A Stranger at the Door

by Pinter, Jason

  She put on a pair of jeans and a tank top, went downstairs, and made herself a cappuccino. Rachel didn’t have many extravagances in their house, apart from the security systems, but she had splurged on a combination cappuccino/espresso maker. Other than marrying her husband and having children, it may have been the best decision she’d ever made.

  At three thirty, Megan burst through the door. She wore a lightweight purple jacket with a neighing horse embroidered on the back. Her long hair had darkened to a sandy blonde and was swept back into a long ponytail. Megan dropped her backpack on the floor, ran up to Rachel, and threw her arms around her. Even though her daughter was growing up, Rachel was glad she hadn’t yet tired of afterschool hugs.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said. Rachel lived for these moments, especially since she knew the unashamed affection would dwindle as her daughter grew older and her mother’s cool factor would drop to negative five thousand.

  “How was school?”

  “Fine. Did you know that Jordan Reese’s family got a dog?”

  “I did not know that.”

  “She showed me pictures. It’s a bichon frizzy. Soooo cute.”

  “You mean bichon frise,” Rachel said.

  “Whatever. Can we get a dog?”

  Rachel laughed. “Do you have time to train a dog, walk it, feed it, and take care of it?”

  “Umm . . . no.”

  “Does your brother?”

  “Sometimes Eric smells like he doesn’t even have time to shower.”

  Rachel laughed. “So what you’re saying is that you want a dog, but you want your mother to be the only one who actually takes care of Fluffy Marin.”

  “No, I’d want to take care of the puppy too,” Megan said. “And we would not name it Fluffy.”

  “Let me think about it. OK?”

  “So that’s not a no?” Megan said, her spirits clearly lifted.

  “It’s not a no,” Rachel said.

  “I’ll even pay for it! Once I get someone to publish my Sadie Scout books, I’ll save up.”

  “It’s not about money; it’s about responsibility. I don’t think you realize how much work dogs are.”

  As Megan began to pout, the door opened and Eric entered. Rachel and Megan both turned to look at him. His face was emotionless. Just a few hours ago, he’d learned his teacher had died, and it didn’t appear to bother him any more than if he’d discovered a hole in his sock. It scared Rachel, seeing her son so detached in the face of such horrors.

  “Eric,” Rachel said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “I’m so, so sorry about Mr. Linklater. It’s a terrible thing. If you need to talk, I’m always here for you.”

  Eric shrugged, like she’d told him they’d run out of cereal.

  “It’s OK,” he said. “No big deal.”

  Rachel felt a flutter of worry in her chest. “It is a big deal. I don’t expect you’d be able to process what happened so quickly. Did the school offer grief counselors?”

  “Yeah. Principal Alvi scheduled a schoolwide assembly tomorrow morning. She was all vague in the announcement. Like, ‘We need to talk about an important development facing the Ashby High community.’ As though everyone doesn’t already know that Mr. Linklater got microwaved.”

  “Eric, that’s awful. That’s a person you’re talking about. Someone you know. Have some compassion.”

  “Was a person,” he said. “Was.”

  “I did not raise you to be cruel,” Rachel said. “I think you need to talk to someone. Whether it’s a grief counselor or a therapist. This isn’t you.”

  He shook his head like he was casting off an errant piece of lint. “You don’t get it,” he said. “My dad was killed. Mr. Linklater was killed. The world is cruel and fucked up. I didn’t make it that way.”

  He shouldered past her.

  “Eric,” she said, softly, but he ignored her and trudged upstairs to his room.

  Rachel watched him go, unable to speak and unsure of what she would even say. She had witnessed Eric’s struggles manifest themselves in so many ways since his father died. From terror to sadness to resentment to solitude to anger to cruelty in a heartbreaking, unending cycle. So many times he seemed to be pushing back against the negative thoughts and impulses, but they always came roaring back, stronger than ever, and Rachel worried that if he couldn’t get a handle on the darkness, the poison would seep into his mind and his heart and never, ever leave. The thought of Eric growing up angry and unhappy felt like acid in her stomach.

