The Red Hunter(54)

“But it seems to me like maybe Mike is right. It’s set some wheels in motion.”

“How so?”

“Now Rhett Beckham is back in town. The house is under renovation, and I heard the new owner hired Josh Beckham as the handyman.”

I leaned forward. “Josh Beckham is working at the house?”

Boz nodded, went on: “And you say someone ransacked Paul’s apartment, looking for something.”

“So what does Paul have to do with this?”

“Maybe nothing,” said Boz. “Maybe they were looking for you.”

The thought had occurred to me. But who? And why? And why now? Because of Didion? The video footage; had someone recognized me? I got my mail at Paul’s, didn’t have another address. Maybe someone thought I knew where the money was, had kept the secret all these years.

“I have to tell you.” He drained his cup. “I didn’t think we’d still be trying to figure this out, more than ten years later.”

That’s the difference between me and Boz. He’s still trying to solve the puzzle, figure out how all the pieces fit together—who took that money, how it connects to what happened to my family, where the money is now. Who was the fourth man there that night, the one Seth saw waiting outside? For him, it’s about the unanswered questions. Those things don’t matter to me as much. I know who was in my house that night; I know what they did. Even if the evidence isn’t there, my body knew Didion.

The Red Hunter only wants one thing.





nineteen


When Heather Drake came home with the groceries, she saw his truck in the drive. She felt it, that mutinous little lift in her heart, that tug on the corners of her mouth. She brought her car to a stop. There was a rattling sound when she turned the ignition off. What could that be? she wondered. And how much was it going to cost to fix it? She tried not to do that thing she did, where she thought about how much money was in the account, what she still had to buy, and what was due. There was always too much ahead, and not enough to cover. She tried to make the numbers work and couldn’t, and now this weird rattle. But it was always something, wasn’t it?

She climbed out into the air cool, growing cold. The trees punched gold against the gloaming. The windows in the house glowed orange. Home. She knew inside that everything was neat and orderly. The laundry was done; there was a stew in the crock-pot. Every surface was clean; every bed made.

He climbed out and walked toward her. She gave a wave and went to pop the trunk so that she could retrieve the groceries. He was by her side, lifting out the heaviest bag, planting a kiss on her cheek.

“Hey, there,” Paul said. Just the smell of him.

“Hey,” she said, easy. “What are you doing here?”

He frowned. “Chad called,” he said. “Said he needed to talk. I figured he meant here.”

“He didn’t tell me,” she said. No surprise there.

“Where’s Zoey?”

She looked up the drive. “Should be home soon. She had art, Blaire’s mom is driving car pool tonight.”

Which Heather didn’t love. She loved being the carpool mom, the one with the car full of chattering, laughing teenage girls. But she didn’t like being the one waiting, watching the drive. She was good at feigning nonchalance, though. Mothers of only children had a bad rap: too overprotective, hovering, nervous. It wasn’t because Zoey was her only one; she would have been like that about all of them, if things had gone the way she planned. But it didn’t.

“You look—” he started. She thought he was going to say tired, stressed, worried. She was all of those things. “Radiant.”

And then she was looking into his eyes. “You’re sweet,” she heard herself say.

His gaze lingered too long, and she moved ahead of him pushing into the house, balancing the groceries on one hip. The house smelled heavenly, stew cooking.

“I hope we’re eating here,” he said, putting down the bags.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “He told me he wouldn’t be home for dinner.”

“And you didn’t ask why?”

She shrugged. “Wife of a cop for nearly twenty years,” she said. “I don’t ask questions much. If he was going to miss beef stew night, I figured he had his reasons. His shift is over at eight. He said he was going to grab something at Burgers and Brew.”

She didn’t say that it was a relief when Chad didn’t make it home for dinner, that there were no screaming matches between him and Zoey to referee, no trying to coax out news about the day, wondering why he always looked so worried, so tired. Sometimes when he came home, he brought a kind of pall with him and draped it over the house. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him. She did.

Paul helped her put away the groceries. He knew the kitchen as well as if he lived there. He always helped with meals when he was there, somehow managing not to get in her way. Chad never came near the kitchen; when he wanted to give her a night off from cooking, they went out or carried in.

“So what’s up?” he said. “Why would he ask me to come and not tell you?”

It was odd. “I don’t know.”

A fissure of worry opened in the back of her mind, just a hairline crack, one that would widen when she lay down at the end of the day. Was there something wrong? His health? Something else?