Beautiful Dead 3: Summer Read online

  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.

  I found a depressing number of young guys with unhealthy loner habits and an even weirder interest in firearms – random shootings in malls, schools and colleges were nationwide and all too frequent. Usually though, the gunman martyred himself in the crossfire from a hail of bullets, which cut back big time on possible live suspects for the Summer homicide. I found only one other in the past two years where enough elements were similar – a shooting at yet another mall in New Jersey, where again the killer drove clean away.

  It was something, but I knew Hunter would still want more, so I was glad of the interruption when Logan knocked on my front door and I went to let him in.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, making himself cosy at my kitchen table, just like the old days.

  ‘Hey.’ I got him a Coke from the fridge and sat down opposite. We dived straight into discussing details of the concert, then pretty soon strayed into less safe territory.

  ‘Summer should be here,’ I sighed, after Logan told me he was now note perfect on his solo. ‘We’re celebrating her music, her words – all we need is for her to be still with us.’

  Logan took my hand across the table and I let him. He didn’t say anything. His hand felt broad and warm and comforting.

  ‘Did you know Laura sent me to see a therapist,’ I told him suddenly.

  Logan shook his head. ‘How is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Cool. Her name is Kim Reiss. I like her. I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

  ‘Why? Haven’t we known each other for ever?’

  I nodded. You’ll think I’m crazy.’

  ‘So what’s new?’

  ‘Thanks, Logan! I sit in my therapist’s yellow room on her leather couch and stuff comes pouring out – how I feel my life’s spinning out of control, how I’ll never reach where I want to be, somewhere safe with people I love.’

  ‘That’s not crazy. We all want that,’ he said quietly, still holding my hand across the table.

  I had known him for ever, which is why I went too far along this route. ‘It started when my dad left home. I don’t understand – how could anyone do that, break up a family that way?’

  ‘I hear you. You were twelve years old.’

  ‘So how come I couldn’t stop him? Didn’t he love me? Well, I guess not, or he’d stay in touch. I don’t hear from him, did you know?’

  ‘Maybe it’s too hard for him.’

  ‘Too hard?’ Disbelief didn’t cover my reaction. I stared at Logan as if he was the one who’d done the deserting.

  ‘Some guys can’t do it – the visiting, the saying goodbye each time.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘So again – why did he leave in the first place? I was twelve, for chrissake. And now Phoenix – gone!’ I made a sudden swerve into the red danger lane.

  ‘Don’t cry.’ Logan stayed where he was, except he put his other hand over mine. ‘Darina, don’t.’

  ‘You know the problem? I’m left wanting what I know I can’t have. That’s what hurts. Happy families, Darina? No chance. Staying with the guy you love? Sorry, not in your script. Tell me, Logan – what happened to the future Phoenix and I had together?’

  ‘All your dreams got shattered,’ Logan whispered. ‘One minute he was there, the next he was gone.’

  I was sobbing now. ‘It’s not that simple,’ I wanted to tell him. ‘I have to tell you – Phoenix came back from beyond the grave. He’s out at Foxton with Summer right now right this second. They’re the Beautiful Dead!’

  But Hunter sent in the storm troopers. The kitchen door blew open and slammed against the wall. I was blasted by an army of beating wings, which Logan couldn’t hear, and by a bank of death heads building up in the room, black eye sockets gaping, teeth grinning, sweeping down on me until I almost suffocated.

  Logan got up quickly to shut the door.

  ‘No, no!’ I pleaded, getting to my feet and stumbling out on to the porch. The skulls were smothering me. I was hyperventilating, putting my arms over my head to protect myself.

  Logan came after me and grabbed hold of me. He held me tight until the panic was over. ‘I’m here for you,’ he promised. ‘I won’t ever let you down.’

  That Friday I talked to Kim about my father. ‘He left us for a woman named Karli Hamilton. Laura says she was the Barbie type. How shallow is that?’

  ‘It’s all about loss,’ Kim told me. ‘What you’re going through right now with Phoenix and Summer, what happened with your father – the emotion you’re dealing with on all these occasions is grief.’

  Phoenix! After the death-head warning of Wednesday, alarm bells rang and I stayed well away from that topic.

  Instead Kim and I talked through my early, preteenaged trauma and I came out believing maybe I wasn’t responsible for my dad dumping me and Laura, which in some weird way had gotten etched into my brain right from the start. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ Kim told me clearly. And with that weight off my shoulders I left her office feeling lighter, a little easier in my mind.

  After the session I was heading straight into school for an afternoon rehearsal but I got diverted because while I was driving through town I saw Zak Rohr hanging out with a couple of older kids outside the gas station where Phoenix had died. I pulled right over and leaned out.

  ‘Why aren’t you in school?’ I asked him, sounding like Jim’n’Laura and with Phoenix’s words ringing in my ears – ‘Zak needs all the help he can get.’

  Zak shot me a look of contempt. His buddies made nasty signals in my direction.

  ‘Get in the car,’ I told him. ‘We need to talk.’

