The Stranger Inside Page 3

  Behind him she can see two unfamiliar plastic totes beside her couch and an open, empty pizza box on the coffee table she’d spent half a monthly paycheck on. It’s too much.

  “You know damn good and well you never talked to me. There’s no way I ever let you into my house.”

  Officer Maby stretches an arm out in front of Kimber. “Ms. Hannon, you’ll need to go stand by your lawyer if you can’t control yourself.”

  Kimber can feel Gabriel’s disapproval at her back.

  Lance Wilson shakes his head in exaggerated disappointment. “This isn’t my problem, you know. I was just trying to be nice by meeting you. I have a lease.”

  Maybe it’s his smug tone that gets to her, or the lift of his slightly pointed chin. Kimber rushes past the officer. All she can think is that she must get into the house. If she can get inside, into her own living room—if she can be the one occupying the space—then Lance Wilson will be the one who has to leave.

  When the flat of her hand slams against the door, it stings like hell. It also surprises the officers and Gabriel, who all shout at her. She flies forward with the momentum of the door, stumbling over one of Lance Wilson’s moccasin-clad feet (moccasins—like it’s high school in the seventies!). They tumble to the floor she had refinished only a month ago. Now she’s on top of him, her left elbow in his gut. But he wraps his arms around her like a lover, and she feels a gust of hot breath in her ear. She smells beer.

  Repelled, she struggles to get free, but he says something quietly, so that only she can hear.

  “I was there. I saw what you did.” His grunt of pleasure is more obscene than any curse word he might have uttered. Then he lets her go as quickly as he embraced her, and she scrambles away, pressing herself against the entry’s maple bench.

  Out in the yard, Mr. Tuttle barks at the fun, and Gabriel calls her name. One of her flip-flops lies near Lance Wilson’s extended leg. But she’s inside the house!

  My house.

  “You’re only making this worse, Kimber. We can handle this. Come out.” Gabriel starts past the male officer, who orders him back off the porch. Officer Maby tells Kimber to stay where she is, then asks Lance Wilson if he can get up.

  “I can try, but my back hurts like hell.” His voice is higher and more pathetic than ever.

  “If there’s pain, then lie still. I’m calling for medical assistance.”

  Kimber crouches, her mind racing, wondering what she might grab and take with her, because she’s pretty certain she’s not going to be allowed to stay much longer. She closes her eyes.

  Shit.

  “Ms. Hannon, I need you to stand up very slowly and step outside. Do not touch Mr. Wilson or speak to Mr. Wilson.”

  “But it’s my house!” Her pathetic squeak doesn’t even sound like her own voice, and for a moment she’s afraid she’ll burst into tears.

  “You’ve already assaulted Mr. Wilson, who is possibly injured. You need to step outside. Now.”

  “Are you going to arrest me?” Reaching up slowly, she grabs hold of the bench’s sturdy arm to help herself up. “You can’t arrest me for entering my own house.”

  Officer Maby glances down at Lance Wilson, who, despite her insistence, is sitting upright. She looks at Kimber. The hint of sympathy in her eyes doesn’t make it into her voice.

  “You assaulted Mr. Wilson. But given the high emotions of the situation and the presence of your lawyer, I don’t feel it’s absolutely necessary at this time. I have discretion, but Mr. Wilson is the injured party.”

  There’s no pause, no time for sensible Gabriel to intervene or for Kimber to object.

  Lance Wilson’s thin voice is tinged with cruelty.

  “You bet I want that crazy bitch arrested.”

  Kimber recognizes something brutal, almost feral, in his voice. Something in the word “bitch” that twists in her brain, and she’s afraid. It’s not a fear that he will take her things or steal her identity. The fear is deeper. Older. Terrifying.

  “It’s a misdemeanor,” Gabriel says. “Just write her the ticket. You don’t need to take her in.”

  This is worse than a nightmare. Kimber looks from Gabriel to Officer Maby. “You don’t need to take me to jail. For God’s sake, I’m sorry! You can’t understand what this—what this is like. I didn’t mean to…” But she can see in the woman’s face that she’s not going to change her mind. That she’s young and doesn’t want to screw up. And Kimber is going to pay for the officer’s need to be cautious.

