Into the Dark

by Alison Gaylin

  Brenna stifled a smile. “Grow up, please.”

  “I’m not the one with the dirty mind.”

  “God, it’s like I’m talking to Trent.”

  “I’m just trying to work through your issues.”

  “Is that a euphemism?”

  “You need another beer.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Among other things.”

  She clicked off the computer and let him get her one, glad for the company and the dumb jokes and the blank screen. And even though she knew that it hadn’t been camera movement that Morasco had been thinking about when he gazed at Lula Belle with such sorrow, such ache, she was glad, too, to be able to act as though she didn’t.

  After Morasco left, Brenna pressed her face against the door, listening to his footfalls until she could no longer hear them. “The camera moved,” she whispered. Then she let herself remember that night in O’Donnell’s parking lot, start to finish.

  “I’m sorry, Nick,” she whispered, once she pulled herself out of it. “I’m so sorry.”

  It wasn’t until later, when Brenna was getting ready for bed, that she was struck by yet another memory from her early childhood—soft-focused and murky and close to forgotten: her dad’s large hand, cupped around a tiny baby bird, placing him in a shoe box filled with soft cotton. And his voice, warm and gentle. Put your finger on his chest, pumpkin. You can feel his heartbeat.

  Chapter 6

  “Okay, wait, wait, back up a second,” Kate O’Hanlon said around a mouthful of whitefish salad. “What was I wearing?”

  Brenna put down her coffee cup. “I already told you what you were wearing.”

  “Tell me again.”

  She sighed. Always the quid pro quo . . . “Red leotard, black bolero jacket with Michael Jackson–inspired epaulets, denim cheerleader skirt.”

  “Was the skirt flouncy?”

  “Very flouncy.”

  “What about the shoes?”

  “I didn’t notice your shoes, Kate.”

  “How could you not notice my shoes?” Kate took another bite of her bagel, Brenna thinking, When was the last time you could even see your shoes?

  Not very nice, but come on. Kate had gained a significant amount of weight since their last breakfast and information exchange (November 12, 2008. Elephant and Castle. Cinnamon pancakes, bacon, sausage, whole wheat toast and butter)—and she’d easily been three hundred pounds back then.

  Not that Brenna cared. It was Kate’s body, and she could do what she wanted with it—though Brenna did hope, if this was the way the woman always ate, that Kate was at least on Lipitor. The misleadingly named “fish plate” she was demolishing right now, for instance. The cream cheese portion alone should have come with a complimentary stent.

  Thinking about how Kate’s arteries must feel made Brenna tired. And that wasn’t the only exhausting thing about these breakfasts, invaluable as they were to both Brenna—who’d needed information from the New York Postal Inspector’s office on several occasions—and Kate O’Hanlon (née Katie Johnson, reigning queen bitch of City Island Elementary School) for far more personal reasons.

  When Brenna had arrived here at Artie’s Deli in Battery Park, at 7:30 A.M., Kate had looked up at her from a massive mug of whipped cream–drowned hot chocolate, smiling as if she’d been adrift at sea for months and Brenna was a Carnival Cruise ship. “Tell me what Kurt McKenna said about me at the Eighth Grade Spring Fling,” she’d said. Not so much as a Hello, how has the last year been treating you? Or even a Why do you want information about this City Island PO box? Nothing. Which Brenna was fine with. The less information she had to give the likes of Kate, the better off they both were.

  “Sorry I didn’t notice the shoes,” Brenna said now. “But believe me, Kurt McKenna wasn’t looking at them, either.”

  “Whoa, whoa . . . slow down,” Kate said. “Now where was Kurt standing exactly? And what was I doing? What song was playing?”

  “ ‘Maneater’ by Hall & Oates.”

  “I loved that song!”

  “Figures.”

  “Very funny.” Kate said. “Go on.”

  “You were dancing with Steve Barkley.”

  “Who?”

  “Steve Barkley. Pierced ear. Spiky hair. Used to beat up Marcus Bladenschweiler every day after school?”

  Kate gave her a blank look.

  Brenna sighed. “Red Converse high-tops.”

  “Oh, right! So where was Kurt?”

