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

  Morasco put a bagel in front of Brenna, along with a cup of coffee. “Eat,” he said. “You have to, if we’re going to find her.”

  “Dude, listen to him.” Normally, she would have chastised him for talking with his mouth full—a habit he should have broken at the age of seven. But there was no normal now. There was only Maya. The lack of her, and the words she’d left behind.

  “I already had a kaiser roll,” Brenna said. But she did take the coffee. Her gaze stayed on the screen.

  “Did you find out anything about Castillo?” Morasco said.

  “An article about the DUI. It’s up on my computer. If you enlarge the picture, you can probably see the driver’s license.”

  “Okay,” he said. “You talk to your mom?”

  She nodded. “Nothing worthwhile.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. She barely felt it. Hadn’t even looked at him since he’d come in and she knew that was unfair, but she couldn’t help it.

  “How’s it going with IA?” she said, still staring at the screen.

  “Pretty good,” he said. “The guy I was dealing with back in October has been very helpful.”

  “You going to get your badge back soon?”

  “He says forty-eight hours, tops. We’ll see how it shakes out.” Morasco moved toward Brenna’s computer.

  She kept at it, scrolling through message upon message, the words “Mom” and “unfair” and “real love” flying past her eyes and then more words still, words she never knew were on her daughter’s mind, words she never expressed to Brenna, or maybe she had but they’d gone unheard . . . and thus unremembered.

  So hurt . . . no cure for it . . . I just wish we could talk . . . Wish she’d talk to Dad . . . Please don’t tell anyone . . . feel so alone . . .

  “You don’t need to look at all of it,” Trent said.

  “Yes I do.”

  Brenna saw Miles’s name at January 4, 5:30 P.M. Brenna remembered Maya coming home from school late that day—5:20 according to the clock in the kitchen. “I’ve got tons of homework, Mom.”

  Brenna glances up from the onion she’s been dicing and sees a flash of blonde hair, the bright blue coat, Maya heading up the hall and into her bedroom.

  She hears the soft creak of Maya’s door as it shuts.

  “I’m making chicken and rice,” Brenna calls out. “Is that okay?”

  No answer.

  Brenna sighs. “It better be okay,” she says to the onion, “because that’s what we’re having.”

  But now, as Brenna pinched herself back into the present and read the exchange between Maya and NYCJulie, an exchange that had taken place moments after she closed the door . . . Brenna’s chest tightened. Tears sprung into her eyes and again, she felt herself sinking. Maya. Oh Maya. You had your first kiss. You and Miles. That day in his apartment. You kissed him.

  “Oh my God,” Morasco said.

  Brenna swatted at her eyes and turned to him. He was frozen, the mouse clutched in his hand. She got up and moved toward him. “What?”

  He’d enlarged the picture so much that the car’s bumper filled the screen. Brenna could clearly see the New York license plate, the bumper sticker: “My Child Is an Honor Student at George Washington Elementary.”

  “When I ran across the street to question Carver, I’d spoken to a woman first—a soccer mom filling up at the Lukoil station.”

  “Yes?”

  “We spoke to her—Cavanaugh, Cerulli, and I. Asked her a few questions, but she looked scared and confused. A waste of time—she’d obviously seen nothing, and there was Carver, right across the street, a drug addict, sweating bullets, Maya’s phone ringing away in his coat pocket.”

  “Nick, why are you telling me this?”

  “Because,” Nick said. “This is her bumper. This is her car.”

  “What?”

  “The woman we let go. The soccer mom. That woman was Sophia Castillo.”

  The key for Sophia was to not think too hard about it. It was like so many other things that, when focused on too intently, went from second nature to impossible. You do it, you leave. You don’t let thought become a part of the process.

  And so in this case, what Sophia needed to do was to take off her coat and throw it in the backseat without thinking about the bloodstains, to twist the cap off the container of gasoline without thinking about the smell, and to spill the gasoline on the coat, on the seat, on the front seat, too, and the dashboard and wherever else it would go, to do all that without thinking about the car she’d owned and loved since Robert was seven.

