The Stranger Inside

by Laura Benedict

  “Where the hell have you been?” Kevin asks. “You should’ve thrown that stupid dog down the stairs the other night with the nosy old bitch.”

  “Don’t be a dick, Kevin. It’s a dog for Chrissake,” the woman says. “It’s too damned dark in here.” A spray of light, probably from her phone, shines over the floor and her bright red, knee-high Converse.

  Kimber manages to push herself up onto one hand. “No. Brianna?”

  Brianna’s always-coiffed hair is brushed out, and the leather bustier is gone. Without the leather over it, the blue-and-white gingham makes her look younger, a little dumpy. The way she carries herself is different too. This is not, after all, the Brianna she knows.

  “God, you’re so dumb, Kimber,” Brianna says. She locks the kitchen door behind her. “So self-absorbed. It’s always about you. Poor Kimber.” Bending down, she points at Kimber’s head. “What’s wrong with your face? It looks like someone smashed it with a brick.”

  Brianna. Brianna and Gabriel? It both makes sense and no sense at all. Brianna has access to so much of her life. Gabriel wanted revenge. But they didn’t even know each other! Kimber finds it so hard to process, the tension makes her laugh. It comes out as a grotesque choking sound. God, I’m a fucking mess.

  “Get up.” Kevin kicks Kimber. “Get in the chair.”

  Dragging herself up, she holds on to the seat until she can turn to sit. When her bottom hits the chair, a fierce shudder runs up her back.

  “Where’s a goddamn towel?”

  Brianna grabs the red-and-white dishtowel hanging from the oven handle and pushes it at Kevin.

  “My good buddy Gabriel tried to bite my ear off right before your gal pal here tried to shoot me. Good thing she’s a shitty shot. She might have even hit her boyfriend.”

  “Where is he?” Brianna turns on Kimber. “What did you do to him now? You couldn’t get him to kill himself, so you shot him?”

  Did she really shoot Gabriel? It’s possible, but she never meant to.

  You never mean to do anything, do you? People get hurt anyway. Michelle. Hadley. Kyle. Diana. Your mother and father. Now Gabriel. You’re poison.

  She wants to close her eyes and will the blood she knows must be seeping inside her head and gut to flow quickly, to drown her from the inside.

  “Gabriel!” Brianna tries to push past Kevin, but he grabs her arm.

  “He’s resting. Leave him alone.”

  “Let go of me, you moron.” Brianna twists away, and Kevin, weakened from the pain of his head wound and whatever else Gabriel managed to inflict, buckles. She’s gone from the room before he can stand up straight. When he does get up, he looks at Kimber.

  “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot you where you sit. I’ll kill that stupid dog too. I hate that damned dog.”

  The words come out of Kimber’s mouth pained and breathless. “How is she mixed up in this? I don’t get it. What does Brianna have against me?”

  “God, you really are stupid.”

  “Just tell me. Please. All three of you?” Her head is pounding, yet she’s trying to find something in her peripheral vision that she can use against him and Brianna if necessary. A knife. A meat tenderizer. Anything. If she can’t run, she’ll have to fight, pain or no pain. Realizing that she is, indeed, capable of killing this man doesn’t surprise her. The last time she killed—and, yes, she is a killer—it was spontaneous. Heartbreakingly spontaneous. Don was right. She didn’t mean to. This time she won’t hesitate either.

  Where’s the revolver? Think. Think. Where is it? Then she remembers dropping it right after shooting at Kevin.

  From the den, they hear an agonized cry. A moment later, Brianna runs into the kitchen.

  “What did you do to him?” She pounds at Kevin, who reflexively shoves her aside with his free arm.

  Brianna doesn’t attack him again but hurries back to the den. “Call an ambulance!” she shouts over her shoulder. “He’s dying. Somebody call an ambulance!”

  “That’s not going to happen.” Kevin’s voice doesn’t contain an ounce of compassion. Kimber understands he’s perfectly happy to let Gabriel die. She understands, too, that he’ll probably kill her as well. The police and the marshals believe he’s on the run. No one knows he’s been right here for the past twenty-four hours. How did he even know the marshals were coming after him?

  Ah, Gabriel.

