Stay With Me: A Brenna Spector Novel of Suspense Read online

  “We called the police,” Jim said. “Missing Persons Unit. We gave them Maya’s picture. They’re also tracing her cell.”

  Brenna said, “She wasn’t at Zoe’s last night.”

  “No,” he said. “She was at Lindsay’s.”

  Brenna drew a breath. “Miles’s girlfriend.”

  “Who?”

  “We called Lindsay’s apartment before we came over,” Faith said, “but no one answered.”

  I have found new friends, a beautiful new life.

  “She texted me a couple of hours ago,” Jim said. “Told me she was going to the movies with her friends.”

  “Just a couple of hours ago?” said Brenna.

  “Yes.”

  “Did she say which movie?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe they’re still at the movies,” Faith said. “Maybe some kid got hold of Maya’s cell phone and found your numbers on her contacts and decided to play a prank. These kids never talk on the phone. You can’t hear their voices, they can all pretend to be each other, it would be easy . . .” Her gaze darted from Brenna to Jim and back, begging for agreement.

  Brenna nodded. “What did the police say?”

  “Well,” Faith said. “You know the police.”

  “They didn’t think it was a prank,” Jim said.

  “They need to . . . You know it’s true, Brenna. In order to perform their jobs effectively, the police need to . . . they have to assume the worst.” Faith smiled. Then she started to cry, a few tears spilling down her cheeks, then more until she was sobbing, her body racked, doubling over. It was the first time Brenna had ever seen Faith shed even a few tears, and it killed her, the love this woman felt for Maya. Same as her own.

  Jim put his arms around Faith and held her to him, Faith sobbing on his shoulder, his hands puffing into her white down coat.

  Brenna wanted to hug them both, to cry along with Faith, but instead she looked away. Keep it inside. Find her now. Cry later.

  “It’s possible, right?” Faith said. “It could be a prank?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Jim whispered.

  Brenna looked at him and he met her gaze as though he were telling her, too, as though he were telling himself. Anything’s possible. Everything is going to be all right.

  Brenna said, “What time did she leave for the sleepover?”

  “Around six,” Jim said. “Maybe a little after.”

  “Did she text you last night at all?”

  He shook his head. “The first I heard from her was the text about the movies.”

  “Police have your cell numbers?”

  Faith nodded. “Yours, too.”

  “Good,” Brenna said. “Let’s not wait here.”

  Faith said, “Where do you want to wait?”

  She grabbed her coat out of the closet, threw open the door, then turned to them. “Lindsay’s place,” she said.

  “Doesn’t seem like anybody’s there,” the doorman at Lindsay’s building said after buzzing the Segals’ apartment. He was balding and rosy, with bushy silver eyebrows and a slow, friendly way of talking—Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life meets the Ghost of Christmas Present.

  Brenna would have found him pleasant under normal circumstances, but now his friendly manner felt like mockery, and Brenna wanted to hold him down and slap the smile off his face, to yank the words out of him. He gave her an elaborate shrug. “Sorry.” His eyes twinkled. Brenna hated him.

  “Listen,” Jim said, “our daughter came over last night. She was spending the night with Lindsay—” His voice broke. He grasped Faith’s hand.

  The doorman nodded. “Yes? And?”

  Brenna pulled out her wallet, slipped out Maya’s ninth grade picture. Showed it to him. “Have you seen her?”

  “No, ma’am. Haven’t seen anybody. My shift just started a little while ago.” He smiled.

  Brenna wished he would stop smiling. “How about last night? Did you see her come or go?”

  “Nope. Wasn’t here. I’m the Sunday guy. I wish I could help you more, but—”

  “Who was here?” Brenna said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Saturday night guy. What’s his name?”

  “That’s . . . Hmmm . . . New guy. Don’t remember his name. Glenn? Gary? He trades off with me, which means he’ll be in after my shift’s over. Three A.M.” He smiled yet again, this time at Maya’s picture. “Cute kid.”

