The Shattering (3 page)

Which he had. The shotgun and the two rifles were always unloaded and locked up when they weren't in use, and the ammunition was stored separately. But Jake had his own licence, and he knew where the keys were.

The cops had seemed satisfied with that. There was going to be an inquest after the holidays, but that was standard.

Mum might have seen something more. I found the body, but she found me holding it, and there were no gaps in her memory. But I wasn't going to ask her now, when she was slapping me and home early from her first day back at work.

‘I saw Janna van der Zaag today,' I said instead.

Mum was pouring herself a glass of water. ‘How's she?' she said, and then turned, face crinkling. ‘Didn't her brother —' ‘Yes,' I said. ‘She said she knows how I feel.'

Like no one else did. No one in Summerton had died so young or so violently for years and years. No one else knew what to say. ‘You two used to be such good friends.'

‘I'm meeting her for dinner tomorrow. To meet a friend of hers. If that's okay?'

‘Of course, Keri,' she said. ‘Here, let me — where are you going?' I let her reach for her handbag on the table, even though I had my own money from the paper run, and I knew Mum and Dad were running short. The funeral and burial had been expensive. The family had given us koha to help, of course, crisp notes in clean envelopes, but the costs added up.

But this was Mum's way of apologising for hitting me. So I stood there and waited for the cash.

‘Janna said the Kahawai.'

Mum hesitated and then pulled out a purple note instead of a green. I blinked at the fift y-dollar note but tucked it into my pocket.

‘Try the snapper,' she suggested, as friendly and detached as if I were one of the hotel guests. Then her face stopped being Ms Lillian Pedersen-Doherty, concierge extraordinaire, and went back to being Mum. ‘No drinking, home by ten thirty.'

‘Yes, ma'am,' I said, hoping to make her smile.

She was looking at my empty hands. ‘Didn't you find any?'

‘Huh?'

‘Jeans.'

‘Oh. No. Nothing that really fitted the same.'

She nodded again, rubbing her eyes. I had a sudden vision of what she would look like when she was old. ‘I'm going to lie down. Can you scrub some potatoes?'

‘Sure,' I said.

I could scrub spuds and tell her where I was going when I left the house and take her apology money, and none of it would do anything to really help. Mum needed Jake back; she needed him to have never done it. I couldn't do anything about that.

Unless he hadn't.

Right then, in the kitchen, I decided that Janna had to be right. Jake had been murdered.

I felt the world click into place again. I had a plan for what to do if a member of my family was murdered.

It went ( 1 ) find the killer, ( 2 ) make sure he was guilty, ( 3 ) destroy him.

Completely.

CHAPTER TWO

SIONE

Sione inched a bit closer to the bus window and wished, for
approximately the 912th time, that he'd had the guts to say no
to Janna.

‘So you're travelling alone?' the elderly white woman sitting next to him persisted. ‘It's a real family vacation spot, I thought.'

Sione nodded. She'd been talking since the bus left Nelson, and he had avoided saying much, which was almost as good as not having to speak at all. She probably thought she was being nice, but conversation with strangers was hard and small talk was torture.

‘You kids are all so independent these days,' she said. ‘I'm always surprised by what your parents let you do.'

Me, too
, he thought, but managed to come up with, ‘I'm meeting friends.'

‘Ahhhh. A group of you, is it?'

‘Friends who live in Summerton.' Well, Janna was his friend, sort of. This Keri girl was an unknown quantity. If Janna was wrong, and Keri thought they were nutcases and started talking, it could ruin everything. Mum would be on the next flight back from Samoa.

But when Janna suggested bringing Keri in, he hadn't said no.

‘This is beautiful, isn't it?' the woman said, and leaned over Sione to stare out the window at the intricate shades of green that made up the view. ‘Is this your first time, too?'

‘No. I've come with family before.' Mum and Dad in front, and he and Matthew in the back, up and down the road that wound through the Karamea peninsula, over the hill to its tip, where Summerton, the most beautiful place in the world, was nestled in the bay. Matthew would have been able to talk to this lady. He'd have charmed her and flirted a little, but not too much, and by the time she got off the bus, she'd be eager to tell all her friends about the nice Pacific Islander boy who'd been so polite.

Instead of the sullen P.I. boy who kept staring at his fingernails.

‘Are you going for a holiday?' Sione said, and then wanted to put his head through the window's glass. Of course she was going for a holiday. Retired old ladies didn't go to vacation spots for business.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Sione Felise, total spaz.

But she gave him a kind look and nodded. ‘Yes, dear. With the lawn bowls club. I'm heading down a little early to make sure everything's prepared.'

Sione nodded, aware that his cheeks were hot with embarrassment. She was probably being nice because he looked so awkward. Which meant that she would have to be nice to him until the end of time, because he was
always
awkward. He could try to make it up to her, though. ‘Would you like to swap seats? The view's best as you come in.'

‘Oh, no, I'm fine, dear.'

But she leaned over him anyway as the bus rose and then dropped over the last big hill, the bay spread out before them. The entire bus held its collective breath, staring down at heaven.

By the time he could blink, his eyes were stinging, and nearly everyone on the bus was wiping away tears. The Summerton magic, the tourism videos called it, though it never looked that good on tv. In person, it was nearly impossible to look away.

He felt wrong about it, though. It should have been less beautiful now that Matthew was dead.

He got to the meeting spot far too early. The restaurant was already busy. Besides him, and two Asian couples by the big windows overlooking the balcony, everyone else was white. The only person in the restaurant who looked anything like him was the guy behind the bar, waiting in his black apron with his big brown arms folded over his barrel chest.

The bartender saw Sione looking and winked as he went past.

