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

  Miles swallowed hard, the thick air closing in on him. The coat. His phone vibrated in his back pocket. Another text. It was probably from Lindsay. He didn’t want to look at it, but it was better that than to look at Maya’s parents. Better to look at Lindsay’s smiling picture on his screen than to remember the way her face had looked when she’d stuffed that coat into a plastic bag.

  The text read: Stay strong. The glass dropped out of Miles’s hand, shattered to the floor.

  Miles’s parents stared at him.

  “I’ll clean it up,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Maya’s stepmom said, “She means the world to us.”

  Miles shoved his phone into his back pocket without replying. He grabbed a broom and a dustpan out of the kitchen closet and swept up the ruined glass.

  I will clean it up, he thought. I’ll clean it up as best I can.

  15

  “What are you doing?” said Annalee.

  Lindsay glared at her. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Standing in front of Miles’s locker?” It almost sounded sarcastic and Annalee had never been sarcastic, not with Lindsay anyway. If this were a normal day, Lindsay would have smacked her down good. But it wasn’t a normal day.

  Annalee hooked a lock of pale blonde hair behind her ear. “Did you hear about Maya?”

  “Sssh.”

  “What? Why? Everybody’s talking about it. Her mom was on TV this morning and—”

  “Stepmom. I saw it. Of course I saw it, Annalee, Jesus.”

  “We’re having a special assembly.”

  “When?”

  “Now.” Annalee spit her gum into a Kleenex and leaned in close. “Lindsay, I’m kind of worried,” she whispered.

  “Why? You didn’t say anything, did you?”

  Fruit gum fumes curled out of her mouth. Lindsay felt queasy. “I didn’t, no. But there were a bunch of people at your place that night. And I could have so sworn I heard Nikki telling Jordan Michaelson about the video. What if she took him into your room and what if she showed him . . .”

  “She didn’t,” Lindsay said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I do.”

  Lindsay turned away from the gum stink of Annalee. She peered up and down the hallway, skimming the crowd for Miles. Where the hell was he?

  Annalee tapped her on the shoulder. “Why are you looking around like that?”

  “No reason.”

  “I’m sure everything will be fine. Forget I said anything.”

  Last year, when Annalee was dating Chris Kolchek, Lindsay had overheard Chris and his friends talking about her in study hall, Chris bragging that she’d done everything, that she’d gone everywhere with him that he wanted to go. He’d actually called her Anally, which had made Grant Everly and Seth Perkins laugh their asses off. Lindsay had known that wasn’t true, but still she hadn’t bothered to stick up for Annalee. She’d laughed, too, in fact.

  Lindsay felt a little bad about it, but the truth was, she hadn’t really liked Annalee since fourth grade ballet class. Annalee was irritating and simpery and she copied Lindsay’s outfits, always.

  Yet Lindsay had stayed friends with her all these years, best friends and, why? Because it was safe. Because it was a habit she’d had for so long, she didn’t know how to break it. Because people were used to seeing Lindsay and Annalee together. Because finding someone new would be a pain, and not worth it. Weren’t those all reasons why old people stayed in bad marriages?

  Meanwhile, her friendship with Nikki was even worse. She’d never liked her. If Lindsay was going to look hard at her life, if she was going to be genuinely honest about it, she would admit that she didn’t like any of her girlfriends. She would admit that she rarely had any real fun. For the most part, Lindsay would admit, life to her felt a lot like that blackberry brandy on Saturday night. She could stomach it. She could act like she enjoyed it. But really that was all she was doing. Acting.

  She grabbed her phone out of her purse, texted Miles: Where TF R U??? just as the PA system cranked on.

  “They probably want us in the auditorium now,” said Annalee, oblivious to the way Lindsay had turned away from her, her body language begging Annalee to leave her alone. How dense can one person possibly be?

  The principal’s voice pushed through the speaker system. “Students, please go to the auditorium immediately for a special program regarding a missing student,” he said. “Lindsay Segal, come to my office.”

  “What?” Lindsay dropped her phone. It clattered on the walkway, and she picked it up and checked it, her hands shaking. The glass was fine, nothing broken. Still no text from Miles.

  Annalee said, “Wow, no way.”

  Lindsay looked at Annalee. Her eyes were big, but calm and dry.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Annalee said, but she looked relieved that she hadn’t been called along with her, and Lindsay wanted to smack her for that, smack her hard. “Probably just . . . like . . . some question about your after-school activities or something.”

  “Shut up, Annalee.”

  “Busted,” said Ryan Cordonne as he passed.

  “Whatever.” Lindsay’s heart pounded.

  A huge group passed her on their way to the auditorium. She saw Nikki among them, but not Miles. Nikki mouthed, You okay?, that same look on her face that had been on Annalee’s. Relief.

  Lindsay shrugged at her elaborately.

  Where was Miles? Had Principal Bailey called Miles into his office, too? Or had Miles gone in on his own? Had he told on her? Had he told the principal everything that they had done?

  He wouldn’t. Miles wouldn’t do that.

