To James
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
PREVIOUSLY…
1 DECEMBER
2 DECEMBER
3 DECEMBER
4 DECEMBER
9 DECEMBER
13 DECEMBER
18 DECEMBER
23 DECEMBER
24 DECEMBER
25 DECEMBER
26 DECEMBER
27 DECEMBER
28 DECEMBER
29 DECEMBER
30 DECEMBER
31 DECEMBER
Epilogue
Copyright
The Special FX canister finally explodes, giving me enough cover to escape the ring of cops and the chopper. My hunters soon lock onto my position again, but my double–Ryan Spencer–comes to my rescue. We swap clothes and he acts as a decoy, fooling the cops and luring them away from me.
The Caesar shift hasn’t revealed anything hidden within the Ormond Riddle, and we wonder if it only applies to the missing two lines. Somehow, we must travel to Ireland, visit the Keeper of Rare Books, and investigate further.
Anxiety is high as Boges, Winter and I talk about the DMO. Just after we realise someone’s hacked my blog, repeating ‘November 11’ all over the page, we’re interrupted by the arrival of cops–Winter’s building is surrounded!
I make a terrifying leap from one rooftop to another, and urge Winter and Boges to flee as well. On my run from Lesley Street, I stop by Ryan Spencer’s apartment. It turns out his birthday is November 11–the mysterious date from my blog!
Nelson Sharkey thinks he can arrange a fake passport for my trip to Ireland. I hope that the remainder of my gold stash will cover the cost.
We need more money, so Winter decides she’ll steal some from the cash-lined cigar boxes in Sligo’s ‘scram bag’, hidden inside his wardrobe.
The day my blog hacker warned me about has arrived. I’m too nervous to go anywhere, so I keep low in the treehouse that has become my latest refuge.
Boges and I wait outside Sligo’s house as Winter attempts to steal his money, while pretending to be over for a swim.
Winter arrives back at the beach rendezvous point with good news–she snuck out ten thousand dollars for us!
Back at the treehouse, Winter tells me more about the day of her parents’ fatal car crash. She wants to move on, but believes she can only do so after she’s seen the wreck and confirmed whether the crash really was an ‘accident’ or whether something more sinister was involved.
On my way to meet Eric Blair, I am captured by two burly thugs who take me to see Murray ‘Toecutter’ Durham. Toecutter is deathly ill, and wants to make a confession. He reveals that he was involved in the abduction of twin babies, years ago, and failed to dispose of them. After a scare with the police, the babies were separated. One was left behind–me–and later returned to the family, while the other was kept by Toecutter until adopted out, illegally. This baby was Samuel–my twin–now known as Ryan Spencer.
Back at the treehouse, I call Mum to tell her Samuel is alive.
At the library I find another article about the twin baby abduction. In it, Rafe was interviewed, showing a side of his relationship with Dad I had never seen. They used to be very close.
Finally I meet Eric Blair. I realise that he is the crazy guy from New Year’s Eve who warned me I had 365 days to survive! Blair says he suffered an unknown viral infection and doesn’t remember the incident!
While investigating Rathbone’s list of nicknames, we discover that he will be soon heading to Dublin. He could beat us to the Ormond Singularity!
Eric Blair poses the question–what if the illness that killed my dad, and caused his own illness, was not a virus, but something deliberate?
The cops have taken Boges for questioning, Winter is scared, and Sligo is becoming increasingly suspicious. I receive a message from Winter, but before I can call her, I am crash-tackled by police! Just as they are dragging me to the car, Sharkey appears and presents my fake passport, saving me with my new identity.
I now have a few missed messages from Winter, but am spotted by Capsicum Cop and chased into a sports stadium with wild crowds of fans. Somehow I end up running onto the field with the players, and a massive close-up of my face appears on the big-screen. The crowd is chanting my name as I’m pursued. I run down to the underground quarters and am forced to find a hiding place in a locker room. I jump inside an empty koala mascot costume–successfully hiding in plain sight when the cops search the place.
