Girl Undercover 6 & 7: Emma's Secret & The Truth (12 page)

“No, she didn’t say anything along those lines or I’d have stayed.”

“Let’s check her apartment to see if there are any signs of a break-in or a suicide note somewhere. Most people leave one if they decide to kill themselves.”

“Okay,” I said and we left the bathroom. “Why don’t you check the kitchen and the hallway while I go over here and check?” I indicated the living room and the bedroom that was on one side of it, already walking in that direction. I heard Ian walk into the kitchen opposite the bathroom.

Nothing about Emma’s apartment gave the appearance of having been broken into as far as I could tell as I scanned the living room area and the part of the space that made up her bedroom. I knew I needed to be careful not to touch anything, or I might leave fingerprints that might implicate me in Emma’s death when the NYPD came here later to go over the apartment. Even if it looked like a suicide, surely they would not rule out the possibility that it might in fact be a murder. Then I remembered how I’d not only spoken to Emma on the phone as recently as yesterday, but how I’d been at her place too. I didn’t need to be all that careful in her living area at least; it was only to be expected that traces of me would be found there. The bathroom and especially her body were another story—even if prints on human skin were next to impossible to recover.

When I felt I was done searching for signs of foul play and had yet to spot any suicide notes, I walked into the hallway and the kitchen where Ian had remained.

“Are you finding anything of interest?” I asked as he looked through Emma’s cabinets, using a piece of tissue to open them. His prints would be impossible to explain to the cops, so I was glad he hadn’t forgotten to use something to cover his fingers.

“Nope,” he said and turned to me. “How about you? Any suicide notes anywhere?”

“No, no suicide notes and no signs of fights or burglars.”

“Okay, then we should leave. I’ve already wiped the bathroom for any prints we might have left as well as the front door. It’s better that someone else finds Emma in this state and reports it than that you do it. Especially since it looks like it might be a murder after all. Are you sure you didn’t spot any suicide notes anywhere?”

“Yeah, I didn’t see anything that looked like that. And I agree it would be better if someone else found Emma. There’s only one problem—one of her neighbors saw me banging on her door a little while ago.” If the cops were thorough and asked Emma’s neighbors if they had seen anything unusual today, surely the neighbor would remember. And talk.

“So?” Ian said. “You came to check on your friend and left when she never came to open. You hung around in the building for a while, hoping that she might show up, but eventually you gave up. I don’t think I saw anyone see us opening the door. Did you?”

I thought about the two of us standing outside Emma’s front door, Ian opening it with the bump key, it taking seconds only. As far as I could remember, no one had seen what we’d been up to. I told Ian so.

“In that case, you should leave with me right now,” he said, “and let someone else find Emma.”

He was right; it was the best thing to do. There was nothing I could do for Emma anyway. She wouldn’t suddenly wake up from the dead just because I wanted her to.

“Okay, let’s go then,” I said. I walked up to the closed front door and peeked out through the peephole to make sure the stairwell was empty. No one seemed to be out there.

“We should leave one at a time,” I whispered to Ian. “I can go first.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ian said. “Go now then if the coast is clear. I’ll be down soon after you.”

I opened the door quietly and snuck out of Emma’s apartment, walking with light steps. Fortunately, the stairwell outside was as quiet as it had appeared.

I hurried down the stairs, keeping my head down as well as pretending to scratch my forehead just in case someone would see me; that way at least they wouldn’t get a good view of my face.

Soon I was out on the street. There was a big drugstore on the other side of the multi-lane road that ran outside Emma’s apartment building. I went there and texted Ian that I was on the second floor. Then it struck me that maybe it was better if we weren’t seen together at all, so I walked back downstairs and left the drugstore.

Marching down the street, I looked for a subway station while checking the time. It was only ten past six, which meant that any moment now I should receive a text from my client wondering where I was. In fact, I was surprised the man hadn’t already texted me; he was always on time and if I was a couple of minutes late for his session, I could count on an annoyed text lighting up my phone.

