‘He stepped over a line,’ was all Logan would give us, rubbing his knuckles where they had begun to hurt. ‘I guess I’m stressed out,’ he muttered. ‘Do me a favour, you two. Drop it.’
After this, it wasn’t a great rehearsal. People were on edge, forgetting lyrics and missing their cues. We all worried Miss Jones, who knew nothing about the fight, though she’d heard through Hannah about JakB’s recent craziness.
‘Maybe the situation is too hard to handle,’ she confided in Hannah, her principal assistant. ‘As we get near to the anniversary, emotions are bound to be running high.’
‘True,’ Hannah agreed. She said maybe it would be cool to finish early today and try again tomorrow.
So by three-thirty p.m. I was out of the school grounds and aiming to fulfil my ambition to have a serious talk with Brandon at his house.
I hope he’s home, I thought. And I hope Sharon is not. My heart was beating fast as I drove down their street, glad when I saw the Harley parked in the Rohrs’ drive.
Brandon heard me arrive. ‘Hey, Darina,’ he said in that flat tone which was hard to read. Surprised? Irritated? A little bit glad even? He stood on the porch, tapping the rail, one foot dangling over the step. ‘Don’t tell me – let me guess. Something went wrong with the car.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’ I was happy to let him think what he wanted. ‘I only come calling when I need a car technician. But no – actually I want to talk about Zak.’
‘What did he do now?’ Brandon backed under the porch and jerked his head – an invitation for me to come into the house.
I followed him in, beating off memories of the times I used to call here to see Phoenix. The place looked the same – plain furniture, worn-out rugs, hardly any pictures or lamps. The TV was switched on with the sound down in a corner of the room.
‘Zak isn’t in any more trouble,’ I told Brandon. ‘And you’ll be happy to know that he’s off the hook over the fire incident. I have it from the horse’s mouth.’
‘Wow, Darina, you’re a magician. One wave of your magic wand and it’s happy ever after.’
I was ready to turn round and walk out, except Zak wasn’t the real reason I was here. ‘What is it with you, Brandon?’ I challenged. ‘Why do you always put people down?’
‘It’s genetic,’ he said with a faint laugh, eyeing me in that way of his which suggested strongly that he wouldn’t be wasting time talking to me if he hadn’t made the deathbed pact with Phoenix. ‘So which horse’s mouth are we talking about exactly?’
‘A cop down at the sheriff’s office – Jardine, the one who made the arrest. He’s now ready to accept Zak didn’t play any part in setting the fire.’
‘And he’s your best buddy?’ Brandon taunted.
‘No, actually …’ I began then I switched tack. ‘OK, so why am I letting you get under my skin. I don’t owe you anything.’
‘Not even an explanation,’ he agreed, turning his back to take his jacket off a hook. Then he seemed to hesitate. ‘Is that the only reason you came – to tell me about the law’s sudden show of leniency towards my kid brother?’
‘No, there’s something else.’ I’d better come clean or Brandon would be zipping up his jacket and firing up the Harley. ‘I need to know what you can tell me about Oscar Thorne.’
Brandon stopped mid-zipper. He came up to me real close. ‘Don’t even go there,’ he warned.
I tried hard not to give in to his angry stare. ‘Your buddy Oscar was in the mall when Summer got shot. Now he’s in jail. I know that much.’
‘He was there, but I wasn’t,’ Brandon said even more fiercely. ‘End of story.’
‘The cops are looking at a drugs link.’ I would say the rest of this even if he knocked me down and stepped right over me. ‘There’s a chance that Summer walked into a bullet that was meant for your buddy. What do you think?’
Brandon took hold of both my arms and walked me backwards towards the door. ‘I’m not listening. If you know what’s good for you, you’re not asking. You’re not even thinking. And you’re out of here.’
It was true – he’d pushed me out of the door on to the porch and sent me stumbling down the step.
Back in the car, still shaking, I had the radio tuned to a news station as I turned the ignition. A female voice was announcing breaking headline news. ‘Police investigating the fatal shooting of two students in Venice, Florida have made an arrest in Brooklyn earlier today. This comes after months of close cooperation between state authorities across America, including the authorities in New Jersey. Police in New York State say that the suspect may be involved in a total of five separate shooting sprees. They have named him as Scott Fichtner, a twenty-year-old ex-music student and currently unemployed white male.’
