The Stranger Inside - Lisa Unger Page 0,88

get better at it, the more you do it.”

He peered at her from under his arm.

She stopped short of thanking him. He wasn’t the babysitter; he was Lily’s father. Time with your child wasn’t a favor, or an added item on your task list. It was the life of a parent.

When she looked back over at Greg, he’d fallen asleep. How did he do that? Fall asleep the minute he sat down, in the middle of a conversation? Just—out. The hardwiring—definitely different. Anyone who thought otherwise did not have a husband or a child.

She left him snoring, carried Lily upstairs and gave her a bath. But her thoughts were still on Detective Harper, the look on his face, the things he’d said.

Some people are better off dead.

Cold words, hard and full of judgment.

But was he right?

Was the world a better place because people like Markham, Kreskey and Smith were no longer in it? She shampooed Lily’s hair while the baby happily splashed her duck.

Images swirled, crime scene reports and photos, the man in the hawk mask, the memory of Detective Harper’s face as he peered into the tree hollow. Agent Brower and her searing stare, her questions. Those piles of documents—newspaper clippings, transcripts, notes—from Greg and her father.

What was the heart of this story? Revenge? Justice? Was someone trying to get even? Or trying to save the world from evil men? Was there a connection? Who? What? When? Where? Why?

She lifted Lily, who wailed in protest at being removed from the warm water, and then dried her perfect chubby little body—that creamy skin, her perfect feet and starfish hands. The round of her cheek, the scent of her silky hair. Rain tenderly moisturized her skin, the baby giggling now, staring up at her with glittering eyes. Into the diaper, the onesie, legs kicking. Mamamamama.

Could a child this loved, this cared for, turn out to be a monster?

Greg had mused last night, What if you could go back even further, and save him? Sometimes it seemed that life was just questions without answers.

Later, with logs crackling in the fireplace, and big glasses of wine between them, she and Gillian pored over their notes all over the coffee table, analyzing Detective Harper’s interview, listening to parts of it, playing it for Greg.

“He’s hiding something,” said Greg.

“We thought so, too,” said Gillian.

“But maybe it’s just that he did a shit job, you know?” Rain offered. “Someone, as he saw it, did the world a favor. He didn’t look very hard at who that might have been.”

Greg shrugged. “Maybe he’s right.”

“That’s messed up,” said Gillian, ever the idealist, the humanist. “He was a person, killed in cold blood. No one has that right. I’m sorry, Rain. There’s no excuse for what he did to you and Hank, and Tess. But who has the right to kill him? If we all go around killing the people who do wrong, then who are the good guys?”

“What’s right, then?” said Greg. “That the taxpayer foots the bill for the rest of his life, a child killer?”

Rain stayed silent. They didn’t get it, not really. It was all abstract to them. They’d never felt his hands on their flesh, or the hands of anyone who wished to do them harm. They’d never looked into Kreskey’s eyes and saw what she’d seen—pain, rage, a kind of vicious fear, sadness. It was primal, filling her with terror. But it was human, recognizable. That’s what people never wanted to imagine, how close we all are even to the most murderous and deranged. Did she think Eugene Kreskey deserved to die for what he did? Maybe. Maybe not.

Gillian took a long sip from her wineglass, stared into the fire. She had her bags packed, waiting by the door. Rain knew she’d call an Uber in a bit and head home; she’d seen her texting more than a couple of times while they were cooking, under the table. They’d been so wrapped up in the story that they hadn’t talked about Chris Wright at all.

Glancing out the window, she saw a van move slowly up the street. She thought about the car she’d seen last night. She had enough distance from all of it that it seemed like she’d overreacted. A common car, probably nothing.

Or maybe it was him. Watching, always watching.

It didn’t unsettle her the way it should. The way it surely would Greg. If he knew, he’d call the police. It’s stalking, he’d say, which is just the beginning of something

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