Stay With Me (10 page)

The pale eyes narrowed. She cast a glance at Morasco. She said nothing. But she didn’t need to. Brenna stiffened. She moved away from Morasco.

“Brenna,” he said.

“No,” she said. “No.” She couldn’t look at him.

“I should leave,” said Brenna’s mother. “I have errands in the city.”

“I’ll call you soon, Mom . . . and . . .”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for coming.”

Her face relaxed. “You’re welcome.” She gave her a quick, tight hug. Brenna could feel the bones in her spine.

She opened the door, then stopped. “Oh, and also, Brenna,” she said, “you know I wouldn’t tell you how to raise your child, but did you know that Maya is staying up till all hours?”

“Huh? Well, she was at a sleepover last night . . .”

“Oh,” she said. “That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“I got a call from her at three in the morning . . . I think she may have dialed my number by accident. We had a terrible connection and I could barely hear her. But . . . well, she sounded awfully wild.”

“Shouldn’t she have called by now?” Faith asked Jim.

“Who?”

She looked at him. He was focused on the TV. “Maya.”

“Oh,” Jim said. “She texted me earlier. Asked if she could go see a movie with Lindsay and some other girls. Said she’d be home by six. I’m sorry—I thought I told you.”

Faith sighed. “When was the last time that girl actually spoke into a phone?”

Jim didn’t reply. They were watching the Sunday edition of
Sunrise Manhattan
, which was actually called
Weekend Manhattan
because it aired at 4
P.M.
Already, it was getting dark outside, which gave Faith the creeps—she hated winter.

Ashley Stanley’s face filled the screen, the scar on her left cheek glimmering under the hot lights despite the makeup team’s best efforts. Offscreen, Faith said, “So, tell me, honey. You’re a smart girl . . .”

Faith winced, right along with Ashley. Nicolai had told her he’d cut in for a close-up here, but she hadn’t realized it would be this close. She could see pores, tear ducts, as though she were looking at the poor girl under a microscope, which, when you thought about it, she was. “Honestly . . . that tight shot . . .”

“It is very close,” Jim said.

Faith shook her head. “The girl is so scared, she spends a year in hiding. She disguises herself, makes no friends, barely leaves her house . . . and we respond to that by showing the whole world her damn X-ray?”

On screen, Ashley said, “I
had
seen her.”

“For what it’s worth, invasive camera work aside,” Jim said, “you are a terrific interviewer.”

Faith moved closer to him on the couch. “You think?”

Ashley said, “I’d seen her before, at the same movie theater. I’d seen
Notting Hill
and my friends were teasing me . . .”

Jim nodded. “Sensitive, kind, patient . . .”

“What movie?” Faith asked.

“Huh?
Notting Hill
.”

“No, hon. What movie was Maya seeing?”

“She didn’t say.”

Faith looked at him. “That’s weird.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when she texts me about going to the movies, she usually tells me which one. You know, to make sure it’s appropriate. Also so I can find her.”

Jim shrugged. “Growing up.”

Faith flashed on Maya, typing furiously on her laptop, then slamming it shut when she caught sight of her. “I guess.”

“I’m sure she picked a good movie,” Jim said. “She’s Maya, after all.”

Faith knew what he meant, and he was absolutely right. Maya had a very low threshold for on-screen violence. Last year, she’d walked out on
Avatar
during one of the first battle scenes, dragging her friends Zoe and Larissa out with her. When Faith had met them at the theater a whole hour early, the other two girls had been understandably peeved. (“There wasn’t even any blood!” “How can you get that upset when everybody is eight feet tall and blue?”) Faith had to take them all out to Serendipity, just to make up for it.

“You are right about that.” Faith smiled.

On screen, Ashley brushed a tear from her face. “She said, ‘We chose you, and you’re happy now.’ ”

“We raised a sensitive girl,” Jim said.

She nodded. “Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Her gaze returned to the screen, to Ashley. Danielle, Faith’s executive producer, had said the interview was brilliant. “Barbara Walters, move over.” Danielle had actually used those words with Faith over the phone this morning—
major
, seeing as Danielle hardly ever praised anyone, ever. Faith liked to think she was too seasoned to bask in compliments, but in this case, she’d packed on those words like a spa treatment, let them sink in good. Of course she’d been unaware at the time of the invasive camera work. Right now: a close-up of a tear, winding its way down the scarred cheek. “High def from hell,” she whispered.

