The Stranger Inside

by Lisa Unger

  But the man just laughed. It was almost a giggle, childish. She and Tess had their arms looped together, and in unison they started stepping backward, eyes trained on that dog. As they put distance between them, it bared its teeth, growl growing deeper. Tess started to cry.

  “Tess, don’t run,” she whispered. “Whatever you do. Don’t run.”

  “Oh,” said Tess, a single note of pure fear. “Oh.”

  “You better stop moving,” said the man. He lumbered his way up the bank. He would never be able to catch either one of them; she could see that. That’s why he had the dog. Tess had practically fused her body to Rain’s, and Rain gripped her tight. Her heart was a bird in the cage of her chest, throat sandpaper. Acutely she felt her own smallness, their isolation. She looked around for help. They were alone.

  The black dog moved closer. Rain felt Tess pull away, start to unlace her arm. She tried to hold on to her, but her friend had gone blank with terror. Flight. That’s what Rain saw in her friend’s face, the blank terror of someone about to flee.

  “Go, Wolf.” His voice was a stern command.

  When the dog started moving, Tess broke and ran. Rain tried to grab for her friend, but she couldn’t hold her. The dog moved past Rain in a black blur. The man just stood on the edge of the bridge, his face blank, unreadable. His breath came ragged, a horrible wheeze.

  What happened next was just a series of ugly sounds and images in Rain’s memory. Tess yelling as the dog grabbed hold of her calf, taking her down. Rain running toward them. Fur and flesh under her fingers as she tried to pull the dog off Tess, beating at the soft fur, feeling the muscles under her fists. A yelp, a sound that was nearly a roar, then teeth on her arm, then on her leg, a terrible tearing of her skin.

  Tess scrambling away, blood trailing. Her own screaming. Then a vise grip on her shoulder, fingertips hard as stone. She was knocked to the ground, looking up into that face, moon-white above the beard, eyes glittering with glee. It almost looked like he was going to scratch his shoulder, the way he moved his arm in that direction. But the backhand that connected with her jaw, shattering it, knocked her out cold.

  Rain took a deep breath, coming back to the present—her bedroom, Greg’s deep-sleep breathing. She moved in close to her husband and he wrapped her up in his arms without waking up. She held on tight, centered herself, matched her breathing to his.

  I am not that girl. I am not in that place. It is behind me, part of my past. I survived.

  Three a.m.: the hour of alchemy. Not the dead of night where sleep might fall back over her like a cloak, the light and energy of morning still distant, too far to draw her into the next day. Here, at 3 a.m., all her best ideas and her worst fears, worries, doubts mingled, an acidic potion of sandman dust, and whispers, and bad imaginings. Henry’s words—like someone else we know—an earworm that moved through her brain.

  Eugene Kreskey was never far, no matter that he was dead, or that she’d buried him deep. He was always there.

  She reached for the monitor, switched on the screen and looked at Lily, so peaceful, so safe and loved beyond measure. Her heart rate started to slow. So much therapy; so much talking. It was her father who suggested that she put that day in a box and lock it up tight, and never, ever open that lid.

  “My father—who you never knew—he drank,” he told her. This was months after. Her grades were down; she was waking nightly in terror. She was having daily meltdowns over nothing. It wasn’t just the day in the woods, the horror of it. It wasn’t just her injuries—a jaw that clicked even after it healed, the scars from the dog on her leg; it was the loss of everything—Tess, Hank, the girl she was. She couldn’t figure out how to fit back into the world.

  “When he did, he was a different man,” her father said. “He hurt me—badly.”

  He did a thing he’d always done, circled one forearm with the long fingers of his other hand and rubbed. That night she noticed a scar, a deep gouge in the skin of his wrist.

  The idea that someone could hurt her father had baffled Rain. How did you hurt the moon? That he had been a boy once, vulnerable, seemed like a lie, like the stories he made up for her about boys and girls who built jetpacks that took them to Saturn, who hunted dragons in the woods, who rode dolphins to a secret world under the sea.

