Beautiful Dead 3: Summer

‘But if she rests up …’

  ‘Not possible.’

  ‘If you help her …’

  ‘Still not possible. Each restless soul who is permitted to return to the far side has an individual store of energy. If I tell you that Summer may not even make it through to Saturday, then do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘I do now,’ I whispered, pulling away from the overlord and retracing my steps to the front of the barn. ‘I need to see her, work through some new ideas.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Hunter said, standing on the spot, watching me drag open the huge, creaking door.

  The moment I saw Summer, I knew all too clearly what Hunter meant.

  She sat on the steps to the hay loft, the long, dark-green silk skirt that she’d worn on the day of the shooting billowing out over her ankles and feet. Her blonde hair cascaded around a face so thin and shadowed that it seemed impossible that she was still here with me on the far side. I walked quickly across the straw-strewn floor to sit beside her.

  Slowly Summer turned her head and fixed her heavily lashed eyes on me, the rich violet irises now darkened to midnight blue, the pupils enormous. ‘You sang my song at Logan’s service,’ she murmured in a voice almost too faint to hear.

  I nodded. ‘Your mom loved it. I guess she felt you and she were close again.’

  ‘Thank you, Darina.’

  ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you these last few days.’ The words didn’t go anywhere near to expressing the wrung-out, strung-out guilt and despair that had entered my heart since I set eyes on her.

  ‘No need to be sorry. You’ve worked so hard, and it was always a long-shot that we’d find my killer.’

  ‘But listen – I picked up some new information. There’s a guy called Will Stone, a dealer. And a guy named Oscar Thorne. There was a fight for territory, or some big drugs deal that went wrong. Stone wanted to deliver a packet. They were both in the mall the day you were shot.’

  ‘And I got in the way?’ Summer whispered.

  ‘My plan is to go back and talk to the cop, Henry Jardine, like he asked me to. I’ll push Thorne and Stone’s names into the centre of the frame. Thorne is already in jail – I’m thinking that Jardine can put the pressure on him, maybe offer him an early-release deal in return for information that would nail Stone. So no more violence, in case you were still worried about that.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ Summer smiled briefly before a frown creased her pale forehead.

  ‘And tomorrow I’ll track down JakB,’ I promised. ‘He’s the guy who’s coming up with all the crazy comments on your website. Plus I’ve seen him in the creepy flesh – he could definitely be our guy.’

  ‘Also good,’ she sighed, leaning her head against the rough plank wall. ‘But you know, what matters is that you tried. I won’t turn against you if you don’t come up with the answer.’

  She closed her eyes and I felt her drift, almost as if the last micro-gram of energy had drained away. When I took her hand in mine it was ice cold. ‘Don’t give up,’ I pleaded. ‘Two days – we still have forty-eight hours to solve this!’

  Misery weighed me down as I walked back up to the water tower. I’d made promises, begged with Summer to hang on, while my heart was secretly gripped with giant doubts.

  I stopped to lean against the blackened, rusting uprights of the tower, seeming to hear the words of Summer’s last song echoing around the hillsides. ‘There’s a hill / I’ll wait until / The stars appear / And the sky grows clear.’ In the distance, the dark, conical shape of Angel Rock seemed like a long-robed figure in prayer. ‘Then it’s time for me to go.’

  Dusk was gathering over Amos Peak when Phoenix joined me, the sky a deep shade of purple, the mountains darkening into jagged outline.

  My already bruised, battered heart was squeezed again.

  He stood by my side, waiting.

  ‘Did Hunter tell you to come?’ I asked, almost taunting him.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you came because you wanted to?’

  ‘I asked him.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t forget to ask Hunter for permission,’ I mocked.

  He ducked his head backwards as if I’d thrown a punch, but he stayed silent.

  ‘Sorry. You didn’t deserve that.’ I walked out from under the shadow of the tower, amongst sweet grasses and pale-blue flowers along the ridge.

  Phoenix watched me go, letting the distance between us grow, waiting for me to turn around.

  I had only one question battling its way to the surface, and Phoenix didn’t need any telepathic super-power to know what it was. I kept my back towards him as I spoke it out loud. ‘Who was it – you or Dean?’