I texted him, telling him that I was late, but that I would be there in ten minutes as I was only two stations away from the club. He was my only evening client, which meant I could make up the time I had missed by going longer with this client. Well, if he was able to stay longer. Most of the time, people could.

When I was done training, I would go to Rolf’s office and tell him that I’d called Emma to check on her since I was worried she wasn’t okay. When she didn’t answer, I went over to her place and banged on her door for several minutes. Then I’d tell him I was really worried something wasn’t right with her. Hopefully, this would prompt him to call the cops and them to go over to Emma’s place and find her.

There were two texts in my phone when I got out of the subway at Nikkei—one from Ian wondering where I was and one from my client, telling me that he’d been stuck in the subway for the last thirty minutes and hadn’t had any reception. So by the time I was back inside the club, twenty minutes past six, he had only just arrived.

I was struggling to maintain my composure while training the man, doing my best to act normal. Having found Emma like that really bothered me and the last thing I felt like doing at the moment was train a person. It felt like the session would never end, but finally it did of course, twenty minutes past seven.

As soon as I had said goodbye to my client, I rushed over to Rolf’s office. But it was dark behind the glass part of his door, so it looked like he had already left for the night. I should have known; he rarely stayed long after seven.

Well, I can always call 911 and tell the operator I’m worried something’s not right with my friend,
I thought as I walked down the stairs toward the cafeteria. After all, I had been at Emma’s place the night before and knew how upset she’d been. My story would fit perfectly with the circumstances. Even so, I would not leave my name when I called. The harder I could make it for the NYPD to reach me, the better. Surely, if they did their job right, they would soon enough find out that I had been in touch with Emma the day before and question me anyway. All they needed to do was check the girl’s phone records, something any half decent detective would do.

When I reached the cafeteria, I walked into one of the enclosed phone booths there and placed the call. I told the dispatcher that I thought something had happened to my friend and that I needed someone to go check on her. After giving Emma’s address, I cut the call short and left the club.

I slept fitfully that night even though I had taken my usual heavy-duty sleeping pills. When my alarm clock woke me the next morning, I felt anything but rested. Pushing myself out of bed, I went into my living room and switched on the TV, putting it on Channel One. I was hoping to hear news about Emma while getting ready for work.

It was only when I was almost ready to leave that the anchor mentioned a thirty-four-year-old woman having been found dead in her apartment last night and that it appeared to be a suicide. That was it.

Hmm,
I thought as I left my place. I would have to ask Ian to look into the police report written up about Emma, see if the case was considered closed or if an investigation had been launched to check if she had in fact been murdered. See if the NYPD even suspected that something criminal had taken place. I pulled out my phone to text him that I needed to see him later. We didn’t have a session scheduled for today—he no longer trained as often—and I couldn’t count on just bumping in to him at the club.

He responded by the time I was entering Nikkei, telling me he’d be home after four.

I didn’t even get inside the trainers’ lounge before Laurie, the trainer with the strawberry blond hair, stopped me, looking all distraught. “Hey, Jamie. Did you hear what happened to Emma?”

I decided to play stupid. “No, what happened?”

“Apparently, she committed suicide.” Laurie stared at me with huge eyes.

My hands flew up to my face and I gasped out loud. “Oh, my God! How do you know that?”

“Rolf sent out an email to inform everyone about it this morning. I just checked mine. I think she did it yesterday.”

I shook my head slowly, like I was in deep shock. “I can’t believe it. This is so horrible…”

“I know, it’s
awful.
She was such a nice person.”

“Yes, she sure was. So nice.”

Laurie exhaled, her chest heaving. “I have to go. I have a client. I just wanted to let you know. I know you were friendly with her.”

I nodded. “Go, go. Thanks for letting me know.”