  I guess Zak was partly swayed by the temptation of a ride in my shiny red car. He hesitated and tried not to lose face, but a couple of seconds later he was opening the passenger door and sliding on to the cream leather seat. ‘Cradle snatcher!’ his buddies jeered at me as I drove off. Einsteins they were not.

  ‘So, did you start any more fires lately?’ My idea as I drove Zak out of town was to get down to basics.

  He turned down the corners of his mouth then slouched further down into the deep seat. ‘Why did Brandon give you this car?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Because my old one broke.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So he looks after me, I guess.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because of Phoenix.’

  ‘Crap,’ Zak grunted. ‘Mom’s car broke. Brandon didn’t buy her a new convertible.’

  ‘He got this car from a guy he knows. I don’t know if money was involved – maybe the guy owed your brother a favour.’ We left the urban road and headed out to Hartmann Overlook where I knew we could park and continue our talk. It was good to leave the houses behind and
feel the wind in our hair.

  ‘Listen, Zak, I want to help you.’

  ‘Can you get the cops off my back?’ he demanded, assuming the familiar Rohr position of leaning back in the seat and resting his feet up on the dashboard. In fact though, when I looked closely he was no junior version of Phoenix. He had lighter hair and brown eyes and, at thirteen, he was still scrawny, with that awkward thinwrists-big-hands adolescent thing going on.

  ‘I can try,’ I told him. ‘Give me a name.’

  ‘Jardine. He’s deputy sheriff.’

  I made a mental note and carried on. ‘Is he planning to charge you?’

  ‘Maybe. Jacob says they don’t have the evidence.’

  ‘Jacob is one of those guys back at the gas station?’

  Drawing his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket, Zak put them on to improve the match with Phoenix. It struck me that he was doing this on purpose – deliberately identifying with his dead big brother. I even had a suspicion that these were Phoenix’s own glasses. ‘Jacob set the fire. I stood by with Taylor and watched.’

  ‘Did you try to stop him?’

  Zak shrugged and waited for me to turn off the road at the overlook. Behind his shades and with his feet still up, he succeeded in looking downright unimpressed with the panoramic view of mountains and lake. He changed the subject, back to what interested him. ‘So Phoenix told Brandon to take care of you,’ he guessed.

  My heart missed a beat and I gripped the steering wheel. ‘Yeah,’ I admitted. ‘That’s pretty much the way it was.’

  ‘When he lay dying?’

  I winced, then nodded.

  ‘So Brandon doesn’t want you to be his girl?’

  I couldn’t help letting out a sudden yelp of laughter at Zak’s naivety. ‘Do I look like Brandon’s type?’ Brandon Rohr rode a Harley and wore fringed leathers. He never smiled or used words with more than two syllables.

  ‘Mom says yes. She figures Brandon wants to step into Phoenix’s shoes.’

  It was time for a deep breath. ‘Tell her no way. Brandon is so last century.’ I watched Zak’s lips curl upwards and a slow smile formed. ‘Wait until he hears what you just said!’

  ‘Yeah, tell him from me, just in case your mom’s theory is correct.’ That should kill any ideas Brandon might have. Again I switched topics. ‘So you miss Phoenix as much as I do, right?’

  ‘Every minute,’ he admitted, suddenly going young and vulnerable on me. ‘Without him around, my family is falling apart.’

  ‘So come and find me when you need to talk,’ I said at last. It was time to turn on the engine and get back on the road. ‘School’s over for the week. I’ll drive you home.’

  I made the rehearsal thirty minutes late, in time to sing my ‘Red Sky’ number with Hannah. Miss Jones reminded us all that we were only two weeks away from performing the concert on the anniversary of Summer’s death. Two weeks also for me to solve the murder.

  ‘Where were you?’ Jordan asked me as we sat watching the lighting guys work out cues for the big finale number. She told me I’d already missed the run-through of our ‘Invisible’ routine with Christian.

  ‘I was child-minding Zak Rohr. He cut school so I drove him home.’

  Jordan’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Didn’t you tell me that his mom zaps you with hate rays every time you go near?’

  ‘Yeah. But I feel responsible for Zak, don’t ask me why. Anyhow, I dropped him at the door and drove away before she had time to come out of the house. Did we persuade Miss Jones to add an extra performance?’ I was getting good at this sudden switch of focus, away from stuff I didn’t want to discuss.

  ‘She said no, it’s not appropriate because the afternoon is when Summer actually died,’ Jordan answered. ‘The same with the evening – people will want to mourn in private. We do one morning concert, period. The tickets are already sold out.’

  All tickets sold! Early on Saturday morning I clicked on to the angelvoice website and found that Jordan was right. Clicking again on the Comments and Reviews icon, I read that many of Summer’s fans were truly disappointed, including the fixated JakB guy who kept on popping up with his green skull icon.

  This sucks, he complained. I came online to buy my ticket as soon as I could raise the dough. But too late already. Is this what you do to a genuine fan? I love Summer Madison more than the whole world!!!

