Stay With Me (19 page)

Brenna closed her eyes, put a hand up. “Please,” she said, not so much to Faith or to anyone in the room but to herself, to the exhaustion and pain that kept cutting into her thoughts, her memories, making it so hard to recall February 16, 2005, and Sophia Castillo on the phone and the sound of Brenna’s own voice, the words coming out of her own mouth:
He’s happy now . . .

She looked at Plodsky. “I may have a lead for you,” she said.

“What the hell is wrong with her?” Nick said, once they’d left Jim and Faith’s apartment.

“Plodsky?” Brenna said. That was the only “her” on her mind. Plodsky, who’d done everything short of rolling her eyes at the mention of a disgruntled mother stealing Maya away, seven years after getting turned down as a client. “I guess for all her talk about exploring all options, she thinks the Lemaires are a sexier lead than Sophia Castillo. Can you look her up on NCIC? You still have access, right? It’s probably a crap lead after all, but maybe it isn’t. And I don’t trust Plodsky to follow up.”

“Sure,” he said, “but I wasn’t talking about Plodsky.”

Brenna turned to Nick. The sun was rising. It cast a pink glow across his face, made it softer, sadder. “Faith?”

He nodded, Brenna noticing the dark circles under his eyes, the way his hair stuck out at odd angles. She ran a hand through it, “I did the same thing to you, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“My father killed himself. My mother lied about it for more than thirty years. When I finally find out, who do I get angry at? You.”

“That was different. You’re hurting now and she should have some consideration.”

“Faith’s hurting, too. She’s lashing out at me like I lashed out at you. Sure it’s unfair, but this whole situation is unfair. It’s making us all go a little crazy.”

He brushed his hand against her cheek. “You haven’t slept, have you?”

“No,” she said. “When Plodsky called, I’d just gotten home.”

“From where?”

“Screaming at a doorman.”

“Oh,” he said, as though screaming at a doorman were the most normal thing in the world. No
Why?
No
Are you all right?
No
Why didn’t you call me? I could have helped.
Morasco had changed, too. His eyes were stricken. “Did it get you anywhere?”

“It may have,” Brenna said. “I’ll be able to tell you for sure in a couple of hours.”

“Please,” he said. “Let me know anything that happens.”

“You care about Maya.”

“Yes.”

“You’re scared.”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to find her.” Brenna stared into his stricken eyes. More than anything, she wanted him to agree.

“Yes,” he said again, his gaze still locked with her own. “Yes we are.” As though to prove his point, Nick took a steno pad out of his jacket pocket, and asked Brenna to tell him everything she knew about Sophia Castillo.

What Brenna knew about Sophia Castillo wasn’t a lot, but she did have her phone number. For Nick’s computer search, Brenna had scrolled back yet again to February 16, 2005, recalled the moment Trent had transferred Sophia Castillo’s call to her, and basically read the number to him off a five-year-old phone screen—same as she’d done with Trent yesterday when he’d told her about Castillo’s new call.

“You’re amazing,” Morasco had said to her, just before heading off to yet another Internal Affairs interview.

Brenna had shaken her head. “It’s just wires crossing in my brain. You know that.”

He had kissed her then, quickly, but with such tenderness. “I wasn’t talking about your memory.”

After he left, Brenna stood on the sidewalk, wind whipping at her skin, burning it
. Can Maya feel this? Is she cold?

The number was still in her mind, and so she plucked her phone out of her bag and tapped it in. The call went to voice mail after a few unanswered rings, Sophia Castillo sounding a lot more cheerful than she had five years ago.
Please leave a message and I will call you back!

“Hi, Ms. Castillo, this is Brenna Spector . . .”

It was a long shot, she knew. But at this point, Brenna would take any shot, she’d talk to anyone. She’d do anything, anything at all.

Faith felt Jim’s hand on her shoulder. “I love you,” he said. She looked at him, his face so pale and tired, sheen across his forehead from the hot lights. Faith put her hand over Jim’s and grabbed it, the way you’d grab on to someone’s hand to keep from falling, so tight it hurt, based more on need than on any softer emotion. “I love you, too.”

“You guys ready?” said Danielle, the executive producer. Her voice was too cheerful, given the situation, and to Faith everything seemed a little off—a little too bright and professional. Life going on, business as usual . . . nothing could hurt as much as that.

