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

  Brenna had thought of it immediately—the communication with Dufresne. But Trent had been the one to put it into words. “You think Maya is 3434?”

  “Maybe,” Brenna had said. But for her it wasn’t a maybe. Brenna was nearly certain that Maya had been 3434, BrennaNSpector, whatever you wanted to call the person who had claimed to be her, who had been posting that picture on missing persons sites for the past two years at least, who knew that the picture was in Brenna’s drawer and had taken it out at least once since September so she could sketch it . . . and kill it (figuratively, anyway.)

  It had to be Maya, which, when she recalled how BrennaNSpector had broken things off with Alan, made the type of sense that was chilling.

  Well apparently, you’re not going to be e-mailing for a while because you’re in the midst of a family crisis.

  Brenna had asked Julie: Do you think Maya was unhappy enough to run away? Do you think she planned this ahead of time?

  I don’t know, Julie had typed.

  Brenna thinks, You do know though. Don’t you? You just don’t want to say . . .

  “I’m going to check my e-mail—see if I got anything in response to the pics,” said Trent, perked up from the Red Bull. He moved over to his laptop, gulped from the can some more, and flipped it open.

  When the chat room reopened following the server overload and shutdown, Julie and Maya had both sought it out again, mainly to find each other. When they did, they greeted each other like old friends, and before long, they were private messaging regularly, their conversation topics moving from their missing relatives to books and movies, to Maya’s school friends, boys, hopes and dreams and fears for the future . . .

  Brenna had typed, Maya ever mention a man named Mark?

  NYCJulie: A man? Not a boy?

  SIKaren: Man.

  NYCJulie: She told me about a boy named Miles. No men.

  SIKaren: What did she say about him?

  NYCJulie: She said he’s a great singer. Apparently, he’s got a whole room full of studio equipment in his apartment, and she thinks he’ll be famous. She clearly had a crush, but I was skeptical.

  SIKaren: She was in his apartment?

  After a long pause, NYCJulie had replied: For some class project, I think. They had to draw each other.

  SIKaren: You were close. She could confide in you.

  NYCJulie: It’s tough being an only child. I’m one, too. So I get it.

  Yes. Brenna had typed. She hadn’t been able to type anything more. “I should have gotten it, too,” said Brenna, an only child, too, but for her sister’s gaping memory. “I’m sorry.”

  “Huh?” Trent tapped at his keyboard.

  “Nothing,” said Brenna. “You want me to make up the couch for you? It’s getting late.”

  Trent shook his head. “Nah.” He took another swig of Red Bull, images flashing on the screen. “Sleeping’s for wussies.”

  Brenna looked at him, his eyes lit from the glowing screen. “Thanks.”

  “She deleted a lot of song downloads,” he said. “I still don’t get why she stopped liking Bieber. His new stuff is good.”

  “Kids change.” Her eyes went to the kitchen area, a memory seeping into her mind, February 16, 2009, 3:30 P.M. Maya closing the refrigerator door and turning to her. “I forgive you, Mom.”

  “For what?”

  “Not getting cheese sticks.”

  “Crap, I didn’t have a chance. Work was . . .”

  “It’s okay.”

  Maya brushes past her, trailing a flowery scent. Justin Bieber’s Girlfriend perfume. She stops, kisses her on the cheek. “Don’t beat yourself up, Mom, Jeez. It’s only cheese sticks.”

  “People change,” Brenna said.

  “I still love you, Mom.”

  The phone rang.

  Brenna hurried into her office, checked the screen before answering. “Nick,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “Anything?”

  “Good and bad.”

  “Good first.”

  “Carver pulled through.”

  She breathed out. Thank you . . . “Now the bad.”

  “I talked to him, Brenna. But not for very long because I got pissed off again and he went schizo. Now they won’t let anybody in to see him.”

  “Did you get anything?”

  “Just . . . He said he got the phone from a woman.”

  “A girl.”

  “No,” he said. “Not a girl. Not Maya. A woman, who he seemed to think was Maya’s mother. He said he partied with Maya’s mother, and she gave him the phone.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  He took a deep breath. “When I was talking to him, I didn’t at all,” he said. “But now . . .”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Danny Cavanaugh slipped me Mark Carver’s social,” he said. “I looked him up.”

  “And?”

  “He’s not on the sex offenders registry. Never been arrested for a violent crime. One drug arrest—dealing hash. When he was eighteen—that’s half his life ago. He got probation. A few years back, he was questioned in his brother’s death.”

  “He was a suspect?”

  “It was an overdose, Brenna. They both took a shitload of heroin. Carver’s brother died. He didn’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “He just . . . He doesn’t seem the type to steal a kid off the street.” He exhaled. “He doesn’t set off that feeling in me. Not now. Not on paper.”

  “But he does seem like the type to party with some random woman and take a phone from her, no questions asked.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “I get it.”

  “I wish I’d known about him earlier. I never would have fired. I wouldn’t have—”

  “You know about him now,” Brenna said. “That’s something. He’s going to be okay. That’s something, too.”

