The Stranger Inside

by Lisa Unger

  “That’s right.”

  “According to state records there was no boy placed with them at that time, or since. In fact, Angel was their last foster.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “However,” she says, “I ran a search against the national database of missing children. Angel claims that the boy there had a birthmark on his shoulder in the shape of heart, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, searching with that distinguishing feature, I found a listing for a boy gone missing about that time, just a few towns over. He was a runaway, drug problems, fourteen years old. He has not been found.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Billy Martin,” she says. “He’s been missing eighteen months.”

  I hear an odd humming in my head that I know is not healthy. There are little signs these days, tells—that humming, sometimes there’s a kind of flash in my vision as if the lights are flickering. He’s making himself known more often, trying to push me out of the way when my anxiety or anger levels are even slightly elevated.

  “I reported my findings,” she says. “Gave a call to the detective who investigated Billy’s disappearance. It’s still active—he hasn’t let it go cold. I wouldn’t be surprised if he reaches out to Angel.”

  I feel an unreasonable flash of annoyance. But, of course, she did the right thing, what she was obligated to do. That’s what we’re all trying to do, isn’t it? The right thing. I remind myself that if there’s a missing child, it’s not about Angel’s trauma, or even about Tom and Wendy Walters. It’s not about his wicked appetites. It’s about finding Billy Martin.

  “Thank you, Andrea,” I say.

  Tess sits in the corner of the room. Today she’s wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt with a rainbow on it, those silly white socks with the stripes at the top and the sneakers she used to wear. Braces, glasses, braids. She looks out the window, kicks her leg back and forth. She’s whistling something. What is it?

  “Thank you,” Andrea says. “For keeping on this when others might have given up or discounted a troubled girl’s allegations. There might be something here. Though I have to admit, I really hope not.”

  “Me, too.”

  There’s an awkward silence. I could ask her how she is. Or suggest maybe we have dinner. But I just don’t. You know I think I would have been socially awkward anyway. I can’t blame everything on Kreskey.

  “Keep me in the loop?” she says.

  “Of course.” I struggle with what to say next. Why is it all so hard?

  Then, “Take care of yourself, Hank.”

  She ends the call. I stare at the phone—feeling like an idiot.

  “So, what are you going to do?” asks Tess.

  Somehow, she’s found herself an ice-cream cone. Remember that farm, the dairy, how we’d ride our bikes down that dangerous twisting road, heat rising off the asphalt and the smell of cow manure heavy in the air? We’d turn off onto the farm drive and the cows would low at us, munching on grass. The ice cream there, made fresh every day from the milk of those cows. Have you ever had better ice cream? I haven’t.

  “I’m going back tonight,” I tell her.

  She rolls her eyes. “For the third time?”

  “For as many times as it takes.”

  “What if you can’t find anything?” she asks. “What if there’s nothing there?”

  I look around my empty kitchen, my single dish in the sink, the container of massaman curry from the Thai place empty beside it. The single glass of red wine imbibed for its health benefits.

  “Why don’t you call Beth back?” Tess suggests.

  The woman I met at the party. I’ve been thinking about her. This could be another one of those moments. Like that moment when I was still on my bike with the choice to turn around and ride for help. Or that moment when I stood at the doorway of Kreskey’s house and could have run out across that field screaming.

  Maybe in this moment, I could pick up the phone and call Beth. Maybe we’d meet for a drink or catch a late movie. Maybe she’d come back here, and who knows what might happen after that. I can almost see my way along the well-lighted, normal path. I’ve gone above and beyond within the letter of the law, done what needed to be done for Angel. Andrea has called her findings in to the police; if anyone is still looking for Billy Martin, they’ll get out there fast.

  But what if there isn’t time? What if another night, another day—another hour—means it’s too late for a boy in trouble? To save his life, to save his mind.

  After all, that’s all it took for me, just an hour. Right, Lara?

  THIRTY-THREE

  She stood to leave, Hank sat staring at his cup in Café Orlin.

  “Did you forget something?” He picked up the heart and held it out to her in his palm.

  “Keep it, Hank,” she said. “I never wanted it in the first place.”

  She intended it to be mean; it was not even true. But she hated him in that moment. Wanted to hurt him. She could tell by the look on his face that she had. He closed it in his palm.

  “He’s unstable,” she told Greg in the taxi. “He needs help.”

  “What did he say?” he asked.

  But she didn’t tell Greg that Hank was planning to kill Eugene Kreskey, that he’d asked her to lure Tess’s killer back to that house. That Hank had a plan, a plan for revenge—it was well thought out. He’d been to the house a number of times. He’d purchased the items he needed to carry out his task.

  No, Rain didn’t tell Greg.

  She didn’t tell anyone.

  In fact, later that night when she woke sweating and weeping from a nightmare where Kreskey sliced her open and pulled out her heart, the only person she thought to call was Hank. He answered on the first ring.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, voice heavy, knowing.

  “No,” she said, breathless. He was right there. Kreskey. Lurking in every murky corner, of the room, of her mind. She wasn’t free. “Of course I’m not.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “For everything. I had no right—”

  “I’m in,” she whispered. “I’ll do it.”

