Beautiful Dead 02 - Arizona (10 page)

I was out of there, turning the ignition in my car when Logan's Honda pul ed across the driveway, blocking me in. 'Get out of my way!' I yel ed.

He slammed his car door and strode up the drive. 'Stop screaming at me. You're not going any place.'

I jumped out, cutting across the patch of grass and jumping the low fence on to the sidewalk. 'Back off, Logan.' The guy was too much. 'You told me on the phone you don't want to know!'

Logan refused to be shaken off. We were running down the street, he was grabbing me by the arm. 'You're out of line, you hear?'

Elephant time again. 'Logan, you're worse than Jim. You total y don't

have any right to force your opinion on me. You're nothing in my life -

OK?'

And Logan's turn to be socked senseless. He drew a sharp breath and stepped into the gutter.

I was free to run on but I stopped to drive the point home. 'You're not

my brother or my boyfriend or my father, you're my ... no, you're not even my friend!' I couldn't have hurt him more if I'd tried.

I was shocked instead of staying down under the knockout punch the way Laura and Jim had done, Logan came back at me. He could sprint faster than me too. So there he was, blocking my way again.

'Truth time?' he said, his voice dry and harsh. You want to hear it the way it is, Darina? You're acting like a total screwbal . No one can believe a word you say. Nobody not Hannah, not Lucas - nobody likes you, the

way you're acting.'

'Run that by me again,' I argued, my chest heaving. 'Didn't I just rescue an injured woman from off the side of a mountain? Since when was that a crime?'

'That's not the point and you know it. What's the big thing with Angel Rock and Foxton? What are you hiding? What takes you out there before dawn?'

'No comment!'

I succeeded in pushing past him at last. We hit a line of maple trees, I heard the rustling leaves build to the sound of wings beating.

'This is a free country, Logan. I can go where I like.'

'So go,' he said, suddenly resigned. He'd gone the distance, reached 69

the final bel with me. The fight was over and in the end the referee would cal it, whoever that would be.

I circled him warily, stil expecting him to land a rabbit punch. 'So

you'l move your car?' I checked.

'Sure.' He shrugged and walked back the way we came. 'Go wherever it is you need to go, Darina. But from now on, don't come to my house looking for help the next time you reach rock bottom and you need a

shoulder to cry on.'

As it happened, even though Logan cleared my exit, I stil couldn't drive away.

'Darina, you have a visitor,' Jim told me from the porch before I could ease into gear.

There was a stranger holding a bunch of flowers standing next to him and it took me some time to remember where I'd seen him before. It didn't click until he stepped out of the shadows and I made out his skinny frame and slicked-back grey hair. It was the gardener guy from the Taylors' place. Anyone else, and I would have made my excuses and left.

Peter the gardener recognized me at about the same moment. I saw him blink and swal ow. Then he kept on coming down the drive. 'Peter Hal ,' he introduced himself through the driver's window. 'I came to say thanks.'

'For what?' I was thinking along the lines of Raven Taylor and the screwed-up drawing and the kid's scared eyes.

'For bringing my wife, Jenna, off the mountain earlier today. Without you, the incident could have turned nasty.'

We went into the house. Laura put the lilies in a vase, then she and Jim left me alone to speak with Peter.

'I had no idea she was your wife,' I told him.

'Thank you anyway,' he told me. 'I just came from the hospital. The

doctors want to keep her there for a couple of days. They need to wait until the trauma subsides before they decide what to do next - maybe surgery, maybe not. Plus, Jenna's pretty shaken tip so they sedated her.'

'She's going to be OK?' I asked.

'Sure. She wanted me to say thanks.'

'It's weird that we already met,' I reminded him.

He chose not to fol ow this up. 'I have to go. I need to pick up Jenna's 70

horse trailer from Foxton.' Peter Hal cut the conversation short by getting up to leave. 'So thank you, Darina.'

I fol owed him out of the house, glad anyway to be out of Laura's hearing. 'What took your wife and her riding buddies up there so early?' I asked.

'Some romantic notion about watching the sun come up over Amos Peak. They've been planning to do it al fal .'

'And look what happens when they do,' I sighed. 'Do they know what spooked Jenna's horse?'

