When the bike turned into the Henare residence, I knew it was Riki. I didn’t need to see him take off his helmet, but I picked up my binoculars and watched nonetheless. As I’d watched as a teenager, fascinated by the older boy’s life. He didn’t open up the garage, instead parking in the drive and taking off his helmet. He just sat there for long moments, his head lifted up to allow the rain to hit his face and wash down his neck.
His passenger, in contrast, ran over to the dry area shadowed by the front of the house and took off her helmet. Wild black curls tumbled out over her back to kiss her butt. She was laughing and holding out her arms, her face golden brown with finely pointed features. A feline kind of face but the cute type rather than the slinkier version.
Riki finally walked over to wrap her up in his arms and lay a kiss on her.
It was hot and heavy and worthy of a romance movie.
It was also unadulterated bullshit.
I headed back to my desk. I had to think about this. And I did my best thinking at the computer. My phone rang just as I sat down.
“It’s not good,” Gigi said, “it’s fucking great! You’re going to make me rich. I’ve sent it to Finch.” She hung up.
Ego buoyed, I returned to my writing, but all the while, my mind was working on another problem altogether. When Shanti knocked on the door to ask if I wanted to join everyone for dinner, I was deep in the book, but I nodded.
My stomach reminded me that—despite getting pixie girl to carry up the sandwiches—all I’d eaten that day was cake, fudge, and more sweets that I’d grabbed from the drawer. I also wanted to talk to my father. But when I got downstairs, it was to find him in no mood to talk.
“That detective and his sidekick came into my business and interrogated me,” he snarled when I entered the dining room—he was sitting alone while Shanti finished up in the kitchen. “Who do they think they are? I’ll have their badges.”
“They’re just doing their job.” I took my seat. “Don’t you want them to find Mum’s murderer?”
“It was whoever she was fucking.” Vicious words. “She played her games with him, too, and he lost it.”
Knowing I had only a short time until Pari was at the table, I ignored his poison, and said, “I just saw Riki with his new girlfriend. Gorgeous woman.”
My father cackled. “Girlfriend? I don’t think so. He’s a—” He cut himself off from spouting a no-doubt ugly word at the sound of small footsteps getting closer. “Don’t tell me he’s got you fooled?”
“You’re telling me he’s gay?” Pari had gone toward the kitchen, instead of coming into the dining room.
“Your precious mother was the first to figure it out. She saw him kissing some boy.” My father shrugged and took another sip of his whiskey. “I told her to forget it. Hemi’s a good man, doesn’t need that shit getting around.”
“We’re living in the twenty-first century. Riki would be open about it if he was gay—or he could be bi.”
“You taken your funny pills, boy? That family goes to church every Sunday and it’s not one of those modern churches where that kind of behavior is acceptable.”
I’d long known my father’s views on the topic of sexuality and what was “acceptable.” I didn’t bother to argue with him anymore; it was a waste of time and energy. But he’d given me the information I’d needed: confirmation of my own memory.
33
I’d been in the forest one night when I was eighteen, walking the trails by the light of the moon. It wasn’t safe to venture into the green in such low light, but I’d needed to be away from this house and that particular area behind our property was a familiar one.
I hadn’t meant to creep up on Riki and his boyfriend.
He hadn’t seen me. I’d turned quietly around the instant I realized what was going on, and never said anything about it—it was none of my business. But things had changed. My mother was dead, had been dead for ten long years, and Riki had a powerful motive. And he’d displayed such an absolute lack of sympathy that it had come across as disturbing.
I had no boundaries on this point. Whatever it took, I’d do.
But I wasn’t asshole enough to do it in front of his girlfriend. Instead, after dinner, I messaged him on the old number I had in my contacts. If he’d gotten a new one, the message would go nowhere and do no harm. It just said:
Meet you by the tree where you carved R x S. Midnight.
Given that I’d changed my own number since we were teenagers, he’d have no way to know the identity of the sender.
I didn’t receive a reply, but I wasn’t expecting one. He’d either be there or not. Now, I just had to stay awake long enough to meet him. The accident had really taken it out of me; I used to be able to stay awake till three in the morning, then get up at eight and be fully functional.
“Ari, why are you awake so late?” A waft of perfume as my mother leaned down to kiss me on the head, champagne on her breath.
“Why are you awake so late, Mum?”
Laughter as she twirled in her dazzling blue cocktail dress, her heels hooked on her fingers and her feet bare. “I’ve been dancing, mera pyara beta. Your father’s stuffy function had excellent music. No bhangra but needs must.”
I looked at the doorway through which she’d disappeared, singing and happy. She’d been capricious and loving and often bitchy, but she hadn’t deserved to be left to turn to bones in the forest. To be murdered and forgotten.
“Bhaiya.” A smaller body in the doorway, Pari hugging her childhood blankie.
“Hey, Twinkles.” I took in her face as I spoke the nickname she loved. She’d been wan at dinner, but we hadn’t really had a chance to talk. “Still feeling bad?”
A small nod before she came over to lean against me. As I looked down at her head, I wondered what she saw in me. I was a selfish arrogant asshole, a real chip off the old block. “You want a story?”
