Into the Dark

by Alison Gaylin

  “I just wanted to apologize in person, but he wasn’t opening his door,” Annette said. She’d said it before, but Brenna let her say it again. Clearly, she was a nervous talker—someone soothed by the sound of her own voice. Why should Brenna take that away?

  Brenna said, “How did you know he was even home?”

  “I checked his Twitter feed.”

  She looked at Annette. That was new information. “You can tell where Trent is from his Twitter feed?”

  “He uses that Foursquare app, didn’t you know that? Tells you where he is at all times.”

  “Great.” What the hell is wrong with you, Trent?

  “Anyway, I’m thinking his not answering me is a little over the top, even if I did hurt him. I’m sure you heard the story . . .”

  Brenna nodded.

  “Anyway, I grab his super and we open the door. There he is, passed out . . .” She cleared her throat. “His pants were around his ankles.”

  Brenna winced.

  “He looked so pale and still,” Annette said. “Trent never looks either of those things. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.”

  “Did you hold a mirror to his nose?”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  Brenna closed her eyes. She wasn’t a doctor, but she knew a few things about the brain. She knew that it needed oxygen, and that if Trent had spent any significant amount of time not breathing, he could have experienced serious damage, or worse. No, please no.

  Annette sighed. “I just . . . I never knew Trent was into that type of thing.”

  Brenna looked at her. “What type of thing?”

  “You know. Prescription drugs,” she tucked a lock of glossy hair behind an ear, fiddled with the tennis bracelet Brenna had returned to her. “I mean, I’ve been to a lot of bars with him, and it seems like he can’t even stomach a drink that doesn’t have an umbrella in it.”

  Brenna said, “Trent wasn’t into drugs.”

  She turned to her. “Honey, I know you’ve been his boss for a long time, but bosses don’t know their employees as well as they think.”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “Not to be disrespectful, but you didn’t even know about his Foursquare account.”

  “You have to believe me. I know Trent very well. The Foursquare account makes sense in terms of his general personality, but a benzo overdose doesn’t. Trent was high on one thing, Annette. And that thing was called Trent.”

  “Brenna.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please don’t talk about him in the past tense.”

  Brenna swallowed hard, all of it rushing at her . . . First Errol, then Trent. Trent on his own kitchen floor, full of drugs, half dressed . . . Brenna didn’t need a diagram drawn for her. She didn’t need to have seen the lipstick stain on that wineglass or smelled that headachy perfume or seen that blonde hair flipping to know that it had been Diandra. Diandra had put those drugs into Trent, just as she’d done to Errol. Diandra, that bitch who had called herself Clea, who was worming her way into Brenna’s life, destroying it from the edges on in . . .

  Brenna recalled September 30, driving to Tarry Ridge with Trent on the line, his voice in her plastic earpiece, half drowned in club noise, . . .

  “This blonde . . . she’s kinda got a Jessica Alba thing going on.”

  “Jessica Alba isn’t blonde.”

  “I’m talking from the neck down. And she is massively checking me out . . . Hey baby, how about I buy you another one of those cosmos—with a chaser of Trent.”

  Brenna winces. “That couldn’t possibly have worked.”

  “What’s your name, gorgeous? Diandra. That is a name that’s made to be moaned in ecstasy. Know what I’m saying, sweet thang?”

  Brenna hears nothing but ambient noise, thudding bass. “Let me guess,” she says to Trent. “Diandra’s throwing up.”

  “Wrong, Miss Wiseass. She’s giving me her digits.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “What? No, baby, no I wasn’t calling you wiseass. I was . . . Yeah, I’m on the phone with my . . . but . . . No, I’m telling you, this is my boss. I swear, I . . . Wait. Oh now don’t be like that . . . Damn. Completely carpet-bombing my game.”

  Brenna bit her lip hard, and she was back to three months later, Trent fighting for his life in an emergency room because of her. Because of Diandra, who had ditched him like a bad accessory when he was just another loser hitting on her in a club, but who’d gone home with him so readily once she knew who he was, who’d laid in wait till she could get him alone and begged her way back in, who’d fed him pills and wine, this sweet dumb guy, and all for what . . . for RJ Tannenbaum’s computer?