Ashley had said something along those lines during the interview—how her happiest moments were when the Lemaires left her alone, but in some ways they were the saddest, because she’d have time to think about life outside, how it was going on without her . . .

Faith reminded herself that Danielle was doing her a favor—allowing her to make this announcement—a personal one and quite a downer—before the regularly scheduled
Sunrise Manhattan
, even coming in early to personally supervise the broadcast. That was kind, though the cynical side of Faith’s brain reminded her that today’s regularly scheduled show was the rebroadcast of the Ashley Stanley interview, and you couldn’t ask for better PR than the host’s own daughter going missing, probably as a result of
what-you’re-about-to-see
.

For Danielle, this was win-win.

Faith pushed the thought away. The klieg lights hummed in her ears and Nicolai counted down, and Faith’s gaze went to one of the monitors, Maya’s ninth grade picture filling the screen.
Please, please, please . . .
She took a deep Pilates breath, tightened her grip on Jim’s hand.
Don’t let me fall
.

“Action,” Danielle said.

Faith launched in without a missing a beat. “My name is Faith Gordon-Rappaport and this is my husband, Jim,” she said. “Our daughter, Maya Rappaport, has gone missing . . .”

“That girl goes to your school,” said Miles’s mom.

“What girl?” said Miles. Dumb thing to say. Maya’s picture was on TV, they were watching TV over breakfast, what other girl could she be talking about?

“The girl on TV, Miles. Her mother just said she’s a ninth grader at P.S. 125. Stop texting for a minute and look.”

Miles felt like he was in the middle of the worst dream he’d ever had, like he was banging his fists on the side of it, but the dream wouldn’t give. It wouldn’t let him out. He hadn’t eaten any of his breakfast burrito, which was weird. His mom would remark on that soon. He glanced at the phone in his lap, at Lindsay’s latest text:
Just act normal.
He took a bite of the burrito. Choked it down.

“Do you know her?” Miles’s dad said.

“Kind of. Not really. She’s younger. She’s in my art class.”

“If she’s in your art class, that would mean you know her.”

“Her poor parents,” Miles’s mother said.

Miles took another bite. His stomach ached and churned. He felt like he might throw up. “Can I have some water?”

His mother started for the cupboard, but his dad stopped her. “Glasses are by the sink,” he said. “Water’s in a pitcher in the fridge. You’re not paralyzed.”

Be normal.
“Whatever,” Miles said.

His little brother laughed.

“Shut up, Neil.”

“Miles,” his mother said. “That isn’t nice.”

“Sorry.”

Neil laughed some more. He was six years old. He didn’t have a problem in the world that couldn’t be fixed with a nap or an ice cream cone. Miles hated him.

He got up from his chair and moved toward the sink. The air around him felt thick, like something swollen. It was hard to breathe. He’d once read a story by Edgar Allan Poe—when was that? Seventh grade. Right. The one about the heart, beating through the walls, pounding in the murderer’s head until he has to confess, he has to . . .

“You okay, dear?”

“Uh, yeah, Mom. Why wouldn’t I be?” He opened the cupboard, took out a glass. On TV, the image flipped from Maya’s school picture to her dad and stepmom. “When I taped the following interview with Ashley Stanley on Saturday, January 16,” Maya’s stepmom said, “my daughter was at home. She was safe. She left our apartment in the West Twenties that day, sometime around sunset. We don’t know where she went after that. But she never came home. Maya is five-eight and 120 pounds. She has waist-length blonde hair and blue eyes and she was last seen wearing a bright blue coat with brass buttons . . .”

Miles swallowed hard, the thick air closing in on him.
The coat.
His phone vibrated in his back pocket. Another text. It was probably from Lindsay. He didn’t want to look at it, but it was better that than to look at Maya’s parents. Better to look at Lindsay’s smiling picture on his screen than to remember the way her face had looked when she’d stuffed that coat into a plastic bag.

The text read:
Stay strong.
The glass dropped out of Miles’s hand, shattered to the floor.

Miles’s parents stared at him.

“I’ll clean it up,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Maya’s stepmom said, “She means the world to us.”

