Beautiful Dead 04 - Phoenix

by Eden Maguire

  'The cops won't find us here,' Nathan said evenly. 'By the way, Robert, did you get Darina's cel phone?'

  Black grunted, pushed me back in the chair and went through my pockets. As soon as he found my phone, he switched it off, went to the door and pitched it away. I heard the splash as it landed then sank.

  'So spel it out - what exactly are we waiting for?' Hal insisted. He

  looked wired, clearing his throat and heading outside as Nathan sat in the other seat, legs sprawled.

  'My brother would like to meet Darina face to face,' Nathan said, giving me a nasty smile.

  Gritting my teeth, I stared past him at the expanse of smooth water

  visible through the doorway. In the distance I saw houses built into th124

  hil side and recognized them as the mil ion-dol ar Forest Lake homes advertised on the local TV station. The lakeside shack we were in was tucked away off the main road, probably used only by weekend fishermen.

  'You hear that, honey?' Black asked as he went to join Hal , who was retying the knot on his bandana as he leaned against my car. 'The boss wants to meet you. I guess he plans to get out of you why you went to the cops and got Nathan arrested.'

  'I didn't. It wasn't me.' When you're desperate, you lie. What else can you do?

  'Sure it was you,' Nathan cut in, tapping his foot against the floor and staring at me with those eyes that were slightly too big and round, sneering through the exaggerated Cupid's bow of his lips. 'You were rescuing Zak at the time, which by the way was a total y stupid idea. Zak's a Rohr he can take care of himself. And it turns out my brother has Zak in his sights anyway.

  I felt a fresh jolt of panic. ' No. Whatever you think I did - Zak wasn't

  involved.'

  'He is now,' Nathan told me, suddenly standing up and taking his phone out of his pocket. He turned his back and pressed a couple of buttons.

  'Hey, Oscar,' he said. 'We're ready for your visit.'

  This was the only chance I would get, I realized. Nathan's back was

  turned, Hal and Black were outside, so, with my hands stil tied behind my back, I sprang up from the chair and ran for the door, made it down the steps and began to sprint away from the cars towards the dirt track.

  I had roughly a three-second headstart before Nathan yel ed out a warning and Hal and Black saw where I was headed. They came hurtling after me and there was never any doubt that they would catch me.

  Hal was lighter and faster than Black. He grabbed the back of my shirt and flung me down, put a knee in my back and waited for his buddy to join us. Then the two of them lifted me from the ground and carried M(125 struggling back to the shack.

  'This is why we don't wait for Oscar,' Hal told Nathan, who stood in the doorway. His hooked arm stayed around my throat, while Black released my legs and set me upright roughly three metres from the water's edge.

  'My brother wil be here in thirty minutes,' Nathan promised. He'd

  started to look edgy, glancing down the dirt track and along the water's edge to check that there was no one nearby.

  'That's thirty minutes too long,' Hal grunted, keeping up the pressure on my throat.

  'I'm with Vince,' Black agreed. 'If we're going to do it, we do it now.'

  They were older than Nathan, they'd been round the block more times and Nathan knew it. 'OK, but you two get your story straight for Oscar,' he said, heading towards my car and jumping in. 'I don't want to know.'

  'Yeah, Nathan, you don't know anything,' Black mocked. 'What are you going to do with the convertible?'

  'I'l think of something.'

  'Drive it into the lake,' Hal told him. 'Then when they drag Darina's corpse out of the water, they'l figure it was an accident.'

  Hal 's arm was around my throat, my hands were tied and they were discussing my death. I had one of those whole-life-flashing-before-me moments - on vacation building sandcastles with my dad, starting high school, seeing Phoenix the first time he walked down the corridor. Time slowed down. I envisaged my drowned body floating to the surface in the

  dawn light.

  Nathan drove off without saying whether or not he would take their advice. Black stepped back in to help Hal , lifting me again and slinging me over one shoulder like a slab of meat then stepping into the shal ow water at the edge of the lake.

  I kicked out hard, crashing my foot into his ribs. He waded on through the reeds until the water reached his waist then he slid me from his should('?6 and tipped me on my back. I hit the water with an icy shock, sank under the surface, felt hands hold me down, looked up towards the glittering light. Pressing my lips tight together, clothes and hair floating around me, I kept on staring at the sun.

