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 home.
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