Authors: Alison Gaylin
“Yes.”
Brenna couldn’t fight a gun, but she could fight a man. After the beating from the cheating husband eleven years ago, she’d learned how to fight, learned good. Made Errol pay for the classes. It was the least he could do. She could fight a man, even if he was a hired killer, standing behind her, holding a gun to her throat. She just needed to know exactly where his eyes were . . .
“I’ve seen the photographs. I know everything.” Brenna shifted the shard of glass from the palm of her hand, clutched it tight between her thumb and her index finger. “You know I do,” she said. “So why would you ask for the drawing?”
She could feel his breath at her temple. “Because I
want
the—” he hissed, and that was enough.
Don’t let him finish the sentence
. Brenna’s arm shot up and back, back to where she’d felt his breath, the hand aimed just a few inches above. She felt his eyelash at her wrist, perfect. She dug the sharp end of the glass in, dragged it . . .
Not the eye, but close enough
. A sound came out of him and his grip went lax, the gun clattering out of his hand. It went off when it hit the sidewalk, and for a moment, the sound deafened them both.
Meade backed away, clutched his eye. “Goddamn it!” he yelled, the other eye scanning the sidewalk, as if he could spot the bullet and retrieve it.
Brenna kicked the gun away, her ears still ringing. Meade charged at her. She saw him coming in slow motion and balled her hand into a fist and punched him hard in the groin. He wheezed, falling forward. She started to look for the gun, but then he slugged her in the side of the face. It was like a door slamming into her, little flecks of light in front of her eyes. She started recalling the cheating husband eleven years ago, his fist in her face—the shock she’d felt, more shock than pain, because she’d never felt such focused hate. She tasted the salt of her own blood, just as she had back then, and started to recall more—the sewer smell of the alleyway, the calloused hands, grabbing for the camera . . .
Stop remembering. Stay here
. “Four score and seven years ago,” Brenna whispered, “our fathers brought forth on this continent . . .”
Meade frowned.
Brenna raked the shard of glass down the length of Meade’s cheek.
He yelled. Blood spurted down the side of his face, but Brenna kept at it, kept scratching and cutting—again across his brow, his chin, his thick neck, bleeding him for Nelson, for Carol, for Klavel, for . . . “Where is Iris?” she heard herself scream as she swiped at him. “Where is she?” He grabbed her by the wrists, and shoved her away. She fell backward onto the concrete. She put both hands behind her, bracing herself, and felt steel against her fingertip. The gun.
Meade dived for it, but Brenna got to it first. She aimed it at him and he froze. She pushed herself up, pressed it to his chest. She reached into the pocket of his cheap brown jacket, felt her key chain and yanked it out, something else falling to the pavement. Her cell phone. She kicked it aside, keeping the gun on him as he glared, his face covered in angry slashes, blood dripping down his neck, pooling against his collar, silent now but for the growl of his breathing.
There was a picture on her key chain. A miniature of a drawing Maya had done in first grade. A big round head with a stick body, long curly hair, and a smile. It had been during her princess-loving phase and so Maya had graced the head with a crown. On the crown she’d written “Mommy.”
Brenna jabbed the gun into the hollow of his neck. “You’re still working for Roger Wright, aren’t you?” she said, her face throbbing, words slurred from blood.
He said nothing.
“How many people have you killed to cover up his affair?”
Meade glanced down at the gun, then back at Brenna. His breathing had slowed now. She could smell the blood on him, the sweat—yet Meade’s face was strangely calm, the hate drained out of it along with the pain of his wounds. Meade was a statue, now. Cold, unblinking.
He will never leave
. “You have a gun,” he said. “Why don’t you use it?”
Brenna felt a punch in her gut, then a barreling rush of pain. Meade backed away and her grip on the gun loosened, her head felt light. She saw it in his hand—a blade, covered in blood. Her vision blurred. She held up the gun with faltering hands, pulled the trigger. The gun exploded, threw her back onto the pavement, the keys dropping. Her ears ringing with the sound but still she could hear the clattering of the keys.
Strange
.
Was Meade dead? Had she shot him?
She felt pavement against her back, salt and copper filling her mouth. Her thoughts swam, her memories . . .
