The Intruders (36 page)
Someone was standing twenty yards up the street.
It wasn’t a very tall someone, but Rachel couldn’t determine much more than that because there was a streetlamp behind them.
She walked a little farther, slowing down, squinting.
The silhouette resolved into the shape of a little girl, standing neatly in the middle of the sidewalk.
“I’m lost,” the girl said.
“Where are you supposed to be?” Rachel asked.
“Somewhere else.”
“Okay, then. How…um, how come you’re out this late anyway?”
The girl ignored the question. Rachel didn’t blame her. She knew she was crap at relating to kids, with the exception of her baby sis. No children worked in her office or went to her gym. Or hung out in bars, much. So the only other shorties she encountered belonged to her older sister, who never left them alone with her but always hovered in the background, as if she suspected that Rachel might try to borrow money off her brood or try teaching them to smoke.
Nonetheless, she tried bending down, to seem more friendly. “Does your mom know where you are?”
“No.”
“Where do you live, honey?”
“I just want to be indoors. I don’t want to go home.”
Uh-oh, Rachel thought. Suddenly this was looking more complicated. A lost kid was one thing. Chance to be a good neighbor. A runaway was different. Problems at home. Weird Uncle Bob. The whole nine yards.
“Why not?” she asked. “It’s late. And cold. Be nicer to be home, don’t you think?”
The girl waited patiently for her to stop talking. “Where is your home?”
Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“Where is it?”
“It’s not far,” Rachel said. “But—”
“Take me to your home.”
“Look,” Rachel said firmly, “I’ll help you find your own house. Your folks must be flipping out. But—”
Suddenly the child flew at her.
Rachel wasn’t ready. She threw a hand out to break her fall but crashed awkwardly anyway, the momentum from the child’s attack causing her head to crack resoundingly against the concrete. The whole thing took about a second. Whiteness filled her head, as if light were splitting across the night sky.
Then she saw the bulbous shadow of the little girl’s face above hers. “Take me to your home.”
Rachel pushed herself back along the sidewalk, her wrist yelping in a bony way. “What’s wrong with you?”
The girl’s face had swum into focus. Her mouth was a thin line. “Take me to your home.”
“I’m not taking you anywhere, you fucking freak.”
The girl hesitated, kicked her in the stomach, and then ran off. Rachel caught a final glimpse of the child as she clambered quickly over a low fence into someone’s front yard, and then she disappeared.
Rachel was moving fast as soon as she was on her feet. Within a couple of blocks, she’d started shaking, as shock kicked in. She thought about calling the cops to tell them they should get the hell out here and to bring a big net, but decided she’d wait until she got home.
It started getting odd once more when she was only a couple of blocks away. At first she thought she could hear the footsteps again. This time they stopped her dead in her tracks. She heard only silence. She turned in a slow circle, expecting to see a small figure standing shadowed under a streetlamp, some distance away but not far enough.
Nobody.
She was just spooked. That was all.
She started walking even more quickly. Her ears felt like they were sticking six inches out from her head. Her shoulders felt strange, too, as if she’d banged them up a little bit. But she kept her feet moving regularly, in a marching rhythm. Click-click-click, as the heels came down again and again. She tried to keep her eyes looking straight forward. To just keep moving…
Then she snapped her head to the left.
She saw a pair of houses, almost identical, standard-issue ranch style with a little fence in between. Silent and motionless under thin moonlight. But hadn’t she seen someone slipping over the fence, way in back? Her brain wasn’t sure, but her heart was beating hard enough to sound confident. And very unhappy about it.
She hesitated. She’d turned quickly. There were five, six yards between the fence and the side of the next house. Could a little girl really have made the distance in that time? Probably it was just a cat, prowling its territory. Jumped the fence, catching her eye, melted back into darkness in time-honored feline fashion.
But…if it had been the kid, it meant she was now ahead of Rachel. She could be waiting a few houses along the street, hidden behind one of the fences.
No. It was just a cat.
