Into the Dark

by Alison Gaylin

  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.

  As 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 wh
at 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.

  On 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.

  Brenna stepped inside the apartment, her whole body shaking, except the right arm—held straight, fingers clutching the pearl handle of the letter opener. “Trent?”

  The apartment was perfectly still. She headed for the bedroom, opened the door . . . Empty. She glanced at the Bowflex machine, the neatly made bed (had he ever taken his nap?) the framed ad on the wall behind it—a girl in a white bikini, caressing a huge flat-screen monitor. There was a caption (Limitless Hard Drive). But what caught Brenna’s eye was the computer in the photo. It brought Trent’s voice into her head, his voice of a few hours ago. Let’s not forget RJ’s computer in my bedroom.

  RJ’s computer was not in Trent’s bedroom.

  Brenna rushed into the kitchen area, noticing for the first time the empty bottle of wine on the counter and how the coffee table had been pushed off to the side, as if to make room for . . . what?

  A bracelet glittered on the floor beneath the coffee table. Brenna picked it up. Alternating diamonds and emeralds, a sapphire at the clasp . . .

  It is June 14, and a muggy day. Brenna’s hair clings to the back of her sweaty neck. She sits at the white metal table in the courtyard of the new client’s Great Barrington estate, cicadas buzzing all around them, ringing in her ears. “Can you find him?” The client’s eyes are clear blue and her hair is silky, despite the humidity all around them, the air a solid, squishy thing . . . The woman doesn’t seem to know how to sweat. Brenna looks at the photo of her husband—a bear of a man in a madras sport shirt. He has a lantern jaw, bulging eyes, oily skin. Like he was born sweating. Larry Shelby. His wife’s polar opposite. “I know he’s alive,” the wife tells Brenna. Her name is Annette, and she looks as though she was drawn with pastels. Brenna’s gaze drops to the tennis bracelet she’s wearing—alternating diamonds and emeralds, a sapphire at the clasp.

  “I pledge allegiance to the flag . . .” Brenna turned the bracelet in her hands, caught sight of the engraving on the underside of the sapphire: Love Always, Larry. “Okay . . .”

  Annette Shelby’s bracelet in Trent’s apartment.

  In Brenna’s mind, she traveled back again to that first meeting, Annette slipping her business card out of her shirt pocket, writing her number on the back, sliding it across the metal table. I can be reached here, any time . . .

  Brenna bumped her palm against the tip of the letter opener’s blade, bringing herself into the room. Then she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and tapped in the remembered number.

  Annette answered after one ring. “Brenna?”

  “Annette. I know this is going to sound weird, but are you with Trent?”

  “Yes.”

  “What? Why? Is he all right?”

  “No.”

  Her breath caught. “Did you just say—”

  “No.”

  “Please tell me what’s going on.”

  “I would have called you. I was just scared you’d get mad.”

  “At you?”

  “At Trent.”

  “Why?”

  “Keep in mind he’s still young.” Her voice was flat, the words like a mantra. “He’s still young. We all do crazy things when we’re young.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “I took Trent to the hospital,” Annette said.

  “Why?”

  “You promise you won’t be mad.”

  “Annette, please.”

  “I . . . I went to his apartment because I wanted to talk. When I got there, he was unconscious.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “He’ll be okay. I know he’ll be okay. It wouldn’t be fair if he
wasn’t and life is fair. Life has to be—”

  “Was he injured?”

  “Brenna.” Annette said her name very slowly, as though she were attempting to soothe her with the sound of it. “Trent . . . that sweet boy . . . He OD’d.”

  Chapter 18

  It was a good thing that Trent hadn’t replied to the text Annette Shelby had sent him when he and Brenna were driving home from Hildy Tannenbaum’s house. And it was better still that he hadn’t responded to any of the twenty subsequent texts she’d sent, or to the dozen or so messages she’d left on his voice mail after his disastrous visit to her apartment on fish market night. Because, while Brenna had always told him not to be rude to people, his rudeness had, in this case, saved his own life.

  At least, Brenna hoped it had.

  Trent had been in the emergency room of St. Vincent’s Hospital for over an hour when she got there. From what Annette and one of the nurses told her, doctors were pumping his stomach and administering a charcoal treatment in an attempt to rid his body of the six-to-eight benzodiazepines he’d apparently consumed with a large glass of wine. That’s all the nurse could tell them so far. She didn’t know whether he’d regained consciousness, or if he’d suffered any brain damage. She didn’t know anything, so she couldn’t say anything. Not anything Brenna needed to hear.

  “The doctors are working their hardest,” she said now—this slender girl with baby fine hair and a child’s face. How could you believe a face like that? This was the type of face that you shield from the truth. How could Brenna expect the doctors to give it straight to this girl, who looked as though the slightest bit of bad news could scatter her, like a seeded dandelion?

  “Thank you,” Brenna said, hoping she’d just go away. Go home. It was past her bedtime anyway.

  The girl granted Brenna her wish. Well, she went away anyway, leaving Brenna and Annette to return to their seats—the only two they’d been able to find together in the crowded waiting room.