The Stranger Inside - Lisa Unger Page 0,111

guess,” she says. “We had Christmas there, but no presents.”

I keep my place by the window so that Angel can look at me. “We?”

“Me and Valentine. I called him Val.”

The detective slides a picture over to Angel. “Is this Val?”

She smiles. “Yes,” she says. “I think so. He was much thinner, different around the eyes somehow. But, yeah, it looks like him.”

“Was he there when you came?”

“No. He came after.”

“Did someone bring him?”

“No, he was just there one night. He came in with Tom. He had a bag, a beat-up old black rucksack.”

“How long was he there?”

“A week, maybe more,” she says. “He was in the bedroom down the hall. He didn’t talk much. Didn’t go to school.”

“Did he say where he came from?”

“He said he ran away,” she says. “That his dad hit him. That his mom never did anything about it.”

“So how long was he there?” the detective asks again, maybe trying to get a more exact timeline, or trying to see if she stays consistent in the details.

She lifts her bony shoulders. “I don’t know,” she says. “A couple of weeks?”

“Who left first?”

“I heard him yelling one night,” she says, not really answering the question. “I stayed in my room, but I watched as Tom dragged him outside. I followed.”

I have heard some of this already—along with her reports of neglect, how long days in the house, neither Tom or Wendy came home. Angel got herself off to school, cleaned her clothes in a machine even though there was no detergent. She ate the school breakfast and lunch provided, knowing there might not be dinner. But she hasn’t told me the details about the night that Val (Billy?) got dragged from the house.

“They walked and walked. Finally, they came to this door in the ground, like one of those cellars in The Wizard of Oz. Tom dragged him in there. They didn’t come out. I went back to the house.”

Oh, I think. I’d been looking for a house, some kind of structure. I could have sworn that’s what she said before. Another hole in her story.

“When did you see him again?”

“I didn’t,” she says. “I didn’t see him again.”

She’s gone flat; which is something most people don’t understand and why I think Angel might present as a liar. Trauma victims learn to separate from their emotions, to distance themselves from painful memories, from fear.

“I heard screaming, though.”

“Screaming.”

“In the night,” she says. “At first, I thought it was a bird, or some kind of animal. But then I realized—someone was screaming.”

I don’t like how blank she seems. She’s slowly folded into herself, her thin arms twisting around legs she’s pulled up to her chest. Jen is frowning with worry, hovering nearby—leaning in, then pulling away as though she’s not sure what to do. She’s a worrier—doesn’t want to overattend, doesn’t want to seem unavailable. All parents should worry so much between the balance of those things.

“Angel,” I say, and her eyes dart toward me. “It’s okay. You’re here now, with us. The detective is trying to help.”

She audibly exhales, looks at the picture in front of her.

“It’s too late,” she says. Her eyes go big, tears fall. Jen swoops in, gathers the girl up in her arms. “It must be too late.”

“If I’m facing the house,” asks the detective, “which way was the cellar?”

“You walk behind the house. There’s a path you follow through the woods, there’s a fork in the path. You stay to the right. It’s a long way on foot—maybe fifteen minutes.”

He slides another picture over toward Angel. Jen and I both lean in to look.

“Do you know who this is?”

She leans in. “That’s Valentine.”

The detective frowns. It’s the image of a different boy—older, bigger, eyes set farther apart. Similar coloring, but with a smattering of freckles.

“Are you sure?”

She nods. Jen and I exchange a look over Angel’s head.

Another picture.

“And this?”

She nods. “Yes, that’s him.”

It isn’t the same boy in the first photo. Again, similar coloring, but this boy with a scar on his cheek, a haunted look in his eyes, one I’ve seen too many times—in my patients, in the mirror.

“Thank you, Angel,” he says. He’s good at masking his disappointment, seems to sense that Angel is fragile. “You’ve been really helpful.”

“Are you going there?” she asks. “Are you going to find him?”

“Yes,” he says. “I’m going to keep looking until I find him.”

She nods, uncertain. Her eyes dart between me and the detective, watching our faces, our expressions. I keep mine encouraging, soft,

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