Into the Dark (26 page)

“She agreed to the project.”

“Yes.”

“And it’s been two and a half months, and you’ve
heard nothing from him.”

“No.”

“And no one in your . . . your little
community has heard a thing about Lula Belle.”

“MIA. Both of them,” he said.

“Maybe they hit a roadblock,” Brenna said. “And so
he’s hiding from his investor.”

“Pokrovsky? Maybe,” he said. “Or,” he said, very
slowly, “maybe he never had the chance to get that lens cap off.”

“What do you think happened?”

Charlie shrugged at her, a sad look in his eyes.
“Pokrovsky’s sweet on RJ’s mom. And RJ knows it. He’s never been afraid of Yuri
Pokrovsky.”

He didn’t say anything more. He didn’t need to.
“You think he had to run from someone other than Pokrovsky.”

“I can’t figure out any other explaination.”

“Charlie,” Brenna said. “Did RJ ever mention the
name Gary Freeman?”

“He’s not in pornos, is he?”

“Hardly,” Brenna said “He’s a kids’ talent agent
from L.A.”

Charlie shook his head. “Never heard him mention
anybody by that name. Actually I can only remember him only talking about one
guy from L.A.”

Brenna looked at him. “Who?”

“Some character by the name of Shane Smith.”

Brenna swallowed hard. “He talked to you about
Shane.”

“Yeah, but none of it made much sense,” Charlie
said. “RJ hated that guy so much, I think he got a little delusional.”

“What do you mean?”

Charlie sighed. “Shane Smith, despite having the
very marketable name of Shane Smith, is not in the porn business.”

“And . . . RJ thought he was?

“Well, yes and no. You have to keep in mind, RJ
always maintained that Lula Belle isn’t in the porn business. But I consider
her
a card-carrying member. No pun intended, but you understand—”

“Wait,” Brenna said. “You’re saying that RJ thought
Shane was in business with . . .”

“Lula Belle. Yes.”

Brenna stared at him, the color draining out of her
face.

He chuckled a little. “Lula Belle and his buddy
Shane,” he said. “RJ was convinced they were business partners and lovers. ‘I’m
breaking them up,’ he told me. ‘She’s gonna leave Shane to help me.’ ”

T
hat
cliché about great sex making you look different? Morasco had never believed
it
before today. After all, he’d had some pretty damn good sex in his life, and
no
one had ever remarked on his appearance afterward. But when he showed up at the
Tarry Ridge station and asked Sally for his messages, she’d glanced up at him,
then looked again in such a way, he half expected a spit-take. “You look
different, Detective.” She hadn’t said anything more than that, of course, but
the smile had spoken volumes.

“I shaved,” he had offered. But that just made the
smile widen, as if “shaved” was some kind of euphemism. Morasco had headed for
his desk, fast, only to have Baus—who sat next to him and in truth was not the
most perceptive of his fellow detectives—grin at him in the exact same way Sally
had. “Brenna finally paid out, huh?”

“Hey, there’s this new trend I just read about.
It’s called getting a life,” Morasco said. “You should try it sometime.”

“Knew I was right.”

“Minding your own business? That’s a fun one,
too.”

“Morasco finally got some!” Baus shouted, drawing
applause from neighboring desks.

“Your mom was worth the wait,” Morasco said.

Baus hooted. “So I’ve been told.”

Morasco sighed. Mother jokes were no fun if the
other person didn’t get offended. He turned away from Baus, booted up his
computer. As he did, though, he glanced down at the lower drawer in his desk.
He
knew what was in there—the papers Detective Grady Carlson had given him. Yep,
that did the trick. Idiot grin officially gone, along with the good mood
. . .
Not talking is great, Brenna. But we can’t
do that forever, can we? I have papers that were given to me by the lead
investigator on your sister’s disappearance. Am I never supposed to tell you
that?

He put the thought out of his head. Checked his
e-mail for today’s itinerary from the chief. It was a light one, as usual.
Biggest crime: a break-in at Wax Attax. A bunch of candles stolen. Tarry Ridge
was back to its affluent calm following the Neff case fallout, and since Chief
Driscol wasn’t a gale-force windbag like his predecessor Hutchins, there was
no
need to provide him with bogus material for his daily press conference.

