The Stranger Inside

Just listen to your mother, darling. Her father rarely had rules, or chimed in on her mother’s. In fact, if her father ever told her to do anything, it was to question the rules, ask anything, push the boundaries. Believe half of what you see, he was famous for saying. And nothing of what you hear.

“Besides,” said Tess. “It will take forever.”

She was right. It was a long way around, two big hills, an extra fifteen minutes, maybe more. And it was hot. Just before ten in the morning and it was already blazing. They didn’t have their bikes. Tess had a flat and her mom said she’d fix it over the weekend. So they were on foot. The sun was bright, and the creek was babbling. She saw the red flash of a northern cardinal, heard its cry of alarm. It was a fairy-tale forest, a place they knew as well as they knew their own backyards.

“Fine,” said Rain, following her friend onto the path.

No cell phones. Rain thought about that a lot now. If they’d had phones, how would that day have been different? Would she have called her mom? Would their mothers have been tracking them the way people did now? Maybe her phone would have rung just then: I told you to stay away from the woods! Come home this instant!

But there were no phones to ring. Just two girls, twelve going on thirteen. Neither one of them especially cool. Smart, A-students, but naive, sheltered. Tess had braces and enormous glasses, wore her mousy blond hair in braids; Rain, in braces, too, her black hair was wild, untamable. She couldn’t shimmy the rope in gym class to save her own life. Rain already knew she was a writer, like her father. Tess, an accomplished horseback rider, as at ease in a saddle as she was on a bicycle, was certain she was going to become a veterinarian. And Hank, who they were on their way to meet at his house because he had a pool, well, he was just a comic-book, video-game nerd. All he wanted to be when he grew up was a superhero. They were merely waiting for him to get bitten by a spider, or fall into a vat of toxic sludge, and emerge with his powers.

“What’s wrong with the woods, anyway?” asked Tess. She was rail-thin, coltish, prone to tripping. “Since when can’t we walk through?”

Rain looked at her jagged cuticles. She wasn’t clear on her mother’s reasoning. “My mom just said.”

They almost didn’t see him; the big man sat as still as a boulder by the side of the creek. They might have walked right over the bridge and passed him without noticing—if not for the dog.

“Rain?”

She practically jumped out of her skin, adrenaline rocketing through her. Lily whimpered, shifted crankily in her sleep at the sudden movement. Greg stood over her, a hand on her shoulder.

“Did you fall asleep?” he whispered. He lifted Lily from her arms, kissed the baby’s head softly and placed her in the crib. He stood watching their little girl.

Rain came to stand beside him, and he turned to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was a low blow.”

He put his arms around her again and they stood swaying, turtles from the nightlight dancing on the walls.

You were right, she wanted to say but didn’t. It is about what happened. Everything Rain had done since that day was about what happened. How could it not be?

She let the comfort of the room, her husband’s arms, the present moment wash over her. She pushed that day, and everything that happened after, back down into the box where she kept it, and locked it up tight. She envisioned herself throwing the key down a deep well.

Don’t let this slow you down, kid. Her father had issued this directive right after, and at critical moments since. If you let it get its claws into your haunches, it’s over. Remember that.

She’d been running. Fast as she could. Why did she always find herself back there?

“Whatever you want to do,” Greg whispered. “Whatever you need, I support it.”

“Thank you,” she said, holding on to him tight.

But wasn’t there a part of her that wished he’d stop her? That he’d tell her no, that Lily came first, and they’d agreed someone should be home full-time. Wasn’t there a part of her that wished he’d keep her from following that trail into the woods? Again.

They stood there awhile, holding each other, watching Lily, the big, sweet-faced moon hanging from the ceiling watching them. Her eyes drifted outside to the street, where she saw the headlights of a sedan switch on across the street. The car sat idle for a moment, then pulled away slowly. Her heart thumped.

It’s nothing. It’s no one, she told herself. Even though a part of her knew it was a lie.

EIGHT

Do you see me? Do you know it’s me?

