A Stranger at the Door (A Rachel Marin Thriller) Read online

  “That sounds like it would be an amazing story. I can’t wait to read it.”

  “Oh, it will be,” Megan said with the confidence of a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer. “Love you, Mom.”

  “Love you, too, hon.”

  Megan bounded up the steps to her room, leaving Rachel alone. Half an hour later, she received a text message from Eric.

  Be home late

  It took all her self-control not to throw her phone against the wall. She knew exactly why he would be late. He’d be following Benjamin Ruddock around as he delivered whatever the hell was in those envelopes.

  She checked her GPS app and tapped on Eric’s name.

  Person not within range or app is turned off

  This time, she actually wound up to chuck the phone before catching herself. She took a breath. Without GPS to track him or any concept of when he might be home, Rachel felt powerless. She texted him back:

  Please keep me posted. Do you have an idea of when you might be home? We need to talk. I love you. Always and no matter what. Mom.

  She did not receive a response. She sat on the couch. Poured more tea. She didn’t particularly even like tea but felt tea was the sort of drink you drank while you waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  She made Megan a frozen veggie burger with Minute Rice, the Mom Guilt of being unable to focus enough to cook her daughter a decent meal kicking in fast and hard.

  At eight o’clock, she called Eric’s cell phone. She tried the GPS app again, but it was still off. Her heartbeat was hummingbird fast. Her head hurt like a cracked dam, her brain trying to leak out. She paced around the house. Cleaned the kitchen. Paid some bills. Backed up her laptop. Still no word from Eric.

  At ten o’clock, she debated calling Serrano again to ask for another favor. The police had resources to find a cell phone’s GPS signal and track its location. But Eric had been gone from school for less than seven hours. And Serrano might feel just a little used after an afternoon of sex followed by yet another favor. She did not want him to feel like their relationship was transactional.

  There was one person she could call. And thankfully, that person picked up on the first ring.

  “You know this isn’t your boyfriend’s number, Rachel,” Detective Leslie Tally said. “I’m too old and too married to be getting booty-called at night anymore.”

  “Thanks for picking up, Detective.”

  “It’s Leslie. When I’m off the clock, it’s Leslie.”

  “Leslie. I know this is weird. But I have a favor to ask.”

  “Is this an official favor?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Is it going to get me fired, divorced, or killed?”

  “None of the above.”

  “All right, then. You still make that amazing Thai chicken casserole?”

  “When the occasion calls for it.”

  “OK, Marin. Here’s the deal. You bring a dish of that casserole over for dinner one night, with enough to feed a family of hungry Wallace children, and you got yourself one favor.”

  “Deal. But there’s a catch.”

  “Oh, fantastic. What is it?”

  “The favor I need isn’t actually from you. It’s from your daughter.”

  There was silence on the other end. Then Tally said, “Then you’d better plan to bring two casseroles.”

  At 1:46 a.m., Eric Marin returned home.

  Rachel was sitting on the couch watching an infomercial. She had already purchased a new cutting board, a fishing pole (she had never fished in her life), an adult onesie (with pockets), and the world’s best (alleged) eye cream. Her head throbbed like someone was using a pogo stick on it. But the moment she heard footsteps coming up the driveway and recognized the gait and shuffle of her son, she ran to the door, pulled it open, and hugged him.

  “I’m not going to ask you where you were,” she said. “I’m not going to ask who you were with. I’m just glad you’re home. And I want you to know that when you want to talk to me, I will be here for you no matter what.”

  She hugged him so hard she could feel his shoulder blades beneath his jacket. He did not return the embrace. But he also did not try to escape it.

  Finally she let her arms fall to her sides.

  “G’night, Mom,” Eric said. Then he hung up his coat, took off his shoes, and went upstairs. Rachel watched him, thinking that even last year, when she had been drugged and thrown into the back of another man’s car, his intention to murder her and bury her in a ditch, she had never felt so helpless.