Morasco much preferred it this way, of course. But
he’d have been lying if he said he didn’t miss the excitement of working in the
city. For a few seconds, he allowed himself the fantasy of selling the house
he’d lived in for the past fifteen years—the little cottage on Chestnut that
he’d shared with Holly, and then Matthew and Holly, and then just Holly, and
then Matthew’s ghost.

In his fantasy he was the type of person who could
let go of things easily, who could leave this job and Tarry Ridge and move into
the city again to work homicide, who could live in a ghost-free place and sleep
with Brenna every night without ever mentioning—or even thinking about—the
papers in his desk.

Why can’t I be like that?
Morasco thought about things too much. That was his problem.

Behind him, someone cleared his throat in an overly
dramatic way. Morasco exhaled.
Come on, dude. Just say,
“Excuse me.”

But when he turned around and saw him, of course it
made more sense. Carrot-Top. The one person in this station who found him
genuinely intimidating. It took Morasco several agonizing seconds to come up
with the kid’s real name. “Hey . . . Danny Cavanaugh! How’s it
going?”

Again with the salute.

Morasco sighed. “You really don’t have to
. . . never mind. What’s up?”

“Well, sir, I’ve been looking into this missing
filmmaker . . .”

“Missing wannabe filmmaker,” Morasco corrected.
“He’s never made an actual film.”

“Right . . . Well . . . this is
kinda weird. But I’ve been running into brick walls with everything else,
so . . . uh . . .”

“Spit it out, big guy.”

He cleared his throat again. “Okay, so last night I
was talking to my grandpa . . . um . . . Detective Cavanaugh
from Mount Temple.”

“Yes?”

“I was telling him about this guy, and he said
. . . Oh boy, now I think this is probably going to sound stupid.”

“Some of the best leads would get buried if we
edited out all the stupid,” said Morasco, who had once heard Brenna say
something very similar. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure he believed that. Most of
the
time, stupid was just, well, stupid. But why say that to this nervous kid, who
also happened to be a sweaty one? Already, the beads were forming over his
eyebrows. “Go on, Danny,” he said. “I want to hear.”

“My grandpa said they arrested this guy about a
month ago on Columbus. Some crazy homeless guy, who was waving a gun
around.”

“Okay . . .”

“I guess some teenagers were bugging him and he
went all Dirty Harry on them, and when the officers showed up and asked him
where he’d gotten the gun, he said . . . Boy this is dumb.”

“Danny, I’m not going to say it again.”

“Sorry. The homeless guy told the Mount Temple
officers that he’d gotten the gun from Steven Spielberg.”

Morasco stared at him. “Are you serious?”

“I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.

“No, Danny. What you said . . . That’s a
seriously great lead.” He looked into the kid’s eyes long enough so Danny could
see he wasn’t being sarcastic.

Danny beamed. “Thanks!” he said. “Really?”

“Where is he now?”

“Jail. He’s still awaiting trial on the illegal
firearm charge.”

“Beautiful.” He gave Danny a high five. Then he
picked up the phone and called Brenna.

G
ary
still hadn’t called Brenna back, and now her head was swimming with
questions—the first of which was,
Why the hell hasn’t Gary
called back?

To be honest, she feared the answer. Every other
case she’d ever taken, Brenna had first run a thorough check on her client—not
just to make sure that the client could pay, but to truly know who she was
dealing with. There were few jobs that required trust as much as locating the
missing. If someone had disappeared for good reason, the last thing you wanted
to do was drag them back to whatever hell they’d escaped. And so you had to
trust in the searchers—you had to believe that their motives were basically
good.

You had to know them.

But Brenna didn’t know Gary Freeman. She’d never
breathed the same air as him and had done no background check on him outside
of
the world’s simplest Google search. He was a successful agent with an attractive
family and a kind face to her, but only because that’s the way he presented
himself online. In reality, Brenna had no idea who or what he was.

Worst of all, Gary had come to Brenna via Errol
Ludlow, who, rest in peace, had been less trustworthy than most of the cheating
husbands he went after—and for whom a background check had usually meant getting
a girl’s measurements.

