Into the Dark (23 page)

“What possessed you?”

“Brenna, I—”

“I know you’re a guy, but come on. What the hell
were you thinking? And if you say anything that includes the phrase ‘the wrong
head,’ I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”

“She took Tannenbaum’s computer.”

Brenna closed her eyes. “I figured that out.”

“It’s okay.” He shifted in the bed. “I’m telling
you . . . there’s nothing on there but porn . . . and
the cloud storage gateway, which he uninstalled. I bet she won’t even find
it.”

“I’m just glad you’re alive. You are so damn
lucky.” She looked at him. “We both are.”

He smiled a little. His lips were very chapped.

Brenna said, “So what the hell is a cloud storage
gateway?”

“It’s a way in to a cloud.”

“Oh. Thanks, that clears it all up.”

Trent sighed. “A cloud is kind of like a virtual
safety deposit box. You can access it from anywhere, even if your computer
crashes. So, like, if you have important papers, or some video you don’t want
to
lose, or whatever . . .”

“Why not just e-mail the papers to yourself? That’s
what I do.”

“Cloud storage is a lot more secure.” He looked at
her. “It’s easy to hack into e-mails. Jeez, you should know that. I do that for
us all the time.”

Brenna nodded.

“But Tannenbaum not only got himself a cloud, he
uninstalled the gateway. Know what I’m saying? It’s like hiding stuff on an
island, and then blowing up the bridge.”

She looked at him. “Must have been some very
important papers . . .”

He shrugged. “Or some seriously nasty porn that he
didn’t want his mom to see. Either way, I want in.”

“Can you get us there?”

“If we can figure out his password, I can do it
through the provider’s Web site . . . once I . . . Damn
. . . I can’t remember the provider’s name. Hey, sit down, would you,
please? You’re making me nervous, standing over me like that. It’s giving me
flashbacks.”

“Flashbacks?”

He shut his eyes.

“Diandra?”

“Oh joy, here comes the insta-nausea.”

“Sorry.”

“She stood over me like that and . . .”
He squeezed his eyes tighter. “Saffron.”

“Huh?”

“She said something about saffron.”

“The spice?”

“I don’t know . . .” He opened his eyes
again. “It’s gone. I don’t remember what the hell she was talking about.”

Brenna nodded. She sat down very carefully on the
edge of Trent’s bed. For a few moments she flashed on October 2, when Trent
visited her at Columbia-Presbyterian and their positions were reversed—
poking his head through the door, his eyes widening when he
catches his first sight of her, the worry in them . . .
“Trent,” she said quietly.

He looked at her, weak.

“I’m ninety-nine percent sure,” she said, “that
she
killed Errol.”

“Oh . . . Wow.” He opened his eyes. They
looked much bigger and darker than usual. “Figures.”

Brenna took Trent’s hand in hers. The two of them
sat in silence for what felt like a very long time.

Trent said, “Please don’t tell my parents about
this. They’re mad enough about what happened to my car in Inwood.”

“I won’t tell them,” Brenna said. “I’m glad I don’t
have to.”

Trent smiled—the smile of a kid. It made Brenna’s
jaw tighten.
Feeding him pills. Leaving him for
dead
.
You left him in the middle of his kitchen
floor when he invited you in. You left him there barely breathing. You
closed the door behind you. You assumed he would die and you didn’t
care
. . . Anger bubbled beneath her skin. Her face was hot
with it. “You’ve never been to her place—don’t know where she lives.”

He shook his head.

“And I take it she’s not on that ridiculous
Foursquare thing.”

“No way.”

“You don’t know her last name.”

“I probably don’t even know her
first
name.”

She swallowed hard, took a deep breath. “And Errol
paid his girls under the table, so there’d be no record there, either,” she
said. “I guess we’ve lost her.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s for the best.”

Trent frowned. “Why?”

“Because if we did have a way of finding her. If we
had any way at all . . .” Brenna gave him a meaningful look. “I would
find
her.”

Trent stared back at her, and something passed
between them. In the six years he’d been working for her, Brenna was sure, she’d
never seen Trent’s face quite so still. His eyes clouded. He squeezed her hand.
“You’re not hitting on me, are you? ’Cause I am really wiped out.”

