The Red Hunter(66)

Hey! Hey! I heard as I disappeared. Get away from her. I called the police.

Next, the cool white of the lobby. A man leaning over me, a crazy pile of hair, familiar kind, worried eyes. Brown. Brown eyes, brown skin. Who was it?

“Little girl?” he said. “Wake up.”

The night doorman. Charlie. “I’m going to call the ambulance.”

“No,” I managed, pushing myself up in time to turn over and puke on the marble floor. It splattered there, ugly and rank.

“Okay,” he said, holding up his palms. “Okay. I’ll get the mop.”

I couldn’t believe it. I’d been jumped, never saw it coming. Never got a blow in. I was just like any other girl in the city, vulnerable, a victim. Fuck me. I could taste blood, but all my teeth seemed to be where they belonged; that was good. Ribs bruised, not broken; there wasn’t enough pain. My ears were still ringing. It wasn’t a real beating. If it had been, I’d be in the back of an ambulance, bleeding on the inside. Those men were big; with the right kind of blows they could have easily killed me. Amateurs.

I patted my jacket. My wallet was still there on the inside pocket. It wasn’t a random mugging.

The night doorman came back with a bucket and a mop.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to stand. “I’ll clean it.”

“Just sit,” he said. “You know how many people have puked in this lobby?”

I looked around at the white leather furniture, the black-veined marble floor, the white carpet, the lacquer cubes that served as coffee tables. “One?”

“That’s right,” he said with a nod. “You’re the first.”

I found myself smiling a little, painfully.

“Your face,” he said. “You’re going to need some ice.” I caught my reflection in the glass that looked out onto the courtyard. Even in the dark reflection there I could see the purple swelling. Perfect.

I watched helpless, weak, and wobbly as he mopped until all evidence was removed. The floor gleamed.

“They dug around in your pockets. Get your wallet?”

I shook my head. I already knew what they were looking for. I’d figured that much out. I reached into my jeans and, sure enough, the key was gone. I felt a hard pulse of anger, more than that: fear.

He held out a hand to me.

“How are the cats?” I said.

He smiled. “I just checked on them an hour ago.”

“I might have to leave again,” I said.

I dropped my hand in his, used it to pull myself up. The warmth of him, the softness, it surprised me. I never touched anyone like that except for Paul or Mike. All the touching I did—striking, punching, throwing, knee, elbow, fist, worse. I adjusted the girls’ bodies, my students. Not much caressing, hand holding.

“Let me know,” he said.

How old was he? I couldn’t tell. Forty, fifty? Older? His white teeth gleamed; eyes sparkled with something. Mischief? No. A kind of wisdom with a sense of humor about it. “Sure you don’t want the police? A doctor?”

I shook my head. He followed me to the elevator, pressed the button. My legs felt weak beneath me; my stomach still roiling. I hadn’t even had time to think about who it was. The same people who tossed Paul’s apartment? Someone else? Only a couple of people knew about that key, all of them people I trusted completely.

“Never trust anyone,” my father said helpfully inside the elevator. Charlie rode up with me. “People are motivated by their own self-interest only. Only.”

Charlie opened Nate Shelby’s door for me, let me inside. The cats rushed to greet us like dogs, purring, Tiger even reaching up for me. I leaned down to get him, righted myself before I toppled over, held on to his furry softness, buried my face in this fur.

“You should get some rest,” said Charlie. “Why don’t you? No one’s going to bother you here.”

He patted his jaw. “And don’t forget the ice.”

After he left, I could barely stand. I stripped off my bloody clothes and let them lay in a pile on the floor. The last thing I should do was sleep, but the body has limits. I fed the cats, cleaned the litter, took a shower. After, I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror and regarded myself. Too thin, scarring on my torso, my arms, the mark of my father’s blade. Face swollen, light purple on the jawline, the hint of a shiner. I tilted my face up to see the scar that ran along the underside of my jaw. They had all faded, just henna lines on my white skin, raised just slightly, dead of feeling.

It had been so long since I looked at myself, really looked. I spent a lot of time dodging my reflection, trying to be invisible. I had become invisible to myself. I looked at the paper-white of my skin, the way my collarbone and ribs pushed at my skin, the tight sinewy muscles of my arms and legs, the strain and fatigue on my face. I was a stranger. A ghost, my not-father had called me.

Then I fell into the white bliss of Nate Shelby’s bed.

“It’s still there in that house,” said my father hovering beside me. “It has been all this time.”

“Who hid it there?” I asked. “Who?”





twenty-four


“Where have you been?” asked Josh.

Mom was still upstairs sleeping; she usually didn’t get up until after eight. She’d been asking for Rhett since last night before bed. And Josh had lied, telling her he was working late on the town house job Josh had accepted. One of the contractors had reached out to him, asking if Josh could do all the floorboards and crown molding, installing and painting. It was an assignment Josh could not have accepted if Rhett had not come on; it was too much work for one person. He’d even thought for a second, happily, that maybe it could be a good thing that Rhett had come back. Now he could take on more. Idiot. Though there had been a moment, a pause, when Josh told Bruce that Rhett was back and working with him. But Josh and Bruce had always been good, so the other man just nodded, handed him the materials list and the corporate credit card.