  “Brenna?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I wish . . . I wish I could make this all better.”

  Brenna closed her eyes. She listened to his breathing. “I know you do,” she said.

  They said their good-byes and hung up. Brenna stared at the phone, thinking about what he’d said. She punched in a number: Her mother’s.

  She answered after several rings, her voice fogged from sleep. “Brenna?”

  “Mom. When you got that call from Maya in the middle of the night . . .”

  “Maya?”

  “Yes, you said she called you by mistake last night.”

  “Brenna, is something wrong?”

  “I need you to tell me exactly what you heard.”

  “What? What are you . . .”

  “Did you hear a woman’s voice? A man’s?”

  “I . . . I heard static . . .”

  “And something else. You said Maya sounded wild.”

  “I said that?”

  Brenna gritted her teeth. “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Mother, I’m always sure. Of everything. Always. You know that.”

  “I . . . don’t know, Brenna. It was very late at night. I heard static. I thought it was you at first. I thought you were calling about your father . . .”

  “Did you hear Maya’s voice?”

  “Just static. What’s going on, Brenna? Why are you calling me at three?”

  “I’m sorry to have woken you,” Brenna said. She hung up.

  Brenna headed for her bedroom, hopelessness closing in around her. On the way in, she stopped in the bathroom. Stared into the mirror. “Where are you, Maya?” She said it to her reflection, but in her mind she could see only her daughter. Her daughter’s face, her daughter’s scared, shy smile. Her daughter out there somewhere in the freezing cold night, somewhere crying for hel
p . . .

  “Where are you?”

  Brenna headed out of the bathroom, through the kitchen, and into the office area, where Trent still sat at his computer. “Anything?” she said.

  He shook his head. “Homework mostly. She downloaded a birthday party invitation.”

  “Larissa’s?”

  “How did you know?”

  “It’s coming up. February 2.”

  “You’re a great mom.”

  “Knowing dates doesn’t make me a great mom,” she said. “It just makes me weird.”

  He looked up from the computer. “I didn’t say it because you knew the date.”

  Brenna squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds, ignoring the heat at the corners, at her throat. “You’re a good guy, Trent.”

  She looked at her watch. Two fifty-five, it read, which made her recall that jolly bastard of a Christmas angel she’d talked to, back when she’d thought there must be some mistake, that Maya would be home any minute, that this had to be a dream, a bad one, and she’d wake up soon . . . “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.”

  Brenna threw open the closet, grabbed her coat and bag, opened the door.

  She heard Trent’s voice behind her, “Where are you going?” She didn’t turn around to answer.

  “Lindsay’s place.”

  “Whose?”

  “The Heather. From the picture. I’m going to talk to her doorman.”

  Mark Carver couldn’t sleep, and he couldn’t stay awake, either. His nose ran and his shaved head itched, bandages clinging to it, hairs already starting to poke through the skin. He wanted to slough it all off—the bandages, the hospital gown, the IVs, this whole night and his life and everything that came with it. His heart pounded. He was hot, then cold, then hot. He’d felt okay earlier, but that was because he’d still been under anesthesia.

  That doctor. Only acetaminophen for the pain. No morphine. No opiates. That’s what he’d said. Your heart will thank me, he’d said.

  I’m not thanking you, asshole.

  This was killing Mark, this need. It was destroying him one molecule at a time. He wished he had told the doctor the truth, that he’d been doing oxy every day for the past couple of weeks—no, months—upping the numbers more and more because it took more and more to get him off or to even feel anything at all. But he didn’t want to get in trouble. Scratch that. He was in trouble. Big trouble. He didn’t want to get in any more trouble than he was already in. He saw the hate in their eyes, all over their faces, even that cop they had guarding the door to his hospital room, looking at him as though he was . . .

  What do they think I am?

  Mark thought about that other cop, the detective, the one who had shot him. He thought about the girl and how her phone was in his pocket and how that must have looked. Why hadn’t he explained? Why hadn’t he tried to explain instead of running?

  Where is she? The cop had asked. And all he could think of was that girl’s face, how frightened she’d looked . . .

  “I don’t know her.” He said it out loud, his voice echoing in the hospital room. “I don’t know that girl.”

  Weird, when the detective was in his room earlier, Mark had so much he wanted to say, but he hadn’t gotten any of it out. Mark had still been coming out of anesthesia. That was part of it, but there was also the way the guy had come at him with his eyes. The hate. Mark could feel the burn of it, when the thing was, the thing he wanted that detective to understand . . . Mark wasn’t a bad person. He wasn’t a monster. He’d asked to talk to the guy for a reason, for lots of good reasons, and he wished . . . he wished he’d been able to find the words . . .

  An emotion barreled through him. Not a good one. He felt tears pressing against the inside of his skin. His nose ran. His eyes welled up.

  “I didn’t hurt that girl.” Mark’s voice cracked and broke. “I’d never hurt anybody. And when you came up to me on the street, I swear . . . I didn’t even know where I was . . .”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  Mark looked up. Most of the lights in the room were off, but there was one on right behind her. His eyes were blurred from tears and so he couldn’t make out her features. She looked like a shadow with a halo.