Brenna sighed. “Shut up, Trent.”

Little Bernadette stuck her head around the curtain
and came in, two burly orderlies following. “Sorry, ma’am, but it’s time to say
good-bye. We’ve gotta move Mr. LaSalle.”

“Mr. LaSalle is my dad, baby. You can call me
T-Man.”

Bernadette looked at Brenna. “Normal?”

“Yep.” She put a hand on Trent’s shoulder.
“Good-bye, buddy. See you tomorrow.”

“Oh, wait, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“Who was it who . . . uh . . .
found me?”

She looked at him. “Annette Shelby.”

He sighed. “Yeah, that’s what the doctor said. I
thought he was joking. Of course, that would have been a weird joke since he
doesn’t know either one of us.”

“True.”

He picked at a fingernail. “Guess that kinda makes
up for what she did, huh?”

“She means well, Trent,” Brenna said. “I think she
always meant well. She wanted . . . company so badly that it clouded
her judgment.”

Trent said, “I know that feeling.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m going to send her flowers. Or maybe I should
get her a new cat.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Brenna said. “Just
. . . I don’t know . . . have a cup of coffee with her or
something.”

Bernadette adjusted Trent’s bed, so that it became
a gurney, the orderlies taking positions on either side of it. “Okay,” he said.
“I’ll call her and set something up. But not now when I look like hyena crap.
I
gotta look hot for Mrs. Shelby. She’s got expectations.”

Brenna thought about the way he’d looked when
Annette had found him—a definite blow to the old expectations—but she kept that
to herself. “You’re always hot.”

“Whoa.” He grinned at her. “Can I please get you
saying that on video?”

“No.” She gave Trent a quick hug good-bye, then
moved out of the way as the orderlies pushed him out. It was then, only then,
that she realized the little girl three beds down was no longer crying.

Brenna headed down the hallway, something tugging
at her, a sadness. She didn’t want to, but she found herself thinking again
about Diandra. Diandra, who had stolen RJ’s computer, who had called herself
Clea, who had killed Errol, drugged Trent, and run off, taking this whole case
with her. Taking Lula Belle with her.

Cement mixer/Turn on a
dime/Make my day ’cause it’s cement time . . .

From across the hallway, Trent was yelling
something at her. “What?”

“Lockbox!” he yelled again, as the orderlies
wheeled him into a waiting elevator. “It’s the name of Tannenbaum’s cloud
storage gateway! Remember it in case I don’t.”

Brenna watched one of the big orderlies easing him
back down, the other hitting the button to close the elevator doors.

At least I’ve still got
Trent
, she thought.

I
t was
well past midnight when Brenna got back to her apartment. Their honorary last
night of Chanukah was officially over and she’d never lit the candles with Maya.
As she opened the door, guilt pulled at her.
No gifts, no
latkes . . .
The apartment was quiet. Of course it was. It
was close to 1
A.M.
and Maya wasn’t a night owl
like both her biological parents. At slumber parties, she was always the first
one down.

Brenna moved through the office space and kitchen,
a million voices running through her head—Lula Belle’s whispery accent and
Diandra’s velvety hello and Trent asking Brenna,
What if
Diandra is
her
?
Gary Freeman over the
phone:
I’m afraid something may have happened to her. I
mean . . . God . . . If she ever existed to begin
with.

And then other voices, far back in her memory,
muffled as though she were under rising water . . .

Scooch up a little, weirdo,
you’re making me lose my balance
.

Come on girls, smile for
Daddy’s camera . . . Do you guys like it? Your brand-new
bike . . .

A ten-year-old girl, smiling for her long-gone
father. A faded face from a high school photo. A haloed vision in Brenna’s
dreams. A name given to a lonely desk clerk by a psychotic Barbie doll with no
real name of her own . . .

Clea, are you real? Will you
ever be?

Brenna was at the end of the hallway now, outside
her daughter’s open bedroom door. She listened for Maya’s sleep-breathing—the
one sound that never failed to calm her. She heard nothing.

