Leaving the sheriff to report back to base and decide on his next move, I tiptoed down the hill, creeping toward the giant trash can that would give me good cover, all the time not really believing that I would be the one who found the missing boy. I was crouching low and working my way between a black Jeep and a silver SUV when I heard the first noise.
It came from the SUV—a faint tapping sound that stopped then started again, as if somebody inside the car was knocking a small object against a metal surface. I caught my breath. What did I do now? If I suddenly popped up in view, what would the person in the car think? If I carried on with my stealth assault, the game was up anyway. I heard the tapping again and I stood up.
At first I thought I’d made a mistake—there was no one inside the car after all. Then I looked and listened again. Tap-tap-tap from the back of the vehicle—the section behind a metal grille meant for bags or dogs. I stepped around to the rear window and stole another good peek inside.
The kid was sitting cross-legged in the baggage space, a book resting across his knees, a sketch pad by his side. He was rocking back and forth, locked in his world, tapping his metal pen against the grille.
Without thinking, I opened the door. Raven didn’t stop rocking or tapping. The book in his lap showed a picture of the famous Warhol Marilyns, all sunshine yellows and oranges, purples and crimsons.
“Hi, Raven,” I whispered.
He rocked and tapped as if I weren’t there.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
He ran the pen along the mesh grille, like a pianist running a finger along the keys. The cover of the pad by his side was covered in tiny, complex sketches of his house in Westra.
“Hey, I like your drawings,” I told him, and he looked up at me. I offered him my hand. He took it.
Of course, Phoenix and Arizona knew the second I found Raven. They were there by my side in an instant, in the parking lot to keep an eye on me but staying out of sight as I gently helped the kid from the vehicle.
“And I really love these,” I told him as he let me take the Marilyn pictures away from him. “Pick up your sketchbook, let’s go get some lunch.”
He frowned then stiffened, turning back toward the SUV. Every movement was slow and a little clumsy. The way he moved, he reminded me of a marionette.
“You want to stay here? That’s cool.” Why this car? I wondered, then the answer came to me in a flash—that Arizona had the exact same car as this! Same model, same color. “Hey, I like this car. It’s cool.”
Poor kid—the only place in the world he felt safe was in that stranger’s vehicle, believing that his sister would soon come to get him.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Phoenix take Arizona’s hand and hold it tight.
I tried a different tack. “If you don’t want lunch, how about coming to see your dad? He’s here on a visit.”
There was no response—no reluctance, no eagerness, just a big blank.
Arizona took a step forward but Phoenix held her back. I knew that if she showed herself, they would have to take Raven and zap his already damaged brain clean of the memory. All she wanted to do was the one thing she couldn’t, which was to throw her arms around her brother, hug him, and tell him everything would be OK.
“Arizona, you need to leave,” Phoenix told her.
She raised her hand to cover her eyes, clutching at her temples and holding back the tearless sobs.
“You have to go before you rip yourself apart,” he insisted. “I’ll take care of things here.”
She took a half a step toward her brother then faltered.
“Come and see your dad,” I insisted, tapping the cover of the Marilyn book as a kind of bait. “Come with me.”
“Go!” Phoenix whispered to Arizona.
Finally she gave in. I walked around the side of the ranch house with Raven just as she used her power to disappear. There was the bright halo of light that quickly faded and then an absence. Phoenix stood alone.
“Take him in the house. Make sure you hand him over to Rebecca Davis,” Phoenix said, remaining calm, perhaps for all of us.
“So tell me about your favorite picture,” I said to the kid, trying to keep the shakes out of my voice. “Would it be these Marilyns or the cool soup cans that you like the most?”
“Did you see Frank Taylor?” Phoenix wanted to know.
He was at the wheel of my car, driving us back toward Hartmann Lake. I’d handed Raven over to the principal, made a lame excuse, and bolted as soon as I could. “I found the kid in the forest,” I’d told her. “I figured he belonged here.” The way Raven had looked at me when Rebecca Davis took control…hurt and confused doesn’t really hit the mark, but it’s the best I can do. He thought we two were yellow and red, purple and green Marilyn buddies and now here I was, dumping him back with the gray people.
