The Red Hunter(75)

“It’s there,” he said. He didn’t sound totally convinced.

“What if it isn’t?”

A sharp inhale like the first drag of a cigarette. “Where’s Rhett?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll be there by midnight,” he said. “You know where to meet.”

“Yeah.”

The old man hung up, and Josh was alone in the car. A big pickup truck pulled in, and a couple of large, young guys got out—jeans and boots, camo jackets. Josh watched them go in, come out with a six-pack of beer and couple of microwave burritos.

Tick tock.

Rhett was going to wake up. What would he do when he found his phone gone, his keys? He’d be white hot, the kind of anger that made him go blank like an animal. He’d call Missy. Rhett would know right where Josh had gone.

His phone rang then, and it was Lee. Josh picked up the slim cell and almost answered. Instead, he just watched until the call went to voicemail. Josh would bet ten dollars that Jane had called him. Surround yourself with people who live right and do right, that was one of Lee’s big things. They’ll help you stay on the path.

The phone buzzed with a text from Lee.

Jane said she thought you might need to talk. Everything okay?

How long did he just sit there, turning over all the scenarios in his mind? The money was there. It wasn’t. He got it and ran with it. He got it and turned it in to the police, came clean about the whole thing, took his chances. He got it and brought it to Rhett, hoped he’d just go away for good. Maybe Claudia didn’t let him in at all. Maybe he told her what was going on, she helped him out. Maybe he told her and she threw him out, called the cops.

If he came clean to the police and went to jail, what happened to Mom? Who would take care of her?

Another chime from his phone. Lee again.

Just let me know you’re doing okay and I’ll stop bugging you.

Josh couldn’t bring himself to answer. He didn’t want to lie. He couldn’t tell the truth. He was trapped. That was the feeling he couldn’t stand, the thing that got him every time. Every time.

What was amazing was, even after seven years of sobriety, how easy it was. He strode into the party store, bought himself a forty. Took it in its brown paper bag out to the car. There was no tearful struggle, no inner battle. It was just one, just for today, just to give him the swagger to do what needed to be done. In fact, he was doing a good thing. If he could get that money and get rid of Rhett, he’d be sparing himself, his mother, maybe even Claudia Bishop and her daughter a lot of heartache. He could call Lee tomorrow, start over. He just popped the tab and took a sip, then another. The cold, bubbling liquid sluiced down his throat, and his body took it in like a river run dry. And it was just a few minutes before that guy show up, the one Lee always warned about, the one who did bad things and asked the “real” Josh to bear the consequences. Josh had never been so happy to see anyone in his life.

? ? ?

RHETT WAS WAITING BY THE entrance to the Bishops’ drive, the Barracuda idling in the shoulder like a junkyard dog. Rhett climbed out as Josh pulled up.

“What are you up to, little brother? Trying to cut me out?”

Josh regarded him; Rhett was considerably less scary now that that guy was here. The Josh who’d been beaten and bullied and tortured by Rhett, the one who still cowered and kowtowed, who backed down was gagged and bound in some back room. Josh felt a kind of easy strength, a calm that he normally didn’t feel.

“I’m trying to get this done without more trouble,” he said.

“You worry too much,” said Rhett. “Where’s the key? The survey?”

“I have it,” Josh said. “How’d you get the car started?”

Rhett smiled a wolfish un-smile. “I keep another key under the wheel well, just like old Dad taught us. Did you forget?”

Josh glanced over at the Cuda and saw that Missy sat in the passenger seat, watching Josh. She was not still hot, as Rhett claimed. She had never been hot. She had a hard, vulpine face, mean, dark eyes. She was thin—in a kind of wiry, bony way. She was easy, had made a number of passes at Josh over the years. He wondered if Rhett knew that. She and Rhett were weirdly suited to each other, had a way of looking like a complete set when they were together, and not in a good way. She was a dark whisper in his ear, the last thing he needed.

Josh tossed Rhett his phone.

“I talked to the old man,” said Josh. “Told him I’d handle it. He was good with that.”

Rhett looked down at the device, back at Josh.

“You can have the money, all of it,” said Josh. “Just let me get it.”

The air had taken on a hard chill; he’d heard there was a cold front moving in today. There was already that shift from the bright colors of autumn to the dead brown just before winter fell. The leaves fell and whispered all around them. Few cars ever came down this road; there were only a few properties, all of them of large acreage set far back. Two of them were vacation homes. The nearest one to the Bishops’ was an old farm, which was empty and had sat on the market for years.

“Okay,” said Rhett. “You have one hour and then I’m coming in.”





twenty-eight


About an hour later, using tools they found in the basement—two hammers, a crowbar, and a lot of muscle— they’d knocked a big hole in the wall, revealing a gaping space beneath the stairs. They were all coughing and sneezing by the time it was done. Claudia shone a flashlight into the area. Nothing. It was empty.