  “You can meet your client at county, Mr. Silva. After she’s processed, we’ll go from there.”

  “Oh, this is terrible,” Jenny says. No one is listening.

  The male officer takes Kimber by one arm, and she almost shakes him off, but she sees the warning look in Gabriel’s eyes, the hard set to his mouth. Every nerve in her body screams to resist, to fly again at the smug son of a bitch who leans against the doorframe, rubbing his elbow. Against all her instincts, she keeps her mouth shut.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Gabriel says, his voice urgent. “Everything’s going to be okay. I promise. I’ll be there.”

  In a kind of stupor, she lets Gabriel take her purse and weekender bag.

  “Where’s your driver’s license?” he asks. “Have you got it on you?”

  She nods. The August night is still thick with Midwest humidity, but she begins to shiver, the cold emanating from deep in her bones.

  This can’t be happening.

  The tall, quiet officer doesn’t handcuff her but holds her arm firmly as he leads her to his cruiser. Only now does she notice that neither he nor Officer Maby turned off their cars’ flashing lights. Her life has become a sideshow.

  Look at me! Look at me!

  Wait. Don’t look. It’s shameful.

  She wants to hide her face like the defendants on the news do as they hustle into court, with a jacket or newspaper over their heads. Everyone is watching: Gabriel, Jenny, Officer Maby. The neighbors behind their curtains, and the man in the doorway.

  I was there. I saw what you did.

  But where? When?

  Chapter Six

  September 199_

  The first note appeared in Michelle Hannon’s locker after fourth period, folded into careful eighths and flattened so it could easily slide into one of the locker’s vents. At sixteen, she’d come to see notes as childish, more appropriate for freshmen like her sister, Kimber. But she and her friends still dropped each other notes if they weren’t able to talk between classes and something important was going on: an after-school party or some compelling bit of gossip.

  This one had nothing to do with a party.

  Do you know where your dad will be tonight? I do.

  The note was written on standard college-ruled notebook paper with blue horizontal lines and a thin red stripe down the left margin. She turned it over, looking for more writing, but there were only the two brief sentences in handwriting she didn’t recognize.

  She looked up and down the busy hallway, but no one was watching her. It was a weird question for someone to ask. Then again, it wasn’t really a question she needed to answer. It was more like someone was teasing her. I know something you don’t know!

  Despite its harmless appearance, the note spooked her.

  Everyone liked her dad. Ike Hannon was the kind of funny, handsome father her friends envied. Their own overweight or bespectacled or alcoholic or just plain boring fathers were to be hidden away at all costs. By no means were they allowed to be seen dropping their sons and daughters at school or parties, or permitted to chaperone dances or field trips. But Ike Hannon treated her friends like they were adults, telling jokes that were just off-color enough to make them blush and surprising them with pizza when they gathered at the Hannons’ house to study. He was the dad who wore jeans on the weekends that weren’t dad jeans and made fun of his own taste in sixties pop songs. Thanks to him they knew who Petula Clark and the Monkees were. He told them the Beatles were overra
ted and that JFK had been a terrible president, which made them think he was cool and subversive, and irritated their parents. Michelle’s mother, always beautifully dressed and prettier than their own dull mothers, just rolled her eyes, smiled indulgently, and fed them homemade cookies.

  These days Michelle was inviting her friends over less often, especially if she knew her father would be home and not traveling for his job. He was like an actor who loved an audience. She was popular herself yet was learning that he craved the attention in a way she did not. If sometimes she felt compelled to deprive him of that attention, did that make her a bad person? Maybe. Because although she loved him and knew how much he loved her, she had long ago begun to suspect that he was in some ways no different from a teenager himself.

  After Beta Club meeting that afternoon, she walked the half mile to Lucinda’s Steak and Chop House, where she hostessed two nights a week and Saturdays. Her long black skirt, white blouse, and black flats were stuffed in her backpack. Her mother didn’t approve of her working in a restaurant, but Michelle liked having her own money. The only drawback was that when she went out after work, her friends teased her that she smelled like steak.