He loves you. That’s obvious as I watch you hold on to him, sway in the dim light of the nursery. I shift in my seat, stare at the monitor in my hand, its glow shining blue on the dash, on the door. I’m happy for you, believe it or not. I didn’t think you two would actually get married, let alone stay married. Of course, it’s early days. Still, you seem to get each other. It’s not perfect—I’ve heard the two of you fight, and fuck, make up, argue again. But it’s healthy. It’s real. When he kisses you, I turn the monitor off.

I start the engine and drive away.

You know what I remember about that day, Lara? Everything. Every detail.

I woke shivering because my parents kept that house as cold as a fucking icebox, didn’t even bother turning it up when they left for work. They were both gone, as usual, when I got up.

Remember that feeling? That summer feeling. You open your eyes and there’s absolutely nothing to do. The day stretches ahead, leisurely and beautiful. No school, no responsibilities, no chores in my case—hey, there was a cleaning service for all that—just the blissful freedom of the unsupervised adolescent.

I knew you guys were coming, that we’d swim. There’d be pizza and video games, and some stupid movie. I figured we’d ride our bikes back to your place. Your mom always made dinner; my parents might not come home until eight, carrying fast-food burgers or fried chicken in greasy white sacks—they loved their junk food, didn’t they? Remember how we’d eat that later, too? Eat at your place, eat again at mine. Your dad would come for you, so you wouldn’t ride home alone in the night. Sometimes you’d just leave your bike and get it the next day.

I had a stack of new comics that my dad brought the night before from his favorite shop in the city. I read one—Batman—as I ate a huge bowl of Cocoa Puffs, then drank the chocolate milk that was left behind. The way we ate. Remember how we’d ride to the general store and buy bags of junk—gum and candy bars, those peanut butter cookies, and cheesy puffs, potato chips in cans. We’d just sit on the sidewalk and eat it all. I look at those old pictures and we were all so skinny. I guess that’s the magic of being a kid, right. Eat whatever you want. No consequences. Until much later.

I remember the sunlight glittering on the pool. The birds singing in the backyard. The hum of a lawn mower from across the street. There was a note from my mom: Get out and do something today. Don’t just lie around in front of the television. Love you!

Later, she blamed herself. She should have been home. If she had been—The way I see it, there’s plenty of blame to go around.

The last time I wrote, you told me that you didn’t remember much of anything. You told me that you didn’t want to remember. That’s when you asked me to stay away, to stay out of your life. If you could go back and relive that day, change things, you would. But you can’t, you said, so you had no choice but to move on. You politely suggested that I do the same. Move on.

It’s so easy for you.

Not so easy for me, of course.

What if I hadn’t gone out looking for you and Tess? What if I had, instead, called your mom, asked for you? She’d have known that you weren’t where you were supposed to be. She’d have come looking. It’s like you said, you can drive yourself crazy running through all the scenarios, all the ways things could have been different.

You can really drive yourself crazy.

The air smelled of cut grass, and the gravel driveway crunched beneath my sneakers as I left the house. My dirt bike lay where I’d dumped it the night before on the grass. Someone’s going to steal that thing, my dad complained the night before. And I’m not going to replace it. But like all spoiled kids, I knew if it did get stolen—which it wouldn’t—that he’d bitch a blue streak then get me another one eventually. Anyway, nothing ever got stolen, not in that neighborhood. Everyone had everything they wanted and then some. No need to steal. We didn’t always even lock our doors, would forget to close the garage sometimes. We felt safe. Remember that? Remember what it was like to feel so safe that you didn’t even know what it meant not to feel that way?

I pulled the bike up from the damp ground, didn’t even bother wiping it off. Just hopped on it and headed toward the dirt road. Your mom told you not to cut across anymore. But I figured you guys, especially Tess, were too lazy to go the long way. The air on my face, hot and humid. The sudden coolness when I was on the dirt road, under the tree cover. A squirrel skittered in front of my bike. I swerved to avoid it. Mrs. Newman waved from the window over her kitchen sink. Hey, Mrs. Newman! I called back to her.

