August (15 page)

I hid behind a pot plant and watched where he went. He stopped halfway up the stairs–about the third level–and looked down for me. I was hidden from view. He smiled, panting. He thought he’d lost me.

Slowly I crept up the stairs after him, keeping close to the wall. I could hear him fumbling with keys.

I raced up the stairs, pushing myself to take two steps at a time. I flew up the last few and into the corridor. A couple of doors down, my double spun around, his panic-stricken face staring hard at me. He shoved the door open and raced into the apartment, but before he could turn and slam the door behind him, I was already there. I’d thrown my foot in and it copped the brunt of the force.

He vanished inside the apartment. I ran in after him, pausing to work out which room he might have gone into.

I heard the sound of a window opening and ran into the furthest room just in time to see my target leaping out of it. He ran along the flat roof of the adjacent building, and I climbed out of the window, dropping the metre or so onto
next-door’s
roof. I got to my feet and took off towards the door to the staircase. He disappeared into it before I could reach him. I raced over to it, but he’d locked it behind him.

I rattled the door and swore.

I’d lost him.

I went back to his place to take a look around.

I flicked on the lights and saw that I was in his bedroom. There was a shelf filled with books and trophies and school photos. A pile of clothes lay on the floor, the bed was messy and half-made, and a dirty sock hung over a small flat-screen TV. The room reminded me of my own back home in Richmond.

I picked up a school textbook on his desk. ‘Ryan Spencer,’ I read, scrawled inside.

He was in the same year as me at school–in the school I’d seen him leaving one time before. I looked at his photos in disbelief. It could have been me, instead of him, posing in the pictures. There was a photo of him with a soccer team, one
of him in a wetsuit holding a surfboard … and there was one of him hugging an older woman who I guessed was his mum. Even more bizarre, was a small photo of him as a two-or three-
year-old
. He even looked the same as me then.

I heard a sound outside in the corridor and came to my senses. What was I doing standing here? Any moment Ryan’s mum or dad could show up, and I’d be arrested.

As I was turning to leave the room, I saw something on a shelf that sent a shockwave of fear running through my body, transfixing me to the floor.

It couldn’t be!

But it was!

Another sound came from outside. I tore myself away from the object I’d been staring at, grabbed one of the photos of Ryan from his desk and ran out of the bedroom. I took off through the front door, into the hall, down the stairs and out of the building, without even checking if the coast was clear.

I couldn’t concentrate. I almost ran under a car, failing to see it until it was almost on top of me. With a screech of brakes, it stopped just in time.

I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen in that bedroom.

A call on my mobile interrupted me and my confusion.

‘Yep?’ I asked, not slowing down.

‘We received your message,’ said the distorted voice. The kidnappers! I flung myself behind a wall and stopped for a second. ‘We accept the deal you offer. Wait for further instructions
concerning
the time, date and place of the exchange. We will contact you again shortly.’

‘Wait!’ I shouted, wanting them to assure me Gab was OK. But the line was already dead.

I was shaking all over. The kidnappers had contacted me! They’d accepted my offer!

Immediately, I phoned Boges, but he didn’t answer.

 boges! kidnappers made contact. call me.

Next I called Winter, just to check it was OK for me to come up. I wouldn’t tell her anything yet.

I didn’t stop running until I reached her door. She opened it like she was just standing there waiting for me.

‘What is it?’ she asked, her face pale and concerned. ‘Are you OK? Has something happened to Gabbi?’

‘They’ve made contact! They’re going to call
me again soon with details for our exchange!’

Winter’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘You must stay here,’ she said, grabbing my arms and pulling me inside. ‘I want you here when they call. And you’d better call Boges. He should be here too.’

‘I sent him a message already,’ I said as I
followed
her inside. ‘But I have no idea when they’re going to call again. Do you think Gab’s OK? I didn’t get a chance to ask them anything.’

‘I don’t think you should consider the
possibility
of anything else, Cal.’ Winter stopped and put her hand on my brow. ‘Are you feeling OK? You look really pale. Paler than I’ve ever seen you before.’

