Beautiful Dead 02 - Arizona (8 page)

I took a closer look at Logan's face. He felt me stare but didn't react. Sideways on, he looked more serious and mature, almost hot. I mean, he had good features and thick dark hair, a cool catch for some girl somewhere. * 1 want to check it out,' I explained. 'It's the last place Arizona went before she died.'

We'd had a fight in the car, me and Logan.

What is this - some kind of crazy mission?' he'd yel ed, pul ing off the road. He lost al his cool maturity and took a dive into stressed-out, I-know-best and stalker-guy role. 'First you obsess over Jonas. Then you

tel me you'l never get over Phoenix. Now it's Arizona. These guys are

dead, for Christ's sake!'

'I know it looks weird, Logan-'

This is wrong, Darina. It's not healthy.'

'So let me out of the car,' I'd said calmly. I'd opened the door and

continued on foot to Mike's Motors. I found it in a back lot - a workshop

squeezed between a container storage yard and an awning fabrication unit. The sign looked like it needed a repaint and the broken glass panel in the door was boarded over.

'Hey!' I cal ed.

There was no answer - just a heap of oily car innards on the concrete floor and a radio playing loud country music. The burned-out wrecks of two cars were stacked one on top of the other in a far corner. In the other I spotted Arizona's silver SUV.

I had to look twice and then a third time - the vehicle was covered in 55

dust and half hidden behind some other stuff, but I knew Arizona's registration plate and I recognized the neat black leather interior.

'You need something?' a deep voice asked, and I spun round to see Brandon's friend Kyle Keppler.

Kyle was so not Arizona's type - the thought hit home a second time, even more clearly than before. The car technician stood with his feet wide apart, big jawed, dirty, suspicious. Maybe the scrubs up, I told myself. 'Sure. I'm meeting my friend here,' I said to him.

Kyle tilted his head to one side, clearly scoring my tight jeans and T-

shirt and coming up with a possible nine out of ten not quite ful marks because I had no cleavage on show. 'And his name would be?' he asked.

'Logan Lavel e.' I said the first name that came into my head. Why

was Arizona's dusty SUV stil in the workshop? 'We met before,' I reminded Kyle. You were with Brandon Rohr.'

He nodded - one quick jerk of the head. 'There's no Logan Lavel e

here.'

'He didn't bring in his car for repair?' Take a look.'

'OK, I made a mistake. Sorry. What's with Arizona's car? Didn't her folks want it back?' I jumped in with both feet, because why not?

Kyle frowned. 'I said, Logan's not here.'

'I hear you. I just saw the SUV it kind of shocked me. Sorry again.'

Maybe I got through to him, or maybe he was stil admiring my skinny jeans.

'No problem. Actual y, Frank Taylor was happy to sel the car to my boss after Arizona ... you know ... passed. It needed some work.'

'Which is why she brought it here in the first place, I guess. Hey, it makes sense - you and she were an item. You work here. She'd bring it here for repair, why not?' But then she'd told me she didn't even know the name of the place, and that was clearly a lie.

Kyle's mood changed and he walked slowly and menacingly towards me. 'Did anyone tel you, your mouth could lead you into trouble?'

I backed towards the open door. 'It was only what Brandon told me. 56

You and Arizona-'

'Brandon's ful of crap,' Kyle muttered. 'What he said it was B. S.'

Tammy Wynette was pouring her heart out on the radio. Stand by your man, or don't stand by him I don't remember which.

I was confused and beginning to feel I'd stepped into a grimy paral el universe. 'You and Arizona, you weren't ... ?'

Kyle took a long, last look at me. 'What do you think?' he said,

slamming the workshop door behind me.

'I didn't have you down as a quitter, Darina.' My music teacher, Katie Jones, gave me a hard stare. I stood in the middle of a bunch of students who made up the music group. It included the usual suspects - Jordan, Hannah, Lucas and Logan. Around twelve of us had got together in early fal and planned a Christmas concert in memory of Summer Madison, El erton High's rising singing star. We missed Summer and her beautiful songs, and this would be our special way of respecting her.

'I don't have time to rehearse,' I explained. Or the focus or the desire.

'Her mind is on other things,' Logan muttered to Hannah. 'She's on her own secret mission.'

