The Red Hunter(86)

“I said an hour,” said Josh.

“I don’t have an hour,” said the other man. He slowly moved down the stairs. She backed away so that their bodies formed a tense triangle.

“It’s really easy,” said the other man. He was dark, wolfish, a scar on his face, a roughness to his bearing. Nothing like Josh, and yet there was something in the jaw, around the eyes. “My brother should have kept his mouth shut. But he didn’t.”

The brother. Wanda Crabb’s warning rang in her ears.

The dark man ran a rough hand over the crown of his head. The muscles in his forearms looked like ropes beneath the skin, the thick hair, dark, blurry tattoos.

“So now we have a problem that we wouldn’t have had if he let me handle it the way I wanted to.” What had Wanda Crabb said his name was? Rhett, that was it. Rhett Beckham.

He moved so fast, it was like a cobra strike. The back of his hand connected hard with Claudia’s jaw, knocking her head back against the concrete wall. The world wobbled, a field of stars dancing before her eyes. And then her head was ringing with pain. She lifted her hands to her ear, sinking to the ground.

“What the fuck?” yelled Josh. “What the fuck are you doing?”

But the other man moved away heading straight for the hole in the wall. He used his knee to knock more of the crumbling drywall down, then he crouched low and looked inside. He issued a big laugh, more like a whoop of victory.

Claudia’s head rattled, the room spinning. She couldn’t think; her breath ragged and deep with panic. Please, please, let the kids have seen the men come in. Call the police. Run. Just don’t come back to the house. Please. Please. She thought of her phone up in her office, her only lifeline. It might as well have been on the moon. Still, she edged toward the stairs, both of them bent in front of the locked door.

“Give me the key,” said Rhett. He wore a wide grin, turned to smack his brother on the shoulder. “I knew it, man. I fucking knew it. That dirty cop. It was here all along.”

Josh was shaking his head, silent.

Claudia still sat stunned on the floor, tasting blood. All that training and just one blow, she could barely move. She kept inching, finally resting her hand on the bottom stair.

“Only if we let her go now,” said Josh. “Then I’ll give you the key.”

Rhett released an exasperated breath.

“Can’t do that. Not now that you’ve been running your fucking mouth off,” he said, nodding toward Claudia. “Give me that key, little brother, or I’ll take it from you.”

“No,” said Josh. “I’m not going to let you hurt anyone else.”

They circled each other, two dogs snarling in a standoff. Josh threw the first punch, missed. He took a hard blow to the gut from his brother, and then they were down on the floor rolling and grunting, delivering punches to head, neck back, rolling. Rhett bested Josh almost immediately, had him pinned, punched him mercilessly in the face.

Claudia got to her feet and ran, thundering up the stairs. The light from the door at the top seemed like it was a mile away, growing farther the closer she got. Fear pulled time long. Then she was almost there, almost to the door. She could get through, slam it closed, lock it from the outside. She’d run to the barn, get the kids, Troy would have his phone, get in the car; she’d left the keys in the ignition, as was her bad habit, but a good thing today. The kids could call the police while she drove them away.

She was almost there, almost there, when she felt the hand, a brutal vise grip on her ankle, yanking her foot and all her weight out from underneath her. She landed hard on her elbows, chin, and knees with a series of thuds and cracks. He pulled her back down the stairs, as she struggled and screamed against him, clawing at the stairs, for the banister. How could he be so strong?

She turned to use her legs, kick him in the face, but she missed, her heel connecting only with the air to the side of his head. She came to land beside Josh, who was unconscious on the floor, a line of blood trailing from his mouth, face red and already swelling.

Rhett climbed on top of her as she writhed, kicking. He lay the heaviness of his entire body on hers, holding her wrists with one impossibly strong, huge hand. The other one he clamped hard over her mouth, the hard stones of his fingertips digging into the soft flesh of her face. She heard herself whimpering. He put his mouth to her ear and her nose filled with his scent—sweat, booze, cigarettes. Rank. Vile. Melvin Cutter. How could she be back here again? She’d come so far.

“I have the key to that door now,” he said. “If you just lie here and shut up, be a good girl, I’ll be gone.”

She nodded. He was lying. She knew that. Why didn’t he just kill her now? What was he waiting for? She made herself look into his eyes. She saw something there; he wasn’t blank like Cutter. There a flicker of something human. He didn’t want to kill her.

“I promised my little brother that no one would get hurt,” he said, answering the questions she hadn’t asked. He glanced over at Josh, whom he’d just beaten into unconsciousness. That apparently did not count as anyone getting hurt, nor did it negate his loyalty.

“He screwed up. But a promise is a promise. I’ve been watching you. This house. Your pretty girl. I’ll come back here or people I know will. You stay quiet. Or better, leave town. You’ll never hear from us again. I’m no killer—unless I don’t have a choice. Can you be quiet?”