by Lisa Unger
“I know,” she said. “And we are going to talk about it. But didn’t you say that the next time Troy or Dad was here, we were going to ask for help with the basement?”
“You think that’s where it might be?” said Troy.
“Where else?” said Raven. “It’s the only place we haven’t really explored.”
“It’s not safe down there,” said Claudia. “The beams need support.”
Raven and Troy got to chattering about it. And Claudia tuned them out. She got up and moved toward the window over the sink. That’s when she saw him, Scout. He moved from the woods and loped along the tree line, just a shadow. Raven and Troy didn’t even notice him; they were already on their way down to the basement. The whole house thundered with the sound of them on the stairs.
Scout turned to look at her, his fur silver in the morning light. Then he was gone.
Claudia followed the kids. It was past time to explore the basement. Raven was right; the only place in the house she hadn’t tackled. And with the kids here, it didn’t seem so scary after all. The engineer said that he didn’t think there was immediate danger of more collapse. But that building a support structure should be a priority. That’s what she’d have Josh do first.
“Be careful down there, kids,” she said, heading down after them.
• • •
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, they were all sneezing from mold and the filth kicked up by moving boxes. There was just the dim light of a few hanging bulbs. And enthusiasm was waning.
“What is all this junk?” complained Raven.
Books, boxes of them, old clothes, a man’s, a woman’s—old bills, tax documents, Social Security statements, magazines, more books. There were tools, old furniture, posters, cheap décor art. All of it belonging to the Drakes. Everything important must have gone to the girl, and all the rest of it was left behind, trash, the detritus left when a life concludes. Claudia’s dad was lazy. He probably just had someone box it up and store it in the basement. Or he hadn’t even known it was still there. As far as Claudia knew, he’d never set foot on the property after buying it. He was like that, always acting on whims. Leaving someone else to clean up the mess. Now she’d have to do it. Who would she even call to help her get rid of this stuff? Josh. He’d know what to do.
“Maybe it’s in one of these boxes,” said Raven. They’d opened almost every one; there was just one more stack that they hadn’t reached yet. That’s what it took to motivate a teenager: the prospect of a million dollars.
“Maybe someone already found it,” said Troy. He issued a startling loud sneeze.
“Or it was never here,” said Claudia. With the kids down here, sneezing, joking, the lights on, illuminating most of the darkness, the place didn’t have the energy of murder or terror. It was just a space, cluttered, dank. Maybe Raven was right. Maybe she should blog about it. After all, it was relevant to her journey. And monsters lived in the dark. Once you started shining light, most bad things withered and shrunk away, even memories.
“What would you have done?” she asked her daughter who had sunk down onto her haunches, looking exhausted. “I mean, if you felt some kind of connection to at-angry-young-man.”
It was fine to do that. They always leapt between open topics of conversation.
“I don’t know,” Raven said.
“Maybe I’ve never said this,” said Claudia. “But in my deepest heart, I believe that you are Ayers’s child. He is your father. That’s the biggest reason why we didn’t get the test.”
Raven bobbed her head thoughtfully. Claudia probably had said it, a million times or more. It was the truth. Or it had become the truth over time.
“I didn’t feel anything, though,” Raven said. “I didn’t feel a connection to Drew. I didn’t even like him.”
Claudia saw Troy smile a little behind Raven. Claudia felt the energy of a smile, too.
Claudia rested on a large workbench. It was tall, attached to the concrete wall. When her hand settled on an old flashlight, she knocked the item against her palm and was surprised when it turned on, casting a bright beam on the cinderblocks all around them.
Raven heaved a sigh.
“Let’s forget it,” she said. “There’s nothing down here but junk.”
Claudia wasn’t looking for the money, though. There definitely wasn’t a million dollars of stolen drug money in her basement. Her life did not work that way.
The kids headed up the stairs, but Claudia stayed a minute in the dim quiet, surrounded by the mess. Raven’s and Troy’s heavy footfalls upstairs caused a light shower of dust from the ceiling—not a good thing. If the beams were unstable, did that mean that the floor above was, as well? It was the dining room above her, the room that probably got the least foot traffic. Would the next sound she heard in the night be the table crashing through the floor?
All around her was debris, old junk that no one wanted piled high, the piece of beam that had fallen tilting in line with the staircase. It was an exhausting mess, something that seemed utterly beyond her abilities to fix or clean up. She tried not to see it as an allegory for her life. But, of course, it was. That was the whole point of the blog. She took her phone out of her pocket and snapped a few pictures. Then she headed upstairs to write it all out.
twenty-three
When I got to the hospital, the room was dark and Paul was on oxygen still. Mike wasn’t there, but a slim nurse stood over Paul’s bed, her fingertips resting gently on his wrist. I moved inside and waited for her to finish writing in his chart.
“Are you his daughter?” she asked.
She was young with caramel skin and a pile of curls tied up on the top of her head, deep-brown eyes. The whirring of the machine, the beeping of the heart monitor was a strange, sad song.
“Yes,” I said. What was the point in trying to explain when that was as close to the truth as I could get?
“He’s stable,” she said.
“Better?”
“Stronger,” she said. “Yes. He’s fighting.”
