Into the Dark (21 page)

Brenna tapped Mark the lab tech’s phone number into her own phone and hit send, thinking,
Please have the same cell phone number
. This was going to be a little tricky, but as long as her voice sounded confident . . .

He answered fast. “Yeah?”

“Hey Mark.” She said it in a low, officey voice. “How’s it going?”

“Uh . . .”

“How’s Nora? I just ran into her and Gracie the other day at Gristedes. Did they tell
you they saw me?”

“Uh . . . yeah. Yeah, they did . . . How are you?”

“Good. The knee still sucks, but I’m getting surgery on it next Friday. Hey, how’s
Mark Jr.? Still playing soccer?”

“Yeah.” His voice brightened a little. “They won state championship.”

“Fantastic,” Brenna said. “Man, I don’t get to see you guys enough. I was just telling
Ed we need to do something.”

“Ummm . . .”

“Sorry to bother you on a Sunday and all.”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I’m actually at work.”

Yes!
She forced a sigh. “Me too. Sucks, right? Listen . . . I could really use your help
right now.”

“How can I help you,” he asked.

His voice was laced with confusion. Clearly, he had no idea who she was but was too
polite to ask. Brenna stifled a smile. “Well . . . I’m trying to fill out some paperwork
for a recent death, but my computer went down.”

“Bummer.”

“I know. It’s like a conspiracy. So, can you do me a favor and look up Errol Ludlow
for me? Died last night. Body found this morning at the MoonGlow on 108th and Second
Ave.”

Brenna waited.

Maya said, “That really isn’t the best way to draw knees.”

“It isn’t?” Kevin said

“Well, see, I like to shadow this part.”

Brenna crossed her fingers, hoping Mark couldn’t hear . . .

Mark said, “Sure, one sec.”

Yes!

“How do you spell the last name?”

Brenna spelled it. He asked her to hold, and came back on quickly. “Found it. What
do you need?”

“Status of the body, estimated time of death . . . The usual.”

“Okay,” he said. “Looks like he died of a heart attack, but a toxicology report was
ordered.”

Brenna kept her voice neutral, bored. “And why is that?”

“The deceased was fifty-nine, no history of heart disease, and the examiner noticed
a bluish tinge to the skin, indicating possible reaction to drugs.”

Brenna closed her eyes. Maybe Diandra didn’t know he’d died. Maybe they’d partied
a little. (It didn’t sound like Errol, but whatever. Midlife crisis happens.) But
maybe he was fine when she left the room. Diandra had only been in there with him
for an hour, after all. “You have estimated time of death?”

“Between six-thirty and seven-thirty.”

“I wish I had my charcoals,” Kevin said.

“You can just use a pencil,” Maya said. “Like this. See?”

“Thanks so much, Mark,” Brenna said. “That’s all I need.”

“No problem.”

“Say hi to Nora for me!”

“Will do.”

Click.

“Ms. Stanwyck, your daughter is a genius.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Maya rolled her eyes. “Mom.”

“Kevin,” said Brenna, “can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“You mentioned that Diand— the girl who visited Mr. Ludlow . . .” She swallowed hard.
“You said she stayed here at the hotel for exactly one hour, down to the minute.”

“Well, maybe not to the minute. But close enough.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because I looked at a clock,” he said. “I always do that when a girl comes in—look
at the clock before and after, guess in my head how much the guy paid . . . Helps
pass the time.”

“Okay,” Brenna said. “So when you looked at the clock and she was leaving . . .”

“Yeah?”

“What time did it say?”

“Seven forty five.”

Brenna’s mouth felt dry. “You sure?”

“It’s a digital clock. Never wrong. Why?”

Errol died between six-thirty and seven-thirty. Diandra was with him when he died
.
He had a bluish tint to his skin. Drugs. Errol hated drugs . . .

“Anything else?” Kevin asked.

“No,” Brenna cleared her throat. “I’m good.”

Brenna put her arm around Maya, started walking her toward the door. “Thank you, Kevin,”
she said.

“Come back again sometime!” he called out after her as she hurried out into the twilight.

“W
hat’s wrong?” Maya asked, as soon as they got outside.

“Nothing, honey.” Brenna hailed a cab with one hand, called Trent with the other.
A cab pulled up quickly. After a few rings, the call went to voice mail. “Trent, listen
to me,” she said into his phone. “You cannot see Diandra anymore. I don’t want to
discuss this on a recording, but she is dangerous. Please call me as soon as you get
this message,” she said, as they got into the cab.

She hit end, told the cabdriver to take them to Twelfth and Sixth.