“Makes me glad to be in print,” Jim said.

“But you’d look cute in an extreme close-up.” She gave his hand a quick squeeze. “Maybe I’ll interview you next.”

Faith felt a vibration on the couch beside her. Her cell phone. She picked it up, glanced at the screen: “Restricted Number.”

She thought of the last call she’d gotten from a restricted number. The cigarette-damaged voice—woman or man?—calling in on her cell just before the interview.
I watch you every day. I know you’re a good mother.
On screen, Ashley wiped away another tear.

She hadn’t told Jim about that call. Hadn’t told anybody. Honestly, what was the point?
Just another stalker
, Faith had thought. If Jim knew how many calls she got that sounded exactly like that one . . . If he’d seen some of the e-mails sent to her work address . . . Well, he’d probably beg her to quit.

But still . . . the mention of Maya.
She’ll ask to go out. She thinks she’s old enough. She’s not
. That had been new, and while Faith always made it a point not to give those freaks any power by responding with fear, she had to admit that she didn’t like the way the caller had focused on her daughter like that. It had made her want to reach through the phone, punch her in the face.

The phone vibrated again. She stared at the words: “Restricted Number,” and made a quick decision. She hit the voice recorder app.
Portions of this call may be taped, darling. Hope you don’t mind
. “Yes?”

“Faith?”

The air rushed out of her. It wasn’t the stalker. It was a child. “Ashley?” Faith said.

“Yes.”

“Honey, how are you? I’m watching and you really—”

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t worry.”

“How do you know?”

“Excuse me?”

“How do you know I shouldn’t worry?”

“Sweetheart, you come across honest and sympathetic and very strong,” she said. Fudging the
very strong
part.

“You should have put me in shadow or something, Faith. You should have altered my voice. That’s me on TV, Faith. My face—for the whole world to see, including . . . including . . .”

“Ashley, they can’t do anything to you now, don’t you see? The more famous you get, the more you put them in the spotlight, too.” Faith took a breath. “They have everything to lose. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“Stop acting like that.” The childlike voice had a sharpness to it, an edge.

“Like what?”

“Like you care.”

“Ashley.”

“If you cared about me, you’d have talked me out of doing this interview. Now they’re watching me. Charles and Renee are watching. They’re watching me cry.”

Faith gave Jim a helpless look, but he didn’t return it. He was on his phone, reading a text.

She took a breath, closed her eyes. “Ashley,” she said. “I want you to listen to me.”

Jim said, “Faith.”

“I know it’s frightening, coming out of hiding like this. But you just can’t live the way you were living. You’ll feel better and better. You’ll be able to live a normal life.”

Ashley said, “Do you think?”

“I know, honey.” Faith stared at the image on the TV screen as though she were right there, in the room with Ashley, and then she spoke, not just to convince Ashley, but to convince herself. “By getting out there, by telling the world what happened, you’re taking control of your own life again. You’re seizing power back from two awful people who don’t deserve to have any power, over anyone, ever.”

“
Faith hang up the phone now!
”

She turned to Jim.
Are you insane?
she thought, but one look at his face and the thought dissolved.

“I need to go.” Faith ended the call without waiting for a reply.

“What happened?” Faith heard her own voice as though it were coming out of someone else—weak, helpless . . . more childlike than Ashley’s. “Is it bad?”

He nodded.

On screen, Ashley ran a hand through her dyed brown hair. Faith hit pause on the DVR and for the briefest time everything seemed frozen—the girl’s image on TV, the sun setting outside the apartment window, the tropical fish in the aquarium Maya had requested but never took care of, Maya who had always wanted a dog and would only think of the fish as a consolation prize. Jim’s shell-shocked face.

Why didn’t we get her a dog?
Faith thought, and the thought felt frozen, too, suspended in this moment, these few seconds before knowing.

Then Jim moved toward her holding out the phone, and everything sped back up again and life continued, much as she didn’t want it to, not like this, not with the way Jim was looking at her.

“Maya sent a text,” he said.

