The Red Hunter(37)

But the bones were there. A good old house, solid in its foundation. Not like the crap that went up now, houses that felt like Styrofoam boxes, cheap and flimsy.

It’s in there. I know it is.

It’s not. I’ve been through every room, every closet, the attic, the cellar. It’s not there. It never was.

It’s in there.

Josh knew that house. Over the years, he’d come to know it intimately, his hands had been all over her, probing into all her private places. She had never given him what he was looking for. Rhett was convinced now that he’d have reason to really tear the place up, they’d find what was hidden. He was wrong. This house wasn’t keeping any secrets.

From the kitchen window, Josh had watched Rhett slip from the backseat of the car and duck into the barn. Was he still in there? Or was he back in the car? Claudia had said the boys from Just Old Doors were coming out. Rhett better get his ass out of that barn before they did.

“What do you think?” asked Claudia, her back to the outside. “Do you think it’s too much work for you? Do you think it’s too much work, period?”

“No,” he said. “It’ll take time. I’ll have to bring in some folks to help with plumbing and electricity. The basement is going to be a big project. But I think I can manage most things.”

She turned to look at him, her smile cautious. She had a way of glancing at him with her face turned, peering over her glasses. She was pretty, like his mom had been. Lovely with creamy, soft skin. Even the tiny wrinkles at the edges of her eyes were pretty. She smelled like peppermint.

“So what’s your rate?”

Rhett was already giving him a hard time about the business. Josh still charged close to what his father used to charge. Rhett wanted Josh to gouge her: “She’s a rich city girl. In Manhattan she’d pay four times what you’re charging. More.”

“I charge $350 dollars a day, for all work,” he said. That’s what he’d always charged folks. It was fair. “Plus materials. Other service professionals I bring in will have their own fee in addition to mine.”

She nodded, bit the bottom of her lip. “That sounds fair. Are you insured?”

“Yes,” he lied. “Bonded and insured.”

Insurance cost a fortune, and he couldn’t afford it. Maybe if you charged more than Dad was charging in the eighties you’d be able to afford to do things right. It was just like Rhett to be gone for five years, in prison no less, and then show up like he owned the place and knew everything.

He watched Rhett come out of the barn empty-handed and get back into the car, lying down in the backseat. Claudia caught Josh looking outside and turned to see what he was looking at—a split second after the car door closed. She turned back to look at him.

“The cop who came out said it looked as if it had been pried off,” she said.

She thought he had been looking at the fallen door. She’d wrapped her arms around her middle and was toeing a peeling corner of linoleum tile. Her dainty foot was bare.

He laughed a little. “I doubt it,” he said. “That thing was ready to fall. And there’s nothing in there, is there?”

“Just some rusted old tools.”

The dark creep of suspicion distracted him from the prettiness of her manicured toes. Had he told Rhett about the barn door? Had his brother come out here last night? There was nothing Rhett wasn’t willing to do to get what he wanted.

She ran a hand through her cloud of blonde curls. “Can I get you some coffee? I just made it.”

“Sure,” he said. “That would be great. Thanks.”

She had light, quick movements. He tried not to stare at her full bottom, or how he could just see the lace of her bra peeking out from the tank top she wore under a blue-and-white checked shirt. She moved off to get the coffee, and he stared at the barn.

? ? ?

THAT NIGHT, SO LONG AGO, the car had been overwarm and Josh knew, he knew he shouldn’t be there. He had been sound asleep in his own bed when his brother snuck into his room and shook him awake. There was no way not to go with him. You just didn’t say no to Rhett.

You kind of didn’t want to say no; that was the first thing. There was something about his older brother that made Josh want to please, want to feel the glow of his approval. And you were afraid of what he’d do to you if he didn’t get what he wanted. Nipple twists and friction burns, choke holds and arm bending, small but painful acts of coercion. Then taunts. Aw, you little pussy, stop crying.

“Where are we going?” Josh asked.

“Are we babysitters?” said a man Josh had never met. In addition to Rhett and Josh, there were two more men in the car, one driving, the other to Josh’s left. The man beside him never said a word. Both men wore ski masks; Rhett, riding shotgun, held one in his hand, and had handed one to Josh. It was scratchy beneath his fingers. “Why’d you bring the kid?”

“We need a third man inside,” said Rhett. “Anyway, he’s not a kid. He’s just skinny. He’s nearly twenty.”

That was a lie.

Maybe I’m dreaming, Josh kept thinking.

The smell of cigarette smoke radiated off the man beside Josh, acrid and foul. He was big, taking up a lot of space, and spreading his legs wide. Their thighs were close together; Josh thought that his looked like a baseball bat next to a fallen log. The stranger stared out the window, chewing vigorously on the corner of his thumbnail. Rhett, up front, pumped his leg the way he did when he was nervous or angry.