Beautiful Dead 02 - Arizona (11 page)

about what happened to his sister and get him to understand.

'Exactly.' Hunter read my thoughts. 'That's why we're here.'

'So you didn't send her back, even after what she did?' It was cold out here in the yard, and for once the moon was behind a dense bank of clouds. I shivered as I waited impatiently for Hunter's answer.

'I dealt with that,' he said slowly. 'From now on Arizona wil be 75

honest.'

'She'd better be, because I've got a lot of new stuff on her. For instance, these grandparents, Jenna and Peter Hal - they care about Raven. Arizona isn't the only one looking out for him.'

But Arizona heard they're leaving at the end of the month.' Hunter

and Arizona were ahead of me, as always. 'They're not blood relatives to Raven. Al yson Taylor won't grant them the right to carry on visiting.'

'Arizona told you that?'

He nodded. 'Since I last saw you, we reached a better understanding.'

'You forgave her?' For holding out, for chal enging his authority, for casting a shadow of doubt over the actions of his long-dead wife. I was stunned but I got my head together and pressed on. 'Did she say why she concealed al that stuff?'

He scratched his jaw. You have to admire her strength of mind,' he said without answering my question. 'She kept up that barrier for almost a year, even with me. No one got through it. That shows character.'

'But why?'

'Here she is,' Hunter said, stepping to one side so I could see Arizona in silhouette, standing in the barn doorway, backed by soft lamplight.

'You can ask her yourself.'

'I'm shocked Hunter didn't punish you,' I told Arizona as we walked the dark hil side.

'What makes you think I'm not punished?' She was slightly ahead of me, dressed in only a T-shirt and jeans. The wind blew her hair across her face.

You're stil here,' I pointed out.

'He cut back my time on the far side,' she said in a flat voice. 'I had two weeks, now I only have one.'

'Jeez!' I caught up with her so I could make out the expression on her face. 'Seven days to sort out the whole lousy mess.'

' Plus, he sent me back to the day it happened - to try and make me

remember more details. It hurt like hel .'

'Don't I know it? So he actual y time travel ed you. Did it work?'

Arizona shook her head. 'I got to the point on the day I died where I

was walking by the lake. I can stil see that in my head - the low sun, the 76

frost on the shore, the sparkling water. I wasn't alone, but I don't know

who was with me, and I was scared.'

'Then what?'

'Then there was a blast of fear pure terror a blur then a total blank. Hunter pul ed me out of there and dragged me back to the present. It felt like I was being torn apart. And al for nothing.'

We walked a while, keeping step. 'I guess Hunter knew that there'd be nothing new.'

'Like I say, he was punishing me. I relived it to a certain point, and for what?'

'For the chance to have this conversation with me,' I pointed out. 'It's truth time, Arizona, and I'm al ears.'

We sat under the water tower, leaning against its iron legs and surrounded by silence. I waited a long time for Arizona to begin.

'Picture this. It seems like al my life I'm living in a house with people who are in total denial. At first they pretend nothing is wrong with their darling baby boy. Raven won't feed and he won't hold eye contact, but

why worry? The au pair deals with the feeding problem while Dad and

Al yson go to work. Raven has seizures - they cal in the doctors, who convince them he'l grow out of it. They cal it petit mal, so it sounds fancy and everything's OK.'

'You knew it wasn't?'

'From the very start. He was only a smal baby when I first watched

him dig his nails into his own flesh. When he got teeth, he bit himself instead. He was so little and helpless. We both were.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be. I soon toughened up. I got to understand that helpless

wasn't a good place to be, so I began to throw in chal enges - "How

come you're not picking up on this? Why don't you make some real effort here?" But my dad and Al yson, they don't do il ness and disability.'

I broke in to tel her that I had, as a matter of fact, learned a lot of this from her grandfather. If she was shocked or ashamed, she hid it wel .

'You were a kid back then,' I pointed out. 'But Peter and Jenna - they were adults. They could see what was happening surely they cared.'

Arizona gave me one of her hard, dismissive glances. 'Everybody 77

cared,' she argued. 'But Al yson - she's the powerful one. She did things

her way. She said if my grandparents had any complaints about the way she was handling Raven's situation, they could leave.'

'Scary lady!'

'Archetypal wicked stepmother. And I was in her way.'

