July (5 page)
Authors: Gabrielle Lord
There was no sign of anyone—Mike, Three-O or the cops. I hesitated, my body madly re-
adjusting
to the change in temperature, but I couldn’t worry about the mess I was leaving behind. All I knew was that I had to get out of there fast. I grabbed my backpack and ran.
I stumbled out the door of the shop, lopsided and off-balance like Frankenstein’s monster. I was starting to thaw, my skin first, then my muscles, and for a few freaky moments it was like I could feel my moving skeleton, each frosty bone of my body within the tissue that was
starting
to warm up and soften. A quick glance down the road, in the direction of the ATM, showed Mike shouting at Gary as they stormed up the
street together, both of them with their mobile phones out. I shivered, increasing my pace, and turned down another street and out of sight.
The sound of sirens started swarming, and in seconds I could hear cop cars skidding to a halt outside Mike’s shop. I didn’t waste time looking back, I just ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction, forcing my cold, numb legs to stride out and carry me away. Far away from the cops, and far away from the rotten smell of fish.
I stirred, woken by a distant noise.
After a moment, I shut my eyes and pulled the thick woollen blanket over me again. I was back at the beachside mansion—the place Boges had given me access to—sleeping on the plush rug. I’d had a good night’s sleep, sprawled out on the thick
carpet
, cocooned in its warmth. As soon as I’d made it back here after my crazy day, I’d taken a long, hot, painful shower. Next I’d dragged an extra blanket out of one of the walk-in closets, draped it around me, and crawled into a ball on the floor. I’d pretty much been in this position ever since.
I hoped Boges wouldn’t go crazy at me for breaking the don’t-touch rules of staying in the house, but I figured he’d understand once he knew I’d almost frozen to death.
The gentle sound of the waves and the squeals
of the gulls—sounds that used to remind me of family holidays at Treachery Bay—now created a very different atmosphere. The waves kept rolling in, relentless and oncoming, like the criminals who were after me, and the gulls shrieked and swooped, like birds of prey.
A sudden scraping noise from the driveway jolted my body into defensive action. I tore the blankets off me, hobbled on aching legs to the front drapes and cautiously peered around.
It was Boges’s uncle! He was unloading
cleaning
gear from the back of his station wagon!
Instinctively I grabbed my mobile and switched it on, forgetting it had died on me. I was shocked when it actually flashed on for a second, before blacking out again. I snatched up all of my stuff and on my way to hide in the linen closet I grabbed the portable house phone that was hanging in the kitchen.
‘What are you doing ringing me on this phone?’ Boges’s alarmed voice shouted down the line. ‘What did I tell you about—’
‘Boges, quit talking and listen for a sec,’ I whispered. ‘Your uncle Sammy’s here! My phone got drenched; I didn’t know what else to do. He’s on his way in right now and—’
‘Where are you?’
‘Hiding in the closet! Do something!’ I urged. ‘Please!’
Boges swore and hung up the phone. I cowered in the back of the closet, running a check on whether I’d left anything incriminating lying in the living room. I had a sick feeling of déjà vu—I’d been in this situation way too many times to count.
I could hear the clanging sound of equipment being unloaded. As I tossed up whether I should bolt out the back of the property, I heard a mobile phone ring outside.
The voice that answered the call was only faint, but it was loud enough for me to know it was Sammy, talking in Ukrainian. His tone was frustrated, agitated.
There were some muffled sounds for a couple of minutes, which ended with the slamming of the car boot. Then the engine started, and the car drove away.
I crept out of the closet and back to my
surveillance
position behind the drapes. I watched as Sammy’s white station wagon drove onto the street. I was alone again.
The house phone rang and I snatched it up.
‘Boges?’
‘Cal, what if that wasn’t me ringing?!’
‘You wanted me to answer it, didn’t you?
Anyway
, I don’t know what you said to him, but he’s gone. He just left. He sounded annoyed.’
‘I know. I told him I had a message from the owners that I’d completely forgotten to give him. I said they didn’t want the cleaning done yet because they had a relative arriving to stay a few nights while in town for a conference. I said they wanted him to clean the place after their guest had left.’
