The Red Hunter(63)

twenty-two


When Claudia woke, the bright sun washing in through the gauze of her curtains, she was happy. It was her natural state, a kind of open welcoming of what came next, an inherent optimism.

But slowly, as she stretched, it came back. Raven, the news about the house, the shadowy figure she’d seen. Of course, there were other things, too. The chaos of her kitchen—and the rest of the house, for that matter. And money. Always money. Her accounts were dwindling, credit card balances climbing. She wasn’t going to ask Ayers for money; he already paid most of Raven’s expenses. She’d left her decent-paying publishing job to take on this project, that optimism of hers in full gear. You don’t achieve extraordinary things without taking extraordinary risks. That was her mantra; who’d said it? Maybe she’d read it on Pinterest. Shit.

By the time her feet were on the cold wood floor, it had draped itself around her like a cloak. Not despair. No, not that dark, slick-walled abyss—been there, done that, wasn’t going back. But more a kind of malaise, a generally blue-to-shades-of-black mood.

Downstairs, Troy was in the kitchen brewing coffee. He knew his way around the kitchen by now, always felt at home with her and Raven, because he was. She sat and stared at him a minute, the young man in her kitchen. How tall he was, how handsome, how he’d grown. Weren’t they just seven, Troy and Raven? Weren’t they all just baking cookies together, five minutes ago, their little fingers covered in sprinkles, flour in their hair? There was a weird relationship that sprung up between a mother and her child’s close friends. You were part parent, and part friend yourself. She felt like Troy belonged to her in a way. When he was in her home, she was responsible for him. Claudia and Troy had their own private jokes, a shared knowledge and love for Raven. There was an intimacy, and a distance.

“I like it here,” he said. “It’s so quiet.”

“You weren’t scared,” she said. “After last night.”

“Nah,” he said. He was the kind of kid who smiled even when he was nervous or sad.

“Thank you for taking care of Raven last night,” she said. “You’re a good friend.”

He did that kind of shrug-nod thing that teenage boys do when they don’t know what to say.

“What was he like? Andrew Cutter.” She hated herself for asking. “Did he look like her?”

“Honestly,” said Troy, stopping with the pot hovering over her cup. “He seemed like a dick. And no, I don’t think he looked much like her. I think Raven looks like you and Mr. Martin.”

She looked away from Troy so that he wouldn’t see her tear up. He finished pouring. He even knew how she liked her coffee—light with two sugars, though she’d only allow herself one. He set the cup in front of her and sat down.

“Don’t they, like, have to disclose something like that?” he said. “About the house, I mean.”

“God!” Raven entered the room like a tiny storm, a beautiful bluster. “I had crazy nightmares!”

She breezed by the table, leaving the scent of lilac behind her. Claudia knew that Raven had not had nightmares, that even after everything, the girl had slept like the dead. Claudia had checked on them both every hour, kept looking out the window. Claudia had barely slept a wink.

“Well, I didn’t buy the property,” she said to Troy. “I inherited it. So no one had to disclose anything. And I didn’t really do any research.”

“Aunt Martha said that you’ve always been prone to impulsive action. Is that what she meant?” said Raven with mock innocence. “Hey, let’s renovate the murder house!”

Claudia ignored her, sipped her coffee.

“I did some research,” said Troy. He glanced down at his enormous smartphone. The thing was practically a tablet. “Like the cop said, a police officer and his wife, renters of the property, were murdered. Their daughter, Zoey, was—”

He paused and looked up at her, worry creasing his brow.

“Go ahead,” Claudia said.

“She was tortured, shot, and left for dead,” he said. “But she survived.”

Raven had grown still, looked down at her nails, leaned on the edge of the sink.

“The theory was that the cop, Chad Drake, was dirty. He’d stolen money from a drug dealer, and the men who came were trying to find it.”

“Where did you find this?” Claudia asked, amazed.

“There are a bunch of old articles in area papers,” he said.

How could she not have known this? Of course, she’d done no research on the house at all. She’d obtained a survey from the city. But that was it. She planned to, of course, when it was time to start writing the book. But, as far as she knew, it was just an old ramshackle house, whatever history it might have had was long forgotten. If there’d been extensive news coverage of the event when it happened more than a decade ago, she’d missed it, wrapped up, she supposed, in the drama of her own life then.

Troy pushed his glasses up; they’d drifted down his nose. For a second, he was seven years old again.

“The money,” he went on. “It was never recovered.”

“How do they know that the killers didn’t get the money?” Raven asked. “Used it to disappear.”

“Because of the girl,” said Troy. “She says her father had no idea what they were talking about. They didn’t find what they were looking for. Shot her and her father when they heard sirens and ran.”