  “You can’t let him die,” Kimber says.

  Kevin scoffs. “Give me a break. You’re the one who drove the guy—huh, no pun intended—to plow into a concrete wall.”

  “You’re not like my father. He wasn’t a murderer. I saw your stupid photo album, but I don’t believe you’re really my brother.”

  “Oh, come on. We’re alike, Kimber, and that’s what you don’t want to admit.” He leans within striking distance, but she knows she’s too weak to hurt him without a weapon. “Listen. All you have to do is help me find the rest of my cash. You can probably use some money now that your job is screwed, right? Your secretary took care of that for you. It only took her a few months to go back and make it look like you’ve been stealing for years. She’s awfully proud of that.” He chuckles. Then his face changes. “You’ve got my twenty thousand, though, don’t you? You took it, sneaky bitch.”

  So he doesn’t know it’s Gabriel who has the money.

  As soon as Kimber recognized Brianna in the kitchen, the pieces fell into place. But the whys aren’t answered yet. “Why didn’t you just come and ask me to help in the first place? If you think we’re so much alike, why didn’t you trust me?”

  Mr. Tuttle has stopped barking and is now scratching furiously on the other side of the basement door. Brianna is tearing through other rooms, yelling for bandages. Kimber’s heart is racing like she’s had two energy drinks and hasn’t slept in days. If she can keep Kevin talking, she can think. Maybe she can get him out of the house.

  “Because I hated you. I saw you and your sister playing happy families with my father. You two were supposed to go crying to Mommy and screw up his sweet two-family deal. She could’ve thrown him out. But then you took care of it all by killing your sister.” He smiles, gleeful. Blood stains his cheek and chin, and there’s a smear on his forehead.

  “You should’ve seen Dad’s face when I told him what you did. And Gabriel? Gabriel hating you was the icing on the cake. He and his little sister made it all possible. You think Gabriel hates you? The way he feels about you is nothing compared to the way she wants you dead. If it weren’t for Gabriel and me stopping her, you’d be dead already. She’s a pistol. Look at the way she took out the old lady, and your boyfriend, Kyle what’s-his-name.” He gives a low whistle. “That girl plays for keeps.”

  Brianna. Gabriel’s sister. Deceiving her for months. Bile rises in Kimber’s throat, but she tenses, forcing herself to stay in control. Ditzy Brianna. Savvy Brianna. But of course Brianna isn’t her real name. Gabriel’s sister is named Helen. No. Helena. Hel.

  “Then she’s not going to let Gabriel die. She’ll kill us first.” You moron.

  Kevin starts to mock her again, but Kimber’s attention is drawn to the hall doorway behind him. Brianna, or Helena, looks calmer now. Her face is streaked with blood. Gabriel’s blood.

  “I called an ambulance.”

  “The hell you say.” Kevin spins around. “Tell me you’re not as stupid as this one.” He jerks a thumb at Kimber. The tension in his voice belies his sarcasm.

  Helena directs her venom at Kimber. “You couldn’t be satisfied, could you? You had to reel him in one more time. Now he’s going to die, and you’re finally going to get what you wanted all along.” She looks at Kevin. “I told you to leave him alone. I told you I would handle him. God, I hate you. You’re both worthless pieces of shit.”

  When Kimber sees her own gun in Helena’s hand, she understands why Helena is so much calmer.

  “Quit fucking around.” Kevin takes a step toward Helena. “You couldn’t have done any of this without me.” />
  Kimber is riveted by the look on Helena’s face. Now she can see the resemblance to Gabriel: the widely spaced eyes, the high, intelligent forehead. But when Helena raises the gun to take a shot, and Kevin jumps to stop her, the spell is broken. She runs.

  As she struggles to open the back door, she hears the shot, but this time she’s far enough away that she’s not deafened. Kevin’s agonized scream fills the kitchen. By the time she hits the bottom of Jenny’s porch steps, there’s another shot from inside the house. She knows she should run for darkness, but all she can think is that she wants to be safe, inside her own home. Beelining for her porch, she barely registers the blue and red lights flashing far down the street. The sirens are just background noise for her pulse pounding in her ears.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a man at the curb frantically gesturing for her to come to him. She glances his way and realizes it’s the marshal from earlier in the day, but she keeps running toward her porch. He is not her safety.