  “I could think about those times, about who he was and what he did, and let them define me,” he said. “But I don’t. I lock those memories away deep inside where they can’t hurt me.”

  “How?”

  “When they come,” he said, “you imagine them written on paper. Then you fold that paper and shut it inside the box. Lock it and throw the key down a well.”

  She tried to imagine doing that. Did she feel better? Maybe a little.

  She’d never met her father’s parents; they’d both died before she was born. There were some grainy black-and-white photos, a wedding portrait. They looked thin-lipped and severe.

  “Do you hate him?”

  Rain had so much hate in her heart after that day in the woods. It was a monster just barely caged in her brain, raging, knocking things around. She didn’t know how she could live with that much rage in her; it was a black fog over her life. Everything that once seemed beautiful or fun or funny was just ash. Who would she be now if her parents hadn’t gotten her the help she needed? She didn’t know, didn’t want to know.

  Her father took off his glasses, those eternal round specs. “I did hate him—then. But now I understand what it’s like to have demons. To let them control you. I forgive him.”

  He looked at her uncertainly, like maybe he was worried he’d said too much. It was late; he’d woken up with her after her nightmare, made her some warm milk. Now they sat on the porch together, looking up at the starry sky.

  “I can’t forgive him,” she said. “I won’t.”

  “No,” he said gravely. “That’s different. I won’t forgive Eugene Kreskey either. How can we?”

  He reached for her hand. His hand was big and strong, enveloping her own.

  “Look,” he said. “Let’s keep it practical. When the memories come, say this to yourself—I am not that girl. I am not in that place. It is behind me, part of my past. I survived because I am strong.”

  But it wasn’t true. She’d survived because she was weak. She’d tried to explain this to her therapist, to her parents. No one seemed to understand that. You were a child, Lara. What else could you have done? She could imagine at least a million scenarios where things could have gone differently. Still, that mantra, it worked. It never failed to give her a little jolt, a boost out of the mire of her memories. Rain guessed the old man wasn’t a total failure as a father. Maybe she was too hard on him.

  Finally, she just gave up on sleep. Who needs it when there’s coffee?

  She extracted herself from the warmth of her husband’s arms and left the bedroom. She checked on Lily, then went to the room she and Greg used as an office, sat at her desk and checked her email. Nothing from Henry. She sent him a message, knowing him to be a chronic insomniac, and definitely not one to complain about 3 a.m. missives. Just a subject line: Did you forget about me?

  She hesitated before going down the rabbit hole of social media. Did she really want to open that browser and get sucked into the vortex of Everyone Else—all the pretty lies, half-truths, curated moments, bravado, faux-humble braggadocio. Had she ever emerged from a social media romp with her self-esteem intact? No.

  But she went anyway, wading through the lives of old school friends on whom, but for social media, she’d never have laid eyes again, colleagues who were doing (way, way) better than she was—or so it seemed, former editors she’d never really liked, distant cousins she hadn’t seen in a decade. The cavalcade of filtered images—trips to Venice, recipes for a Tuesday night, pots prettily bubbling on stoves, perfectly decorated rooms, pictures of children in all manner of comic mischief.


  Rain’s own picture of Lily covered in sweet potatoes had earned her 250 thumbs up, hearts and laughing emojis. She was pathetically pleased, started scrolling through the comments. A note from her old friend, journalist Sarah Wright: What a cutie! Motherhood is the most important job in the world! The heart-eyed emoji! Rain clicked on Sarah’s page.

  Honored and stunned that my feature on the opioid epidemic has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism. Am I dreaming?

  Rain already knew about the nomination, of course. It was everywhere. And Sarah deserved it. She’d been working her ass off for decades. So, how was it possible to be happy for someone—because Sarah was a great person and a stellar journalist, and her series was, simply put, brilliant—and yet still feel a dump of despair so total that you almost needed to lie down. Sarah’s kids had been more or less raised by nannies and by Sarah’s mother—a fact over which Sarah herself had voiced poignant regret and had even written about. According to Gillian—who knew everything about everyone—Sarah’s daughter had just dropped out of Princeton and was living in Sarah’s basement. Sarah’s son, according to Gillian, didn’t even speak to her.

