There was a strange atmosphere in the house. I got out of bed and headed down the hall.
Gabbi and Mum were both in the kitchen, Mum on the phone with her back to me, taking down notes with a pencil.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked, wondering if they’d somehow found out about where I’d been.
‘What is it?’ I asked again.
‘It’s all gone,’ Gabbi whispered. ‘All of it!’
‘What? What’s gone?’
Mum dropped the pencil she was using and it rolled on the floor. Slowly she put the phone down. When she turned to look at us, I gasped with shock. She almost looked as sick as when she’d heard the news about Dad’s illness.
Gabbi turned to me. ‘All our money’s gone, Cal! Dad withdrew just about everything when he was in Ireland!’
I looked to Mum as if to say, ‘Tell me it’s not true!’
‘She’s right,’ Mum whispered. ‘There were only six months’ worth of house repayments left in the account. There’s nothing now.’
I couldn’t speak. I stood watching Mum comfort Gabbi, holding her close, smoothing her hair, telling her it was going to be all right.
Without money, how would Mum be able to pay the mortgage? Until last year, she’d worked full time for an architect but had to take a lot of unpaid leave when Dad was sick. Now she just worked a casual job.
‘It’s all gone,’ said Mum. ‘Gone. Over one hundred thousand dollars has simply vanished. Our entire life savings. There are nineteen dollars left in the account.’
The only sound was Gabbi’s stifled sobs. I wanted to say something, but I had no words. I knew the mortgage payments on the house were automatically deducted every month from Dad’s account. But what would happen now? Mum barely earned enough to pay for the groceries. We’d lost our father, I’d come close to losing my life, and now, it seemed, we were going to lose our house.
Who was doing this to us? Any lingering notion I might have had about telling Mum what had happened to me last night evaporated. There was no way I could load her up with more worry. She was so stressed that she didn’t even ask me where I’d been.
‘I’ll have to call Uncle Rafe,’ said Mum.
‘We won’t lose our house, Mum. I can get a job,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave school and look for work.’
Mum grabbed me and held me in a hug. ‘You will not! Somehow we’ll find a way through this. Thank God for you kids,’ she said, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to manage, but at least we’ve got each other.’
It was hot on my bike—it must have been almost thirty in the shade.
As soon as I got to Boges’s we went down to his room and I threw myself on his old beanbag. I told him all about the night before and then filled him in on the news from the morning.
He sat there scratching and staring at me in disbelief. Again.
‘You nearly drowned. You get kidnapped. And now your house is on the line. Is that what you’re really telling me?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think things could get any worse.’
‘Plus, your dad makes some massive discovery and warns you of danger, just before he gets really sick. And then some lunatic on the street chases you down trying to tell you that your dad was murdered.’ Boges started laughing. ‘Man, this is all insane!’
‘I know!’ I laughed back. ‘It is insane, but true!’
I couldn’t believe it myself, but I was living it. A year ago my biggest concerns in life were maths exams, football, girls, my little sister pinching my things, and Mum and Dad not letting me stay out late enough. How did everything change so quickly?
‘You have to go to the cops,’ said Boges. ‘Cal? Are you listening to me?’
‘I can’t. Boges, I just can’t.’
‘Why the hell not?’ he said, like I was crazy. ‘This is massive. Dude, you were kidnapped! Thrown in the boot of a car! Locked in a closet! Knocked unconscious!’
‘I can’t, all right!’
I knew it sounded like the most logical thing to do, but I didn’t want to involve the authorities. That guy on the balcony told me to keep my mouth shut.
‘They don’t want me to talk. Believe me. I don’t trust them. What if they know where I live? They weren’t afraid to hurt me, Boges. Any of us could be in danger. And Mum,’ I continued, ‘she can’t handle this—not now. It’s too much. She’s already on the edge.’
Boges shrugged. ‘I really hope you know what you’re doing. Anyway … your dad must have had a breakdown and then taken out all of the money. Maybe it was the virus?’