Rafe admits he believes I saved him at the chapel and that he’s been trying to protect me from the dangers of the Ormond Singularity.
While I’m waiting for Winter at the beach, Griff Kirby shows up, telling me that he saw her being tossed into a black Subaru. Sligo has her! We race to the scene of the kidnapping, then to Sligo’s car yard. There we see Zombie Two locking up a shipping container–Winter might be trapped inside. Zombie Two and Bruno are alerted to our presence and they attack. Before we know it, we’re tied up and shoved into the container ourselves.
Griff makes a horrifying discovery–Winter’s body, cold and lifeless. Her voicemail messages reveal that she’d found out Sligo killed her parents by cutting the brake lines of their car. She confronted him, alone, because I didn’t call her back. I wasn’t there for her.
Now it’s too late.
31 days to go…
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, almost couldn’t breathe. Winter’s final words echoed through the black, suffocating space we were locked in, like a haunting message from the grave.
I held her slumped body next to mine. Her wild hair fell over my knees and onto the floor of the container. I tried to say her name, but all that came out was a croaking sound.
She’d saved my life so many times, and I had completely failed her. The one time she’d needed me I had ignored her calls until it was too late. She was gone. The beautiful raven-haired stranger who’d saved me from drowning in an oil tank was now dead.
If I’d been there for her–calmed her down and talked sense into her–she would never have confronted Sligo. She would have waited until it was safe. If I had answered just one of her calls, she wouldn’t be lying cold and silent in my arms. She would still be alive.
A numbing sensation took over me as I rocked back and forth with her body in my arms.
‘Cal!’
Griff was elbowing me in the ribs–his hands were still bound behind his back.
‘Cal, let go of her!’
I shook him off. He was the last person I wanted to talk to right now, but he kept persisting.
‘Let her go!’ he shouted, shoving me with his shoulder.
I swung my arm out and pushed him away. ‘I don’t want to let her go!’ I shouted back at him, tears now stinging my eyes. ‘I won’t let her go!’
‘You have to, Cal.’
‘I don’t have to do anything! Winter was my friend! She was–’
‘She’s breathing, Cal,’ Griff spoke over me as he steadied himself. ‘I swear. That’s all I’m trying to tell you. Listen.’
I ignored him. I didn’t want to hear his voice right now.
‘Winter’s breathing,’ he said, urgently kneeling closer to her. ‘Listen to me! Here, help me sit her up.’
His words finally penetrated the blackness of my thoughts.
‘She’s breathing?’ I repeated. As I spoke, I felt Winter stir.
I loosened my hold on her and a second later her body convulsed into life. She started struggling, groaning, trying to pull away from me.
‘Winter!’ I gripped her shoulders, crazy with relief. ‘Winter? Are you OK?’ I asked, trying hopelessly to keep my voice steady. ‘It’s me! Cal!’ I added, half laughing, half crying.
‘Let me go!’ she screeched, squirming with panic. ‘Get your hands off me!’
‘It’s me!’ I said again. ‘You’re OK, you’re with me!’
‘Huh?’ she said, sounding dazed, as I helped her sit up. ‘What’s happened? Where am I? Cal, is that you?’
‘Yes, I’m here!’ I squeezed both of her hands, and tried to move her towards some moonlight that was creeping in through a rusty crack in the container.
‘Where have you been?’ she murmured.
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t call you back,’ I said, my guilt gushing out. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you rang. I just–,’ I stopped, not knowing how to explain myself. ‘I can’t believe this; I thought you were dead a second ago!’
‘Give her some air, Cal,’ suggested Griff. He was awkwardly trying to rub Winter’s arm to help warm her up. ‘She doesn’t need to hear your apologies right now.’
‘Who’s that?’ asked Winter, squinting into the darkness of the container.
‘You’re in here with me and Griff Kirby,’ I explained.
‘You and Griff?’ she said slowly, bewildered and fearful. ‘What are you talking about? Why? Where are we?’