'I get that,' I muttered. (For Al yson in Arizona's situation, read Jim in mine.)

'So they packaged up Raven's condition with more fancy labels. One morning I woke up and he was gone.'

'Away to school?'

'Al yson was busy reading the news on TV, my dad was in Europe at a conference. That left the home-help to tel me the name of the school where they'd taken my brother - the Lindsey Institute. She said he'd be back eventual y.'

'Ouch. Peter said you were the only one who knew how to get through

to Raven. How did you do that?'

'I focused on what he's good at,' she explained, as if the answer was plain for anyone to see. 'He likes drawing.'

'So you drew?'

'Yeah, and I showed him pictures - sometimes photographs,

sometimes paintings. There's a big art gal ery in the city - I took him there. He likes Andy Warhol - the way he repeats silk-screen images over and over. Marilyn Monroe. Elizabeth Taylor. The soup cans.'

'I'l remember that,' I promised, shocked when my comment brought tears to her eyes. 'When this is over, I'l take him to see the Andy Warhols.'

Arizona broke down and cried. 'Without me there to protect him, they'l lock him up and throw away the key,' she wept. 'After the divorce, I know that's what they'l do!'

'Look,' I said, pul ing Raven's crumpled drawing from my pocket. I'd kept it there as the one concrete thing to hang on to. I unfolded it and gave it to her.

Her hands trembled as she studied every line of the sketch. 'Thank you,' she whispered over and over. 'Oh, Raven, poor baby. What's going to happen now?'

When the going is tough, you grow a tough shel to help you deal with

it - that's what I'd learned these last few hours. But then the drawing of a 78

house on a screwed-up piece of paper makes a crack in the shel and the light pours in. I saw a new Arizona one I wanted to help at last.

'So you have to tel me about Kyle Keppler,' I insisted as we walked under the aspens on Foxton Ridge. 'What do I need to know?'

She veered off the top of the ridge, down the dark side of the hil . It's

complicated.'

'How complicated? Listen you told me you didn't know the name of Mike Hamil 's repair shop, yet that's where your boyfriend works. So how come you kept that from me?'

'I didn't want Kyle to be implicated.'

'Official y he isn't, so you did a good job,' I muttered. 'And by the way, did you know that he's now denying you were ever his girl?' This obviously hurt her and I was sorry. 'Your car is stil in the workshop, so I was able to figure out a few things for myself.'

'That I did take it in for repair that day? That, afterwards, my dad and Al yson didn't care enough to want it back? Also, they hid al the photos and sent my clothes to the charity store. What else?'

'Both you and Kyle were covering up - I don't know what. Anyway, why did you need to keep his name out of it?'

'Because what we had our relationship was a secret.' 'Brandon Rohr knew,' I told her. ' He told me.'

Arizona slowed down, wrapped her hand around a slender tree trunk and gazed up at the dark canopy. 'Brandon swore to Kyle that he wouldn't. Kyle's his buddy, he trusted him.'

'Mistake! Even I don't trust Brandon, and he's Phoenix's brother, for Christ's sake. He dances to his own beat.'

Arizona swung around the tree trunk and we came face to face. 'Go ahead, give me some reasons why I wouldn't want people to know about me and Kyle.'

' Numero uno he's so not your type.' 'Wrong side of the tracks?'

I nodded. 'Plus, he's prehistoric.'

'Twenty-two,' she confirmed. 'And?'

'He's so not your parents' type either.' 'Would I see that as a problem?'

'OK, no. So now you tel me what else?' 79

'How about he already has a girlfriend?'

I groaned. 'Jeez, Arizona. Who is she?'

'Her name is Sable. She doesn't live in El erton.'

'Wait. Let me fil in the rest for myself. Sable is Kyle's girl - they're childhood sweethearts. He cheats on her and swears you to secrecy. But why would you agree?'

'I didn't know about Sable until after Kyle and I were an item. By that time I was hooked.'

'I don't see it, Arizona. Sure, Kyle is easy on the eye, but what else?'

'You mean, what did we talk about? Oh come on, Darina, when did talking become so necessary?'

'You may find this weird, but actual y talking is cool.' I was thinking of me and Phoenix, natural y. And I wasn't liking the way Arizona had started talking down to me again. 'You should try it some time.'

