September (4 page)

‘It’s OK, I’m here now.’

I decided on trying to tell her the truth of the situation, even though it was horrible. After what she’d been through, Gabbi deserved that.

‘Gab, what do you remember happening before you fell into the river? I know you don’t know how you fell in the river, but do you remember anything happening before that? Like, at home or at school?’

The puzzled look on her face deepened. ‘What do you mean? I remember everything! I’m about to start Year 3 with Miss McCormack. Dad died. Last year. Why are you asking me that?’

I wondered how I was going to break the news about the months she’d lost in a coma.

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Just keep telling me anything you remember. What you remember happening before you ended up in the river. Then I’ll explain what I can to you. OK?’

‘I don’t know! I don’t know what else to tell you!’

‘Just take a moment and think about it. Maybe something will come back.’

Gabbi took a deep breath.

She looked agitated and afraid as flickers of memories seemed to come back to her.

‘I remember!’ she said before speaking really quickly. ‘I was upstairs in my room, texting Ashley on Mum’s old phone, and then I heard
some really loud noises downstairs. Yep, that’s right. At first I thought it was you, so I called out. I called out for Uncle Rafe, too, but nobody answered me. Mum had gone shopping, so I knew she wasn’t there. Then I heard these strange voices. I got really scared, thinking about the people who broke into our house last week.’

‘Last week?’

‘Well,
two
weeks ago, whatever. I thought it could have been them.’

Two weeks ago?
The break-in, back home, was months ago!

‘I was so scared,’ Gabbi continued, ‘I was even going to call the police! Then I heard these loud bangs and the strange voices got louder and I didn’t know what to do! I was running to my wardrobe to hide when
bam
! Someone whacked me from behind! When that happens in cartoons, you see stars. But I didn’t see any stars.’

Anger surged through me.

‘Next thing I know,’ explained Gabbi, ‘I think I’m caught in a rip in Treachery Bay … except it wasn’t the bay, it was this river here.’

In the flickering firelight, Gabbi’s face was frightened and puzzled. She had lost the last eight months! She’d gone from that afternoon in January—when she was attacked and I found her slumped on the ground, not breathing—to this
day, right now on the riverbank near Spindrift River Bridge.

‘Why are you looking at me like that, Cal?’

I realised now that Gabbi would not be able to help me clear my name.

‘Gab,’ I said, ‘they reckon I attacked you.’

‘
You?!
But that’s crazy!’

‘Mum said you were yelling out my name when the ambulance came to get you.’

‘I must have been scared for you! Scared they were gonna hurt you too. I think it was you they were after! I was trying to warn you!’

‘Me? They were after
me
? What makes you say that?’

‘I don’t know! I don’t remember! Maybe I heard them say something about you. I don’t know.’

Gabbi was shaking her head, frustrated with herself for not remembering everything properly.

‘I think I must have been awake for a second after I got hit. I didn’t know where you were. I must have been trying to warn you before it all went black again. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t want them to get you.’

Boges, Winter and Sharkey had rejoined us. I looked across at Boges. He was nodding to me as if to say that was why Mum and Rafe thought I was the guilty party. That, and the fact that my fingerprints were on the gun that shot Rafe.

‘They didn’t get me, Gabbi. And,’ I added,
cautiously
, ‘it didn’t actually happen last night. It happened a while ago. A
long
while ago.’

‘How long?’

‘You’ve been unconscious—in a coma—from the head injuries.’

‘Huh?’ Instinctively, Gabbi put her hand up to the back of her head. ‘But I don’t even have a lump! There’s nothing there!’

‘That’s because you were hit almost eight months ago …’

‘What? What do you mean, eight months?’

‘Look,’ I said, pulling my mobile out and
showing
the screen to her.

She read it out slowly. ‘The first of
September
? But … how could I walk upstairs to my room one day,’ she said, ‘and then wake up in a river eight months later? Ashley will never believe me.’ She grabbed my arm, tears
welling
up in her eyes again. ‘Oh, no! That means I’ve missed almost a year of school! I’ll have to repeat Year 3!’

‘After a while it won’t feel so weird. And you’ll catch up at school really quickly. You’re really smart, remember that?’ I said with a playful nudge. ‘You might even find that some
memories
of what happened to you will come back,’ I added, thinking of something Boges had told
me about memory loss and comas. ‘Like where you’ve been, and who was looking after you.’

It took quite a while, but Gabbi finally started taking in what I was saying. I didn’t want to freak her out too much, so was careful about what I said. I eased her into the current family situation and about my life on the run. I told her that she was now living with Mum at Rafe’s house, and how happy they’d both be to find out she was all right and would be able to come home to them.

I didn’t tell her about the time they almost switched off her life-support system, thinking she was never going to wake up. That would have been too much for anyone to take.

As dawn broke over the mountains in the distance, I had to tell her my side of the story—of how I’d been on the run, desperately trying to understand the mystery Dad had begun to uncover. Gabbi kept quiet through most of it, shaking her head in disbelief as I spoke.

‘There is some huge secret attached to our family,’ I said, ‘that affects the first-born son in each generation.’

‘That’s you,’ Gabbi pointed out.

‘That’s me. And I have to find out what it
means. I know that it’s dangerous, so the stakes are high. Boges and Winter have both been
helping
me. And now Nelson Sharkey, too.’ I put my arm more firmly around my little sister. ‘He’s an ex-detective. But you mustn’t tell anyone
anything
I’ve told you. You have to keep it secret. It’s too dangerous if you let on you know anything, OK? I’m afraid you can’t even tell anyone—not Mum, not Rafe—that you’ve seen me.’