  CHAPTER 31

  Penny Wallace sat on a low brick wall outside the entrance of Ashby High, wondering just what the hell she was going to say to Eric Marin. She had known Eric for only a couple of years, but she felt herself to be a decent judge of character. So in that time, she’d learned that he was very smart, very funny, very talented, and very, very troubled. She knew Eric’s father had died six or seven years ago under mysterious circumstances, and she knew the loss ate at him. Eric refused to talk about his father, and Penny did not ask.

  Eric joined Ashby Middle School in seventh grade, one of only two new kids in the class. The other one was Darcy Perriman, and she was gorgeous and rich and outgoing, and those made making friends easy. Eric would sit alone in the cafeteria, his face buried in books thicker than his head, tattered paperbacks with dragons and wizards on the cover. Penny wasn’t the most popular girl in her class, but she didn’t need to be. She had enough friends and never felt the desire to step on others just to climb the Mean Girl ladder.

  Her hardest moment had come when her mother, Claire, had left Penny’s father. She’d sat her three kids down one night and told them that she was attracted to women and had been for a long time. That she couldn’t keep the truth from the people she loved. And she did love them—their father too—with all her heart. But she needed to pursue happiness and love on her terms. They did not understand it. They were too young and too emotionally volatile, and just like any family, they did not want to see theirs break up, under any circumstances. But it was not their decision.

  So their father had moved out and moved away and made no attempt to fight for custody (that jabbed at Penny like a splinter that had never been removed). After that, the Wallace dinner table became much, much quieter. Her mother had spent weeks and weeks crying. She’d confided in them. Had she done the right thing? Had she ruined her family’s happiness for her own? Was she selfish? But eventually the crying slowed, then it stopped, and to Penny’s surprise her mom actually did seem happier. One day she introduced Penny and her siblings to Leslie Tally—Detective Leslie Tally.

  “You’re dating a cop?” Penny had said.

  “No,” her mother replied. “I’m dating a wonderful woman.”

  Penny had never seen her mother so happy.

  But for the Wallace kids, at least at first, it had opened a door to mockery. Their classmates reveled in shockingly gleeful cruelties that had shattered Penny. First, it was “Your mother’s a dyke.” Then it was “Your mother’s a dyke who’s married to a dyke cop.” The words lanced. Penny held the tears in, then unleashed them in never-ending torrents the moment she got home.

  She told her mother she was upset about a boy. They both knew she was lying.

  “One day,” Penny’s mother had said, “and I don’t know when that will be, but it will come, you’ll feel bad for all those sad, shallow people. Because they have hate in their hearts. And only unhappy people have hate in their hearts. One day their hate will wash off you like water because you can live a happy life despite their ignorance. But they’ll always be hateful, and they’ll always be unhappy.”

  Eventually, the cruelty had subsided. Penny was just another kid—happily. Every now and then, some ignoramus would make a snide remark, and Penny would just smile and say, “I hope being an asshole works out for you one day.”

  She had not chosen to become friendly with Eric Marin. He was not part of her social circles, a
nd frankly, her friends thought he was weird. They weren’t wrong, but he was also more.

  Their friendship had been thrust upon them by circumstance. Leslie Tally and John Serrano were not just detectives in the Ashby Police Department; they were family. Penny and her siblings loved him and cried for him when his son died. And when Serrano began dating Rachel Marin, they had no choice but to spend time with Eric. Megan was far easier; the girl could tell stories like she didn’t need to breathe.

  But eventually, Eric had opened up. He was smart. Funny. And clearly desperate for someone to talk to. But he was also guarded. As fast as he could open up, he could shut down just as quickly. So she’d always had a bit of a soft spot for Eric. Maybe more than she let on. She’d known he was hurting. But it wasn’t until last night that she knew how much trouble he was in.

  Penny lived only a few blocks away from school, so she usually waited until the last moment before walking over. But that morning, she’d surprised her mother by leaving fifteen minutes early. Leslie had taken her aside the night before and passed along a favor from Rachel Marin. She’d agreed in a second, but it meant getting to school before the buses began to arrive. She needed to beat Eric.

  Penny watched intently as each bus drove up and coughed up its collection of students. Finally, the one with Eric Marin pulled up, and he got out.