  “Kimber!” Behind her, Helena screams her name.

  Kimber is tempted to look. Oh, so tempted. She should see the person who’s about to kill her. It would be a terrible, cowardly thing to be shot in the back with her own gun, running from her mistakes. But her deep sense of self-preservation wins out, and she dives for her porch.

  “Stop! U.S. marshal. Drop the gun, and put your hands in the air! Drop the gun!”

  Kimber crouches behind the cube table beside the porch swing, relieved that she didn’t turn on the porch light when she brought the dog out. Poor Tuttle. He must be terrified. She raises her head above the edge of the table enough to see Helena.

  “Drop it. Now!”

  But Helena doesn’t drop the gun. Nor does she aim it at the marshal, who’s ready to kill her. Despite the weak moonlight, Kimber can see that Helena doesn’t care that she might die. Gabriel, whom she obviously loves more than life itself, is dying or already dead, and the look on her face tells Kimber that this is her last expression of that love.

  Before the marshal can take a shot, Helena lifts the gun to the tender skin beneath her chin and pulls the trigger. Kimber can’t look away. Her “No” is weak. She won’t remember speaking at all. With the sound of the shot echoing through the night, she watches Helena’s body fall slowly, slowly onto her back, into the dewy grass.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Kimber runs off the porch, her hands raised, the marshal calling after her. He might chase and catch her, but he’s busy running toward Helena. Soon there will be uniformed people swarming over Jenny’s property and hers for the second time in a week. This time there will be at least two dead bodies, and the sun will rise on them, just as it had on Jenny’s.

  Until now, Kimber has never before seen someone die so close up. Michelle had been down in the ravine, lying against the rock, and Kimber imagined she saw blood, but really she was too far away. She couldn’t even see her sister’s eyes. Were they open or closed when she died? In the casket, with her hair arranged to cover the wound and makeup to cover the bruises, Michelle had looked like a mannequin of herself.

  Jenny’s screen door gapes open, somehow stuck on its hinges. Kimber pictures Jenny standing near it, perplexed. But there is no Jenny, and her house is now a house of ghosts and blood. The police will drill Kimber, will demand that she tell them who was where and when. Who was hit and why. A nightmare she’ll have to live again and again.

  Mr. Tuttle barks hoarsely behind the basement door. What does he remember, she wonders. Or is it all simply a foggy mass of fear? There’s no fogginess for her. With each step, she recalls Kevin’s mocking voice, Helena’s furious screams: What did you do to him? He’s dying! In a moment she’ll know for certain if Gabriel is dying, or already dead. Her footsteps slow. She’ll know, and then it will be over. She turns on the overhead kitchen light and opens the basement door. Mr. Tuttle pushes his tiny, panicked face into the crack. Freed, he stands stunned in the now-bright kitchen. Kimber squats, and he jumps into her arms, his entire body shaking. His frantic licks are painful on her lacerations, but she doesn’t stop him. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

  In the light, the splashes of blood everywhere look like carnival paint. Kevin is motionless, curled in a ball near the refrigerator, the back of his shirt shredded and soaked with more blood. Kimber averts her eyes as she navigates the overturned chairs.

  What if I can save you, Gabriel? But does she want to save him? If she does, why does it feel like she’s moving in slow motion? The longer she takes, the greater the chance the decision will be made for her.

  I never have to know.

  The sounds of even more sirens come through the open door. Police and EMTs will be swarming inside soon. And everyone will know everything.

  Gabriel isn’t dead, but his pulse is so faint that she isn’t sure for a moment if it’s her own heartbeat she feels on her fingertips. When his hand closes, weak fingers touching her hand, emotion fills her throat. Is she glad? Or simply relieved that a fourth person hasn’t died in her living nightmare?

  I don’t know. I don’t know.

  Her rage at all that’s happened over the past few weeks peeks out from behind her nascent compassion. It would be so easy to have her revenge. No court case, no proving that Gabriel and his sister engineered all that has happened to her. She only needs to put something over his mouth and nose for a moment. He’s weak. His death would be quick.