  Brenna sighed. “Who are her parents?”

  “I thought you said you were.”

  “No. Lindsay. Tell me about her parents. What are they like?”

  “The Segals?”

  No. Lindsay’s other fifteen sets of parents.

  “Yes,” Faith said.

  “Very nice people.”

  Brenna said, “Have you seen them at all since last night?”

  He blinked at her. “No, ma’am.”

  “Okay.”

  “The Segals are out of town all week.”

  “What?” Jim spat out the word. “No . . . that can’t be true.”

  “It is, sir,” the doorman said. “See? There’s a note right here from Mrs. Segal. We’re supposed to hold the big packages. Keep an eye on their daughter . . .”

  “Who is out somewhere,” Brenna said. “You have no idea where.”

  “I told you, ma’am. I just got here.”

  Faith stared at Jim. “I thought you said—”

  “Maya told me Lindsay’s parents would be there.”

  The doorman shrugged. “Kids.”

  Brenna’s fists clenched up. She wanted to grab the doorman, slam his head into the marble-topped desk. “No. Not kids. Our daughter . . . She wouldn’t . . . She doesn’t just lie.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Thirteen.”

  He gave them a knowing nod. “They grow up fast.” He started to go through a stack of papers on the front desk. Brenna told herself not to get angry about the nod, the smugness. They’d never told him about the text Maya had sent. Far as he knew, they were just a group of overprotective parents, pissed off because their daughter hadn’t texted.

  “You never talked directly to the parents?” Faith was asking Jim.

  “I didn’t,” he was saying. “I was on deadline and I didn’t . . .”

  “There ya go,” the doorman said.

  Brenna gave him a look. “Excuse me?”

  He looked up at her, the smile beatific. He thumped his hand on the stack of papers. “This is last night’s log,” he said.

  Brenna looked at him. “And?”

  “What I was trying to tell you earlier, ma’am. We don’t always know our kids.”

  Jim said, “What the hell do you mean?”

  “The night doorman had three noise complaints about the Segals’ apartment last night. Last one was at two-thirty in the morning,” he said, studying each of the three faces as though he were mining for a smile. “They claimed the girl was having some kind of loud party.”

  Brenna flashed on her mother, standing in her doorway three hours ago, just about to leave. She recalled the chastising gleam in the pale eyes as she told her about the phone call she received from Maya. At 3 A.M. I think she may have dialed my number by accident. We had a terrible connection and I could barely hear her. But . . . well, she sounded awfully wild.

  Brenna looked at Faith. “Maybe someone put her up to it at the party,” she said. “Maybe they got her drunk and they dared her to type it.”

  “Maya doesn’t drink,” Faith said. “She’s only thirteen.”

  Brenna couldn’t even bring herself to glance at the doorman. “Peer pressure, Faith,” she said. “These kids are juniors and they’re popular. She looks up to them.”

  Jim said, “At Maya’s age, you think uppercl
assmen are gods.”

  “Right. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “And if those upperclassmen are misbehaving . . .”

  “Yes.”

  Jim turned to Faith, then Brenna. There was a spark in his eyes, a hope. “That text could have been in her drafts.”

  “Yes,” Brenna said again.

  “She could have forgotten to delete it. It could have accidentally gotten sent while she was at the movies.”

  “Yes,” she said again, to Jim and Faith both. “Yes, exactly.” A smile crossed her face, twitchy and desperate. She was grasping at a straw, she knew. She was holding on for all it was worth. But she wanted them so badly to hang on with her. Hope was so much harder when you did it alone.

  “She’s been keeping secrets,” Faith said quietly. “She’s been typing on her computer, and then she hides the typing . . .”

  Brenna heard doorbell chimes—Maya’s ring tone. Her heart leaped, then soared for one irrational moment (She’s in the lobby with us. She’s been here all along and her phone is ringing . . .) before she realized it was coming from Faith’s bag. “You guys have the same—”

  “Yeah.”