And if not…what was Rachel going to do? Run Christ knows how many blocks back to the bar, ask the cool black guy to come help? Or call the cops? Right, ma’am, and how much did you have to drink tonight? Really— that much?
And besides, it was only a kid. She’d had the element of surprise. This time Rachel would just deck the little nutcase.
Nonetheless, she covered the last block and a half at a trot, keeping a close eye on each fence as she approached. Her neighborhood signaled a small drop in the size and value of the houses, and her yard was neither deep nor wide. It was obviously empty, thank God.
She ran up the path and unlocked the front door with the key already in her hand. Closed it fast behind her.
And started laughing. Jesus. What a shitty night.
She poured herself a big glass of wine right away, swallowing half of it in one gulp. So she’d lost count of the number of blocks. She had more than enough juice to make Lori’s mouth drop open. And maybe even, for once, apologize. She walked into the living room, stood aimlessly for a moment. The shock and spent adrenaline were losing their fizz and going flat. What was she thinking of doing now? Sitting in silence? Turning on the television? Lori wouldn’t be doing either of those things right now.
Rachel took another swig of wine. It refreshed the alcohol still in her system, and she felt a bit drunk. Drunk and bad-tempered. And freaked out. What was going on in the world that little girls were out in the middle of the night attacking innocent single women?
And what was going on in Rachel’s world that those last two words applied to her? She shouldn’t be walking late at night alone. She shouldn’t be standing here alone now either. It sucked.
She raised the wineglass defiantly, thinking she might just throw it back and have another—there was nobody here to judge, right?—but then she heard something.
The quiet shattering of glass.
She turned so fast that the mid range Merlot slopped out and splattered on the carpet.
The sound had come from upstairs.
She set the wineglass down quietly on the table and went quickly out to the hallway, heart beating hard. Stood with her hand on the banister, looking up. Thought again about calling the police but knew it would be too long before they got here. Thought about running out onto the street but then thought, No. This is my fucking house.
She climbed the stairs slowly, feet to either side of the treads to avoid the creaks, and got to the top without a sound. She waited a moment. No more noise. She took the two steps required to cross the hallway and pushed open the door to her bedroom.
She could immediately see that the lower pane of her bedroom window was broken, a jagged, glinting hole. Glass lay on the floor just underneath it. She looked carefully all around the room. She knew only too well that there was no space for another blouse in her closet, never mind a human being. Her bed went right down to the floor, so there couldn’t be anyone under that either.
Then she noticed something out of place. A small rock lying up against the bottom of her closet.
Somebody must have thrown it at her window from below. It had broken, and the rock came flying in. Somebody? How may candidates were there?
Rachel went to the window. Carefully got up against the wall and angled herself so that she couldn’t be seen. Then very slowly moved her head so she could glimpse the yard below—ready to jump back out of sight fast.
There was no one down there, but Rachel decided that this had gone far enough. She was finally going to call the cops. She walked quickly back out of the bedroom and clattered down the stairs.
The girl was standing at the other end of the corridor, silhouetted against the light in the kitchen.
Rachel could see immediately what she’d done. Sent her upstairs with the noise, then quietly broken a pane in the back door, put her hand in, and unlocked it. But was that something a little girl would be able to plan? What kind of child was she dealing with here?
“Get out,” Rachel said.
Her voice was dry and not loud enough.
The girl was holding something. Rachel recognized it. A professional-standard ten-inch chef’s knife, from when she’d decided she ought to learn how to cook French. She’d bought an armful of books and a food processor and gotten as far as badly fucking up a confit of duck before abandoning the idea. The knife hadn’t gotten much use since it left the store, bottom line. It was still very sharp, and out of scale with the person currently holding it. A child that age should look silly with such a thing in her hand. Unfortunately, she did not.
Rachel turned and ran to the front door. Grabbed the catch and pulled it. It didn’t move.
She’d locked it when she got back in.
The girl was now in the living room. “You’re going to help me,” she said.
