The Red Hunter(57)

She looked at her daughter, whose eyes were wide and filled with tears. “It’s right here, with me,” Claudia said. “Why don’t you get that?”

“I do,” said Raven. “I get it. He was so—dark inside. So angry. But he said, ‘Why do you think where you come from has anything to do with who you are?’ It made sense to me.”

Claudia bit back the rise of frustration, exasperation.

“I’ve said that a thousand times,” said Claudia.

“Me, too,” said Troy from the backseat.

“We raised you,” said Claudia. “We love you. You belong with us.”

Raven sobbed.

“You lied to me and to your father,” said Claudia. “You snuck out to some club to meet this kid. What if he’d been dangerous like his father? What if he’d hurt you?”

“That’s why I brought Troy.”

She saw Troy’s curls and his round glasses in the rearview mirror. He was still the eight-year-old who skinned his knee in the park and cried quietly while she cleaned and bandaged it. The one who used to sleep in his X-Men sleeping bag on her living room couch, Raven on the other couch in her pink monogrammed one. It was so much easier then. They were always right there, a few steps away.

“Give me those fake IDs, please.”

She heard Troy shuffling in the backseat, then he handed them over.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Bishop,” said Troy. He didn’t follow it with any excuses. She slid the IDs into her bag, took a deep breath, and kept driving.

“Wow,” said Troy. “It’s really dark here. Look at all those stars.”

Normally, Raven would take this opportunity to make some quip about the town or the misery of living in the country, but she just stayed silent, looking out the window, her arms wrapped around her middle.

The windows in the house glowed golden. She must have left every light on.

“How close is the next house?” asked Troy.

“About a mile,” said Claudia.

“Wow,” said Troy.

“No one can hear me screaming,” said Raven under her breath.

Claudia couldn’t even muster the energy to respond.

? ? ?

“THE PLACE IS REALLY STARTING to come together,” Troy said.

He’d carried his and Raven’s packs in from the car and placed them by the door. The foyer was starting to shape up, and the living room to the right. There was a reclaimed oak table in the dining room, with a mix-match of chairs she’d found online and at various shops in town. The restored chandelier, which Ayers had helped her to hang, was lovely and twinkly. The walls had been painted since Troy’s last visit.

In the kitchen, it was a different story. Even though Josh had told her to leave the wallpaper until Monday, she just couldn’t let it go. She couldn’t admit defeat. She’d cleaned up everything that was on the floor and bagged it. But there were still huge pieces hanging from the walls, every gash a different color or another layer of wall paper underneath.

“It’s a look,” said Troy.

“Yeah,” said Raven. “Demolition chic.”

They had a good laugh at that, Raven and Troy, as Claudia put on the kettle for tea. They all sat at the table. It had been here, a thick wood piece and two long benches, one on either side. She’d sanded down and refinished the set, created a centerpiece with a piece of driftwood she bought at a garage sale and some bleached starfish shells.

“There are going to be consequences,” said Claudia. “You get that, right? I’ll talk to your father and we’ll come up with something.”

“I know,” said Raven.

“But I’m glad you came home,” said Claudia, reaching for her daughter’s hand. “And I get that we need to have a bigger talk about the issue that’s at the root of all of this. I thought I was handling things the right way. I did my best, Raven. I’m sorry you felt like you had to do what you did to find yourself.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” said Raven.

Claudia thought she might even mean it.

She made a bed for Troy on the couch and tucked Raven in upstairs. She thought about trying Ayers again but figured it could wait until morning. Exhausted, she climbed into bed and fell asleep crying, thinking about Raven chasing after the son of Melvin Cutter. Claudia was definitely going to need a couple of hours with her therapist after this one.

? ? ?

IT WAS AFTER TWO WHEN she woke, some sound echoing in the air around her. She lay still a moment, listening. She slipped from bed and peered out her door. She could hear Troy snoring downstairs; Raven’s room was dark, the door ajar as she had left it. The floor was cold and creaky beneath her feet.

At her window, she saw that the moon had risen high and full over the trees. That’s when she saw the shifting of shadows, a form drifting from the trees dark and silent. He moved quickly, then slipped into the hole where the door had been in the barn. She drew her breath in and stepped back, heart hammering. She saw a faint light then, maybe a flashlight beam, brighten the darkness of the barn just a little.

She reached for the phone and called 911.

“There’s an intruder on my property,” she said when the operator answered. She gave her address. “He’s in the barn.”

“Stay inside the house,” said the operator. “I’m sending someone right now.”