Into the Dark Read online

  Diandra hurried up to him, her heels clicking on the pavement. “Do you have it?”

  “Sssh. Take a chill pill, okay? There’s people watching.”

  “Oh,” she said. With another guy, she might have sweetly told him where he could stick that chill pill if he didn’t show her more respect, but with Saffron, it was different. He was like Mr. Freeman in that way. “Sorry.”

  Saffron stared into her eyes. With his index finger, he lightly traced the outline of her mouth. Without dropping her gaze, she swirled her tongue around the tip of the finger, grazed it with her lips. It’s all a role. It’s all playing a role. It’s what we do in the theater, the movies. It’s what we actors do and it is life . . .

  “Nice,” he whispered. He took her hand. At first, she thought he might place it somewhere, but instead he placed something in the hand, something cool and sharp and so scary-efficient, it raised your heart rate, just holding it. Something that felt like danger.

  “Milano stiletto switchblade,” he said. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt, and it made her think of this anime show that Shane used to love, about a boy and his sword, only the sword was, at heart, a beautiful girl and could change at will. The sword had chosen the boy and in every episode, she wound up saving his life. It was very romantic.

  “Thank you, Saffron,” she said, playing her role, staying in character. It was just 8 P.M., and she could walk there in five minutes. She could do what she needed to do, then come home to Mr. Freeman. The two of them could celebrate till dawn, celebrate their love, like that boy and his sword. They could hold each other, and share their secret, and he would need her, always.

  You’re as special a woman as I’ve ever met.

  She placed the metal blade in her pocket and hurried to the address, half walking, half skipping. Soon she was all-out running, almost there . . .

  Diandra was winded by the time she got to Brenna’s building on Twelfth Street. She took the time to catch her breath, grasping her knees and then slowly standing up straight. She did some face stretches. “Mee Maaa Mooo,” she said.

  She shook her hands out and touched her toes and then, finally, she buzzed Brenna’s apartment.

  She heard a muffled “Yeah?”

  “Brenna?”

  “No, this is her daughter. She’s . . . um . . . unavailable right now.” A girl’s voice. A very young girl. Diandra’s heart sank. She’d hoped this wouldn’t have to involve children. She found herself thinking back to her own life at that age, those awkward years of hers, when her dad would go out of town on business and The Monster would take her out to hotel bars. Beats paying for a babysitter, she’d tell the men who hit on her, all of them laughing and laughing, as though DeeDee wasn’t even in the room. “Oh what our mothers put us through,” Diandra whispered. Then she slapped a smile on her face and introduced herself to that poor, poor girl.

  “We’re going to Bacon,” Brenna said.

  Trent looked at her. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Let me text Maya first. Let her know I’ll be a little late.”

  “Bren, just because Diandra got her hootchie on with me at that place, it doesn’t mean she lives there.”

  Brenna blinked at him a few times. “Got her hootchie on?”

  “Whatever,” said Trent. “You can’t go to Bacon dressed like that. You’ve got way too much fabric there. What do you have in the back of your closet? Tube top? Maybe a bustier from your Madonna phase?”

  “I never had a Madonna phase.”

  “Come on. Work with me. What’s the sluttiest thing you own?”

  Brenna’s phone vibrated SOS. “I got a text,” she said.

  “Oh sure,” he said. “Avoid the topic when I’m only trying to help.”

  The text was from Maya. A picture. Brenna downloaded it. Her phone was old and slow, and so it took a little while for the picture to take shape on her screen . . . until she saw it and she screamed, the phone clattering to the ground.

  And then Brenna was grabbing her coat, picking up the phone. “I’m leaving.” She felt as though she were outside her body, propelling it forward.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You can’t come with me, Trent. No one can come with me.”

  “Why?”

  Brenna showed Trent the photo: Diandra grinning at the camera, holding a stiletto knife to Maya’s throat. Maya crying, Maya’s face a mask of fear and pain . . . And the caption: Be here alone. Or else.