  He was wearing blue jeans and a black polo shirt. His eyes were red rimmed, like he hadn’t slept in a week. And maybe he hadn’t. He didn’t so much as make eye contact or speak to anyone as he ambled toward the entrance.

  “Hey, Eric!” she called out. He turned. A smile came over his face instantly.

  “Oh, hey, Penny,” he said. “What’s up?”

  Eric’s voice was unenthusiastic but almost purposefully so, as though he was trying too hard to play it cool. That was one of the things she liked most about Eric: he couldn’t even try to play it cool. He was just him.

  “I have no idea what I’m going to write for my term paper for Ms. Stern’s class,” she said. “I feel like the night before I’m just going to narrow it down to two topics, flip a coin, and pull an all-nighter. Have you decided?”

  He nodded. “I’m writing about Lennie from Of Mice and Men. How he guards George and the animals. How he’s a protector but doesn’t understand that he’s capable of killing the ones he loves. He’s not evil—he just doesn’t know better.”

  Penny nodded. “That sounds really good,” she said, earnestly. “I was thinking we could go over some of the material later. Maybe after school? You could come by. My mom made peanut butter brownies.”

  She said the words peanut butter brownies with a lilt in her voice. She remembered after one family meal, Eric had eaten at least four of them. Eric perked up.

  “I think I could do that,” he said. “I’d just have to—”

  “Eric Marin. The man of the hour.”

  Penny closed her eyes and cursed under her breath. She knew that voice.

  “Hey, Ben,” Eric said. Benjamin Ruddock came up, smiling. He loomed above them like a tank over two dachshunds.

  “Hey, Penny,” Ruddock said. “Good to see you again.”

  “Sure. You too.”

  Ruddock laughed. “Not a lot of sincerity there. But that’s OK. You’d just think that after all the incredible things I’m doing for Eric here that his friends would be a little nicer to me.”

  Penny looked at Eric and said, “You know, maybe I’ll write my paper on Narcissus. How he fell into despair when he realized that nobody could ever love him as much as he loved himself.”

  “Listen, Miss Wallace,” Ruddock said. “Go run along and play with all the other little girls. The grown-ups need to talk.”

  Penny stood her ground. She needed to get Eric alone. That was the plan. She’d already been concerned about Eric even before hearing it from Rachel Marin. Plus, rumors were flying around school that Ruddock had had something to do with Darren Reznick’s compound arm fracture. Even before the last few days, every kid with a brain in Ashby had been scared of Ruddock—and the people Ruddock knew. Now, they were absolutely terrified.

  “You got my text, right?” Ruddock said to Eric.

  Eric nodded. “Yeah.”

  “So you’ll be there?” Eric nodded again. “Good. ’Cause our friend needs to address a few things. Rumors. But I’m meeting with him one on one later, and I can’t wait to tell him how great you were the other day.”

  She needed to know what they were talking about. What was in the text messages Ruddock was referring to. Thankfully, Penny and Eric had homeroom together.

  She had an idea. Penny took out her phone and texted Eric:

  So is he like your douchy bodyguard or something? Do you pay him in Axe body spray?

  She heard Eric’s cell phone buzz, and he slipped it from his pocket. She watched as he entered his PIN: 33078.

  He read Penny’s text, smiled, and wrote back:

  I’m sorry. I can’t study with you. Please understand. And yes. He wears a LOT of Axe.

  Eric slipped the phone into his pocket. Penny sped up and said, “Hey Eric, if you can’t study, then I need to ask you one more thing about Ms. Stern’s paper—”

  Then Penny tripped, her shoulder clipping the back of Eric’s knees. He fell to the ground, and Penny landed in a heap on top of him.

  Penny apologized profusely. Ruddock watched with morbid amusement as they disentangled themselves.

  “I’m so sorry . . . stupid tree root came out of nowhere,” Penny said.

  “It’s OK,” Eric said, brushing the dirt from his pants. “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just embarrassed,” Penny replied.

