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

  I’ll see if I can find anything else on her, she typed. But it may take a while.

  “I don’t have a while,” said Trent, who had looked for enough missing people Sophia’s age to know that the while it would take would be a very long one.

  In the sixties, seventies, eighties, most kids didn’t even get social security numbers until they were in their late teens. So in other words, Sophia Liptak’s social could have been this chick’s first and only, and where did that leave him? In the dark.

  He typed, Thanks, CC. Gotta go.

  You can change your identity, you can change your looks but you can’t change who you really are. That was one of the first things Brenna had taught him when he started working for her, and it was true. No matter how hard you try to act like someone else, you’re still going to be drawn to that one thing you need—whether it’s golf or guns or knitting or kinky sex. You’ll buy a gun, you’ll join a country club, you’ll frequent bars and groups and private chats where that need can be satisfied.

  What was Sophia’s need? Drugs, sure. But what was Trent supposed to do? Post her pic on Craigslist? Start canvassing offices of oxy docs? The drug-dealing community wasn’t exactly known for helping out investigations, and he didn’t have much time . . .

  Sophia had other interests. She had to. He wished he’d kept her on the phone for longer when she’d called Saturday morning. He wished he’d asked her more about her life, because she’d seemed in the mood to talk, unlike Trent, who could only think about that freakin’ paternity test . . .

  He’d even said it, hadn’t he? Your son was lucky. Not everybody who’s a parent even wants to have kids.

  Not a day goes by, she had said, when I don’t think about my Robert. He’s my everything and he always will be.

  Trent’s breath caught. “Wax my ass with a hot glue gun,” he whispered. Maybe he hadn’t needed to stay on the phone any longer. Maybe he’d found out everything he needed from her.

  Screw drugs. Screw her real name. Screw everything except the one thing in Sophia Liptak Castillo’s life that really mattered. Robert. Her missing child. Robert was Sophia’s need.

  The Families of the Missing rooms used to be a well-kept secret, but for a few weeks this past fall, the Neff case had turned them into a “thing.”

  So it stood to reason that someone pissed off enough at Brenna to break into her mother’s house, obsessed enough with her to take her kid . . . that person would know all about the chat room that Brenna had invaded, right? It made sense that someone like Sophia would join that chat room, make friends there, maybe get extra close to a young girl who sounded so much like Brenna’s daughter . . .

  Trent found Chrysalis. He looked up the chat rooms. He invented a name for himself: DowntownEnrique. (Sexy, right?) He was about to go into the room, but he remembered the trouble Brenna got into when she tried the same thing. He called up the profile pages, went to “create your profile” and started typing info about DowntownEnrique: twenty-seven, missing a baby sister . . .

  Man. They might not have asked for real names, but there were a lot of personal questions on these profiles. Everything from favorite band and celeb crush to “What was the saddest moment of your life?” Maybe it was to weed out the fakes, but filling out this thing could take all day.

  Trent scrolled down the list, thinking. Has everyone in that chat room answered all these questions? Have they answered any of them?

  If that was the case, he might not have to fill one out at all.

  Trent looked through the existing profiles till he found NYCJulie’s. He opened it up and started reading it, skimming over the favorite band–type questions, going for the gold . . . Missing loved one: My son. He’s been gone for seven years . . . Biggest disappointment: Finding out who my real friends are. Not having anyone on my side . . . He read on, but when he got to one of the final questions, “Do you ever think you’ll be able to move on without your loved one?” his jaw dropped open.

  “Bingo,” he whispered.

  NYCJulie had answered: Not a day goes by when I don’t think about my son. He is my everything and he always will be.

  When Brenna’s eyes fluttered open, she was lying in a gurney, a man’s face hovering over hers. “Drink this.” He fell into focus—an EMT worker, round and baby-smooth and with eyes like shiny black buttons. A human teddy bear. He handed her a bottle of water. “You’re probably dehydrated,” the bear said. “Sip it slowly.”