  Could she live wearing yet another shroud of guilt? Would it be any easier this time?

  No.

  Mr. Tuttle, who has been sniffing around Gabriel’s legs, jumps up onto the blue velour recliner that belonged to the original Mr. Tuttle. The dog looks down on Gabriel, then back at her. I will still love you, the dog’s eyes say. Just take me with you.

  She reaches for one of Jenny’s many crocheted afghans, which are scattered like colorful puddles on chairs and beds all over the house. Laying the afghan over Gabriel’s torso and upper legs, she tucks it around him and glances around for another. A second one lies over Jenny’s chair: this one is red, Jenny’s favorite color. The color of warmth, the color of blood.

  “You’re going to be okay,” she says, arranging this one over Gabriel as well. Then she rubs his cold hand until he opens it, and she encloses it in her warm ones. “They’re coming. Help is coming.”

  Gabriel’s body starts to shake. He doesn’t open his eyes—they’re so swollen from Kevin’s punches that Kimber isn’t sure they can open at all—but tries to speak.

  “Kevin…”

  “I know. Just don’t talk. Help is coming. They’re almost here. Just be quiet. It will be okay.”

  Mr. Tuttle whimpers.

  “He killed her.”

  “No. It was Brianna—I mean Helena. We’ll talk about it when you’re better.”

  Gabriel exhales a long, ragged breath and loses consciousness.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  By the time the EMTs treat Kimber’s injuries, the ambulance with Gabriel inside has already left, siren blaring, for the hospital. Thank God I didn’t kill him. What was the madness that came over her? She’s sickened that she came so close. Too close.

  She signs a form saying she refuses to be taken to the hospital, and promises the EMTs she’ll see a doctor.

  It’s noon before Helena’s and Kevin’s bodies are taken away. Kimber answers the detectives’ questions in a fog. It never occurs to her to ask for a lawyer. The only lawyer she’s ever had is half dead because a brother she never knew tried to kill him. If the police consider her to be any kind of suspect, they aren’t saying. They tell her to come to the police station the next day to make a formal statement.

  When one of the detectives asks her if there’s somewhere she can go so she doesn’t have to be alone in the house, she looks out the window at the trampled grass and lingering clutches of neighbors. Definitely no more book club invitations for me. Surprising herself, she says, “I can go to my mom’s.” Declining a ride there, sh
e calls Don before the detectives leave.

  Fortunately, no one follows Don’s car after Kimber, holding Mr. Tuttle, gets quickly inside. They speed away, leaving the onlookers and the crime scene investigators behind.

  “Your mother’s waiting at home,” Don explains. “She’s getting one of the guest rooms ready for you and the little guy. I think it’ll be nice to have a dog in the house.”

  Kimber doesn’t answer. He’s making random conversation because what do you say to someone who was almost killed by psychopaths and looks like a human punching bag? Resting one hand on the exhausted dog in her lap, she puts her head back and closes her eyes. At her mother’s house, she’ll be surrounded by cool, detached silence and will be able to sleep as long as she wants in one of her mother’s antique-furnished guest rooms, which are rarely used and yet—as both she and Don very well know—are always kept at the ready. At Shaun and Troy’s house she would have been comfortable enough but encouraged to talk, to feel better. Right now she doesn’t want to feel anything.

  As they pull into the driveway, it begins to rain, and when the garage door closes behind them, the irregular drops turn into a soothing background noise. Don doesn’t move to get out of the car right away, and neither does her mother open the door into the house to greet them.

  “I don’t want to talk. I just want to sleep, okay?” Kimber opens her door.

  “I didn’t know about Kevin being in prison. I hadn’t heard anything from your father in fifteen years.” In the rain-soaked light coming from the garage windows, Don’s face looks ten years older. At least her mother hasn’t thrown him out of the house, but obviously there is plenty of unhappiness.

  “I’m not going to judge your choices. Or hers. I don’t have the energy.”

  “He had to choose, Kimber. It wasn’t that he wanted to leave you. He would’ve done anything to keep you safe.”

  “I believe you, but it doesn’t matter now. Kevin, his mother, my father. They’re all dead. They aren’t hurting anyone anymore.”