It’s a big deal for Zak,” Zoey said.
I’d gone from Michael’s apartment to her house, knowing this was her day for physical therapy so she wouldn’t be in school. I was interested in finding out what Russell Bishop knew about Nathan’s arrest and how come he was so close to the police action, but first I had to share with someone what Zak had shared with me, and it was Zoey I chose. I’d found her in her covered arena, long reining one of her gray Arabian horses.
She sighed and shook her head. “The kid’s only thirteen years old, and he believes he could have saved his brother.”
“I told him—what chance would you have had? It was chaos, everyone had knives. He still said he should have been there for Phoenix.”
For a while we watched Merlin trot, ears pricked, neck arched, high-stepping around the arena. “How perfect is he?” Zoey murmured. “You know, this is the first time I’ve put myself in Zak’s shoes. I always look at him and judge him—moody kid, throwing his life away.”
“That’s the hard part,” I admitted. “Seeing it the way other people see it. But I always felt a connection with Zak, and maybe with Sharon and Brandon, even when they hated my guts.”
Zoey eased the pressure on Merlin and let him fall from trot into walk. He snorted then wandered toward us, looking for a reward. “How is it at home?” she asked.
“With moving? It’s crappy. My whole life is tied up in black garbage bags.”
“And the anniversary tomorrow—how are you doing?”
Six months ago, Zoey being kind to me would’ve brought on the desire to confess everything. I have to tell you a secret—I visit Foxton Ridge. There’s a barn and an old ranch house. I see Phoenix and the Beautiful Dead. Hunter would’ve been there with the warning wings. These days, with time running out fast, I was over the sharing urge and my whole focus was on solving Phoenix’s death. “I saw Kim Reiss,” I told her instead. “It kind of works.”
“She’s cool. I like her.”
“Me too.”
“Did she do the pebble thing?”
“Yeah. A black lava stone for anger.”
“I chose a piece of flint—sharp edges.” For a moment she flashed back into the emptiness and rage of losing Jonas.
“What did you do with it?”
Zoey smiled. “I threw it out of the window. Kim said it was cool. How about you?”
“I put mine back. It’s still in the bowl.”
“Next time, throw it away—you’ll feel better. Hey, and Phoenix would love it that you’re taking care of Zak,” Zoey told me, stroking Merlin’s nose.
• • •
I stayed and spent quality time with Zoey until her dad got back from golf. “Michael Rohr tells me you’re on a mission to save Zak,” he said when he found me and Zoey working the other horse, Pepper, in the arena. “You’re doing a good job, Darina.”
Wow! This was the first complimentary remark Russell Bishop had put my way—ever! “Thanks. But it’s not me, it’s everyone.”
“It helps that Michael is back in Ellerton,” Russell agreed, then led me in exactly the direction I wanted to go. “And good that Sheriff Kors is focused on cleaning up the town. Give the guy six months and we’ll be back to where we were before.”
He meant before kids started dying and everyone fell apart. But even Russell Bishop had the tact not to spell this out in front of Zoey and me.
“I heard he arrested Nathan Thorne?” I prompted.
“They charged him with possession of narcotics. Kors knows he’s a small player, but you start with the little guys and move on up the food chain.”
“Cool.” Zoey and I echoed each other.
“Yeah, if I have one criticism, it’s that they bailed Nathan out after they charged him. If it was down to me, I would lock up the lousy kid and throw away the key.”
For once I agreed with the pillar of our community. How much better it would be if baby face Nathan was permanently off the scene…
“They released him?” Zoey was as shocked as I was.
Russell nodded. “They picked him up with only enough cocaine for personal use. The bottom line is—the sheriff hopes it will act as a warning and get Nathan to clean up his act. Personally, I doubt that.” Looking at his watch, he cut the conversation short. “I’m out of here. You want a ride to your therapy?” he asked Zoey.
“No, thanks. I’ll drive there.”
“How about you, Darina? Can I drop you somewhere?”