  Miles was into Lindsay—they’d even started to say the L-word to each other. Miles sounded like he meant it, too, and Lindsay thought maybe he did. Maybe they were some kind of real, lasting thing, and whatever had happened between him and Maya two weeks ago was just him being a guy. Hell, Miles wouldn’t even admit that anything had happened between them . . .

  It had, though. Of course it had. Miles was a guy, after all, and he did what any guy would do if any girl were to just randomly show up at his apartment when his parents weren’t home. Any girl. Even some dumb little skank like Maya Rappaport, whom Nikki had seen leaving Miles’s apartment, her hair messed, that ugly blue coat buttoned up all wrong . . .

  And now she was missing. Disappeared into thin air, but it wasn’t Lindsay’s fault. It was Miles’s fault more than hers and Maya’s fault more than anything. You don’t just show up at guys’ apartments when their parents aren’t home. Especially guys who are older than you. Especially guys with girlfriends.

  One night, back in September when she and Miles had first started dating, they’d sat on his balcony and looked into each other’s eyes and he had touched her face . . . All he had done was touch her face and yet the way he had touched her, his fingertips tracing her cheekbones, her lips, brushing against her neck, so lightly, as if she were some special, precious thing. All he had done was touch her face and yet she’d never felt so cared for, so loved . . .

  Had he touched Maya’s face like that, too?

  You show up at some guy’s apartment, some random upperclassman with a girlfriend he’s said the L-word to. You do that, Maya Rappaport, and you get what you deserve . . .

  Maybe Principal Bailey had called Lindsay’s parents. Maybe they were in his office with him right now, back from their vacation, telling him there must be some mistake, their daughter would never bully anyone . . . It wasn’t bullying, it was what she deserved.

  Lindsay missed her parents. Why did they have to go off to Thailand for a whole week and leave her in the city alone? Maya’s parents would never do anything like that—Lindsay barely knew them, yet she could tell. It had been bad enough, seeing them in the lobby last night, but on TV today . . . Lind
say had had to turn them off. That look on the stepmom’s face, like the pain was going to break her apart . . .

  Lindsay grabbed her binder and her history textbook. She clutched them both to her chest and thought of armor, a shield. Stay strong.

  She heard her name over the speaker system again and hurried down the hall to the front desk.

  “Yes, Lindsay, you can go right in,” said the receptionist, an old lady whose name Lindsay had never learned.

  The door to Principal Bailey’s office opened, and he stood there, looking at her. Principal Bailey was chubby and rosy-cheeked and normally friendly, in that corny, superficial way. But you wouldn’t know it to see him now.

  “Hello Lindsay.”

  “Hello Principal Bailey,” she tried. There was a dark-haired woman sitting at his desk with her back to the door, a bunch of printed-out photographs spread before her. Lindsay wasn’t close enough to see what they were of.

  “There’s someone here who needs to talk to you, Lindsay,” said Principal Bailey. And then the woman got up and turned around. She was tall and thin, and though Lindsay didn’t recognize her face, she looked at Lindsay as though she knew her.

  “Uh . . . hi?” Lindsay said.

  “I’m Maya’s mother,” she said. “And you’ve been lying to us.”

  “And we’re done,” Danielle said. Faith let go of Jim’s hand and took a deep breath. It made her a little light-headed, and only then did Faith realize she hadn’t eaten since the early dinner she’d had with Jim last night, right before the Ashley Stanley interview broadcast.

  “You did great,” Jim said.

  “Thank you,” Faith said. She was normally a breakfast person. She should have grabbed a banana in the greenroom, but the thought of eating anything made her feel so sick . . .

  Danielle strode toward Faith and Jim, gathered them both into her arms.

  “Anyone with a pulse would have been moved by that.” Danielle said it into Faith’s neck, and it made Faith uncomfortable, as though she were complimenting her on a performance.

  “I hope it works,” she said.

  “You’ll get that little girl back,” Danielle said. “I know it.”

  “Thank you.” Faith was grateful she couldn’t see Danielle’s face.

  “I’ll leave you guys to each other.” Danielle left, Nicolai trailing behind her, neither of them fully looking Faith in the eye.

  She turned to Jim, gazed up into his eyes, those warm eyes that had always driven her wild, now so tired and hurt. She said, “When was the last time you and Brenna instant messaged?”

  “September.”

  “What stopped you?”

  His gaze left her face, focused on a point just over her left shoulder. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s good,” she said, slowly, “that we can all talk in person now.”

  “Yes.”

  She put her arms around him, rested her head against his chest, listened to his breath, his heartbeat.

  “God,” he whispered. “I hope Maya isn’t too cold.”

  She pulled him closer. They stayed like that for a while before she noticed the door chimes coming from the nearby greenroom. “My phone.”

  Faith pulled away from him and followed the sound, hurrying into the greenroom, plucking her phone out of her purse. Caller ID read “Restricted Number.”

  She answered fast.

  “I’m sorry, Faith.” Faith’s breath died in her throat. It was the same person who had called during her interview. The smoker, the voice so corroded that it was hard to tell gender.

  “It’s you,” Faith said.

  “I saw you on TV.”

  “Please tell me where Maya is.”