  She did not know how to stem his grief, calm his anger, cool his resentment. Those emotions still roiled in Rachel herself from time to time. But she was older and had two children who depended on her. She had to keep the darkness at bay, for their sakes. She had learned to hide her pain. Eric had not.

  Rachel turned back to Megan, the dismay in her face becoming a plastic smile.

  “What’s wrong with Eric?” Megan said.

  Rachel sighed and placed her hand on her daughter’s cheek.

  “Your brother has been through a lot,” she said, softly. “He has memories that, thankfully, you are too young to have. What he’s been through doesn’t just go away. It takes time. A long time. All we can do is be there for him and let him know how much we love him.”

  “I do,” Megan pleaded. “I tell him I love him. All the time. He tells me to stop. That he’s not worth it.”

  Rachel rocked back on her heels. “He said that?”

  Megan nodded.

  “That he’s not worth it?”

  She nodded again. Rachel felt an ache in her chest, a low heat that rose into her cheeks and settled just below her eyes.

  “As long as we both know he’s worth it. He’s worth all the love we have. We just need to keep showing him, and one day he’ll realize it. Can you do that, sweetie?”

  Megan smiled. “I can. I do love him.”

  “I do too. With all my heart. So, back to happier thoughts. Do you have any homework for tonight?”

  “Homework is a happy thought?”

  “Comparatively,” Rachel said with a grin.

  “Some math, but it’s easy. And then I have to get back to my new Sadie Scout book. When I finished writing yesterday, Sadie was about to cross a dangerous river filled with poisonous snakes and allibators with huge teeth.”

  “Alligators,” Rachel corrected. “I can’t wait to read it.”

  “When I’m done, I’m going to get it published,” Megan said, confidently.

  “I have no doubt you will.”

  Megan skipped off to her room. Rachel felt exhausted, a dull ache in her bones. She needed to focus on the murder. She booted up her laptop and began to review the file APD had collected on Matthew Linklater. He had never been married and had no children. He had a sister in Toledo, a married orthopedist, though they seldom communicated via phone or text more than every few months. His mother lived alone in a retirement community in Palm Beach Gardens. Both sister and mother were en route to Ashby for the funeral.

  The closest Linklater came to a criminal record was a few scattered parking tickets, and those had all been paid in a timely manner. So how did an ostensibly ordinary, even boring man end up tortured and burned alive?

  She checked her watch; it was five thirty. The kids would need dinner. Rachel had the ingredients to make a meatloaf with a side of mashed potatoes and asparagus. Cooking for children was like unrequited young love. Hours of effort, and you were lucky if they even acknowledged your presence. But she didn’t want to be the mom who ordered pizza every time she had a long day.

  Rachel took the ground beef from the fridge and stirred together eggs, ketchup, worcestershire sauce, bread crumbs, minced onion, milk, and parsley. Her ears pricked up at the sound of gunfire . . . only it wasn’t actual gunfire. Eric was in his room obliterating an army of sprites at a decibel level that could cause an avalanche.

  She took a bottle of merlot from the near-barren freestanding wine rack and poured herself a generous glass. She sipped
as she assembled the meal. The smell of garlic was heavenly. She broke the beef apart with a spatula, stirring to make sure it didn’t burn.

  Then came a knock at the door. Her heart leaped at the prospect of John Serrano standing there with a smile and perhaps more wine. She laughed at herself. She felt like a teenager finally getting the text she’d been waiting all night for.

  She turned the heat down, washed her hands, and went to the door. She was hoping to see Serrano holding a bottle of something dry.

  But when she opened the door, Rachel’s mouth dropped. Every muscle in her body tensed. A wave of panic ignited her synapses, as if an electric current had traveled from toe to head and back again.