Miles shoved his phone into his back pocket without replying. He grabbed a broom and a dustpan out of the kitchen closet and swept up the ruined glass.

I will clean it up
, he thought.
I’ll clean it up as best I can.

15

“What are you doing?” said Annalee.

Lindsay glared at her. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Standing in front of Miles’s locker?” It almost sounded sarcastic and Annalee had never been sarcastic, not with Lindsay anyway. If this were a normal day, Lindsay would have smacked her down good. But it wasn’t a normal day.

Annalee hooked a lock of pale blonde hair behind her ear. “Did you hear about Maya?”

“Sssh.”

“What? Why? Everybody’s talking about it. Her mom was on TV this morning and—”

“Stepmom. I saw it. Of course I saw it, Annalee, Jesus.”

“We’re having a special assembly.”

“When?”

“Now.” Annalee spit her gum into a Kleenex and leaned in close. “Lindsay, I’m kind of worried,” she whispered.

“Why? You didn’t say anything, did you?”

Fruit gum fumes curled out of her mouth. Lindsay felt queasy. “I didn’t, no. But there were a bunch of people at your place that night. And I could have so sworn I heard Nikki telling Jordan Michaelson about the video. What if she took him into your room and what if she showed him . . .”

“She didn’t,” Lindsay said.

“How do you know?”

“Because I do
.”

Lindsay turned away from the gum stink of Annalee. She peered up and down the hallway, skimming the crowd for Miles. Where the hell was he?

Annalee tapped her on the shoulder. “Why are you looking around like that?”

“No reason.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine. Forget I said anything.”

Last year, when Annalee was dating Chris Kolchek, Lindsay had overheard Chris and his friends talking about her in study hall, Chris bragging that she’d done everything, that she’d gone everywhere with him that he wanted to go. He’d actually called her Anally, which had made Grant Everly and Seth Perkins laugh their asses off. Lindsay had known that wasn’t true, but still she hadn’t bothered to stick up for Annalee. She’d laughed, too, in fact.

Lindsay felt a little bad about it, but the truth was, she hadn’t really liked Annalee since fourth grade ballet class. Annalee was irritating and simpery and she copied Lindsay’s outfits, always.

Yet Lindsay had stayed friends with her all these years,
best friends
and, why? Because it was safe. Because it was a habit she’d had for so long, she didn’t know how to break it. Because people were used to seeing Lindsay and Annalee together. Because finding someone new would be a pain, and not worth it. Weren’t those all reasons why old people stayed in bad marriages?

Meanwhile, her friendship with Nikki was even worse. She’d
never
liked her. If Lindsay was going to look hard at her life, if she was going to be genuinely honest about it, she would admit that she didn’t like any of her girlfriends. She would admit that she rarely had any real fun. For the most part, Lindsay would admit, life to her felt a lot like that blackberry brandy on Saturday night. She could stomach it. She could act like she enjoyed it. But really that was all she was doing. Acting.

She grabbed her phone out of her purse, texted Miles:
Where TF R U???
just as the PA system cranked on.

“They probably want us in the auditorium now,” said Annalee, oblivious to the way Lindsay had turned away from her, her body language begging Annalee to leave her alone.
How dense can one person possibly be?

The principal’s voice pushed through the speaker system. “Students, please go to the auditorium immediately for a special program regarding a missing student,” he said. “Lindsay Segal, come to my office.”

“
What?
” Lindsay dropped her phone. It clattered on the walkway, and she picked it up and checked it, her hands shaking. The glass was fine, nothing broken. Still no text from Miles.

Annalee said, “Wow, no way.”

Lindsay looked at Annalee. Her eyes were big, but calm and dry.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Annalee said, but she looked relieved that she hadn’t been called along with her, and Lindsay wanted to smack her for that, smack her hard. “Probably just . . . like . . . some question about your after-school activities or something.”

“Shut up, Annalee.”

“Busted,” said Ryan Cordonne as he passed.

“Whatever.” Lindsay’s heart pounded.

A huge group passed her on their way to the auditorium. She saw Nikki among them, but not Miles. Nikki mouthed,
You okay?
, that same look on her face that had been on Annalee’s. Relief.

Lindsay shrugged at her elaborately.

