“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.
Claudia was surprised at the weight of disappointment. What had she thought they were going to find under here? If there had been a tunnel, wouldn’t some historical society have located it by now? Her father had said that there was nothing special about the house.
Before Claudia could stop her, Raven crawled through the hole they’d made.
“What is that?” asked Raven.
Troy and Claudia crowded in together to stare, shining the flashlight into the space. Raven crouched down in the corner.
“Oh my god, Mom,” said Raven.
“What is it?”
Raven turned around, her eyes wide.
“It’s a door,” she said.
She moved aside so that Claudia could shine her flashlight in. She saw it. A small door, more the entrance to a crawl space. This must be it, the entrance to a room or to a tunnel that led to who knew where. Claudia climbed through and squatted down next to Raven. She reached out and yanked on the handle, but it was solidly closed. It did not budge.
Claudia shone the light on it and saw the lock, bright copper glinting in the beam. Something new in a place where everything else was rusted and old.
“Open it, Mom,” said Raven, her voice taut with the excitement of discovery.
She sank back and stared at the door, the kids close, looking over either shoulder. How strange, Claudia thought.
“I can’t,” she said. “It’s locked.”
twenty-nine
I drove to the house, my mind a roomful of monkeys, thoughts, memories, leaping around, shrieking, and dancing in the rafters.
It wasn’t until after that first night, when I saved the street kid from those bullies, that I started asking the real questions about my parents’ murder. Before that, I had cast myself as the victim in the story of my life. I saw the events as they had unfolded through the eyes of someone who was fourteen; I saw myself that way, too. Arrested development, my shrink would call it. When a life-altering childhood trauma retards the maturing of the psyche. Or whatever. I couldn’t move past that moment of trauma, where I was powerless as men hurt me and took my parents, ripped a gaping hole in my universe. And then in the kung fu temple, but more so on the street that night, I realized I wasn’t powerless. Not anymore.
I couldn’t talk to Paul. After years of raging, and spearheading his own investigation, and writing letters, and whatever you do when you realize that there’s not going to be justice for your family—he just kind of shut down about it. He put away his files and tried to move on. I didn’t want to open the wound. That’s why I talked to Mike.
He, my dad, Paul, and Boz had all been friends for a long time. Paul, Mike, and my dad since childhood, Boz since John Jay College. Mike took an early pension after fifteen years as a beat cop in the East Village, opened his kung fu school, and did the occasional private investigation work on the side.
I wanted to stop locking people up and start teaching people how to channel their negative energy into something positive. Hence his work with kids at the kung fu temple and the program he ran for at-risk kids in various neighborhood schools around the city.
The morning after I saved the street kid, I had my class to run. I put the girls through their drills. There were just five in that morning session, but they were my favorites. Daisy, who cried when she had to hit someone. Kayla with an attitude a mile wide. Bella, who had real natural talent—speed, agility, and a steely eye of the tiger. Jessa, who worked harder than anyone and had come from not being able to do one pushup to leaving everyone else panting on the floor. And Kym, my mirror—quiet, shy, wrapped up tight. They all lived together in a group home run by a woman named Melba, each removed from their families for various situations of abuse. They were all at the school “on scholarship,” as Mike liked to call it. He never turned anyone away, even people who couldn’t pay. Which was part of the reason he was always sweating the finances.
We ran through the kicks, blocks, punches, and then we did our forms. Then gentle sparring between the girls or with me. It was an hour and a half of intense physical activity, and afterward they drank about a gallon of water, and we sat around and talked. I was still buzzing from what happened the night before; I could still see that big man crumble, hear his scream. I felt good about it, saving that kid, and I didn’t. Maybe my dad was right, maybe there was something more to it. Something dark.
“You know,” said Jessa. “I didn’t think I was strong when I first came here. But now I do.”