  Faith answered it, Brenna’s gaze heading back to Jim, watching Faith with such fear and hope.

  “Okay,” Faith said. “Thank you.”

  She ended the call. Looked at them both. “That was the police,” she said. “They’ve located Maya’s cell.”

  “Where is it?” Jim said.

  Faith turned to Brenna, as though she’d asked the question. “They found it,” she said, “in Tarry Ridge.”

  9

  “You want Chinese?” Baus asked Morasco. “I’m buying.”

  Nick Morasco looked up from his desk. Baus was leaning against it, fluorescent lights glinting off his glasses so you couldn’t see behind them. It was almost as though Baus had positioned himself this way, but Morasco didn’t need to look him in the eye to figure out what was on his mind. Baus was one of the most transparent guys Morasco had ever met. When Baus said, “You look tired,” it meant he was tired. When he was in a bad mood, he whistled, loudly. And when he offered to buy dinner, it meant he wanted something from you. “What do you want, Baus?”

  “How do you know I want something?”

  Morasco sighed. This, too. When it was an extra big favor he wanted out of you, Baus got all evasive about it. It occurred to Nick now that maybe Baus wasn’t all that transparent. Maybe it was just that after working alongside him at the Tarry Ridge Police Department for almost fifteen years, Nick had learned to read him, the same way you learn to read a spouse. The thought depressed him immensely. He didn’t even like Baus that much.

  “Shrimp lo mein and a couple of egg rolls,” Morasco said.

  “You got it, champ.”

  Baus returned to his own desk—which was two over from Morasco’s in the squad room—and called the Chinese place. He’d be back in a few minutes asking for the favor, Morasco knew. “Champ” was another huge tell.

  For a few seconds, he let himself think of Brenna, how angry she was at him. Some of it was his fault, some not, just like pretty much any fight he’d ever had with a woman. But with other women, he’d been able to explain himself. He’d gotten tongue-tied with Brenna. Nothing had come out like he’d planned it in his head. And when she’d asked him to leave, he’d done so without protest, afraid of screwing things up even more.

  It wasn’t like him, the fast retreat. But Brenna wasn’t like other women. It was the memory thing. When a woman asks you for an explanation, and you know she’ll remember that explanation thirty years from now, word for word . . . Well, let’s just say it puts the pressure on.

  Driving back to Tarry Ridge, Nick had replayed their conversation in his head. He’d thought about what he’d have said to her if he’d had the chance. In his thoughts, he’d spelled out the real reason that he’d called her mother after giving her the police papers. He’d said it clearly, choosing all the right words. He’d let Brenna know that he was on her side, that he always would be.

  But he hadn’t driven back to her apartment and said those words in person. He hadn’t tried to make things right with Brenna, when he could have done it; there was no one stopping him. If Nick was going to be honest with himself, really honest, he’d also have to admit that in some ways, getting away from Brenna today had been a relief.

  Maybe he didn’t want to make things right with her.

  He pushed the thought away, went back to his computer. He had already gone through what few open case files there were. Now he was checking the status on the weekend’s calls, forwarded to him by the desk sergeant, Sally.

  The chief hadn’t come in today, which put Nick, as ranking detective, in charge of assigning anything new that came in to the three other detectives and the dozen uniforms who were on duty. It wasn’t much of anything. Sundays were slow crime days here in Tarry Ridge, especially in winter.

  So far today, someone had called in a domestic dispute, which had turned out to be two elderly sisters fighting over who was going to clean out the litter box. There had been a lost dog call, too, plus a fifteen-year-old prep school kid had shoplifted some beers from the A&P on a dare. The kid was still in the holding cell, waiting for his parents, who apparently felt that three hours behind bars on the taxpayers’ dime was preferable to taking their own child home and grounding him.

  “Hey, champ.” As predicted, Baus was back at Nick’s desk. Seriously, he could set his watch by this guy.