I heard something then, something high-pitched and out of place, came to a skidding stop on my bike and listened. Birdsong, and wind in the leaves.

Right there.

I go back to that place. Because even though I convinced myself that it was nothing and I kept going, I remember the way the hair came up on my arms, that sudden stillness inside, the urge to freeze and listen. That’s instinct. That’s the brain picking up on something, a note out of the symphony of normal life. The way ahead was dark. I think I even looked back at the way behind me, the sun-dappled road home.

If I had spun my bike around, then what? Then what?

From the way you talked about it, I could tell that you’ve had a lot of therapy. I have, too, believe me. Years of it, shrink after shrink, well into adulthood. After something rips your psyche apart, they try to stitch you back together. The physical wounds, they’ve healed. Even the scars have faded.

But whatever got broken inside, it’s still not right. Do you feel the same way? I suspect you do. I see it in you, too, Lara. That look, the one I see in the mirror. A kind of emptiness behind the eyes, a strange flatness. You’ve seen the things that make all the other things people do seem meaningless.

Do you feel as if there are two of you? The one who’s living out her life—working, having relationships, going to the grocery store, cooking, reading. The person you would have been if it had never happened. And then there’s another you. The one who survived but is still somehow trapped in the nightmare.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me.

I was a child, you wrote. And I acted out of terror and extreme trauma. Even though I wish things had been different, I don’t blame myself. I have moved on to try and live a whole and happy life. She would have wanted that for us. Don’t you think?

I get that. I hear that. They give you the language of survival. The phrases you are meant say to yourself, words like a bridge over the bottomless gully of despair. I have those words, too. I dole them out to others now in my work with trauma victims, mainly children and adolescents. That’s the work that the whole and healthy part of me does; I help children who have suffered find their way back to normal, or forward to a new normal. It’s good work. Gratifying and healing.

So I get what you’re trying to say. And part of me even agrees, that one way to honor Tess is to live out the lives we’ve been given.

But no, I don’t think she would have wanted that for us. I mean, think about it. I’m fairly certain that if the choice had been put to her, she would have wanted one of us to take her place. I think she would have vastly preferred, as anyone would, to be the one picking up the pieces of that summer morning, trying to live a whole and happy life in the wake of a terrible event that she survived.

I think she would have wanted one of us to die instead at the hands of a monster. Personally—and I know you’ll find this hurtful—I think it should have been you.

He came for you, Lara. Not her. And if it hadn’t been for me, he would have gotten you.

Don’t bother to thank me. It’s far too late for that.

I key in the code to my gate and pull up the long drive. My own house is empty. There’s no one waiting for me at home, no one to hold me when the ghosts come to call. I sit in the car for a while. I can still hear the sound of you humming to your daughter—did you even know you were humming? I let the sound of your voice fill my mind.

NINE

Rain saw the dog first, a German shepherd that sat still and stiff as a sentry beside the big man. Large, mostly black but with tawny fur on the legs, belly and around the eyes. She’d seen the man before. Somewhere. Where? She felt a flutter of unease in her belly.

“Good morning,” he said.

He seemed nice enough, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He pushed his thick black glasses up his nose, stayed where he was beside the creek. Just sitting. He wore a black jacket, too hot for a summer day. His hair was long, pulled into a loose ponytail, his beard thick and long. He was heavy, very overweight.

“Good morning,” said Tess sweetly.

Rain didn’t say anything, just moved quickly toward Tess and grabbed her hand, started pulling her away.

“We’re late,” she said.

“Didn’t your mom teach you to be nice?” asked the man.

She bristled, annoyed. In fact, her mother had not taught her to be nice, and neither had her father.

“My mom,” she snapped, “told me not to talk to strange men in the woods.”