  They pushed me down deeper. I saw their shadowy shapes above me, blocking out the light. Then suddenly, without warning, they let me go. I tilted my head and rose to the surface, my face broke clear. I gasped and breathed again.

  And Phoenix was with me, surrounded by his halo of silver light, striking

  out at Black and throwing him backwards deeper into the lake then turning on Hal , who put his arms over his head in a futile attempt to protect himself. Phoenix reached out, raised him and hurled him onto the shore, ran after him and raised him again, sent him crashing to the ground where he lay senseless.

  But now Black was emerging from the water, staggering through the reeds, ready to throw himself at Phoenix from behind.

  Phoenix turned, his face expressionless. He caught Black in a ribcracking bear-hug and swung him around, crashed him down on the ground beside Hal . The two lay groaning and covered in mud, battered and broken by Phoenix's superhuman strength.

  He left them there and came back for me, lifted me out of the water and

  cradled me in his arms as he carried me to the shore. I felt the warmth of the sun on my skin, breathed clean air into my lungs. Arms around his neck, I clung to him as he strode away from the lake.

  'Believe me now,' Phoenix murmured as he drove me home in Nathan's old Chevrolet. His wet shirt clung to his chest and shoulders, water dripped onto his forehead and trickled down his cheeks. 'Thorne and his guys won't stop until they're certain you're not a threat.'

  'Yes, and you'l be there to save me,' I told him, refusing to admit how

  much my near-death experience had shaken me. Images of the sunlight quivering on the surface of the lake as I stared up from the depths stay( ;?

  7 with me, and I stil felt the pressure of Hal 's arm around my throat.

  Phoenix stopped the car on the hard shoulder. 'Not always,' he reminded me gently. 'What happens after tomorrow when I'm not here any more?'

  I shook my head and closed my eyes. 'Don't. I don't want to think about it.

  He sighed and shook his head. 'Face it, Darina. By Friday I'l be gone. The Thornes wil stil be here and they'l want to get even.'

  Forcing myself to look at him, I put on a brave face. 'But by then we'l have got to the truth. We'l know the kil er and he'l be behind bars end of story.'

  ' Maybe,' he said softly, not wanting to stray right now into the doubts and fears he'd already revealed. 'Maybe not.'

  'We wil . The more I get into this, the more I have Nathan as prime suspect. Right from the start, when Brandon put him there in the middle of things, I've had a creepy feeling.'

  'The kid's a sleaze bal ,' Phoenix admitted, stil non-committal.

  'And he has an army of older guys stopping us from finding out the truth

  - Oscar, Black and Hal for starters. They al know he's guilty.'

  'That's my point.' Frustrated, Phoenix did go back to his old argument. 'That's exactly my point! They know, but they set up a barrier that no one can get through.'

  'So I go to Sheriff Kors,' I decided. 'I tel him they kidnapped me.'

  'No!' The strength of his reaction surprised me and he fixed me with his stare. 'If they arrest those four, you're safe for maybe twenty-four hours. After that, the entire drugs cartel this side of the Rockies comes after you.'

&nbs
p; 'Because I break the supply chain?'

  'Yeah, you got it. So no arrests, OK?'

  'OK.' I couldn't argue - I didn't have the heart. 'Stop looking at me lik!28 that, Phoenix. Just drive.'

  Reluctantly he put the car into gear. 'Dean wants me back at Foxton,' he told me as we drove past the fast-food joints on the El erton outskirts.

  Dean, not Hunter, I thought with a sharp pang of regret.

  'Dean does a good job,' Phoenix insisted. 'I'l discuss what just

  happened with him, get his reaction. I wish I didn't have to leave you,' he added softly.

  'I'l be OK,' I told him.

  'Al I want to do is take care of you.'

  'You just did, remember?' Trying for a brave smile, al I achieved was a tiny upward curl of my lips.

  Phoenix smiled back then kissed me. 'Darina, I love you more every moment that passes,' he whispered. 'How is that possible?'