'No clue,' Peter told me, heading for his truck which was parked further down the street. 'They say horses can see in the dark, so maybe they noticed something in the shadow of a rock coyote maybe. And the guy who was riding with them said there was a weird wind up there -

horses hate squal y weather, it drives them crazy.'

'Yeah, I guess that was it.' Relieved, standing between him and his vehicle, I stil had a long list of questions, not al connected with this morning's rescue. 'Do you want me to show you exactly where they parked the trailer?' I asked.

'No thanks. You've already helped plenty.' 'Real y it's no problem. I'd like to.'

'Jump in then,' he told me, not wanting to be impolite. Peter Hal was

a wel -brought-up guy, bringing homegrown lilies to say thank you and speaking with an educated accent. 'Do you need to tel your folks?' he asked.

I shook my head and climbed in the passenger side. 'Did you pick the

lfowers from the Taylors' garden?' I asked. 'Only, I remember seeing

pink lilies by their summer house.'

' No, these were from my place. Jenna likes to grow flowers. Do I turn left out of town?'

'At the next lights. Head for Turkey Shoot Ridge. How long have you worked for the Taylors?'

'Several years. Why?'

'No reason.' I sat quiet as we cruised out of town, past a smal

industrial park, through some run-down housing into the burn-out area. We hit the highway at around three-thirty in the afternoon.

It's time I ran into some luck. I thought, with Peter's radio playing 71

quietly in the background. If you could cal it luck that a woman fal s from her horse and brings me into contact with the one guy I know" gets up close and personal with Raven Taylor.

'So, Darina, are you a student at El erton High?' Peter asked me as we settled into our journey.

I nodded.

'And can I ask what brought you out to Foxton early today?'

I gave the old 'couldn't sleep' excuse. 'I like to drive,' I explained. 'I get in the car and try to get rid of my demons.'

Peter nodded like he understood. 'Lucky for Jenna you did.'

'You ought to know - I knew Arizona,' I told him quietly, jumping right in.

The radio gave us tomorrow's weather forecast. Peter Hal glanced at

me. 'It's almost a year now,' he said quietly. 'There was Jonas before her, and Summer and Phoenix since.'

Slight and skinny, wearing dark-blue jeans and a crisp pale-blue shirt

- the slim hands on the steering wheel didn't look like they'd spent forty years plus doing hard physical work. These were some of the things about

him that didn't add up.

The families are hit hard,' I commented. 'Mrs Madison doesn't leave the house much. And I saw Jonas's mom at Bob's wake. It's real bad for them.'

'I've been with the Taylors a long time,' he informed me. We'd driven past the giant neon crucifix on the hil - a marker I used every time I drove this road. We were ten minutes from the Foxton turn off. 'I miss that girl more than I can say.'

'You do? I mean, sure you do.' I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice, but Peter picked it up.

She was a complex kid hard to get to know,' he went on. But once you saw what went on behind that slick image she built up, she won you right over to her side.'

'I never knew her wel ,' I admitted. Slowly, slowly I was turning the

key and behind that door lay the real Arizona Taylor. * 1 don't know

anyone who did.'

'Hard on the outside, soft as honey on the inside. A sweet, sweet girl.'

Turn left at the lights,' I told him, swal owing niy surprise as we

came to the Foxton junction. 'Drive by the creek, past the fishermen's 72

shacks.'

You should've seen her take care of Raven,' Peter explained. 'She loved him like no one else did. The others - Frank and Al yson - they don't have the patience or the time. They don't have the heart. But

Arizona did.'

I shook my head in disbelief. 'So we can talk about Raven?'

Sure. You saw him in the summer house. What's the use pretending you didn't?'

I just thought-'

'No one speaks about Raven, huh? That's the way his parents want to play it.'

And Arizona, when she was alive the sane?'

He nodded. The entire family. With Frank and Al yson, it's out of some kind of shame, like he's a black mark against their name. That's mostly why they send him to residential school. But Arizona had different reasons - she thought silence was the best way to protect him. She didn't want people asking questions, upsetting him in that way.'

'And where do you come in?'

'I'm the part-time gardener,' he shot back. 'And bodyguard?'