  Don’t think. Just do.

  She stepped back from the car. The pink sweater that she held still reeked of vomit, but it had dried off by now, and when she held a match to it, the frail, fuzzy thing ignited fast. She tossed it into the backseat and ran away from the clearing and into the woods as fast as she could. She didn’t stop running until she reached the tree. Didn’t turn around until she heard the roar behind her.

  Funny about cars. They’re just big hunks of metal filled with toxic chemicals, but we attach such meaning to them, it’s as though they’re members of the family. Sophia sighed. She listened to the crackling of the fire. The heat bit at her eyes, even from here.

  She clicked open her purse, checked her cash supply—she still had plenty. She took out her phone, but before she turned it on again, she caught a glimpse of herself in the glass. Definitely in need of a freshening. Sophia pulled out her lipstick, twisted off the cap, and got angry, all over again. The top of the lipstick was bashed in and flecked with brown bark. She dusted it off, dotted her lips with the color, but very lightly. If she wanted to use the lipstick the way it was intended to be used, she’d need a pack of Kleenex and a razor blade. Maya. This had been expensive lipstick, too. What was wrong with that girl?

  At least the lipstick can be saved, she thought, watching the car, her beloved car, flames wrapped around it like a cocoon. Some things can’t be saved, no matter how hard you hope.

  Déjà vu, Brenna thought, once she and Morasco arrived at Faith’s, where they’d all agreed to meet after exchanging information about Castillo. There they were yet again, Jim and Faith sitting at the island, only this time, instead of Plodsky, they were sitting across from a guy with salt and pepper hair; a thick, ruddy neck; and a shiny brown coat that strained against the bulk of him. A manila folder was sprawled open on the table, a stack of pictures inside.

  “Hello?” Nick said.

  Tight Sportcoat stood up, stuck out a beefy hand. “I’m Ray Sykes. Detective Plodsky’s partner.”

  Brenna had spoken to him earlier. She recognized his voice from the phone. “Diane’s still not back from the next-of-kin call?” Brenna said.

  “Traffic must be bad,” Sykes said. “We’ve gone ahead with the AMBER Alert. And we’re putting out a BOLO on the license plate, with descriptions of both Sophia Castillo and your daughter.” He glanced at Faith. “Thanks to the on-air announcement, we’ve already gotten a lot of calls on the tip line, and once it hits the news cycles, I’m sure we’ll be getting a lot more. The problem is weeding through everything. A lot of nuts call these lines.”

  “Anything worthwhile?” Brenna said.

  “Not unless you believe in alien abductions.”

  Faith said, “Detective Sykes?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s been more than thirty-six hours since Maya got into that car on the West Side Highway.”

  “That’s correct, ma’am.”

  “That’s a very long time.”

  Brenna said, “Have you pinged Sophia’s cell phone?”

  “Trying.”

  Brenna didn’t say anything. She had a terrible feeling, as though she was thrashing around in deep, churning water with nothing to hang on to.

  From the open folder on the table, a mug shot st
ared up at her. She put a hand on it.

  “That’s from the 2007 DUI,” Sykes said.

  She nodded, drew it to her and stared at Sophia Castillo’s pale, drawn face, the mud-brown hair, the cloudy, sunken eyes that refused to look at the camera. There was something familiar about the face. But more in the expression than the actual features—which were so different from those of the blue-eyed patrician soccer mom Morasco had described seeing at the gas station. How could they find a chameleon like that? And Maya . . . who knew where she was keeping her, what she was doing to her. Who knew what Maya looked like now?

  Sykes was saying, “We’re monitoring her credit cards, bank activity . . .”

  “Nothing?” Morasco said.

  “She withdrew five thousand dollars from her bank account three days ago. Nothing since.”

  Faith said, “That will probably last her.”

  Brenna closed her eyes. Maya is alive. She’s healthy. She’ll be home soon.