'To do what?' Scenting gossip, Hannah pricked up her ears.

'She's poking around Arizona's death. Darina's finger is on the selfdestruct button, you watch.'

I blocked them out and tried to focus on my disappointed professor.

'So who do we get to replace you this late in the semester? It's real y not fair of you to back out now.'

I sighed. 'You'l soon find someone who plays guitar better than me.'

'That sure won't be difficult,' Jordan murmured to Lucas.

And these are my so-cal ed friends. On the other hand, I was dumping them big time, so I total y got where their negative reactions were coming from.

Slowly Miss Jones walked me towards the door of the music studio. 'I had you down as a fighter, not a quitter,' she said quietly. 'Are you sure

you're OK?'

As OK as anyone else around here,' I mumbled, glancing over my

shoulder to see Logan deep in gossip with my on-off buddy, Hannah 57

Stoltmann.

Was I right to quit the concert? I went home and brooded.

This was already Friday, and since my visit to Mike's Motors had misfired, I was way down in the depths of despair. I can't hack this Arizona stuff: ran through my head like a funeral dirge. I don 't know what else I can do!

Friday evening was Laura and Jim's night at the movies so I had the house to myself. I skipped supper and checked out autism sites one more time. Autism disorder Infantile autism Fragile X syndrome epilepsy. I read that kids born with autism have feeding difficulties and they never

smile. They can rock back and forth in a chair and stare at their hands al day. This can happen to between three and six babies in every hundred, or

to 8.7 in every thousand, depending on which site you read. It may be down to rubel a during the first trimester of pregnancy or to wrong levels of serotonin in the brain - who real y knows? Anyway, this was over my head so I skipped these parts.

What I was interested in were the autistic kids with an outstanding ability - maybe ten per cent of sufferers. They may have amazing rote memory or musical ability, and there's one famous case in the UK where

the kid could take one glance at a building - their Houses of Parliament or our White House, say - put pencil to paper and reproduce the whole thing from memory. In the end, this kid's artwork got famous. They could be talking about Raven! I thought.

Mostly though, autism can be pure misery. No smiles, no speech. These kids don't look you in the eye, and because there may be other severe mental health issues they can be on a stack of medication their

whole lives.

So what do you do when life deals you a hand like that? I stopped scrol ing with the mouse and tried to imagine how the Taylors had coped after Al yson took him home in Jim's cab. Arizona had talked about

diagnoses and treatments, hospitals and schools. She'd also said her

parents didn't want to believe it had happened.

'I heard the baby wasn't healthy,' Jim had told me. It turned out he

was right and the parents had fal en into denial, as in: Let's keep the 58

il ness a secret and then maybe the problem wil go away.

Was I right? I would ask Arizona next time we met.

The thought took me away from my laptop to my bedroom window. I stared out at the clear sky. When wil next time be?Not until I'd found the facts behind the myth of Arizona's suicide - Hunter had made that crystal

clear. I closed my eyes and pictured the overlord's strong, severe features, the faded angel-wing tattoo on his forehead. And I remembered the story Phoenix had told about Hunter being shot through the temple at close range by the man who had just attempted to rape his wife, Marie.

I'm dying here! I told the mil ions of stars. I need to go up to Foxton Ridge, to find Phoenix and check he 's stil there.

'Give me one reason why I don't send you back to limbo - and this time for good.' Or words to that effect. It was Hunter again - folding his arms astride the patch of burned ground, his anger close to the surface. Even the memory of it scared me - the way the anger could blaze up and wipe out anyone in its path. Hunter was overlord and he had absolute power to hypnotize, read minds, even, as a total last resort, to cal those lost souls down to beat their wings and travel with him through time to the beginning or end of the world and beyond.

I trembled at the memory of my own time travel experience to nail

down Matt Fortune as Jonas's kil er, how I never felt such pain before and came back traumatized and exhausted. Which is why Hunter only did it after every other method had failed.

Overlord. Ruler of everything: Al -powerful Hunter.

Through the open window I felt a breath of cool breeze. The white drapes fluttered. When I turned around, Phoenix was standing in the room.

'Oh, thank God!' I flung myself into his arms, gripping the sleeves of his jacket, my head against his shoulder. *I didn't know - I was scared that ... '

'Me too.' He held me tight, pressing his lips against the top of my head.

