What Burns Within (5 page)

Someone he believed would understand his pain.

She pushed that thought aside as she considered what Tain had said about Inspector Hawkins.

“This was his idea?”

Tain nodded. “I don’t think Sergeant Daly was too keen on it.”

“Steve will get over it.”

Tain snuck a glance at her. “How do you know him?”

“Platonically.”

“Seriously.”

“He was one of my instructors at the Depot.” The Depot was the common term for the academy where all RCMP officers completed their training.

So Ashlyn has known Daly since her training to be an RCMP
officer, when she was just a cadet. And Craig
…Tain tapped the steering wheel with his thumb.

“What are you thinking about?” Ashlyn asked.

“If Daly thinks so highly of you, maybe you’ll help give him a good impression of me.”

“Wouldn’t I need to have a good impression of you first?”

He braked at the intersection and glared at her. She smiled innocently.

“See, Tain, when it comes to putting you in your place, I can keep up.”

Tain laughed. “You know what I was really thinking, Ashlyn?”

“Enlighten me.”

“It’s nice to have a partner who isn’t afraid to tell me off.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

“Huh. You know me. I’ve never been afraid to give you a piece of my mind.”

“I know. I almost have the complete puzzle. You really should stop giving those pieces away.”

He saw her grin as he turned back to look at the road. “Feels good to laugh, doesn’t it?”

“At your expense? Absolutely.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said as he parked the car.

He watched her smile fade, her mouth twisting. “I know.”

“You ready for this?”

She glanced at him sideways as she unclipped her seat belt and reached for the door handle. “Are you ever ready?”

“Probably not, Ashlyn. Probably not.”

“Constable Nolan,” he said into the phone.

“Ye…need…ort…rime.”

“I’m sorry, I can hardly hear you,” Craig said as he held his hand over his right ear, although he knew it wouldn’t do much good. The room was almost as still as a church on a Friday afternoon. Craig reached for the volume dial on the phone.

He heard the caller clear their throat. “I…I need to report a crime.”

Craig rubbed his forehead. “Okay. Did you call dispatch?”

“They redirected me.”

Craig paused. “What do you need to report?”

Silence.

“Ma’am?”

“A rape.” The voice coughed and sputtered, and then Craig heard the sharp intake of breath. “I was raped.”

Crossing the threshold into Isabella Bertini’s bedroom made Ashlyn feel like she’d stepped back more than a dozen years in time. There were books and stuffed animals and posters. Different icons, but the same generic style as the ones she’d hung up on her bedroom walls when she was a kid.

The room was tastefully done, with sunshine yellow walls and crisp white trim. There were murals on the far side, above the bed, depicting butterflies in flight. To her left a mirrored sliding door concealed the contents of the closet, but exposed the stickers and decals the girl had used to personalize the cold metal that intruded on this space.

On her right a long bookshelf overflowed with novels.
Anne of Green Gables
was stacked on top of
This Can’t Be Happening
at Macdonald Hall
. Beside the other Montgomery and Korman titles was a copy of
The Call of the Wild
, and behind them were rows and rows of books about dogs and horses.

Ashlyn turned in the other direction, scrutinizing the artwork on the wall. It looked like pastel to her untrained eye.

She turned again and stifled a gasp. Ashlyn knelt down.

“Hi there.”

The little girl with silky, dark brown hair and enormous black eyes smiled, partially concealing her mouth behind her blue stuffed bunny. She was a smaller version of her sister.

“My name is Ashlyn.”

The girl smiled again and then spun on her toes. She stepped right into her mother’s legs.

“Time for bed, Sophia. Go on to your room.”

Ashlyn stood, smiled and waved as the girl glanced back at her and then trotted down the hall, almost tripping over her pajama pants.

Mrs. Bertini blinked. “Would you like some tea, juice, coffee?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

The woman stepped inside the room, her arms folded in front of her. She nodded at the mural behind Ashlyn.

“Isabella loved to draw.”

“She was very good.”

“I suppose we might as well leave things as they are. Sophia has always loved this room. Maybe in a few years…”

Ashlyn offered what she hoped was a supportive smile. “It’s still a bit soon to worry about that. You have plenty of time to decide what you want to do.”

“And yet we must decide. We must decide where we will bury our daughter. We must decide if the flowers should be pink or purple, whether to put a cross or a sacred heart on her tombstone.”

