Pirongia's Secret E-Book

K T Bowes

• Herausgeber: K T Bowes
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

What if saving one friend will destroy another?
A sleepy rural settlement sits in the crook of Pirongia mountain, trapped in a time warp of indifference. But someone there is a killer. They walk the streets and eat in the local cafe. And they murdered a boy.

Four teenage friends bide their time until they can escape the back country, dreaming of a life together in the city. They cling to each other for security, creating their own fragile family in a hostile world. But two of them have a secret which will change everything.

And somebody else knows.

As alibis crumble and fingers point too close to home, Deleilah Dereham must find out who killed the boy on the mountain.

She must, or risk having her own secrets revealed.

Leseprobe

PIRONGIA’S SECRET

K T BOWES

Dedication

For Stitch and Pickle and Pudding.

Three great boys who must have surely become great men.

Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing now,

thank you for all the times you walked me home and made sure I survived the

gang warfare of the Manse estate unscathed.

Maybe there were safer routes home after all.

My father always said so.

You showed me how to stand up for myself.

You taught me how to roll a cigarette one handed, but never let me smoke.

You showed me that chivalry lived on.

You treated me like a princess, though nobody taught you how.

Go well, my friends.

I hope there’s still someone around to hold your jackets when you need to defend the meek.

CHAPTER ONE

Four loose cannons

“Don’t call her names, loser!” The tall boy shoved him in the shoulder, causing him to overbalance. The name-caller took a step backwards, yanking the girl’s ponytail in the process.

“Why?” He jutted his chin out and sneered. “She’s a slut. She’s doin’ all of youse at the same time. Or just one in particular!”

The girl’s lips parted in horror, but the tall boy moved before the words escaped her. “I’ll kill you!” he snapped and his fist shot out in a deadly left hook. The name-caller went down like a stone.

“Aw Tane!” A dark-haired teenager stepped forward and tugged on his friend’s sleeve. “That’s what he wants. He knows he can’t fight you, but he wants his mates to see he tried.”

Taller than any of the gathered crowd, Tane balled his fists and channelled his rage into giant bunched fingers. “I wanna kill him!” he growled and his friend nodded.

“I know, dude. We all do.” He aimed a feckless kick at the boy on the ground, contacting his outstretched leg. “Let’s go. We’ve got places to be and this ain’t it.”

Tane’s jaw worked in his face and he snatched up the girl’s slender hand, towing her behind him like a tiny trailer. “Kid kills me,” he grumbled. “I hate him.”

“Tane, stop!” They reached the other side of the playing field before she wrested her hand free with a protest. “You’re hurting me.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Tane stopped and released her wrist, an embarrassed blush touching his tanned cheeks. Blond hair stuck up at different angles on his head and a dusting of teenage whiskers coated his chin. “They can’t keep saying stuff about you, Leilah. It’s not right.”

She tossed her dark hair and shrugged, rubbing her right wrist with the fingers of her left hand. “I don’t care. It’s us against the world remember?” She widened her eyes in expectation, hope fading as Tane turned away. She appealed to their companion. “Tell him, Dante. Tell him I don’t care.” Escaped chestnut curls blew into her face and Leilah brushed them away in irritation. “Tell him, Dante!” she demanded.

Chiselled features graced Dante’s face beneath wavy hair which always behaved. Handsome and clean cut, he exuded the charisma every mother sought for her daughter’s perfect mate. Except for the company he kept in the form of his three unruly friends, including Leilah. That ruined the image. He rolled his head and cracked his neck. “Dude. Hater’s gonna hate. Leilah doesn’t care so let it go.”

Tane shook his head. “We’ve been friends for years. The fat kid, the foreigner, the foster kid and the female.” He gritted his teeth at the label. “Now Leilah’s grown up all gorgeous, it makes us a target.”

Leilah grinned. “You think I’m gorgeous?”

Dante laughed. “In a horsey girl, ripped jeans kinda way. Yeah Lei, you looked in the mirror lately? Everyone wants to date you. Ya just don’t notice.”

Leilah wrinkled her nose. “We don’t have mirrors at our house. Dad says they’re for vain people with nothing better to do.”

Dante belted out a laugh and helped Leilah over the stile into the paddock beyond the school grounds. “He just doesn’t wanna see his own ugly mug every morning.”

Leilah sniggered. “Yeah. I think you’re right.” She looked around her at the lush green grass and halted, listening for the sound of the river to her left. She caught the strains of its melody, birdsong and rushing water and felt the tension melt away from her body. “Where’s Vaughan?” she asked. “He said he’d be here yesterday, but didn’t show up.”

