Contact (11 page)

After a few minutes of pushing and shoving and rolling over toes, I finally hauled my bike clear of the mob. Luke was still fumbling with his bike chain. He kept moving aside to let other people push past.

‘Come on!' I shouted. This was no time to be polite.

I was about to ride off without him, when I saw Cat, Tank and Mike skulking off towards the English block.

Where in the world were they going?

‘Peter Weir!' shouted a rabid voice from above me. Mr Ranga was leaning out the second-storey window, comb-over flapping in the wind.

Oh, crap. Detention.

‘Sorry, sir!' I called up to him. ‘I'm kind of busy this afternoon. Can we reschedule?'

‘Do
not
make this any worse for yourself, Peter,' Mr Ranga spat. ‘Get yourself up here
immediately
!'

I cupped a hand to my ear. ‘What's that, sir? I can't hear you up there!'

‘Peter!' he screamed. ‘Don't you dare!'

But that was all I heard. Luke had finally pulled his bike free, and the two of us took off towards the back gate.

‘I have a feeling you're going to pay for that,' said Luke, swerving around a couple of kids on skateboards.

‘Whatever,' I said. With everything else going on, Mr Ranga wasn't even in my head.

We shot through the school gate at full tilt, sending a bunch of primary kids running for cover.

In two minutes, we were ditching our bikes and running up the path to Jordan's house.

Please be okay. Please.

I leapt onto the veranda and hammered the doorbell.

What if no-one was home? Jordan's parents usually wouldn't finish work until five, but –

I jumped as a shadow appeared behind the door. It was huge, stretching past both sides of the stained glass.

The door opened and suddenly Jordan's enormous, towering, shaven-headed, islander father was looming over us.

He looked absolutely furious.

I almost ran for it. I knew Jordan's dad was a really good guy, but right now he looked terrifying. And I'd seen what he could do when someone threatened his family.

But then he realised who we were, and the rage on his face dropped back a bit.

‘Oh,' he said. ‘Hi, boys.'

I started breathing again, feeling extremely grateful that I wasn't whoever he'd
thought
might be coming to the door.

‘Mr Burke,' said Luke, ‘we were wondering if Jordan –'

‘This really isn't a good time, Luke,' said Jordan's dad in a voice that made my blood go cold.

‘Is she here?' I asked. ‘We just want to make sure she's –'

‘Dad?'

I heard footsteps from inside the house, and Jordan appeared in the doorway. She had goosebumps all up and down her arms, and her skin was radiating heat, like she'd just got out of the shower.

And for a few seconds, I forgot everything that was wrong in Phoenix.

‘Hey,' she said. ‘Dad, it's fine, let them in.'

Jordan's dad considered us for a minute. The last time we were over here, Crazy Bill had followed Luke and me up to the house and started spying on us.

Not our fault. But also not the best first impression to make on your future girlfriend's father.

‘We won't stay long,' said Luke.

‘Yeah,' I said, ‘we just need to catch her up on our meeting with Pryor today. You know, staff-student liaison stuff.'

Mr Burke looked at Jordan, who was staring up at him, Bambi-eyed.

‘All right, all right,' he said, sighing like he knew full well she was playing him. ‘Just take it easy, okay? You've had a rough day.'

‘Dad, I'm
fine,
' said Jordan. She turned to me and Luke. ‘C'mon.'

We followed her down the hall. As we passed the lounge room, I saw Jordan's little sister lying on the floor, surrounded by paper and colouring pencils.

She looked up at us and exploded into a fit of giggles.

Jordan shot Luke a weary look. ‘Probably planning our wedding,' she said. ‘I swear, she hasn't shut up about you since last time you guys were here.'

Stupid kid,
I thought, stepping into Jordan's room.
What would she know?

Jordan shut the door behind us and her tone changed completely.

‘Are you guys okay?' she asked.

‘Us?' said Luke. ‘You're the one who –'

‘Calvin said you guys admitted to taking the phone,' said Jordan.

‘Pryor said the same thing about you,' I said. ‘You didn't tell him anything?'

‘No,' said Jordan. ‘Did you?'