I looked at him, narrow in the sheets, still. The most important battles are fought within.
“He was awake earlier?” I asked.
“For a little while,” she said. “Your friend said he would get in touch with you.”
“I got here as fast as I could.”
She nodded, put a comforting hand on my arm. She looked at me, those eyes connecting with mine. She knew things about life and death that other people didn’t know; that knowledge had gathered somehow in the kind, crinkled corners of her gaze. There was a light there, a flat dark, too. I kept myself all wrapped up, held everything inside the shell of myself. But some people give off energy, something warm, positive. She was one of those. Her nametag read: Rose. “He should rest.”
“I won’t stay long.”
I pulled up a chair and sat beside him.
I was buzzing with a million questions. But he seemed far away, his hand limp in mine, the mask over his face. He was on the moon and I was on the earth looking up at him.
“He loved her,” said my father from the corner. “You know that.”
“Everybody loved her,” I said.
“No one more than he did,” he said. “I always knew, of course. I didn’t blame him.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we were all people,” he said. “Young once like you are now, full of bad ideas, mistakes, errors in judgment.”
“Did you rob those men?” I asked. “Did you take that money? When they came, did you know where it was?”
But, of course, he didn’t answer me because he wasn’t there. John Didion had taken his place; he was bleeding from the wound in his heart. Black blood was a river down his shirt; it dripped slowly into a pool between his feet. His face was blank, eyes looking off into whatever place it was beyond. He didn’t accuse or stare at me.
“Who hired you?” I asked him. A smarter person would have asked that question before I drove the
knife deep into his heart. The Red Hunter isn’t known for her patience. But maybe the truth was I didn’t really want to know the answer.
John Didion gave nothing. Just stood there.
I sat with Paul for a while waiting for some flicker from him.
“I have questions, Uncle Paul,” I whispered. “And I have some things to tell you. I need you. Please.”
But there was nothing, just his labored breathing, not even the faintest squeeze of his fingers, and finally I left.
• • •
I WAS SO OUT OF it, so in my own head that I never heard them coming. Some street fighter I turned out to be.
I parked the truck in a lot near Nate Shelby’s loft and walked the distance back. I was watching the video screen in my head—Boz, Seth, the pictures on Seth’s board, the old house, the Beckhams’ place, the things Seth had said—all the pieces turning, jumbled, never coming together. It was right there, wasn’t it? I couldn’t or didn’t want to see how it all gelled.
The first blow came hard from behind, taking me down to my knees. There were two of them, masked, much larger than me. A foot to my back lay me flat on the concrete, chin scraping hard, head knocking. The next blow was a merciless kick to the ribs that left me breathless, a scream lodged somewhere deep in my throat, no air to push it out. All I saw were stars, two masked faces, white eyes, holes for mouths. Silent. Hands on me, arms pulled behind my back. I couldn’t even move, stunned, pain exploding white and hot inside. A blow to the stomach, and the hard black point of an elbow coming in fast, connecting to my jaw. And that was it. Black.
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.
Josh waited an hour for Rhett, using the time to set up the saw, do the measuring, then he just started the cutting. If there had been two of them, one would cut and the other would install. He started after the crew had left for the day at five because it was awkward work walking through the boxy rooms with the long pieces of wood.
It was 10:30 when Josh realized Rhett just wasn’t going to show. He was about half where he needed to be if he was going to finish the job on time. He’d have t
o call Todd, see if he would work a double with him on Sunday (and of course he’d have to pay Todd, cutting into their profit). Josh had to laugh at himself as he locked up the site. He should have known. He did know.
“That’s good,” his mom said, when Josh told her he’d left Rhett behind working. “Your dad would be so happy.”
Except no. Josh didn’t think Dad would be happy. Because he knew what Rhett was. He got it toward the end. Rhett was a destroyer. Once upon a time, it had been his dad’s hope that Josh and Rhett would take over his thriving business. And that they’d both have families. And that after church each Sunday everyone would gather around that table he’d made for a big dinner. And the grandkids would run around, laughing and playing.
Not that his eldest son—the killer, the felon—would return after ten years away to destroy what little was left of their father’s paltry, poor-man’s dreams.
“I answer to you now?” Rhett dropped the keys on the table hard. Josh felt himself startle, start to cower inside. He almost backed right down, just plain walked away. But no.
“Yeah,” he said instead. “You kind of do. You wanted work. I gave it to you. You didn’t show, and now I’m behind on the town houses.”
Josh had been to see Lee, his sponsor, about Rhett coming home and the feelings it brought up. Josh hadn’t had a drop of booze—or any other substance—in seven years. Last night, he’d had to white-knuckle it past the wine and beer at the grocery store.
You are not the boy you were, Lee had told him. You are a business owner, a man who takes care of his ailing, elderly mother. You’ve made a life. You are not his kid brother anymore. He can’t bully you and force you to do things you don’t want to do. And with Lee, that sounded right and Josh felt strong. But there was some kind of energy that came off of Rhett, a dark magnetism. It snared him like invisible grappling hooks, and tugged at him.
“Well, well,” said Rhett. “Big boss man.”
“I wouldn’t have taken that job without you,” said Josh. “I have a reputation.”
Rhett let out a whoop at that.