The cab jolted away from the curb.

Maya said, “Did Trent do something stupid?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Brenna said, “but I hope not.” She glanced at her
daughter, staring down at the faint stains on her shoes
. Talk about doing something stupid . . .
“Maya, can you do me a favor, please?”

“What?”

“Please don’t tell your dad I took you here.”

Maya nodded. “Sure.”

On the seat between them, Maya’s sketchbook sprawled open. Brenna stared at Diandra’s
face—the wide, unlined eyes, the full cheeks. Such a kid, beneath all that artifice.
She couldn’t have been ten years older than Maya. Why had she bothered herself with
Errol in the first place? Why was she so fascinated with Lula Belle?

Is Trent right? Are you Lula Belle?

Brenna closed her eyes, remembering the shadow on her computer screen, the sugary
whisper of a voice wafting out of the speakers as she and Morasco watched . . .
She thought I was crazy like my daddy. She thought I couldn’t take care of nothin’
without breakin’ it. Mama said that gift for destruction ran through my veins.

The cab sped up the next block, then jolted to a stop at the red light. “Don’t be
stupid, Trent,” Brenna murmured, as ninety blocks down and five blocks west, Trent
was standing in his living room, his senses filled with pink angora and perfume and
Diandra’s lush body against his, knowing full well how stupid he was being.

Chapter
17

T
rent
blamed the cat. He knew that probably sounded dumb, but ever since he found out
Persephone wasn’t real, he’d felt so angry—self-destructive, even. He would have
gone on a drinking binge, but Trent wasn’t really that good a drinker. Plus,
he
only liked sweet drinks with lots of carbs in them—rum and Cokes, mango mojitos,
strawberry daiquiris—so a drinking binge would’ve not only given him the mother
of all hangovers, it would have totally decimated his abs.

Hotties, on the other hand . . .

Yes, there was something going on with Diandra and
Lula Belle, and yes, Brenna was suspicious and Trent was suspicious and if
Diandra had looked like, say, Hulk Hogan, Trent would have been changing the
locks on his doors and running a background check on her faster than you could
say, “One-way ticket to Ward’s Island.”

But Trent was a guy. And there was Diandra’s
breathy voice on the intercom, Diandra saying, “I canceled my plans. I couldn’t
stay away.” There was Diandra at Trent’s front door, that damn sweater tugged
down to reveal a flash of white lace that he actually felt jealous of. Here was
Diandra, throwing her arms around Trent’s waist, her teeth grazing his neck and
her hands on his ass and her breath hot in his ear, Diandra whispering, “Take
me, Trent. Take me, please . . .”

Now come on. What would
you
do?

Diandra was in the bathroom now. She’d left Trent
on the kitchen floor in a state of extreme arousal, whispering, “Don’t move.”
As
if he could.

“You about done in there?” he called out.

“Yes,” said Diandra.

He looked up. She was standing on the other side of
the counter, holding the glass she’d left behind, the sweater gone, along with
the white lace. “Whoa,” Trent tried to say.

“I’m going to pour myself some more wine. Is that
okay with you?”

Diandra moved around the counter and to the
refrigerator. She opened the door and removed the bottle. “Brrr,” she said. She
was wearing nothing, save for the pink pumps.

Across the room, Trent thought he heard his cell
phone vibrating again, but that could have just been the thrumming in his
brain.

Diandra disappeared back around the counter for a
few moments, returning into his line of vision with a full glass of wine. She
took a sip, then moved toward him. She smelled of flowers and vanilla and she
knelt down next to him, brought the glass to his lips. Trent gulped down a huge
swallow. Diandra licked the rim of the glass and smiled. “What do you want to
do
first?” she said, and Trent felt desirous to the point of being overwhelmed,
helpless.
Okay, dude. Get it together . . .
He took another gulp from the glass, emptying it. “Anything,” he
breathed.

“How about this?” Diandra straddled him. He reached
out to touch her, but he felt only air.

“Missed.” She giggled. She leaned over and kissed
him. Girls always wanted to kiss. And though he was more of a cut-to-the-chase
kind of guy, Trent could, if called upon, lock lips with the best of them. He
kissed her hard and got his hands on her and pulled her even closer
. . . but something was happening to him, something strange. The last
time he’d been with Diandra, it had been strange, too—but in a rock-your-world
kind of way. This was different. It was almost as though she were sucking the
energy out of him. He felt sleepy. And funny, too, like his tongue was too big
for his mouth.

Trent pulled away. “Something’s wrong,” he
said.