  ‘Me or Dean what?’

  ‘You know. Was it you who set up the barrier that pushed Logan from the rock, or was it Dean?’

  ‘Neither.’

  I turned and strode back along the ridge. ‘So it was the storm?’ I demanded. ‘A force of nature killed him?’

  ‘Believe me. We were across the valley, checking the Government Bridge camp ground.’

  I held my breath, stared into his beautiful grey eyes. ‘You’re saying the wind battered him, pushed him over the edge?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know for sure. I wasn’t there.’

  ‘But you know everything!’ I cried. ‘One of you – Iceman or Donna, you or Dean – must have seen it happen, or at least heard it.’

  ‘None of us.’

  ‘And you couldn’t save him?’ I remembered the rain and the howling wind, Logan’s white car parked in my usual place, the panic in my heart as I found him lying almost dead at the foot of the rock. ‘Why are you standing here now, looking at me like that?’

  ‘I’m waiting for the pain to ease.’

  ‘For me to come back to you?’ It was as if I was on a wild, lonely journey, in the middle of a vast emptiness.

  ‘You only have to believe me,’ Phoenix said.

  ‘How can I?’

  ‘Ask yourself, did I ever lie to you? In all the time you knew me before I died, I never hid anything from you. The same since.’

  I was close, studying his smooth skin, his clear eyes, the downward sweep of his dark hair. I was back in a place where I could let his heart speak.

  Then he was holding me – softly at first, then tightly, locking his hands together in the small of my back, pulling me towards him.

  I was off balance, swept back in by the force of my love for him, letting it open my closed mind. The thrill when he kissed me ran through my lips, down my spine, reaching every part of me.

  ‘In the end you’ll leave me,’ I murmured, holding hands with Phoenix and walking between the slim, silver trunks of the aspens. A crescent moon rose in the indigo sky, the pole star shone bright.

  ‘Try not to think that way. Remember we still have some time together.’

  ‘Will I come back to Foxton in a year’s time?’ I wondered. ‘What happens when I finally walk down to the barn and there’s no one there except ghosts?’

  ‘Say my name out loud,’ he told me. ‘You won’t see me but I’ll be here.’

  ‘You promise? I’ve prayed – often – for you to haunt me. I couldn’t bear for you to go away and never come back.’

  He stopped and raised his hand to stroke my cheek. ‘It won’t happen. Come looking for me, Darina, and you’ll find me here. Always.’

  Brandon Rohr was the type who didn’t get up before midday, but he was there at my door early next morning.

  I was leaving the house for our final concert rehearsal, under so much pressure since my last trip out to Foxton that I’d skipped the normal things like sleeping and eating and was still in the clothes I’d worn for the previous twenty-four hours. When I saw Brandon leaning against my car in the drive, my first thought was that he was through doing me favours and was there to collect the keys. I held them up for him to grab.

  ‘Get in,’ he said, opening the driver’s door for me. Then he went and sat in the passenger seat. ‘Dr
ive,’ he grunted.

  ‘I have a rehearsal,’ I began weakly.

  ‘This is short,’ he promised. He waited for me to reach the end of the street then delivered his message in plain, one syllable words. ‘Don’t go near Will Stone.’

  I took my foot off the pedal and stalled the car. ‘Who? I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Zak’s a loser,’ Brandon said calmly. ‘But he’s family. How long do you think it took him to admit what he’d leaked to you?’

  ‘Thirty minutes?’ I guessed. ‘Don’t tell me – blood is thicker than water, he was stricken with guilt and spilled everything.’

  ‘Right on target.’ Waiting for me to re-start the car, he studied me closely. ‘You’re just a kid, Darina.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks for patronizing me,’ I muttered back, turning the corner and cruising through town towards school.

  ‘You and Phoenix – I wonder how it would’ve worked out.’

  I took my eyes off the road to stare back. ‘He loved me. I loved him.’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe it would’ve been enough, who knows?’

  I know! I thought. I still practically had the feel of Phoenix’s arms around me, the taste of his lips on mine from the night before.

  ‘Whatever. I’m still saying, stay away from Will Stone.’