“So, did you?” Phoenix repeated.
“Uh, no—luckily, Frank wasn’t around.” I had to stop feeling sorry for Raven and focus on our next step. “I got out of there before Rebecca Davis could ask me any awkward questions.”
“Cool.” Phoenix drove in silence for a while.
“How is it, being Raven—not talking, not getting other people, just living inside a bubble?” I wondered out loud. “Pretty lonely, I guess. And think, Phoenix—if the kid was able to talk, all the answers he could give us. Like where he went the morning Arizona drowned, who he saw, how come he ended up in the mall…”
He glanced my way then back at the road ahead. “You want to know something weird?” he murmured. “Back there in the parking lot I tried to read Raven’s thoughts, but I couldn’t do it.”
My eyes widened. “What happened?”
“I tried and there was nothing—just a jumble of stuff.”
“Maybe you didn’t have enough time.” I offered excuses. “And Arizona was finding it tough. There was a lot going on.”
“No.” Phoenix stopped me. “The fact is—the kid’s brain is wired up differently. No way could I get through to him.”
We were nearing Hartmann. The fall sun glittered gold on the clear green water. On the far bank a lone deer drank.
“I have some news about the latest bunch of vigilantes.” Phoenix changed the subject as we pulled onto paved road and headed for town. “You know the guys who came looking for trouble on the weekend?”
“The ones who camped out at Government Bridge?”
“Yeah. Well, Kyle Keppler was there, and his buddies from Forest Lake.”
The news made me groan. “That guy’s like a bad smell—real hard to shake off.You know I went over there yesterday?”
Phoenix nodded. “Even though I said to stay away.”
“I didn’t bet on him being there.”
“You shouldn’t go near him or his place, Darina,” he warned.
“Aren’t you listening to me? I figured he’d be working at Mike’s. I needed to talk with Sable. Did she find out about Kyle and Arizona? If she did, what exactly did she do about it?”
“Too risky,” he insisted, then clenched his teeth as he took a bend a shade too fast, throwing me against him.
I pulled myself upright and clamped my mouth tight shut. Another period of silence followed.
“OK, so I’m doing it all wrong,” I burst out at last. “Arizona said way back that I was too dumb to help you guys. Now you believe it too!”
“I didn’t say that.” He sighed, then he pulled the car down a dirt track to the side of the road. We stopped beside a field of yellow grass with a barn in the distance. “You know I worry about you, Darina.”
“No need,” I protested. But I didn’t fool him. “OK, so you worry about me. Thank you.” I smiled and kissed him.
He gave a sad little sigh. “All this is happening to you because of me—all the pain and doubt. I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I needed Phoenix to know this. “Every second we spend together is a gift. I don??
?t care what it costs.”
He gazed at me, the long golden grass sloping up toward the mountains behind his head, his eyes shining beautiful and blue. “Stay safe for me,” he whispered, then he kissed me softly on the lips. “And let me worry—OK?”
“OK.” I smiled.
“And this has nothing to do with you being dumb.”
“For sure?” I asked, gazing into those intense eyes.
“Trust me,” he murmured, kissing me again to make certain I believed him. “Darina, I love you.”
“But?”
“No buts.”
“So we didn’t just have another fight?” I leaned in and kissed him back. I had that achingly dizzying feeling of being closer to Phoenix than any two people had ever been or ever could be.
“Take it easy,” he told me, climbing out of the car and waiting for me to reverse back onto the highway.
“I love you!” I mouthed.
“I love you,” he replied.
My heart soared.
For the longest time I kept him in sight in my rearview mirror—standing there with his feet wide apart and his thumbs hooked into his belt, watching me go.
The incident started with a truck coming fast from behind and overtaking me on a bend.