“I have my car,” I told him, pointing to where my shiny, red Brandon-mobile was parked.
“Nice vehicle,” he muttered, raising an eyebrow, meaning, Where did you get a car like that, Darina? Then he went off to change out of his golf wear and meet his wife for an up-market lunch at the Blue Fin restaurant.
“How come Sheriff Kors is cozying up with your dad?” I asked Zoey as we led the horses into their stables.
“He knows Dad is considering running for mayor,” she told me.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Seriously,” she said. And we both raised our eyebrows and grinned.
• • •
I left the perfect setup—a house with air-conditioned stables and a white-columned portico, smooth lawns, electronically controlled gates—and drove into a nightmare.
I was through the gates, waving good-bye to Zoey, when I picked up the black Chevy in my overhead mirror. I saw three guys in the car and slammed my foot on the pedal, picked up speed along South 13th Street, and made a sharp right back toward town, hoping to lose them. No such luck—I had a crazy driver on my tail, taking the corner on two wheels, gaining on me as I sped past the medical center overlooking the park. By the time I reached the lights leading to the mall, they’d changed to red.
For a second I considered running the red light, but a truck crawled out of the side road, blocking my way. I slammed on my brakes, felt a jolt as the Chevy collided into me, saw the doors open and Nathan jump out along with bandana men, Hall and Black.
In a sedan I would have locked my doors, sat tight, and prayed. But this was a convertible, the top was open, and all the guys had to do was reach in and drag me out.
It happened in broad daylight, so sudden and fast that I was lifted out of my car before the truck had even turned the corner. No one else was around. I guess the truck driver was too busy to see the abduction or else he didn’t want to get involved. I know no one called nine-one-one.
They gave Nathan the job of driving my car away from the junction. The other two gorillas wrestled me into the backseat of the Chevy, then one stayed with me, holding me down, while the other took the wheel and followed Nathan. They’d crashed into me, hauled me out of the convertible, and tossed me into their car, driven away, and the whole thing had lasted less than thirty seconds. That’s how long it takes to kidnap someone and make them disappear.
I fought back the best I could. Either Black or Hall—I didn’t know one from the other—put his hand around my throat and forced my head onto the floor so that I tipped out of sight and lay struggling for breath. Looking up into this guy’s face, I saw narrowed eyes, a broad nose, dark stubble, and no sign that he meant to go easy on me. I gave up the fight and lay quiet. He eased his grip as the car picked up speed.
I was pinned to the floor of a beaten-up Chevy, surrounded by empty Doritos packages and silver gum wrappers, snatched off the street by three drug users who were driving me out of town to who knows what godforsaken destination. Life events don’t come much worse than this.
“Hey, Vince, give me Nathan’s sweatshirt,” the guy with his boot on my spine growled.
Hall took one hand off the steering wheel, reached for a gray hooded jacket, and tossed it into the back. Black jerked at my arm, pulled me into a sitting position then muffled my face with the hood, securing it with the arms, which he tied in a knot around my mouth and n
eck. Afterward he scrabbled among the junk on the backseat, found another ligature, and tied my hands behind my back.
For the rest of the journey I was tightly gagged and blindfolded. My face sweated, it was hard to breathe, and I was seriously scared about what they planned to do next.
We drove for what felt like eternity.
Trussed up and stuffed into the well between the front and back seats, I tried to curl into fetal position—but every time Hall took a bend, I rolled and knocked my head or my shins. The motion—and sheer terror—made me nauseated.
“Are we almost there yet?” Robert Black said in a whiny, kiddie voice.
Hall laughed, said, “Five more minutes, honey,” and roared the engine.
“When we get there, can we go swimming?” Black asked, still in his kid voice, though the word swimming came with a sinister emphasis.
“Maybe,” Hall answered.
He swerved again, and I hit my head against a sharp metal edge. The hood over my mouth was wet with saliva. Clammy fabric covered my nose, my eyes, my ears.