8

“I didn’t know what to do,” Nick Morasco had said, just after Brenna’s mother left. “I was so surprised by what Grady Carlson had told me . . . I just couldn’t fathom what she did and so I called.”

“You wanted to see how she’d react.”

“Yes.”

“Interrogate her.”

“Well, not really interrogate . . .”

“Question her.”

“It was just a brief call.”

“I understand.”

“Good, because—”

“I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me that you called her.”

“You hadn’t . . . I didn’t know when you were going to read the police papers.”

“So you thought you’d give her a heads-up?”

“It sounds strange when you phrase it like that.”

“It
is
strange, Nick.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I just had to have a conversation that I wasn’t at all ready for.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“You told her, without letting me know. You put me at a disadvantage, and you’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am, Brenna.”

“Maybe we should just talk later,” Brenna had said.

After he’d left, it had taken Brenna a good hour to close the door on all of it—her increasingly twisted personal life, Morasco’s control issues, her father’s mental illness, her daughter’s hidden but now obvious hatred of Clea. All these strange secrets, worming their way into the light . . .

She’d made herself a salad for lunch, texted Maya again, read the Sunday papers online, walked to Balducci’s and spent too much money on fresh pasta, imported Parmesan, fresh basil, and sun-dried tomatoes, and cooked it all up for later before diving into her work—in this case going through Debbie Minton’s old credit card bills, a process she found oddly soothing.

The last charge, which she was looking at now, had been from a convenience store in Provo, Utah, of all places—but by now Brenna was so focused on the job at hand that she didn’t even think or care about the fact that Roland Dufresne had stored Clea’s clothes in that very same town for nearly thirty years. Brenna only thought about the last purchase Debbie Minton made—a Diet Coke and a turkey sandwich. According to her husband, Debbie had been a vegetarian.

Brenna’s landline rang. She checked the caller ID: Trent.

“Hey,” she said.

“Kanye.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what I’m calling the kid if he’s a boy. Kanye. See how I did that? You didn’t want to know, but I just slipped it in there, and now you do know whether you want to or not.”

“Is that seriously why you called me?”

“Well . . .”

“Because I’m doing work here, Trent.”

“You like the name?”

Brenna sighed heavily. “Yes. I’m sure he’ll sell a million records.”

“He can be KayKay for short.”

“No. No he can’t.”

“Okay, fine,” he said. “You can chill now because that’s not the reason I called.”

“Thank you.”

“I called,” he said, “because my Snapfish slice came through.”

“Really?” said Brenna. “That was fast.”

“Like I told you, she wants me.”

“What information did she give you?”

“She says Clea’s picture was posted by a member who goes by the same name as the Hotmail address on October 6, 2009.”

Brenna sighed. “Recent.”

“Yep.”

“The day after my
Sunrise Manhattan
appearance.”

“So Clea was a hot topic then. It could have been anybody.”

“The picture wasn’t a hot topic. I own the only copy.”

“I wish it had been up there for a couple of years,” he said. “You know, so you’d be able to rule out people you . . . uh . . . only met a couple months ago.”

Brenna smiled. A mind reader. Or maybe she was just as easy for Trent to figure out as he was for her. Six years, Trent had been working for her. Six years of those clothes and that cologne and that desk decor and all those myriad irritating habits, yet thinking about him changing in any way made her feel uncomfortable, lost even.

“Do me a favor,” he said. “Don’t judge Nick Morasco until you know for sure. I say this as a guy who just got an e-mail from Stephanie titled ‘Child support.’ ”

“Trent . . .”

“I’m serious. The dude’s saved your life.”

“No he hasn’t.”

“Well, he would have saved it if you gave him half a chance . . .”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“I like him, okay? He’s nice to you.”

Brenna sighed heavily. “You never told me your girl name.”

“You want to hear? Really?”

“Yes. Kanye for a boy and for a girl . . . what? Beyoncé?”

“Brenna.”

“Yes?”

“No, dude. That’s my girl name. Brenna. You don’t like it, I don’t care.”

“You’re . . . you would name your daughter after me?”

“Duh. Hello? You’re the most awesome female I know.”

Brenna’s face warmed, her eyes clouding. Genuinely moved. “Thank you.”

