Summer (5 page)

‘You know what Mom means,’ he muttered. ‘I need to
set Zak an example the way Phoenix did.’

‘So the pressure’s on. What exactly does she want you to do?’

‘Rewind ten years, wipe the exam failures, the gangs, the fights, the conviction for assault, you name it.’ The bitter tone told me he was way down in a deep hole, not even trying to climb out.

‘Seriously – what can you do?’

‘Ditch the Harley, get work, be home nights.’ Drinking the dregs of his coffee, Brandon slammed the cup down. ‘You know what she wants, Darina? She wants me to do what Phoenix did, she wants me to act like him, look like him – she wants me to
be
him!’

4

S
leep was a million miles away. I lay in my bed that night, my mind going a hundred miles per hour, flipping from one topic to another.

First, the copycat killing in Florida. I tried to stand back from my first thought of
Hey, it’s the same guy!
Slow right down. Run that through again. I took a deep breath and told myself that Florida was half a continent away. Crazy gunmen usually stayed local. They had their killing spree then ran home and holed up, went back to living their lives with no one even suspecting the guy who lived above the convenience store or the loner who drove the animal-feed truck – until they went out and shot more innocent people.

But then I remembered the same quick getaway technique, the identical calculating mind behind the two crazy acts. Whoever shot Summer and the Venice victims
must have planned the whole thing in advance. And the white baseball cap stuck in my mind, even amongst the whirl of warring ideas.

I turned and pulled the blankets over my head, trying to stop the muscles in my legs from twitching and to get some sleep.

And what about Hunter? How could I look at him in the same way now that I’d read exactly what happened to him and Marie? There was a rape and then there was a daughter. How had Marie handled the disgrace of that back then? Had she given Mentone’s baby up for adoption? Had she lived the rest of her life hanging her head in shame?

And Hunter had a first name. He was an actual rancher with a Christian name, who died trying to save his wife from a rapist. Imagine the worst thing that could happen to a guy and it had happened to him out at Foxton more than a century ago.

I turned again, pummelled my pillow back into shape. Maybe I should turn on the light and read a magazine because I sure wasn’t going to sleep. I reached out for the lamp switch.

It was right at that moment that Phoenix appeared. My hand was stretched out, my fingers were feeling for the switch. A wind blew in through the open window,
the drapes billowed and he stood there in a halo of silver light.

Phoenix was with me the whole night. Hunter had sent him and said he should stay until morning.

It was like a gift, all my Christmases and birthdays rolled into one, to have my Beautiful Dead boyfriend lying by my side.

‘This can’t be happening,’ I whispered. The fantastical silver light had faded – he was solid flesh, though hardly visible as we lay together. But I reached out to touch him and knew every contour of his face – smooth forehead, long lashes, full, soft lips.

‘Don’t talk,’ he sighed. ‘Hold me.’

‘What happened? Are you OK?’

‘Don’t talk.’ He kissed me and held me as if he thought someone would come, something bad would happen and I would be snatched away.

‘It’s OK,’ I breathed, stroking his thick dark hair. ‘I’m here.’ And to convince him I kissed his lips, his closed eyelids, his cheeks. I held his hands and guided them across my own face, felt them tremble as he stroked my neck. Then I arched into him and sank in the moment, letting him know how much I loved him.

We tried everything we knew not to see the dawn sun in the sky.

‘Close the curtains,’ Phoenix murmured. ‘Don’t let the light in.’

The darkness had dissolved enough for me to see his face beside me. He was lying on his stomach, head turned towards me. Folding back the blanket, I ran my hand down the smooth skin of his back and rested it over his angel-wing tattoo. ‘I love to look at you,’ I whispered back.

After a while, Phoenix raised himself and leaned on one elbow, gazing down at me. ‘You want to know why Hunter let me be here?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

‘To warn you again not to come out to Foxton until you get more information.’

‘He already told me that!’ I pretended to push Phoenix off balance and smiled when he collapsed on to me.

‘Yeah. But he has spies everywhere. He has Donna and Iceman over here in Ellerton.’

‘Watching me?’ I knew the Beautiful Dead could be present but invisible, keeping silent watch. ‘They might at least have let me know.’

