FRIDAY, MAY 22
83 DAYS
No.
He wouldn’t. Not my dad. It was impossible. No way was he a part of this. No way. There was another explanation. Of course there was. I just had to figure out –
I hit the wall behind me and realised I’d been backing away from the others.
‘What is it?’ asked Jordan, standing up. ‘Is there another name?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing.’
Jordan stretched out her hand. ‘Peter, c’mon, let’s see it.’
‘I said it’s nothing.’
‘All right,’ said Jordan, stepping closer. ‘So give me the phone.’
I held the phone behind my back. ‘No, wait, just let me explain, okay?’
‘Explain what?’ said Jordan. And she dived at me.
‘Jordan –’ said Luke, getting up too.
I twisted away. Too late.
Jordan pinned me up against the wall and pried the phone out of my hand.
‘Okay,’ I said as she let go. ‘Okay, look at it. Just don’t –’
‘Your dad,’ said Jordan coldly.
‘No,’ I said, straightening up. ‘No, that isn’t –’
‘Look,’ she said, voice rising, thrusting the phone into Luke’s face. ‘Look at it. His dad is –’
‘He’s not! Don’t even – so what if his name’s on some stupid list? That doesn’t prove anything!’
‘It proves he’s got one of these,’ said Jordan, waving the phone in front of me.
‘So they gave him a phone!’ I said. ‘He works for them, okay? So do both of your parents!’
‘My parents aren’t getting secret phone calls from Mr Shackleton,’ said Jordan. ‘And I thought you said your dad just worked for the local paper. How is that important enough to deserve a phone?’
I opened my mouth to keep arguing.
And then I closed it again. I forced myself to shut up for a second, breathing, trying to pull myself together.
Calm down. Think. Don’t yell at her.
‘All right,’ I said after a bit, trying to keep my voice level. ‘Okay, maybe that’s not all my dad does at work. But, Jordan, I swear –’
‘So you admit it now?’ snapped Jordan, and I felt the anger flare up again. ‘You admit you’ve been keeping stuff about your dad from us?’
Don’t yell at her.
‘Jordan, no, I never meant to keep anything from you guys. That was before I knew –’
‘Don’t give me that crap again!’ Jordan spat. ‘We went out to that wall a week ago! You’ve had plenty of time to fill us in on –’
Don’t –
‘I don’t know, okay?’ I screamed, loudly enough to shut even Jordan up. ‘I don’t know what he does! What did you want me to say? “Guess what, guys! My dad’s plotting genocide! Better go kill him!” I didn’t ask for this, okay? I didn’t ask for any of this!’
‘And we did?’ said Jordan.
Luke held up his hands. ‘Peter, listen –’
And Luke’s calm bloody peacemaker voice was all it took to set me off completely.
‘No, you listen! I’ve done everything you guys wanted! I decoded your files! I took you out to meet Crazy Bill! I went out on your suicidal bike ride into the heart of bloody darkness! And who was the one who got that phone for you in the first place? Yeah, that’s right. You know what? My life was fine until you guys got here! I was happy. And now you want to string me up for not wanting to think my dad is freaking Hitler? Well, screw you!’
Dead silence.
I ripped the phone out of Jordan’s hand and walked out of the house.
I rode home along the backstreets, blood pounding in my head.
Furious at Luke and Jordan. Furious at myself for blowing up at her.
And the worst part was that the longer I turned it all over in my head, the harder it was to convince myself that there was any kind of innocent reason for Dad to be on that list.
But there had to be. There had to be something.
I rolled my bike up to the house. Dad’s bike was already parked in the rack at the end of our veranda. He must have been working from home this afternoon.
I got to the door and hesitated.
An idea dropped into my head. It was crazy and dangerous and would probably land me in even more crap with Jordan and Luke. But right then I didn’t care about any of that.
I eased the door open, careful not to make a sound, and crept into the house.
Dad was in the lounge room. I could hear his fingers clattering on the keys of his laptop.
I crept along the hall to the lounge doorway, sliding Pryor’s phone out of my pocket as I went.
I glanced around the corner.
Dad was lying back on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, back to the door.
Would he really be that relaxed if he had so much to hide?
I ducked back into the hall and brought up the contact list again.
Brian Weir.
I dialled the number, put the speaker to my ear just long enough to hear that it was ringing, then slipped the phone back into my pocket, thumb hovering over the end call button.
The clattering in the next room stopped.
