To Mathieu and Rory
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
PREVIOUSLY …
1 SEPTEMBER
4 SEPTEMBER
8 SEPTEMBER
9 SEPTEMBER
12 SEPTEMBER
15 SEPTEMBER
17 SEPTEMBER
18 SEPTEMBER
19 SEPTEMBER
20 SEPTEMBER
21 SEPTEMBER
22 SEPTEMBER
26 SEPTEMBER
29 SEPTEMBER
30 SEPTEMBER
Copyright
I’ve been buried alive in a coffin. I can hardly move and the air is running out, fast. Boges and Winter use my mobile signal to track my position, but when they reach the cemetery they’re confronted with a dozen fresh graves. Time’s running out and they have no idea where to start digging.
I wake up in hospital and realise my hands are tied—I’m trapped in police custody! Turns out Boges and Winter had to call the authorities for help … to save my life. I’m questioned by Senior Sergeant Dorian McGrath about Gabbi—she’s been kidnapped and I’m their prime suspect!
Mum and Rafe show up, begging me to tell them where Gabbi is. I can’t believe they think I’m responsible. Later I find out the cops will be moving me from the hospital to a remand centre in the morning. Now is my last chance of escape. I use a broken scalpel blade to release my hands and I decide to flee through a ceiling panel.
Outside, security guards and cops are everywhere. I’m quickly spotted and chased. An ambulance skids into my path and a paramedic shoves me inside. Ex-detective Nelson Sharkey has come to my rescue. He finds a safe place to drop me off, and leaves me his card.
I’m surprised to find Boges at Winter’s place. The three of us go over the night I was buried alive, and discuss how my DNA came to be at the scene of Gabbi’s kidnapping. Do I have a twin, and could he be involved? Winter and I reveal our recurring nightmares—mine with the toy dog, and Winter’s featuring sparrows, just like her tattoo.
Sharkey sets up a meeting for me with an underworld contact—Ma Little. She agrees to pass on a message for me to Gabbi’s kidnappers.
I meet up with Griff Kirby who has promised me info about Gabbi. I’m shocked to find out he is Ma Little’s nephew! We visit Dr Leporello—a police informant and expert in funghi—who gives me a number to call. As Griff and I are leaving, riot police jump out of a van and pounce! Sharkey comes to my rescue again, and I call the kidnapper’s number and leave a message offering myself and what I know, in exchange for Gabbi’s release.
I spot the ‘No Psycho’ tagger again and realise he’s my double! I chase him all the way to his apartment. After he leaps out the window I lose him. Back in his room I discover his name is Ryan Spencer. On his shelf is the white toy dog from my nightmares!
When following Sumo I catch him buying something with ‘Nutrition. Balanced formula. Intravenous’, written on it. Oriana must have my coma-stricken sister! Sumo heads out of the city with the package. Is Gabbi being held out of town?
I get a call from the kidnappers telling me to meet them in a town called Billabong at nine pm on 31 August. Winter, Boges and I meet up with Sharkey to plan a doublecross.
Winter and I go to Billabong and wait by Spindrift River Bridge. When the kidnappers arrive I insist on seeing Gabbi before handing myself and my information over. I see her cocooned in a sleeping-bag. Sharkey’s car suddenly speeds onto the bridge and he and Boges jump out to attack the kidnappers. During the fight, one of the guys picks up Gabbi and throws her off the side of the bridge. She tumbles into the raging water below. I dive in after her, frantically searching the river. How can she—in her unconscious state—fight for survival?
I finally find the sleeping bag, empty. Gabbi has been washed away. I’ve lost the Ormond Jewel, the Riddle and now my sister’s life.
122 days to go …
Shivering, my fingers useless and numb, I staggered back to the stony bank near the bridge, and collapsed.
A blurry glaze fell over my eyes as I stared hopelessly across the dark river.
I was in shock. I’d lost my sister.
I’d lost her.