  “Right behind me—at the punchbowl. He was talking to Dave Brinkman while their girlfriends were in the bathroom.”

  Kate’s eyes glinted. “While the cat’s away . . .”

  “You said it.” Brenna stifled a yawn. “So Steve spun you around and I guess your skirt flew up a little and—”

  “Could you see anything?”

  “I wasn’t really paying full attention to your skirt, Kate.”

  “Okay, okay. So then what happened?”

  “Dave says, ‘Did you see that? Katie Johnson is so fine.’ And then Kurt turns to him and goes, ‘I’d torture my grandma’s poodle, just for five minutes alone with that ass.”

  Kate smiled, her face warming and coloring—the remembered pleasure of being wanted that badly. “Kurt was going with Sally Kinkaid back then, wasn’t he?”

  Brenna shook her head. “Mimi Richardson. She was in the bathroom when he said it, and when she came back, he kind of smirked at Dave, like, Don’t say a word.”

  “He really smirked?”

  “Yep.”

  “And Mimi didn’t notice.”

  “It was his and Dave’s little secret.”

  She closed her eyes, savoring the moment. “Thank you.”

  Brenna took a sip of her coffee, waited a few seconds before she asked. “So do you have the PO box info for me?”

  “Yep.” She took a piece of paper out of her purse, slid it across the table. “Of course I don’t need to remind you that you have no idea where you got this name and address.”

  Brenna nodded, staring at Kate’s neat handwriting on the paper—the name: Robin Tannenbaum, followed by an address not in City Island, but in Forest Hills, Queens.

  Hello, Lula Belle. . .

  Had it really been this easy? All that mystery, all that questioning and obsessing by all those men who knew her only as a shadow, and this was where it led? To a name as prosaic as Robin Tannenbaum? To a suburban New York neighborhood, just forty minutes away from where Brenna was sitting right now? She almost felt bad about taking Gary Freeman’s money, considering the small amount of work she’d had to do. Of course, the question still nagged at her . . .

  If Lula Belle or Robin or whatever her name was lived in Queens, why did she take a PO box twenty miles away—in the small, water-locked town where Brenna had grown up?

  And the name. Robin. Like a broken little bird. . .

  Kate said, “I wish I was you sometimes.”

  Brenna looked at her.

  “I mean . . . The other day, I was looking through some old photo albums. I saw this one—I must have been around fifteen. I was in a string bikini at the town pool and I was sitting with this boy. He had this gorgeous strawberry blond hair and he was looking at me like I was the center of the world . . . But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember his name.”

  “There are good memories and bad memories, Kate,” Brenna said. “I don’t get to choose.”

  Kate struggled up to her feet, exhaling hard. “Maybe I just wish I was young again.”

  Brenna heard whispering. It was a couple at the next table, both of them in oversized sweaters and skinny jeans, the Calvin Klein model of a girl staring up at Kate as though she was something that the waitstaff needed to sweep up, as soon as possible.

  Back in the eighth grade, Brenna had seen Katie give that same look to so many lesser creatures in their class. But though some might call it karma, Brenna hated people who believed life worked that way—everyone getting what they deserve.

  Brenna glared at t
he girl until she turned away. Then she handed Kate her coat. “Bret Masterson,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “The strawberry blond. That was his name. He was the lifeguard at the community pool and he was nuts about you.”

  Kate’s face lit up. “Right!” she said. “Thank you.”

  Brenna followed Kate out the door, thinking about Robin Tannenbaum and what the next step would be, but at the same time, remembering August 23, 1983, at the neighborhood pool, the smell of chlorine and warm concrete and coconut oil, opening the gate, her eyes searching for her friends Carly and Becky . . . and at the corner of her vision, the diving board where Katie Johnson sits, curled into Bret Masterson, her head resting on his strong shoulder as if it belongs there always. To be her, Brenna thinks. To be Katie Johnson. Just for one day.

  “Do I look okay?” Trent asked Brenna as they cruised up Robin Tannenbaum’s tree-lined street in Forest Hills in search of a parking space.