‘But you saved me!’

‘Gabbi Ormond,’ I said very seriously. ‘Please promise me you won’t say anything.’

‘Because of the police?’

‘That’s right. If I’m arrested, I’ll never be able to clear my name and track down the Dangerous Mystery of the Ormonds. No-one can know where I am. You must pretend you know nothing, OK?’

‘Cross my heart,’ she said. ‘I would never, ever dob on you.’

We linked pinkie-fingers and agreed to secrecy.

‘I know. Thanks Gab.’

After telling her a bit about Winter, of how she’d saved my life once, Gabbi stared at her wide-eyed.

Winter gave Gabbi one of her rare smiles and Gabbi managed a smile of her own. That pink candle, I thought, remembering how it had
glowed for Gabbi on Winter’s desk, would not need lighting ever again.

‘Bits seem to be flashing through my mind now,’ Gabbi said, her eyes searching mine. ‘I think I had some really strange dreams. Freaky. Really scary.’

‘Tell us about them,’ I said.

‘This will sound weird, but I thought there was a woman. A really scary woman with red hair piled up on her head. And purple sunglasses.’

I was suddenly very alert.
Red hair. Purple sunglasses
. At some stage, Gabbi must have briefly regained consciousness and been aware somehow of Oriana de la Force! Oriana was definitely behind the kidnapping! Even though she already had the Ormond Riddle
and
the Ormond Jewel—the two precious parts of the double-key code—she had still wanted more.

Boges, Winter and Sharkey were leaning in, listening intently.

‘Gab,’ I said, leaning closer to her. ‘I think that might have been real—not a dream. See, some stuff is coming back to you. That red-head is a real person. Can you tell me any more about her?’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I feel like she was bossing these men around. But I think I was dreaming that, because I also felt like Uncle Rafe was there, protecting me.’

‘Well that’s good to hear,’ I said. ‘Even if it was only a dream.’

I promised Gabbi that I was well on my way to clearing my name so that I could come home and be with her really soon.

‘I’m going to help you,’ Gabbi announced
solemnly
, sitting back on her heels, her face very serious. ‘I know I can’t say anything to anyone, but somehow I’m going to help you.’

‘Of course you are,’ said Winter, leaning over to hold Gabbi’s hand.

‘Gab, when you’re fit and strong, what would you think about being an undercover detective for me?’ I asked.

‘You can count on me,’ she said with a grin.

‘I’m sorry to say it, guys, but it’s time we got going,’ announced Sharkey, rearranging his bandaged arm. ‘I can still drive, in spite of this.’

‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Boges. ‘We need a safe place to leave Gabbi.’

Gabbi looked at Boges nervously, biting her lower lip.

‘There’s a regional police station about forty kilometres from Billabong,’ said Sharkey. ‘Open all hours. We could drop Gabbi off there. Or near there—we don’t want to bring our car in too
close. Don’t want to be identified and linked to her return.’

‘Maybe if you park the car a few blocks away, I can walk her up,’ suggested Winter, taking Gabbi’s hand. ‘Not to the door, of course, but I can take her as close as possible, and then I’ll run for cover and meet up with you further down the road?’

‘Good idea, Winter,’ said Sharkey. He turned to Gab, who was looking more and more nervous by the second. ‘Don’t worry, sweetie, you’ll be safe there. They’ll take great care of you, and they’ll have your mum and uncle over in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. They’ll also want to know how you got there. You can tell them a kind stranger dropped you off.’

‘I guess that isn’t really a lie,’ said Gabbi slowly. ‘You were a stranger, until just now. And I can tell you are both kind,’ she said to Sharkey and Winter.

My sister looked up at me. Her lower lip was quivering.

‘I know you said it’s too dangerous, but isn’t there some way you can come home with me, Cal?’ she pleaded. ‘You’re my brother! Can’t we just tell them it wasn’t you who hurt me?
I
know that. I’ll just tell them. We can explain
everything
to them. Together. Mum will believe us!’

If only that were true.

I wondered for a moment how Gabbi would react to finding out that she possibly had another brother out there. Ryan Spencer.

‘Gab,’ I said gently, ‘things are too
complicated
. I can’t go home. The cops don’t believe me. Even Mum …’ I paused. ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘please don’t cry on me. One day—soon—I’ll be home with you. We’ll all be together again. But I have to stay away for now. I have a lot of work to do that I can’t do unless I’m out here. In hiding. This secret that I’m working on affects our family. It involves things that belong to us, no-one else. Don’t you worry about me, OK? Now let’s get you home safely.’

‘But what will I tell them about the attack?’

‘Just tell them the truth—that you don’t remember anything up until tonight. That you were in your room when someone hit you. Just don’t mention seeing me here.’

‘That’s right, Gabs,’ said Boges, nodding
vigorously
. ‘And please leave me right out of the picture, too. Otherwise I will be in deep, deep … chocolate. I’ll come and visit you when you’re back home, but we’ll have to pretend it’s the first time we’ve seen each other since January, OK?’

‘I won’t say anything. I promise. I’ll just say I woke up in the river, got washed ashore and a
… a bushwalker found me. I won’t tell them any more than that.’

Gabbi and Boges high-fived each other.