A Stranger at the Door

by Pinter, Jason

  Rachel drew her finger across a faint red line that ran underneath Antonio’s jaw, from his earlobe nearly to his chin.

  “But if you look here,” Rachel said, flipping back several pages. “Antonio disappears from this album for what I’m guessing, based on the changes in seasons, a year, maybe eighteen months. I think he got that scar, and you took him out of the album while it healed. You didn’t want to see it.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “How did he get that scar, Ms. Vargas?” Rachel’s politeness was gone. Now she needed answers.

  Gabrielle came over. She responded without looking at the photo. “I’m sure it’s just a trick of the light or something.”

  Rachel nodded. “Right.” She flipped forward. “It’s here too. And here. And here. If it was the camera’s fault, why didn’t you get a new camera?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabrielle said, and finished her drink.

  “Listen, Ms. Vargas. You kept Antonio out of this album for a reason. Because you didn’t want him to remember. You didn’t want yourself to remember. What happened to him?”

  “It’s none of your concern,” Gabrielle said. She went to the cabinet and took out the bottle of bourbon. Rachel stood up, bracing herself against the arm of the sofa as dizziness overwhelmed her. Rachel walked slowly over to Gabrielle Vargas and gripped the bottle before she could pour another drink.

  “Actually, Ms. Vargas, it is my concern. Your boyfriend was brutally murdered. I think my son is involved with the people who did it. Your son clearly suffered a terrible wound that you literally tried to erase from your life. These people are capable of heinous violence. I need to know what happened to your son.”

  “Please . . . ,” Gabrielle said.

  “Ms. Vargas, I’m on your side,” Rachel said. “I’m on Antonio’s side.”

  A tear spilled down Gabrielle Vargas’s cheek. It dropped onto her hand, slid down to her pinkie, stayed there for a moment, then fell to the floor. Then she mouthed two words.

  “I can’t.”

  Rachel mouthed, “Why?”

  Gabrielle Vargas began to shake her head. More tears came. Rachel took her hand, held it strong.

  “Ms. Vargas,” she said. “I need to know who you’re protecting.”

  “My son,” she said. “I’m protecting my son. Just like you’re protecting yours.”

  “Who are you protecting him from?”

  Gabrielle looked around her apartment, as if she’d heard a strange noise and was suddenly frightened of an intruder. But Rachel hadn’t heard anything. Gabrielle went to the kitchen, took a cell phone from her purse, opened the Notes app, and typed two words.

  BENNETT BRICE

  Then she deleted the words and said, firmly, “Thank you for coming, Ms. Marin. Now I need to ask you to leave.”

  CHAPTER 29

  When Rachel arrived home, she had two missed calls from John Serrano. She called him back.

  “Hey, John.”

  “We need to talk,” he said. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  Rachel checked her watch. She had two hours before the kids would be home from school. Whatever Serrano needed, it had to be done before they got home. She needed to be with them, alone, just the Marin family.

  While she waited, Rachel thought about Gabrielle Vargas and the two words she’d typed and deleted. BENNETT BRICE.

  She thought about the lengthy scar on Antonio’s neck and wondered how he’d gotten it. Gabrielle was clearly terrified of Brice. She had a feeling that Brice was in some way responsible for her son’s wound. Rachel considered approaching Antonio, but she knew full well as a mother herself that she would flay and disembowel anyone who approached her children without her permission. Maybe disembowel and then flay. She could cross that bridge when she came to it.

  Rachel was brewing a cup of decaf tea when Serrano knocked on the door. She led him into the living room, took a seat, put her feet up, and sipped her drink. Serrano sat down across from her.

  “You’re not sitting next to me,” she said. “So you’re here on official APD business.”

  “In a way,” Serrano said. “The department received a letter from Bennett Brice’s attorneys this afternoon.”

  Rachel put her cup down. “And?”

  “They’ve officially filed a restraining order against you. If you come within a hundred yards of the YourLife offices, or if you were to speak to Bennett Brice or any of his employees without a warrant or their having a lawyer present, they will sue you and the department for harassment.”