Phoenix smiled back. ‘Donna said you researched some information about a killing in Florida. She reported back
to Hunter. He said the link wasn’t strong enough, then sent me here.’

‘To tell me I’d failed,’ I sighed. ‘But I’m not complaining. I’ll take you as his messenger any day!’

Phoenix cut short my kiss by sliding his fingers between our lips. ‘He didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart,’ he reminded me.

‘Because he doesn’t have one,’ I agreed. ‘I know. So why did he let you come? Did you ask him?’

‘Would it make any difference if I had?’

‘Not to Hunter. But it would to me.’ I broke free of him and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. ‘Did you beg him to let you see me? Did you tell him you couldn’t keep away a single minute longer? Tell me you did!’

‘Seriously? No – what I said was, I was worried about you.’

‘Don’t be.’ I leaned over again and tried to smooth away the frown lines on Phoenix’s forehead. ‘I’ve done this before, remember – for Jonas and Arizona.’

The frown stayed where it was. ‘This time it’s different. The guy who shot Summer didn’t aim before he fired. It was totally random. We’re not looking for a sane explanation here.’

‘So you stress about what I’m getting myself into? Me too, if I’m honest. But I’ll take good care, believe me.’

‘And if it gets too scary, you’ll tell me?’

Looking up into his blue-grey eyes, which stared so intensely and read every beat of my heart, I murmured that I would call for help whenever I needed it.

‘It won’t always be me,’ he warned. ‘But this time Hunter agreed for me to come because I explained that I also wanted to talk to you about Zak.’

I nodded slowly. ‘You heard about him starting the fire?’ I felt a small stab of disappointment that it wasn’t just for my sake that Phoenix was here in my bed.

‘Dean told me. He listened in to your conversation with Brandon.’

‘Jeez, Phoenix!’ Was there nothing that the Beautiful Dead didn’t know? ‘So what else did Dean tell you?’

‘Don’t be mad, Darina.’ He got up from the bed and went to close the curtains, throwing the room back into shadow. ‘Dean discovered there were two other kids with Zak – they were a couple of years older. It’s not an excuse for my brother, but it seems they dragged him along.’

‘Will the cops understand that?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe. If he has someone to speak up for him. Brandon can’t do it.’

‘Brandon’s in a bad place right now – but, yeah, you already know that. So your mom will look after Zak, won’t she?’

‘She’ll try. All I’m saying is, now that I’m not around, Zak needs all the help he can get.’ Phoenix sat on the bed, his back towards me, waiting for my reaction.

‘I hear you,’ I murmured. I was mesmerized by the death mark beneath his shoulder blade, the cruel reminder that we were always and for ever running out of time. I slid down from the bed and knelt beside him, resting my head in his lap. ‘When do you have to leave?’

He stroked my cheek. ‘Now,’ he said, his voice faded to almost nothing. ‘I love you, Darina. Always, even after I’m gone – always remember that.’

I planned to make it into school that day for a Summer concert rehearsal, so after Phoenix dematerialized I showered, dressed and went downstairs.

Laura and Jim were in the kitchen, getting ready to start their own working days. They both looked up, but, unlike my mom, Jim didn’t have it in him to hide his surprise. ‘What happened, Darina? How come you’re out of bed before midday?’

‘Ha-ha.’ I took my jacket off the hook by the door, making sure my keys were in the pocket.

‘You’re going to school?’ Laura checked.

‘It’s Monday, so yeah.’ They should be pleased – most Mondays lately I’d asked Laura to call in to say I was sick.
But today Logan had texted me to say that Miss Jones had called a major run-through. I went into the TV room to collect my guitar, then headed out.

‘So you decided to play in the concert?’ Laura called after me. Again, she shouldn’t have stated the obvious and she should have sounded more pleased.

‘Catch you later,’ I called as I got into my
zoom-zoom
Brandon-mobile.

At school it was easier than I’d expected to mingle and keep a low profile. Nobody stared at me with their jaws open, saying, ‘Hey, Darina, what are you doing here?’ They just acted like I hadn’t taken any time off – even the teachers.