‘We’re all in the same boat,’ said Griff. ‘Or should I say container?’
‘Container? Cal, what is he talking about?’
Winter tried to get up, but toppled right over.
‘They must have drugged you,’ said Griff, helping her straighten up, ‘and you’re still feeling the effects of it. I saw them dragging you into the black Subaru. You yelled out to me,’ he reminded her, as I worked on unwrapping the tape around his wrists. ‘You told me I had to go and get Cal.’
‘Yeah,’ she murmured. ‘From the beach.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘You told Griff he’d find me at the beach.’
‘And I did find him,’ added Griff, ‘but by the time we got back to the spot where you’d been shoved into the Subaru, all that was left behind were your things, scattered all over the road.’
Winter began groping around in the darkness.
‘We’re in the car yard,’ I explained. ‘Griff and I came looking for you, but Zombie Two and Bruno caught us. Next thing we knew, they’d locked us in this container. You were already in here.’
‘We’re in a shipping container?’
‘Yep,’ said Griff. ‘On the back of a truck.’
‘Are they going to take us somewhere? How will we get out?’
They were questions we couldn’t answer. Winter continued fumbling her way around the walls. She was nothing but a faint, wobbly silhouette in the darkness.
Next, she started banging, like she was testing the walls for a weak spot or a potential opening. Before long, Griff–whose hands were finally free–joined her.
‘Help!’ Griff shouted as he thumped on the walls. ‘Let us out!’
The metal shuddered, sending reverberations around us.
‘Help!’ they both called out, repeatedly, each cry more desperate than the last. ‘Help!’
It was getting louder and louder–Griff and Winter weren’t letting up. Now they were both throwing themselves at the walls, like they were desperately trying to crack the container open. The noise was throbbing like a giant gong in my head.
I covered my ears–I couldn’t take it any longer.
‘Stop!’ I screeched over the top of them. ‘Stop it! Banging on the walls isn’t going to get us out of here! Would you both just calm down and think about this? There’s nobody out there, and anybody that could be out there wants us to stay trapped in here! You’re wasting your time!’
Winter and Griff slumped onto the metal floor. Silence returned to the container.
I stared into the blackness, hopelessly wondering how we were going to get out.
Finally, Winter broke the silence. ‘Cal, when I didn’t hear back from you I just lost it. I wanted to talk to you so bad. I had the biggest news, ever, and no-one to share it with.’
My stomach twisted with guilt.
‘It was like everything inside me was boiling over,’ she continued, sounding increasingly agitated, ‘and I couldn’t cool down. At first I was so relieved to have found the truth, but then fury took over! I always knew he killed my parents! I always knew it wasn’t just an accident, and finally I’d found the proof. That lying murderer!’ she screamed, kicking her boot into the wall.
‘Hey,’ I said, softly, trying to calm her down again.
‘My head was telling me the time wasn’t right–it was telling me it would be stupid to confront him. But my heart couldn’t wait. I knew he’d forged my dad’s signature on the will, and I had the evidence to prove it. I’d also found our car in his car yard–more proof of foulplay.’
I shuddered at the thought of her facing up to Sligo. ‘And you found a drawing or something?’ I asked, trying to recall what she’d said in her voicemail messages earlier.
‘Remember when we first went searching together, I told you I was looking for a little something extra on the upholstery in the back?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘you mean the drawing of a bird or something?’
‘A swallow. When I was about nine, I got into a tonne of trouble after a long drive up the coast … I was bored and drew a small bird on the back seat of the car. As soon as I spotted our gold BMW in the yard, I crawled into the wreck and located the drawing, scrawled onto the seat fabric, just where I’d left it. It was faded, but it was there. That was our car, all right.’
A sliver of moonlight fell through a crack and across Winter’s face as she held her wrist up to look at her bird tattoo. No wonder it meant so much to her.