She stepped into the room. Moonlight streamed
through the window, casting a glow on Maya’s bed. Maya’s empty, neatly made bed.
Brenna’s throat clenched up. She flashed on seven hours ago—Trent’s apartment,
still smelling of incense, her heart pounding, the letter opener clasped in her
hand
and Trent’s bed, empty . . .
Brenna
dug her nails into her palms and she was back in Maya’s room, flipping the light
on to see the note left on the pillow, her daughter’s rounded handwriting
noticeable even from where she was standing. Brenna moved over to the bed,
picked up the note with her hands —shaking.

Mom,

I’ve gone to Dad and Faith’s. Your Chanukah
present is on your bed. Open it any time.

Maya

Brenna exhaled hard.
She’s
okay. Thank you.
On the floor next to the bed was Maya’s phone. Must
have dropped it in her hurry to write the note and get out of the empty
apartment.

Brenna picked it up, checked the screen. Maya
hadn’t read her text, but would it have mattered? When your mother ditches you
on a night you’ve been looking forward to for weeks, is it any consolation to
know it was because her assistant had “eaten some bad fish”?

Maya’s okay. But she’s
definitely pissed, and who could blame her?

Brenna left the room and headed into her office
area, too exhausted to sleep. Trent still hadn’t taken down the Persephone
pictures on his bulletin board, and it made Brenna feel nostalgic to look at
them—a glimpse back into that time, two days ago, when she didn’t feel so torn
up inside.

She slipped into her desk chair, checked her
e-mail. There was one new one, from Nick Morasco.

Brenna,

Thanks for the doctored pic of RJ. I’ve
attached his police file for the B&E.

Also, I need to talk to you about
something personal. I think I should tell you face-to-face. Are you free
tomorrow?

Nick

Brenna’s stomach clenched up. “What do we need to
talk about?” she said out loud. “What exactly do we need to talk about
face-to-face
tomorrow
?” She thought of the way he’d
been looking at her lately—the pity in his eyes—and she got up from the
computer, walking away from it fast and biting her lip to keep from reliving
one
of those moments.

Before she knew it, Brenna was in her bedroom, the
Chanukah present glaring up at her from her bed, a Post-it attached:

I’m sorry it isn’t
wrapped—I couldn’t find the paper.

It was Maya’s sketch of Brenna. Framed.

“Thank you,” she whispered. And then, after a long
while, “I’m sorry.” Not just to Maya, but to Trent and Errol and Jim and Nick
Morasco and Gary Freeman and anyone else who’d ever gotten involved in Brenna’s
haunted, screwed-up life expecting anything good to come out of it.

Brenna stared at the portrait—into the penciled
eyes, focused on some distant point, a point in the past . . .
Thinking about Lula Belle
, she knew.
That’s what I was thinking about
.
Lula Belle.

Tears sprang into Brenna’s eyes. She picked up the
phone, called Morasco.

He picked up after one ring.

Brenna took a deep breath. “Did I wake you?” Stupid
question. People who are woken up don’t answer after one ring.

Nick said, “No. How are you, Brenna?” God, she did
not like that tone of voice. He sounded like a concerned psychotherapist.

“Don’t you mean, ‘How do we feel today?’ ”

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Listen, thanks for sending
Tannenbaum’s police file along.

“No problem.” He cleared his throat. “How’s the
case going?”

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t
do the small talk. “I don’t like the way you’ve been looking at me.”

“What?”

“Like you feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t mean to—”

“And I don’t want to talk about anything personal
with you, Nick. Not face-to-face tomorrow or over the phone right now. Not
ever.”

“I’m . . . I’m sorry if my e-mail upset
you.”

Her jaw clenched up. She wanted to hang up on him,
to never talk to him or see him again, lest she remember this conversation, this
feeling . . . But instead she kept talking. “Errol Ludlow is
dead.”

“
What?
”

“Heart attack. Drugs might have been involved.”

“
Ludlow?
”

“And Trent was fed an overdose of benzos. He got to
the hospital in time, but the woman who gave him the drugs was the same one who
killed Ludlow, and I don’t know her last name or where she lives or anything
about her, other than she was an Errol’s Angel, she’s in her early twenties,
and
she dresses like a cartoon on a cocktail napkin,” Brenna drew a breath, long
and
ragged. “And she might be Lula Belle.”