Matthew would have gone over and said hi, and they'd have been lifelong mates after five minutes. Sione nodded, jerky, and let the blonde waitress show him to the private room Janna had reserved.

It was a little alcove beside the balcony with a view of the sea, probably meant for honeymooners, and maybe too small for three people. But it had its own door that closed, and that was important. Sione didn't like strangers listening to him at the best of times, but especially not when it was this kind of conversation.

Sione tugged on his pressed cuffs. He was worried about the shirt, which was an Elusiv design, olive with subtle black stitching picking out a pattern on the back and at the side. Would it impress Janna, or would she think he was showing off ? He hadn't really brought anything cheaper. Maybe he should have gone full out in the other direction and worn a tie.

He checked his watch and tapped his fingers on the table.

The waitress knocked and opened the door. ‘Drink while you wait?' she asked.

‘Orange juice. Please.'

‘Sure thing. What's your name? You look familiar.'

‘Sione Felise.'

Her eyes went a little wide. No way people had heard of his dad down here. No
way
. Maybe she just recognised him because they'd been coming here for so long for the holidays. Or maybe she'd hooked up with Matthew sometime.

She didn't say anything, though, just, ‘I'll get your juice.'

He told himself he was imagining the look she gave him as she left, leaving the door open. ‘Van der Zaag party?' he heard her say outside. ‘This way.'

Sione looked up, hoping for Janna. It wasn't, of course.

This Keri looked a little bit Islander herself. She was short and sturdy, with short, dark hair lying shaggy around the small features of her snub-nosed face and skin a few shades lighter than his medium golden-brown. Green eyes, taking him in, his fancy shirt and black trousers.

He tried not to steel himself too obviously to the task of greeting her and stood up and held out his hand. ‘Hi, Keri? I'm Sione.'

Keri's little fingers squeezed around his in a firm, warm grip. She looked at her rumpled cargo shorts and wide, dusty-green T-shirt. ‘I should have dressed up.'

‘Uh, it's okay.'

‘I knew that I should have dressed up. I just didn't think of it.' Her voice was nice, soft and sort of furry. ‘It's hard to think sometimes. Since it happened. Does that sound crazy?'

So she wasn't much for small talk, either. ‘Not really,' he heard himself say. ‘Right after Matthew . . . died, I thought I could hear him talking to me in my dreams. Whenever the phone rang and stopped ringing before I could pick up, I thought it was him checking in. That's crazy.' Oh, Jesus. He had told a girl he'd just met that he was a head case.

But she didn't run screaming from the room or shoot him down with the loser look. Instead she gave him a half smile and said, ‘My Nanny Hinekura believes things like that. But you don't think that now?'

‘No,' he said, which was mostly true. ‘It's been . . . how long for you? Since?'

‘Nineteen days.' She said it automatically, without having to count, and he recognised that, too.

‘Oh, man. You're allowed to still be crazy.'

Keri grinned at him properly then, and her green eyes lit right up, crinkling at the edges.‘What's your surname? Janna didn't say.' ‘Felise. It's Samoan,' he added, and then felt like a dick. ‘I mean . . . I'm Samoan.'

She only nodded. ‘My dad's Kai Tahu, my mum's Pakeha. How long for you?'

‘Six months, and' — he paused, thinking — ‘four days.'

‘Hey!' Janna said, walking in. Something thumped hard into the pit of Sione's stomach. The room was suddenly close and hot.
She'd
dressed up, a black strapless dress that hugged her — well, her chest — and then flared out over a stiff net petticoat and ended at her knees. She was wearing stompy black boots that laced up to her knees and shiny red gloves that fitted over her elbow.

Sione knew instantly that he should have worn a tie.

‘You look like an evil debutante,' Keri said.

‘That was the idea,' Janna said, and stripped off her gloves. ‘God, these are hot. Hey, Sione! Looking good! Have you got taller since last summer?'

He had. But he still wasn't as tall as Matthew. ‘Little bit.'

Keri leaned in, clearly not caring at all about his height. ‘Janna, you said Sione had something to show me.'

Sione reached for his laptop, but Janna put her hand over his, and he froze, trying not to move into her touch.

‘Drinks, then talk, then dinner,' she decreed, and while Keri's eyebrows rose, she seemed okay with letting Janna call the waitress back.

‘So how do you two know each other?' she asked when the drinks arrived.

Sione felt the flush start under his collarbone. ‘Uh, well,' he began. ‘We met at the gelato place last year —'

‘We hooked up on New Year's Eve at the Beach Bash,' Janna said.

‘Weren't you going out with Patrick Tan?' Keri said.

‘No, we broke up before Christmas. And then he rebounded with Serena White. But then she got together with Christian Gough at New Year's, and then Patrick wanted to get back with me, and I said no chance, and then Serena changed her mind, and they hooked up again anyway.' Janna shrugged. ‘Whatever, right? Anyway, I don't cheat.' She picked up her glass.

‘Oh, yes, you do,' Keri said. ‘You married me behind the bike sheds when we were seven. We exchanged Burger Ring rings. Does that mean nothing to you? You're a cheating whore, Stardust, and I want a divorce.'

Janna snorted into her drink and flapped her hands wildly. ‘No fair,' she protested when she got her breath back. ‘You're not allowed to be funny when I've got something in my mouth.'

‘That's what you say to all the boys.' Keri sighed and turned to Sione before Janna could respond with more than stutters. ‘So, now talk. I guess you brought the laptop for a reason?'

He nodded and opened it without speaking. It was better to be careful with girls like Keri, all fast brain and sharp tongue; they could turn you inside out in double time. Some of his girl cousins were like that; they made a game out of it. ‘Don't the black ones cost more?' Janna said enviously, staring at his laptop, and when he shrugged, she leaned over and nudged Keri. ‘Sione's parents are loaded.'