  “Can I meet with you, Faith? Please?”

  “Will you—”

  “Don’t tell anybody I called. This is important.”

  “Okay.”

  “You have to promise me. I want to tell you the truth, but I can’t do that if anybody knows.”

  “The truth about Maya.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where can we meet?”

  “There’s a playground on Twelfth and Hudson.”

  “Okay, when?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  Faith thought about it. If the subways were on time, she could probably get there in fifteen. “Okay.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. “Come alone,” the voice said. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Faith shut her eyes tight, every muscle in her body tensed, every part of her hoping. “Will you bring Maya?” she said. “Please?”

  But there was no reply. The caller had already hung up.

  Lindsay Segal clutched her books to her chest and stared at Brenna as though she were a mother bear whose path she’d inadvertently crossed. “I didn’t lie to you,” she said.

  Brenna shook her head. “Sorry, Lindsay,” she said, “but that is incredibly lame.” The girl’s eyes widened. She looked at the principal, as though he were supposed to feed her a line.

  “Why don’t you come here and take a look at these pictures,” Brenna said.

  Lindsay took a few timid steps forward.

  “You’ll never see them from all the way back there.”

  Lindsay cast a quick glance at the principal, his hands folded across his chest like a prison guard, then moved closer.

  On the desk, Brenna had placed all of Maya’s pictures from Forever 21, enlarged and brightened courtesy of Trent, and printed out on shiny photograph paper.

  It was hard for Brenna to look at the pictures. Larger and clearer on the contact paper, the nervousness in Maya’s eyes was all the more apparent, the stiffness of her smile, the way she looked at the other girls, so desperate to please.

  She stayed focused on Lindsay. “You said you don’t even know Maya,” she said, as the girl gaped at the photographs, “but you all look like besties here.”

  “Oh . . . that was just . . .”

  “One day of unseasonable closeness?”

  “Um . . . yeah.”

  “Maya’s friend Zoe says you guys have been inseparable for a week. In fact, she’s been feeling a little insecure, like you were actually taking Maya away from her.”

  “That isn’t—”

  “She initially had plans with Maya for Saturday night, and when Maya canceled on her, you were the first person she thought of.”

  “Look. Mrs. Rappaport, I don’t even know who Zoe is.”

  “Ms. Spector,” she said. “And she knows who you are.”

  Principal Bailey said, “You had better start telling the truth, Lindsay.”

  “I am telling the truth.”

  Brenna said, “Can I ask you something, Lindsay? It’s sort of an opinion question.”

  “Umm . . .”

  “How do you feel about surveillance video?”

  “What?”

  “Surveillance video. Like they have in the elevators, hallways, and lobbies of almost every New York City doorman apartment? Including your own.”

  “I . . . Wait. There’s video?”

  “Do you still want to tell your principal and me that you barely know Maya? That she was never at your apartment on Saturday night?”

  Lindsay stared at her, the color draining out of her face. Her gaze darted from Brenna to Principal Bailey and back again, but Brenna kept focusing on her eyes.

  “If she’d gone to Zoe’s that night,” Brenna said, “she never would have left. In the morning, her dad would have met her over there, walked her home, just like he always does.” Brenna took a step closer, muscles tensing, anger pressing through her. “She’d be fine, Lindsay. But she changed her plans because of you.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Surveillance video doesn’t lie.�
��

  Lindsay swallowed hard. “I want to talk to my parents.”

  Principal Bailey said, “Rest assured, they will be called.”

  The girl’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, Brenna thought she was going to turn and make a run for it, but instead she crumpled. Her eyes welled.

  “Lindsay,” Brenna said. “What happened on Saturday night?”

  “It . . . it was just a prank.”

  Brenna swallowed hard. Here it comes.

  “We didn’t want anything bad to happen to her, we just . . . we were kidding around and . . .”

  Brenna stared at her. She gripped the back of the chair very tightly. Stay calm. Get what you need and then you’ll never have to look at her again. “What was the prank?”

  “We . . . we gave her some alcohol. She got sick. We got her on . . . on camera and . . .”

  Brenna closed her eyes. “When?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “When did you do this?” Brenna took a few steps closer. She was at least five inches taller than Lindsay, and she used it, staring down at her, into her eyes until they sparked with fear.

  “Uh . . . when?”

  “You heard me. When did you publicly humiliate my daughter?”

  “Umm . . . About 8 P.M.”

  “And what happened next?”

  “She . . .”

  “She what?”

  “She left.”

  “Right away?”

  “Yes . . . But . . .”

  “So she left your apartment at 8 P.M.”

  “I’m sorry, but . . .”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t it say the time on the video?”

  “I never saw any surveillance video.”

  The girl’s jaw dropped open.

  “I never said I did. All I said was that most buildings like yours have surveillance cameras. You filled in the rest of the blanks.”

  “No . . .”

  “In fact, according to your doorman, your building is actually between surveillance cameras as the elevator one has been on the fritz since Friday.” She turned to Bailey. “Funny way of putting it—between surveillance cameras, like between jobs or between relationships—but you could forgive him the phrasing. He was very agitated at the time.”