  Instead of John Serrano, a woman stood on her front porch. Her hair was different from the last time Rachel had seen her. Longer. It was now a dusky auburn, shoulder length, spilling over a brown leather jacket. She was about five eight, an inch shorter than Rachel. Her muscular arms and legs filled out her clothing. Her weight was shifted slightly to the side as though she might need to suddenly defend herself.

  And in that instant, Rachel was reminded that the life she thought she was done with, the life she’d left behind—that life wasn’t done with her. Not by a long shot.

  The woman smiled. Big and warm.

  “Hey, Blondie,” she said. “It’s been a while.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Rachel stood in the doorway for what felt like a year. She’d recognized the woman before she opened her mouth to speak but was still stunned when the words came out, like the syllables were proof that she wasn’t hallucinating.

  The woman had aged, though Rachel could tell from her calloused hands, the triangular shape of her trapezius muscles underneath her jacket, that she was still someone you did not want to cross.

  “Myra,” Rachel said. “You look good.”

  “You mean Evie,” the woman said with a sly grin. “And you do, too, Blondie. Though I guess it’s Rachel Marin now, right?”

  “And you’re Evie Boggs. Guess you dropped ‘Myra’?”

  The last time Rachel saw Evie Boggs, she had prevented Evie from killing a man named Stanford Royce who had tried to rob them. Evie felt the man deserved to die. Rachel disagreed. It turned out Royce was a serial rapist, a career criminal. Had Rachel known that, she might have let Evie do what she wanted. Yet months later, Rachel was the one with the knife, hovering over a prone Stanford Royce.

  “Not all of us need to hide from who we are,” Evie said. “Anyway, it’s been, what, five years? I’m so glad you took my advice.” Evie spoke with the charm and casualness of an old college friend at a class reunion.

  “Feels a whole lot longer,” Rachel said. “Like a lifetime ago. And what do you mean, ‘your advice’?”

  “Ashby? Come on, don’t pretend you don’t remember.”

  Rachel did remember.

  “So,” Evie said. “Are you going to invite me in?”

  Rachel looked over her shoulder. The kids were both upstairs. She turned back to Evie. She carried a tiny clutch. Too small for most handguns. Her pants were tight. Cloth tapered to her ankles. No weapons Rachel could see. And if Evie really wanted Rachel dead, the best time would have been right when she opened the door.

  Rachel wanted to invite Evie into her home as much as she wanted to invite a leper into her bed. But she didn’t need nosy neighbors asking about the woman standing on her front porch. Was that a Jehovah’s Witness? They do come around here quite frequently. Besides, Evie was here for a reason. People from your former life didn’t show up unannounced just for afternoon tea.

  “Of course,” Rachel said, sweeter than a sugar cookie. “Where are my manners? Come in, Evie. It’s been far too long.”

  “It has,” Evie said with an amused smile. Rachel led her to the living room. Evie sat on the couch, crossed her legs, relaxed. Rachel took the love seat. Feet on the floor. Anything but relaxed. Evie studied the decor. Too closely. Like she wanted Rachel to notice. It made Rachel wonder if she’d been casing her house and, if so, for how long.

  “You have a lovely home, Rachel. You still go by Rachel, right?”

  “Yes. But you already knew that,” she replied.

  “I did.”

  “So what the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about the past,” Evie said, ignoring the question. “You know, when we first met, you couldn’t kick a can down the street. But look at you now. Taking down bad guys like you’re Dirty Harriet. My little shin kicker. All grown up.”

  She knows about the Constance Wright investigation, Rachel thought.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Rachel said, impatiently.

  “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink first?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you might be grown up, but your manners are worse than a teenage boy’s. How is your teenage boy, by the way?”

  “If you came here to comment on my manners or talk about my son, you can leave, or I can make you leave.”

  “Come on, you don’t want to cause such a ruckus in your own home, do you?”

  Rachel said nothing.

  “You’d never believe it,” Evie said, “but there was this horrible story on the news about a house that burned down in Ashby. With someone still inside. Video from the crime scene showed the cops skittering around like ants. And who do I see among all those cops? Acting like she might as well be one of the boys in blue?”