‘How did you come up with that?’ I said,
impressed
with my friend’s endless quick thinking.
‘I don’t even know!’ Boges laughed. ‘I rang him as soon as I got off the phone from you and made it up as I went along! He wasn’t happy. With me or the owners of the house! Anyway, you’re in the clear there for at least another six nights. Promise I’ll give you the heads-up next time my uncle’s on his way.’
I quickly gave Boges the run-down on
everything
that had happened since stealing the Jewel from Sligo.
‘Can’t wait to see it,’ said Boges. ‘Now that we have both parts of the double-key code maybe we can make sense of all the drawings.’ I hoped he was right. ‘We’ve gotta meet up, but people know I’m a link to you and I’ve gotta be way careful. Wherever I go these days, I feel like someone’s
watching me. I’ve seen Bruno a couple of times, and Zombie—Zombrovski—driving past,
pretending
to ignore me. They still haven’t worked out my backyard escape route, although I had to do some more fast-talking the other day—my neighbour found me running across her yard. She started shouting at me, but I’d thrown a tennis ball into her bushes a little while ago, in case she ever found me, and I pretended I’d jumped the fence to get it back.’ Boges stopped to laugh. ‘I’m becoming a master of lying to get myself outta trouble!’
‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ I said, feeling a bit guilty about the life I’d forced my friend into. ‘So when can we meet?’ I was trying to think of a safe place, somewhere other than here at the mansion. ‘Somewhere like the cinemas? Even if you’re followed,’ I continued, ‘whoever is on your tail could think you’re really just going to the movies, not meeting me. But if they do spot us together, it’ll be easier to shake them off there.’
‘OK, that could work.’
‘How about tomorrow at the shops, downstairs at the cinema complex?’
‘Can’t get out until next week. How about Wednesday? After school? I’m too busy this weekend with family stuff, and then
assignments
. Plus I have that internship application to finish. It’s making me tear my hair out.’
‘Could be an improvement,’ I joked. ‘
Wednesday
it is.’
‘Cool,’ he said, ignoring my comment about his hair. ‘Let’s make it four o’clock. In the meantime, I’ll to have to figure out a way to delete the record of these calls we’ve made. And if I need to call you before Wednesday, I’ll call the house phone for two short rings, and then one long. Answer it on the third, OK?’
‘Deal. Make sure your uncle doesn’t come back any time soon, will ya?’
I pulled the heavy drapes closed and watched the news on the TV near the kitchen. After a few international stories, a familiar shopfront
appeared
on the screen—Mike’s Seafood. A senior officer stood outside, surrounded by a crowd of journalists with microphones. Questions were being thrown at him from all angles, but he ignored them. All he said was, ‘We are confident we will catch Ormond very soon.’
Not if I had any say in the matter.
Then, as I expected, the grainy photo of me, deep in the freezer room, came up on the screen.
Three-O
, the dirty rat, had handed in the picture he took of me before locking me up. The next shot that came up was of the blasted freezer
room door, and a cop holding up what was left of one of the track detonators. The camera panned back to the crowd outside the fish shop and I saw the rat standing next to Mike amongst the hungry journalists, all scavenging for a piece of the story.
Luckily the photo Three-O had taken was pretty bad and my face wasn’t very clear. I was relieved he’d failed to get the cops there in time to cuff me, but I was just as relieved he didn’t get the reward money out of it. Still, he had a hundred thousand reasons for trying to track me down to finish what he’d started.
I sat for ages, staring at the crashing waves. I was trying to put everything out of my mind, so I started wandering around the house, looking for a distraction.
No-one would believe I was hiding out in a seven-bedroom, five-bathroom mansion, filled with fancy furniture and rugs, elaborate chandeliers and glass sculptures, huge paintings that were probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars … There was even a theatre room with three raised rows of rich red, cinema-style recliner chairs in front of a huge movie screen. I was almost completely out of money, my clothes
were getting shabbier with every day, I was a hunted fugitive and yet, thanks to Boges, I was sitting in a house fit for a prince.
I had to take advantage of it.