  “One day I’ll introduce you to girls who know how to walk,” Ruddock said. “Come on, Marin. Someone belongs in the dirt, and it isn’t you.”

  Eric and Ruddock walked off. She waited, then looked down and smiled. She held Eric Marin’s cell phone in her hand. When they were out of sight, Penny used the stolen PIN to unlock the cell. She found a text message thread between Eric Marin and Benjamin Ruddock. She used her own phone to take screenshots of the entire conversation, then texted them to Rachel Marin along with a note:

  Please find out what’s going on. I have a terrible feeling that Eric is going to get hurt. Or worse.

  CHAPTER 32

  Rachel scanned the screenshots Penny Wallace had sent her. She asked how Penny got them, and when Penny wrote back, she gave the girl credit for resourcefulness. Not that she would advocate the semiviolent tripping of her own son, but Penny had found a way to get information without being detected. She was a girl after her own heart.

  Penny had sent five screenshots of a text exchange between her son and Benjamin Ruddock. Most of them were big nothings. It was clear Ruddock was being very careful about what he sent via text. Though it was very possible he had other means of communication beyond the cell phone he used to communicate with Eric. There were three exchanges in particular that caught Rachel’s eye. The first was sent the afternoon of the initial meeting at Voss Field.

  Ruddock: Glad you’re coming tonight. You won’t be sorry. Time to change your life, Marin.

  Eric: I still feel like I should know what this “meeting” is all about.

  Ruddock: Don’t sweat it, big guy. It’ll be worth your time. Emphasis on ‘worth’.

  Eric: What do you mean?

  Ruddock: I mean just be smart, work hard, and treat my man with respect. Soon enough people will be asking YOU for favors.

  Eric: Who is ‘your man’?

  Ruddock: See? There you go asking questions. Let’s just say he’s like if Jesus, Bill Gates, and Donald Trump had a baby and that baby grew up and said “Hey Eric Marin, let’s do business.” You’d be stupid not to.

  Eric: I don’t know what any of that means.

  Ruddock: You will. And if you miss this meeting, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.

  Eric: Why does it have to be in the middle of the night?

&nbs
p; Ruddock: A test, my friend. Before soldiers go off to war, the squad leaders need to know if they’re capable of handling the battles. If you can’t even hack a late night meet, how can you be expected to do anything else?

  Eric: My mom. You don’t know what she’s like.

  Ruddock: Trust me, my man. We know all about your mom.

  Rachel looked at the last text from Ruddock. We know all about your mom. Brice had looked into Rachel even before he’d met Eric. Which confirmed her suspicions that they were using Eric as a way to get to her. If things went bad, they could claim she was emotional, had a vendetta. They knew Rachel had pressure points. And they were pressing on them. Hard.

  She read the second text exchange between the boys. Based on the time stamps, they appeared to have been sent while Rachel was recovering in the hospital.

  Eric: My mother got attacked.

  Ruddock: Sorry man.

  Eric: Sorry man? You’re saying you didn’t know? That you didn’t have anything to do with it?

  Ruddock: You kidding me bro? Absolutely not. Had no idea that crazy bitch was anywhere near us.

  Eric: Don’t call her that.

  Ruddock: You’re right. I apologize. This is a violent town. Hell, your mom nearly got herself killed last year.

  Eric: I’d better not find out that you or Brice had anything to do with it.

  Ruddock: First, if you threaten me again, I’ll rip your legs off and beat you to death with them. I’m a reasonable guy, but I have limits. Second, I. Had. Nothing. To. Do. With. It.

  Eric: What do I say to her if she asks? She’s smarter than you think. She’s not going to believe that it’s a coincidence that she got attacked while following us.

  Ruddock: It is a total coincidence. Just tell her that and you’ll be golden.

  Eric: You’d better be telling me the truth.

  Ruddock: And what exactly would I gain from lying to you? You’re going to be a star, Marin. Just keep your eyes on the prize. Fratres now and always.

  Eric did not respond to the last text.

  The final text that Rachel took an interest in was one line, and one line only. It had been sent that very morning, after Eric had left for school and before Penny Wallace stole the phone. It read: