Kelley Armstrong - Made to Be Broken

I meticulously searched the tiny bedroom, right down to unwrapping every gum wrapper in the trash, in hopes of finding a phone number or name scribbled inside. I was pulling Destiny's baby book off the shelf when a flurry of photos and paper scraps rained down. Two of the pictures landed face up. One was of a party for Destiny, with three candles in a cupcake, Sammi grinning as Kira held a homemade Happy 3 Months banner. In the other, Sammi sat in a Muskoka chair, holding a sleeping baby, scowling, clearly warning whoever was taking the photo that they'd better not wake Destiny. I stared at them both for a moment, then picked up the second – the Sammi I knew best – and gingerly pushed it into my pocket.

I scooped up the handful of scraps and flipped through them. Sammi's penmanship was atrocious, her spelling phonetic. On the first, she'd written "First dentist appointment 3-4 years." On another she'd scribbled "Chicken pox vaccine 12 months (safe?)."

I read through several more. Each held a tidbit of child-rearing information, a tip someone had told her or she'd heard on TV. Scraps tracing the path of a young woman's desperate desire to be a good mother.

Then I found what I'd been looking for. On one scrap Sammi had written four words. Jordan Fifer Model Agency.

I put that into my pocket and tidied up the book. As I did, my gaze fell on Sammi's treasure box. I reached for it, the sudden urge to take it, too, to bury it with her body. Ridiculous, of course. Sentimental tripe. Not like she'd be needing it anymore. And if Janie had her daughter killed, I had every intention of tipping off the police and making sure Sammi's body saw a real grave. Finding her treasures buried with her would suggest Janie regretted her decision, and I wasn't giving her that.

The box had to stay. But whatever happened, I'd make sure Tess got it out before the place was bulldozed.

Now -

Jack wheeled into the room. "Clean up. Gotta go. Now ."

"Wha -?"

He grabbed my arm before I got the word out, and led me into the hall.

Through the living room door, a stockinged foot protruded from behind the sofa, unseen when we'd been heading into the bedrooms.

I crept forward, gaze fixed on the dingy white sock. Soon a tattered jean hem came into view. Then a second foot. Then Janie herself, passed out drunk.

My gaze traveled up her body, past the stick-thin legs encased in dirty denim. Past the flabby belly protruding from under the shirt shoved up around her rib cage. Past her arms, oddly folded across her chest, fingers bent, as if in a "fuck you." A final "fuck you." I knew that as soon as I saw her head, askew, eyes still open, tongue protruding from swollen lips, bruise on her cheek.

"Beat the crap out of her," Jack said. "Neck's broken." I supposed I should feel some twinge of pity, but the only emotion that rose was a surge of outrage that someone had robbed me of my best shot at finding out what happened to Destiny.

I returned to the bedroom to put everything back in place. When I came out, Jack was crouched beside Janie's body.

"Couple fingers broken. She have rings?" I paused, recollecting. "Costume stuff, but yes. A few." "Bottle's over there." He jerked his thumb at an empty Crown Royal bottle on the carpet. "One missing, looks like."

I walked over, staying away from the window, and found two empty glasses and two bottle caps. "So he swipes her cheap rings and an open bottle of rye, shoves her behind the couch, and takes off… in her truck. Something tells me we aren't dealing with a pro."

A snort that was almost a laugh. "Yeah." He straightened. "I'll watch the front. Get out the back. Stand guard for me. Be there in five."

The murder of Janie Ernst was so sloppy, you'd almost think it was a pro, setting the scene to frame her boyfriend. No guy could possibly be that stupid, right? Come over for a Saturday night victory drink, leave his DNA all over the empty glasses, kill his girlfriend for her share of their profits, then drive home in her truck.

Sadly, the IQ of the average thug isn't really all that high. Add booze into the mix, and it drops even farther.

The question wasn't "whodunit," but whether we could get to him – and the answers I needed – before the cops found Janie and followed the four-lane highway of bread crumbs he'd left behind.

When I suggested going after the boyfriend right away, Jack brought up another reason to act fast – one I'd rather not have been reminded of. The killer may have left a trail a blind man could follow, but when the White Rock cops found Janie dead, they'd come knocking on the door of the person seen fighting with her earlier that day. Sure, they'd eventually get back on the right track… but only after they'd done what they could to make my life miserable. And once that happened, there'd be no way of getting to Bancroft to find Janie's boyfriend – not without a police cruiser or a reporter on my tail.

I tried not to picture Don Riley and his crew on my doorstep, the satisfaction on their faces, the rumors they'd spread, the business I'd lose just from those rumors. I tried not to imagine the press getting hold of it. Even if I wasn't a viable suspect, they'd love the excuse to disinter the story of Nadia Stafford, killer cop.

If only I'd resisted the urge to confront Janie.

"Well, that'll teach me" really didn't seem adequate.

We headed for Bancroft. It was a thirty-minute drive straight up Highway 28. We already had our interrogation gear on us, so we were set. The boyfriend's address would have been useful, and it rankled, knowing it was right in Benny Durant's office. But no matter how careful we were, it was an extra risk, especially after I'd been asking Durant about her property that same day.

So we were driving to Bancroft in hopes of finding Janie's truck. It was a small town, just a little bigger than White Rock. Still, even at four thousand people – and shrinking – that was a lot of driveways to search. And hunting for an old pickup in these parts was like searching for a new Mercedes in Toronto.

We started with a tour of the bar parking lots. Now, if you ask me, a guy who just killed his girlfriend shouldn't be heading out for beer, but Jack thought it was a strong possibility, and the more I considered it, the more it made a weird kind of sense.

I knew all the bars in Bancroft, since White Rock didn't have any, and I needed all the alternate venues at hand – addresses, directions, music variety, clientele type – for my guests. In Bancroft there were two, and one was attached to a restaurant.

We found Janie's truck at the other, a hole-in-the-wall called Charlie's. And we found her presumed killer, slumped over the steering wheel, dead drunk.

"Fuck," Jack muttered.

"You can say that again."

"Sure that's her truck?" Jack asked. We were parked at the end of the lane.

"Yep. See that dent in the front bumper? Get close enough and you'll see fur caught in it, from Mrs. O'Malley's late Irish setter, Red. Beautiful dog. Dumb as a post, but beautiful. This winter, Mrs. O'Malley found Janie passed out drunk in a snowdrift, got her inside, warmed her up, and called the doctor. Later, she suggested Janie needed help and tried to find a program for her. So Janie ran over her dog and left the fur in the bumper as a reminder to anyone else who might try to 'interfere' in her life."

"Should've left her in the snowdrift."

"I won't argue. And this is the woman we let raise Sammi. Isn't that what child services is for? Did anyone even call them when she was little?"

"Probably too scared to interfere."

"I've known Sammi since she was twelve. I wasn't afraid of Janie, but I still didn't do anything."