  The question—like so many of the strings of words that flew out of Trent’s mouth on a daily basis—annoyed Brenna for a number of reasons. For one thing, this was the third time they’d driven past Robin’s apartment building, and if he’d been paying half as much attention to available parking spaces as he was to his own reflection in the rearview, they might have been at her door at this very moment. For another, the way Trent looked never fit Brenna’s definition of okay—and he knew that. Right now, for instance, he was wearing ripped jeans and some kind of sleeveless cowboy shirt that was so tight, it looked as though he’d stolen it off the lead in a fourth grade production of Oklahoma!

  “You look professional, yet elegant,” Brenna said. “Very James Bond.”

  His eyes brightened. “Really?”

  “No. Park the car.”

  “Come on. I’m serious.”

  Brenna looked at him. “You do realize that this is a business call,” she said. “Not a blind date.”

  “I’m asking you how I look for business reasons.”

  “Trent, if you don’t stop obsessing over your looks, put your eyes back on the curb, and find a parking space in ten seconds, I’m jumping out of the car.”

  He turned to her, his expression serious. “Listen. I know why you took me along today.”

  “My car’s in the shop. I needed a ride.”

  He shook his head. “You took me along for protection. But also . . . more importantly . . .”

  “What?”

  “Eye candy.”

  “Oh for godsakes. Park the freakin’ car.”

  “It’s okay. I understand, you need me for this. Given the right . . . uh . . . stimulating factor . . . Lula Belle will not hide from us. She will answer our questions, and come along with us willingly. Or come along with me at least. If you know what I’m sayin’. Get it?”

  Brenna took a deep breath, Gary Freeman style. She’d been trying to ease up on the sarcasm with Trent today. It was nice of him to give her a ride here, on a Saturday when he wasn’t required to do anything for her. And clearly, he’d had a late night at the fish market. He was only twenty-seven and lack of sleep usually didn’t make a difference on his face, but when he’d shown up at Brenna’s place this morning, he looked . . . well, thrashed. Like someone had gone at him with a defibrillator for about five or six hours. “I forgot to ask you,” she said. “How’d you do last night?”

  He grinned.

  “At the fish market, Trent. Did you make any progress on Persephone?”

  Trent’s face fell a little. “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too,” he said, his eyes going serious. For a few moments, he looked miles away.

  “You okay, Trent?”

  He blinked a few times. “Awesome.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m not trying to be insulting.”

  “I know.” He smiled. “I’m just spent . . . you know . . . in a good way.”

  “Ah.”

  “See, I wound up drowning my troubles at this new club.”

  “Space.”

  “No. That closed I think. This place is called Bacon. And speaking of sizzling deliciousness, I hooked up with the most outstanding piece of—”

  “Space, Trent. Parking space.”

  “Huh?”

  “Right there. If you miss it, I will personally torture you to death.”

  “Okay, okay.” Trent pulled over and parallel parked his car—an unassuming 2003 Ford Taurus he’d inherited from his parents that fit in as well in this neighborhood as Trent himself did not. As they both slid out and into the cool air, Brenna said, “I’m glad you had fun last night.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call it fun,” Trent said. “I mean, that’s kinda like calling the Grand Canyon a hole in the ground.”

  “Okay,” Brenna said. “But it’s work time now. Can I trust you to stay with me? Pay attention? Be here?”

  He stopped walking and turned to her. “Brenna,” he said. “I’m always here.”

  Brenna stared at him—the cowboy shirt unbuttoned to highlight the lipstick tat, the over-muscular, waxed arms, the jeans, artfully ripped mid-thigh—but with a face so honest, it negated the whole effect. She felt a lump in her throat, a sticking guilt, and she was back in her bedroom yesterday, her cell phone pressed to her ear, Gary Freeman’s voice knifing through the plastic . . .

  “And you are to reveal my identity to no one.”

  “Not even my assistant?”

  “No one. As far as he’s concerned, you’re still working for Ludlow.”

  “It’s like thirty degrees out, you know,” Brenna said. “Do you even own a coat?”

  “I don’t need one. Know why?”

  “Because you’re so damn hot.”

  “You know me so well.”

  “Too well.”