  At 9:35 that evening, she left the steakhouse through the back door, prepared to find her father waiting in their old Jeep Wagoneer. Instead, she found her mother’s new Audi station wagon—a birthday present from Mimi and Granddad, her mother’s parents—parked in the lot. Her mother waved and got out. Her tailored blouse was burnished maple gold by the glow of the restaurant’s old-fashioned streetlamps, and Michelle could just make out the damask chrysanthemum pattern printed on its front.

  “I thought you might want to drive home. You can use the practice.” Tonight her mother’s hair was pulled back in a soft ponytail, making her look almost Michelle’s age.

  “Great.” Michelle stowed her things in the backseat while her mother went around to the other side. She put on her seat belt and checked the mirrors, knowing her mother would be watching. She waited until they passed through two traffic lights before she brought up her father.

  “I thought Dad was going to pick me up tonight.” Michelle stole a glance at her mother’s face, which didn’t change or register any kind of surprise.

  Her mother shrugged and didn’t turn from watching the road ahead. “Look. A truck’s pulling out. There’s another car right after it.”

  Michelle slowed the Audi.

  “Oh, you know your father. He has early meetings, so he decided to drive to Springfield and get a room at the Ramada. I don’t know why anyone would want to spend half their nights in those kinds of hotels, but he doesn’t mind. He works so hard.”

  Chapter Seven

  Kimber’s mouth is sour with coffee from the machine at the courthouse, and the disinfectant smell of the holding cell clings in her nostrils. Gabriel’s BMW is quiet, inside and out, and she wants to close her eyes and curl up in the soft leather seat and sleep for about a year. Instead, she’s awake, surreptitiously checking the side mirror to see if they’re being followed. Having touched Lance Wilson, she feels like he’s stuck to her in some way. She can’t shake the sense of his presence.

  The drive to Diana and Kyle’s house is short. Gabriel spends much of it trying to convince her to stay at his apartment until Lance Wilson is evicted.

  “No one will bother you or even know you’re there. The spare room is quiet.”

  “Diana wouldn’t take no for an answer. It’s really nice of you, though.” There’s a part of her that wants to accept his offer, but she fights it because the guilt that pricks her every time she looks at him is too painful.

  After a few minutes of restrained disagreement on both their parts, he gives up.

  “The offer’s open if it gets too awkward there.” His jaw is tight, and she suspects he’s been grinding his teeth in frustration. It’s been a long night.

  As they get closer to the Christies’ house, the roads narrow, and the houses become larger. They weave through a pair of pristine white sawhorses half-heartedly guarding the road marked PRIVATE. The neighborhood looks like a wooded, manicured park. The houses, separated from one another by several landscaped acres, range in style from stately columned mansions to sprawling mid-century creations with bands of narrow windows to the occasional stucco oddity. A few of the estates are marked by low, meandering stone walls that look as though they predate the houses themselves. The zip code is the wealthiest in St. Louis, and Kimber believes its true walls are invisible. She feels like an imposter every time she comes here, like her dress is always too short or her nails are the wrong color or her heels are too high.

  Gabriel steers the BMW into Diana and Kyle’s driveway. Their house, christened Windrows, was built in the twenties by a department store owner and his titled English wife. Constructed of rounded stones in shades of brown, from dark chocolate to sienna and tan, it rambles like a cottage designed by a child who didn’t know when to stop building. Two floors at one end (three, counting the walk-out basement level built into the hillside) with a long, low wing at the other end housing the kitchen as well as the indoor swimming pool. The pool lies behind a glass wall with enormous sliding doors that open onto the back patio. When Diana and Kyle renovated the house, they kept the antique mullioned windows in the formal rooms at the front but changed the back of the house completely, opening it to the two acres of hillside garden.

  Kimber can’t imagine Lance Wilson coming here. It’s like another world.

  Raindrops weigh down the trees sheltering the drive, and the humidity inside the car skyrockets moments after Gabriel turns off the engine.

  “I’ll help you carry your things inside,” he says coolly.

  “Gabriel, please. Diana wants me here. You don’t really want me at the apartment. I know you’re just being nice.”