She got in trouble sometimes at school, for speaking out, for talking back. That’s your father in you, said her mother, not angrily. She didn’t get in trouble at home for that sort of thing. She could say what she wanted to her parents, speak her mind, give her opinion. She was allowed to get angry, to yell even. She was allowed to be sad, frustrated, to cry. Her mom was a big believer in letting it out and talking it through. Rain’s mother taught her that even though the world always wants girls to be nice and sweet, quiet, hold it all in, you don’t always have to be that. Own your feelings. Speak your mind. Know your boundaries. Protect them.

The big man stared, displeased she could tell, though she couldn’t say how since his face didn’t change. Then he released a low whistle and that big dog trotted over to block their path to Hank’s. Rain tugged Tess closer.

The beast stood panting in front of them, legs wide, head low. He wasn’t big. He was huge. His eyes were black, his tawny chest wide and muscular.

“Don’t worry,” said the man, not moving. “He’s friendly.”

The dog bared his teeth and started to growl.

It was a bright golden morning, sun washing in through the gauzy drapes, painting the room. Lily cooed happily on the monitor. The tendrils of the nightmare clung, pulling Rain back into the gloom.

She took a few breaths to calm herself. That place. That dog. Why was she back there? Never mind, scratch that. She knew why.

The bed beside her was cold and empty. Greg had left a note: “Thought it was better for you two to sleep. Rough night.”

It was nearly 9 a.m., an epic sleep-in by current standards. It had been a rough night, Lily waking twice, emitting suddenly and inexplicably that high-pitched wail perfected by babies everywhere to fry each nerve ending in their exhausted mothers’ bodies. Rain had nursed Lily back to sleep once, then paced the hallway for what seemed like hours after the baby woke a second time. Teething? Who knew? There’d been some late-night (or was it early morning) lovemaking—or was it just a dream? Did women dream about making love to their husbands? Maybe not. Her head throbbed.

“Maamaa,” Lily sang over the monitor. “Ahhh. Ohhh.”

It took an hour to get herself together, about fifty-six minutes longer than it used to take. She showered with Lily in the bouncy seat, found a pair of jeans she could squeeze into, a button-down shirt that didn’t gape over her boobs, dressed, dug out the messenger bag she used to carry with her everywhere, packed the camera and the portable digital recorder, a fresh Moleskine and package of Pilot V5 pens. Ready. Then Lily—fed, changed, diaper bag stocked, snacks, toys, strapped into her car seat. Okay.

Sitting in the driver’s seat and looking at Lily, red hair glinting gold in the morning light, Rain briefly wondered about the wisdom of bringing a baby to a crime scene. A crime scene that, with the help of Henry, and her willingness to break rules and sometimes laws, she and Gillian planned to enter.

But what else was she going to do? She hadn’t left Lily with a sitter yet, though Mitzi kept offering. She wasn’t about to start on a whim. This was a whim, wasn’t it? The beginning of a story no one had asked her to cover? She’d just have to make it all work, right? When the road isn’t laid clear before you, her mother always said, forge your own path.

Admittedly, this probably wasn’t what she had in mind.

The drive went quickly, traffic light, the day clear. She knew the way. She’d been where she was going before, too many times.

She and Gillian had stood among the throng of reporters always gathered outside the Markham house during Laney’s disappearance, then when she was found. Sweltering afternoons, and long nights, emotions high. She remembered so clearly the feel of it—the dread, the fatigue, the intensity of every new piece of information, the tragic unfolding of the story. They’d lived it—barely going home, eating and sometimes sleeping in the news van. Her life, Greg especially, sorely neglected.

No crowds today as she approached; the Markham house had an air of desertion and the street was quiet, the overgrown and neglected yard edged with black-and-yellow crime scene tape. An empty squad car sat in the driveway, and a dark sedan blocked the property from street access. The message was clear: stay away.

Halloween decorations abounded on neighboring houses—striking a different tenor than those on her own street. Here, lawns had been turned into graveyards, skeletons hung from trees. As she pulled up the block, a grim reaper stood sentry by a tilting mailbox, a giant inflatable spider dominated another small yard.

Rain parked past the house, something tingling. A strange déjà vu, as if she’d played this scene out already, an odd sense of unease. She went around to the back to unpack Lily and put her in the sling.