‘Course not,' I said.

‘Okay, good,' Jordan breathed.

‘What did Calvin do to you?' I asked. ‘I mean, he didn't hurt you or anything?'

‘I'm fine,' she said. ‘In fact …'

Jordan went across to her schoolbag and grabbed her copy of
The Shape of Things to Come
. She flipped it open and pulled out a bookmark or something from between the pages. She held it up in front of us.

‘Are you
kidding
me?' I said.

It wasn't a bookmark.

It was a key card.

Chapter 14

T
UESDAY
, M
AY
26
79
DAYS

‘Told you I'd find out what was behind that door,' Jordan grinned.

‘Yeah, but …' Luke trailed off. ‘How did you
get
that?'

‘Actually, it wasn't as hard as I thought,' said Jordan. ‘Montag seemed sort of distracted when Mum and I went in to see him. Like he had somewhere else to be.'

‘The meeting with Ketterley and your dad,' said Luke, pulling his eyes away from the key card to look at me. ‘That was today, right?'

‘Think so,' I said, really not wanting to get into Dad again.

‘Anyway,' said Jordan, ‘Montag let us into his office – as in, his normal office, not the metal door place – and then he clipped all his keys and stuff to the side of his belt.'

‘The key card too?' I said.

‘Yeah, on one of those little clamp things,' she said, miming with her finger and thumb. ‘I waited until Dr Montag went to type something into his computer, and I reached over and unclipped the card from his belt while he and Mum had their backs turned.'

‘That's it?' said Luke.

‘What do you mean,
that's it?
' I said, looking for a reason to snap at him. ‘What if he'd seen her?'

‘He didn't,' Jordan shrugged. ‘I mean, these guys are still only human, right? So, yeah, I stuck the card in my pocket and then asked Dr Montag where the toilet was. I was
planning
to have a quick look in the locked room and get back again before anyone realised something was up.'

‘But?' said Luke.

‘Well, the first part worked,' said Jordan, sitting down on her bed. ‘Actually, Dr Montag said it might be good if I stepped out for a couple of minutes so he could talk to Mum about some personal stuff.'

‘What kind of stuff?' I asked, sitting down next to her.

‘Pregnant women's business,' said Jordan pointedly. ‘You really want me to go into detail?'

‘You know what? Why don't you just keep telling us what happened?'

‘Right,' said Jordan, shuffling away from me a bit, ‘so it took me a few minutes to find the place from the photo. It was right at the other end of the building, near the room they had Luke in after he got bashed.'

‘And?' said Luke. ‘What was in there?'

‘Nothing,' said Jordan.

‘What, so it was just another hospital room or something?' I said.

‘No,' said Jordan, ‘it was an
empty room.
'

‘Are you sure?' said Luke. ‘Did you … I mean, you went in and had a look around, right?'

‘At
what?
' said Jordan, and it was nice to hear her getting stuck into
him
for a change. ‘Of course I looked, but it wasn't even a proper room. It was just this tiny little cupboard thing with, like, kitchen tiles on the floor.'

It didn't make any sense. There had to be
something
in there. Something Jordan had missed. But my survival instinct kicked in before I said this out loud. Telling Jordan she hadn't looked hard enough wouldn't do me any favours.

‘What happened then?' I asked instead.

‘I started heading back, but this nurse stopped me halfway and asked me what I was doing,' said Jordan. ‘I told her I'd got lost on the way to the toilets. She let me go, and then followed me all the way back up the hall. When we got to the waiting room, she kept going and walked straight out of the building and across the street.'

‘Huh?' said Luke. ‘Wait – she went to the security centre?'

Jordan sighed. ‘Yep.'

‘To do what?' I said. ‘Report some suspicious walking?'

‘I don't know
what
she told them,' said Jordan. ‘I went straight back to Mum and Dr Montag and hid the key card in my bag. Next thing I know, Calvin's storming in with two other security officers.'

‘Bet your mum loved that,' said Luke.

‘Uh-huh,' said Jordan. ‘She went pretty nuts – and that was
before
she knew what was really going on. Because, remember, this isn't the first time Calvin's burst in on one of her doctor's appointments.'

