Lisa Unger - The Stranger Inside

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.

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