  Rage.

  Of all the emotions she’d acknowledged and examined, of all the feelings she’d laid bare for shrinks. That beast crouched inside her, unwelcome, unexpressed, but there all the same. Because deep down, beneath the cover of shame and self-blame, survivor’s guilt, she knew who was responsible for what happened to her and to her friends. And she’d never stopped hating him for it, never stopped wishing something horrible would happen to him.

  “And then,” she went on, gripping the phone. “You and I are done.”

  Hank breathed on the line. Then, “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

  It should have been her that day; that was the other thing she knew. Cosmically, maybe, it had been her day to die. And because of Hank, she’d lived. Now, she’d finally go to the Kreskey house to save Hank.

  And this time, they’d win.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The shuffling came from behind the door, a series of scratches. Then quiet again. Why didn’t she turn and leave? Why couldn’t she keep herself from moving forward? There was another high-pitched noise, too. She couldn’t identify it, but it made her skin tingle. Something hurt or trapped? Since she’d had Lily, the thought of anything helpless in pain or in distress sliced her. She couldn’t stand the thought of hungry children, abused pets, runaways, women hiding from abusive husbands. She had the iPhone camera running, held out in front of her.

  The door swung open. In the corner, mingling with the shadows, she saw a form, something small and rustling. A pair of yellow eyes stared at her, startled by the light from her phone. A low yowl. A cat, black with a white chest and yellow eyes. Around her a litter of kittens.

  “Oh!” she said, moving forward, crouching down
. The kittens mewled and wriggled, hairless, eyes closed, and mama didn’t look happy.

  “That’s all right, kitties,” she said. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Rain rose, backed away and didn’t see him until it was too late.

  Kreskey, towering and filthy, arm raised. He slipped out of the shadow behind the door and she didn’t even have a chance to scream.

  The blow caught her on the side of the head and she went sailing, like she weighed nothing, head cracking against the floor. The world spinning. The cat hissing, wild, right by her head. When he came at her again, the cat lunged—going straight for his face. And he issued a yell, ripping the cat away and tossing it brutally against the wall.

  Then he was coming toward Rain again, howling, bleeding from the scratches on his face. She just cowered, not believing her eyes.

  She was back there, back in the woods, a child, helpless.

  “Get out of here,” a voice roared.

  Then a loud crack and Kreskey fell to his knees, clutching his head. And there was Greta behind him, her walking stick raised like a baseball bat, ready to strike again. The homeless man wearing an army green jacket skittered toward the door.

  Not Kreskey. Not even close. Half the size, wailing now with pain.

  “Get out!” Greta roared again. “This is private property.”

  Rain lay on the floor as the man rumbled out the door and crashed down the stairs, still yelling. “Bitch! Bitch!”

  Not Kreskey. Just a homeless man she’d frightened.

  Greta kneeled down to the cat, who was lying still, the kittens mewing in distress.

  Rain leaned over and was sick.

  She had a cut on her head that was bleeding, but she helped Greta with the injured cat and her kittens. They used a box that Rain had been planning to take to the recycling and made a bed with some of the nursing cloths in Rain’s diaper bag. Greta rode in Rain’s back seat, cradling the mother cat in her arms.

  “Don’t you have the sense to know how dangerous it is to venture into a condemned building alone?” Greta asked irritably as Rain helped her establish the cat and kittens in Greta’s free-standing garage. “Mother knew you would go there.”

  Rain didn’t say anything. Her head was pounding, and she wondered if she was going to be sick again. She had to go, get back to Lily. Call Greg before he had a nervous breakdown. How was she going to explain her head? Should she even be driving? The world seemed impossibly bright; the pain in her head growing more intense.

  “Thank you,” said Rain. “For helping me.”

  She wanted to get out of there, far away from the Kreskey house, from the crazy bird lady, from all the memories that were as powerful and frightening as they had ever been. She’d unlocked the box, and everything was flying out now, screaming furies surrounding her.

  Still, she helped Greta get the kittens settled. The mother cat was alert but favoring her injured leg.

  “I’ll take her to the vet,” said Greta.

  “I have to go,” Rain said, moving toward the door.

  “It’s a bad idea, you know,” said Greta with a deep scowl. “This story. What you’re doing. You’re going to regret it.”

  It was another voice in the cacophony that played in her head all the way home.

  “What happened?” Mitzi rushed to the door to greet her. “Oh, dear. Let me look at that.”

  Lily reached for Rain, arms urgent, and Rain took the baby gratefully into her arms. Oh, her warmth, her wonderful softness, the scent of her hair. The contrast of her present life and her past was dizzying. How could she walk away from this to go there?

  The baby bounced, giving Rain a wide two-toothed smile.

  “This one,” said Mitzi, still frowning, worried, “is an angel. A real joy baby.”

  “She is,” said Rain, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  “Where’s your first aid kit?”

  “I’ll get it,” said Rain.

  “Boo-boo?” asked Lily. Rain fought back tears, but then they came anyway—welling, falling, a delayed reaction. She pulled Lily close so that she didn’t see her mommy cry. Had Lily seen her cry before? Did babies even notice that kind of thing?

