The Red Hunter(110)

“I think we’re going to have a wedding,” said Claudia in the bathroom. Her mother had no issues whatsoever raising her voice so that Raven and everyone else could hear over their peeing. “Another wedding.”

“Okay,” said Raven pushing her way out of the stall and over to the sink. The thought of a wedding excited her, and also freaked her out a little. How many teenagers had to go to their parents’ weddings? It was—odd. Why couldn’t they just be normal? Her mother squished in next to her.

“So, I was thinking,” said her mom. “Will you be my maid of honor?”

Raven rolled her eyes. “Mom, that’s weird. I’m your daughter.”

“So what?”

“Mom.”

“So that’s a no?” Claudia pouted. She reapplied her lipstick, a deep berry plum. “I suppose Martha would do it. Again.”

“Mom!”

Claudia looked at Raven in the mirror, and Raven smiled. Claudia pulled her into a tight hug.

Raven laughed. “Of course, I’ll be your maid of honor.”

Claudia, embarrassingly, teared up a little. “I love you—so much.”

And all the other ladies in the bathroom broke into applause. It was New York, after all.

They danced that night, and cheered, and jumped around. Her mother was still working on the house, now repairing after the fire, but they weren’t going to live there. And Claudia was doing what maybe she was always meant to do: she was writing a book. Raven felt like every ugly thing was behind them. And even if it wasn’t true—it was true tonight.





forty-six


My head is still spinning as I return to Nate Shelby’s apartment. Tiger and Milo meet me at the door, wrapping around me, mewing. Milo reaches up and I lift him, nuzzle against his snow-white fur. I go into the kitchen and fill their food bowls, refresh their water. Then I head up to the roof. It’s slow going, but I make it.

I don’t sit on the ledge like I used to. I sit in the center, on the tar paper that is still warm from the day’s heat, even though the sun is setting, a big red ball in the sky dipping below the city buildings. It is quiet, as quiet as this place will ever be. I can’t hear the wind, though it is blowing, just the traffic noise carrying up. Even when it grows dark, I won’t see many stars, the city is too bright. The city is alive, with a beating heart. I feel its pulse inside my own.

I try to make sense of the things that have happened today. What I know. What I suspect. What I may never know for sure. I draw in and release long, slow breaths, let my thoughts swirl and pass through me. The Buddha says, “There is no external refuge.”

Meaning, you cannot look into the outer world to feel safe, to feel at peace. You cannot look without for understanding, or for justice. You must look within.

I think about the money. A million dollars stolen from Whitey Malone. One hundred went to Mike and a hundred to Boz ten years ago. Paul took four hundred thousand after my parents were gone, and sealed up the other four hundred thousand in that space beneath the stairs. Slowly, over ten years he deposited it in my college account. It paid for my education without my knowledge; what’s left of it is being used at the school. Three hundred thousand was just given to Melba’s group home. That’s one hundred thousand still missing. Seth? Maybe he’s on a beach somewhere. Maybe the money’s doing some other good work. Or maybe Seth is at the bottom of a river somewhere, and someone else, maybe Boz, has a fatter bank account.

Can I live with it? Do I still have work to do? I don’t know.

The thinker panics. The watcher bides her time. The Red Hunter acts.

Is she dead, I wonder? Did The Red Hunter die in the warehouse that night? Was her only power rage? Now that my rage has cooled, now that a kind of justice has been served, will she find her way back to wandering the city streets? I don’t know.

? ? ?

BACK DOWNSTAIRS, HE’S WAITING IN the kitchen. Nate. I’m not the cat sitter anymore.

“There’s someone here to see you,” Paul said one day while I was recovering in the hospital. But Paul had come in through the door alone, with only his oxygen tank in tow.

“Your invisible friend.”

“No,” said Paul. “Yours. I found him in the hallway. Nate Shelby. He’s says you’re his cat sitter?”

“Nate Shelby?” I said. I am not vain by nature, but I had to wonder what I looked like after my recent adventures, convalescence, and depressed state.

“Bring him in?” asked Paul.

“Um,” I said, shifting up. “Okay.”

Nate came in carrying a bouquet of calla lilies which, I thought, seemed a bit funereal and much like those that adorned his lobby. But sweet.

In my mind, I’d created him tall and swashbuckling, long dark curls and leather pants. I imagined him in studios, angrily splashing paint on his huge canvases, or drifting though swank galleries with a beautiful woman on his arm. But in reality, he looked somewhat bookish—with short, shorn dark hair and glasses. His jeans were paint splattered. He was tall, lean in the waist and broad through the shoulders.

“How—?” I started. He had a kind, arresting smile. “What are you doing here? How did you know?”

“Well, you’re all over the news, for one,” he said. “And our doorman friend, Charlie, called to say that you might not be up to looking in on the cats. I had to come home anyway, so I thought I’d drop by while I was in town.”