I walked deeper into the lounge, nodding to trainers and maintenance staff that were either sitting or standing there. It appeared lots of people knew what Emma had done already and the mood sure was drastically different from when Ariel had been murdered. There was a sense of sorrow in the long room, filling it like an invisible fog. No one was laughing and the ones who were talking did so in hushed voices.

It was only when I had switched into my trainer uniform that I thought about how incredibly quickly Rolf had found out about Emma. I shrugged.
Well, maybe he was watching the news this morning too. The anchor did mention her by name.

That same feeling of somberness that had filled the trainers’ lounge lingered throughout a big part of the club, similar to the time when member Alicia Chang had been found raped and murdered. The news of Emma’s suicide must have traveled like wildfire during July in Arizona. Most of my clients that morning noticed that something was different, so I explained what had happened, which only served to bring the mood down further. By the fourth client I considered lying, but thought better of it—the woman I was training would find out soon enough anyway, and then she might get annoyed with me for not telling her the truth.

By the time I was done with my morning clients, the air inside the club had become so heavy with gloom that I needed to get out for a little while, see the sun. I had three hours to kill before my next client and I felt sleepy. Maybe if I took a walk in Central Park I would feel better, more alert. I headed for the park.

But instead of feeling better, the walk seemed to make me sleepier. Checking the time, I saw that I still had two and half hours left until I had to return to the club, so I turned around and walked home.
Might as well try to take a nap,
I thought.

Before I took the elevator up to my apartment, I checked my mail. I didn’t always do this as I hardly ever got any mail besides mass advertising and bills, and I wasn’t sure what prompted me to do so today. I was glad that I did, though.

I was glad because it was time for me to begin to accept and then embrace the truth.

A large manila envelope was folded and placed in my mailbox. Frowning, I removed it from the tight space together with a couple of brochures and a take-out menu. Throwing the junk mail in the nearby recycling area, I unfolded the manila envelope.

It was addressed to Jamie Richards, the name and address below it written in big, black, block letters.

It took me a few seconds before it dawned on me that it was me the writer had been referring to. I was Jamie Richards here in New York, not Gabi Longoria. How could I forget so easily after all this time?

I shook my head to make the brain freeze completely disappear. My eyes went up to the corner of the envelope to check for a return address. When I didn’t see one, I flipped it over to check the back. No return address there either.

Who is this from?

I hurried up to my apartment, entered and soon found a pen in my living room that I used to open the closed envelope. There were five sheets of paper full of handwriting inside. It looked like a letter. Pulling out all five sheets, I began to read the beginning of this letter meant for me, the writing neat and small.

Chapter 2

Dear Jamie,

When you read this, I will be dead. I hope you will understand why I felt I had no other choice but to take my own life after you have finished this letter. Please don’t feel guilty for not saving me. There really was nothing you could do, trust me. They are much too powerful. I know you’re the kind of person who will feel terrible when you hear that I slit my wrists. The moment I met you I knew you were good and one of a kind. Don’t feel bad. I deserved to die for what I did anyway. I made up my mind the following morning after I had slept on it. I was gonna die soon enough anyway. Janine and the others would see to that. But I preferred doing it my own way. Don’t worry, it wasn’t really painful. Nothing can be as painful as knowing what I know and how I kept helping them. How selfish I was.

I don’t know where to begin to make the most sense for you. I apologize in advance if this letter is all over the place, but I’m having a hard time focusing right now I’m hurting so much. I never knew guilt could cause so much pain and confusion. It all feels like such a mess.

I didn’t tell you the entire truth when you came to my place, only a small part of it. I did carry two children, one for me and one for Janine and Marissa and I did have a miscarriage. One of their doctors came to my house afterward and confirmed that I had lost both fetuses, exactly like I told you. That’s when I knew it was over for me. Even if Janine asked me to give it another try, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I wouldn’t have been able to handle all the guilt. It got bigger and bigger every day. Not that she would ask me again.