‘Well, there’s another thing,’ I began, my pulse beginning to slow down. ‘Something really freaky has happened … and it’s nothing to do with the kidnappers.’ I shook my head in disbelief.

‘Cal, tell me,’ Winter gently pleaded, taking my hands again and sitting me down on the couch. She grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to me.

‘What I am about to say is going to sound crazy,’ I warned, ‘and I can hardly believe it myself.’

‘You can tell me,’ she urged.

‘I’ve seen something from my nightmare.’

‘What do you mean “something from your nightmare”?’

I stuttered, not knowing how to begin.

‘Take your time.’

‘Winter,’ I said with a shudder. ‘I saw that guy again. My double.’

‘But you’ve seen him before, a few times, right?’

‘That’s not what has me spooked. My double was spray-painting this “No Psycho” tag that’s all over the city, and I followed him, chased after him … all the way to an apartment building. He thought he’d lost me, but he hadn’t. I got into his house, but he took off through the window. His name is Ryan Spencer.’

I pulled out the photo of him I’d taken from his room, and handed it to her.

‘Whoa,’ she said, looking at Ryan’s picture–it was of him in a red canoe, holding up a big barramundi. ‘That’s an incredible likeness. And it’s so good that you found out who he is at last.’

Winter was impressed, but I knew she was still confused about why I was so shaken up.

I took a deep breath before I spoke again.

‘And so in the room–his bedroom–I saw
something
,’ I gulped. ‘On his shelf was the white toy dog from my nightmare.’

‘You saw a toy that looks like the dog in your dream?’

I shook my head. ‘No, no, no, not
looks like
.
Is
. It is
the
dog. It’s the exact same dog from my
nightmare–worn and threadbare. When I think about it now … Look, I have goose bumps! How come Ryan Spencer has the dog from my
recurring
nightmare?’

I shivered as I held out my arm to see all the hair follicles rising.

Winter stared at me. ‘There could be a lot of those toys around,’ she said. But even she looked unconvinced that it was just a coincidence.

‘How can something from a dream creep into the real world?’ I asked.

‘It’s more likely,’ Winter began, ‘that something from the real world crept into your dream.’

I stopped to think about what she’d just said. ‘So are you saying that you really believe he’s my twin? That at some point we have both known the same white toy dog?’

She nodded. ‘
One was found and the other
one lost
,’ she said, repeating the haunting words from my great-aunt’s song. ‘Which begs the
question
… which one was found, and which one was lost?’

It felt like the room was whirling around me. I was positive my parents were my own. I was positive I was an Ormond. I looked like my
parents
.

Ryan Spencer looked like
my
parents, too.

In an attempt to distract me from thinking about Ryan Spencer, Winter started showing me through some of her DMO notes.

‘It comes from a poem called
La Châtelaine
de Vergy
. “Châtelaine” is a word meaning “
mistress
” of a place and “Vergy” is a place in the south of France.’

‘First Ireland, now France,’ I muttered. ‘This is wild.’

‘Cal,’ said Winter in a gentle voice, ‘we’re uncovering more information all the time. Once you have Gabbi back–’

‘What if I don’t?’ The thought was too
horrible
to bear. ‘When the kidnappers call me, we’re
going to have to work out a way to doublecross them. Get Gabbi back safely and also keep me out of their clutches so that we can return to solving the mystery of the Ormond Singularity. And get the Jewel and the Riddle back.’

‘We’re smart enough to outwit them,’ said Winter. She considered something, her head to one side. ‘Maybe Griff Kirby would have some good ideas about doublecrossing people.’

I shook my head. ‘He’s unreliable and
untrustworthy
. He was probably the rat that almost got me captured after I went to see Leporello. It has to be just us, the people I can trust,’ I said. ‘I want to protect my sister. I want to bring her home to convince my mum that I’m not a psychopath and I’d never hurt my family.’