Chris Mooney - The Secret Friend

Commissioner Chadzynski ordered the CSU lab members to examine the penthouse. It was a ridiculous request – Emma Hale was last seen leaving the apartment of her friend, Kimberly Jackson. Darby knew the real reason behind the commissioner's agenda. Thanks to the proliferation of hit TV shows depicting forensic technicians as gun-toting investigators who ran around interviewing suspects, their testimony carried a lot of weight with juries. Lawyers called it the 'CSI effect'. Seeing TV footage of real crime scene investigators heading into the building would play well with the public, making it look as though everyone was cooperating, working hard and pooling their resources to find the missing Harvard student. It was great PR.

Darby read through the pages listing all of Emma's belongings – the walk-in closet full of designer dresses, shoes and handbags; the four jewellery boxes containing necklaces, earrings and bracelets purchased at upscale stores like Cartier and Shreve, Crump amp; Low. One box held nothing but watches.

On paper, the two women appeared to live extremely divergent lifestyles. Emma was rich, Judith lower middle-class. Tim Bryson and his CSU team had produced an exhaustive list of the women's movements and activities to see if they intersected at one common point – a bar, charity group, gym or dance club. Bryson had examined each woman's computer to see if they belonged to a similar chat room or a social networking site like Facebook. No connection was found.

Both women had shared the loss of a family member. Emma's mother died of melanoma – the same skin cancer that had killed Darby's mother. Emma was eight when her mother died. Judith's older sister was killed by a drunk driver. Neither woman was seeing a local psychiatrist or campus counsellor.

Both women were college freshmen. Bryson had investigated the possible connection that they had applied to the same college. Emma Hale had applied to Harvard, Yale and Stanford and was accepted to all three. Judith Chen hadn't applied to those colleges.

At the moment, the only common trait the two women had was that they had disappeared on their way home. There were no witnesses to either abduction. Did they know their abductor, or had they, for some reason, accepted a ride from a stranger? Or were they both forced into his vehicle?

Family and friends were interviewed. Darby read each interview carefully. When she finished, she read through them again, hoping to find a common thread. She didn't find one.

Darby put the murder books on the floor and went to the kitchen to refill her glass. She stepped back inside the office and turned her attention to the women hanging on the wall.

Her gaze automatically shifted to the crime-scene photographs. The dead, she had discovered, were much easier to handle. Everything was black and white. The living contained too many shades of grey.

The killer didn't care how they looked dead. What drew him to these two college women was something in the way they lived.

The physical differences between the two women were startling.

Emma Hale was nearly model perfect, with a stunning face and body shaped by a strict diet and physical regimen overseen by a private trainer at the exclusive LA Fitness Club in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton on Tremont. She had a nose job a month after her sixteenth birthday. The Manhattan surgeon who performed the rhinoplasty also did her boob job when she was eighteen.

Judith Chen was slim and flat-chested. She didn't belong to a gym. Friends and family members described her as quiet and reserved, serious about her studies. She had graduated at the top of her high-school class. She had applied to and had been accepted to some of the top colleges in Massachusetts – Boston College, Boston University and Tufts. Those schools couldn't offer the same financial aid package as Suffolk.

According to the interviews, Emma Hale was the polar opposite. She was outgoing, popular and gregarious. The young woman wanted for nothing. Daddy provided everything – the penthouse, the clothes and jewellery, the convertible BMW.

Darby felt the sting of class resentment – not because Emma Hale was born into a rich family but because the young woman didn't have to work for anything. Darby had little use or patience for a pretty party girl who went through life shopping and going on European and Caribbean vacations; summers spent in Nantucket and weekend nights spent drinking at the clubs; long days recovering from her hangover on friends' boats, her rich daddy picking up the entire tab.

Here was a picture of Emma Hale attending some ritzy party. An antique platinum locket dangled above her ample cleavage. Here was another picture of the pretty co-ed with her arm around a good-looking man with dark hair and brown eyes – the boyfriend, Tony Pace, a Harvard sophomore.

Something twitched deep in Darby's mind, a twinge of familiarity. Was it something about the boyfriend? No. Bryson had interviewed Pace. He hadn't attended the party. He had the flu and stayed in his dorm room. All of his alibis checked out. Pace agreed to a polygraph and passed. What was it, then?

Here was a picture of the couple standing on a boat, their skin deeply tanned, smiles perfect, not a wrinkle on them. Darby wondered why she was focusing so much on Emma Hale and switched her attention to a picture of Judith Chen dressed in sweats, a black Labrador puppy held in her arms as she smiled to the camera. Here was a picture of Chen with her roommate.

Darby paced inside her office. Every few minutes she stopped and looked back to the wall to see if something in the pictures or the women's faces grabbed her attention. When it didn't happen, she went back to pacing or stopped to pick up trinkets and held them in her hands for a moment before putting them down. She kept neatening her desk, making sure everything was in its proper place and alignment.

The wind blew, shaking the old windows. Blinding white sheets of snow whipped across the old brick buildings. Darby finished the last of the bourbon. She felt relaxed, calm. She thought about spring. It felt years away. Emma Hale had a summer home on Nantucket. She played tennis and golf and spent days on the boat. She wore designer dresses and lots of jewellery.

(the locket)

What about it? The locket, Darby knew, contained a picture of Emma's mother. What else? Jonathan Hale had identified the locket, which Emma was wearing when her body was found. She was wearing the locket when her body surfaced. She was wearing the locket…

'Oh Jesus,' Darby said out loud, hands trembling as she reached for the murder book.

Darby flipped through the pages, stopping when she reached the one containing the list of items found in the jewellery boxes located in Emma Hale's walk-in closet. Here it was: 'Oval antique locket with platinum chain, middle drawer, jewellery box #2.'

She grabbed the phone and called Tim Bryson. The phone seemed to ring forever. She felt a surge of relief when he picked up.

'A week after Emma Hale's abduction, you and your team went through her house and catalogued her jewellery.'

'That's right,' Bryson said.

'I'm looking at the list of Emma's jewellery. It says an oval antique locket with platinum chain was found in the middle drawer of the second jewellery box.'

'Where are you going with this?' Bryson sounded put out. Was he still sore from their talk at the morgue?

'When Emma Hale's body was found, she was wearing a platinum chain and locket,' Darby said. 'It's listed on the inventory page.'

'The woman owned a lot of jewellery. It's possible she owned a similar locket. I remember seeing a lot of necklaces that looked the same.'

'This necklace is unique. Hale gave it to his daughter for Christmas a few years ago, when she was sixteen.'