“She’s crowning,” says Dr. Abrams. Brenna is wet with sweat. Her hair sticks to her forehead and her body is slick against the sheets and the pain—the wracking pain like a forest fire inside her and then . . . the baby’s shrieking cry, and the hot tears on her face and Jim’s hands grasping her shoulders, his lips on her cheek. Jim’s voice in her ear.
“
Do you hear her, honey? Oh God, oh my God she’s beautiful . . .”
Remembered pain flipped back into real pain. Breathing was hard now, Brenna’s breath frail like a baby breathing, her body needing more air than she was able to give it. Brenna put her hand to her pain and felt her shirt—wet, sticking to her. She brought the hand up to her face and saw it black with her own blood.
I’m dying.
The cell phone. She reached for it, touched it . . .
Call 911
. She pressed the numbers, and she heard a tinny voice . . . “Help you?” But she couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak. Her breath was so shallow now. Goldfish breathing. As if her throat was a single gill and she was floating atop murky water, floating on her back and then turning on her side. And then over again, to the blackness.
“S
he’s moving now. I think she’s waking up,” a voice said.
Brenna opened her eyes to holes. Hundreds and hundreds of black pinholes in white squares—soundproofing tiles. Long fluorescent lights. She was lying in a hospital bed. Her eyes went to the IV in her arm; she raised her other arm and touched the side of her face and felt a thick bandage.
“She’s awake,” said the voice again. Iris’s voice from the phone, and Brenna struggled up in bed and saw Morasco, sitting against the wall, next to a young girl Brenna had never seen in her life.
Brenna’s mouth was very dry. She started to cough. Morasco took a paper cup from her bed stand, plucked something out, and slipped it between her lips. An ice chip. She sucked on it and chewed it up and caught her breath. “How did you find out about me?” she croaked.
“Police radio. Don’t try to talk any more, though. Okay? It’s 9
P.M.
You’re at Columbia-Presbyterian,” he said. “You needed a few stitches for the knife wound, a transfusion, but you’re in surprisingly good shape, considering . . . Brenna, what happened?”
“Meade,” she said.
“Oh my God.”
“He . . . He wasn’t . . . I didn’t get him?”
“No. Meade wasn’t there.”
Brenna closed her eyes. “I shot at him. With his .45.”
“I’d say I told you not to get involved, but that might make you talk again,” Morasco said. “I don’t want you to talk, Brenna.”
Brenna’s gaze moved to the girl, still sitting against the wall. She wore square-framed glasses. She had a shy, heart-shaped face and silky brown hair, parted in the middle.
“I’m Maggie,” she said in Iris’s voice.
Brenna looked at Morasco.
“That’s Maggie Schuler. She was a friend of Iris’s when she was very young. She used to live in the house right next door to the Neffs’. The split-level.”
“The
Brady Bunch
house.”
“Sssh. Yes.”
“She was in the police file,” Morasco said. “She was M.”
Brenna’s eyes widened. She sat up in bed, and the stab wound seared. She put a hand to it, touched bandages.
The girl looked down at her hands. “I’m so sorry,” she said, and Brenna flashed back to standing in Nelson Wentz’s kitchen. “Another ice chip,” she said.
Morasco gave her one and said, “Start with the chat room.”
The girl cleared her throat. “Back in August, I heard my brother, Eric, talking to his friend Jonathan Klein.”
Brenna sucked at the ice, Nelson’s voice running through her head, talking to Trent, just after the press conference . . .
Some antivirus programs to allegedly erase the spyware. None of them very good . . . Oh, and he said he threw in a few extras—word processing and the like . . .
“Jonathan had been doing some computer work for Mr. Wentz,” Maggie said. “One day, Mr. Wentz was out at work or something, and he told Jonathan that if nobody was home, to use the spare key. He did, but when he went up to the computer room, he caught Mrs. Wentz on a chat room called Families of the Missing.” She tugged at her lip. “She freaked out—told him not to tell anyone.”
“I know that chat room,” Brenna whispered.
Morasco looked at the girl. “Maggie started lurking on it.”
“I did,” she said. “I don’t know why.”
Morasco said, “You don’t remember being interviewed by me.”
“No. Not really. But I do remember Iris. I was so little and she seemed so big. I don’t have any sisters. Just my brother, and I guess, when I was a kid I just . . . I looked up to her.”
Brenna nodded.
“Anyway, Mrs. Wentz was on that chat room a lot, pretending she was Iris’s mom. It was so obvious it was her—she’s the only one from Tarry Ridge and she was always talking about Iris and how she would never give up on her. I . . . I don’t know why, but it made me kind of mad.”
