The Stranger Inside - Lisa Unger Page 0,134
that.”
“Well,” said Henry, cagey. “I do have one bit of info.”
“Oh?”
“I heard that they found the kill bag at the scene.”
Something tightened in her middle. Hank’s missing bag. It had disappeared that night. Just gone. A big pack filled with tools, weapons, rope, tarps, duct tape. They’d both wondered when it might turn up.
She glanced in the rearview mirror at Lily, who was thumbing through a board book.
“And?”
“Supposedly they found something that connects it to the Markham murder. A knife that’s similar to the weapon they suspect was used on Markham.”
The jangle of alarm rattled her.
“Interesting.” She kept her voice level, pulled into the parking lot.
Emmy was in front of the studio with Sage, waiting. She sent up a wave to Rain. Her other life, her other self. Mommy. Friend. Wife. It was waiting for her.
“Keep me in the loop?” said Rain. She lifted a hand to Emmy, held up a finger. Just a second. I’ll be right there.
“Will do,” said Henry and ended the call.
She dialed Hank, who picked up on the first ring.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said by way of greeting.
She didn’t want to say anything else on the phone. After all, they were always watching. “You heard.”
“Agent Brower called me,” he said. She waited a beat. “For my help, my insights on this new development.”
“Oh.”
“It’s fine,” he said, his voice low and steady. “Really.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“It wasn’t—” She knew she didn’t have to finish the sentence.
“No,” he said quickly. “God no. That’s all done.”
She’d have to take his word for it. What else could she do?
Her mind was on spin cycle. How did this fit into their story?
“Who, then, Hank?”
“I have some theories, one I’ve been working on with Agent Brower.”
She waited.
“My guess is that we’re dealing with a person in law enforcement or the military,” he said, voice low. “I suspect that our perpetrator has been wronged or has lost a loved one. Our vigilante has lost faith in the system, even though he might be working within it.”
She let the words settle.
The missing kill bag. There was only one person who could have taken it. The pieces fell into place. But why leave the bag? Was it a warning to her and to Hank? If they suspected Agent Brower had continued where Hank had stopped, they’d need to keep it to themselves and out of the story. Mutually assured destruction.
“How does Agent Brower feel about this profile?” she asked.
There was a heavy silence. “She’s taking it under consideration.
“The bag they found was clean,” he went on, intuiting her concern. “No DNA evidence. Just the knife that may or may not be the Markham murder weapon. It potentially links the crimes, but it doesn’t bring them any closer to the perpetrator.”
Rain watched Lily in the rearview mirror. She wasn’t sure how to feel, how to weave this into their story—their story, hers and Hank’s. Someone else was out there, delivering a certain brand of justice. That stranger inside her took a kind of dark pleasure in the thought.
She sat suspended—between her life in the light and her life in the dark, the past, the future. Emmy waved again, beckoning her.
“Hey, I was going to call you,” he said into the silence.
“Oh?”
“I asked Beth to marry me.”
Another impossibly complicated swell of emotion. Happy. Sad. A twist of regret. She still thought about what they shared that week. Sometimes. Sometimes she woke from dreams that shamed her.
“Congratulations, Hank,” she said, putting a smile in her voice. “I’m so happy for you both.”
“You assume she said yes.”
“Didn’t she?”
“She did,” he said. “I don’t know why. But she did.”
She could hear how happy he was, and she felt the squeeze on her heart release.
Rain went around to the back seat, unstrapped Lily from her seat and lifted her, gathered up her things. Hank was still on speakerphone.
“Do you ever think about how things might have been different?” he asked. “If we’d made different choices.”
She laughed, lightly, a little sad.
“I don’t have time to think about things like that,” she said, which was, of course, a lie. “When you and Beth have kids, you won’t either. No more navel-gazing, Doctor. Just move forward, for you, but mostly for them. I gotta go. Mommy-and-Me Yoga.”
He had a funny laugh, warm, smart, knowing. He sounded far away.
“Goodbye, Lara.”
Rain ended the call.
She jogged to Emmy, Lily in her arms, and together they walked through the door, setting off chimes. It was dim and peaceful inside, soft flute music, light incense.
They all spread out their mats, sporting their brightly colored yoga wear. All shapes and ages, mommies with time and money enough to be here.
“Welcome,” said the lithe yoga teacher. She was a little too young, a little too hot to be teaching a mommy-and-me class, wasn’t she?
The toddlers immediately descended into chaos, trying out their voices, greeting each other with laughter, waddling around. Which was fine—it was a safe space with everything soft, no hard corners, nothing sharp or unstable, everyone present, gentle and patient.
“I invite you to leave everything you brought with you—any stress, any worries, your list of things you have to do right after this—outside this room,” said the teacher with a lovely smile. “Just be here, now—for yourself, for your little ones. And take the biggest breath you’ve taken all day.”
Yes, thought Rain—she’d leave behind the world with all its brutal edges, and hard consequences, all its confounding shades of gray, the chaos of the past, the uncertainty of the future. Just for a while. Lily ran back to Rain and tumbled into her folded lap.
And for just a little while, Rain would indeed let it all slow her down.