“Jerk!” I slammed on my brakes to let the truck get by. “What’s with you?”
Now the truck driver tucked in front of me and braked suddenly, his taillights glowing red under the pinewood canopy.
I braked again, with some full-on cursing. That was until I recognized the guy hanging out of the passenger window as the Harley rider I’d seen in the Kepplers’ yard—the one who’d been giving Sable the over-friendly hug. Then I felt as if I’d been kicked in the stomach. I slowed to a halt, praying for the truck to disappear out of sight.
But, no, the driver up ahead performed a spectacular U-turn in the narrow road. He headed back toward me, and I could see it was Kyle Keppler himself at the wheel, with his dark-haired buddy still hanging out of the passenger side, yelling wild insults. The truck stopped and I got ready for a face-off.
First Kyle and then his Neanderthal friend stepped down from the cab. They walked slowly toward me. The friend stopped maybe three yards from my car, while Kyle came right up to the driver’s side door.
“Honey, this is where your luck runs out,” he spat with a sneer. “You get away from me one time, and one time only.”
“What did I do?” I protested, my heart thumping in my chest. More in hope than belief, I looked in my rearview mirror for Phoenix.
Kyle wasn’t about to enter into explanations. His fist landed against my windshield just as I fumbled for the door lock—but it was too late. He wrenched open my door and reached inside.
I struggled. There was no use. He lifted me out of there like I was a rag doll, then dumped me in the scrubland at the side of the road. I staggered back against the rough surface of a granite rock.
“Real cool car,” the buddy in the background said. He was carrying a steel bar that I hadn’t seen until then. “Yeah—it’s a freaking shame.”
Now my heart felt as if it had broken through my chest and was pounding up in my throat, making me gag with fear. Kyle Keppler gave the other guy a signal and I heard the metal bar whack into the hood of my car.
“That could be your skull,” Keppler told me, pressing me hard against the boulder. “Jeez, what a mess.”
I knew my legs wouldn’t hold me up. I felt myself sinking to the ground. Then in a nanosecond everything changed.
Phoenix appeared in his halo of light, solid out of nowhere, taking a swing at Keppler, who saw him just in time and ducked. His buddy tossed him the steel bar and he caught it.
Some people scream in terror. I found I couldn’t utter a sound.
Now Keppler wielded the bar like a baseball bat. He swung it at Phoenix’s head.
“Where the hell did he come from?” the guy in the background yelled, crouching behind Phoenix like a football defender, trying to trap him against the rock wall bank.
The bar missed Phoenix’s face by inches. Phoenix dived in to butt Keppler in the stomach and send him staggering back toward me. “Stand clear,” he warned.
Keppler raised the bar and smashed it down once, twice more. Each time he grunted as he missed, too slow to land a blow as Phoenix moved smoothly from side to side.
But it was two against one, and I could see the other guy moving in, sticking out his foot to trip Phoenix and pin him to the ground while Keppler towered over him, ready with the bar.
I found my voice and yelled for Phoenix to watch out.
With one hand he deflected the bar in midair, with the other he shoved the accomplice so hard that the guy toppled and slid half under my car. Now with both hands free, Phoenix turned his full supernatural strength on Keppler. He tore the bar from his hands and beat him back against the rocks. The bar was at Keppler’s throat, forcing his head back and making his eyes roll in his skull. I filled my time stamping on guy number two’s hands as he tried to crawl from under the car.
“Don’t you ever touch Darina.” Phoenix’s voice was an unrecognizable hiss, his nose an inch from Keppler’s distorted features. “You lay one finger on her and you’re dead.”
Then he flung the bar away. It fell with a clatter as he landed a punch on Keppler’s jaw, sending him sideways, groaning in the dirt alongside his buddy.
“I ought to kill you for this,” Phoenix muttered.
“Don’t!” I begged. No more fights. No hidden blades, please!
Our brief conversation had given the two guys a fraction of breathing space—long enough for them to be up on their feet and coming at Phoenix together.