“Ta-dah, we’re here!” Hall announced at last.
Keeping the blindfold and gag in position, they cut the engine and dragged me out of the car, across some rough ground to a place where I could hear lapping water. Obviously, “swimming” was still on the agenda. A key turned in a lock, I was shoved up two steps, through a doorway, and into a musty corner where I lay curled on my side.
“Hey, Nathan.” Black grunted a greeting.
“What took you so long?” Nathan answered.
“Your crappy car isn’t built for speed, is what took us so long.” As Hall answered, he stooped to untie the blindfold and lift the hood away from my face.
I blinked and kept my eyes screwed up, gradually making out a bare wooden floor, fishing rods leaning against a wall, two old folding chairs, and a dusty canvas bag hanging from a hook on the back of the door.
“You sold me the heap of shit,” Nathan reminded him. “Darina doesn’t know how lucky she is, driving her convertible.”
The mention of my name brought Black’s attention to the job at hand. He dragged me up from the floor and sat me on one of the chairs, making sure that my hands were still firmly tied. “Time for a swim?” he asked Nathan.
“No. We wait for my brother.” The answer was casual, noncommittal.
“Oh, great!” Hall wasn’t happy. He stood in the doorway looking out, rubbing his cheek then raising his shirt to scratch his rib cage. “Doesn’t Oscar know I have better things to do than hang out in some crummy shack waiting for the cops to catch up with us?”
“The cops won’t find us here,” Nathan said evenly. “By the way, Robert, did you get Darina’s cell phone?”
Black grunted, pushed me back in the chair, and went through my pockets. As soon as he found my phone, he switched it off, went to the door, and pitched it away. I heard the splash as it landed then sank.
“So spell it out—what exactly are we waiting for?” Hall insisted. He looked wired, clearing his throat and heading outside as Nathan sat in the other seat, legs sprawled.
“My brother would like to meet Darina face-to-face,” Nathan said, giving me a nasty smile.
Gritting my teeth, I stared past him at the expanse of smooth water visible through the doorway. In the distance I saw houses built into the hillside and recognized them as the million-dollar Forest Lake homes advertised on the local TV station. The lakeside shack we were in was tucked away off the main road, probably used only by weekend fishermen.
“You hear that, honey?” Black asked as he went to join Hall, who was re-tying the knot on his bandana as he leaned against my car. “The boss wants to meet you. I guess he plans to get out of you why you went to the cops and got Nathan arrested.”
“I didn’t. It wasn’t me.” When you’re desperate, you lie. What else can you do?
“Sure it was you,” Nathan cut in, tapping his foot against the floor and staring at me with those eyes that were slightly too big and round, sneering through the exaggerated cupid’s bow of his lips. “You were rescuing Zak at the time, which by the way was a totally stupid idea. Zak’s a Rohr—he can take care of himself. And it turns out my brother has Zak in his sights anyway.”
I felt a fresh jolt of panic. “No. Whatever you think I did—Zak wasn’t involved.”
“He is now,” Nathan told me, suddenly standing up and taking his phone out of his pocket. He turned his back and pressed a couple of buttons. “Hey, Oscar,” he said. “We’re ready for your visit.”
This was the only chance I would get, I realized. Nathan’s back was turned, Hall and Black were outside, so, with my hands still tied behind my back, I sprang up from the chair and ran for the door, made it down the steps, and began to sprint away from the cars toward the dirt track.
I had roughly a three-second head start before Nathan yelled out a warning and Hall and Black saw where I was headed. They came hurtling after me, and there was never any doubt that they would catch me.
Hall was lighter and faster than Black. He grabbed the back of my shirt and flung me down, put a knee in my back, and waited for his buddy to join us. Then the two of them lifted me from the ground and carried me struggling back to the shack.
“This is why we don’t wait for Oscar,” Hall told Nathan, who stood in the doorway. His hooked arm stayed around my throat, while Black released my legs and set me upright roughly ten feet from the water’s edge.