‘Yeah, she's had kind of a bad run, huh?' I said.

‘So Mum starts laying into him about that,' Jordan continued, ‘and then Calvin says one of the nurses has reported some suspicious behaviour and that I need to come with him, and Mum just
lost
it at him. In the end, they needed one of the security officers to stay back and restrain her.'

‘She okay?' said Luke, jumping in before I had the chance.

‘Yeah, they didn't do anything to her. The guard just waited until she calmed down a bit and then sent her home.' Jordan pointed at the bedroom door. ‘She's at her computer now, sending an angry email to Mr Shackleton.'

‘Awesome,' I said. ‘I'm sure he'll sort the whole thing right out.'

‘But that's pretty much it,' said Jordan. ‘Calvin hauled me into one of the interrogation rooms and started questioning me.'

‘You sure you're okay?' I asked, moving closer to her again.

‘Yeah,' she said. ‘He was – I mean, between the phone and going to the Shackleton Building and getting caught out in the bush, they're definitely getting suspicious. But they're still kind of stuck, aren't they, because they don't want to give themselves away either. So I just kept my mouth shut and eventually they had to let me go.'

‘Hang on,' said Luke. ‘How did you get away from there without Calvin finding the key card? Surely he must have gone through your stuff.'

‘Nope,' Jordan grinned. ‘My schoolbag never made it to the security centre. Calvin was too busy dealing with Mum to even realise it was there. I just left it behind in the doctor's office, and Mum brought it home.'

She flipped the key card over in her fingers. ‘So …' she said. ‘Who wants to go have a proper look inside Pryor's office?'

I cringed. One of us was going to have to burst her bubble. I decided to let Luke do it.

‘Jordan … we can't,' he said. ‘Pryor's just had security cameras put in.'

Her smile disappeared. ‘Okay,' she said slowly. ‘ All right, so maybe we can't get into
that
door. But there are others, right? Montag's, Shackleton's …' She stared into space for a minute, then said, ‘What if they've
all
got one? Everyone on Pryor's contact list.'

‘Sure, maybe,' I said, ‘but that doesn't really get us anywhere, does it?'

‘It does if we can find out what they're for,' said Jordan. ‘I mean, why
those
rooms? There's got to be some connection.'

‘Officer Reeve might know something,' said Luke. ‘Although he
did
kind of tell us never to speak to him again …'

‘Worth a shot, anyway,' shrugged Jordan.

‘I could see if my dad knows anything.' The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. I braced myself, waiting for Jordan to blow up at the suggestion.

But the explosion never came.

Jordan bit her lip, thought about it for a sec, and then said, ‘Yeah, okay, why don't you see what you can find out?'

‘Huh?' I said. ‘Seriously?'

‘Well, it's not like we have a lot of other options, is it?' she said, as though it was
me
that had a problem with my dad. ‘Just be careful, okay?'

There was a knock on the door and Jordan's mum poked her head into the room.

‘Oh, hi guys,' she said. ‘Jordan, can I talk to you for a minute? I'd like you to read over this email before I send it off.'

‘Sure,' said Jordan, standing up.

‘We should probably get going anyway,' said Luke.

Jordan's little sister was still colouring in on the lounge room floor as we walked out. She saw us leaving and jumped to her feet.

‘Wait!' she said, running into the hall. She had a red piece of paper in her hands, folded in half and taped together. She gave the paper to Luke and said, ‘Open it.'

She ran away, bursting into another giggling fit.

Luke picked off the tape and unfolded the paper. It was a drawing of a girl in a ridiculous frilly dress, surrounded by a big, wonky heart. There was a note scrawled underneath:

you aer a Good boy.
love GeorGia.

‘Told you,' said Jordan. ‘She's obsessed.'

As Luke and I rode back down the street, it took all my self-control not to reach over and shove him off his bike.

Chapter 15

W
EDNESDAY
, M
AY
27
78
DAYS

I got up early the next morning to catch Dad before he left for work. I'd tried waiting for him last night, but gave up when he still wasn't back from his meeting with Montag and Ketterley by midnight.