  . . . Across the room, a teenage girl sat holding her baby, both of them staring at Brenna with velvet-black eyes. Just as Diandra had stared at her on the Maid of the Mist. She’d gazed directly into Brenna’s eyes, Brenna thinking nothing of it at the time—a shared moment, that’s all . . . How long had she been following Brenna? How long had she been reading up on her in Page 6 and tracking Trent via that ridiculous Foursquare app of his?

  Please be okay, Trent. Please live and be okay and come back to us with all your brain cells, Trent you idiot. Please . . .

  “Are you praying?” Annette said.

  And only at that moment did Brenna realize she’d been mouthing those words, muttering them aloud like a crazy person. No wonder they were all staring . . .

  She’s got a gift for destruction that runs through her veins . . .

  Brenna stood up, took a deep breath. “I’m going to take a little walk around the room,” she said, as if that were something that cried out to be announced. She walked by the girl and her baby, nodding as she passed. They looked confused and sad. Who knew what was running through their minds? Who knew what was running through anyone’s mind in the waiting room of an ER? She pulled out her phone, snuck a text to Maya:

  All is okay, but I won’t be home till late. At the hospital with Trent. She stared at the letters on the screen. She could practically hear Maya’s response. You can’t just tell me you’re at the hospital with Trent, and not expect me to ask why . . . You say, “I’m in the hospital with Trent,” it begs an explanation.

  What could Brenna say, though? How could she explain this to her daughter? She typed: He ate some bad fish, and hit send. That would have to do.

  All she could think of was Trent’s face of a few hours ago, still scratched and bruised from the car crash, his chest smeared with Diandra’s pink lipstick—but his eyes so wide and guileless, the eyes of a six-year-old . . . Is it something bad? I feel like you’re going to say something bad.

  Brenna came across a bank of empty chairs, a tired-looking love seat, a large wide coffee table heaped with old magazines, and a few books, including a Bible. She picked it up, remembering the small print at the bottom of RJ Tannenbaum’s black and white Spielberg picture.

  DEUT 31:6

  Brenna thumbed through the Bible until she found Deuteronomy, then looked up the passage, Robin Tannenbaum’s passage.

  Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them . . .

  “Amen,” Brenna whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”

  Brenna was riding the handlebars of an enormous bicycle. She was trying to get back into the seat and put her feet on the pedals, to get some control over this awful hurtling thing, but the bike was too big and it was going too fast and, for some reason, Brenna knew deep in her heart that if she moved, she would die.

  A cliff loomed before her, dropping off to the end of the world. She wanted to scream, but her mouth wouldn’t open, and the bicycle was reaching the hill, bumping on the rocky concrete. It kept going faster.

  “Hold on tight,” a voice behind her said. A kind voice. Clea?

  Brenna felt strong slender arms on either side of her. She saw feet in the pedals, sandaled and bronzed. She saw delicate hands pulling on the breaks, the bike slowing down, stopping . . .


  Clea.

  She turned to the blonde hair, the long blonde hair so much like Maya’s, Clea back in her life, saving her after all these years . . . I don’t care that you never called or wrote. I forgive you. I love you. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Brenna said.

  A gust of wind blew the hair back, and Brenna saw not Clea’s face but Diandra’s. The face of Diandra, pulling into a smile, the mouth opening, revealing rows and rows of shark’s teeth . . .

  “No!” Brenna gasped.

  “Ma’am?”

  Brenna’s eyelids flew open. It took several moments for it to sink in that she was still in the waiting room at St. Vincent’s.

  “Ma’am?” It was the young nurse—the one with the too-innocent face.

  Brenna ran a hand over her eyes. “I fell asleep,” she said, as if the girl couldn’t even figure out that obvious fact.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry to wake you, but your friend, Annette?”

  “Yeah?”