“Dunno.” Tane shrugged and caught her around the waist, swinging her in a wide circle. Leilah squealed and held onto his shoulders.

“Quit it you two!” Dante frowned and steadied Leila as she hit the ground and stumbled. His expression darkened. “I should go. Dad’s waiting. He needs help with some stuff.”

“Okay bro’, see ya.” Tane shot him a sympathetic glance but Dante waved it away. They watched his rigid spine as he staggered through the long grass. “He doesn't want to go home does he?”

Leilah shook her head. “No. It’s rotten how the whole town’s talking about his dad.” She hefted her bag onto her shoulder. “It makes a change for the gossips to start on me instead, but I don't mind if it takes the heat off him for a while.”

Tane smirked and sank into the grass on the edge of the riverbank. “That’s why I hit Malcolm. I figured if I made a big deal out of it, he might think it’s true.”

Leilah’s expression of misery wiped his smile away. “But if my dad hears that particular rumour, he'll kill me!”

Tane flopped onto his back. “He doesn't listen to the townsfolk. Anyway, he knows you’re better than that.”

“Thanks.” Leilah plucked a daisy and lifted it to her nose. “Wish I shared your confidence. He already hates Vaughan.”

Tane sighed. “Na, he hates Vaughan’s Uncle Horse. That’s different.” He rolled onto his ample stomach. “Why is that?”

“He won’t tell me.” Leilah snagged another daisy, punctured its stem and threaded the new one through. They wilted in the heat, but she persevered until she achieved a reasonable length chain. Leaning forward, she hung it around Tane’s head like a drooping crown. He lay on his front with his head cradled in his forearms and Leilah leaned closer, hearing the muted snores. She sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Great.”

Leaving the school bags next to Tane’s head, Leilah rose and followed the sounds of the bubbling river. It called to her, reminding her of stolen moments amid its icy folds. She ventured to the lower reaches of the bank and stripped off her school sandals, testing the water with her toes. A jolt shot up her body, involving every nerve ending and she bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. She tasted forbidden fruit for the first time in this water, sampling the delights adults wished to keep a secret. The evidence of her lost virginity washed downstream and Leilah hugged herself and wished for more. Her father’s best friend warned her of the dangers of sex, giving her a negative view. Mari’s eyes held sadness as she spoke the harsh words. “They love it, kōtiro but for us, it’s something we endure. Eventually they get too old and it stops.” The fiery Māori woman folded her arms across her breasts in challenge and Leilah nodded in her memory, believing every word.

With her bare toes in the running water, she grinned and hugged herself. “You’re wrong, Mari,” she whispered. “It’s amazing. You just weren’t doing it right.” Leilah inhaled the dusky aroma of native palms drifting down from the bush around Pirongia Mountain and imprinted the scent in her mind. She wished she could be seventeen forever.

“What are you doing?” Tane yawned and dropped the school bags with a thud. He bent to loosen his black sandals. His huge knuckles looked like skeletal outlines in the afternoon sunshine. “Is it cold?”

Leilah turned back to him with a grin. “You always ask the same question and I give the same answer every time.”

“It’s cold then,” Tane grumbled. He shivered as his toes contacted the stream and the water bounced around his hairy shins like an excited puppy. Staggering over the rounded stones of the riverbed, he reached for Leilah’s outstretched hand.

CHAPTER TWO

The Female

“Lei! Get up here!” Hector Dereham put his hands on his hips and glared at his daughter as she sauntered up the long, dusty driveway. “You been in that bloody stream again, girl?”

Leilah swallowed and touched her damp hair, bringing her fingers to her lips and tasting the sweetness of the mountain spring. “No,” she lied and watched her father’s woolly eyebrows narrow. “Yes.” She changed her answer and her footsteps slowed.

“Get a move on!” Hector left the round pen and started towards her, his frustration growing and Leilah walked even slower. Her school sandals scuffed the dust and blew a cloud of filth around her. Her fairy-sized steps shrank to a geriatric shuffle. The chestnut gelding housed in the round pen shook his head and blew out a snort. Seeing Hector move away from him, he scraped his hooves against the stony ground and let out a high whinny of concern. “You been messing with Horse’s boy?” Hector demanded, meeting Leilah at the top of the rise. His muscular bulk obliterated the tiny three-bedroom house behind him which hugged the side of the mountain. Leilah shifted her head to the side to peer around her father, reassuring herself it hadn’t slipped away.

“Still there,” she muttered to herself.