“My brother will be here in thirty minutes,” Nathan promised. He’d started to look edgy, glancing down the dirt track and along the water’s edge to check that there was no one nearby.
“That’s thirty minutes too long,” Hall grunted, keeping up the pressure on my throat.
“I’m with Vince,” Black agreed. “If we’re going to do it, we do it now.”
They were older than Nathan. They’d been around the block more times, and Nathan knew it. “OK, but you two get your story straight for Oscar,” he said, heading toward my car and jumping in. “I don’t want to know.”
“Yeah, Nathan, you don’t know anything,” Black mocked. “What are you going to do with the convertible?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Drive it into the lake,” Hall told him. “Then when they drag Darina’s corpse out of the water, they’ll figure it was an accident.”
Hall’s arm was around my throat, my hands were tied, and they were discussing my death. I had one of those whole-life-flashing-before-me moments—on vacation building sand castles with my dad, starting high school, seeing Phoenix the first time he walked down the corridor. Time slowed down. I envisaged my drowned body floating to the surface in the dawn light.
Nathan drove off without saying whether or not he would take their advice. Black stepped back in to help Hall, lifting me again and slinging me over one shoulder like a slab of meat, then stepping into the shallow water at the edge of the lake.
I kicked out hard, crashing my foot into his ribs. He waded on through the reeds until the water reached his waist then he slid me from his shoulder and tipped me on my back. I hit the water with an icy shock, sank under the surface, felt hands hold me down, looked up toward the glittering light. Pressing my lips tight together, clothes and hair floating around me, I kept on staring at the sun.
They pushed me down deeper. I saw their shadowy shapes above me, blocking out the light. Then suddenly, without warning, they let me go. I tilted my head and rose to the surface; my face broke clear. I gasped and breathed again.
And Phoenix was with me, surrounded by his halo of silver light, striking out at Black and throwing him backward deeper into the lake then turning on Hall, who put his arms over his head in a futile attempt to protect himself. Phoenix reached out, raised him, and hurled him onto the shore, ran after him and raised him again, sent him crashing to the ground where he lay senseless.
>
But now Black was emerging from the water, staggering through the reeds, ready to throw himself at Phoenix from behind.
Phoenix turned, his face expressionless. He caught Black in a rib-cracking bear hug and swung him around, then crashed him down on the ground beside Hall. The two lay groaning and covered in mud, battered and broken by Phoenix’s superhuman strength.
He left them there and came back for me, lifted me out of the water and cradled me in his arms as he carried me to the shore. I felt the warmth of the sun on my skin, breathed clean air into my lungs. Arms around his neck, I clung to him as he strode away from the lake.
• • •
“Believe me now?” Phoenix murmured as he drove me home in Nathan’s old Chevrolet. His wet shirt clung to his chest and shoulders; water dripped onto his forehead and trickled down his cheeks. “Thorne and his guys won’t stop until they’re certain you’re not a threat.”
“Yes, and you’ll be there to save me,” I told him, refusing to admit how much my near-death experience had shaken me. Images of the sunlight quivering on the surface of the lake as I stared up from the depths stayed with me, and I still felt the pressure of Hall’s arm around my throat.
Phoenix stopped the car on the hard shoulder. “Not always,” he reminded me gently. “What happens after tomorrow—when I’m not here anymore?”
I shook my head and closed my eyes. “Don’t. I don’t want to think about it.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Face it, Darina. By Friday I’ll be gone. The Thornes will still be here, and they’ll want to get even.”
Forcing myself to look at him, I put on a brave face. “But by then we’ll have got to the truth. We’ll know the killer, and he’ll be behind bars—end of story.”
“Maybe,” he said softly, not wanting to stray right now into the doubts and fears he’d already revealed. “Maybe not.”
“We will. The more I get into this, the more I have Nathan as prime suspect. Right from the start, when Brandon put him there in the middle of things, I’ve had a creepy feeling.”