I nodded, glad he wasn’t pushing the cop thing. ‘But what could he have done with it all?’
‘I don’t know, but the quicker we can work out what’s going on, the quicker we can sort out this mess.’
He was right.
‘I keep wondering,’ he continued, ‘about your uncle. Maybe he took the money. He is your dad’s identical twin. It wouldn’t have been hard for him to pose as your dad.’
I shook my head. ‘The money was withdrawn in Ireland.’
‘OK. But he did lie about the drawings, remember? Why would he do that?’
It didn’t take much thought. ‘Obviously, he doesn’t want anyone to know about them.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Boges. ‘Seems he doesn’t want anyone to even know about the existence of the drawings. Which means they are crucial—important enough to pinch, and important enough to lie about.’ Boges swivelled around on his chair to face me. ‘It means,’ he continued, ‘that Rafe knows those drawings mean something. He knows something about the Ormond Riddle thing, too.’
My mind felt like mush. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to concentrate again. Too many things were happening to my family and they were all bad.
‘Last night,’ I said, ‘that’s all they were going on about. What do you know about the Ormond Riddle? What do you know about the Ormond Angel? What do you know about the Ormond Singularity? I kept telling them I don’t know anything! Except that for some reason they all have our family’s name stuck to them! Then they started going on about a map. Did I know anything about a map? Had Dad given me a map? On and on! I had nothing to tell them, but they didn’t believe me. I don’t know what might have happened if I hadn’t got away …’
‘They wanted to know about a map?’ asked Boges. ‘How do you think they even know about these things?’
‘They were at the conference in Ireland. I could hear them talking about it. I guess they found out whatever Dad did about our family.’
‘Your dad said there was going to be danger,’ said Boges, ‘He was right!’
I hadn’t realised until last night just how dangerous this might be. Hide out, the man on the street had said. Lie low until midnight, the 31st of December, this year.
‘And I don’t know how much Rafe knows about all of this,’ I said. ‘Ever since the day of Dad’s funeral, he’s been so …’ As I recalled moments of that terrible day, I put my hand in the pocket of my hoodie.
‘Boges! I’ve just remembered!’ I held up the key with the black tag. ‘I know what it opens and I know where the drawings are!’
We jumped on our bikes and sped off.
‘Cal, please tell me why we’re going to the cemetery.’
‘The key opens the Ormond vault,’ I called out to him. ‘It’s where my dad is, along with my grandparents and a stack of other ancient Ormonds, going right back to 1878. All of us end up there.’
‘You guys have a mausoleum? Creepy … So, all the coffins and ashes are stored there, instead of being buried?’
‘Yep.’
The way things were going, I thought I might be joining them early. That fear made me pedal harder. I was going to survive this. I’d carry on my dad’s work and unravel the huge secret he’d stumbled on.
The key felt sticky in my sweaty hand as we hurried in through the heavy iron gates. The cemetery was a peaceful place with trees and small gardens intersected with footpaths. All around
us were graves, some like low garden beds with just a simple headstone, while others were more elaborate with angels perched on pedestals, stony wings outstretched. I wondered if the Ormond Angel was among them. I didn’t think so. I was with Mum and Rafe when we placed Dad’s ashes on a shelf in the family mausoleum, and I knew for a fact that there was no watchful angel there.
The sombre, stone, windowless building with its solid iron door, corroded by the weather, stood cold before us. In the stonework, above the door, was our family name and coat of arms, also weathered by wind and rain.
‘Hurry, man,’ said Boges. ‘I can see a uniform heading this way. Must be security.’
I stepped up the stairs, pushed the key into the lock and tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge.
‘Hey, you two! Get away from there!’ called out the guard.
‘Come on, dude. Hurry up!’ said Boges.
‘I’m trying!’
I finally got the lock to turn and started to push the door open.
‘Get out of there! What do you think you’re doing?’