I’d been talking to myself a lot lately, and now was no exception.
‘Phoenix, are you around? Is anybody listening to me, because I have important things to say!’
I drove away from the Rohrs’ house and found myself going in aimless circles, getting closer and closer to Centennial and the freeway out past Turkey Shoot Ridge. I drove round one block maybe five or six times, trying to resist the temptation.
‘Do you hear me?’ I yelled through the open top of my car. Where were the Beautiful Dead when I most needed them? ‘They arrested Fichtner. He’s an ex-music student. How creepy is that?’
‘Not so loud, Darina,’ a voice next to me said. I didn’t need to turn to look to know it was the overlord himself.
‘They arrested Fichtner for the two shootings,’ I repeated. ‘They already linked him with at least three others.’
Hunter sat upright, staring straight ahead. In profile, his face looked even more like a statue carved out of stone – pale, with the high, tattooed forehead and long, straight nose, his features completely immobile. ‘Including Ellerton?’ he asked, hardly moving his lips. ‘It has to be including us,’ I retorted. ‘We follow the Fichtner pattern – gunman opens fire in a mall, sprays bullets around, hits whoever happens to be in the way.’
Hunter reacted by sitting in silence as I drove once more around the block.
‘Where do you want me to go?’ I asked. ‘If you’re not planning to talk to me, why did you come?’
‘Park up,’ he muttered, making a weary gesture of putting two fingertips to his forehead and giving it a small circular rub.
I found a side street lined with shop units that were either empty or closed for the evening, parked the car and waited.
‘You’ve been busy,’ Hunter commented at last. ‘You did what Dean told you to do – that’s good.’ A compliment from Hunter? A first. ‘I went to see Henry Jardine. Plus, I called in on Brandon. There’s a lot to share with you.’
‘Save it until we get to Foxton,’ he ordered.
Cool – I’ll see Phoenix! I couldn’t keep the joy off my face.
‘We don’t want to raise any suspicions so I plan to get you back home by midnight.’
‘What am I, Cinderella?’ I asked. As usual, I got to go to the ball and dance with Prince Charming, but then, when the clock struck twelve, the rags and the pumpkin came back.
‘I need to talk to you, Darina.’ Hunter turned in his seat and gave me a long, cold stare. ‘Before I take you out there, I need your cooperation.’
‘Shoot,’ I said, taking note of the use of the word ‘cooperation’ from the guy who usually used mind-bending tactics to dish out the orders. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I’ve been impressed by your work,’ he went on.
Whoa, another compliment! This conversation was so not what I expected.
‘But also a little worried to see you engaging with events that don’t concern you.’
He means Marie and Mentone! I realized, and of course Hunter read my mind.
‘Right. That topic is off limits. It has nothing to do with Summer or Phoenix, or any of the Beautiful Dead.’
‘It has to do with you,’ I pointed out. ‘If you’re not Beautiful Dead, what
are you?’
‘An overlord is not here for himself, Darina. I’m here for them – the others. My history is just that – long dead, locked up in the past. Besides, there’s no mystery attached. My killer was tried and convicted. He paid the penalty for his crime.’
‘So you don’t want to talk about the fact that Marie had a daughter and she named her Hester?’ My big mouth got the better of me the way it always did. I spoke the words and watched Hunter’s face change in a second from stone-cold impassive to soul in torment.
Hunter closed his eyes and tilted his head back, struggling to regain control. When he looked at me again the eyes were fired up with anger. ‘What’s the use?’ he demanded. ‘I try to explain, I lay out the boundaries as clear as day and you still overstep the mark.’
‘I’m sorry. Forget I said it.’
‘You don’t talk about Marie – not ever! Not to others and especially not to me. I won’t listen to you dirty her name!’
‘I said I’m sorry.’
‘Darina – one more move like this and I’m through with you. You sit there and listen, you hear? If I had the power to wipe just part of your memory I’d do it. I’d take out all your knowledge of my wife. You wouldn’t even know her name.’