“Because it made you miss Iris,” Morasco said.
“Yeah. Maybe. I also felt bad for Iris’s real mom. I mean, what if she went into that chat room and saw some lady imitating her?” She looked at Brenna. “Anyway . . . I was over at my friend Emily’s last Sunday and I told her.”
“Emily Garvey.”
“Yes. And Emily dared me to call Mrs. Wentz. Pretend I was Iris.”
Brenna stared at her.
Maggie’s eyes glistened. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes with one hand. When she spoke, her voice shook. “I called three times,” she said. “You know how it is when you start telling a lie and then you start to believe it? After a while, you’re writing this whole movie in your head, and you’re kind of . . . you’re not inside yourself anymore. You’re like an actor, playing a part. I was Iris. I told her to stop pretending she was my mom. I told her to leave me alone.”
“Maggie,” said Morasco. “What did Carol say to you?”
Maggie swallowed hard. “She said, ‘Please let me help you, Iris. And then she said she was sorry.” She took a deep breath, released it. “She kept telling me she was sorry, over and over again.”
Brenna stared at her, all of it hitting home. Carol hadn’t spoken to Iris. She hadn’t found a missing girl. Carol had received a prank call, and overreacted. God only knew why she was sorry—but did that matter now?
Morasco said, “Carol’s first call on Monday morning was to Hutchins. She probably told him about the phone call and said she believed Iris was alive. Maybe she thought he could help her find Iris.”
“Or Lydia,” Brenna said.
He looked at her. “Yes,” he said. “Hutchins wouldn’t help her, so she called Klavel, who tracked down Tim O’Malley. Tim spoke to her a few times, and during one of those conversations he told her something that made her break into Lydia Neff’s old house and take . . . the items that had been hidden in the frame.”
Maggie sank lower in her seat. “I’ve been going back to my old neighborhood,” she said. “I’ve been riding my bike on the path behind the houses. I’ve been looking at my old house, trying so hard to remember it, to remember Iris . . . Remember more than I do, but I can’t. Not really.”
“Maggie’s family moved the year after Iris disappeared. Her parents were able to make an offer on one of the Waterside Condos.” He gave Brenna a pointed look. “Got it for a steal.”
Brenna shook her head. “Amazing.”
Maggie said, “There’s one thing I do remember. Nobody thinks I remember it, but I do.”
Brenna looked at her.
“I was with Iris on the day she disappeared.”
Morasco said, “You never told me that.”
“I never told anybody.” Her lip trembled. Her eyes welled and sparkled. A single tear slipped down her cheek, and Brenna wanted to wipe it away, Maggie was still that young. “I had been with my parents at one of the Koppelsons’ neighbors—don’t remember the name. But I was in the yard and I saw Iris on the sidewalk and I followed her.” She took a breath and stared up at the ceiling, losing herself. “I remember Iris telling me Santa was in town and we could visit him and get our presents early. I remember walking with her, and then I remember being scared because the sun was setting and we didn’t know where we were. We were lost. I saw Mrs. Wentz, coming out of her house. I remember seeing her in her yard and . . . and just running at her.” Maggie shut her eyes. “Mrs. Wentz picked me up and took me inside and called my mother. Iris stayed on the sidewalk. Mrs. Wentz never saw her. I never told her she was there.”
“You think you left Iris,” Morasco said.
“I know I did. I mean . . . I
remember
it. I remember going into Mrs. Wentz’s house and looking behind me and seeing Iris, running away.”
Brenna kept her gaze on this young girl, with her baby-fine hair and her chubby cheeks, the same age as Maya, just three years older than Brenna herself had been when her sister had gotten into the blue car.
“I’ll always remember it.”
Brenna’s chest tightened. Her knife wound burned.
“Her parents are in the waiting room,” said Morasco. “You ready to go, Maggie?”
“Yes,” she said quietly, and Brenna couldn’t help but think of the years and years Maggie Schuler would spend looking back rather than forward, of all the things Maggie might give up—her education, her happiness, even the people she loved most—all to try and take back one mistake, to fix one unfixable thing. “It isn’t your fault, Maggie,” Brenna whispered, as much to herself as to the stranger who stood in front of her. “It isn’t your fault. You were only a little girl.”