  Women make choices, said Gillian, single and childless, by choice. We must. Do you want a Pulitzer Prize? Or do you want a happy kid? Men don’t have to make those decisions. There aren’t as many judging eyes on them.

  Rain was ashamed to admit that she wanted both. Why couldn’t she have both? Wasn’t it just giving in to think you couldn’t do or have it all?

  Anyway, Rain wasn’t online to bring forth her daily—or nightly—existential crisis.

  She clicked on Gillian’s Twitter feed.

  Why isn’t there more information on Steve Markham’s murder? read Gillian’s tweet. The Feds aren’t talking. What gives?

  Her post had earned nearly a thousand likes and even more retweets.

  Indeed, thought Rain. What gives?

  She searched, scrolled through old articles about Markham that she’d read a thousand times. Old news from the investigation, the trial, his acquittal, his book deal, media appearances. Chatter online—women in love with him, feminists decrying the injustice of his acquittal, profiles on the crime blogs, and those sites dedicated to murder and murderers. Then the cursory stories about the recent discovery of his body. Nothing new, no threads to pull. Like Greg said, the sad end to an unjust story. Unless.

  Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, then she entered a name into the search bar. She clicked on the first link:

  The Boston Boogeyman Wayne Garret Smith, youth counselor, beloved in his community as an advocate for underprivileged boys. He ran an after-school sports program at the local recreation center for nearly twenty years. Smith received awards, grants, was featured in area papers for his tireless work on behalf of young men just like he had been. Orphaned at ten, he was raised as a ward of the state, never adopted, emancipated from the system at eighteen. He joined the army, went to college, married, had two young girls. He was an American success story, someone from the twisted beginnings of abuse who came through to thrive and help other young men, too.

  Rain scrolled through newspaper articles, images from the trial, pictures of the three boys who went missing over a five-year period in the Boston area. (It was suspected that there were many more, but their bodies were never found. He had access to boys—his center a place where runaways could seek shelter for the night, get a hot meal, come for clothes or a shower.)

  When the police brought Smith in, they had a rock-solid case: damning physical evidence in the form of trophies—a Spider-Man watch, a tattered old bear—not to mention the graphic photos Smith had taken himself. But Smith claimed his civil rights had been violated—that any admissions he’d made had been coerced, that he’d been brutalized by police, that the arresting officer had failed to Mirandize him, evidence had been planted.

  After a lengthy trial, Smith’s high-profile attorney managed to establish enough reasonable doubt that he was acquitted. It was a travesty of epic proportions, the kind of case that haunted cops, crime beat reporters and prosecutors alike.

  A year later, after an anonymous tip, Smith’s body was found in an abandoned barn deep in the woods on the outskirts of Boston. He died the way his young victims did—bound, in mortal terror, tortured, violated and humiliated. No physical evidence, no witnesses, suspects or leads. The killer was never found.

  A little red 1 appeared over her mail icon. She clicked on it and there was a message from Henry. Subject line: For Your Eyes Only.

  A burst of adrenaline. She clicked on the email and saw a slew of attachments: police reports from the Smith and Markham murders, crime scene photos, civilian security camera images.

  There’s not a whole heck of a lot to go on, he wrote. But this is everything I have on the Boogeyman, and the Markham murder, gleaned from inside contacts, and other moles like me—those of us watching from the shadows, the invisible.

  As a writer herself, Rain appreciated his flair for drama.

  He went on: Some of the civilian cams are interesting. You know how everyone has those doorbells now, the in-home cameras, doggy watchers?

  Yes, she knew them well.

  An image was captured, he wrote. Useless for identification but compelling nonetheless.

  Finally: Nothing on Kreskey, of course. Those files are too old to be digital. You’ll have to go back to Detective Harper for those details.