  “What can we do?” said Jim. “How can we help?”

  “You’re doing everything you can. We couldn’t ask for more helpful family . . .” Sykes’s cell phone trilled. He looked at the screen. “Be back in a few.” He moved out of the room, into the foyer.

  Jim looked at Nick. “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “When you approached Carver, he was right across the street from the woman he supposedly partied with. Why didn’t he just point her out? Why did he run?”

  Morasco stared at the table. “Scared,” he said. “He was thinking about himself, the coke in his pocket, getting caught. If I hadn’t come on like such a hard-ass, maybe he would have talked instead of running.”

  Jim didn’t say anything, but the way he looked at Morasco, it was the same as agreeing. It made Brenna remember Jim on October 23, 1998, the night he’d learned she’d broken her promise to him and done a job for her former boss, Errol Ludlow, the night he’d ended their marriage, no questions asked. He’d given her that same look. That face, like a gavel crashing down . . .

  I just got back from Ludlow’s office. I know what you did last night.

  Faith’s voice brought her back. “Did you ever think,” she said to Nick, “that Mark Carver could have been scared of her, not you?”

  Brenna looked at Faith, so pale beneath the TV makeup she’d never bothered to take off, so tired. She recalled the way she’d thanked her outside Miles’s apartment, the way she’d gone to her car without saying good-bye. That sadness that clung to her . . . it hadn’t been about instant messages. Faith was starting to give up.

  “I mean, did you see Maya, Nick?” Faith said. “Did the other two officers see another person in the car when they were questioning that woman?”

  “No, Faith. They didn’t. But that doesn’t mean—”

  “How do you know he wasn’t too scared to talk? How do you know he hadn’t just seen something happen to Maya, something so awful, and he was afraid that if he pointed that woman out, she’d get free and she’d find him and she’d do the same thing to him?”

  “Stop,” Jim’s voice was broken, wet.

  “No,” Nick said. “She had her hidden somewhere. The trunk probably. Maya is alive. I know she is.”

  “How do you know?” Faith was in tears now. “Because of the texts? Those texts didn’t sound like Maya. Anybody could have written them, anybody could have pinned that note to a dead body and used my daughter’s earring. She’s happy now. That could mean so many things. So many terrible, unthinkable things . . .”

  “Please Faith stop it,” Jim said.

  Faith started to sob. He put his arms around her and pulled her to him and held her tight, to keep from crying himself, Brenna knew.

  Brenna had seen this so many times with clients after she’d given them bad news—arms clasped around each other, huddling together to ward off the inevitable, the grief. The truth.

  “She’s alive,” she said to no one, with too much pleading in her voice.

  “I know she is,” said Nick. And all she could think of was his infant son, who had died in his crib, and for no other reason than life was unfair, that nothing happened for any reason other than it happened. It was.

  Please be alive, Maya, Brenna thought, Brenna hoped. Even though she knew that Maya couldn’t hear her thoughts, even though she knew that hoping did nothing, other than to make you feel as though you had some tiny bit of control.

  Sykes came back through the door, just as Brenna’s phone vibrated SOS. A text. She flipped it open and checked who it was from and for a few seconds, stopped breathing. “Her phone is on,” she said to the detective. “Castillo. Her phone is on. She just texted me.”

  “I know,” he said. “We have a location. There are already officers at the scene.”

  “Already?” Brenna said as she opened the text and read it, her skin going cold.

  “What does it say?” Faith said.

  Brenna slid her flip phone to the center of the table, and Faith grabbed it. Read it. “What does this mean? What is she talking about?”

  It read: I got your message. Too little too late.

  “I . . . I called her earlier. Said I’d be glad to help her find her son.”

  “Too little, too late,” Faith whispered. “My God. My God, no, please no . . .”

  Brenna looked at Sykes. “How could the officers be at the scene already? What happened? Where is Maya?”

  “I’m not certain what happened, or where your daughter is,” Sykes said. “But the officers are already at the scene because there’s been an explosion.”