This time I did scream.
Phoenix took hold of Keppler’s swinging fist and sent him crashing against the dark-haired guy, flinging them both against my car, making it look so easy.
“OK, enough,” he decided out loud. “This is going to hurt real bad.”
Then he stared into their eyes—the sidekick first, then Keppler. A sudden, fierce wind kicked up and I saw the dirt rise, heard the wings begin to beat. Millions of wings—hordes of dead souls released from limbo who gave Phoenix his ability to wipe memories clean, leaving the victims empty and aching, waking up later and wondering what had happened and how they came to be lying in the dirt covered in bruises.
At first Keppler resisted. He tried to lunge again toward Phoenix, but he stood his ground, his gaze fixed like a laser into the thug’s brain. Keppler staggered backward, into his buddy, and they hit the ground together. Countless wings raised the dust storm high into the blue sky as Phoenix stood proud and victorious.
“Brandon will take your car for repair,” Phoenix promised me.
We’d had to leave it in the ditch and walk into town before Keppler and his buddy came around.
I was dazed; my head refused to work clearly after the shock. “Logan will do that. I only have to ask him and Christian—they’ll work on the car together.”
“Brandon,” Phoenix insisted. “Tell him where we left it. He’ll tow it in.”
“Just tell him not to take it to Mike’s Motors,” I joked. “OK, not funny, huh? And before you say I told you so about Keppler, I admit it—you were right.”
“Brutal guy,” Phoenix confirmed.
We walked slowly along a rough sidewalk, luckily with no one around. The lost souls had packed up their wings and gone wherever they called home. “Tell me what you know about him, besides the Arizona connection.”
Phoenix stuck his hands deep into his jeans pockets before he dropped the bombshell. “The guy with him—that was Sable’s brother, Jon Jackson.”
“Her brother!” I hadn’t thought of that back in the Kepplers’ front yard. OK, yes, so Laura is occasionally right: I have this personality defect of rushing headlong without thinking things through.
“Jon was at Government Bridge with Kyle and a couple of others. They like to hang out together.”
“Would Brandon
be included in the gang?” I wanted to know exactly where Rohr Brother Senior fitted in. “Brandon, Kyle, and Jon Jackson—they’re a team?”
“Sometimes.” Phoenix clammed up, lowering his gaze. “Look, I don’t choose my brother’s friends!”
I thought for a moment. “OK, I get it. You don’t want to drag Brandon in because Kyle’s not a nice person to be around and you’d rather I didn’t paint Brandon with the same brush. Is that right?”
A nod was all I got by way of reply.
“Plus, Kyle and Jon Jackson—they were there on… on the night!” The fact hit me between the eyes—they’d been members of the killer gang that gathered by the gas station in town. “Phoenix, they were part of what happened to you!”
He shook his head.
“Does that mean yes or no?” I grabbed his hand and made him slow down. “Look at me and tell me the truth.”
“They were there,” he admitted. “Along with maybe twenty other guys. But we don’t need to focus on that right now. This is about Arizona, remember?”
“Jeez, how could she even like this guy?” We were almost within sight of the first houses on Peak Road in town.
“Arizona loved Kyle,” he reminded me. “Liking and loving—they’re not the same thing.”
“So what now? Do I make another move to get Sable alone and ready to talk?”
He shook his head. “No way.”
“We only have three days to do this, remember!” Friday was racing toward us, the final deadline set by Hunter. “So do I confront the Taylors over Raven—push them to spill the guilty family secrets?”
“That works better,” he said. Our pace was slowing. We could see the houses and it was past time for Phoenix to leave.
“Maybe it goes like this. Arizona fights all the time with her parents—her mom especially. She wants Raven back home, is ready to give up everything to be with him twenty-four/seven, to be the kind of shadow she believes he needs.”
Phoenix nodded. “You mean, she really fights with Allyson. It turns nasty and the family is falling apart. Frank is too weak to stop it from happening.”