  ‘Even if it turns out that he’s the guy who shot Summer Madison?’

  ‘Stop the car!’ Suddenly Brandon grabbed the wheel, steered me up the kerb on to the sidewalk and slammed on the handbrake. ‘I’m not asking where you got that idea; I already know. I’m telling you word for word what I told Zak – Stone is a heavyweight, the real deal. If he hears a whisper that you’re poking your nose into his business, you’re history – get it?’

  I stared at Brandon until my eyes felt like they were popping out of my head. What had happened to his cool-guy persona, and where had this freaked-out guy come from? I mean, Brandon’s hand was still on the brake and it was shaking.

  ‘Darina, don’t mess with Stone.’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ I tried to say.

  He grabbed my wrist. ‘Be scared!’ he warned. ‘If Will Stone hears that you’re saying his name in the same breath as Summer Madison, he won’t think twice.’

  ‘OK, I hear you.’ Brandon was hurting my wrist. ‘I won’t do anything stupid.’ I meant what I said. In any case, wasn’t I planning on handing everything over to Jardine?

  ‘No, listen. You won’t just not do anything stupid. You won’t do anything!’

  ‘OK, cool.’ I was trying to twist my arm out of his grasp and failing. All the time I was thinking, Brandon is up to his neck in this shit and that’s why he’s trying to scare me. I wasn’t thinking that what he was saying was fact.

  Maybe he knew he wasn’t getting through because he suddenly let go of me and flung open the car door. He got out, slammed it shut and walked off without looking back. I got back on the road and arrived at rehearsal with five minutes to spare.

  As last run-throughs go, this one was easy. Miss Jones wanted to make a change and bring in ‘Time to Go’ as the new final number – she checked that we all felt OK about this, then rehearsed it with me, Jordan and Hannah singing the verses and everyone joining in on the chorus. There was a hitch on some lighting cues, but apart from that everything ran smoothly and we were out of the theatre by eleven-thirty. In my head, as I headed for the car park, I was already thinking ahead, picturing myself sitting in Jardine’s office.

  I never made it. JakB jumped out from behind the janitor’s office and cut me off. He hooked one arm around my throat, slammed the other hand across my mouth and dragged me into an outbuilding containing grass-cutting machinery.

  ‘Let go of me!’ I yelled as I tried to bite his sweaty palm. The storeroom was dark and windowless, I was trapped.

  JakB flung me against the mower. ‘You know what your crappy teacher did?’ His voice came out strangled and hissy. ‘She banned me from the concert. She banned me!’

  ‘Don’t blame me,’ I croaked before I bit again – this time I got his forearm.

  He slammed his fist into my stomach and I doubled up. ‘She took away my pass, told Security don’t let me anywhere near.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I know! Now what do I do?’

  I ducked the next punch aimed at my head. ‘Stay away from me!’

  ‘What do I do now?’ Suddenly he lowered his fists and began to cry like a baby in the dark. ‘What am I going to tell Summer? She won’t believe they took away my pass.’

  I tuned in, played it his way. ‘Summer will understand,’ I said between sharp, painful breaths. Breathe. Look him in the eye. ‘She knows you care.’

  JakB stopped snivelling as fast as he began. ‘You think?’ he sneered. ‘Isn’t it like it is in her song – I worship her but she doesn’t even notice I’m there?’

  Slowly I stood upright and edged away from the machinery towards the door. ‘Sure she does. Summer cares about you, she cares about all her fans.’

  ‘No one loves Summer the way I do,’ he sighed, his outsized Adam’s apple working up and down his skinny throat. ‘I tell her that every single day.’

  ‘And she hears you. She’ll understand about the concert, believe me.’

  ‘I have to go tell her again,’ he decided, turning impulsively towards the door.

  ‘Do it now,’ I urged, blocking a strong image of him crouched by Summer’s grave spilling his insane guts, saying whatever crazy stuff whirled inside his demented brain.

  ‘No – later,’ he argued, turning back towards me. ‘These days I keep her waiting, the way she used to make me wait. “You acted like I was invisible,” I tell her. “All those emails – you never replied.”’

