked outside. Maybe we could go and get better acquainted first? You look like you could use some satisfaction.”

Berg twisted her wrist to break his grasp, before rotating his hand and putting him in a painful finger lock. He grunted in pain as his head was forced to the floor. “Hit puberty first, junior.” Releasing him, she moved toward Colt’s table, leaving the young trucker speechless and rubbing his hand behind her.

Colt’s booth was in the back of the stop. The man himself was sitting with his back to the wall on a split, red vinyl seat, polishing off a steak and fries. He didn’t even look up as Berg approached. A rail of a man, his sun-weathered face was deeply wrinkled.

“May I sit down?” Berg asked politely.
 

Colt nodded and kept eating, chewing noisily with an open mouth.
 

“I’m after some information on Danny Taylor and John Rogers.”
 

“You a cop?” Colt mumbled through his mouthful of food.

“Nope,” Berg answered, figuring it was pretty much the truth at the present time.

“What’s it to you, then?” He snorted belligerently before digging back in.