  'Say that again!' I murmured, leaning in for another kiss.

  In the end it was Phoenix who pul ed away. 'Wil you promise me you'l

  stay safe until tomorrow? Go home, eat, take a shower then sleep.'

  I knew I would never be able to sleep or eat, but I gave in on staying home. 'I won't leave the house,' I promised. Please talk to ine, let me in! I pleaded silently.

  He looked sadly at me and I had a picture of him, a solitary figure standing on a smal , deserted island - a black rock surrounded by a sea of despair. He didn't even raise his hand to wave goodbye.

  Please!

  With a smal shake of his head he kept me out. And at this point, Darina

  - however hard it feels, if Dean decides you should step back from this whole deal, you'l agree?'

  And leave you drifting in eternal torment? Tears fil ed my eyes. I'd rather die.

  You won't have any choice,' Phoenix murmured. 'If the overlord says enough, Darina - you can't do any more, the Beautiful Dead wil simply wipe your memory and leave.'

  129

  'You're tel ing me you left your key in the ignition?' This was Jim's eyepopping reaction when he heard my car had been stolen. It was Thursday morning, he was just back from an overnight trip fixing software for an outof-state winery.

  'You know what day this is, so go easy on her,' Laura warned. 'It's a mistake anyone could make.'

  Jim wasn't listening. 'Let me get this straight. You parked your car in the mal with the top down and the key in the ignition. You went shopping for shoes. When you got back, the car was gone.'

  'Yeah.' That was the story I'd given Laura the night before, when she got back from work, by which time I'd thrown my wet clothes in the washing machine and taken a shower. And I didn't even buy shoes. Dunib, huh?'

  Jim shook his head slowly in disbelief. 'Even for you, Darina.'

  'Listen, I don't care how it happened.' The night before, Laura had immediately picked up the fact that I was extra-fragile, put it down to the approaching anniversary and had held back from asking awkward questions. She'd taken on the job of cal ing the cops and reporting the theft.

  Now she moved in to protect me from my Stasi stepdad, al the time wiping at kitchen surfaces with an anti-bacterial cloth. ' So long as Darina wasn't in an

  accident, so long as she didn't get hurt - that's al I care about.'

  'Do you know how much that car is worth?' Jim asked, stil incredulous. 'And what are you going to do now? How wil you get by without transport? Do we even know if the insurance company wil cover it?'

  'I guess I can ask Brandon,' I mumbled. After Phoenix gets back to me with orders from the overlord. After I use Phoenix's last day on Earth to save my Beautiful Dead boyfriend from an eternity of doubt. Any second now I was expecting a message from Foxton.

  But it wouldn't come from the person who was at this moment pressin,30 the doorbel .

  'Who's that?' Jim shot me an accusing glance, as if the visit was connected with me and was bound to turn out bad.

  'So now I can see through doors!' I snapped back.

  Laura let out an exasperated grunt, put down her cloth and went to the door. She came back with Henry Jardine in uniform and holding up a set of car keys.

  He smiled at me. 'We recovered your vehicle, Darina.'

  'Good job, Henry!' Jim was quick with the compliments. 'You guys work fast. Where did you find it?'

  I was expecting an answer that involved Forest Lake and the whole car

  being submerged, waterlogged and total y ruined. That would be fine by me

  - the cops would build a theory around opportunist thieves who took the car for a joyride before dumping it in the lake. There would be no fingerprints, no clues, no danger of Oscar Thorne's brother being implicated. But no.

  'A security guy down on the Centennial industrial estate cal ed us early this morning. He was patrol ing a unit where they manufactured furniture

  before cheap imports drove them out of business.' Jardine had accepted

  Laura's silent offer of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.

  'I know the place,' my stepfather acknowledged. The Wonderful World of Wood - we bought a bed there in their closure sale.' Typical get-the-facts-straight Jim.

  My heart was sinking. Stupid, bad ass Nathan! Why didn't you just drive the freakin ' car into the lake, like Hal suggested?

  The security guard drove round the back of the building, saw signs of forced entry, stepped inside and found forty thousand dol ars' worth of stolen vehicle parked inside a disused warehouse.'

