Page 44 of Two Kinds of Stranger

There were no lights visible from the front windows of Cross’s house. A single car in the driveway. No signs of visitors.

‘Doesn’t look like he’s home,’ said Lake.

‘Let’s see. And if he is at home, rememberdon’tshoot him.’

Lake drew his Glock from his shoulder holster, put the gun in the glovebox, said, ‘Eddie told me to tellyounot to hurt him. No broken bones. No pieces missing. He is to be left as we found him.’

Bloch tutted. Flynn knew her all too well. She got out of the Jeep, closed the door. Lake hadn’t moved. He seemed to bethinking. He leaned over, opened the glovebox and retrieved the Glock. He put it back in its holster and got out of the car.

Bloch raised an eyebrow.

‘It’s just for emergencies,’ he said.

Together they made their way along the flagstone path to the front porch of the house. Weeds grew a foot tall in between the cracks in the paving. The front door was heavy hardwood, no glass. Iron latticework, painted black, covered the door in a grid pattern, to make it appear old, like something you’d see on a medieval castle. It looked cheap on a house like this. But it would help strengthen the door in case anyone tried to put their foot through it.

No cameras outside. Bloch checked every corner on the porch.

She pressed the doorbell.

Lake stood beside her, and a little behind. Letting her take the lead.

They waited for thirty seconds, Bloch counting time silently. She reached for the doorbell again, but hesitated when she heard movement on the other side of the door, the rattle of a security chain being slipped into its housing.

Bloch lowered her arm, waited. The door opened six inches.

The brass security chain snapped taut, preventing the door from opening any farther, and in the gap she saw the face of Arthur Cross.

Twenty years had passed since his last mugshot. Thin lines crossed his wide forehead, and above it was short dark hair. His skin was pale and dry. Hollow cheeks. Lips that appeared slightly feminine, but with no color, as if the blood had been drained from them.

These details she scanned quickly, but it was his eyes that held her attention.

Large eyes. Round and almost too big. And even though it was nighttime Bloch knew those eyes would look the same beneath a clear blue sky.

They were black.

Of course, they were not actually black. Not really. Dark brown, but so dark as to make the irises indistinguishable from the pupils. Those huge eyes dominated his aspect, as if he was a creature that lived in the dark and his senses had evolved to accommodate his surroundings: his eyes grown larger to suck up even the smallest slivers of light.

Long fine eyelashes only served to make his appearance feral, as if something wild and dangerous lay behind this façade of a human face.

He wore no expression. No curiosity. No alarm.

His face seemed dead.

But his black eyes burned into the night.

Bloch’s lips parted, but she said nothing. Cross didn’t show the slightest hint of intimidation, nor curiosity. Bloch had no words. Her body and mind were engaged in more primal functions. She realized that she had clenched her fists, gooseflesh covered the back of her neck. Every nerve-ending was screaming at her to beware. To be ready.

‘Mr. Cross, we have a matter we would like to discuss. Can we come in?’ asked Lake.

For a moment, Cross didn’t reply. At first it appeared as though he didn’t hear Lake. But then he slowly shook his head, said, ‘Who are you?’

His voice sounded childlike. A sing-song pattern, high and strange for a man in his mid-thirties. The sound of it made Bloch clench her jaw.

‘We’re friends of the lawyer you’re harassing,’ said Lake.

‘Who are you?’ asked Cross again in that unnerving voice.

Lake said, ‘It doesn’t matter who we are. You’re going to leave the lawyer and his family alone.’