  He shrugs. “You’re the one who left me, remember?” His tempered voice covers her with an even heavier blanket of guilt. Too exhausted to fight it, she gets out of the car.

  A little girl with bouncing fawn pigtails appears, running toward them from the kitchen end of the house. Kimber takes a deep breath and smooths her uncombed hair, knowing she looks like hell. The girl, Hadley, is Diana’s daughter, and Kimber is Hadley’s favorite pretend aunt. Noticing Gabriel, Hadley pulls up short, suddenly shy. Then she hurries to Kimber and grabs her hand to whisper, “I put Tinker Bell in your room for you.”

  Bending down, Kimber puts her arms around the child, marveling at how slight and delicate she is, more her mother’s daughter than her father’s. “I’m so glad to see you.” She kisses Hadley’s flushed cheek.

  “Is he still your boyfriend?”

  “No,” Kimber whispers back. “Just my friend.”

  Hadley runs around the car to Gabriel and announces that there are blueberry muffins and yogurt for breakfast, then skips for the house without waiting for him to answer. He looks puzzled, but there’s a ghost of a smile on his face. Hadley has that effect.

  Although her life feels screwed, the muffins—still warm, the blueberries melted like juicy candy—make Kimber stupidly happy. Hadley watches Gabriel over her glass of juice as though she’s making some kind of decision. It’s been seven or eight months since she’s seen Gabriel, and Kimber wonders what she remembers about him.

  “You doing all right?” Diana squeezes Kimber’s shoulder as she puts coffee down in front of her. The farm table bearing breakfast is a rich mocha brown and burnished as soft as velvet, a mellow contrast to the enamel and marble kitchen surfaces, which are the color of antique pearls.

  Diana looks cool. Always so cool, even when she is in hyper-mothering mode, as she is now. Her light brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail with a turquoise silk scarf tied around it like a sixties fashion model. Kimber can’t picture herself in the vibrant Lilly Pulitzer ensembles that Diana loves, but Diana looks born to wear the pink and white and turquoise floral shift she has on, with her slender limbs, smattering of freckles across her cheeks, tipped, girlish nose, an
d soft green eyes. A strand of hair has pulled loose from her ponytail and hangs, undisturbed, in front of her ear. This is casual Diana, relaxed and wholesome at home.

  “Great muffins.” Kimber doesn’t want to get into the details of the previous night with Hadley around.

  “We picked the blueberries, but they were in the freezer.” Hadley addresses Gabriel. “Why don’t you want a muffin? Don’t you like muffins?”

  “Gluten,” he says. “Muffins have gluten, and it makes me sick.”

  Hadley’s eyes widen. “It makes my friend Jang-mi sick too. She can’t come over for pizza because it gives her diarrhea.”

  Diana and Kimber stifle their laughter, but Gabriel laughs outright.

  “Yep. That’s about the size of it.”

  Hadley laughs too and ducks her head to whisper “diarrhea” again. For the rest of them, the moment passes, but Hadley is still fascinated with the reaction she’s gotten and laughs again, now sounding a little forced. Her laughter gets louder and louder until Diana tells her to take a deep breath, but she’s not listening. It’s not until Kyle enters the kitchen, sweating from a workout, a fresh white towel around his neck, that she finally settles down, grinning at her own silliness.

  “What’s so funny, buttercup?”

  Without acknowledging anyone else, he leans in to kiss Hadley on the top of the head, plucks a bit of muffin from her plate, and pops it into his mouth. She looks up at him with mock irritation on her delicate face.

  “Hey! Get your own muffin, Mr. Muffin Stealer.”

  Kyle wrinkles his nose at her, and she wrinkles hers back. “I earned that muffin, little girl. In fact I earned at least two muffins this morning. What about it, Mommy?”

  They are the TV sitcom family with the darling child, the gentle teasing, the spotless, sparkling kitchen. When Diana shakes her head, also fighting a grin, the moment feels empty without the canned laughter of an invisible studio audience. To Kimber the scene would feel false if she didn’t know that this is exactly how they are even when they don’t have an audience. Kyle’s charm and silliness is as real as Diana’s affection for him. Diana loves Kyle deeply.