With the half-open door behind me, I turned to confront the cemetery guard.
‘It’s OK,’ I explained, holding up the key. ‘We’re family.’
The security guy had come right up to the mausoleum steps. Even though he was standing two steps below, he was still taller than me.
‘Only the legal custodian of this grave has right of entry. Show me your certificate.’
‘But his father is in there,’ Boges said. ‘He has every right—’
‘He has no right! He could be anyone claiming that. You two better make yourselves scarce.’ He pulled out a portable radio. ‘You can leave now, I can have my partner down here to drag you two out, or I can call the cops. What’ll it be?’
I pushed the door open further and caught a glimpse of the long shelf where my grandfather’s coffin lay, but there was something else there. Something that certainly hadn’t been there when I’d last stepped through the door.
The security guard grabbed me, pulling me down the steps. He slammed the iron door shut behind me. Now his partner had joined him—a stocky, mean-looking man with a red face.
‘Get out of here before I call the cops. Bernie?’
Bernie grabbed Boges. ‘They’re probably just a pair of ghouls sussing out a place to live.’
‘Ghouls?’ I asked in disbelief.
‘Weirdos who break into the big tombs and squat in them. Nasty sickos that we have to dispose of,’ said Bernie, tightening his grip on Boges.
‘Get off me,’ said Boges, shaking free. ‘We’re going.’
The security guys watched us as we unlocked our bikes and took off. I slipped the key back into my pocket.
‘That was a waste of time,’ said Boges.
‘Not quite. I saw something in there.’
‘Right. A ghoul,’ Boges laughed.
‘No, I saw a large plastic container with a red lid—exactly the same as the ones I saw in Rafe’s house. He’s using our vault as a storeroom.’
‘I’d love to know what he’s storing in there,’ said Boges, as we neared my street.
‘I think I know,’ I said.
Just before we parted at the corner, I dangled the key in front of Boges. ‘You know we’re going back there,’ I said. ‘To make sure.’
‘When?’ Boges looked hesitant.
‘When there’s no-one around.’ I said.
‘I don’t like where this is heading.’
The first thing I noticed when I walked in the house was again how unusually quiet it was. Mum had left a note on the fridge.
I stood in the kitchen listening to the silence. It was the silence of something coiled up in hiding, motionless and ready to attack.
‘Gabbi?’ I called. ‘You here?’
No-one answered.
‘Gabbi?’ I called again.
Nothing.
I walked further into the house, cautious now, ready to run.
What I found on the floor near the kitchen made me drop my backpack.
Uncle Rafe … lying in a pool of blood.
I rushed over to him. He was unconscious, and blood seemed to be seeping from the back of his head. Had he been shot?
I ripped open my backpack, thinking my beach towel might stop the bleeding. I was about to ring an ambulance when an awful thought struck me. If Uncle Rafe was injured, then Gabbi too might be …
‘Gabbi!’ I screamed, running down to her room. ‘Gabbi?’
My little sister’s name froze on my lips.
There she was, lying in the doorway of her bedroom, crumpled like a broken doll.
I fell to my knees, my ear to her chest. She wasn’t breathing!
‘Gabbi!’ I pleaded. ‘Talk to me!’
I panicked, trying to remember how to do CPR, like we’d been taught at school. Short, sharp bursts of pressure on her chest, pinching off her nose, breathing into her mouth. My fingers trembled, and I tried to calm myself down by remembering to count slowly between each breath.
‘Start breathing!’ I cried, watching her body exhale the breath I’d just blown into her. I wanted to ring an ambulance, but I couldn’t leave my sister alone and cold on the floor.
‘Breathe! Damn you!’ I shouted at her. My heart was pounding. Gabbi couldn’t die! Violent sobs shook me. Was she responding? I watched her chest—I could swear it was rising by itself now. I pushed tears from my eyes. She had to be OK!
I heard something downstairs.
For a second I thought it might be Mum and I was about to call out when I heard the voice again.