“What?” Hector stood in front of her, hands jammed into jeans pockets. A tuft of dark hair peeked over the third button of his shirt and Leilah smirked at the sight.

She jerked her chin at his chest. “You’re flashing.”

Hector’s eyes widened and he glanced down, his fingers fumbling at his buttons. “Don’t try to put me off, Deleilah. Some of us have worked harder than others today.”

Leilah nodded and glanced at the young horse in the pen. “How’s he doing? Did you get a saddle on him?”

Hector winced. “Yep. And I wanted to put you up there, but you didn’t come home.”

“I’m here now.” Leilah threw her school bag next to the metal gate and clambered onto the bottom rung. “I can do it.”

“Not today.” Hector removed his cowboy hat and scratched his dark curls. Leilah reached up and stroked the flecks of grey in his sideburns.

“I’m here, Daddy. Put me up.”

Hector’s brown eyes flickered and he released a sigh. “Mari brought dinner,” he said, tapping Leilah’s nose with a dusty index finger. “Aren’t you hungry?”

Leilah nodded. “Yeah, but I wanna ride for you.”

“Tomorrow.” Hector squeezed her shoulder and winced. “You’re wet, Lei. Promise you didn’t go with Horse’s boy to the ngā hikuawa?”

“No!” Leilah stepped back with exasperation in her eyes. “Vaughan didn’t come to school today. I went to the stream with Tane.”

Hector exhaled and nodded. “I suppose you’re safe enough with the policeman’s boy. You need to be careful at your age, girly. Boys get ideas in their heads and I don’t wanna be loading my gun to deal with ‘em. I don’t have the time with this gelding to break. He’ll help us pay some bills and maybe we’ll eat next month.”

Leilah rolled her eyes. “No, Daddy. I’m careful. You know I am.” She cocked her head. “Are we struggling?”

Hector Dereham smiled and shook his head. “No more than most, kōtiro. We do okay.”

“Sorry for coming home late.” Leilah’s nose twitched and she reached up with a damp index finger and scratched the line of freckles dotting the regal arc to her brow. “I’ll come straight home tomorrow.”

“You do that.” Hector clasped her around the waist and lifted her down. He cuffed the back of her head, his touch gentle. “Go heat up that food Mari left.”

“What is it tonight?” Leilah patted her flat stomach and her mind wandered through imagined culinary delights.

“Beef crock pot.” Hector raised an eyebrow at her instant pout. “It’s leftovers from the cafe. Be grateful, kid. If it’s left to me, we’ll both starve.”

Leilah sloped off towards the house. It clung to the side of Mount Pirongia as though the slightest tremble of the earth would tip it off. She dumped her school bag on the porch and kicked off her shoes, relaxing in the familiar scent of home. Signs of Mari lurked in the kitchen and Leilah patted the aged oven gloves on the counter. Her mother’s old friend often fed them when Hector forgot or money proved short. When the stained telephone trilled in its cradle on the wall, Leilah snatched it up and barked out a greeting.

“Where you been at?” Mari demanded, her voice crackling over the tenuous connection.

“Nowhere,” Leilah replied, her tone sullen.

“I put a boil up in the oven,” Mari said. “But youse need to turn on the heat or it won’t warm through.”

Leilah stretched the cord as far as she dared without pulling the whole thing off the plasterboard wall. She knew from experience she could just about reach the knobs on the old cooker. “Done,” she announced, pinging backwards with the force of the coiled cable.

“You seen Horse’s boy today?” Mari asked, her tone suspicious.

“No!” Leilah snapped. “I don’t know why youse all keep asking that. He wasn’t at school today.”

Mari made an odd sound in her throat and Leilah listened to the cafe sounds in the background. Someone clanked crockery and glass without care and she heard Mari’s irritated exhale. “He’s sick,” she said and Leilah stopped picking at loose paint on the wall.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Stomach,” Mari answered. “He went to the hospital, but he’s home now.”

Leilah pulled an ugly grimace into the cracked picture frame on the wall. “So why is everyone asking me if I’ve seen him then?” She pouted, disliking the effect on her features. “You and Hector are full of dumb questions. How can I see him at school if he’s at the hospital?”

“Don’t get mouthy with me, kōtiro!” Mari snapped. “Heat that dinner for your father. He’s worked hard on that horse today.”

Leilah moved her lips in a silent impression of Mari and sighed. “I turned the oven up,” she replied.

“Then don’t let it burn,” Mari grumbled. The handset fizzed as the call ended without a goodbye.

Leilah stuck her tongue out at the phone and a large hand on her shoulder made her jump in fright. “Don’t disrespect your elders,” Hector said and squeezed her neck between his giant fingers.

