The Red Hunter(32)

“Want to walk through the house with me and talk about my punch list?” she said. “I thought we’d start with one project and see how it goes. Does that work?”

He gave her a nod. He had a nice smile, warm and open, that caused his eyes to squint a little. In his jeans and work boots, another long-sleeve tee, this one fresh white, he had a disarming boyishness about him. As they walked through the house, talking about the endless number of projects, she forgot all about Wanda Crabb’s negative energy and the unpleasant things she had to say about Josh’s brother, who was—lucky for them all, she guessed—long gone.





ten


There’s no one in there. It was just the dog.

I logged miles that night after sparring with Mike, walking from the dim desertion of residential Twenty-Seventh, up the constant melee of Broadway to Ninety-Sixth Street. Then I cut west and moved though the shadows of Riverside Park, heading north slowly, a watcher, gliding through the quiet streets. Often I roam, no destination in mind, until I am tired enough to think I might sleep.

After a while, fatigue finally tugging at me, I headed back downtown. As I moved from neighborhood to neighborhood—the eternal crush of Midtown, the sleepy West Village—my brain churned. I thought about what I knew, what I’d done, what I had yet to do. I thought about Paul and how angry he’d been with me. I thought about Seth’s question and Mike’s warning. I’d imagined I’d feel better after the plan was in play. But I didn’t. No, there was something else now. A buzz, a white noise of anxiety.

What now? Paul had asked. Have you thought about that?

I actually hadn’t thought about that, if I was honest. I didn’t think there would be an “after.”

The city is always alive with people, all kinds—a circus of good and bad, wild and tame, freakish and square. Even at that hour, I wasn’t alone. Paul always says that it’s safer than it used to be. But it’s still not safe. Nothing is. Not even the quiet, rural place where I grew up.

I loved that isolated farmhouse that my father rented for cheap from an old man who bought properties for investment. With its creaky floors, and fireplace, the big barn out back and acres of woods where I could get lost without ever being lost, it was a child’s dream.

My dad loved it, too. We’d wander with our dog, Catcher, out in the woods, down to the river. It was a big luxury—all that land, all that space and sky—for a city boy like my dad, who had lived in an apartment most of his life. He hated the city, didn’t even like to visit. Unlike Paul, who couldn’t sleep without city noise, who could never imagine himself anywhere but the East Village. They were very different.

My parents and I felt like the place was ours, not a rental, because the old man who owned it never paid it any mind. If something went wrong—the toilet clogged, or the roof needed repairing—my dad would call Mr. Bishop, and the old man would either tell my dad to take care of it and deduct it from the rent, or if the repair required more money, time, or skill than my father possessed, Mr. Bishop would send someone to take care of it quickly. It was the rare relationship that worked without conflict. We probably would have stayed there forever.

? ? ?

BY THREE IN THE MORNING, years and miles, eons away from the farmhouse, I was back at Nate Shelby’s loft, loping into the opulent lobby under the suspicious eye of the night doorman, a thick guy with the scarred face of someone who once had terrible acne. There’s something flat about his gaze, menacing about his gold-ringed hands. He would never pass muster for the day doorman, who needed at least a modicum of refinement.

“Where you staying again?” he asked as I tried to slink past him.

“I am house sitting for Mr. Shelby,” I said. I didn’t slow my pace toward the elevator.

“There’s a package.”

I paused, keeping my back to him.

“Where?”

“In the apartment,” he said. “It came late. Mr. Shelby called, said to bring it inside.”

“Okay,” I said.

The conversation was going on too long. The elevator was slow, and he walked around the desk to keep talking. Which was weird.

“What’s with the getup?” he asked. Finally, I had to turn to face him. It was too weird not to. “The hoodie, the backpack, the Chuck Taylors.”

I looked down at myself. “It’s not a getup. It’s just what I wear.”

“Just saying,” he said. “You’re a pretty girl. What are you hiding from?”

It wasn’t wolfish or threatening. In fact, now that he was talking, there was a softness to him, an easy curiosity. A kind of twinkle. I didn’t answer him, though. I am not much of a conversationalist.

“Good night,” he said as I walked away, ducked into the waiting elevator. The doors closed. That made three times I’d been seen when I didn’t want to be seen: caught on camera, green-eyed Erik asking me out for a drink, inappropriately curious doorman.

What was wrong with me? Why was I not invisible?

I knew the answer, though. It was getting to me. I was vibrating, giving off the energy of the thing I tried to hide and harness. I had given it a name. A thing that lived inside of me. The Red Hunter. Rage.

In the apartment’s inner foyer there was a box, which I might have left where it was except there was a noise coming from it and Tiger was sniffing around it mewing loudly. There were wide holes in the side and on top; beside it was another box, filled with supplies. I flipped the lid with my toe, and sitting on a bed of newspaper was a white kitten with one blue eye and one green eye.