I felt the blade of his anger scythe me down, leave me lying flat on the ground. I held on to the sides of my seat and sat in dread.
‘But that’s fine tuning and it’s not possible,’ he went on. I can zap the whole of your Beautiful Dead memory or none of it. Which is it going to be?’
‘Please, Hunter …’ I knew that once again he was a millimetre away from tossing me out of their lives like garbage. Those eyes – they were burning into me.
‘You understand your choice, Darina? Either you stick with the facts surrounding Summer’s death or you leave for good. No Foxton, no Phoenix!’
I was so scared I was hardly able to nod.
‘Which is it?’
‘I stick with Summer,’ I promised. ‘I do exactly what you tell me.’
‘Drive out to the aspen ridge,’ Hunter told me. ‘Park where no one will see the car.’
I drove fast and the overlord slouched down in the seat, facing straight ahead, assuming it was now safe to leave me to my own thoughts.
In the hour it took to drive, I went over what he’d just put me through – the anger, the threat to throw me back into the hell of everyday existence minus my memories of Phoenix and the Beautiful Dead. Did he mean it, or was it another stupid mind game?
The reason I suspected this? Hunter knew me well enough to recognize the rebel in me. He understood that ordering me not to do something was as good as saying, ‘Go ahead, do it your way.’
Occasionally I glanced at him. His face was still turned away, his gaze was fixed on the steep rise of the darkening hillside with the neon cross in the distance, or on the small cabins lining the road at the Foxton junction. He’s playing a game, he’s pushing me to find out more about Hester, I decided. But I was still in a state of shock and not ready to put it to the test. I drove along the creek side, heading into the mountains. When we reached the end of the dirt road, I took the car fifty metres off the track across scrubland and parked it under the trees.
‘Stick to the topic we agreed on,’ Hunter reminded me as he stepped out of the car and slammed the door.
I shivered as I got out on the driver’s side, caught in a sudden blast of icy wind blowing across the valley from Amos Peak. ‘We’re back to winter,’ I grumbled, zipping up my denim jacket. I wasn’t kidding – there were heavy clouds gathering over the jagged horizon and that arctic wind.
‘Walk,’ he ordered, striding ahead without looking back. He skirted the ancient water tower then dipped down the hillside, quickly disappearing from view.
I swore as I tried to keep up. Sure, Hunter was angry with me and my big mouth, but did he have to give me such a hard time? I went too fast and in my carelessness loosened some shale and went sliding out of control until I caught hold of a bush and stopped. I swore again, put my hand to my mouth and sucked a spine out of the flesh at the base of my thumb. When I looked up I saw Donna and Iceman waiting for us by the razor-wire fence.
‘Where’s Summer?’ Hunter called down the hill. The wind whipped his voice back up the slope towards me.
‘Waiting in the barn,’ Donna called back. ‘Dean and Phoenix are headed up to the ridge. Dean sensed intruders.’
So I don’t get to see Phoenix! If my mood was bad before, it plummeted down into a deep, dark pit when I heard this news.
‘Go tell them to patrol along the ridge all the way to the aspen stand, then back via Angel Rock to Government Bridge.’ Hunter gave Iceman an instant order. ‘And tell them not to come back until they’re one hundred per cent sure there are no far-siders snooping around.’
Iceman nodded and went off, soon disappearing into the shadows that had swept down the hillside. Hunter strode on towards the barn, while Donna waited for me, her short red hair the one point of colour in the gathering dusk. ‘Have you brought some news?’ she asked, linking arms with me and half carrying me forward.
I felt her zombie strength sweep me on. ‘Plenty,’ I gasped.
‘Cool. I’m – we’re all worried about Summer. She’s not doing well.’
‘I know – Phoenix told me – but things are coming together,’ I promised. I wanted to spin this visit out now, to make sure I was still around when Phoenix got back from patrolling the ridge. I paused to glance up at Angel Rock silhouetted on the horizon – an outcrop of granite worn by the wind and rain into the shape of a Christmas angel: head, body, wings and all.