  “Well, that went to DEFCON one fast,” Rachel said.

  “They have video of you threatening Bennett Brice in his office. Then you freely admit to following Benjamin Ruddock without any cause.”

  “No,” Rachel said. “I was following my son.”

  “Be that as it may.” Serrano paused. “There’s something else.”

  “That’s a loaded statement. What’s the ‘something else’?”

  “I pulled Randall Spivak’s file.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s clean. No convictions of any kind. Not even a parking ticket.”

  “OK . . . why does that make me nervous?”

  “Because Randall Spivak has also been questioned in half a dozen murders over the past ten years. Never arrested, never charged, and never convicted. Every case fell apart when witnesses refused to testify against him. Look.”

  Serrano handed Rachel a folder. She opened it. The first page was a photo of Randall and Raymond Spivak. They were brothers by blood but looked as identical as a celery stalk and a tomato.

  Raymond Spivak was compact, muscular, solid, like a potato with deltoids. Randall was tall, lean to the point of malnourishment. He towered over his brother by at least nine inches, maybe more.

  “Experience has taught me that if someone is questioned in that many crimes but never convicted, they’re a psychopath but a cautious psychopath,” Serrano said. “They’re the scariest kind, because they’re smart enough to cover their tracks.”

  “So Bennett Brice is the legitimate face of YourLife,” Rachel said, “but the Spivak brothers are the cudgel.”

  “It’s a possibility,” Serrano said.

  “But then there’s the Evie Boggs situation,” Rachel said. “Evie is working for Brice. But she despises the Spivaks. If Brice is working with the Spivaks, why would Evie go to such lengths to defend Brice against Linklater’s murder?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Serrano said. “But if the department has its hands tied legally, or if you get arrested, none of that helps us bring Matthew Linklater’s killer to justice.”

  “It’s my son, John. My son. What am I supposed to do? I can’t back off.”

  Serrano sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t. In a way, this job is easier without kids. It’s one thing to face danger on your own. It’s another thing entirely to see someone you love threatened by it. Because they’re always your priority.”

  “I would go to jail if it meant my kids were safe,” Rachel said. “I would let a psychopath do whatever they wanted to if it meant my children would wake up every morning. I want Brice and the Spivaks and Evie to be scared of what the police might do to them. But I want them to be terrified of what I might do to them.”

  Rachel paused. Then she said, “I know that at one point, you would have felt the same way.”

  Serrano looked at Rachel, sadness washing over his face.

  “I would have,” he said. “Before Evan died. I would have done everything you just said. I just wish I’d had the chance.”

  “I know you would have.”

  “I wish you’d met him,” Serrano said. “I wish Eric could have met him.”

  “I do too.”

  Rachel got up, took Serrano’s hand, and pulled him to the couch.

  “Sit next to me,” she said. Serrano eased himself down next to Rachel. She put her hand on his knee. He placed his on top of it. They interlocked fingers.

 
; “When our family broke,” she said, leaning in close to him, “part of me wanted to just disappear. Completely. Move to the Gobi Desert, or some ranch out in Montana—somewhere I could see the mountains, where the nearest neighbors were miles away, and I would never have to talk to anybody. I wanted to be alone. To get away from everything. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to force my kids to live my life. But sometimes I wonder if I should have.”

  “It’s easy to judge every decision you’ve ever made,” Serrano said, “because now you have perspective and time. At the time you make them, you don’t have those. But you can’t change the past, or the decisions that brought you where you are. And it doesn’t mean the bad things are necessarily your fault. I don’t really believe in fate. But I believe we do our best.”

  “I try. I try so goddamn hard.”

  Serrano rested his head against Rachel, gently.

  “Does that hurt?” he said.

  “Never.”

  “What happened to your husband wasn’t your fault,” Serrano said.

  “And what happened to your son wasn’t yours,” Rachel said. “But I still walk around every single day with guilt weighing me down like an anchor.”