But she’d taken him on—this blank slate called Gary
Freeman who had definitely lied about how well he knew RJ Tannenbaum, this
unknown entity who’d come to her on the recommendation of the biggest snake
she’d ever known and could have lied to her about anything, about everything
he’d told her.

She’d liked him based on—what, the sound of his
voice? And so she’d let him swear her to secrecy, keeping quiet about him even
as so many other blank slates crept into her life—Diandra, RJ, Shane Smith
. . . And all this because of some
shadow
,
some
weird-ass fetish
who happened to know stories
about Brenna’s family.

What’s wrong with
me?

Was Brenna’s obsession with her sister that strong,
that unhealthy? Would she risk her life—and those of her loved ones—just for
the
possibility that Clea might be out there on the internet with a fake Southern
accent, naked and doing yoga and relentlessly fucking with Brenna’s mind?

“You okay?” Trent said.

She was in his hospital room with him, arranging a
bouquet of flowers she’d bought at the gift shop—a paltry little thing next to
the two dozen sterling roses that Annette Shelby had sent over. And still she
couldn’t bring herself to break Gary’s confidence. “I’m okay,” she told Trent.
“Why?”

“Well see, for one thing, you’d never know you just
got back from the happiest place on earth.”

“Happy Endings.”

“See? It’s even got happy in the title, but judging
from the way you look, I’d guess you’d been to . . . hmmmm
. . . maybe a puppy funeral where they only play Tori Amos.”

“I like Tori Amos,” Brenna said.

Trent sighed. “Why so sad? I’m the tragic OD here,
after all.”

“I’m not sad,” Brenna said. “I’m just
. . . frustrated.”

“Talk to me.”

“It’s this case. Lula Belle,” she said. “I feel
like every time we shed a little light on any part of it, the rest of it goes
further into the dark.”

Trent gave her a smile. He looked a lot healthier
today, the color back in his face, the cuts from the car accident barely
noticeable.
The resilience of the young
. “What do
you want?” he said. “We’re looking for a shadow.”

“I know,” Brenna said. “I guess my question is
why
.”

“Well, I’ve been working on it and—”

“Not you, Trent,” she said. “I’m asking myself. Why
did I get us involved in this thing?”

“Actually . . . it was kinda me that got
us involved in this thing.”

She looked at him.

“Come on. I’m the one who met with Errol. I’m the
one who got all into Lula Belle, and I’m the one who repeatedly jumped the bones
of . . . uh . . . she whose name we dare not speak
. . .”

“True, but you’re young and naïve. I’m supposed to
protect you.”

He sighed heavily. “Falling down on the job,” he
said. “Oh . . . Speaking of job.”

“Yeah?”

“I made a nice, clear rendering from Shane Smith’s
class picture.”

“You did?”

He nodded. “Looks like a real person now instead of
a blur with hair. Maybe we can do something with this.” He gestured at the
laptop on his nightstand. Brenna handed it to him fast, and Trent flipped it
open, tapping at the keyboard. “Here it is,” he said, finally. He turned the
laptop toward Brenna.

Her mouth went dry.

“I’ve made a few other versions, too,” Trent said.
“I’ve got a bald one, a beard, bleached blond . . .”

Brenna could barely get the words out. “Show me the
beard.”

Even before Trent called it up and showed it to
Brenna, and she felt the chill wind aboard the
Maid of the
Mist
October 23,
the sting of the hail and wet
bench beneath her as the couple passes, the girl looking right at her,
mascara streaming down her face . . .

She wants to die . . .

“Uh . . . Brenna?”

She shifted her focus from the screen to Trent’s
face. “It’s him.”

“Who?”

“Dia— she whose name we dare not speak’s boyfriend.
From the
Maid of the Mist
.”

“No way.”

She swallowed hard, traveling in her mind back to
Charlie Frankel’s office . . .

Lula Belle and his buddy
Shane. RJ was convinced they were business partners and lovers.

Brenna’s phone vibrated. “Yeah,” she answered,
though she was barely able to move her lips.
Lula Belle,
are you Diandra?

“Where have you been?” Morasco said. “I’ve been
trying to get you all morning.”

“Working,” she said. “I never heard the phone—”

“Okay, look. It’s not important. I think I’ve got
you a lead.”

“To Shane Smith?”