In my desperate searching for Gabbi, I’d completely forgotten about the kidnappers and my friends. I looked up to the bridge for a sign of movement, but could see nothing. It was like I was the only being in the world right now, sitting alone on the side of a savage river that had just stolen my little sister from me.
I turned back to the water.
Something suddenly caught my eye. Something was stuck in the shadowy branches on the other side of the river.
Was something there or was my mind playing tricks on me? Creating shapes out of scattered moonlight and crooked driftwood? I rubbed my eyes and squinted through the darkness.
A gush of hope jolted through me—I was sure it was a figure! Half submerged and floating near the opposite bank! Could it be Gabbi, washed up and entangled in weeds on the riverbank? Could she still be alive?
I threw myself back into the freezing water and forced the burning muscles in my legs to kick, swimming diagonally through the current, trying to stop it from dragging me away downstream.
As I got closer, I became convinced it was Gabbi. The outline became more and more familiar with every frantic second. She could be alive, I repeated in my head. She could be alive.
The current was set on stopping me from reaching her. It pulled on me with all its might, but I pushed myself beyond my limits and forged ahead.
The water grew calmer, shielded from the rushing current by a narrow headland that acted like the wall of a dam. I was almost there. I thrashed over and finally I climbed to my feet in the shallow water.
I squinted and stared at the figure as I reached for it. What I’d imagined was there—my sister—all of a sudden disappeared right in front of me. Her image was replaced by a lifeless mass of nothing.
I stopped short and screamed with frustration and fury, smashing the water with my fists. The snagged figure was nothing but some plastic sheeting, stretched into a grotesque scarecrow shape that from the other side of the river had looked like a small person.
It had all been wishful thinking. There was no way she could have still been alive.
I crawled up the bank once more, too drained to swear, and too wrecked to cry.
A brief thought of Mum swirled into my consciousness. She’d be devastated. This would mean the end for her. She wouldn’t be able to go on without Gab. And she’d think that her own son had killed her daughter—that I escaped from the hospital to finish the job.
Like a wounded animal, I crawled further up the riverbank until I found a flat area.
I was numb, frozen, and half dead with exhaustion.
Crazy dreams whirled through my head. I imagined Gabbi kneeling beside me, healthy and well. I imagined turning to her and saying, ‘I saw you fall into the river. I went after you, but it was so hard to find you. The water was so cold and black and the current was impossibly strong. Please, forgive me, Gabs. I couldn’t save you.’
Then my surroundings seemed to transform and we were back at Treachery Bay, mucking around in the tinny.
A storm was brewing. Gabbi was frightened. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you out here,’ I say to her. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Cal,’ is all she says back to me.
‘Cal,’ she says again, in a haunting, distant voice.
Something powerful was suddenly shaking me. Had I fallen back in the river? Was I being bashed along by the current?
‘Cal, wake up!’ came Gabbi’s sweet voice once more.
In my dream, she was shaking me by the shoulder. Wonderful warmth flowed through my body, waking up my frozen arms and legs, sending a tingling
sensation to my fingers and toes.
For a moment, I let the good feelings run all over me. It felt like the storm at Treachery Bay had passed and the sun had come out and my sister and I were sitting in warm light.
The dreamlike vision of Gabbi was leaving me. Reality started hitting home, but I didn’t want to wake up and open my eyes. That would mean facing the truth.
The truth that Gabbi was dead. That I hadn’t been able to save her. That I was lying sodden on the banks of Spindrift River, with Gabbi gone forever, because of me. I had failed to protect her.
‘Cal!’
I opened my eyes. A black shadow loomed over me.
Someone really was sitting beside me, shaking me.
I blinked.
The dream figure of Gabbi was still there.
Was this like the dream I had in the caravan when Great-uncle Bartholomew appeared to me, telling me that everything was going to be all right?
He’d lied. Nothing was all right. Everything was worse than I could ever have imagined. My sister was dead, and now I was seeing things.
