Lisa Unger - The Stranger Inside

One of the burning questions, the one that always interested her the most. Who? What? When? Where? All important. But “Why?” In news it didn’t matter so much.

But in story—Story with a capital S—it was heart and soul.

“What do you care?” he asked.

Lily stirred downstairs, the sound carrying up to Rain. Ticktock.

“I thought you were out,” he said. “Home with the kid full-time.”

She heard it, the weight of judgment. A little flame of anger lit inside her. Some people judged you for staying home. Others judged you for wanting to work even though you had taken on the all-sacred role of mother. Rain had never been overly concerned with what people thought. But even she felt the trap of it, how nothing was ever quite good enough. Was there always someone waiting to put you down?

“I’m producing a podcast,” she said. Why did she say that? That was the furthest thing from her mind. Impulsive, reactionary. That’s what her dad always said about her. But he meant it as a compliment. “A crime podcast. You know—long-form journalism.”

“Seriously?”

“Why not?”

“Exactly,” he said. “That’s what everyone says these days, why not? Anyone can do it.”

“I’ve made my bones,” she said easily. Ten years investigating, writing and producing news, she had. “Besides—these days—podcasts? That’s the only real journalism left. Everything else is bought and paid for, beholden to advertisers and their agendas. It’s called democracy, remember that old idea? Freedom of speech. Not speech controlled by whoever happens to be paying the bills.”

She didn’t realize she’d felt so passionately about this. She didn’t. She just didn’t like being marginalized.

“Most of it’s crap.”

“Most of everything is crap.”

He issued a little chuckle, reminding her that he had a grim, serious face. A heavy, deeply lined brow and a searing, pin-you-to-the-wall kryptonite-green gaze. He had a cop voice, granite-cold and just as hard. But when he smiled or laughed, his whole face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. She wished she was sitting across from him somewhere. It was so much easier to get what you wanted in person.

“You got me there,” he said.

Rain walked to the top of the stairs. She could see Lily’s chubby little legs, perfect pink toes kicking. Ticktock. Ticktock. Rain had left Lily’s squishy book in reach, hoping it would buy a little time when Lily woke up. She heard it crinkle as the baby picked it up and made a happy coo. Score. She’d just earned herself about four minutes.

“Come on,” she said. “You must have something.”

He sighed into the phone. He just liked to argue for the sake of arguing. She could relate; a good verbal sparring session was one of the most satisfying encounters you could have with a man—especially when you won. And cops, even though they pretended otherwise, loved to talk—it was downright painful when they couldn’t tell you what they knew.

“All I can say is that it wasn’t a rage killing like you’d expect. It was organized, clean. Someone planned it.”

She already knew that. “That’s what you told Gillian.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And the Feds moved in this morning, took over the investigation.”

Both pieces of information she already had. He was holding back.

“What else?” she pushed.

She heard a car door slam on his end, footfalls. There were voices, another phone ringing. Lily was making noises downstairs, fishing for Rain.

“Okay, look,” he said finally. “All I know is that they think it connects to another case they’re working. An older one.”

“What case?”

Another long pause. This time she thought he’d hung up, which he also did quite a bit. Then, “Google the Boston Boogeyman. That’s it. That’s all I can say.”

A jolt through her system. She knew the name. Knew it well.

She realized that she was gripping the phone so hard it actually was making her hand ache. Release. Breathe. Rule number one of news investigation: just keep asking questions.

“How was Markham killed?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Come on.”

“It’ll be out there soon enough,” he said. “You’ll have to hear it in the news along with all the other civilians.”

Ouch. That hurt.

“Shot?”

“Hey,” he said, his voice going softer. “What I hear—it’s yours, okay? I promise. I’ll call you.”

He always promised that, and he’d never once made good on it. It was just a way to get off the phone.

“So, you just don’t know?” He knew. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he tell her?

“Goodbye, Winter.”

“Why don’t you give her a call?” Just a hook to keep him on the line. Gillian and Christopher weren’t good for each other and they all knew it.

“Gilly?” he said. No one else on earth called her that. “I’m not sure I’m the man she deserves.”

He sounded a little sadder than she would have expected.

“Maybe you should let her decide.”

“Good luck with your podcast,” he said.

Rain ended the call just seconds before Lily started crying. She sat on the top step for a moment, buzzing with frustration.

Then she got up and went to Lily, unstrapping her and carrying her back up to the nursery.

It was another world. Stars on the ceiling, a white-and-blue ocean mural on the wall. The nightlight projected buttery-yellow sea turtles that languidly circled the room. The gauzy shades were always drawn, casting the room perpetually in a peaceful milky light. Lily was warm and soft in Rain’s arms, smelled like the lavender shampoo Rain used on her every night. The baby’s eyes glittered, smile big and gurgling.

“Hello, sunshine,” Rain said, peering into her daughter’s perfect flushed face.

She sat in the glider, rocking and nursing again. It was hypnotic, the quiet of the room, the warmth of her child, that flood of oxytocin, the low sound of waves from the noise machine. Her frustration eased; the belly of fire cooled.

It was enough, wasn’t it?

Maybe. If this room, pretty and safe, was the whole world.

But it wasn’t.

Laney Markham would have had this. But her husband, a sociopath, brutally ended her life, and the life of their child. Then, he escaped justice, walked free while Laney’s brokenhearted father raged. And Laney’s mother sat stoic, pale and rigid, as though the blood had stopped moving through her veins. Grief had turned her to stone; it was more devastating to see than the father’s fury.

That was it. It was the case that did her in. The ugliness of it; she was sick with it, like a flu she couldn’t shake. Gillian’s words knocked around her head for weeks and months.

Bad people win. They win all the time.

When just a few weeks after the crushing acquittal, Greg asked if she would consider staying home with the baby for a while, she agreed, surprising him—and herself. Money would be a bit tight, but whatever. She worked in news; layoffs were always looming. Money was always tight.

She gave it up—the work that had defined her.

Now, Markham was dead. She felt a tickle of relief. A sort of justice had been delivered, something in line with her good-always-triumphs-over-evil belief system. Murder? Suicide? Home invasion robbery gone wrong? Accident?

A federal investigation underway. A connection to the Boston Boogeyman.

Let it go. It’s not your story anymore.

Lily gazed up at Rain and started kicking her legs happily.

Or is it?

The rain knocks on the tin roof and the sound of it always makes me think of you. Not because of the name you gave yourself. I never called you Rain.

The sound reminds me of your childhood home. I used to love that old house, how it was deep back in the woods. Rooms dim, with wind chimes on the porch. Your father still lives there, doesn’t he?