'Gardener - period.' The track was getting rough, we came to a sharp bend and he put on the brakes. The back wheels spat up dirt. That is, until my contract with them runs out at the end of this month.'

'Then what?'

'Then the house gets sold and I lose my job.'

'Here's the horse trailer,' I said, 'right up ahead.'

I helped Peter hitch the trailer on to his truck, letting time pass before I pried some more. I decided I liked the guy - he was solid and straightforward, he didn't play mind games.

He put me in the driving seat of his truck and told me to reverse towards the trailer. ' OK, hold it there. I'm turning the lever that's cool.

Good, we're hitched. Want to drive?' he asked when he walked back to

the truck.

'I never towed a trailer before,' I admitted.

You look like you can handle it,' he told me with a grin. He jumped in the passenger side and advised me on the best way to ease forward on to the track. 'So did you get what you wanted out of your visit with

Frank?' 73

'No. I asked for music lessons but he turned me down.' I drove slowly along the creek side towards the main highway. 'Actual y, I didn't want to learn guitar,' I confessed. 'I'd heard stories about Arizona. I wanted to check them out.'

'What kind of stories?' For a second Peter's defences were back up.

'Some people are saying she didn't commit suicide out at Hartmann. That wasn't how it happened.' Was that a step too far? Would the hired

help total y clam up?

But no.

' I agree with them,' he told me with a ton of emotion behind his words. 'What reason did Arizona have to take her own life? Why in God's name would she leave Raven behind?'

'Exactly!' In my excitement I pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake and we shot the junction on to the freeway. Luckily the lights were green.

'She looked out for him,' Frank insisted. 'To tel you the truth, she

was a better mother to the boy than Al yson ever was.'

'Too interested in her career, huh?' I was back in control, coasting down towards Turkey Shoot.

'Not real y that. A lot of women have careers and a family, no

problem. No - with Al yson it's like she has no maternal instinct. It's a missing gene.'

'Frank Taylor doesn't come across as a warm, loving kind of guy either.' He was al brain and no heart, it seemed to me.

'Now you understand why Arizona stepped into the parenting role. And Jenna and I - we did what we could. Stil do, as long as we're able.'

I drove in silence for a while. A new question had wormed itself into my brain, but I shelved it for a while. 'What is it with Raven?' I asked instead.

'OK, so he has autism and they feel ashamed. But what's the bottom line why do they real y hide him away?'

'He needs a lot of care - medication and supervision twenty-four seven. Then there are his mood swings which can lead to self-harm. Plus, he suffers from hyperactivity. The only time he's calm is when he's drawing.'

'That sounds tough to handle. And does he understand much of what

goes on around him? Can he talk?' Arizona had told me he didn't even 74

know what a smile meant, remember.

'No speech,' Peter confirmed. 'But Arizona had a way of getting through to him. She was the only one who could.'

'He real y misses her?'

'Like crazy. When he's home from school, he walks from room to room, looking for her, wanting to show her his latest sketches.'

'And you?' There the question slithered out. 'Arizona meant more to you than you're tel ing me?'

Peter took a deep breath, overcame whatever doubts were stil lingering and forged ahead. 'Jenna and I - we're the parents of Frank's first wife, Kathryn.'

'You're Arizona's grandparents?' I gasped.

'It was tragic - Kathryn died giving birth to Arizona. She never knew her mother, so we did al we could to fil the gap.'

'I warned you she was too clever for you.' Hunter was himself again, stern and in control. He'd heard me coming after Peter had dropped me off at my house, where I'd picked up my car and headed straight back out to Foxton. The overlord had walked out of the barn to meet me.

'What you said was "subtle", not clever. I don't cal her lying and concealing a clever thing to do. Guess the latest - she has grandparents!'

He looked careful y at me. 'You're angry.'

'Of course I'm angry. Aren't you?' In fact, I half expected this to be my last discussion about Arizona with the leader of the Beautiful Dead.

'Tel me - is she out of here? Did you send her back to limbo?'

'Which answer do you want yes or no?'

'Yes, if she carries on lying to us. If it was down to me, I'd say goodbye, Arizona and move on to Summer.' Only there was Raven's future in the balance, and the remote chance that I could find out the truth