  “Let her go,” Brenna said. She hadn’t been in her apartment that long, maybe around twenty seconds. But she felt suspended in time, as if the air around them were a thick gel, slowing everything to stop. There was Diandra, wearing some stupid waitress uniform. Diandra, sitting in Brenna’s living room, on Brenna’s couch, having tied one of Brenna’s dishtowels around the mouth of Brenna’s daughter, holding a sharp, angry knife to her throat. Brenna’s gaze fell upon the half-full glass of milk on the coffee table, the open bag of Doritos, the TV screen frozen on Jack Black, caught mid-grimace. She thought about her daughter’s evening—a Jack Black movie and a snack, her iPod Touch close at hand—a kid’s calm, safe night alone, interrupted by this freak. How dare you.

  Maya made a noise, a whimper. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Brenna saw now that her arms had been tied behind her back. “Take me, Diandra. I’m who you came for.”

  Diandra cast her gaze from Brenna to Maya and back, considering. “I’m probably going to have to get rid of you both,” she said. “It’s just one of those situations that can’t be helped. Your daughter is a lovely girl. You should be proud.”

  Brenna squeezed her eyes shut. “I used to work for Gary Freeman, you know. Just like you. He wouldn’t let me tell a soul about him or his involvement with Lula Belle and so I didn’t. Right up until today I was keeping his secrets. Look where it got me.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying,” Brenna said, “that he isn’t a very loyal person, Diandra.”

  “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even know who Gary Freeman is.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Diandra grabbed Maya tighter. Maya whimpered into the gag.

  Brenna gritted her teeth. She wanted to hurt Diandra, badly, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She breathed in and out. Calm, calm . . . She stared at the knife at Maya’s throat, and she felt herself lapsing into a memory, back to October 2, Pelham Bay . . .

  “Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth—”

  “What?” said Diandra.

  Brenna pulled her gaze from the blade. She looked into Diandra’s eyes, ignored the blue contacts and tried to see into them, through them. “Gary Freeman has a daughter the same age as Maya.”

  Her eyes softened. “I’ve seen his daughters.”

  Brenna closed her eyes for a moment. I knew it, I knew it . . . “Listen to me,” Brenna said. “I need Maya, just like Gary Freeman needs his daughters. I need her to grow up. I need her to live.”

  Diandra loosened her grip a little, her eyebrows knotting. Maya edged away.

  Brenna tried, “I’m sure your mother feels the same way about you.”

  Diandra rolled her eyes like a teenager. “My mother died when I was six. Please.”

  Brenna couldn’t angle with her anymore. She couldn’t wheedle information out of her, couldn’t play games. All she could do was stare at her only daughter, her heart crumbling. “I need Maya.”

  A tear slipped down Maya’s cheek.

  “Kill me,” Brenna said. “Let Maya live.”

  Maya screamed into the gag—a garbled “No!”

  Diandra jumped back. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  In one motion, Brenna grabbed the glass of milk off the coffee table and slammed it into the side of Diandra’s face. It shattered, shards flying, a spray of milk and blood. Diandra screamed, dropped the knife. “Run!” Brenna shouted, and Maya was up, stumbling toward the kitchen, Brenna grabbing the iPod, throwing it in
after her as Diandra moaned. Use that iPod. Contact someone with it . . .

  Diandra lurched toward Brenna, but Brenna was faster. She didn’t have much practice fighting, did she? After all, this was nothing like drugging a helpless man . . . Brenna socked her in the stomach, and Diandra gaped at her—her face a mask of pain, with something else mixed in.

  Is it shame?

  ”Mr. Freeman,” she sputtered her eyes closed. “Please don’t.”

  And Brenna was on top of her, her hands wrapped around Diandra’s throat, the words chorusing in her head: I knew, it, I knew it, I knew it . . . “What is Gary Freeman hiding?” she said.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why does he have my sister’s diary in his home?”

  “I won’t.”

  “You had better tell me. Or I will kill you and there will be no one around to protect him and he will go to jail for the rest of his life.”

  A stretch, Brenna knew—she wasn’t sure whether Gary had done anything capable of landing him in jail, but Diandra didn’t protest. She gazed up at her, her eyes dazed, her pink cheeks spattered with her own blood, mascara running down her face—and then Brenna was back on the Maid of the Mist on October 30, Maya sitting next to her, plastic raincoat wet and heavy on their backs as they watched the other passengers leave . . .