  “Sometimes you have to let it go,” Serrano said. “For your loved ones if not yourself. Because when you let those things weigh you down, they drag down people you care about. I know that from experience.”

  She looked down at their intertwined hands. She rubbed Serrano’s thumb, felt the roughness of his skin. She wondered how many times he had drawn his gun. How many times he had fired it. How many lives he had taken.

  “I want you to tell me the worst things you’ve ever done,” Rachel said.

  Serrano looked at her. “I’m sorry?”

  “I want to know the worst things you’ve ever done. Things that rip you apart from the inside every time you think about them. Things you’ve pushed from your mind.”

  “Rachel, I . . .”

  “Please.”

  He looked down. Nodded. He took a long breath.

  “After Evan died, I was out of control. I drank every day until I couldn’t feel. My wife threatened to leave me every night, and every night I convinced her to stay. That I would get help. Looking back, I wish I’d let her go. I would have saved Deirdre so much pain.”

  Serrano stopped.

  “Please, John,” Rachel said. Serrano nodded.

  “One night, after my shift ended, I went to Hinsky’s Pub on South Main. I ordered a shot and a beer. And then another shot and a beer. They refilled my glasses so many times I lost count. Suddenly I’m in the bathroom and . . .”

  He stopped.

  “Go on,” Rachel said.

  “And my pants are around my ankles. I’m leaning up against a dirty stall, and a girl I went to high school with is going down on me. Becky Albertelli. We used to call her the Beckinator. I don’t remember why. I don’t even remember seeing her at the bar before that moment. When I realized what was happening, I apologized and ran out with my pants still halfway down. When I checked my phone, I had a dozen missed calls from Deirdre. Somehow I managed to drive home without killing myself or anyone else. I should have been suspended from the force for that alone. When I got home, Deirdre was a mess. Her mother had had a stroke, and she’d been trying to reach me for hours. And I was bare assed in a grimy bathroom in a dive bar, looking at the top of the head of a girl I hadn’t seen or thought about in fifteen years. I think about that a lot. I don’t know if our marriage would have survived anyway after Evan died, but . . . if there was anything solid left in our relationship, I broke it that night.”

  “That’s pretty bad,” Rachel said. “Did you ever talk to the Beckinator again?”

  Serrano shook his head. “I remember seeing a wedding announcement a year or two later. She seemed happy. Your turn. Quid pro quo.”

  “All right,” she said. She thought about the worst thing she’d ever done. Images flashed in her mind. A knife. Blood. So much blood. A bracelet with Tiger Eye beads locked in a safe in her bedroom upstairs at that very moment.

  Don’t tell him that. It will change everything.

  “After Bradley died,” Rachel said, “I moved the kids to Torrington. We couldn’t stay in Darien. Not after what happened. And every night for I don’t know how long, Eric would wake up screaming. He had nightmares where he would see his father and relive what happened to him. I cannot imagine reliving that moment every night as a child. Every night I would go into Eric’s room and climb into his bed and hold him until the crying and shaking stopped. But it didn’t always stop. Sometimes his screams woke Megan. She was just a baby back then. And then I had two crying children in the middle of the night, and I felt so . . . helpless. I was still grieving myself at that point. I was an emotional wreck. But I didn’t have anyone to talk to. Nobody was there to hold me. I had nightmares, too, but mine had to be ignored because I had two children who took precedence. I don’t think I slept for six months.”

  Rachel paused.

  “Anyway, one night after a session with Evie, I was just completely and utterly spent. I’d worked out for half the day. My muscles felt like meat sliding off a smoked rib. That night, when the kids went to bed, I opened a bottle of wine and put on a movie. Something mindless, just to take my mind off things. Half an hour into it, Eric began to scream. But I didn’t move. Then ten minutes later, Megan began to scream. My children were screaming for their mother. They needed me. But I still didn’t move. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it another night. I needed one evening for myself. So I turned the volume on the television up and sat there and drank wine for an entire hour while my children cried for their mom. And I ignored them. I ignored my children. It was only one night, but I think about it every day. There is no guilt on this earth greater than that of a mother who could have prevented their child’s pain and didn’t.”