  Detective Harper. Another name that moved through her like a shiver.

  What did you find today?

  Nothing much, she lied.

  She’d put the red crystal heart in the back of her underwear drawer, wrapped in a piece of silk. She’d been puzzling over it. The police would have found it when they searched the place. No way they could have missed it. Which meant that someone put it there after the technicians had left. She briefly toyed with the idea that Henry might be fucking with her. But then she dismissed it. It was one of those things that no one knew about her—almost no one. She could barely bring herself to think about it, what it might mean, the only person who could have put it there. How could he have known that she’d be there to find it? She locked it all up tight, in the box where she locked all the other memories on which she didn’t want to dwell.

  Can we make a deal? wrote Henry. I give you what I find, and you keep me in the loop, too? I get an exclusive interview with Rain Winter before your big reentry into the world of investigative journalism?

  Deal, she wrote back. Even though it was a promise she might or might not keep.

  I almost believe you.

  Rain clicked on one of the links and saw a grainy image of a hunched figure wearing a backpack, hooded. He must have turned toward a security light; the shot revealed a mask—feathers, a beak. A hawk.

  She stared at it a long time, another dark memory jangling around in her brain, a kind of tension in her shoulders. She clicked through some of the other images, but they were shadows, the figures just amorphous blobs.

  She opened a bunch of other images. She’d seen the crime scene photos from the discovery of Laney Markham’s body, among others. She’d been to morgues, watched bodies carried away in bags. Bodies reduced to trash, lives brutally ended. She didn’t get squeamish or overwhelmed the way some people did. Not anymore. She had learned to put a distance between herself and the horrible things she’d seen in her life. She’d had no choice.

  Now, she opened file after file, reading, looking, remembering. It was a rabbit hole. She disappeared.

  “What are you doing?”

  She didn’t see Greg come in, and his low, sleepy voice sent a jolt through her. He slumped in the chair opposite the desk, rubbed at his rumpled hair, a shadow in the dim room. He was holding Lily, who had her head against his chest.

  “Research,” she said. The screen was a collage of horrible images—the blank, remorseless face
of Wayne Garret Smith, the innocent smiles of young boys, the crime scene photos of Markham and Smith. Looking at it, her baby on the other side of the screen, she was suddenly ashamed.

  “Was she crying?”

  “You didn’t hear her?”

  She’d left the monitor in the bedroom, hadn’t carried it to the office with her. Still, the baby’s room wasn’t that far away. She would have heard. Should have. She had a laser beam focus; when she was involved in something, the world disappeared. Her mother used to rage at her father for just this trait. The house could burn to the ground. And if you’re writing, we’ll all die before you notice and maybe not even then.

  This disappearing act had been the source of many an argument in her own marriage, and even before. Rain would miss dates with Greg, forget to call, just leave him hanging at restaurants and parties. Why does he put up with it? she’d wondered, sure he would break up with her at some point. But he didn’t break up with her; he stayed with her, understood her and finally proposed. Maybe this big diamond on your finger will remind you to call when you’re going to be late.

  “I think she’s hungry,” said Greg now, rocking the baby.

  She closed her laptop, got up and took Lily from Greg, returned to the nursery.

  “I’d feed her, but it doesn’t look like you pumped any milk?” he said from the hallway.

  She sat in the glider. “It’s okay,” she said. “Try to get a little more sleep.”

  Greg hovered a moment, dropped a hand on her shoulder, then left the room.

  “Are you hungry, little bunny?” she asked.

  Lily gurgled happily, looking up into Rain’s eyes. The baby’s gaze was deep and alert, smiley. Rain felt as if she could see all the layers of the girl, the woman her daughter would become. Smart, sweet, brave, full of mischief and questions.

  The sun was lighting the sky from beneath the horizon. How long had Rain been in her office looking at images of murder and death, misery and loss? Must have been nearly three hours. Lily cooed, then latched on. Rain rocked them back and forth, back and forth, thinking of the man in the hawk mask.