The Red Hunter(82)

He’d been sniffling since the house. Now that they were kicking up dirt and dust and even ancient remnants of hay, the sneezing had commenced. He was sitting on some old empty wooden crates, scrolling through something on his phone (always on that stupid thing, worse than any girl!), sneezing explosively every few minutes.

She kept looking around—behind an empty old locker, rusted and tilting, a riding lawnmower with four flat tires, a stack of leaking paint cans (wasn’t that a fire hazard?), a bunch of tarps piled in the corner. Everything was dirty, untouched, obviously sitting neglected and forgotten for years.

“It wouldn’t be on the wall,” said Troy. “The door? It would be on the floor.”

She thought about that. Duh. Obviously.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. She shuffled her feet around a minute, kicking up more dirt and some hay. She gave up, too, walked over to her friend to see what was so interesting on his phone. She could see that he was nearly out of charge. He’d mentioned it earlier, that he’d forgotten his charger. Claudia had said he could use hers, but they’d all just forgotten in the excitement. What would he do if his phone died? He’d probably burst into flames.

He then sneezed so loudly that it was more like a shout, causing Raven to jump, startled.

“You do that on purpose,” she said, “make your sneezes so loud like that.”

“I don’t,” he said, then he gave her that wide Troy grin. “Those underground railroad sites, by the way? They’re pretty rare. Most of them have been found.”

“Do you think there could be a tunnel, though?”

He shrugged, looking up at her.

“I suppose it’s possible.”

She moved in closer to him, so their legs were touching.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She’d been wanting to say it since last night.

“For what?” he asked, sitting up and taking off his glasses. He wiped the lenses on the bottom of his tee-shirt.

“For last night,” she said. “For dragging you out to that club, then out here. I’m a pain.”

He put his glasses back on, and there was that look again. It brought the heat up in her cheeks. Which was weird. Because it was Troy.

“I’d do anything for you,” he said, his voice low. “Where you are, that’s where I want to be. You get that, right?”

She looked away from him, then back.

“You’re my best friend,” she said. It was almost a whisper.

He took her hand, smiling. “Yeah,” he said. “Duh.”

He knocked her with his knee. She squeezed his hand hard, then she danced away from him, went back to looking around on the floor. She shoved over a pile of boxes. Nothing. She started stomping her foot, listening.

“I like it here,” said Troy.

She shot him a look. “Even after all of this?”

“This place,” he said, looking around. “It has a history, a story to tell. Even if it’s a sad one, a scary one. It makes this place not like other places.”

“Like me,” said Raven. “Like Mom. Bad things happened. But we’re still standing. There can still be good.”

They both heard it when she hit it. Her stomps were these dull thuds connecting with solid earth. And then there was a hollow, echoing sound. She did it again. Troy got up and came over, together they got down on their knees and started clearing away the dirt, the debris, even old hay that had been collecting for years and years. There was a long, wide piece of wood. Someone had cut a space for it in the ground, buried it under earth and hay. If she hadn’t been stomping, if they hadn’t moved all the boxes around, it would have been totally invisible.

“Help me,” said Raven.

They cleared away more dirt and hay, tried to lift the wood out by digging their fingertips in and lifting. No, that wasn’t going to work. They needed a crowbar, which, luckily, Raven had carried with her from the basement—just in case.

She dug the edge of it in, beneath the wood, but wasn’t strong enough to lift. Troy took over and as the wood came up, she dug her fingers under and lifted, pushing the big flat board up and pushing it over where it landed against the boxes with a thud. That’s when they saw the seam in the floor. They both got down on their knees and started brushing the earth away. They saw the latch, locked with a newish padlock.

“Wow,” said Raven, breathless. Murder. Missing money. A hidden tunnel. Crazy.

“This one’s locked, too,” said Troy. “Newish, like the other one. Compared to everything else around here.”

“Did you bring the other paper clip and the tension wrench?” she asked, holding out her hand.

“How long ago was it? The murders,” he asked, looking at the phone to answer his own question. “Two thousand and seven. More than ten years ago. That’s like forever. Why would you steal a million dollars, then lock it up for ten years?”

“They died,” said Raven. “That dirty cop stole it, hid it. Those men came looking for it, didn’t find it. They killed him before he told them where it was. And no one ever found it. Until now.”

“Do you think that’s what happened?”

“What else?”

“Maybe whoever took it hid it and then couldn’t come back for it for some reason,” said Troy. “You know how, like, serial killers suddenly stop killing and the police are all like: maybe he went to jail for something else. Maybe it was like that. Whoever stole it and hid it went to jail, and when they get out, they’re coming for it.”