  “Let me,” said Mitzi. A warm hand on Rain’s shoulder.

  “Upstairs, cabinet under the master bathroom sink. The far one.”

  Rain put Lily on the ground and got down with her. Lily reached for and handed Rain an Elephant and Piggie book by Mo Willems, rock god of children’s literature. Gerald, an elephant, is afraid that he’s allergic to his best friend, Piggie. He sneezes magnificently.

  Lily squealed with delight as Rain read: “AAAAAH-CHOO!”

  She let the house, the sound of her daughter’s voice, the familiar smells of the fireplace, the organic cleaner she used to clean the wood table, the light from the window wash over her.

  I’m home. Not in Kreskey’s house. Not on the path in the woods. Not at Hank’s loft. Home—the place I make with Greg and Lily, my little family.

  When Mitzi returned, she got down on the floor with the two of them, nimble and fast for an older woman. She wiped at the blood on Rain’s head. The cut wasn’t very big; she’d inspected it in the car, wiped at it ineffectually with spit on a tissue, pushed her hair in front of it so that it wouldn’t be obvious.

  “What happened?” Mitzi asked, when she seemed satisfied that the cut was clean.

  “I—uh,” said Rain. “I walked into a door. Stupid.”

  Mitzi nodded, smiled kindly. She got up, discarded the cotton ball, put the kit on the counter. She washed her hands. “Well, be careful, young lady. You have a little one to watch over. You have to take care of yourself—for her.”

  Most people think that a mother’s greatest fear is that something will happen to her child, and that’s true. But of equal horror to most mothers was that something would happen to her, and that she wouldn’t be there to care for her baby. That thought, what she did this afternoon, it gutted her. What would have happened if Greta hadn’t shown up with her stick and her inherent toughness?

  “Things are harder on you girls,” said Mitzi. “I mean, it was hard on us, too. Just the beginning, you know, of women being very career-minded. Me? I never wanted to be anything but a mother and wife. Which I kind of felt guilty about back then. Like you were supposed to want more, you know. And I just wanted kids.

  “That’s what my Bruce wanted, too,” Mitzi went on. “He earned a good living and we did well enough. Trips to Disney, the Grand Canyon—Janey got a scholarship, and we had enough for Jack’s education.”

  She came to sit next to Rain, ran a hand through her gray hair. “Janey’s a lawyer, two little ones—not so little anymore. High school. But it was hard. She wanted both things.”

  “And?”

  “She wishes she spent more time with the kids now that they’re out, here and there, living busy lives with not much time for their parents.”

  “And you?”

  “Now I guess I wonder what else I might have done,” she said. “Especially since Bruce passed away, five years ago now.”

  She looked sad for a moment, and Rain reached out for her. The other woman squeezed her hand. She laughed a little. “I think, there are always regrets—or maybe wondering. But I guess I’d rather wonder what else I might have done, than wonder if I’d done right by my children.”

  Rain nodded, looked at Lily, who was on her back, holding her toes, very interested in her feet. Her legs were so chubby, her feet and hands such perfect specimens of cuteness.

  “Do you think it’s possible?” asked Rain. “To do both things well?”

  “I do,” she said, with a firm nod. “You just have to give up sleeping.”

  They both laughed then. They were still laughing when Greg came through the door, looking just south of frantic.

  His messages. The D
o Not Disturb setting. Shit.

  “Look at that,” Mitzi said. “Daddy’s home, too!”

  “Hi, Mitzi,” said Greg, voice low. “Thanks for coming today.”

  “Well, I best get on,” said Mitzi, maybe sensing the encroaching storm. “Did we say Wednesday same time?”

  “We did.”

  “I can’t wait, Miss Lily,” she said, waving to the baby. “More fun on Wednesday.”

  Then she was off; Rain watched her slip out of the door, wishing she had a reason to call the older woman back. When was the last time anyone had cleaned and bandaged a cut on Rain’s body? She flashed on the man—the imagined Kreskey—lunging for her. Greta. The injured cat. The blank-eyed birds under glass. She didn’t have the energy for a fight.

  He walked past them, not stopping to kiss Lily.

  “What happened to your head?” he asked from the kitchen. He was still wearing his coat, took a bottle of bourbon from the liquor cabinet and poured himself a generous portion.

  “AAAH-CHOO!” yelled Lily from the floor. Rain smiled at her, which encouraged her to do it again.

  “I knocked it on a door,” she said. She really wanted to be honest with her husband, but how could she when she was acting like such an idiot?

  “In the Kreskey house?” he said. “A condemned building if I’m not mistaken.”

  “I needed footage, pictures,” she said. “It’s being torn down.”

  “Well, thank god for small favors.”

  He shifted off his suit jacket, rubbed at his temples. “You blocked my calls.”

  “I know.” She tried for sheepish. “I’m sorry.”

  She got up and walked over to him, wrapped him up. He was stiff at first, then folded her in his arms, buried his face in her hair. But then he pulled away, walking over to the window and looking out with his back to her.

  Lily pulled herself to standing on the coffee table.

  “Careful, bunny,” said Rain, heading back to her. Lily fell on her bottom, rolled back and started to laugh. Rain righted her again.