I shook my head to clear the crazy whirlpool of images in my mind, but the figure from my dream was still there.
‘Cal!’
Gabbi?
‘Cal, what’s happened?’
Gabbi?
‘Cal, why won’t you speak to me?’
Was I going crazy? Had my mind finally snapped completely?
‘Gabbi?’ I asked, squinting at the shape above me.
‘It’s me, Cal, what’s going on? Why are we here?’ Gabbi’s voice was weak and slurred.
It was no hallucination. I was looking straight into my sister’s face, and her small hand was clutching mine, gently squeezing it.
‘Gabbi?’
‘Yes, Cal, what’s wrong with you?’
‘Gabbi, it’s really you! You’re OK!’ I reached for her, grabbing her cheeks with my hands, shocked to feel her soft skin and fair hair against me.
‘Ouch, Cal, what are you trying to do?’ she said, wriggling away from me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I cried, ‘I’m just so happy to see you! And hear your voice! I can’t believe you’re alive!’
I stared at her. Her face had lost its childhood chubbiness, and by the moon’s weak light she looked older. But it was Gabbi—alive! Kneeling beside me, confused and shivering!
‘What are you talking about? I don’t understand,’ she said, looking around, her voice not much more than a whisper. ‘Why are we here? What are we doing here? It’s really dark. I’m scared, Cal. Let’s go home. Please?’
I grabbed her in my arms and held her tighter than ever before. If only I could take her home, I thought. If only I could just wrap her up in something warm, call Mum and then all of us could go home together …
‘It’s OK,’ I whispered in her ear. ‘Everything’s going to be OK. I promise.’
I kept hugging her tight, trying to warm her up, trying to comfort her.
We clung onto each other and, gradually, her shivering eased. I pulled back and looked at her again. Her hair was flat and sleek on her head so that she looked like some little water creature. ‘I’ll get you home safe,’ I promised.
‘But I still don’t know what’s happening. Where are we?’ she asked again. ‘How come we went swimming in this river? In the middle of the night? How come I feel so … confused?’
‘We didn’t actually go swimming …’ I started to say, but then stopped myself. I could see Gabbi was too dazed to understand right now. I could tell her everything later. It was just so good to have her here with me, alive, to know that she was OK. I pushed some wet hair back from her face, then grabbed her in a bear hug again. I had missed her so much.
‘I thought I was back in the surf at Treachery Bay, being dumped,’ she said as I let her go. ‘I just kicked out and started swimming. I was stuck in some kind of bag or something.’
‘You were in a sleeping-bag,’ I said.
‘Huh?’
‘Let’s get you warm,’ I said, through my chattering teeth. I glanced around us, looking again for a sign of Boges, Winter or Sharkey. Or the kidnappers. ‘We have to move.’
‘C’mon, Gabbi,’ I said, helping her up. We weren’t out of danger yet. I had to check our surroundings. I had to find out what had happened to my friends. And I knew that the criminals could still be in the area.
Gabbi stumbled and fell to her knees.
I bent over to pick her up and was met with a wet, teary face. ‘Cal, what’s wrong with me?’ she whimpered between sobs. ‘My legs feel like jelly and I still have no idea how we got here!’
I took her face between my hands. ‘You’ll just have to trust me for a minute,’ I said. ‘I’ll answer all your questions as best I can a little later, but right now we have to move. I have to check out some things. OK?’
She looked at me hopefully.
‘OK?’ I repeated. ‘You can trust me, can’t you?’
‘OK,’ she said, grabbing onto my arm to steady herself.
‘Hop on,’ I said, before pulling her up onto my back.
When we’d reached a high rocky outcrop, stopped and let Gabbi slide off my back. I sat her on the grass and told her to wait while I looked down at the Spindrift River Bridge, from a spot just a metre or so away.
The lights that lined the bridge below were flickering on and off, swinging in the wind. There were still no signs of Boges, Winter, Sharkey or the kidnappers. The bridge was empty. Not a car was in sight.