“I’m sorry,” said Diandra. And she did sound sorry,
genuinely so. She stroked his cheek.

Trent’s vision was blurry. He tried to focus on her
face, but instead his gaze settled on the floor. On the empty wineglass. He made
himself look at her. “What did you do?”

Her face swam in his vision, so soft, as though
they were both under water. Trent found himself remembering a book he used to
read with his mom when he was a kid—a big picture book.
The
Little Mermaid
.

That’s not a boy’s
book
, his dad used to complain.
First the beauty
pageants and now this? What are you trying to do, Karen, make him into a
sissy?

And Trent would pore over the pages, pretending not
to hear, too embarrassed to tell his dad that what he really liked about the
book was the Little Mermaid’s boobs.

Diandra was talking to him in a soft voice.
“. . . going to be okay,” she was saying. “ . . .  just
let yourself let go and sleep and everything will be fine.”

His lids were getting heavy.

“Saffron said this was really good stuff. Just
relax . . .”

I’m just wild about
Saffron
, Trent thought. It was his mom’s favorite song.

“Everything will be okay, honey. I promise. Don’t
try to fight it.”

Trent felt floaty now, outside of himself, the air
thick around him like a blanket. He couldn’t move. Or was it just that he didn’t
want to?
What is happening?

He could feel Diandra easing off him, slipping
away.
Where are you going?

She was standing over him. He wanted to look at her
naked body—
couldn’t he at least have that?—
but his
eyes wouldn’t stay open. His stupid, sleepy eyes.

“I really like you, Trent,” she said.

I like you, too.

“I’m so sorry.”

She left the room, and he began to drift away. He
imagined himself under the ocean, surrounded by shells and fish and so many
mermaids, gorgeous ones with flowing hair and flashing tails and huge boobs,
but
the water got very murky, and soon it was too black to see anything.

Trent was so tired.

“Good night, my little prince.”

Trent’s mom used to say that to him every night,
just after she put him to bed and sang him that Saffron song and gave him his
three kisses on the forehead. And he could have sworn that when his eyelids
fluttered open for the last time to see Diandra slipping by him and out the
door, fully dressed . . . he could have sworn she said that to him,
too, just before she softly closed the door behind her.
Good night, Trent. Good night, my little prince.

He also could have sworn she was carrying RJ
Tannenbaum’s computer.

A
s
soon as she and Maya got home, Brenna checked her e-mail, and the first one she
saw was from Trent. Titled “Suckage,” it had been sent at 2:55
P.M.
She opened it up. It contained an
attachment—another Shane Smith film,
Wreckage,
along
with a brief note:

B—

Thought you might like to see some more
“film.” And by film I mean poo. (SPOILER ALERT: This one is two full minutes
of
a bicycle tire, lying in the middle of a road.) Anyway, I hacked RJ’s phone and
un-deleted his call log. Piece o’ cake. Nothing interesting, but am sending it
to you from the phone in a separate e-mail. Lemme know if you don’t receive it.
Also did some more work on Shane Smith’s face, but I’m tired. Think I’m gonna
take a nap for real.

TNT

Brenna breathed a sigh of relief.
Taking a nap
. That’s why he hadn’t picked up the
phone. Of course it was—Trent wasn’t that much of an idiot.

There were a series of PS’s at the bottom:

PS Also attached is a
pic of what RJ probably looks like if he’s patterning himself after
Spielberg. (I look way better as Diesel, BTW.)

PPS I’ve gone all the
way through his computer. The one interesting thing I found (other than the
porn) is that RJ uninstalled a cloud storage gateway. You probably have no
idea what that means. I’ll explain later.

Trent was right. Brenna had no idea what that
meant. She downloaded the picture of RJ Tannenbaum and looked at it—the
carefully trimmed beard, the leather bomber jacket, and the L.A. Dodgers cap.
On
a guy from Queens. To Brenna, the photo seemed a case study of someone trying
too hard—a dumpy guy in director-drag, who actually looked a lot more like
Michael Moore than Spielberg. And judging from what little she knew of RJ, it
was probably as accurate a photo of him as had ever existed.

She forwarded it to Morasco, along with a note:

If you want to show
this around . . . RJT’s new look, courtesy of Trent.

—B

Brenna went back into Trent’s e-mail and read the
third PS (Trent lived for PSs):
Can you give me a wake-up
call at 4:30? My alarm’s been unreliable and if I nap too long, I get
cranky.

Maya shouted at her from the other room. “Mom, it’s
past sunset!”