  She did, but within seconds, the horror crowded in again, the charred, clenched fists . . . “My daughter,” she said. “In the trunk.”

  “There was one body found in the trunk of the car, ma’am.”

  “My daughter.”

  “No ma’am,” he said. “It’s a middle-aged woman.”

  Brenna looked at him. She blinked a few times. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I leave now, please?”

  “I’d rest a bit more . . .” he said.

  But she was already sitting up, and he had no choice but to help her. She slid off the gurney and found her way out of the vehicle and back outside. Emptying the water bottle into her mouth, she headed toward the blackened car, to where Sykes was standing, head bowed. She said his name and he turned. “Ms. Spector.” His mouth was tight, his eyes clouded.

  She looked at him. “Detective Sykes . . . the body in the trunk. The EMT told me it was a grown woman.”

  “Yes,” he swallowed hard. That face. The shock. “Some of the clothes are still intact . . .” He didn’t say anything more; he couldn’t. But Brenna knew.

  She said, “Detective Plodsky.”

  He nodded.

  “Oh God. I’m sorry.”

  “She told me she was going to pick up Carver’s computer. See if she could find any correspondence between him and . . .”

  He swiped a hand over his eyes.

  “The laptop in the backseat. That was Carver’s?”

  “Looks . . . looks like there was trauma to the head.” His voice broke. He ran an arm across his face, and it was as though Brenna had already left, as though he were all alone.

  Brenna stepped away. She cast her gaze past the clearing, into the surrounding woods. They hadn’t found Maya yet, but that didn’t mean anything. The car was charred, and what she’d done to Carver . . . Now Diane Plodsky. Those clenched fists. Trauma to the head. All over a laptop.

  The last person to have seen Maya was Miles. She’d gotten into that car nearly two days ago—the car of a woman who had killed two people within thirty-six hours—and while paths had crossed with Sophia Castillo, no one had reported seeing a girl with her. The officers in Tarry Ridge had said her car was empty.

  She’s happy now.

  Please be out there, Maya, she thought, gazing out and past the birch trees, the voice inside her fading. Please be alive . . .

  At the edge of the clearing, on the pale white trunk of one of the birches, Brenna noticed a thick, red smear. She started walking toward it, slowly at first, then faster, her heart in her throat. Could be nothing, probably is, don’t think about it, just look . . .

  It was too bright to be dried blood—a true pinkish red. When she got nearer she saw that it had a waxy texture. Lipstick.

  She ran her fingertips over it—a long, swooping curve of fresh lipstick, drawn on the trunk if a tree. To the left, she saw two large vertical dots.

  Colon and parenthesis smiley face.

  She placed a hand on the red swirl, then threw her arms around the tree, tears springing into her eyes, a feeling bubbling up inside her . . . Hope.

  20

  Brenna sped down the Henry Hudson Parkway and into the city, to her apartment. Once she’d left her Sienna in the garage, she turned on her phone, called Faith as she walked the five blocks to her place.

  “Where were you?” Faith said. “We�
�ve been trying to reach you.”

  “I’m back in the city. Any news?”

  “No Brenna. No news. If we had any news, we would have told you.”

  “Of course,” Brenna said.

  “We’re home now. Where have you been?”

  “She’s alive,” Brenna said. “Maya’s alive.”

  “Oh my God, did you see her? Is she there?”

  She took a breath. “No . . .”

  “Then how do you know? Did the police tell you—”

  “The car was burning,” Brenna said. “Detective Plodsky was in it. She was the only body.”

  Her voice flattened out. “Yes, Detective Sykes told us.”

  “Listen to me, Faith. She left me a sign.”

  “I . . . don’t know what you mean.”

  “You don’t have to,” Brenna said. “It’s too strange to explain. Just don’t give up hope, okay? Know that we’re going to find her.”

  “Okay, Brenna.” She didn’t sound convinced. Didn’t sound anything other than sad.

  “Believe me,” Brenna said. “I know it’s hard, but please, Faith.”