  “Have you had visitors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you tell them my name?”

  He couldn’t remember her name. “Why are you wearing a nurse’s uniform?” he said.

  “Because I am a nurse.”

  She slipped the blanket off him, undid the front of his hospital gown. Her movements were brisk, efficient.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Did you tell them my name?”

  “No.”

  He felt a ripping sensation at the center of his chest, like a Band-Aid being yanked off. Then another, a little lower.

  “What are you doing to me?”

  “Did you tell them about Maya?”

  Rip, rip . . .

  “No, I swear.”

  Rip, rip . . .

  He winced.

  “Just a few more,” she said.

  He said it again. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you off the monitors, then turning them off,” she said. “We don’t want any alarms.”

  “What?”

  “Sssh.” She put a hand over his mouth, cool and firm. He cried out, but the hand clamped tighter. She removed something from her pocket. It glistened in the dim light. A needle. Mark didn’t like needles. Not anymore. They made him think of his older brother. When Mark closed his eyes sometimes, he’d remember waking up and seeing Steven on the floor, white and still. He’d remember the needle next to him, like some bug who’d had its fill of Steven’s blood, and now it was just lying there, sated. And then he’d have to take pills to make the image go away.

  “No needles.” He said it into her hand.

  She jabbed it into his neck. He felt a hard pinch, like stitches being pulled too tight. “You’ll like this,” she said.

  He didn’t like the pinch or the sting. But he liked the familiar warmth, running through his veins, filling his body. She brought her face close to his. Her eyes were clear and kind in the soft light. “I’ll stay with you till you’re gone.”

  Her hand came away from his mouth and stroked his arm, and Mark remembered sitting in the front seat of her car, just as the oxy was kicking in. It had been earlier tonight, and, really? Only tonight? Feels so long ago . . .

  When you smoked it, it had such a sweet smell. “Are you a happy person?” she’d asked him, and he’d cast a glance at her daughter in the backseat, the gas station light illuminating the dried tears on the girl’s face. This had been before she’d caught the girl using her phone, before she’d taken the phone away and put the girl in the trunk and . . . How far had they driven? How long before she’d needed to go for gas?

  She took his hand in hers. Her grip was strong. “Let go,” she said. Mark thought of his brother again and how he’d cried over Steven’s body, how he’d said, “Don’t leave me” to Steven, even though he was already gone.

  She brushed her hand over Mark’s eyes, closing them. He wished he could remember her name.

  Blackness poured into his ears, his mouth, his head. There was nothing Mark could do but what she’d told him to do and so he did. He let go, thinking of the slight smile on his dead brother’s face and the tears on the girl’s face and the girl’s lip, how it had trembled, how she had mouthed the word, Help.

  All he wanted was for everyone to be okay.

  13

  “Maybe,” said Geoff, the late-night doorman in Lindsay Segal’s building. He said it to Maya’s picture, Brenna holding it out in front of him, her hand trembling from nerves and fatigue and swelling frustration. She
realized how unfairly she’d judged the other doorman, who’d at least tried to be friendly. This guy made him look like a superhero.

  Brenna clutched her wrist to steady it. “Could you please look at this a little closer?” she said. “This is my daughter. She’s missing. This apartment building may be the last place she was seen.”

  “Yes, you told me all that.” He said it as though Brenna were asking him about a missing set of keys. Maybe the ennui came from too many late-night jobs in the city, or maybe he was on too much medication. Maybe he was just an asshole. He wore glasses with very thin silver frames. He adjusted them languidly, the frames glistening like spiderwebs in the soft lobby light. “She doesn’t look familiar,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you say that to begin with?” she said. “Why did you say maybe?”

  His gaze went to a framed picture placed on the front desk—a long-haired dachshund, posing on a carpety lawn. “There was a party here,” he said, addressing the dachshund, not Brenna. “Kids coming and going all night. Neighbors complaining. I don’t remember your daughter’s face. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t here.”

  “Do you have surveillance videos?”

  “Maybe,” he said again.

  Maybe? Really?

  “Can I look?” Brenna said. “I would need last night from around 6 P.M. to . . . about twenty-four hours’ worth.”

  “I’d need to talk to my supervisor about that.”

  “So talk to him.”

  “It’s three in the morning.”

  Brenna moved closer to him, her whole body filling with anger, vibrating with it. “Maybe you didn’t hear me when I told you my daughter is missing.”

  “I heard you,” he said. “But I’m not going to wake up my supervisor at three in the morning over some girl who’s probably at her boyfriend’s place. It hasn’t been that long since the party, lady, and you’re not the first parent I’ve talked to. You’re not the first parent who’s complained, only to call back later and—”

  “Here’s the thing,” she said, very quietly. “If you don’t let me see those surveillance videos now, I will scream loud enough and long enough to wake up your entire building. Maybe get you fired. Maybe even get you arrested.”