  'So who would do something that dumb?' Jim asked, while I hovered by the door, looking for a chance to leave.

  'Some low-IQ kid, huh?' So far Henry was enjoying himself. It isn't often a cop gets to deliver good news. 'Actual y, we got clear fingerprintt1

  from the steering wheel and they matched with a set we already have on file.'

  'Cool.' Jim stil approved.

  But now Henry Jardine's expression grew more guarded. 'At six o'clock this morning we were knocking on the door of Nathan Thorne, with an order for his arrest.'

  For me, the information was like the gates of the underworld opening up

  and letting out a pack of Oscar Thorne hel hounds. They would be at me

  again, dragging me down and tearing at my throat, and this time I got the sense that I wouldn't escape.

  Laura picked up on my unease and came to stand next to me.

  'We were out of luck - Nathan wasn't home,' Jardine conceded. 'He shares the house with his brother, Oscar, who wasn't happy about letting us in. We ignored him and tore the place apart - Nathan definitely did a

  disappearing act.'

  'But you're stil out there looking for him?' Laura checked. 'And you'l tel us the minute you find him?'

  'We'l do that for sure.' Jardine sipped his coffee and steered us back to what he thought was total y positive news. 'This time we found a whole stash of Class A drugs in Nathan's room, measured out and ready to sel on the street,' he continued. 'We already built a case of il egal possession against the kid. After this the charge sheet wil read like an entire book.'

  Jim nodded. 'I heard from Russel Bishop that Sheriff Kors was poised to clean up this town seems he was right.'

  'Not only that,' Jardine confided, enjoying himself again. 'We found other prints besides Darina's on the car door, and again we came up with a clear match.'

  Laura saw I was shaking so much she actual y took my hand and held it. 'Are you going to give us names?' she asked.

  'Yeah they belong to two guys we've been gathering evidence on for a couple of years.' The deputy sheriff was torn between the official line of not giving out classified information and the human temptation to share. 'They're definitely in the frame for a serious traffic offence involving t1h232

  death of a member of the county sheriff's police department.'

  By this time I felt so wound up and nauseous that I was hardly hearing

  what was said.

  'Dean Dawson at Amos Peak,' Memory Man Jim recal ed swiftly. 'You found those g
uys' prints on Darina's car?'

  'Yeah, and at seven a.m. we sent teams out to pul them in. This time it worked out.'

  'Cool,' Jim said, while Laura held on to my hand.

  'Robert Black and Vincent Hal ,' Jardine said with slow, steady

  emphasis, staring right at me. 'Right now they're safe behind bars in the sheriff's office and no way wil we unlock the door before they go before the judge.'

  I didn't get my car back right away - the scene-of-crime officers held it to take pictures and consolidate their evidence - so I set out for Centre Point on foot, planning to bring Zak into the loop so he knew Nathan was stil on the loose mad, bad and dangerous as could be.

  I wanted to warn Zak to be on his guard but I hadn't reached the end of

  my street before I felt Laura draw up onto the sidewalk beside me.

  'Where are you going?' she leaned out and asked.

  'Nowhere. Just walking.'

  'Why don't you stay home?'

  'Because!' I muttered, guessing Laura was on her way to work and didn't have time for a long heart-to-heart.

  'I don't want you out on the streets not until Henry tel s us that they've got Nathan Thorne.'

  I nodded and crouched beside her car. 'OK, I'l go visit Zoey, or Hannah

  - whoever's home. I'l take care.'

  'Let me drive you there,' she begged. 'No, Mom it's cool.'

  'Then you get behind the wheel,' she decided, making me step back as she got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. 'You drive me to work and keep the car for the day. That way I can breathe a little easier.' 133

  'Deal,' I agreed. I drove to the mal , dropped her off outside the clothing shop where she worked, said goodbye and doubled back in the direction of

  Michael Rohr's place.

  So I'd parked Laura's dark-blue saloon near to the tower block entrance,

  next to an old black Chevrolet and walked as far as the elevator shaft, pressing the button for the second floor before I realized the significance of

  .

  old black Chevrolet'. My stomach flipped, and when the elevator whined

  and the doors slid open I was expecting to see Nathan Thorne walk out with