It wasn’t Mum!
‘Search the house,’ it said. It was a man. ‘He’s in here somewhere. When you find him, make sure he doesn’t get away.’
It was my kidnappers and they were after me!
‘Please, Gabbi,’ I begged, puffing another breath into her, counting and depressing her chest, ‘don’t die on me!’
Time was running out. Footsteps were climbing the stairs. Then I heard the sound of sirens coming towards our house. A voice on the stairs called out, ‘Somebody’s called the cops. We’ve gotta grab him and get out of here!’
I searched my sister’s face, desperate for a sign of life. Then, I saw the faintest blush of colour and a tiny pulse throbbing in her neck. She was breathing again! And her heart was beating! I heard an ambulance siren. It was almost here. Gabbi would get help. Gabbi would be OK.
I dared not stay a second longer. I kissed my little sister on her forehead and I squeezed her cold hands. I grabbed my backpack and hurled myself through the window and into the nearby mulberry tree.
The dense leaves hid me from view and I stayed there, clinging painfully to the tree. The search in the house continued. I realised I was shaking and prayed desperately that no-one would see me. I pulled my backpack closer.
I’d assumed it was the people who’d grabbed me in Memorial Park. But I was wrong. It wasn’t them. Who were these people?
‘Look! There he is!’
I’d been spotted. I could hear them at the window.
‘Up there! He’s in the tree!’
Oh no he’s not, I thought, and let go.
The branches slowed my fall a little, but I hit the ground hard.
I jumped over a black Subaru that was parked outside the house, and took off, running for my life, putting as much distance between me and the shouting I could hear behind me, as my pursuers tried to keep up.
A quick glance back. Two burly-looking men attempting to cross the road against the traffic, and an ambulance and cop car skidding onto the driveway.
I thought I’d run my best speed last night, but now I broke my own record. I raced across the road. Cars blasted their horns as they braked. Drivers swore at me, but I didn’t care …
I’d thrown them off now, and I was hurrying down streets I’d never seen before. I ducked into a huge shopping centre where I found a quiet corner, and, panting and sweating like crazy, I called Boges.
&
nbsp; ‘Boges!’ I gasped, trying to catch my breath. ‘Something really bad’s happened at home and …’
But Boges interrupted me. ‘Our place is crawling with cops! Mum’s freaking out!’
‘Cops at yours? Why?’
‘You’re asking me why? Look, Cal, I can’t talk now. I’ll have to call you later, OK.’
‘No! Wait! What’s happened? Why are the cops at your place? Boges? Please!’
But he was already off the line.
I didn’t know what to do. I tried ringing Mum on her mobile, but it was on divert, so I left a message. ‘Mum, I hope you’re OK. When I came home earlier, I found Uncle Rafe unconscious on the floor, his head bleeding, and Gabbi—Gabbi wasn’t breathing! I did what I could and she was coming round but I had to get out fast and … there are these people after me and I’ve been meaning to …’ I stopped. Mum would think I’d totally lost it. I’d have to sit her down and tell her the whole story now: about how the boat had been sabotaged, about being abducted and interrogated. ‘I’ll call you later,’ I said, hanging up.
I sat in a coffee shop, in the corner furthest from the door, keeping an eye on passers-by. I’d ordered a drink but felt sick thinking about my little sister lying on the floor. Would she have died if I hadn’t come in when I did? Was she OK now?
I tried ringing Mum again and once more it went onto voicemail. I left another message, asking her to ring me as soon as she could. She was probably at the hospital by now with Gabbi and Uncle Rafe. I felt choked up with anxiety and fear. Someone was targeting our family. This was out of control.
I had to make a decision. I hated the fact that those thugs knew where we lived. Maybe they’d met Dad at the conference—or just looked us up in the phone book. I knew they could come back at any time.
There was no way around this. I’d have to go to the police—tell them the whole story. Once the cops knew everything, they’d see that me and my family were in great danger.
January Page 6