  Take a deep breath. Don’t try to predict his next move. JakB went up-down, up-down and he was making my flesh creep big time.

  ‘She laughs at me, tells me she has a thousand emails. But the others didn’t mean anything. It’s me who loves her best.’

  ‘She knows that,’ I whispered. I was near the door but not near enough. My heart was hammering, I could hardly breathe.

  So I’d never in my life been so glad to see anyone as when Ezra pulled open that door and stepped inside.

  ‘Dude, you need to let Darina walk out of here,’ Ezra said calmly. Daylight flooded into the storeroom. I was out of danger.

  ‘They took away my pass,’ JakB whined, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand.

  ‘I know. I’m the guy who told you,’ Ezra reminded him. ‘It doesn’t follow that you harm Darina. How does that help?’

  ‘She hates me. She went to the teacher and took away my pass.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what Darina does – steps into areas that don’t concern her. It’s a bad habit.’

  As my breath came back and the pain in my stomach eased, I started to protest. ‘Ezra, for God’s sake let me out of here! I warned you about this guy and you wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Hey, how about thanking me for rescuing you?’ He did that tipping his shades up his nose thing and gave that smirk.

  ‘Yeah – thanks. Now let me out.’

  We all three emerged from the storeroom into the car park, me still breathing hard and JakB looking drained and exhausted. Only Ezra kept his cool. ‘Dude, get out of here,’ he told the maniac, who walked unsteadily towards his car. Then Ezra fixed his attention on me. ‘Bad mistake,’ he muttered.

  ‘Me?’ I demanded.

  ‘To mess with a guy like that.’

  ‘I told you he was crazy. You’re the one who fixed for him to come to the concert.’

  ‘Because he’s crazy,’ Ezra explained. ‘Think about it. Give him what he wants and he’s not a problem. Take it away from him and he gets out a gun and shoots people.’

  I gasped long and hard then nodded. ‘Exactly!’ I yelled, relieved in a way that Ezra got my point, but scared too. ‘JakB didn’t get Summer, and he wanted her more than anything.’

  Ezra sh
rugged, ignoring my major point and getting ready to move off when he saw Lucas heading our way. ‘Like I said – bad mistake to take away his pass.’

  ‘Darina, are you OK?’ Since Logan, Lucas seemed to be stepping into the role of best platonic buddy and I was truly grateful. ‘Was there a problem with Ezra?’

  ‘No, it’s cool.’

  ‘What about the other guy?’

  ‘Yeah, there was an incident.’ Briefly I gave Lucas the details and allowed him to walk me to my car. ‘How come you thought Ezra was the problem?’ I asked.

  Lucas got into the car beside me. ‘No reason,’ he mumbled, coughing and clearing his throat.

  Not good enough. I always knew when Lucas was hiding something – for a start his face turned bright red. ‘Actually, to tell you the truth, Ezra was mixed up in that last little incident. He’s the one who implicated me in Miss Jones’s decision to take away JakB’s pass.’

  ‘Nice!’ Lucas’s response was sharper than I expected. ‘You want me to talk with him, tell him to keep his nose clean in future?’

  I shook my head. ‘No thanks. And listen, Lucas, right now I have to be somewhere …’

  ‘You don’t get rid of me so easy,’ he insisted. ‘I plan to ride with you to your house, make sure you arrive safe.’

  ‘You think JakB is still hanging around?’ Glancing round the car park, I saw that his red car had gone and that Ezra’s Toyota was also leaving by the main exit. ‘See – all clear!’

  ‘Drive, Darina,’ Lucas insisted. ‘There are a couple of things I need to tell you.’

  I didn’t head straight home with Lucas. Instead, I drove through Centennial towards Hartmann Lake, stopping on the overlook when Lucas’s story got really interesting.

  ‘You want to know why Logan and Ezra had that second fight?’ he asked. ‘It was over you again, Darina.’

  ‘No way!’ I was staring across the wide valley, down at the lake.

  ‘I’m serious. Out at the cabin on the night of the storm, and earlier, outside the theatre …’

  ‘They fought over me?’ I repeated.

  ‘Ezra made a bad comment and Logan reacted.’