  “We have to believe,” Faith said, her voice barely audible. “If we stop believing, it’s over.”

  Brenna said good-bye, hung up. Before she put the phone away, though, she noticed that she had another text message, from Trent.

  Sophia Castillo = NYCJulie.

  Come back. Will explain.

  Faith stood in her living room, staring at the phone.

  “What did she say?” Jim said it from across the room, and to Faith it felt as though they were both in a thick fog, trying to find their lives again.

  Two hours, they’d spent, helping to man the tip line. Two hours of prank calls and bad leads and hopes dashed and crushed to the ground.

  Two hours of taking calls that still stuck in Faith’s mind, haunting her . . .

  I saw her at a strip club.

  I saw her at my school.

  I saw her on the subway with a disgusting old man.

  That chick who took her. Maybe they ran off together. Maybe they’re secret lovers or something.

  I know it sounds strange, but kids are different these days.

  I think they’re in on it together. I watch the Investigation Discovery channel, so I know this shit.

  It’s the Internet. It’s ruining our children. I bet they met online.

  I’m a psychic, and I’m getting a sense. She’s in terrible danger.

  Maya’s dead. That psycho bitch killed her. She did it right away. She wasn’t in any pain.

  Faith looked at Jim. “She told me not to give up hope.”

  He said nothing, just shook his head like someone turning down his last meal.

  “I know,” Faith said. “I know.”

  Maya’s stomach was so empty it hurt. She felt as though she’d been walking for hours, and maybe she had been, she wasn’t sure. After she’d untied her from the tree, Sophia had made Maya walk through the woods for so long. Can’t risk going out in the open, she’d said. Not here. They’d walked in places where there were no paths at all, where plant growth was thick, even in the winter—needly pines, bushes with leaves as sharp as razor blades.

  Maya had scratches and cuts all over. Her empty stomach gnawed and burned, but she’d been too scared to complain. Too scared to say anything for fear if she did, it would be like what happened when Sophia caught her with the lipstick.

  They were on some highway now. Outside of knowing that she’d never been here before, Maya had no idea where they were. Maya and Sophia, trudging along that long, bleak stretch of road, Sophia stopping every once in a while and sticking her thumb out. Cars whizzed by. They disappeared like wishes.

  “Oh look,” Sophia said. “I found this in my jacket pocket.”

  She held out a banana. Maya grabbed it and devoured it. She dropped the peel on the ground.

  “Don’t litter,” said Sophia. Like a mother. A mother holding a loaded gun. Maya scooped the peel up off the ground. Shoved it in the pocket of her big red sweatshirt. For a few seconds, she let herself think of Saturday night—of Miles running toward her, the blue car pulling up.

  Maya? she had called out. It’s me. NYCJulie. And Maya had been so grateful. Her friend from the chat room, appearing like some kind of guardian angel or something, rescuing her from her pain and the freezing rain and the boy she never wanted to see again.

  She’d gotten into the car, which had been warm and dry, a jazz station playing on the radio. Sophia had even given her a clean towel to dry off her face, and Maya had felt so good, so safe, telling “NYCJulie” all about what had just happened to her.

  You know what? Screw those stupid girls, Sophia had said. What’s important is you. How do you feel?

  Cold. Wet.

  Don’t worry. We’ll get you some dry clothes.

  Huh? No, that’s okay, I can—

  Believe it or not, they actually have some cute sweatshirts at the Sloatsburg rest stop.

  What? No, Maya had said. I live on Twenty-third Street. And then the car had sped up and Maya had felt the barrel of the gun at her rib cage and it had hit her then—only then—that she’d never put up a picture of herself on her Families of the Missing profile. She’d never even described the way she looked and yet NYCJulie had recognized her anyway, at night and in a rainstorm and on a crowded city street . . .

  Stupid.

  Another car approached. Sophia stuck her thumb out. It didn’t even slow down.

  “Damn it,” Sophia said. She smoothed her hair, dusted off her nurses’ pants, fluffed up the blue parka she’d changed into, back at the burning car. She opened her bag and plucked out her ruined lipstick and dotted it to her lips. She gave Maya a nasty look.