  She felt Serrano put his hand on her cheek. She turned to him.

  “I can be alone. I can be strong.” She turned to face him. “But sometimes I don’t want to be.”

  Rachel slipped her hand behind Serrano’s head and pulled him toward her, her lips finding his as she closed her eyes and kissed him hard and deep. He pressed back against her, his hand resting on her rib cage. She felt an electric current flow through her, rushing through her body in a torrent, warming her blood in an instant. She felt dizzy, heated, but ignored it.

  She took his hand and placed it on her breast, and she gasped when he pressed on it, gently. He moved against her, and she could feel him growing hard. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ached for him, or anyone, so desperately. She had willed herself to not feel, to conceal her desires, but now she let everything go and lost herself in his touch. Rachel unzipped his fly. Serrano stood up and slid his pants down, his lips still pressed against hers, his hand still sending electric currents through her. She gripped him and heard him moan. Her head pounded, but she didn’t care.

  While still holding him, Rachel undid her jeans and slid them to the floor. Next came her tank top and his shirt. When they were both naked, she pushed Serrano onto the couch and straddled him. She kissed him passionately, then helped guide him inside her.

  Her body felt like she’d been plugged into an electric socket. As she lowered herself on Serrano, over and over, she could feel the hairs on his chest tickling her skin. She moved faster and faster, their movements in sync. She could feel his heart beating against her chest, their bodies growing slick with sweat. Finally she grew close, her body bucking, Serrano holding on for dear life as a bolt of lightning shot through Rachel. She slowed and came to a stop, their lips finding each other, hands intertwined once again.

  And then she lay there, still atop him, letting their breathing return to normal, their hearts slowing down, finding a rhythm. Serrano kissed her neck gently.

  His eyes were closed. Hers were open.

  Then she sat up, placing her hands on his chest. He opened his eyes.

  “You OK?” he said, gen
tly tracing her head, skirting her wound. Rachel nodded and kissed him.

  “If I ever catch you texting with Becky Albertelli,” she said, “I’ll kill you both.”

  Serrano laughed and kissed her forehead. He ran his hands along the sides of her torso, his right thumb resting just below the thick, red scar. A reminder of the true worst thing she’d ever done. The one thing she’d kept to herself. The only thing she would never tell him.

  CHAPTER 30

  Serrano left before the school buses arrived. Rachel didn’t want Eric to see them together, not after what had happened at Voss Field. Before he stepped out the door, Serrano kissed Rachel, deeply and passionately, and then he left.

  At three thirty-two, the grade school bus pulled up, and Megan climbed off. She waved to her friends and skipped to the front door. Rachel gathered her into her arms and held her tight.

  “My baby,” she said.

  “How’s your head, Mom?”

  “It’s all right. Just a little bonk. I’ll be fine.”

  “I wish Sadie Scout had been there to help out,” Megan said. “She’s very good at stopping bad guys. And crossing dangerous rivers.”

  Rachel laughed. “The next time I have to cross a dangerous river, I’ll be sure to give Sadie a call. How was school?”

  “We learned about indig . . . again . . . indigenous people in geography. They’re kind of like people who stay who they are, even if everything around them changes. They don’t change at all. There are, like, a hundred indi . . . gus tribes left in the world.”

  “Sound it out, hon. In-Dig-E-Nous.”

  “In-Dig-E-Noose.”

  “Close enough.”

  Megan looked around. “Is Eric home yet?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Soon.”

  “Do you think he still loves us?” she asked.

  “Oh, Megan, I know he does.”

  “OK,” she said. “I have to get back to the new Sadie Scout book. Maybe I’ll have her meet some In-Dig-E-Nous people. They can learn from each other.”

  “That sounds like it would be an amazing story. I can’t wait to read it.”