  “What do you want from me, Baus?” Baus’s first name was Ehrlich. It was a family name. He didn’t like it much, but he loved his last name, which was pronounced “boss.” Even the chief calls me boss, he’d say. Baus loved that joke.

  Baus said, “Can you talk to Mrs. Rowell for me?”

  Morasco closed his eyes. Mrs. Rowell was one hundred and three years old—Tarry Ridge’s oldest resident. The Tarry Ridge Times did a write-up on her every year for her birthday. She lived alone, was healthy and, for the most part, lucid. That is, except for believing that her husband, who had been dead for twenty years, was still alive. Every couple of weeks or so, she’d realize she hadn’t seen him in a while, and come by the station and ask to speak to a detective. “When is she going to be here?”

  “She’s here.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Interview room.”

  Morasco stared at him. “You just left her in there and came out to shoot the breeze and take Chinese food orders?” He got up from his desk, headed across the squad room toward the closed door.

  “Dude, her husband isn’t really missing!” Baus called after him.

  “She doesn’t know that.”

  When he opened the door to the interview room, he found Mrs. Rowell huddled up in the one of the hard metal chairs, hugging herself. She caught sight of him and unfolded. “I know you,” she said. “Detective Morasco.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Rowell.”

  Mrs. Rowell gave him a wary smile. She wasn’t any bigger than an eight-year-old. She wore a heavy black coat that looked about five sizes too big and puffy pink snow boots that didn’t quite touch the floor.

  Mrs. Rowell broke Nick’s heart a little. She looked smaller every time he saw her, as though she were leaving the earth slowly, one inch at a time. “My husband’s missing, Detective Morasco,” she said. “My husband, Charlie.”

  Nick sat down in the chair across from hers. “I’m so sorry, ma’am.” There was a steno pad and pen on the metal table. He took them. Wrote down the name so she could see him writing. Charlie Rowell. Then he looked up at her, pen poised. “Can you tell me where and when you saw him last?”

  Her eyes were bright and wet. “No,” she said. “I . . . I can’t . . . remember.”

  Morasco put a hand on hers. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. How can you find him if I c
an’t remember when I saw him last?”

  “Tell me about the best time you ever had with him.”

  “How will that help?”

  “I could get to know him better,” he said. “That always helps.”

  Mrs. Rowell watched him for a while, her expression softening. “Queen Mary. 1950,” she said, finally. “What a wonderful place to ring in the New Year.”

  “Did you dance?”

  “Till three in the morning. There were champagne glasses in a pyramid. The band played ‘Near You.’ Do you know that song? So romantic . . .”

  Morasco smiled. He watched her for a while, let her take in the memory. “Can you describe him, physically?”

  “He has sandy blond hair and brown eyes. Very white teeth.”

  Morasco wrote it down. Bl hair. Br eyes. Very white teeth.

  “He’s five-foot-eleven.”

  “What was Mr. Rowell wearing, when you danced?”

  “Gray pin-striped suit. Red tie. Gold cuff links that are shaped like ladybugs. I gave him those.”

  Morasco smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Rowell. This is all very helpful.”

  “Will you try to find him?”

  “Yes.” He said it without hesitation. “I will.” It didn’t matter, after all, whether there really was a light at the end of the tunnel. What mattered was seeing it shine. “We’ll do all we can.”

  Mrs. Rowell stood up. She took one of Morasco’s hands in both of hers, which were dry and cool and tiny. She looked up at him, eyes like glowing coals. “You are a very nice person,” she said.

  He opened the door to the interview room, led her through the squad room and to the front door.

  “Bye, Mrs. Rowell!” Baus called out.

  She shook her head. “He left me in that room for the longest time.”

  “He’s an idiot,” Morasco said.

  He pushed open the front door for her. Her driver waited in front, the engine of his glossy town car running. An icy wind slapped the side of his face, but Mrs. Rowell, in her big coat, didn’t even seem to notice it. “As long as there are people looking for Charlie,” she said, “he’s not really gone.”