I knew the kidnappers could still be in the area, hunting me. The thought of them being out there, lurking somewhere in the dark, was making me really nervous.
I turned to Gabbi and lifted her onto my back again.
Just as she looped her arms around my neck, I heard the sound of someone stealthily picking their way through the scrub. Immediately I started creeping backwards.
In the dim moonlight, I could just make out the figure coming our way, head down, moving towards us.
I spotted a boulder and quickly lowered Gabbi behind it. I signalled to her that she should stay still, and placed my finger over my lips, hushing her before she could ask any questions. ‘Don’t come out till I tell you it’s OK,’ I whispered.
I flattened myself against the front of the rock, peering ahead. I was a metre or so higher than the intruder, so I had the advantage.
Whoever it was must have been heading this way to make use of the higher ground too, intending to look around, survey the land, just the way I had. I needed to take action before they walked straight into us. No way was I going to risk losing Gabbi now!
I sunk down and my hand closed around a fist-sized rock. The figure approached, broad-shouldered, but not very tall. As the figure came within two metres of me, I dropped on top of him, crashing us both to the ground, the rock raised in my right hand ready to crack it down if I needed to.
‘What do you think you’re doing?! It’s me!’
I caught a whiff of the familiar perfume.
‘Winter?’
She rolled me over and stared down into my face. Some of her hair slipped out of the black beanie she was wearing and onto my cheek. The beanie belonged to Boges. I didn’t know where the leather jacket she was wearing had come from.
I realised I was still clutching the rock in my hand. I let it fall.
‘I had no idea it was you. I saw the shape of the leather jacket and thought it was a guy. Maybe one of the kidnappers. I didn’t get a good look at either of them. Are you OK? Are Boges and Sharkey OK?’
‘I’m fine, they’re fine!’ she gushed. ‘Thank goodness you’re alive! Boges and I have been searching up and down the banks. We’d just about given up! We were going out of our minds!’
She fell on me again and hugged me tight. Her hair was damp on my neck.
‘This is Nelson’s,’ she explained as she sat back up, pulling at the collar of the leather jacket. ‘He had it in the back of his car. My clothes got soaked when I went in after you.’
<
br /> ‘You came in after me?’
‘I had to. Boges couldn’t leave Nelson. He’d been injured in the fight and was bleeding badly. I didn’t even think about it. I just dived in.’
‘You crazy girl,’ I said, amazed she was so brave, and secretly stoked that she’d dived into Spindrift River because of me. ‘You could have drowned.’
‘You could have drowned,’ she repeated back to me, with a suddenly solemn tone. ‘That river was impossible. It swept me along like I was a twig, and it was only good luck that I managed to grab onto some willow branches hanging over the river. You must remember that, Cal,’ she said very seriously. ‘The river was too strong for anyone. You couldn’t have saved Gabbi. Nobody could have.’
‘But, Winter—’ I began, before being interrupted.
‘Cal? Are you OK?’ Gabbi’s voice called out from the darkness.
Winter’s eyes opened wide. Surprise, joy and relief shone on her face, even though much of her was in shadow. Without words, her eyes seemed to ask me, Is it really her?
I nodded.
‘I’m fine, Gab,’ I called back. ‘Just wait there for me, OK?’
‘OK,’ she agreed.
Winter leaned in close to me. ‘She’s alive?’ she whispered.
I nodded my head again and grinned. ‘She made it. I don’t know how she survived the fall, but she made it!’
‘And she’s awake!’ Winter cried.
Winter leaped up and pulled me off the ground with surprising strength. She started dancing me around in circles.
‘Boges!’ she shouted into the sky. ‘I found him! He’s right here! With Gabbi! They’re both alive!’
My little sister crawled out of her hiding place and knelt there staring at the two of us, her eyes huge in her pale face, looking as if she was about to cry.
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