  Rachel said nothing.

  Evie pointed at Rachel and drew a circle with her finger. “Miss Rachel Marin. Your last name is Marin, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How’d you settle on Marin?”

  “None of your business,” Rachel said.

  “I’d love to hear that story. But we don’t need to get into it now. You changed your hair, changed your look, but I recognized you the moment I saw you on that TV. I don’t forget a face. Especially after what we’ve been through.”

  “You tried to murder someone. I stopped you.”

  “You sure did,” Evie said. “And I wonder where Stanford Royce is these days. You have any idea where he might be, Blondie?”

  Evie’s smirk made Rachel feel sick.

  “So Stanford Royce holds a knife to my throat,” Evie said, “and you prevent me from sawing him in half with his own blade. But then a few months go by, and Mr. Royce disappears off the face of the earth. Cops can’t find him. No blood and no body. And pretty soon after that, you pack up and move to Ashby. Hell of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I would say.”

  “Sure. So when I saw my old friend Rachel on the television with the cops—”

  “I’m not a cop,” Rachel interjected. “But if you don’t get to the point, I’ll call the actual cops.”

  “No, you won’t. Because then they’ll ask who I am. And I’ll have to tell them the truth. About me. About you.” Evie paused and leaned forward. “About Stanford Royce. You don’t want them turning over that rock, do you? The police would love to know what happened to him. All I have to do is point the finger.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rachel said. “But if you threaten me again, I’ll break you in half.”

  “Now that’s the girl I remember,” Evie said. She leaned back. Her voice softened. “Listen. Rachel. I’m not here to ruin your life. I don’t want to mess with what you have. That’s the honest truth. If I wanted to do that, I would have gone right to the cops. You’d do anything for your kids, right?”

  Rachel nodded. “Yes.”

  “So would I. You know I’m a mom, too, right?”

  Rachel nodded. “I remember you telling me that.”

  “But I’m not here to dredge up the past,” Evie said.

  “So then why are you here?”

  Evie paused, then said, “Matthew Linklater.”

  Rachel felt her blood run cold.

  “I know about the email he sent to you before he died,” Evie
continued. “I need to know why he chose you. I need to know what you know.”

  Rachel’s mind was going a million miles a minute. She knew, at that moment, that Evie had come because somebody had sent her. Somebody knew about Rachel and Evie’s past and was pushing on that pressure point hard. Somebody wanted Rachel to leave the Linklater murder alone.

  “Evie, you know me well enough to know that I’m not going to say a damn word to you.”

  Evie sighed. “There’s more at stake here than you realize. I know who you are, Rachel Marin. I know who you really are. You’re a survivor. But a survivor with two kids. I know about Harwood Greene. I know he murdered your husband and that he’s still out there somewhere. And I know that’s why you killed Stanford Royce. Because you didn’t want him to do to someone else what Harwood Greene did to you. Truthfully, I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

  “I don’t,” Rachel said, both as a statement and a threat.

  “But through all of it, you made it to Ashby and started over. Your children have a chance at life now, because of you. You need to protect what you have. Whatever you might know about Matthew Linklater, you need to stay away. Because trust me—I’m the good cop in this story. You don’t want to meet the bad cops. When they knock on your door, they don’t ask to come in for a drink.”

  “Mommy?”

  Both women turned around to see Megan standing at the top of the stairs. She had a puzzled look on her face. Her hands were covered with blue ink stains.

  “Hey, honey,” Rachel said, keeping her voice even.

  “I was writing my Sadie Scout book and heard you talking to someone.” She looked at Evie and smiled. “I’m Megan.”

  “I’m Evie. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Megan.”

  Megan came downstairs. Rachel wanted to tell her daughter to stay put but didn’t want to let her know anything was out of the ordinary. “Evie is an old friend of Mommy’s. Evie, this is my daughter, Megan.”