Smile breaking out over her face, she ran over to jump into my bed.
I walked across far more slowly, sat down on the edge, while she snuggled under her blankie. “I’m ready.”
And so continued the story of Pari, the Warrior Queen. The story had nothing to do with blood and gore and everything to do with what would make a particular young girl happy—because Pari was too gentle for swords and glory. And so this warrior queen fought with kindness and empathy, of which I had little inside me.
She fell asleep with a smile on her face, and I pulled my own blanket over her worn and holey blankie. I usually carried her to bed when she fell asleep in mine, but that wasn’t going to happen today. I’d crash on the wide couch in my lounge area—when and if I slept this night. For now, I went back to my manuscript.
A throat needed to be slit in the new chapter, blood coating the protagonist in a hot gush.
At 11 p.m., the house quiet around me, I made my way to the upstairs guest bathroom. It boasted a large window above the sink. That window offered a direct view of the only real entrance to the walking trail that led to the spot where I’d asked Riki to meet me.
“Do you really think this is a good idea, Ari?” My mother’s ghost sat on the edge of the bath, wearing a glittering silver dress that fell around her like sparkling water. “Hemi’s beta is a trained killer now.”
I stared at the apparition so vivid and alive. “Great, now I’m hallucinating.” At least I knew it was a hallucination. “Yeah, I have been rethinking my choices.” Riki could break my neck and dump my body and no one would be the wiser. Just another Rai left out in the bush. “But I have to know.”
No answer, the silver apparition gone as mysteriously as she’d appeared.
I waited till midnight to leave the house. If Riki was coming, he’d do so early, scout out the situation. He’d already be waiting at the site. Exiting via the back door, I began to make my way around the side of the house, my goal the back door of the Henare house. The door through which Riki would almost surely return to his hom
e.
An arm slammed up against my throat, cutting off my airway as I was wrenched back against a hard body. My crutches fell quietly to the grass.
“Did you think you could lead me around like a dog on a leash, you bastard?” Riki hissed in my ear. “Like mother, like son. Always spying on everyone.”
My lungs struggling, I pointed up.
He squeezed his arm even tighter. White lights flowered in front of my eyes. I thought this was it, one wrong move too many on the chessboard. Then the pressure was gone and I was falling, cold air rushing into my lungs.
“Fuck.” Riki caught me before I face-planted, and I managed to brace myself with one hand against the side of the house. He picked up my crutches as the blinking red light of the security camera looked on.
My father was paranoid these days. I’d never before considered that a plus.
I tried to keep my coughs quiet as I sucked in air and got myself steady on the crutches. Riki’s face was twisted with rage, but the fact he was showing me that face was a good sign. Surely if he’d come with murder in mind, he’d have covered up? Or perhaps my mother’s death hadn’t been a thing of calm calculation, but a crime of passion.
Could be it was Riki’s rage that directed his actions.
Shifting to lean my back against the side of the house, I said, “How did you know it was me?” It came out a rasp.
Hands fisted at his sides, he spat on the grass. “Did you forget who showed you those trails, you dickhead? Nobody else from this fucking Stepford place goes tramping in there.”
I used the excuse of coughing to cover up my shock—now that he’d triggered it, I could see the memory as clear as day. A younger Riki showing me the trail, and how it led to a waterfall that formed a small and safe swimming pool.
“Don’t tell anyone.” Holding out his hand. “It’s our secret.”
We’d shaken on it, and I hadn’t broken the promise.
All my clever plans, and my fucking brain was falling to pieces around me. “I saw you today. With the beautiful girl with the black curls.”
His jaw worked. “What the fuck do you want?”
“The same thing my mother wanted,” I said, in a fit of dangerous inspiration.
For a single frozen instant I thought he’d lunge at me, put his hands around my throat, camera be damned. Then he seemed to crumple in on himself, his eyes hot and wet. “I used to like Nina, do you believe that? That bitch. She crushed my mother’s heart.”
“You need two parties for a tango, Riki.” I wasn’t about to allow him to act as if his father was a shining beacon of purity when it came to the morals department. “Hemi was right there with her.”
Shoving his hands over his head, his leather jacket falling open to reveal a black T-shirt, Riki strode away, then back. “I wanted to kill him more than I did her. I despised her, but I hated him. I still do.” His voice trembled. “But my mother loves that piece of cheating shit, and so I pretend everything’s fine, because she doesn’t need any more pain in her life. She’s never done harm to anyone. All she’s ever done is try to help people.”
“Is that why you got the girlfriend?” Mrs. Henare was the most devout member of the family, a matriarch respected by their entire church community. “Lies won’t make you happy.”
Riki didn’t try to convince me he was bisexual and had just fallen for a female partner this time around. Even if I’d believed that, the simple truth that he was attracted to men at all would destroy his relationship with his mother.
Tia’s love came with conditions attached, too.
“What the fuck do you care? It’s my life.” He stabbed a finger into his chest. “What dirty little job do you want me to do? Newspapers say you’re a millionaire—you can afford to hire thugs for low-life shit. Or did you gamble it all away like my bastard father?”