  19

  Ever since she’d hung up with Brenna, Evelyn Spector hadn’t felt quite right.

  Evelyn often got that feeling after speaking with her younger daughter—a certain uneasiness with herself, with the past. But this was different. Usually, when Brenna brought up events that made Evelyn feel uneasy, it was because she’d been there for them. They were lodged in her allegedly indisputable memory, and thus the world was compelled to face the supposed truth along with her.

  The break-in, though. That had been all Evelyn’s.

  How had Brenna found out about it? It hadn’t been in the papers. Evelyn hadn’t pressed charges. Specifically, she’d never told Brenna, because she hadn’t wanted her to worry, of course—but also because the experience had been so strangely humiliating: Evelyn cowering in her nightgown, alone in her bedroom as that loon of a woman crashed around her house, shouting obscenities. Shouting . . . Evelyn didn’t even want to think about what she’d said. And then, the policemen showing up, asking Evelyn if this was “something personal.”

  What was that supposed to mean—something personal?

  Anyway, Evelyn had washed her hands of the break-in. She hadn’t thought about it for years, but then there was Brenna bringing it up again—out of the blue, and with that tone in her voice, as though she were accusing her of something . . . Something personal.

  Evelyn needed a change of scenery—a nice brisk walk to clear her mind, and thank goodness, that’s just what she was getting. Already, the cold air was making her feel better as she strode up the sidewalk, turning the corner on City Island Avenue and heading toward Bay Street, arms pumping, long legs stretching and flexing. Evelyn didn’t brag about it, but she was in terrific shape for a woman her age. Walking on a winter’s day reminded her of that fact. It made her feel alive.

  The library was one of Evelyn’s favorite destinations. There was something about the rounded entrance to the squat brick building that was so inviting, and the smell, that wonderful piney smell . . . The library had undergone a major renovation in the late nineties, doubling in size as a result. But inhaling that combination of furniture polish and books in plastic covers, Evelyn would feel such powerful nostalgia, her mind flooded by images of picture books and puppet shows and story hours gone by, of li
ves that were young and uncomplicated and, for the most part, happy.

  “Hello Evelyn,” said Ruth the librarian, a woman her own age who had taught a poetry writing class for children here, back when Clea was a little girl and Brenna was still in diapers. “Did you have a nice walk?”

  “Lovely,” Evelyn said. “Cold as it is, I can almost feel spring in the air.”

  Ruth smiled. “Oh what a nice thought.”

  Clea used to love Ruth’s poetry class. She had adored creative writing as a child, and was quite good at it, crafting poems and stories about wizards and unicorns and princesses trapped in towers. Evelyn and Jack used to believe she’d be a famous writer someday. Another Barbara Cartland or Mary Higgins Clark.

  When exactly that gift for fiction had turned into a talent for lying, Evelyn wasn’t sure. All she knew was, it had happened, both her daughters growing into funhouse mirror images of their parents—Clea with her father’s gift for destruction times ten; Brenna with that bizarre memory disease, the extreme version of her mother’s inability to let anything go.

  “Your computer’s free,” Ruth said.

  Evelyn smiled. Why couldn’t everyone in the world be as kind as Ruth? She could still remember the book club Ruth used to host for the local wives. Evelyn had adored that group, especially those times when the conversation veered away from the Philip Roth or John Updike they were reading and got personal. Evelyn would stay quiet while the other women griped about their husbands because at the time, she believed she’d nothing to complain about. Back then, Evelyn had thought Jack’s moodiness had stemmed from a poet’s soul, his selfishness a raging need only she could understand . . . Oh how stupid she’d been. But happy, so happy.

  When Jack had started to turn, the other women had asked questions. Is he okay? they had said after his first arrest. How are the girls? Do you need any help? There’d been such satisfaction behind their concern, though—that smugness in their eyes, their tone. Poor thing, she’d hear them say when they thought she wasn’t listening. Poor Evelyn.

  But Ruth had never asked questions. She’d never said a word.