Ashlyn’s breath caught in her throat. What could she say to that? That the room was at least one less thing to worry about? “Do you have someone, anyone who can help you? I can give you the number for—”

“Victim’s services.” Mrs. Bertini brushed tears from her cheek with her left hand in one efficient motion, looking at her dampened fingers as though they were a curiosity, nothing more. “Yes, I have their number. And we have our church.”

A baptismal certificate on the wall caught Ashlyn’s attention. Infant baptism. Stickers adorning the frame of the mirror. A crucifix, the Easter lily, the dove, the fish.

“You’re Catholic?”

“Yes.”

Ashlyn nodded. “Well, if there’s anything we can do, please call us.”

Mrs. Bertini stood with her lips slightly parted for a moment.

“There’s only one thing I wanted you to do, and you failed. All that’s left is a small consolation.”

She turned on her heel and walked away.

Ashlyn exhaled. She wanted to defend herself, defend Tain, point out they’d done all they could, but that was her pride talking. Could she really blame Isabella Bertini’s mother? Ashlyn switched off the light, shut the door and followed Mrs. Bertini down the hall.

“We should have someone from victim’s services check on them in a few days. Get someone to talk to Mr. Bertini,” Tain said.

“Did he fall apart?”

“No.” Tain backed into a driveway to turn the car around. “He took it like a man.”

“That is cause for concern,” Ashlyn said, but she knew what he meant.

He glanced at her. “Seriously, he just bottled it all up, like it wasn’t really happening to him. When it hits home with this guy he’ll take it hard.”

Ashlyn sighed, thinking about the tight bun Mrs. Bertini had her hair pulled into, the neat skirt, dress blouse, the modest heels, even in the house on a Saturday night. Was it strength or madness that had enabled her to hold it together in front of her daughter and the police officer nosing about her dead child’s room?

“I take it you have some concerns about the mother?” Tain asked.

“It would be a good idea to have someone check on them. Since it’s summer it’s not like the little girl has a teacher or someone we can rely on to notice if the family starts to fall apart.”

“We’ll need to interview Isabella’s teacher anyway. Maybe we can sneak her sister’s teacher onto the list, just so she knows. Can you imagine going back to school in a matter of days after all of this?”

“I can’t imagine any of it. Living this nightmare, trying to decide what to put on your child’s tombstone.”

Tain was silent for a moment. “Not the first parents who’ve had to deal with that,” he said quietly.

She felt his eyes on her for a split second. When she finally did turn to look at him he was staring straight out at the road, his lips mashed together. “It doesn’t make it any easier for them.”

They drove in silence. Ashlyn could see the Burrard Inlet and wished for a moment they could just pull over, feel the breeze off the water, shut their eyes to the world and listen to the caw of gulls, the waves lapping against the shore. They weren’t far from their next destination, and it was a visit she wasn’t looking forward to.

“So, we’ve dealt with hopelessness. Now we get to face unknowing desperation?”

He glanced at her. “That’s one way of putting it.”

When they arrived, they got out of the car and started walking up the front steps. Loud voices spilled through the windows, and Tain quickened his pace.

He rapped three times, barely paused and rapped three more times.

Ashlyn looked at him and started to reach back for her gun.

“Goddammit, what the hell is it now? More bloody…” The door was yanked open in front of them. The man’s face morphed from a scowl of annoyance to a worried frown when he set eyes on Tain. Then he turned to look at Ashlyn, and his jaw dropped. He blinked.

“Ashley Hart?”

“Ashlyn.”

“Right, sorry. I, uh…” His eyes narrowed for a moment, and he glanced over his shoulder and then turned back around. “Did you need to talk to me about the fires?”

She glanced at Tain and shook her head. “No, Mr. Brennen. We’re actually here about Taylor.”

“What? You’ve found her?” A woman pushed forward then, her silk blouse partially pulled out from her tight skirt, wisps of hair falling out of the clasp that pulled most of her long blond strands back, her thick makeup smudged and tear streaked.

Tain answered. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Brennen. We haven’t found Taylor, but we’d like to ask Mr. Brennen some questions.”

“How will that help? You should be out there looking for my daughter instead of wasting your time.”

“Mrs. Brennen, please. We have uniforms covering the fairgrounds and the surrounding area. Everything that can be done is being done. Can we come in, Nick?” Ashlyn stepped forward, hoping Nick Brennen wouldn’t resist. It sounded as though things had been on the verge of getting out of hand when they’d arrived. A domestic assault charge might have been understandable, but it wasn’t going to help anyone.

Nick Brennen stepped back and held the door open, gesturing for them to enter the living room.