'So scared,' I breathed. 'I didn't dare come back to Foxton. Is Hunter 59

stil mad with us?'

'He's been in a mean mood. He sent me and Lee up to Government Bridge to stand watch.'

'That's harsh.' Knowing the jealous feelings Phoenix had about Lee, knowing that Hunter would see the dynamics al too clearly. 'He certainly figured out how to hurt us.'

'We were tip there twenty-four seven.' Phoenix let go of me and stood back so he could see my face. 'I feel so bad, Darina. Lee's new to this, but he's able to read my thoughts pretty clearly. He saw what a crazy idiot I'd been.'

I managed a smal grin. 'Did he beat you up over it?'

'No, he was cool. He told me, if you'd been his girl, he'd have reacted the same way.'

'So I don't need to worry about two Beautiful Dead guys fighting over

me?'

'Lee's cool,' Phoenix insisted. He slid his arm around my waist and sat me on the bed beside him. 'Have you any idea how low the temperature drops out there late at night?'

'Now I'm crying for you!'

'You should be.'

We stopped talking and made up for al the ful -on kisses we'd missed out on lately. I fel into the moment, loving the pressure of his lips on mine, then on my cheeks and softly on my eyelids, deep in that floaty, unreal feeling you get ... when Phoenix slowly leaned back. 'You know something?'

'No what?'

'Those contractors at Government Bridge they're not even there any

more. It turns out the surveyor's new report said there was no need to

strengthen the bridge after al .'

'Al those nights out in the cold!' I laughed. This time our kisses were light-hearted: smile - kiss - smile - pucker lips for another kiss. 'And I bet Hunter knew that would happen - he was the one who played around with the surveyor's mental state, remember.'

Talking of mental states, I kept from puckering up long enough to tel Phoenix what I'd found out about Raven Taylor's il ness, plus how I'd been along to Mike's Motors, spotted Arizona's SUV and got booted out

by Kyle Keppler. 'So much weird stuff,' I said with a shake of my head. 60

'Arizona told me she didn't even know the name of the car repair place, but it turns out that's where her boyfriend works!'

Phoenix stretched out his legs and lay back on the bed. 'You want to know something else?'

I snuggled beside him, resting my arm across his chest. 'Do I? The

truth is, I wouldn't care if we didn't talk too much right now.'

He cupped his hand over my mouth and made me listen. 'It was earlier tonight - Hunter let me and Lee off the hook and said we could go back to the barn to rest up. That was OK by me. The first person I saw when I got back was Arizona. She was out in the meadow, standing under the

moon and stars, not looking at anything, not listening, like she wasn't real y there. She heard me but she didn't turn to look.'

'You think she was angry?' Maybe with me for failing to move forward.

'Not angry,' Phoenix murmured. 'More sad.'

'Sad?' I didn't connect the emotion with the Arizona I knew. 'Tears and al ?'

He gave a low laugh. 'We don't do tears.'

'Oh.' The Beautiful Dead didn't do heartbeats either. They were bloodless, cold and pale, and now I knew they couldn't weep either. 'Did you tune in and read what was going on inside her head?'

He propped himself against my pil ow and shrugged. 'Arizona's powers are strong,' he admitted. 'But until tonight in the meadow I didn't know how way ahead of me she is. I mean, I tried to tune in but there was a force there stopping me.'

'She blocked you so you couldn't do your telepathy thing?' I guessed

this was total y against the rules and wondered what Hunter would say.

'So then I reached out. I wanted to tel her it was OK, she wasn't in any danger, but she pushed me away and told me that yes she was in danger, and I should go ask Hunter about it.'

'So you did?' The story was getting through to me. I thought of

Arizona standing cold and alone in the meadow, of her pushing Phoenix away.

'OK, this is the real y weird part. I found Hunter in the house, up in

the bedroom, sitting with his head in his hands, ignoring me. I waited 61

until he was ready to look up. He asked me, "Phoenix, did anyone ever betray you?" and I said no, not that I know about.'

Phoenix's low voice ceased. I waited.

if it was possible, I'd say the guy had aged,' he went on. 'He stooped under a heavy weight; he looked confused.'