Diaper bag over one shoulder, work satchel over the other, she approached the familiar white van. Gillian and their longtime driver, Josh, were in the cab, bent over something Rain couldn’t see, Gillian talking, Josh nodding. They looked up as she approached, and both started waving.

Gillian emerged, svelte in a white pencil skirt, and blue silk blouse, heels. She tossed her honey hair, gazed at herself in the side mirror, leaning in close to examine her skin. Gillian out in front, Rain behind the scenes. That’s how it had always been, and how they both liked it.

“Oh, wow,” Gillian said, eyes falling on Lily. “You brought Lily.”

Rain shrugged, looking at Lily, who gazed up at the falling leaves, pointing. “I don’t have a sitter.”

“Of course,” said Gillian, giving her a serious, thoughtful frown. “Right.”

How was this going to work? She hadn’t exactly thought it through.

But Gillian was already cooing, lifting the baby from the sling, Lily kicking her legs with happiness. And Rain was greeting Josh, a big man with a full, prematurely white beard and glittery blue eyes. Jeans, flannel shirt, faded denims—he was rough and ready just like always.

“I had a feeling you’d be back sooner rather than later.”

Why did everyone keep saying that? He pulled her into a bear hug, which she gratefully returned. This was one of the things she missed most about work—her friends.

“I’m not back,” she said. “I’m just along for the ride.”

“Oh, sure.”

“So how are we going to do this?” asked Gillian, balancing Lily on her slender hip. She and Rain locked eyes, mind-melded, then looked at Josh.

He raised his eyebrows. Late forties, father of three, the man you called in any crisis, always awake, always at the wheel and ready to go before anyone else.

“Toys, books, snacks?” he asked, regarding the baby. Rain handed over the diaper bag, which he easily slung over his shoulder.

“All right, Miss Lily,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

And of course, Lily, the effortlessly friendly little spirit that she was, happily went to her new friend, grabbing ahold of his beard. Hard.

“They always do that,” said Josh, wincing and carrying her to the cab.

Gil ducked under the tape and Rain followed, moving quickly, with purpose, as if they belonged there. That was key, always look like you knew where you were going—even when you were essentially breaking and entering. Good girls don’t get answers.

Gillian knocked on the door, just to be sure the house was empty. And it was, just as Henry had promised.

“Crime scene techs are done,” he’d told her. “According to my source, FBI left this morning. They’ll have a patrol car there tonight, just to keep away any lookie-loos. My guy can leave the side door open for you.”

“Thanks, Henry.”

“Don’t get caught,” he warned. “And if you do, don’t mention me.”

“Come on.”

“What are you looking for? Do you even know?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

Gillian and Rain walked over to the side of the house, Rain faster in her jeans and sneakers than Gillian was in her heels. She always dressed as if she was about to go on camera. Rain, on the other hand, would be in her pajamas everywhere she went if it were socially acceptable.

“This is where the second part of our story begins,” Rain said, standing at a paint-splattered door with a rickety knob and a small glass-paned window covered with grime. She had the portable digital recorder in her hand.

“In the early hours of October 2, an unknown assailant broke into the house at 238 Pine Drive and killed Steve Markham.”

Rain felt her heart race, wondering if this was how the killer got in. They pushed inside to a musty garage, moved past a parked silver Mercedes-Benz, some stacks of boxes, a humming furnace.

“When he was acquitted of the murder of his wife, we thought that was the conclusion of the story,” said Gillian. This is how they did it: investigated together, took pictures, wrote notes, made snippet recordings. Later, Rain would weave together the full piece, write it, Gillian doing the reporting.

“I guess someone wanted to revise the ending,” said Rain.

They found the interior door unlocked, pushed it open and stepped into a small laundry room. There was a strong odor in the house—mold, garbage, something else—a chemical edge, something that tickled the inside of Rain’s nose.

She already had her camera out, stuck the recorder in her pocket, started snapping pictures.