  She looks into the girl’s eyes with the chill wind biting their faces and icy water everywhere, so cold it burns. Brenna stares at her—poor, pretty mess of a girl. Then at her boyfriend standing behind her, his hand on her shoulder, the fingertips white from the tightness of the clutch.

  “Mr. Freeman can’t go to jail,” Diandra said, bringing Brenna back. “He’d die there.”

  “Why did you kill Shane Smith?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She looks back at the girl’s face, at the mascara streaks on her cheeks, looking so awful for the wear—worse than Maya and me put together—and then, into the eyes . . . such fathomless sadness as she meets Brenna’s gaze, her boyfriend oblivious, smiling a little.

  “You didn’t want to kill him,” Brenna said. “It hurt you so much, especially after all he’d done for you. For you and Mr. Freeman.”

  “Stop it.” Diandra struggled against Brenna, but Brenna jammed her knee into the girl’s stomach.

  Diandra cried out.

  “What did Shane know? What did RJ know? What am I getting close to knowing?”

  “I won’t tell.”

  “What did Gary Freeman do to my sister?”

  “Mr. Freeman loves me more than anyone.”

  “He doesn’t love you. He loves the role you play. He wants her, not you.”

  “Her?”

  “If you care so much about him, why did you stop playing the role?”

  And then Diandra had her hands around Brenna’s neck—suddenly strong, Brenna’s breath going, and she was on top of Brenna, flecks of light dancing in front of her eyes, the bloody face in and out of focus. The runny mascara and the eyes—those sad, fake blue eyes.

  The girl taps her lip three times like a Morse signal.

  She wants to die.

  “What role?” Diandra was saying, her grip loosening, Brenna’s breath coming back. “What role does he love? What role did he tell you he loved?”

  “Lula Belle,” Brenna coughed.

  Diandra’s eyes narrowed, her bloody lips went tight. “What?”

  “He told me he’s obsessed with Lula Belle. That her voice is in his head all the time.” Brenna was wheezing, sore inside and out. “He said he couldn’t get her off his mind. He needed her. Why did you stop playing the role? Did RJ’s documentary scare you off? Did Shane want a new actress?”

  “I’m not Lula Belle.”

  Brenna stared at her, the rest of her breath coming back . . . “You’re not?”

  Then who is?

  Diandra said, “He needed her?” Her voice was like a child’s, so sad and small.

  Brenna heard sirens outside her building, the rush of feet up her stairs as the officers opened the door. It must have taken longer, but it felt like moments, time moving the same way time moves in dreams: the officers pulling Diandra off of Brenna, dragging her across the room, Brenna’s eyes seeking out Maya, then finding her, hands untied, gag off, rushing toward her, hugging her. She couldn’t hug her hard enough, Maya whispering into her hair, “Im sorry Mom. I know I’m not supposed to let anybody in, but she sounded so friendly and she said she was—”

  “It’s okay, honey.”

  “She said she was Clea.”

  Brenna pulled away. She stared across the room at Diandra, pushed against the coffee table as a female officer secured handcuffs and a male read her her rights. Her jaw tightened. She said she was Clea.

  Brenna put her arms around her daughter again and held her close. “You did good,” she whispered. “You did good, honey.”

  Three cops started to lead Diandra toward the door. Brenna approached her, the girl, this poor, dumb, misguided girl watching Brenna through those angry red scratches, her eyes hard and bitter. She’s not Lula Belle. “Is Trent okay?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Brenna nodded, waiting.

  “I spent the night with Gary once,” Diandra said. “He was drunk. He didn’t know I was awake and I guess he felt guilty, and I saw him. He was reading that diary and crying. I saw him put it back, and when he was asleep I stole it. And I took it home. I just wanted to understand him better.”

  The officers stopped moving and watched her, one plucking tentatively at a notepad and pen.