  Maya cringed. “I’m sorry.” She pictured her mom finding the tree. But she didn’t think about it too hard or for too long. She wasn’t sure whether it was lack of sleep or food or the actual truth, but she had the very real sense that Sophia could read her thoughts, and she didn’t want to risk anything. She couldn’t risk anything more. She had to listen to Sophia and learn her rules, or else she’d go like that weird guy Mark, like that poor policewoman with the bashed-in head who wound up taking Maya’s place in the trunk.

  Don’t think about the policewoman. Don’t think about her face.

  Sophia plucked out a mirror and smoothed her eyebrows and sighed. “I have a bad headache,” she said.

  Another car came. Sophia stuck out her thumb, and to Maya’s surprise, it slowed down, stopping about forty feet ahead of them.

  “Finally,” Sophia said. “Looks like a good one, too. Red.”

  They hurried toward the car, Maya a few steps in front of Sophia so Sophia could hold the gun to her side.

  Sophia said, “Why is red good?”

  “It means the driver doesn’t care about the car getting noticed.”

  “Right. What colors are not so good?”

  “Beige,” Maya said. “Black.”

  “Excellent. What about vans?”

  “Minivans are good. Work vans are okay if there’s writing on them, bad if there isn’t. The worst kind are the ones with no windows in the back.”

  “Impressive,” said Sophia, who had taught her all these things, these weird new truths, Maya listening and learning without asking her how she knew them. If she wanted to live, Maya had to learn without question, without backtalk.

  It was Sophia’s adventure. That’s what she’d told Maya. And on Sophia’s adventure, this was how things were done.

  Maya could feel the barrel in her ribs, but she knew to act natural. She’d learned this, early on in the adventure. Scream, you get screamed at. Pull away, you get hurt. Cry, you get something to cry about.

  Act natural, or you go in the trunk.

 
A man was behind the wheel of the hatchback. He wore sunglasses, which he took off as Maya and Sophia approached. His eyes were small and sparkly with crinkles at the corners. He was about Maya’s dad’s age and as he leaned out the window, his face was chiseled and kind and made her feel like crying.

  “You’re a nurse, huh?” the man said to Sophia.

  She frowned at him, obviously forgetting for a few moments that she was still wearing her nurses’ pants.

  “Oh,” she said finally. “Yes, my shift ended a while ago. Sorry . . . it’s been a difficult day.”

  “Okay.”

  “I had a fight with my husband. He drove off in the car.”

  “Wow.” The man’s eyes softened. His gaze fell sort of pityingly on Maya, making her aware of how different she looked in her baggy red sweatshirt Sophia had bought for her at Rite Aid, her now-short black hair covered by the dirty Yankees cap that Sophia had swiped from Mark Carver’s house. Maya had dirt on her face and smelled of sweat. It made her feel sick, like Sophia. Beyond hope. “Tough luck, eh, buddy?” he said.

  Maya nodded.

  Sophia said, “Robert isn’t much of a talker.”

  “Me neither.” The man smiled. “Where you guys headed?”

  “White Plains train station,” she said. “We’ll get in the back.”

  This was something else Sophia had told Maya. When accepting a ride from a stranger, the back is always safer. Maya remembered the way Sophia had said it—the caring, patient tone. Ironic, Maya had thought, considering that when Sophia had pulled over for her on the West Side Highway, Maya had gotten in front.

  I’m not a stranger, Maya, Sophia had said, responding only to the expression on her face. Reading Maya’s mind.

  Maya and Sophia slipped into the backseat, Sophia staying close to her, pressing the gun into her side.

  The man was listening to the radio. “. . . another chilly day here in the tri-state area,” the announcer was saying, “we’re looking for mostly clear skies and highs in the low thirties . . .”

  “Fucking news radio,” Sophia whispered.

  Maya frowned. What was wrong with news radio? Had Sophia heard something while she was in the trunk?