“Ouch!” Leilah protested and pushed his hand away.

“This is no good for you, Lei.” Hector sounded wistful as he twisted one of her long curls around his thumb. “You should have a mother.”

Leilah swallowed. “I have a father. It’s great just the two of us. We need no one else.”

Hector’s brows knitted and he nodded. “Maybe,” he whispered.

Leilah pressed her cheek against his hard chest muscles. “Please Hector. Don’t go all depressed on me.”

He sighed, ignoring her reversion to his Christian name and tapped the top of her head. “Where’s my kai?”

“In the oven. It’s cooking.” Leilah kissed his dusty shirt front and dropped her arms by her sides. He never met her embrace and it pained her. She dragged her school bag off the porch and closed the sliding door behind her. “I’ve got homework,” she said, shooting the comment over her shoulder and retreating to her tatty bedroom at the other end of the house.

CHAPTER THREE

Fear

The body in the water petrified her. Leilah watched the wispy tendrils of hair waft around its head against the steady pull of the current. She crouched by the water, her senses still raw from the stolen hour of passion. Her lover walked her to the boundary fence and left, his footfall heavy against the distance he must cover before home. His kisses left a warmth on her tender skin which the sight of the cadaver in the stream robbed with ease.

“What do I do?” Leilah whispered to the cool night air. She brushed a quivering hand across her forehead and peered into the water again, hoping the body had disappeared like a dream. It bobbed there, mimicking the action of a yellow boat tied to a pier. A sheen of terror coated her skin with dampness. She rose and peered through the darkness, knowing she wouldn’t see her lover’s retreating back. He left ages ago, stealing a last kiss before pinching her slender bottom with a snort of laughter. He didn’t know that Leilah had stayed out longer, enjoying the balmy night air and listening to the faint strains of distant thunder. He didn’t hear her strangled squeal at the sight of the dead body floating face down in the gully.

Leilah stood and clung to the fence to steady herself. Her hands shook. “Fingerprints!” she hissed, lifting her fingers from the wire. Her breath hitched in her chest. The consequences of sneaking out after dark hit her with full force. Many times during the summer of passion, her brain ran through scenarios of Hector discovering her immorality. In her mind’s eye, she saw him lift a gun and blow her lover’s face clean off his shoulders. Through all her worrying and stress, she never imagined this.

The hard ground promised to protect her. Grass scorched by the hot sun wouldn’t betray her footsteps from the copse of willow trees at the thickest part of the riverbank where she lay down an hour earlier. She wondered if they left any evidence of their tryst, the thought choking her.

A soft whinny rose on the breeze and the idea came, stealthy like a thief sneaking into her consciousness. Leilah pulled her skirt into place and readied herself. Her underwear felt damp and the familiar soreness comforted her. Hector couldn’t know about her nocturnal wanderings. Not now. Not ever.

Leilah put her plan into action. Trudging the two kilometres up the mountain, she left the gates open behind her. She cringed at the eager snort of her father’s favourite stallion, knowing the moment he scented the mares. She herded the nearest females into his enclosed paddock. Experience told her they coveted the wispy tufts of grass at his disposal, but Hector had fortified the wily stallion’s boundary fence to stop him jumping out. “The grass is always greener on the other side,” she whispered to herself. She knew it wasn’t true. Not always.

Two of the mares ran from him, the other three edging nearer the post and rail fences. A pale Arab tail streamed in the darkness and Leilah winced. Hector would do more than freak out when his prized possession delivered a crazy half-Appaloosa foal. She heard the indignant squeal as the stunning mare found herself bailed up against the fence with nowhere left to run. A two-year-old streaked through the last gate in the distance and headed towards the stream, stirring up the dust on the way to Leilah’s guilty riverbank love nest. Halting at the gate onto the farm next door, the paint horse’s white rump glinted in the moonlight.

The stallion mounted his conquest at the top of the rise and impaled her, nipping her neck and shoulders in his excitement. She stilled beneath his muscular bulk and waited for the ordeal to pass. “Sorry,” Leilah hissed into the darkness. “But it’s fun if you do it right.” Her cheeks flushed with the memory of gentle hands caressing her thighs and she silenced the lewd thoughts.

She passed the pen containing the gelding Hector spent the day teaching. “Not you, girl,” Leilah whispered to the little mare in with him. Her toffee nosed owner would bad mouth her father from one side of the Waikato to the other if she sent her horse for breaking and fetched her back in foal. Both horses snorted and pawed the ground, sensing the tension in the mountain air. The gelding’s muscles jerked in fear, watching wide eyed as the stallion finished his first round of insemination.

