Free Into the Dark by Alison Gaylin

to eat and her head swims a little. They’re standing
     right next to the tree—an enormous pine, and Brenna is focusing on a
     snowflake ornament—white ceramic with sparkles mixed in. It reminds her of
     something, something from childhood, something comforting and warm she can’t
     quite specify. . .
    “Brenna?” Jim’s fingers move
     across her shoulder blades, and she turns to him. “You okay?”
    She gazes into his eyes—brown
     with gold flecks. She is inches away from him. She can feel his breath
     . . . “If you’re remembering something, tell me, okay? I can help
     you. I always want to help you . . .”
    Brenna’s buzzer sounded, and she was back, tears in
     her eyes, alone. Longing. Why had she done that? Why did she do these things
     to
     herself?
    Again, the buzzer. “Oh no.” Brenna recalled the
     awkward phone message she’d left five hours ago, word for word. She swatted the
     tears from her eyes, cleared her throat, went for the buzzer. “Yes?”
    “Nicholas Morasco to see Brenna Spector.”
    A wave of guilt washed through Brenna— Sorry if I kept you waiting. I was busy crying over someone I don’t know anymore.
    She shook it off, pushed the button. “Shouldn’t
     that be Senior Detective Nicholas Morasco?”
    “Nah. We’re watching porn, I’m off duty.”
    Brenna smiled, hit the buzzer.
    She listened to Morasco’s footfalls jogging up the
     stairs and opened the door before he knocked.
    She warmed at the sight of him, standing in the
     doorjamb with his messed hair and his wire-rimmed glasses, his late-day beard
     scruff, and his inevitable tweed jacket and jeans combination, all of it working
     on him for some reason—that rumpled, professorial look. She still couldn’t
     believe he was a cop. “It isn’t porn you know,” she said. “It’s performance
     art.”
    “Right . . . I’m definitely gonna need a
     drink, then.”
    She grabbed a couple of beers from the
     refrigerator—a nice Brooklyn IPA that Faith had brought by a week ago—and walked
     Nick over to the couch. They drank, he talked about his uneventful day at work,
     and she asked him about the new chief of police in Tarry Ridge—a decent guy,
     according to Nick (though a second choice, Brenna knew. Nick had turned down
     the
     job himself).
    Then, she filled him in on everything that had
     happened over the course of the day—everything, that is, except for her
     conversation with Gary Freeman. By the time she was through, she was feeling
     like herself again.
    “Errol Ludlow, huh?” said Morasco. “No wonder
     there’s porn involved.”
    Brenna nodded. She hated lying to him. Of course,
     this wasn’t lying, right? She’d just left out the part about Errol getting
     fired.
    Morasco was staring at her in such a way, though,
     she had to avert her gaze. He had the type of dark eyes that seemed to see right
     into your thoughts. Brenna knew that it was largely due to myopia, but
     still . . .
    Brenna got her laptop from her desk, flipped it
     open on the coffee table, and settled in next to Morasco. “You ready for a
     little performance art?”
    He gave her a half smile. “I’d be lying if I said I
     didn’t wish that was a euphemism.”
    Brenna felt her face color a little. “Me too,” she
     said, before she noticed how Morasco was looking at the screen—the picture from
     Jim’s Christmas party filling it.
    Brenna minimized the picture.
    “Pretty dress,” he said.
    “It’s old.” She took a very long swallow of her
     beer, recalling Ludlow, of all people. Ludlow, sitting across from her at the
     Waverly Diner at 9:45 A.M. , watching her with
     that knowing smirk she wanted to slap off of his face. Yes,
     and how is Detective Morasco? Page Six spotted you two at some bar
     . . . which one was it?
    Ludlow, “knowing” Ludlow, who in reality knew
     nothing other than what he read in the papers, who had no idea that Brenna and
     Morasco had kissed only once, on November 9 at