The Enemy Inside (44 page)

Back in the warm building, she slumped down at her desk, typing madly, searching every police, taxation, and real estate database she could find for any kind of property listing, owned or rental, for any of the captain’s aliases.
 

Knowing it was likely futile, as Connolly and the others would have done the same thing, she punched away at the keyboard anyway, hoping for a lucky break.
 

But true to form, no lucky break was forthcoming.

“Fuck!” Berg yelled at the laptop, bringing her fist down on the keyboard and trying to resist the temptation to throw it out the nearest window along with her cell. She felt Jay’s life slipping away every second she delayed, and her heart listed with premature grief.
 

God knows what Leigh was doing to him at this very second. Now, even when she was awake, she could hear him screaming. She had run out of aliases. Irene, Janet, Kathleen, and Louise all yielded nothing.
 

Unless, M.
If the bitch was running true to form, the next alias would be an M.
 

She typed two
M
’s with shaking fingers into the search criteria and changed it to search for initials. The computer beeped and came up with what looked to Berg to be about one hundred thousand renters in the greater Chicago area with double
M
’s for initials.
 

Going on gut, she narrowed the search criteria down, concentrating it in and around the area where the old tavern Colt described was before it had been torn down to make way for housing.
 

She typed in the location, South Barrington, taking the search parameters down to Busse Woods and up to Gilberts, where Colt’s abandoned truck had just been found.
 

The search yielded a much more respectable number, and she decided to concentrate on short-term rental tenants only, feeling Leigh would not want to set down permanent roots in a house used for torture and murder.
 

She discounted all the males on the list and started looking through, checking employment histories, birth dates, and credit ratings. Soon, only five decent options were left. All five women had paid cash for rentals by the month. Berg doubted the captain would use a real birth date, but she flicked through them anyway.
 

She recognized three numbers: September 23, 1979, the date Janet Jacobi had been raped and became Kathleen Kimpton.
 

She brought up the listing and waited for it to appear. The property, rented to a Melanie Matheson, was a half-acre lot on Old Sutton Road in South Barrington and only a few minutes north of Poplar Creek Preserve and the tollway. The tenancy was almost up.
 

Noting down the address, Berg fled the station. She ran back out to the car, parked illegally outside the front of the station. It was early evening, and the black clouds plunged the city into an uneasy, foreboding darkness. The freezing rain was now pouring down in torrents, causing minor flooding around the drains in the street. She climbed into the car just as an emergency vehicle screamed past, throwing a sheet of water over the driver’s side window.
 

Safely dry inside, Berg remembered she had no cell and no way to call the guys to tell them what she was doing. She was also in her car, not a police car, so it wasn’t being tracked.

Not willing to lose even a few precious minutes by going back inside to make the calls, she screeched up the street and headed to the woods.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Berg stopped about a quarter of a mile from the address, pulling her car well off the quiet road onto the shoulder and killing the lights quickly.

Stepping out into the cold rain that was turning into a slushy sleet, she opened the trunk of the hatch and, sheltering under its ineffectual refuge, lifted the cover off the spare wheel well to reveal a veritable arsenal of weaponry.
 

Taking off her jacket, she replaced it with a black windbreaker and tied her wet hair back. Even though she was far inland, icy droplets pounded against her skin, chilling her to the bone, as if the water had come straight off the churning, black depths of a wintery Lake Michigan. Her hands were numb, but she didn’t even notice as she checked her Sig and placed two more spare clips in her pockets.

She bent down, strapping an ankle holster containing a small, loaded snub-nose revolver to her right ankle and pulling her jeans down over the bulge. As a final touch, she placed a short, but sharp sheathed knife in her left boot. Grabbing a flashlight, she closed and locked the trunk.

Using the light, she trotted into the gloomy southern end of the Spring Creek Valley Forest Preserve. Keeping the road in sight, she silently made her way through the pounding rain to the address.
 

Set well back on a large, rural block, the small, weathered house was dark and quiet.
 

She skirted around the edge of the property, staying in the woods as much as possible. Crouching low, freezing water dripped down her back, but she barely felt it as she took stock of the situation.
 

The one-level home seemed to be made from long planks of wood, and she guessed it was an old dairy farm homestead. The front door was also wood and set up on a boarded porch that wrapped around the entire home. Old but well maintained, it seemed to be deserted. No lights shone from any room and no smoke billowed from the old stone chimney.
 

Berg suddenly felt crushing doubt.

She shrugged it off and settled on her course of action. Taking out her gun from her shoulder holster, she held it in her freezing, water-shriveled hand as she counted down from three in her head.
 

She took off, darting out of the woods and sprinting to the back of the house. She stopped and crouched low on the grass under the raised porch. Turning and raising her head slightly, she scanned the rear of the home. It remained silent.
 

Avoiding the rickety wooden porch steps to the back door, Berg boosted herself directly onto the porch and squeezed under the railing. Standing back up in one lithe movement, she pressed herself flat next to the closed back door.

She tested the door with a push of her flat hand. It opened, the hinges squealing in protest.
 

Too late to run now.
 

She ignored the noise and slipped inside, the gun’s safety off.

The door led straight into the small kitchen, which was deserted. Berg walked over and felt the stove, then the old enamel kettle. Both were cold.
 

Her heart sank again.
This is the wrong place
.