Leilah burst up the porch steps and yanked open the sliding door. “Dad!” she yelled. “Dad!”

Hector appeared from his bedroom, a rumpled tee shirt covering his upper body. Muscular legs poked from the stubby shorts he wore to bed. “Leilah?” His hair stuck up on end and sleep blurred his vision.

“Red’s out.” She hid her shaking hands behind her back. “I heard him running and went to check.”

“Why didn’t you shout me?” Hector snatched dirty jeans from the back of a chair and hopped around, shoving his feet through the legs. “Why are you still up?”

“I heard him running!” Leilah infused pique into her tone. “I told you, I went outside to see why.”

Hector’s eyes narrowed, but his daughter’s windswept hair and rumpled appearance convinced him. “Okay.” He snatched his boots from inside the door and jerked his head towards the sideboard. “Grab the torch.”

Leilah jumped to attention and yanked open the top drawer. The heavy torch tested her clumsy reflexes and she dropped it with a clatter onto the threadbare carpet. Hector shot her a look of annoyance. In one stride, he reached her side and snatched it up, hefting it easily in his strong hand. The tendons bulged in his forearms and Leilah gulped. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, kōtiro.” He ran a hand through his messy hair, leaving it spiked at the front. “Where did you see Red go?”

“The bottom paddock.” Leilah examined her dusty boots. “I followed him down, but left the gates open in my panic and the mares followed.”

“You left the gates open?” Hector’s eyes narrowed and anger flickered across his face. “What the hell, Deleilah?”

She inhaled and her nostrils flared. “Sorry!” she snapped. “Find him on your own then!” She turned away, her shoulders shaking with the stress of the night. An hour ago, she lay in a sensuous embrace, pleasure filling her body. Only the ache of terror remained in its place, driving her to the edge of insanity.

“We’ll talk later,” Hector snapped, whirling around on his heel.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Foster Kid

Leilah wondered if the body might float away before Hector rediscovered it. She followed her father around their vast empire, head hung in shame and dread. Many times, she almost blurted out the truth, only the stern set of Hector’s shoulders making her unwilling to speak. He sent her to let the dogs loose and they chased around her feet, barking and tripping her up. Between them, they traversed the kilometres of grassland and rounded up the sweating mares. Leilah noticed how they carried their tails high, tossing their heads and prancing. Hector glanced back at her with irritation burgeoning in his face and she pursed her lips. “Damn Leilah!” he hissed. “They’re in season, the whole bloody lot.” He shook his head and she cringed.

“I said I’m sorry.”

Not content with impregnating most of Hector’s stock, the randy stallion had cleared the fence into their neighbour’s. The luscious mares belonging to Horse huddled in the corner of the nearest paddock while he took them on one at a time. Hector climbed the fence, thwarting Leilah’s desire for him to use the gate and find the body. He cracked his bull whip and managed to separate the stallion from the females, but only after he’d finished his latest round of activity. “Get on with you!” Hector shouted at the muscular beast and shed him away from the group. Standing on the top rung of the post and rail, he called to Leilah. “Open that gate near the gully. I’ll drive him through.”

“I’ll just catch him.” Leilah felt exhaustion threading through her veins. The honest voice in her head urged her to come clean. Tell her father everything. The nightly meetings, her newfound sexuality and most of all, the dead body. She dangled the limp rope halter from tired fingers and put her foot on the bottom rung.

“No!” Hector yelled. “Do as you’re told, girl! He’ll run you over, the mood he’s in now. Open the damn gate.”

Leilah gritted her teeth and trudged down the hill. “Great!” she muttered under her breath. “So now I’ll find the body again.” She shivered, the shock of the first encounter chilling her bones. “It’s what you deserve,” she told herself, dreading the sight with every fibre of her being.

Hector drove the stallion downhill with occasional cracks of his whip. Tired, the horse offered little opposition bar the odd buck of rebellion at the head of the youngest dog. They arrived at the gate before Leilah and she hurried to catch up, slipping and sliding down the hill on the other side of the fence. The horse shifted from hoof to hoof, driven towards an exit which didn’t yet exist. Horny and exhausted, his head weaved on his neck as though examining the gate from every angle. Leilah unhitched the catch and tugged it open. She wasn’t quick enough.

In the darkness, Hector assumed she’d be where he sent her, with only torch light to offer confirmation. He jerked out another ear-splitting crack of the bull whip and the horse jumped forwards as Leilah opened the gate just a crack.