  As they headed across the street to Robin Tannenbaum’s apartment, Brenna held back a little, walking at his side. “You can trust me, too, you know.”

  “Duh.” Trent gave her a sidelong glance, though, and she knew what he must have been thinking. After all, she’d said it as though she were trying to convince herself.

  Robin Tannenbaum’s apartment was like something out of a fairy tale—or a sci fi horror movie, Brenna wasn’t quite sure.

  It was a Tudor three-story walkup on a street that happened to be full of them. But it stood out from the others in that it was literally crawling with ivy. Brenna normally liked a little ivy on old buildings—she found it cozy and collegiate—but in this case it just seemed like a symptom of decay, the plant devouring the frail building, pulling it back into the earth. Someone had put a wreath on the front door, a big, clumsy thing, dripping Christmas bells. But it only added to the feeling—the Ivy Monster’s bejeweled sidekick.

  Of course, that was probably just Brenna’s paranoia talking. She was nervous—the same way she was nervous about anything or anyone she didn’t remember and hadn’t had a chance to research. Outside of Lula/Robin’s height and weight—which Trent had gleaned via his computer program—Brenna didn’t know anything at all about the woman she’d been looking for. What good did it do her that Lula/Robin was most likely five-eight, 125 pounds when she had no idea how she used those proportions in her day-to-day life—not to mention what had made her stop making her videos two months ago, whether she still lived here . . . or whether she was alive at all.

  Brenna normally tried to find out a little more about her subjects before confronting them directly. But this was a Saturday during Christmas break, and even if Kate had given her Robin’s social—which she hadn’t—she wouldn’t be able to do much with it, at least until the weekend was through.

  But if Brenna was going to be honest with herself, that wasn’t why she’d called Trent at home on a Saturday and asked (told?) him to drive her here. If it were someone, anyone else, she would have waited. But Brenna had the oddest feeling about Robin Tannenbaum—a craving to see her, to put flesh to the shadow as soon
as possible. It was a physical sensation—a pounding in her veins. Brenna couldn’t put it into words, though. Not yet. It would hurt too much if she were wrong.

  “What a sweet little bird, Daddy. Can we fix him?”

  To the right of the front door were three slotted mailboxes, each with a buzzer. She turned to the one marked 2 and when she saw the name on it—TANNENBAUM—her pulse clicked faster.

  “I’ll take care of him, Daddy. I’ll keep him in a shoe box and I’ll feed him every day. Brenna can help . . .”

  Brenna pushed the thought away, reached for the buzzer.

  “Question,” Trent said.

  “Yeah?”

  “If Lula Belle answers the door, what the hell are you going to tell her?”

  “The truth.”

  Trent sighed.

  She pressed on the buzzer. Waited.

  “Yes?” A woman’s voice.

  Brenna took a breath. “Ms. Tannenbaum?”

  “Yes?”

  “She doesn’t sound Southern,” said Trent.

  Brenna gave him a sharp look. “Sssh.”

  “Who is this, please?” said the voice, which . . . well, Trent was right. No Southern accent to speak of. Not all that sexy, either.

  Was it familiar, though, in any way? “My name is Brenna Spector,” she said. “I’m a private investigator.”

  No response.

  Brenna closed her eyes. “Ms. Tannenbaum? May I come in?”

  Nothing.

  Trent said, “I knew the truth was a dumb idea.”

  Brenna stepped away from the buzzer. “I thought . . . I thought she might want to see me.”

  Trent frowned at her. “Why?”

  “No reason.”

  But then the front door buzzer was going off and the voice was back, brighter. “I know you,” the voice said.

  “How would she know you?” Trent whispered, too loudly, as they stood outside the door to Robin Tannenbaum’s apartment.

  Brenna shrugged, the feeling growing, the wild hope, and for half a second, she allowed herself to think it. Lula Belle. Robin. Clea.

  Then the door opened.

  “Whoa,” Trent said.

  There stood a tiny, elderly woman in a pink terry cloth robe, carrot orange wig, and thick cat’s-eye glasses. She couldn’t have been more than four-foot-ten, and she was suffering from severe osteoporosis. Her humped back gave her a supplicant look, as if she were continuously bowing.