I noted the information he’d inadvertently revealed. “What did my mother ask you to do?”
“Ask?” A laugh that was all broken edges. “You’re a writer—use the right word. She blackmailed me.”
“To do what?”
Dark eyes locked on me, a slight smile lighting his face. “You want to know, you drop this blackmail shit.”
“That’s not how it works. And that camera records audio, too. The facts won’t magically disappear if I do.”
The rage that twisted his face was a deadly thing and I knew I was on the verge of pushing him beyond his limits. “You won’t always be around cameras.” A quiet threat as he moved out of range of the security system.
It was too late. “I’ll always have this recording, as well as the photos I took when I was a teenager. I disappear, the police check my safety-deposit box and the photos eventually leak. The end.”
When his shoulders slumped, I felt like the worst kind of slime. Empathy was hardly my strong suit, but I’d never before sunk this low. Bones, I reminded myself. My mother is nothing but bones. And Riki had hated her with every ounce of his being.
“She wanted me to beat up Cora,” Riki whispered so quietly that I had to step closer to hear him. “For the first thing.” He dropped his head. “She said she’d tell me later when other stuff came up.” His eyes were shiny when he looked up. “What the fuck, Aarav? I liked her, and she did that to me, turned me into her pet thug.”
Nausea twisted my stomach. I couldn’t turn that around, couldn’t make my mother into a better person. “Why? Why did she want you to beat up Cora?”
“I have no fucking idea. She said, ‘Don’t worry your pretty head about it. Just hurt her without doing major permanent damage—but make sure you shatter her left hand. And don’t get caught.’ So I put on dark clothing, pulled on a balaclava, and crossed all my moral lines.”
Cora’s hand had never quite healed right.
“My mother sent her flowers on behalf of the family,” Riki whispered. “She was incensed—what kind of man beats on a defenseless woman, she kept saying.” He sat down on the grass, his arms on his knees and tears in his voice. “Who do you want me to hurt?”
“You had a ton of motive to kill my mother.”
A bark of laughter, his cheeks wet when he lifted his head. “You know why this is like a fucking nightmare on repeat? She had video, too, something she said would come out if anything happened to her.” His eyes narrowed. “Never did though, so maybe I should kill you and take my chances.”
I thought quickly. “She hid it in my stuff. I already knew you were gay, and you were my friend, so I didn’t see the point in doing anything with the information.”
“Guess we’re not friends now.” His face was without expression. “Does it feel good to have another man’s balls in your hand, where you can twist and twist?”
“All I care about is finding out who killed my mother.” Unable to stay upright any longer, I moved over to the air-conditioning unit and sat down on top, hoping it’d hold my weight. It did. “Where was your father the night my mother disappeared?”
“I might hate him, but I won’t let you destroy him because you’re on some fucked-up vengeance trip.”
“I don’t want a scapegoat. I want the person who murdered her.”
“Then look elsewhere. Dad was at a function at SkyCity that night, together with Mum. Something to do with the Mahi Awards.”
The awards were an annual celebration of Māori achievement widely covered by the media. Kahu had been nominated more than once, so I knew the awards also had a website, complete with a public archive of photos from previous events. Hemi’s alibi would be easy enough to confirm.
As I sat there in the cold, I asked myself if the information gained had been worth making an enemy out of Riki.
Yes.
Did I feel like shit?
Surprisingly, yes. Maybe because he’d been kind to the lonely kid I’d once been.
Or maybe I wasn’t as dead inside as I believed.
It didn’t matter. My mother was still just bones.
Transcr
ipt
Session #8
“No family talk today. I’ve had enough.”
“As you like, but I do think we’re at a critical stage.”
“I feel like the walls are shutting in on me, suffocating me until I can’t breathe.”
“Is it because of the memories? You mentioned certain buried ones had begun to resurface.”
[No answer]
“I know it’s scary and painful, but you’re so close. It may take us months to reach this stage again if you take a step back now.”
“Don’t you fucking understand? I don’t want to see! I don’t want to know!”
34
I saw Isaac early the next morning, while I was out for a “walk” in the main drive. Either the lanky male didn’t see my raised hand or he was ignoring me. He banged his car door hard as he got into his white SUV, then reversed in a skid of tires before racing out of the Cul-de-Sac.
Someone whistled nearby. “Wife number five in the wings, you think?”
I shifted to see that Veda had walked up to me. Despite the fact it was still morning-dark, she was already in a suit of pinstriped black and fashionable spiked heels that put her an inch over my height. She’d placed her hair in a crisp coil at the back of her head, but hadn’t yet put on her usual makeup. “Why do you bother with makeup, Veda? Your skin is flawless.”
She blinked before a faint hint of color tinged her cheeks. “You did grow up into a charmer, didn’t you?” But the way her lips were tugging up, I knew she was pleased by the compliment. “Look, Aarav, I came to apologize.” She locked those bright blue eyes on me. “Brett shouldn’t have gone off on you like that—our beef is with your father, not you, and he realizes that. He was just overwrought. He did love Rex.”
Quiet in Her Bones Page 18
