Lisa Unger - The Stranger Inside

Even good people are drawn to do evil things

Twelve-year-old Rain Winter narrowly escaped an abduction while walking to a friends house. Her two best friends, Tess and Hank, were not as lucky. Tess never came home, and Hank was held in captivity before managing to escape. Their abductor was sent to prison but years later was released. Then someone delivered real justiceand killed him in cold blood.

Now Rain is living the perfect suburban life, her dark childhood buried deep. She spends her days as a stay-at-home mom, having put aside her career as a hard-hitting journalist to care for her infant daughter. But when another brutal murderer who escaped justice is found dead, Rain is unexpectedly drawn into the case. Eerie similarities to the murder of her friends abductor force Rain to revisit memories shes worked hard to leave behind. Is there a vigilante at work? Who is the next target? Why cant Rain just let it go?

Introducing one of the most compelling and original killers in crime fiction today, Lisa Unger takes readers deep inside the minds of both perpetrator and victim, blurring the lines between right and wrong, crime and justice, and showing that sometimes people deserve what comes to them.

LISA UNGER is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of seventeen novels. Under My Skin, is an Edgar nominee and finalist for the Hammett Prize. Her story, The Sleep Tight Motel, is a #1 bestselling short and Edgar nominee. Lisa lives on the west coast of Florida with her family.

Under My Skin

The Red Hunter

Ink and Bone

The Whispering Hollows (Novella)

Crazy Love You

In The Blood

Heartbroken

Darkness, My Old Friend

Fragile

Die For You

Black Out

Sliver of Truth

Beautiful Lies

Smoke

Twice

The Darkness Gathers

Angel Fire

The Stranger Inside

Lisa Unger

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright Lisa Unger 2019

Lisa Unger asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition September 2019 ISBN: 9781474066761

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Praise for Lisa Unger:

Suspenseful, sensitive, sexy, subtle. The best nail-biter I have read for ages. Highly recommended

Lee Child

Lisa Ungers deliciously intense and addictive thriller got under my skin. I picked it up, was drawn into this dark, tangled tale, and couldnt pull away until it was done. Gripping suspense at its best

Karin Slaughter

Deeply plotted and complex and carries an undeniable momentum. Lisa Ungers enthralling cast of characters pulled me right in and locked me down tight. This is one book that will have you racing to the last page, only to have you wishing the ride wasnt over

Michael Connelly

Riveting psychological suspense of the first order. If you havent yet experienced Lisa Unger, what are you waiting for?

Harlan Coben

A perfectly dark and unsettling, spellbinding thriller. Told with both eloquence and urgency, Unger knows just how to hook her readers and reel them in. This book is not to be missed

Mary Kubica

This is a haunting, compulsive tale that will have you under its spell long after youve closed the book

Tess Gerritsen

A twisting labyrinth of a book where nothing is as it seems, dreams bleed into reality, and the past is the future. Lisa Unger is one of my favourite writers. And in this tilt-a-whirl of a psychological thriller, shes at the top of her game

Lisa Gardner

In loving memory of my wonderful grandmother
Millie Miscione

and my magnificent, dear agent and friend
Elaine Markson

Contents

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

I wait because I have nothing but time.

From the quiet, dim interior of my car, I watch the quiet neighborhood, settle into the upholstery. Autumn. Leaves lofting on cool air. Tacky, ghoulish Halloween decorations adorning stoops and lawns, hanging from treesskeletons, and jack-o-lanterns, witches on brooms. Its a school night, so no kids playing flashlight tag, no pickup soccer match in the street. Maybe kids dont even do that anymore. Thats what I understand, anyway. That theyre all iPad-addicted couch potatoes now. Its the new frontier of parenting. But youll know better about this than Im likely to.

Younger families live on this block. SUVs are hastily parked. Basketball hoops tilt in driveways; bikes twist on the lawn. Recycling cans wait patiently at the curb on Wednesday, garbage on Friday. Tonight, theres a game on. I see it playing on big-screen televisions in three different open-plan living rooms.

But the house Im watching is dark. A beautiful silver Benz thats about to be repossessed sits in the driveway. Its one of those carsthe kind that people dream about, an aspirational car, the kind you get when But it certainly hasnt brought its owner any happiness. The guy Im watchinghes depressed. I can see it in his slouch as he comes and goes, in the haunted circles that have settled around his eyes.

I cant muster any compassion for him. And I know that you arent shedding any tears. In fact, Im willing to bet that youve spent at least as much time thinking about him as I haveeven though, of course, you have other things on your mind now.

An older man walks his dog, a white puff of a thing on a slender leash. Not a dog at all really, more like an extra-large guinea pig. I sink a little deeper in my seat, then stay stone-still. I havent seen this man on this street before, and Ive been here most nights for a while. Hes out of his routine, I guess, maybe decided to take a new route tonight. Im not too worried, though. My cara beige Toyota Corollais utterly forgettable, practically invisible in its commonness; the windows tinted (but not too dark). If he doesnt see me, a lone person slouched in the drivers seat and clearly up to no good, he wont even notice it.

Im in luck. Hes squinting at the screen on his smartphone. Hes older, not fluent with it. So it takes all of his concentration. That device is the best thing that ever happened to people who want to be invisible. He walks right by, oblivious to the car, to me, to his surroundings. Even his dog is distracted, incurious, nose to the pavement. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Finally, theyre gone and Im alone again.