Time to light the candles. It was the last night of
Chanukah— well, for Brenna and Maya anyway. The last night for the rest of the
world had been Friday, but as was their tradition for the past two years, they
mutually decided on a “last night” date that did not fall on a work day or a
transfer day and gave Brenna enough time to prepare (i.e. buy a great gift).

The gift this year was a no-brainer. Maya had been
asking for an iPod Touch ever since the previous Chanukah, Brenna resisting
every entreaty (Maya already had a laptop. Why did she need to be able to access
the Internet via some cute little device? The screen was too small—it was
probably bad for her eyes. And what did she need all those apps for?) That is,
until the Neff case—and the realization that there are worse things in the world
than spoiling one’s child every once in a while. Maya’s brand-new iPod Touch
waited in Brenna’s bedroom closet, wrapped and ready to go. “I’ll be right
there!”

Brenna started toward her bedroom, but when she
glanced at her watch, she froze. It was 5
P.M.

Brenna
had
given Trent
a four-thirty wake-up call—back in the cab, when she’d warned him to stay away
from Diandra. She hadn’t checked the time back then, but if it was five right
now, it had to be . . .

“Mom?” Maya called out.

“Just a second!”
If he’d
expected a wake-up call, he would’ve turned his ringer volume up and put the
phone right next to his bed.

But Trent hadn’t picked up. And even though Brenna
had told him to call back as soon as he got the message . . . She went
back to her e-mails. No additionals from Trent. Nothing from Tannenbaum’s
phone.

I haven’t heard from Trent
since before three
.

Brenna called Trent’s number, listened to the phone
ring five times before finally going to voice mail. “I’m getting worried,” she
said. “Call me.”

She called again. Voice mail. She hung up. Called
again. Same thing.

“You okay?” said Maya, now standing in the room.
But in her mind, Brenna was coming home from the MoonGlow again, Maya’s
sketchpad between the two of them in the backseat of the cab, Trent’s voice mail
in her ears for the first time that day . . .

“Did Trent do something
stupid?” Maya says
.

“I hope not.”

“You hope not what?” Maya said now.

Brenna grabbed her bag, the dread growing, pulsing
through her. “We’re gonna have to postpone Chanukah for a little while,” she
said. “Stay here. Keep the doors locked. I’ll call you when I can.” On her way
out, Brenna stopped at her desk. With her back to her daughter, she quickly
pocketed her pearl-handled letter opener—the only thing she owned of her
father’s. It was sharp enough to kill, if used the right way.

O
n the
street hailing a cab, Brenna glanced over her shoulder to see Maya standing in
the window, watching her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

But she had no time to explain right now—not if she
was right about what had happened to Trent. And though she hoped she was wrong,
hoped it with her whole body, recent memories kept insisting otherwise
. . .
Trent is staring at the door that Jenny
just closed behind her, He looks as though he’s about to propose to it. “I
like her.” His voice is like a child’s—so much need in it.

She recalled Trent’s excuse for taking Diandra
back, despite so many misgivings.
Come on, Brenna. I’m a
guy, he had said.

Errol Ludlow was a guy,
too
.

Brenna saw a cab with its lights on and ran into
the street to flag it down, narrowly missing a town car. “Ninth Street and
Second,” she said as she threw open the door and slid into the backseat.

The cab driver said, “I’m off duty.”

“It’s an emergency.”

“I don’t care.”

“Why wouldn’t you care about an emergency?”

“You didn’t see the light? I. Am. Off. Duty.”

Brenna gritted her teeth.
I’ll
show you off duty.
She shoved her hand into her bag, felt the cool
handle of the letter opener, and pictured herself pulling it out, holding it
to
his throat, scaring that smug tone out of him for a good long while
. . .
Deep breath
.

She grabbed two twenties instead, held them up in
the rearview so he could see. Forty dollars for a five-minute ride. Nowhere near
as satisfying as the letter opener would have been, but definitely less
complicated. The driver took off like a 757, got her to Trent’s walk-up in less
than two minutes. She handed him the bills and pushed out of the cab without
saying another word.

Trent’s front door was propped open.

Brenna grabbed the letter opener and flew up the
stairs. She didn’t think about why the door was open, didn’t think about
anything, save for getting to the third floor and Trent’s apartment, fast as
she
could, feet slamming on the stairs, barely breathing until she saw the closed
apartment door in front of her.
Trent’s door
. She
knocked.

No answer. No answer still when she pounded on the
door with the side of her fist. For the hell of it, she tried the knob. The door
drifted open.
Unlocked . . .
For a few
moments, she couldn’t breathe.