“Don’t tell my mom I said that. She’s awesome, too.”

She heard Morse code: SOS. Her text tone. She reached for her phone, opened it. It was a text from Maya—sent to both her and Jim.
That’s strange . . .

She clicked on it. The text was long. The first line:
Dear Mom and Dad
. She started to read it.
No
. The word filled her mind, getting louder, repeating itself over and over.
No, no, no . . .

Trent was saying, “. . . I mean Stephanie likes Nevaeh, so it’s not a done deal, but . . .”

“Trent, I’m really sorry, but I can’t talk now.”

Brenna hung up. Her hand was shaking so bad that she dropped the receiver to the ground, the battery spilling out. She didn’t bother to pick it up. Just read the rest of the text, her breath shallow, the word louder in her head, a real prayer.
No, no, no, no, please no, anything but this . . .
Wishing it were a dream, wishing it were a joke . . . Her whole world shattering, crumbling. Gone.

It didn’t sound like her. None of it sounded like her. None of it sounded like any teenager texting her parents. But especially not Maya, with her loving sarcasm and her colon-and-parenthesis smiley faces. Brenna read the text five times, each time a blade, plunging deeper, hurting more.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am sorry to hurt you but I am not happy with you. I have found new friends, a beautiful new life. Please don’t try to find me. It’s better this way. As the years go by, it will get easier. Please take comfort in the fact that I am happy.

Love,

Maya

Brenna texted back:
Maya please come home now!
She called Maya’s number. It went straight to voice mail. She read the text again, her breath stuck in her throat.

New friends . . .
What did that mean? Maya had stayed with a friend last night. Zoe, Jim had said. But Zoe wasn’t a new friend. Maya had been close to her since second grade. Brenna picked up the phone, recalled December 2—the last time Zoe had phoned Maya on the landline—and tapped her cell number in.

Zoe answered after a few rings. “Yeah?” She sounded cold, strange.

Brenna took a deep breath. She tried to steady out her voice. “Zoe?”

“Oh . . . uh . . . hi, Ms. Spector. I thought you were Maya.”

“Maya isn’t there.”

“Uh . . . no.”

“Sorry to bother you, but this is very important. Did she act strange during your sleepover last night?”

“Huh?”

Brenna had an urge to throw the phone across the room. She closed her eyes, breathed in . . . “If you could think back,” she said it very slowly.
Stay in control
. “Try and remember anything she might have said that sounded strange last night. Anything. About . . . about new friends. Or any plans she might have for today or—”

“Maya didn’t spend the night last night.”

“
What?
”

“She was supposed to, but she told me she had plans with her family. That wasn’t true, huh? I didn’t think it was.”

“She canceled on you.”

“Yeah.”

“Yesterday.”

“Yes. So you guys didn’t have—”

“She didn’t have family plans, Zoe,” Brenna said. “She didn’t come home.”

“Oh . . . I’m . . . Wow, I hope she’s okay.”

Brenna had that feeling, as though she were slipping down the side of a cliff, fingernails scraping rocks, nothing to hang on to. She stood up.
Keep it together. Just for a few more seconds.
“Zoe, if you hear from her, please call me immediately and tell me exactly what she says.”

“I will. I promise.”

Brenna cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

“Hey,” Zoe said, “Did you try Lindsay?”

“Who?”

“Lindsay Segal.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“She’s like Maya’s new best friend. She’s been eating lunch with her, and Nikki Webber and Annalee Lambert.” She cleared her throat. “She . . . uh . . . she never mentioned them?”

New friends . . .
“I’ve never heard her say those names.”

Zoe said, “They’re juniors.”

Juniors
. Brenna’s thoughts went to Maya’s hidden pictures. “Miles,” she said.

“Huh?”

“I don’t know his last name, but he’s in the school chorus. About six feet tall. Trying to grow a beard. He’s a junior, too, right?”

“Uh-huh. I know Miles. He’s Lindsay’s boyfriend.”

Brenna stared at the front door, the scuffs down the side of it from all the times Maya had closed it too hard, coming home from school. “Lindsay’s boyfriend,” she repeated. The image ran through her mind: Maya’s crestfallen face after that September 30 chorus practice, her eyes following Miles and the girl with the tight jeans and the wild hair.
Is that the same girl? Is that Maya’s new friend?
“Zoe,” she said. “Do you have Lindsay’s phone number?”

“No,” she said. “Lindsay has no idea who I am. Ms. Spector?”

“Yes?”

“Is Maya going to be okay?”

Isn’t that the question of the hour, the minute, my whole life, please be okay, Maya, please, please . . .
“Yes,” she said. “I just need to find her. That’s all.”

Brenna heard her door buzz. She said good-bye to Zoe and hit end and flew for it, falling on the button, hoping only for Maya’s voice, her Maya, telling her the text was a mistake, a joke . . .
Please, please, please.

But it was Faith’s voice who responded, weak and stunned as her own: “It’s me, Brenna,” she said. “It’s us.”

Faith stood in Brenna’s doorway. She wore a puffy white coat, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, mascara streaks down her face. Her lips looked white.

“Where’s Jim?” Brenna said.

“One flight down.”

She closed her eyes. “Come up,” she called out in a voice that sounded like it was coming out of someone else.

Brenna recalled seeing Jim yesterday morning, in front of the Magnolia, Maya rushing up to him, throwing her arms around his neck. At the time, Brenna had focused only on Jim, on the deep green jacket he wore and the memory he triggered—a memory of Jim and baby Maya—but she should have been watching thirteen-year-old Maya, the way her blonde hair swung, the way she trotted across the street and hugged her father . . . She should have been watching to see if that hug was sincere.

I am sorry to hurt you but I am not happy with you . . .

Had she really typed that? Did she really mean it?

Brenna heard footsteps and then Jim was next to Faith, wearing the same dark green jacket he’d worn nearly twenty-eight hours earlier, when his daughter had hugged him hello. His eyes were aimed at the floor. “It will be okay,” she said.

He looked up and into her eyes and in them Brenna saw only pain. Only the present. “I hope so.”

Never in her life had Brenna felt this way, this kick-to-the-gut feeling, this fear that if she were to cry or even think about crying, she’d break down and fall to the floor and never be able to get up again. In the past few months, she’d been knifed twice. She’d been punched in the face and kicked and shot at, and yet none of that . . . She’d take it all again and worse, if only . . . She’d give her life, if only . . .

“We called the police,” Jim said. “Missing Persons Unit. We gave them Maya’s picture. They’re also tracing her cell.”

Brenna said, “She wasn’t at Zoe’s last night.”

“No,” he said. “She was at Lindsay’s.”

Brenna drew a breath. “Miles’s girlfriend.”

“Who?”

“We called Lindsay’s apartment before we came over,” Faith said, “but no one answered.”

I have found new friends, a beautiful new life
.

“She texted me a couple of hours ago,” Jim said. “Told me she was going to the movies with her friends.”

“Just a couple of hours ago?” said Brenna.

“Yes.”

“Did she say which movie?”

“No.”

“Maybe they’re still at the movies,” Faith said. “Maybe some kid got hold of Maya’s cell phone and found your numbers on her contacts and decided to play a prank. These kids never talk on the phone. You can’t hear their voices, they can all pretend to be each other, it would be easy . . .” Her gaze darted from Brenna to Jim and back, begging for agreement.

Brenna nodded. “What did the police say?”

“Well,” Faith said. “You know the police.”

“They didn’t think it was a prank,” Jim said.

“They need to . . . You know it’s true, Brenna. In order to perform their jobs effectively, the police need to . . . they have to assume the worst.” Faith smiled. Then she started to cry, a few tears spilling down her cheeks, then more until she was sobbing, her body racked, doubling over. It was the first time Brenna had ever seen Faith shed even a few tears, and it killed her, the love this woman felt for Maya. Same as her own.

Jim put his arms around Faith and held her to him, Faith sobbing on his shoulder, his hands puffing into her white down coat.

Brenna wanted to hug them both, to cry along with Faith, but instead she looked away.
Keep it inside
.
Find her now. Cry later
.

“It’s possible, right?” Faith said. “It could be a prank?”

“Anything’s possible,” Jim whispered.

Brenna looked at him and he met her gaze as though he were telling her, too, as though he were telling himself.
Anything’s possible. Everything is going to be all right
.