Where was Miles? Had Principal Bailey called Miles into his office, too? Or had Miles gone in on his own? Had he told on her? Had he told the principal everything that they had done?

He wouldn’t. Miles wouldn’t do that.

Miles was into Lindsay—they’d even started to say the L-word to each other. Miles sounded like he meant it, too, and Lindsay thought maybe he did. Maybe they were some kind of real, lasting thing, and whatever had happened between him and Maya two weeks ago was just him being a guy. Hell, Miles wouldn’t even admit that anything
had
happened between them . . .

It had, though. Of course it had. Miles was a guy, after all, and he did what any guy would do if any girl were to just randomly show up at his apartment when his parents weren’t home. Any girl. Even some dumb little skank like Maya Rappaport, whom Nikki had seen leaving Miles’s apartment, her hair messed, that ugly blue coat buttoned up all wrong . . .

And now she was missing. Disappeared into thin air, but it wasn’t Lindsay’s fault. It was Miles’s fault more than hers and Maya’s fault more than anything.
You don’t just show up at guys’ apartments when their parents aren’t home. Especially guys who are older than you. Especially guys with girlfriends.

One night, back in September when she and Miles had first started dating, they’d sat on his balcony and looked into each other’s eyes and he had touched her face . . . All he had done was touch her face and yet the way he had touched her, his fingertips tracing her cheekbones, her lips, brushing against her neck, so lightly, as if she were some special, precious thing. All he had done was touch her face and yet she’d never felt so cared for, so loved . . .

Had he touched Maya’s face like that, too?

You show up at some guy’s apartment, some random upperclassman with a girlfriend he’s said the L-word to. You do that, Maya Rappaport, and you get what you deserve . . .

Maybe Principal Bailey had called Lindsay’s parents. Maybe they were in his office with him right now, back from their vacation, telling him there must be some mistake, their daughter would never bully anyone . . .
It wasn’t bullying, it was what she deserved.

Lindsay missed her parents. Why did they have to go off to Thailand for a whole week and leave her in the city alone? Maya’s parents would never do anything like that—Lindsay barely knew them, yet she could tell. It had been bad enough, seeing them in the lobby last night, but on TV today . . . Lindsay had had to turn them off. That look on the stepmom’s face, like the pain was going to break her apart . . .

Lindsay grabbed her binder and her history textbook. She clutched them both to her chest and thought of armor, a shield.
Stay strong
.

She heard her name over the speaker system again and hurried down the hall to the front desk.

“Yes, Lindsay, you can go right in,” said the receptionist, an old lady whose name Lindsay had never learned.

The door to Principal Bailey’s office opened, and he stood there, looking at her. Principal Bailey was chubby and rosy-cheeked and normally friendly, in that corny, superficial way. But you wouldn’t know it to see him now.

“Hello Lindsay.”

“Hello Principal Bailey,” she tried. There was a dark-haired woman sitting at his desk with her back to the door, a bunch of printed-out photographs spread before her. Lindsay wasn’t close enough to see what they were of.

“There’s someone here who needs to talk to you, Lindsay,” said Principal Bailey. And then the woman got up and turned around. She was tall and thin, and though Lindsay didn’t recognize her face, she looked at Lindsay as though she knew her.

“Uh . . . hi?” Lindsay said.

“I’m Maya’s mother,” she said. “And you’ve been lying to us.”

“And we’re done,” Danielle said. Faith let go of Jim’s hand and took a deep breath. It made her a little light-headed, and only then did Faith realize she hadn’t eaten since the early dinner she’d had with Jim last night, right before the Ashley Stanley interview broadcast.

“You did great,” Jim said.

“Thank you,” Faith said. She was normally a breakfast person. She should have grabbed a banana in the greenroom, but the thought of eating anything made her feel so sick . . .

Danielle strode toward Faith and Jim, gathered them both into her arms.

“Anyone with a pulse would have been moved by that.” Danielle said it into Faith’s neck, and it made Faith uncomfortable, as though she were complimenting her on a performance.

“I hope it works,” she said.

“You’ll get that little girl back,” Danielle said. “I know it.”

“Thank you.” Faith was grateful she couldn’t see Danielle’s face.

“I’ll leave you guys to each other.” Danielle left, Nicolai trailing behind her, neither of them fully looking Faith in the eye.