Her hand abruptly fell back to her lap with a slapping sound. ‘So next I checked the brake lines,’ she said. ‘Those brake lines weren’t worn down like the police reported–they’d been cut. Clean cuts–the sort made by sharp pliers. That car crash was no accident. It had nothing to do with the weather. It was–’
‘–murder,’ I whispered.
‘Somehow, after the crash, he must have swapped vehicles, replacing my parents’ car with another one of the same make and model that did have worn brakes. So the police accident report didn’t lie–it just described some other wreck.’
‘He must have broken into the secure police car yard to do that,’ I said. ‘Or paid someone to do it for him.’
‘Sligo has his tentacles everywhere,’ she said. ‘He’s proven he’s capable of anything. Like I was saying, I charged over to his house and into his study, in a fit of fury. He was sitting behind his desk, drinking from some fancy, gold-rimmed, glass tumbler. I started yelling at him, accusing him of forgery and sabotage. He denied it, of course. He brushed me off and told me to get out and stop being a drama queen.’
‘You should have gone straight to the police,’ I said.
‘I realise that now. It’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. He wasn’t taking me seriously, so I showed him the proof I had–photos I’d taken on my mobile phone–’ Winter stopped talking abruptly. ‘My phone!’ she screeched. ‘Do you have it?’
‘Battery’s dead,’ Griff answered quickly. ‘I just checked it a second ago … I can’t believe I don’t have my phone on me.’
‘My phone!’ I shouted, practically throwing my bag off my back and fumbling over the floor for it.
As soon as I picked it up I tried to switch it on, but it too was dead. I’d forgotten to hang it up after hearing Winter’s voicemail messages, so the battery had completely drained.
‘No good?’ asked Winter, hopefully.
‘Nup.’
Griff swore.
Frustrated, I shoved everything back into my bag.
‘So how did Sligo react to the photos?’ I asked Winter.
‘He looked at them, just to humour me at first, but once he realised what I had found, his pompous grin disappeared. He puffed up like a great big toad, purple with rage. He crushed the glass tumbler he was clutching, with his bare fist. I was so sca
red, I thought I was dead. He came at me with his eyes bulging and fists raised and I snatched my phone away from him and backed off, thinking he was about to grab me and wring my neck!’
Winter paused and let out an exhausted breath.
‘Then he changed,’ she continued. ‘As quickly as he’d blown up, he calmed down. He started laughing like he suddenly thought it was hilarious. He said I was as smart as he was–maybe even smarter–and that I should channel my talent and become a partner in his business. He promised to give me the money owing to me as long as I kept my mouth shut, and as long as I sat beside him at his New Year’s Eve ball like a perfect princess. He also said he was on the verge of making a whole lot more money.’
‘A whole lot more?’ I asked, instantly panicking about him unravelling the DMO before us.
‘He said he “had to” reach the Ormond Singularity before the end of December,’ she explained, confirming my fears. ‘By that time I’d realised how much danger I was in, but I was all alone. No-one knew where I was. I didn’t have backup.’
Her words hit me hard.
‘I decided to play along, pretending that I was seriously considering his offer. I walked around as if I was deep in thought while he threw the shards of broken glass from his desk in the bin and poured himself another drink. He offered me a juice, and I nervously sipped on it as I paced the room.’
‘Did he say anything else about the Ormond Singularity?’
‘The Ormond Singularity?’ Griff was muttering to himself, clearly confused.
‘Sligo kept raving on about how he needed to crack it so that he could display the Ormond Jewel around my neck at the ball and make his name as a great medievalist and antiquarian. I could be his “equal partner”. He said the entire world would be at our feet. I was pretending to be impressed but the whole time I was planning how to get out. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, then I bolted. I was on my way to the police station when I started to feel really weird–all weak and floppy. Every sound around me was fading and my vision was going blurry. I sat down on some steps, thinking it must have been the heat. Then I remembered the fruit juice–Sligo had put something in it! Next thing I know, Bruno’s dragging me off the street into the car. I kicked as hard as I could, but I couldn’t stop him!’
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