“Listen, honey,” Rachel said shakily, hands on hips, “we are so done here. I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m calling the cops. I mean it.”
The girl moved the knife until the point of it was right against her own throat. “No you won’t,” she said.
“You’re wrong. Get out of my house.”
“Don’t make me do this,” the girl said, and now the point of the knife was making an indentation in the skin of her neck.
“What are you—”
“Do you want the police to find things this way?”
“Look…”
Suddenly the girl’s eyes were wet. Rachel watched as she pushed her hand upward a little more, and a dark drop welled up around the point of the knife jabbing into her throat. Saw the girl’s hand tighten as she prepared to shove the blade up. Knew that she wasn’t going to stop.
“Please,” the girl said, her voice quiet and very afraid and not the way it had sounded moments before. “Help me. I’m not doing this.”
“Jesus,” Rachel said quickly, holding her hands out. “Okay. You win. Just don’t…do that.”
The girl took a step forward. This brought her into the light, and for a second she looked less crazy, as if the blade had gotten into her hand by accident, Mommy not paying attention while they cooked together, and it would be put down with ostentatious care at any second.
“Promise?”
“You bet,” Rachel said. “I promise.”
The girl slowly moved the knife away. She smiled tentatively. It was a nice smile, and Rachel allowed herself to relax just a little bit. A child who had that inside her could not be all bad. Hopefully.
“Okay,” she said, in the same calm and friendly voice. “So we’re cool. Why don’t you tell me your name?”
The girl’s face changed. “Why do you want to know?”
“Well, how else am I going to know what to call you, honey? I’m Rachel. See? No big deal.”
The girl was holding the knife loosely now, as if she’d forgotten about it.
“My name is Madison,” she said. “Mainly.”
“Great.” Rachel smiled. “That’s a real pretty name. Madison and Rachel. Friends, right?”
The girl was silent for a moment, motionless. Then she blinked. “I already knew your name,” she said.
She smiled again, but something had changed. It was as if everything about the girl—her face, body, clothing—were irrelevant. Only her eyes told the truth. Rachel’s stomach turned. She tried to look away but could not.
“Time,” the girl said, looking Rachel over, “is not kind. You were perfect, so much my kind of thing. I even found myself prey to a little crush, would you believe it? Oh, well. That was then, and this is now. Understand something, not-so-little Rachel. You’re too old, and we’re not friends, and even if we were, it wouldn’t stop me from cutting you up. So it would be a very good idea for you to do what you’re told.”
Rachel nodded. She didn’t know what else to do.
“Good,” the girl said. “We’re going to make a phone call now. You should find it interesting. Instructive, at least.”
The girl was holding the knife more tightly again now. This realization distracted Rachel, and she did not notice the girl’s other hand swinging toward her head until it was too late.
“Excellent,” Madison said brightly, when Rachel lay unconscious on the floor. “Now let’s find out just how much the great Todd Crane loves his daughter.”
I have been here before. Many times has this scene replayed in my head, but never has it been so much like it was when it was real.
I am in Los Angeles. I am sitting in a cramped armchair, in the dark, surrounded by the smell of other people’s debris. I am waiting for two men whose identities I have determined through the closest thing I will ever do to detective work. Men who have been places that were not theirs to enter, and in which they stole, committed at least two rapes and a murder. I have come to believe that being human is most of all to be a social animal and that if you do not understand that you are not allowed into other people’s places without their permission, then while you may be a Homo sapiens, you are not a human being.
I am aware I am committing the same crime as they, and as the men who killed my father, many years ago and hundreds of miles away. I am not allowed to be in this house. Even if I had a warrant, I should not be here. I should be at home with Amy, who is close to broken and needs me with her. Instead I am here. I cannot help Amy’s grief, or my own, and have run out of ways to try. So I sit in the rambling ruin of a house at the back end of a canyon, where all the windows are shut and there is no air. What do I really think I’m doing here? Am I waiting to arrest two people whose identities I have established or instead for two unknown men from long ago, whose names I can never know and whom I can never catch?