  “She wanted me to let you know that she had to go home. She said to call if you hear anything.”

  “And you woke me up for that?” Brenna said.

  “I’m sorry,” the nurse said.

  “No, I’m sorry. That was rude.”

  “No,” the nurse said, “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m too tired for this,” Brenna said. She started to close her eyes again.

  The nurse put a hand up. “I’m sorry,” she said, “because I put the cart before the horse. Or I buried the lead. Or whatever.” She yawned. “I didn’t wake you up to tell you about your friend. I woke you up to tell you that Mr. LaSalle is going to be all right.”

  Brenna sat up fast. “What? Wait—he is?”

  “Yes,” the nurse said. “He’s still pretty tired. We’re going to let him rest for the night, give him fluids. He’s very dehydrated. But he’s fine. No brain damage.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well . . . He did ask me if he was really in the hospital, or if this was a naughty nurse dream.”

  Brenna jumped to her feet and threw her arms around the nurse.

  “So that’s normal for him, huh?”

  “Yes.” Brenna laughed. “Yes it is.” Once she pulled away, she peered at the nurse’s name tag. “Thank you, Bernadette.”

  “Your first name is Brenna, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. LaSalle asked to see you.”

  “He did? Can I? I mean, is he able to . . .”

  Bernadette nodded. “But just for a couple of minutes, okay? Then we’re going to move him into a regular room for the rest of the night.”

  Brenna followed her through a set of swinging doors, past a nurses’ station and down a long hallway to a series of beds separated by curtains. They passed an elderly man attached to oxygen tanks, a little girl screaming as doctors drew fluid out of her knee . . . next came a couple of empty beds, and then, finally, Trent.

  “Hey, B. Spec,” he said.

  Brenna didn’t even bother to comment on the nickname, she just rushed up to him and hugged him, gently, so as not to disturb the IVs. She could hear the little girl screaming three beds over.

  “They could do something about the atmosphere in here, huh?” Trent said.

  His voice sounded very weak. Brenna pulled away and took him in—the gaunt cheeks, the hair lying flat on his forehead, the pallor of his skin—as though the spray tan had been vacuumed right off him. He looked like a different person. A frail, sad, scholarly young thing. With a stupid lip print tattoo on his pec. She could see it through the hospital gown.

  “I look like crap, huh?”

  “What happened, Trent?”

  “I . . . I can’t even say her name.”

  “Diandra.”

  He cringed. “I have this like . . . Pavlovian response to the name,” he croaked. “But instead of drooling, it makes me want to blow chunks.”

  “What possessed you?”

  “Brenna, I—”

  “I know you’re a guy, but come on. What the hell were you thinking? And if you say anything that includes the phrase ‘the wrong head,’ I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”

  “She took Tannenbaum’s computer.”

  Brenna closed her eyes. “I figured that out.”

  “It’s okay.” He shifted in the bed. “I’m telling you . . . there’s nothing on there but porn . . . and the cloud storage gateway, which he uninstalled. I bet she won’t even find it.”

  “I’m just glad you’re alive. You are so damn lucky.” She looked at him. “We both are.”

  He smiled a little. His lips were very chapped.

  Brenna said, “So what the hell is a cloud storage gateway?”

  “It’s a way in to a cloud.”

  “Oh. Thanks, that clears it all up.”

  Trent sighed. “A cloud is kind of like a virtual safety deposit box. You can access it from anywhere, even if your computer crashes. So, like, if you have important papers, or some video you don’t want to lose, or whatever . . .”

  “Why not just e-mail the papers to yourself? That’s what I do.”

  “Cloud storage is a lot more secure.” He looked at her. “It’s easy to hack into e-mails. Jeez, you should know that. I do that for us all the time.”

  Brenna nodded.

  “But Tannenbaum not only got himself a cloud, he uninstalled the gateway. Know what I’m saying? It’s like hiding stuff on an island, and then blowing up the bridge.”

  She looked at him. “Must have been some very important papers . . .”

  He shrugged. “Or some seriously nasty porn that he didn’t want his mom to see. Either way, I want in.”

  “Can you get us there?”

  “If we can figure out his password, I can do it through the provider’s Web site . . . once I . . . Damn . . . I can’t remember the provider’s name. Hey, sit down, would you, please? You’re making me nervous, standing over me like that. It’s giving me flashbacks.”

  “Flashbacks?”

  He shut his eyes.

  “Diandra?”

  “Oh joy, here comes the insta-nausea.”

  “Sorry.”

  “She stood over me like that and . . .” He squeezed his eyes tighter. “Saffron.”

  “Huh?”

  “She said something about saffron.”

  “The spice?”

  “I don’t know . . .” He opened his eyes again. “It’s gone. I don’t remember what the hell she was talking about.”

  Brenna nodded. She sat down very carefully on the edge of Trent’s bed. For a few moments she flashed on October 2, when Trent visited her at Columbia-Presbyterian and their positions were reversed—poking his head through the door, his eyes widening when he catches his first sight of her, the worry in them . . . “Trent,” she said quietly.

  He looked at her, weak.

  “I’m ninety-nine percent sure,” she said, “that she killed Errol.”

  “Oh . . . Wow.” He opened his eyes. They looked much bigger and darker than usual. “Figures.”

  Brenna took Trent’s hand in hers. The two of them sat in silence for what felt like a very long time.

  Trent said, “Please don’t tell my parents about this. They’re mad enough about what happened to my car in Inwood.”

  “I won’t tell them,” Brenna said. “I’m glad I don’t have to.”

  Trent smiled—the smile of a kid. It made Brenna’s jaw tighten. Feeding him pills. Leaving him for dead. You left him in the middle of his kitchen floor when he invited you in. You left him there barely breathing. You closed the door behind you. You assumed he would die and you didn’t care . . . Anger bubbled beneath her skin. Her face was hot with it. “You’ve never been to her place—don’t know where she lives.”

  He shook his head.

  “And I take it she’s not on that ridiculous Foursquare thing.”

  “No way.”

  “You don’t know her last name.”

  “I probably don’
t even know her first name.”

  She swallowed hard, took a deep breath. “And Errol paid his girls under the table, so there’d be no record there, either,” she said. “I guess we’ve lost her.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s for the best.”

  Trent frowned. “Why?”

  “Because if we did have a way of finding her. If we had any way at all . . .” Brenna gave him a meaningful look. “I would find her.”

  Trent stared back at her, and something passed between them. In the six years he’d been working for her, Brenna was sure, she’d never seen Trent’s face quite so still. His eyes clouded. He squeezed her hand. “You’re not hitting on me, are you? ’Cause I am really wiped out.”

  Brenna sighed. “Shut up, Trent.”

  Little Bernadette stuck her head around the curtain and came in, two burly orderlies following. “Sorry, ma’am, but it’s time to say good-bye. We’ve gotta move Mr. LaSalle.”

  “Mr. LaSalle is my dad, baby. You can call me T-Man.”

  Bernadette looked at Brenna. “Normal?”

  “Yep.” She put a hand on Trent’s shoulder. “Good-bye, buddy. See you tomorrow.”

  “Oh, wait, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Who was it who . . . uh . . . found me?”

  She looked at him. “Annette Shelby.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, that’s what the doctor said. I thought he was joking. Of course, that would have been a weird joke since he doesn’t know either one of us.”

  “True.”

  He picked at a fingernail. “Guess that kinda makes up for what she did, huh?”

  “She means well, Trent,” Brenna said. “I think she always meant well. She wanted . . . company so badly that it clouded her judgment.”

  Trent said, “I know that feeling.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m going to send her flowers. Or maybe I should get her a new cat.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Brenna said. “Just . . . I don’t know . . . have a cup of coffee with her or something.”

  Bernadette adjusted Trent’s bed, so that it became a gurney, the orderlies taking positions on either side of it. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll call her and set something up. But not now when I look like hyena crap. I gotta look hot for Mrs. Shelby. She’s got expectations.”