'OK, you're right. And when I met Kyle at a party in Centennial I was at a point when I real y needed someone to lean on. And I don't mean just physical y. We danced and we talked - yes actual y, he does do words of more than two syl ables.'

'Did you tel Kyle about Raven?' I asked the litmus question. If yes, then it had been true love.

'Eventual y I told him - we'd been together two months and I was feeling total y safe with him. That was when he opened up too and told me about Sable.'

'Thanks for that, Kyle!' I took on the sarcastic role for a change.

'Arizona, you needed that piece of information like a hole in the head.'

'Sable Jackson, the girl from Forest Lake.' Arizona closed her eyes at the memory. it turns out she and Kyle were engaged.'

'Oh God, Arizona!'

'I know stupid, huh? I should've walked away. But it gets worse.'

'How worse? Isn't this as bad as it gets?'

'Fast forward another couple of months. I'm stil into Kyle in every way. In spite of Sable, I escape from the house and spend every waking moment with him. I hang around after school outside Mike Hamil 's place, waiting for Kyle to get out of work. One day we drive out to Amos Peak to be alone. It's our favourite place, and that's where I put pressure 80

on him, give him an ultimatum and he tel s me he can't give Sable tip -

not ever.'

'Does he tel you why not?' I'm hating Kyle Keppler more every second.

'She's pregnant,' Arizona said with the longest sigh. 'It's going to be a Christmas baby. They set their wedding for the last week in October.'

'So now that baby is nine months old, maybe ten.' Suddenly I was out of my league and looking to Phoenix for advice. Arizona and I had come down from the ridge and Lee had taken Arizona into the house to talk again with Hunter. Phoenix had been given the order to see me safely home.

'Living where?' he asked as we reached my car.

'Out of town, in Forest Lake. I guess Kyle Keppler went ahead and married Sable around the time Arizona died.'

'And Arizona hid this stuff because she didn't want his name dragged

in. How does that fol ow?' Phoenix was assessing what I'd just told him, turning it around in his head. 'What was she doing protecting him?'

I nodded, suddenly struck by something. The way she protected Raven al those years. That's what Arizona does when she loves someone

- she builds a ring of silence around them.'

'But this puts Kyle in the right place - Mike's Motors, at the right time the afternoon Arizona drowned. Plus, he has a motive.'

'For kil ing her?' I popped my lips then breathed out sharply. 'Is that what we're looking at?'

'If it's not suicide, then it's murder.'

'Or an accident?' But then I remembered how Arizona had revisited the scene and felt someone was there, out at Hartmann, and how she'd felt a wave of fear. 'It sure feels like murder,' I agreed.

Phoenix hung his head, deep in thought. 'And this guy, Kyle - he sounds mean enough?'

'He hangs out with your brother, rides a Harley Dyna, stands around six feet four. That's al I know.'

'So don't go near him,' he begged, grabbing my hand. His voice grew urgent and intense. 'You hear me? Do what you have to do to help Arizona, but stay away from Kyle Keppler.'

81

The next day, Sunday, I was grounded.

Jim and Laura sat me down at the kitchen table and laid out the new

boundaries. It went like this:

Jim: Your mother and I have been talking. We want to straighten out a few things.

Me: Go ahead straighten.

Jim: We need an agreement from you that you won't leave the house at night.

Me: When you say 'night', what exactly are we saying? Would that be post-midnight, or post-10.00 p.m.? 8.00 p.m.? Earlier maybe?

Laura: Cut it out, Darina. Listen to what Jim has to say.

Jim: This is a dangerous town. Look at what happened to Summer. We ... your mom is crazy with worry. She needs to know where you are

- at school, at a friend's house, here in your room.

Me: That would be a twenty-four-seven curfew then?

Jim (grinding his teeth): We also need you to show more respect.

As soon as he introduced the 'R' word, he lost me. I went off into

wondering where Phoenix was and what Arizona was doing right now. I remembered the last flash of Beautiful Dead action I'd been involved with the night before.

It was Lee Stone who had broken up Phoenix's 'Keep away from Kyle

Keppler' speech. He'd run up the hil to tel Phoenix that Hunter needed

him right now, that there was a bunch of weekenders at the Government Bridge camping ground who had drunk too much alcohol and were planning a late night ghost-busting trip up to Foxton Ridge.