The Red Hunter(90)

We sat like that a minute; I didn’t say anything, and I knew he didn’t need me to. My love for him was well known, and I’ve never been good with words. But I knew that my mother didn’t have money like that. She’d alluded to an account, a little money tucked away for the future. But that wasn’t a little money, not to people like my parents. Where had it come from? Since my name was on the account, it was easy enough to find out that the balance of the account was about $8,000 the month before my mother died. Slowly, about a year later, deposits started to show up—$1,000 here, $5,000 a month later—until just under $400,000 had accrued. Then the withdrawals started for school and nothing new came in.

That was the kind of thing that they’d look for, the police, anyone monitoring a cold case that involved money. Unless no one was looking. Unless the people who were supposed to be looking, as Seth suggested, were intentionally looking the other way.

? ? ?

I STOOD AT THE EDGE of the trees in the shadows. I didn’t have a plan, not really. I figured I’d knock on the door and see what happened.

“Is that why you left your car by the side of the road and walked nearly a mile through the woods?” asked my dad. He was following behind me. Didion was nowhere to be seen, thankfully.

It was always better to approach on foot, quietly, when walking into a situation full of unknowns. If I were big and strong, maybe I’d be more direct on my approach. But since I’m small, surprise is one of my few advantages. Not that I was expecting a fight. I just wanted some time in that basement, to go through anything left by my parents. I figured I’d knock on the door, introduce myself, and ask permission. But I’d definitely set something into motion, and I was still aching all over from the bruising I’d taken last night. I couldn’t be sure who else was watching the house. That key, the one Mr. Rodriquez had given me, the one I’d been jumped for last night, it opened something. And I had a feeling, whatever it was, was in that house. If they had the key, they weren’t going to waste any time.

“What did you hide in the basement that night, Dad?” I asked.

But when I turned around, he was gone, never one to answer the hard questions.

Maybe I felt it when I came through the trees, like Catcher did that night. The door to the barn was gone. The door to the house stood wide open, as well. The blue Toyota that I recognized as belonging to Josh Beckham was parked in the drive. There was a pulse to the air, something not quite right. I waited, a watcher in the woods, listening to the air. There was the wind. The call of some faraway bird. The scrabble of blowing leaves. My own breath.

A dark form appeared in the door to the house, paused there, breathless, then broke into a run across the yard toward the barn. I waited a moment, then followed, fast and quiet.





thirty-six


When the phone rang in the night, Chad Drake was always fully awake before his hand even touched it. It had happened so many times that Heather usually did little more than stir and turn over. For a smallish town, they were a busy department. And adjacent towns had smaller forces, so when something big happened, he usually got a call. He didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID.

“Drake.”

“Can you meet me?”

“What’s up?” he said, surprised. He looked at the clock; it was after 1:00 a.m.

“I need you to come out.”

“Okay,” he said, sitting up. The floor beneath his feet was cold as he pulled on his jeans, the sweatshirt hanging over the chair. If it was the job, he’d have quickly showered, gotten fully dressed. Instead, he grabbed his sneakers, socks, heading out into the hallway so Heather wouldn’t pick up on the fact that there was something different about this call.

“I’m at the rest stop between exit 90 and 93 on Route 80 in Leesburg.” Paul sounded level, normal—which in and of itself was odd for a late-night call like this.

“What happened?” That rest stop was an hour from the house at least.

“Just come.”

“Come to the house.”

Chad could hear the sound of cars on asphalt, the distant wail of a horn, a car door slam, voices.

“Just meet me.”

He hung up then, and Chad moved quietly downstairs, glancing at Zoey’s dark room. He had the urge to look in on her but kept down the stairs. Catcher looked mildly interested in where he might be going, but the dog was used to it, too. If Heather left, he sat and whined at the door. Chad could come and go, no one the worse for wear.

The drive was long. Chad wanted to call Paul from his cell phone. But since his brother was at a rest stop, had clearly called from a phone that was not his own, Chad thought better of it. The highway stretched long and empty, sleep tugging behind his eyes. He used to wake up for a call and be up all night sometimes. It never bothered him until recently. He was getting old.

At first Chad didn’t see him. The old black beater—what was it? A rattling old Ford Taurus—seemed one with the shadows. Chad pulled up beside it, aware that Paul had chosen this spot because it couldn’t be seen from the road. Chad got out of the car and slid in beside his brother.

“What’s up, man?” he said, laying a hand on Paul’s arm. “What’s going on?”

Paul looked tired, older—there were dark circles under his eyes, deep wrinkles around his mouth filled with shadows.