  Get a life! I thought, moving quickly on. A whole weekend opened up in front of me and I badly wanted to find something that would allow me out to Foxton again. I went back on to the Ellerton History of Violence site then followed it through to the Summer Madison shooting and made the link to the copycat situation in Florida, where I found some new information that surprised me. Venice Killings linked to Pennington tragedy, I read in an article from a New Jersey paper dated thirteenth April. Police investigators have compared the Florida shooting in June last year with an incident here in New Jersey on September fifteenth. The Pennington victim was also shot at close range in an apparently random attack. A police source confirms that other similar killings across America are now under close scrutiny.

  I scrolled back and made myself re-read every word. Was it enough? Could I drive out to the ridge and show Hunter the development? Wait – there was more. I clicked on to a follow-up article dated next day, April fourteenth.

  Venice Suspect Identified. The headline jumped off the screen at me. There was a name – Scott Fichtner – and a head-and-shoulders mugshot of a thin-faced, fair haired guy staring straight at the camera.

  I looked closely. Could it be the guy I’d seen at the mall, behind the aviator shades, beneath the baseball cap? He had the same thin face and long jaw, and he was the right kind of age.

  The newspaper told me that Scott Fichtner was a twenty-year-old college dropout born in Brooklyn who left home aged eighteen and went to study music at Miami State. He stayed until halfway through his first semester then disappeared from view. There was one conviction for underage drinking, another for a small-time drugs offence. Now, it seemed, the cops had enough evidence to link him with at least two homicides – Venice and Pennington – and to blast his photograph across the news media.

  OK, that was all I needed to know. I printed off the details plus the photograph and stuffed them in my pocket. I didn’t tell Jim where I was going – why break an ingrained habit? I was out of the house and in my car. It was ten in the morning and I was driving out to Foxton, determined this time to show Summer the picture and convince Hunter that Scott Fichtner was well and truly in the frame.

  I did all the right things. I kept to the speed limit through Centennial, I checked my mirror to make sure no one was following me. When I parked my car under the aspens on Foxton Ridge, I put it out of sight behind a rock. So I expected the last part of my journey to go smoothly. I would walk along the ridge until I reached the water tower, by which time the Beautiful Dead would have used their super-sensitive hearing to pick up my presence. Hunter would send someone up to meet me.

  Make it Phoenix! I said to myself, picturing another happy reunion under the midday sun.

  In spite of what had occurred last time, I wasn’t ready for what actually happened.

  First I heard the rustle of wind through the new leaves and felt it blow against my light shirt and through my hair. Like a fool I welcomed it and walked another ten paces. The wind picked up. It flattened the grass on the hillside leading down to the barn, making waves of movement that built up until it reached me and almost knocked me off my feet.

  ‘Hey!’ I cried. I raised my arms and yelled like a crazy girl down into the valley. ‘It’s me, Darina!’

  I guess the wind drowned me out. It grew stronger and turned again into my worst nightmare – the sound of wings battering my eardrums, rising to a monstrous roar even though I put my hands over my ears and begged for it to stop. Then the wings grew so loud they were inside my head, and the sky darkened and the death-head apparitions blocked out the sun.

  ‘It’s me!’ I yelled.
‘I’m alone. I have something to show you!’

  But it kept on coming, this heavy barrier beating me back, making me bend almost double as I tried to resist.

  Any stranger, any far-siders experiencing this for the first time would have caved in. The skull vision would have got inside their heads along with the beating wings. Reality would have dissolved, the dizzying nightmare would have taken over. This was how the Beautiful Dead preserved their secret life on Foxton Ridge.

  But I alone knew they were there and I refused to give in. At the risk of Hunter blasting my memory a second time, I would go on my hands and knees, I would crawl forward inch by inch all the way down that hill until I reached the house and the barn.

  The wings beat on and the skulls whirled. I tore my shirt on a thorn bush. When I reached the razor-wire fence, a gust of wind tore into me, throwing me sideways and over a ledge into a dry gulley.

  I landed hard on my back, staring up at a figure I didn’t recognize at first.

  ‘Hunter told you not to come back,’ a guy’s voice said, cold as ice.

  The legs straddled the gulley and the face was in shadow, but I knew it wasn’t Iceman, and it definitely wasn’t Phoenix. ‘Who is that? Is it you, Dean?’ I asked, trying to raise myself on one elbow.

  The new member of the Beautiful Dead reached forward and thrust me back down like I was vermin. He kept me pinned on my back by the force of his gaze alone. ‘It’s my job to keep far-siders out,’ he muttered.

  ‘Not me!’ I groaned, lying in the dirt. I knew it wasn’t worth trying to get up again until Dean decided to let me. ‘I’m on your side.’

  ‘I know that. But the order was to keep everyone out, you included.’

  ‘I don’t have time for this.’ I tried to push against Dean’s invisible hold, but again I fell back helpless. ‘Did Hunter mean me? Did he actually mention my name?’

  ‘You got it.’ The voice was flat and world weary, the shadowy face unreadable.

  ‘OK, so you did a good job, now let me get up.’ This was crazy; I was seriously angry. ‘I said, let me get up!’