Still holding her gun, she did a quick scan of the premises, double-checking if each room was indeed empty.
 

Tears threatening, she turned to leave when out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a sliver of light coming from the small bedroom. Looking at it directly, the light disappeared. Turning her head, her peripheral vision again detected the faint light.
 

Walking back into the room she checked the old wooden closet and under the bed for the source.
 

The closet was empty, but from under the bed she pulled out an old gym bag. Unzipping it, she found a bloodied plastic raincoat and booties, realizing that was how Leigh had murdered Dell without her clothes being covered in blood. She continued searching and found a dowdy brown wig, an array of stun guns, thick glasses, a contact lens case containing brown lenses, and an unloaded long-range hunting rifle.
 

Yes! Looks like this is the right place after all.
 

She placed the bag on the bed and looked around carefully, staying low to the ground.

The light she glimpsed seemed to be coming from under the empty bookcase on the far wall of the room. She tiptoed up to it, stashed the weapon in her shoulder holster, and pushed the bookcase with all her weight. She nearly fell over as it easily swung away from the wall on two hinges, like a door.

A lone bulb dimly illuminated the narrow stairwell. Still keeping her weapon close, she cautiously stepped down the old stone stairs, senses straining. Looking around, she figured she must be heading into an old-fashioned cellar or store room.

A calm voice floated up the stairs. “Please join us, Alicia.”

Shocked, Berg almost tripped down the remainder of the stairs and pushed open the already ajar metal door with her foot; her gun, held in both hands, was raised in front of her just below head height.

Leigh was standing over a still and bleeding Jay in the old converted cellar, her police-issued weapon pointed at his temple.
 

Jay appeared to be tied down to a metal chair in the center of the concrete room. A bloody baseball bat and serrated hunting knife were casually resting against one bare wall; they’d served their purpose.

“Drop it,” Leigh said coldly, indicating Berg’s gun with a nod. “I assume you’re here to rescue him. It will be a wasted trip if you don’t put the gun down and I kill him now.”

Berg knew the fight would be over if she relinquished her weapon, but she couldn’t risk Jay’s life.
If he’s even still alive
. Berg surrendered, slowly lowering the weapon to the ground. Her heart pounded in fear, not for her life, but for his, as she raised her now empty hands.

“Kick it over here,” Leigh said, all the while staring, unblinking, at Jay, gun at the ready.
 

Berg complied.
 

“And your ankle weapons. I’m sure you have them.”
 

Berg also kicked the revolver toward the captain, and then removed the knife from her boot after Leigh cocked the safety off her own gun and pressed it firmly against Jay’s head in warning.
 

“Now I think you can kneel over there.” Leigh pointed to the far corner of the room with a nod. “Face the corner.”
 

Berg walked to the corner farthest from the door and placed her knees on the cold concrete, facing the wall.
 

“Hands behind your head.”
 

Berg gritted her teeth, but complied.
 

“Excellent.”
 

Berg heard her pick up the discarded weapons from the floor with a metallic scrape. In a few seconds, both guns’ bullets clattered to the ground, followed by the now empty metal bodies.

Berg felt the cold metal of the gun press against the back of her head as Leigh patted her down.

“No cell?”

Berg shook her head.
 

“Interesting. Well, now we can have a little chat,” Leigh said, as if they were at a tea party and she was about to break out the scones. “I was beginning to worry you weren’t coming. I could have killed your partner here hours ago . . .” Leigh made
tsk tsk
noises. “Very tardy.”
 

“Let him go,” Berg said. “You have me, I’ll happily stay. But Jay needs medical attention . . .”

Leigh laughed. “How noble. But that most certainly won’t be happening. No, you’re both invited to my little party.”
 

Berg remained silent, not trusting herself to speak.
 

“Very dedicated of you, coming here alone to rescue him, but that’s what you do, isn’t it, Alicia? How many years as a cop, and still a loner? The others just don’t warm to you, do they? You shouldn’t have risked it, coming here without them. Particularly for a man who doesn’t give a damn about you,” Leigh said matter-of-factly.
 

Berg bristled at her words, but didn’t move.
 

“I hope you never fooled yourself into thinking he felt the same way about you,” she said. “He doesn’t. I asked him. Torture makes a man tell the whole truth, you know. Unfortunately, he’s too far gone now for me to ask him for you . . .”
 

Berg pursed her lips and felt tears rising, but remained silent, still facing away.
 

“How humiliating for you,” she said with mock sympathy.
 

Berg suddenly recalled Cheney’s mocking words.
“Hope you didn’t expect a commitment.”
 

“You’re wrong,” Berg replied. “I don’t feel that way about him at all.” It sounded unconvincing, even to her.

Leigh laughed. “Please. It’s so obvious to everyone. He even requested a transfer, your feelings made him so uncomfortable.”
 

Berg maintained her dignified silence, but inside her chest, her heart broke.
 

“Let me give you some free advice, Alicia, something you can use in the years to come, should you live that long,” Leigh said conversationally, like she was talking to a best girlfriend. “Men like this . . .” Leigh pressed the metal of her gun against what Berg assumed was Jay’s skull. “Men who are led around by their
penises
 . . .” Leigh spat the word like it was the worst profanity ever uttered. “Men like this
never
change.”

Still facing away, Berg resisted the temptation to put her hands over her ears, instead firing back her own volley.