‘Walk, Darina!’ Hunter repeated without turning his head.
I didn’t have any choice – Donna half lifted me off my feet to catch up with him before he reached the barn.
We went inside. Once more I breathed in the musty, dusty smell of old straw and cobwebs and waited for my eyes to get used to the interior. A solitary oil lamp placed on the steps lit the dark space – not enough to define the jumble of farm tools and horse tack stacked against the walls, but enough to make out Summer’s pale figure sitting halfway up the steps. Lit from below by the yellow lamp glow, she looked unreal and ghostly.
‘I brought Darina,’ Hunter said abruptly, turning to leave the barn and taking Donna with him. He glanced towards me, the warning look still present in those glinting, steel-grey eyes.
Slowly I crossed the barn and went up the steps to sit beside Summer. ‘How are you doing?’ I asked in my blundering way. I mean, I could see she was totally not doing well – it was obvious from one quick glance.
Summer sat with her knees crooked, her thin arms clasping her legs, her fair hair falling about her shoulders like a cloak. Her eyes were big and dark, unblinking. I can honestly say I have never seen anyone so pale. ‘I wish it was over,’ she sighed.
‘It will be soon.’ I did a quick count – eleven days was all we had.
She turned her head towards me. ‘I don’t care what happens to me, Darina. I just want it to finish.’
‘I care!’ I shot back. ‘I need answers for you. I care!’
Her eyelids fluttered and she sighed. ‘I’m empty – here!’ Slowly she raised her hand and touched her heart. ‘I have no feelings any more, just a space.’
‘Listen to me.’ Gently I took her cold hand in mine. ‘You don’t have to do anything, OK? You let me, Hunter and the rest work it out.’
Summer looked me in the eyes. ‘People get hurt,’ she sighed. ‘We think this is about justice, but it’s also about pain and suffering. That’s what I can’t stand – people hurting so much.’
I couldn’t argue with this, so I stayed silent.
‘There’s been enough already – blood, fear, and the rest.’
‘But if we stop …’ I began. JakB, Scott Fichtner, the Ellerton drugs baron – one of them walked away unpunished.
Just then an extra-strong gust of wind rattled the door handle and whistled through the gapin
g window frame in the loft above. Summer shuddered and closed her eyes.
I knew I couldn’t convince her, but I held her hand tight, talked on in the way mothers do to kids emerging from nightmares. ‘I’m almost there. You leave it to me and in another couple of days I’ll have the answer. Then you can leave.’
She shook her head so slightly that I almost missed it. ‘Do you know how it feels to have this – space?’ She touched her heart again, then fluttered her fingers against her chest. ‘Emptiness, where love used to be.’
‘I do,’ I answered softly. I was scared she was going to fade away in front of my eyes. ‘After Phoenix died – believe me, I do.’ The hollow where your heart should be, the dark place. ‘But there’s a way out, trust me.’
Somehow I was getting through to her at last. I felt her squeeze my hand and saw her raise her downcast eyes. ‘So go ahead,’ she whispered. ‘What did you find out?’
‘They arrested Fichtner. He’s my main man, remember?’
Summer nodded. ‘I don’t know if it’s him though. I looked at his picture, but I didn’t recall his face.’
‘That’s OK, your memory’s smashed to pieces by the trauma. But he fits. He travels the country carrying out these random, crazy killings. The cops are investigating the copycat incidents right now.’
‘Cool,’ she murmured without meaning it, dipping back down into hopelessness.
‘Trust me!’ I said again. ‘And there’s more. If the Fichtner theory falls apart, there’s a guy called Oscar Thorne, a lowlife drugs baron. I went to see Deputy Sheriff Jardine, Dean’s buddy. He told me the Bishop County office is following a different trail that puts Thorne in the frame as the intended victim. A big drugs deal had gone bad – the dealers were ready to shoot it out between them.’
Summer nodded and I could tell she’d withdrawn back into her empty space.
‘Then there’s Crazy Guy number two,’ I gabbled. ‘Did you ever read comments on your website from a guy calling himself JakB?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘He uses an exploding skull’s head icon. He calls himself your “number one fan”.’