The Stranger Inside. Lisa Unger
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She hadn’t watched the trial on television like the rest of the country. She’d been in the courtroom. Gillian reporting, Rain writing and producing. The sound, no, the pitch, of his voice stayed with her—the rage, the pain. It was primal. A father who lost his daughter, powerless to bring justice. His hoarse screaming connected with every nerve ending in her body. Rain had just learned she was pregnant a few weeks earlier; she was only beginning to glimpse what it was to be a parent. She just had the slightest flicker of what it might mean to have to protect another person. And fail.
“I would have killed him on the spot,” said Emmy. “With my bare hands.”
Rain stayed silent, though that ache was almost unbearable. She needed to get home, put Lily down for her nap and get in front of her computer. She still knew people. She could make some calls. It was her story.
“Or the brother,” said Beck. “He said it on the courtroom steps, right? When you least expect it, we’re coming for you.”
It was organized, Rain almost chimed in. It wasn’t a rage killing.
But she didn’t say anything. Because.
Because, she reminded herself, she wasn’t in news anymore. She was in—diapers and wipes, Cheerios and sippy cups. What she did now was Lily. What she used to do was ancient history; it was pathetic to cling to what you used to be, wasn’t it?
She lifted Lily from Gretchen’s arms and sat beside Emmy. She took the little shawl from her pocket, put it on and started to nurse. She felt Lily latch on. There was a blessed release, a flood of milk and oxytocin. No one ever told you that your body would ache when your baby was hungry, that your breasts might leak when she cried, about that intense physical bond.
“Good for you, girl,” said Emmy.
Gretchen folded her arms and turned away. Rain wanted to tell the other woman that it was no big deal that she didn’t or couldn’t nurse, that it was just another thing they held out there for you. A brass ring that you might or might not be able to reach. Something they wanted you to try for, and feel like shit if you couldn’t grab. Honestly, if it hadn’t been easy for Rain, maybe she wouldn’t have done it either. So basically, she nursed because it involved the least amount of work for her. She stayed home because—well, for a hundred reasons. Only one of which was crystal clear a year later with some of that hormonal fog finally clearing—Lily Rae.
“My brother-in-law is a cop over in Jessup, where the Markhams lived,” said Beck. “He said that the Feds came in this morning and took the scene from the local police.”
Alarms jangled in her head. The Feds. Why?
“Oh?” she said with faux nonchalance, turning to Beck.
But Beck’s phone rang, and she turned away, lifting a finger and casting her an apologetic look for the interruption.
Rain lifted her milk-drunk baby and put her into the stroller.
“Gotta run,” she said, strapping Lily in.
It was a Bumbleride, an insanely expensive gift with a message from her father.
Keep moving, kid, read the card. Don’t let this slow you down.
Rain had only seen her father a couple of times since the baby was born. She needed to check in with him, let him spend some time with Lily; she just didn’t have the energy after their last visit—when she’d gotten the clear message that he certainly believed that she had let the baby slow her down, that her career—and therefore her life—had come to a grinding halt. He didn’t seem to get that there was more to life than work.
“Have a good one, honey.” Gretchen gave her a weird look, something oddly victorious.
Rain was halfway home before she realized that she was still wearing her nursing bib (thank god!) and hadn’t put her breast back in her shirt. Christ. Really? She hastily refastened herself. When she glanced in the stroller, she saw that Lily had drifted off. She hustled home, praying she could get back and get an hour online and on the phone before Lily woke up.
Greeted by the hush of her tidy house, Rain parked the stroller in the foyer. Lily was sound asleep, head lolling to the side. With another cup of coffee from the carafe, Rain hustled upstairs to the home office.
The keyboard, the screen in front of her, it was her instrument—the right strokes, the right words, she could piece together a symphony of information. She searched the web, scanning the various news sites, a couple of the crime blogs she liked. The Markham story was in circulation, the same few sentences—that Markham, tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife, was found dead in his home early this morning. But there obviously weren’t enough details yet to run a full feature on any of the big networks or major newspapers. She poked around on local news sites—no witnesses, no leads, no suspects at this time.
Or the Feds were withholding information from the media.
There should have been more—a lot more. Images of news vans gathering around the Markham house, interviews with family members, neighbors.
Maybe Markham killed himself, she thought. That was less of a story. An unsatisfyingly abrupt ending to a sad, unjust tale, and the kind of conclusion for which people usually had little sympathy or interest. But it would have been reported. Suicide. End of story.
She picked up her phone, dialed a number she knew by heart and waited.
“Wright.”
“Hey.”
“Rain Winter,” he said. He had a way of saying her name that made it sound like song. “Long time.”
She and Christopher had been friends—sort of friends—since before he and Gillian were a thing. (In fact, Rain had introduced them, and was a little sorry she had. He hadn’t been good to Gillian, and Rain was still pissed about it.) Rain had been a young crime beat reporter at the city paper; she’d been working her first big story about a serial rapist. Chris was the lead detective, one of the few guys—inside the newsroom or out—who didn’t treat her like a pet, didn’t call her “kid,” didn’t wear that snide smirk that some older men wore when young women tried to do what was once upon a time a job held only by men. He never once told her that she was “too pretty to be writing about crime.”
“I thought I’d see you last week at Gillian’s birthday party,” she said, trying to keep it light.
He issued a grunt. “Gillian doesn’t want to see me,” he said. “Even if she thinks she does.”
Gillian’s gathering had been a rare—only—solo night out for Rain, baby and hubby back at home. It wasn’t exactly how she imagined it. She’d been nervous, checked the monitor and home security cameras about a hundred times to see Greg crashed on the couch, Lily sleeping peacefully in her crib. She’d spent most of the evening comforting her friend.
“Just like a man,” Rain said. “To think he knows what a woman wants.”
Silence. She was used to waiting for him to talk. He was king of the awkward pause. “Did you call to talk about Gillian?”
“Markham.”
“Thought so.”
“Well.”
“I’m not your guy anymore,” he said.
Street noise carried over the line, horns and voices, a distant siren. “Feds came in today. The scene is closed. Strict information control. The press conference has been moved to tomorrow, if they give one at all.”
“Why?”
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