  “I read that diary to my boyfriend Shane,” Diandra said softly. “I acted it out for him. ‘Do a Southern accent,’ he said, and I did, and he said it was the best performance he’d ever seen. He said, ‘Let’s make this into art.’ Our art. But I said no. I made him put it back. I was dumb. He found someone else.” She gave Brenna a sad smile. “They say the best art is fueled by passion,” she said. “Shane hated Mr. Freeman for stealing me from him. So he found another girl and made his art with her, and boy, did the two of them ever fuck with Gary’s mind.”

  “Who was the girl?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “That’s why Shane and I were in Niagara Falls. We heard she’d gone up there and we knew you were up there too and we thought maybe she wanted to tell you . . . Shane wouldn’t give me her name.” She closed her eyes. A tear seeped down her cheek. “He said he wouldn’t let me hurt her.”

  “Diandra,” Brenna said, as the cops started to guide her out the door. “Why did Gary Freeman have my sister’s diary?”

  “Ask him,” she said “He’s at Sixty-sixth and Second Ave. Apartment 2518. Ask him about the Murder Mile.”

  “The Murder Mile?”

  “It’s from some old song,” she said. “It’s what your sister called Route 666.”

  Brenna’s jaw went lax.

  “Ask him how your sister spent her eighteenth birthday.”

  Trent had been waiting outside Brenna’s apartment with more cops, and when she and Maya finally got through being questioned, she asked him to bring Maya back to Faith’s. “Do me a favor, Trent,” she said. “Don’t tell her and Jim about this.”

  “No, right, please don’t,” Maya said. “They’ll freak.”

  Brenna knelt down next to her daughter. Looked into her eyes. “Are you okay?” she said.

  “Mom,” Maya said. “You saved my life.”

  Brenna looked at her face, and remembered it at six months old, Dora the Explorer on the TV behind her, singing with the map. Brenna spoons strained carrots into her mouth. “Yummy,” Brenna says, and Maya starts to laugh. She spits out a mouth full of carrots and her laugh sounds like bells. It’s the most beautiful sound Brenna has ever heard. October 8, 1996, thirteen years almost to the day from when Hildy Tannenbaum lost her only child. She brushed a lock of hair out of Maya’s eyes and kissed her on the forehead, just as she used to do, every nig
ht, when she was a baby. “A kiss on the forehead keeps the bad dreams away.” “Do me a favor,” Brenna said. “Don’t ever ever let anyone into the apartment that you don’t know again—no matter who they say they are. Or I will ground you until high school graduation.”

  Maya laughed a little.

  “I’m not kidding.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  Trent started to lead her away.

  “Remember!” Brenna called out. “I’m meeting with a client, and that’s why you’re bringing her!”

  But they were already engaged in another conversation, Trent saying, “So what’s this I hear about you not liking Bieber anymore?”

  Brenna headed back up to her apartment. She waited until she was sure Trent and Maya were far enough away not to see her leaving it again, checking the window, just to make sure.

  Then she went to her desk, removed her pearl-handled letter opener, and headed outside to grab a cab uptown.

  “DeeDee?” Gary Freeman said when Brenna knocked. He opened the door a crack, and Brenna fell in on him, catching him off guard, knocking him to the ground and holding the letter opener to his neck.

  He looked into her eyes. “Oh . . .”

  “You thought she killed me.”

  “No,” he said. “I knew she couldn’t.”

  “She killed all those others.”

  “They were men, Brenna . . .” His eyes were calm, the pupils slightly dilated. “Men get stupid around her.” Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip, and he didn’t look like his pictures. He looked drugged and hollow and lost. “My God,” he said. “Your eyes are just like your sister’s.”

  Brenna held the knife closer, anger barreling through her. “What did you do to her?”

  “She was beautiful,” he whispered, Brenna thinking, The past tense. Oh my God, he used the past tense . . .

  “I could kill you.” She said it very quietly. “I could do it easily. I know the police and I’m kind of a hero in this city after the Neff case. So if I told some cops I slit your throat in self-defense, even if it was in an apartment that’s not my own . . . even if it was right here”—she moved closer to him bringing the blade up, under his chin—“they’d believe me.”