She turned to Jim, gazed up into his eyes, those warm eyes that had always driven her wild, now so tired and hurt. She said, “When was the last time you and Brenna instant messaged?”

“September.”

“What stopped you?”

His gaze left her face, focused on a point just over her left shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“It’s good,” she said, slowly, “that we can all talk in person now.”

“Yes.”

She put her arms around him, rested her head against his chest, listened to his breath, his heartbeat.

“God,” he whispered. “I hope Maya isn’t too cold.”

She pulled him closer. They stayed like that for a while before she noticed the door chimes coming from the nearby greenroom. “My phone.”

Faith pulled away from him and followed the sound, hurrying into the greenroom, plucking her phone out of her purse. Caller ID read “Restricted Number.”

She answered fast.

“I’m sorry, Faith.” Faith’s breath died in her throat. It was the same person who had called during her interview. The smoker, the voice so corroded that it was hard to tell gender.

“It’s you,” Faith said.

“I saw you on TV.”

“Please tell me where Maya is.”

“Can I meet with you, Faith? Please?”

“Will you—”

“Don’t tell anybody I called. This is important.”

“Okay.”

“You have to promise me. I want to tell you the truth, but I can’t do that if anybody knows.”

“The truth about Maya.”

“Yes.”

“Where can we meet?”

“There’s a playground on Twelfth and Hudson.”

“Okay, when?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Faith thought about it. If the subways were on time, she could probably get there in fifteen. “Okay.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. “Come alone,” the voice said. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Faith shut her eyes tight, every muscle in her body tensed, every part of her hoping. “Will you bring Maya?” she said. “Please?”

But there was no reply. The caller had already hung up.

Lindsay Segal clutched her books to her chest and stared at Brenna as though she were a mother bear whose path she’d inadvertently crossed. “I didn’t lie to you,” she said.

Brenna shook her head. “Sorry, Lindsay,” she said, “but that is incredibly lame.” The girl’s eyes widened. She looked at the principal, as though he were supposed to feed her a line.

“Why don’t you come here and take a look at these pictures,” Brenna said.

Lindsay took a few timid steps forward.

“You’ll never see them from all the way back there.”

Lindsay cast a quick glance at the principal, his hands folded across his chest like a prison guard, then moved closer.

On the desk, Brenna had placed all of Maya’s pictures from Forever 21, enlarged and brightened courtesy of Trent, and printed out on shiny photograph paper.

It was hard for Brenna to look at the pictures. Larger and clearer on the contact paper, the nervousness in Maya’s eyes was all the more apparent, the stiffness of her smile, the way she looked at the other girls, so desperate to please.

She stayed focused on Lindsay. “You said you don’t even know Maya,” she said, as the girl gaped at the photographs, “but you all look like besties here.”

“Oh . . . that was just . . .”

“One day of unseasonable closeness?”

“Um . . . yeah.”

“Maya’s friend Zoe says you guys have been inseparable for a week. In fact, she’s been feeling a little insecure, like you were actually taking Maya away from her.”

“That isn’t—”

“She initially had plans with Maya for Saturday night, and when Maya canceled on her, you were the first person she thought of.”

“Look. Mrs. Rappaport, I don’t even know who Zoe is.”

“Ms. Spector,” she said. “And she knows who
you
are.”

Principal Bailey said, “You had better start telling the truth, Lindsay.”

“I
am
telling the truth.”

Brenna said, “Can I ask you something, Lindsay? It’s sort of an opinion question.”

“Umm . . .”

“How do you feel about surveillance video?”

“What?”

“Surveillance video. Like they have in the elevators, hallways, and lobbies of almost every New York City doorman apartment? Including your own.”

“I . . . Wait. There’s video?”

“Do you still want to tell your principal and me that you barely know Maya? That she was never at your apartment on Saturday night?”

Lindsay stared at her, the color draining out of her face. Her gaze darted from Brenna to Principal Bailey and back again, but Brenna kept focusing on her eyes.

“If she’d gone to Zoe’s that night,” Brenna said, “she never would have left. In the morning, her dad would have met her over there, walked her home, just like he always does.” Brenna took a step closer, muscles tensing, anger pressing through her. “She’d be fine, Lindsay. But she changed her plans because of you.”