The Red Hunter(64)

There was the sound of blood rushing in Claudia’s ear.

“The mother died right here, in the kitchen,” said Troy. He looked around the room. “The father died in the basement.”

“Jesus,” said Claudia. She dropped her head into her palm. “Jesus.”

Nobody said anything for a moment, two. Then,

“So that money?” said Raven. “It could still be here?”

Claudia looked up at her daughter, who had some kind of dark glee thing going on, as if they were watching a movie or acting out a scene. The horror of it was distant, insubstantial to her. But not to Claudia. She felt as though someone had dug a valley through her middle.

“There probably was never any money,” said Claudia. “Officer Dilbert said that people have been sneaking out here, looking for years.”

“You should totally blog about this,” said Raven, coming to sit beside Claudia.

She looked at her daughter. She still had raccoon eyes, her eyeliner from last night smudged into the valleys there.

“Don’t think I’m going to let this drama distract me from what you did last night,” she said. “We have a lot to talk about today. And I have to call your father.”

Raven picked at the black nail polish on her fingernails.

“I know,” she said. “And we are going to talk about it. But didn’t you say that the next time Troy or Dad was here, we were going to ask for help with the basement?”

“You think that’s where it might be?” said Troy.

“Where else?” said Raven. “It’s the only place we haven’t really explored.”

“It’s not safe down there,” said Claudia. “The beams need support.”

Raven and Troy got to chattering about it. And Claudia tuned them out. She got up and moved toward the window over the sink. That’s when she saw him, Scout. He moved from the woods and loped along the tree line, just a shadow. Raven and Troy didn’t even notice him; they were already on their way down to the basement. The whole house thundered with the sound of them on the stairs.

Scout turned to look at her, his fur silver in the morning light. Then he was gone.

Claudia followed the kids. It was past time to explore the basement. Raven was right; the only place in the house she hadn’t tackled. And with the kids here, it didn’t seem so scary after all. The engineer said that he didn’t think there was immediate danger of more collapse. But that building a support structure should be a priority. That’s what she’d have Josh do first.

“Be careful down there, kids,” she said, heading down after them.

? ? ?

A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, they were all sneezing from mold and the filth kicked up by moving boxes. There was just the dim light of a few hanging bulbs. And enthusiasm was waning.

“What is all this junk?” complained Raven.

Books, boxes of them, old clothes, a man’s, a woman’s—old bills, tax documents, Social Security statements, magazines, more books. There were tools, old furniture, posters, cheap décor art. All of it belonging to the Drakes. Everything important must have gone to the girl, and all the rest of it was left behind, trash, the detritus left when a life concludes. Claudia’s dad was lazy. He probably just had someone box it up and store it in the basement. Or he hadn’t even known it was still there. As far as Claudia knew, he’d never set foot on the property after buying it. He was like that, always acting on whims. Leaving someone else to clean up the mess. Now she’d have to do it. Who would she even call to help her get rid of this stuff? Josh. He’d know what to do.

“Maybe it’s in one of these boxes,” said Raven. They’d opened almost every one; there was just one more stack that they hadn’t reached yet. That’s what it took to motivate a teenager: the prospect of a million dollars.

“Maybe someone already found it,” said Troy. He issued a startling loud sneeze.

“Or it was never here,” said Claudia. With the kids down here, sneezing, joking, the lights on, illuminating most of the darkness, the place didn’t have the energy of murder or terror. It was just a space, cluttered, dank. Maybe Raven was right. Maybe she should blog about it. After all, it was relevant to her journey. And monsters lived in the dark. Once you started shining light, most bad things withered and shrunk away, even memories.

“What would you have done?” she asked her daughter who had sunk down onto her haunches, looking exhausted. “I mean, if you felt some kind of connection to at-angry-young-man.”

It was fine to do that. They always leapt between open topics of conversation.

“I don’t know,” Raven said.

“Maybe I’ve never said this,” said Claudia. “But in my deepest heart, I believe that you are Ayers’s child. He is your father. That’s the biggest reason why we didn’t get the test.”

Raven bobbed her head thoughtfully. Claudia probably had said it, a million times or more. It was the truth. Or it had become the truth over time.

“I didn’t feel anything, though,” Raven said. “I didn’t feel a connection to Drew. I didn’t even like him.”

Claudia saw Troy smile a little behind Raven. Claudia felt the energy of a smile, too.

Claudia rested on a large workbench. It was tall, attached to the concrete wall. When her hand settled on an old flashlight, she knocked the item against her palm and was surprised when it turned on, casting a bright beam on the cinderblocks all around them.