Logan greeted me at the main door and walked into the building with me. ‘Rehearsal is at twelve-thirty,’ he reminded me. ‘See you there.’

Hannah was in the classroom with Christian, Lucas and the techies, Parker and Ezra. She saw my guitar case and came across to talk about the ‘Red Sky’ duet we had planned.

By the start of the first class I felt as if I’d never been away.

‘Hey, Darina – good job,’ Ellerton High’s music teacher, Katie Jones, said when we got to lunchtime and I walked
into rehearsal. ‘Just so you know – I put you and Hannah in as item number four on the programme, right after Logan’s guitar solo. Also, I’d like you to be a backing singer on the song after the interval. Christian’s going to sing the “Invisible” number. How do you feel about that?’

‘Cool,’ I told her. It felt good to sit and tune my guitar in the big, high-tech theatre that the school had built from its generous performing arts budget. Good too to be part of the crowd all getting together to celebrate Summer’s music.

We started the rehearsal with Logan’s solo. I liked to watch him sitting with his acoustic guitar, his whole focus on the instrument. He played well, not brilliantly, as Arizona’s dad had once pointed out to me. Logan’s technique was like the rest of him – solid and without too much flair, Frank Taylor had said. The guy was an expert musician so he should know. Anyway, I thought Logan did great and I clapped along with everyone else.

At the end of his piece Miss Jones moved in with her comments and Christian handed me the music for the backing vocals on ‘Invisible’. ‘Summer probably played you this track a thousand times,’ he reminded me. ‘You’ll be singing with Jordan. Are you cool with that?’

‘Totally.’ The faint flavour of sympathy in Christian’s voice made me move away, almost bumping right into
Parker Simons, who was carrying a heavy spotlight stand and a coil of thick cable. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ I asked Christian over my shoulder.

Parker got out of my way and I went to join Hannah, who was sitting halfway up the tiered auditorium with her laptop. ‘Let’s find a corner to rehearse,’ I suggested.

‘Sit down. Let me finish here.’

Glancing across, I saw that she was working on improving an ad for the concert to put on the angelvoice website. Now that I thought about it, I recalled that Hannah had put herself in charge of the preconcert marketing.

‘How many tickets have we sold?’ I asked.

‘Hundreds already. I was talking to Miss Jones about extending the gig from the one we’ve planned for the Saturday morning to a second one in the afternoon.’

‘Cool.’ I sat with my feet up on the seat in front, taking in the buzz of the theatre. ‘Summer would love this,’ I murmured. The musicians, the techie guys like Parker and Ezra, the gathering together of all this talent.

‘Take a look at this.’ Hannah tilted her screen towards me and let me read some recent comments on Summer’s website.

Just bought my Summer tribute ticket – can’t wait!

Listening to Summer’s ‘Red Sky’ track – so
-
o-
o sad!

I downloaded ‘Invisible’ and listened to it all nite long.
Summer Madison rocks!

Mostly they were comments from girl fans, but I noticed one from a guy called JakB.
Summer lives on!
it said.
Her music is bigger than Death!
Instead of entering his own picture alongside his name, he’d used an icon of a fluorescent-green death’s head. I pursed my lips and pointed it out to Hannah.

‘Yeah, that’s a little weird,’ she agreed.

I scrolled down and found another JakB entry.
I know
what it’s like to be invisible,
he said.
Like the words of
Summer’s song – you’re into a girl but she doesn’t notice you.
It sucks.
Then he typed out the chorus:
‘Every day / You
look my way  /  But I’m not there  / I’m invisible
…’

As it happened, this linked in with Christian standing onstage rehearsing the same section of the song. Hannah grabbed back her laptop and Jordan came looking for me. ‘Darina, we’re on!’ she said, pulling me down the steps on to the stage.

I stayed in school for three whole days, mainly for the concert rehearsals but also to balance the secret work I was doing for the Beautiful Dead.

Darina, you’re fixated,
I told myself after a three-hour session early Wednesday evening in which I updated my
reading of Summer’s website reviews – more, much more from JakB, I noticed – and then searched the net for more Columbine-style killings that fitted the Ellerton and Venice, Florida models.