I stepped out into the doorway. Dad was shifting on the couch, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a phone identical to Pryor’s.
‘Melinda,’ he said casually, sliding the phone open. ‘What can I do for you?’ He stood up, putting his laptop down on the coffee table, and rolled his shoulders back in a silent yawn. ‘You there, Mel?’
He turned his head, saw me standing in the doorway, and freaked out. ‘Whoa, Pete –?’
Dad shoved the phone down into his pocket in the most miserable attempt at a cover-up I’d ever seen.
My brain lost power for a second, and all I could do was stare right back at him.
‘How was school?’ asked Dad, finally breaking the silence.
I ignored the question. ‘Who were you just talking to?’ I asked, hopefully sounding more innocent than him, at least. I arranged my face in an expression of shock – not exactly hard to do right now – and said, ‘Wait … are the phones back on?’
Dad flinched. ‘No, mate, I was just –’ His eyes darted back and forth like they always do when he’s thinking on his feet. ‘I thought I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. You know how you sometimes think it’s buzzing, but really –?’
‘Then why did you say “Melinda”?’ I asked.
He narrowed his eyes at me.
And in that moment, the reality of what I was doing hit me like a bowling ball in the face.
Pryor’s phone goes missing in the middle of my meeting with her, and then my dad gets a call from the stolen phone and I just happen to be there to bust him?
Was I trying to get caught?
Dad’s hand drifted down to his pocket. He pulled his phone back out, face fixed with a stony, serious look that he hardly ever gets.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Here. See? This is my work phone. Mr Shackleton gave it to me in case anyone needs to contact me with a story for the paper.’
How is that important enough to deserve a phone? I heard Jordan shouting in my head. I shoved the thought away.
‘But the phones are down,’ I said. ‘How are you getting reception?’
Dad tapped the weird bulge at the back of his phone. ‘Louisa Hawking – you know, your friend Cathryn’s mum – she’s set up a makeshift network. It’s pretty temperamental, though, and it still can’t connect to anywhere outside Phoenix. That’s why they’ve asked me to keep it quiet. They don’t want people to suddenly hear a phone ringing and get the wrong idea.’
He shot me a significant look.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘That phone in the park. That was you? ’
Dad nodded. ‘No point hiding it from you now, I guess. I was cutting across the park on the way to a meeting and the bloody thing went off in the bottom of my bag. No idea how it got turned off vibrate. I got out of there and shut it up quick as I could. But I guess it wasn’t quick enough, was it? Officer Miller said he saw you and your mates coming after me.’
Why was he admitting this? Surely that proved he wasn’t one of them.
No, it doesn’t. You already caught him with the phone. He hasn’t said anything you don’t already know.
But that wasn’t true either. He’d given something else away, even if he hadn’t meant to.
If that phone had been his, then so had that list of building stuff. That was his big project. He was helping them build something. He was helping them.
I caught myself. I’d been silent for too long. ‘Huh,’ I said. ‘Well, now I’m just disappointed.’
‘I know you are, Pete, but I’m sure the rest of the phones will be back on before –’
‘Not about that,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘I’m disappointed that I was outrun by you.’
‘Whoa, hey, come on,’ said Dad. ‘I came first place in my uni marathon!’
‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Mum told me you won that thing because it rained and only two other people showed up.’
‘Yeah,’ said Dad, ‘and I beat both of them.’
He was being so normal. For Dad, anyway. And my dad is not what you’d call a complicated man. I couldn’t believe that his side of this conversation was just an act.
Why not? Your side of it is.
‘Pete, listen,’ said Dad, sidestepping around the couch towards me, suddenly serious again, ‘you need to promise me you won’t tell anyone about the phones.’
‘Sure,’ I said, taking an involuntary step back. ‘No worries.’
‘Especially not Luke and Jordan.’
‘Um, okay,’ I said.
Had he even met Luke and Jordan before? Why was he so sure they were the ones I’d want to run out and tell?
‘I’m serious, Pete. Those two are …’
‘What?’ I said.
‘I’m just not sure it’s a smart move for you to keep spending so much time with them.’ He paused again, like he was choosing his words extremely carefully. ‘I don’t want to see you get into any trouble.’
‘Right, because I never got into any trouble before they got here.’
‘I mean real trouble,’ said Dad, a weird darkness creeping into his voice. It was like someone had just dumped ice down my back.
‘Dad, c’mon, they’re not – Jordan and Luke just – They’re just curious, you know?’
No! I thought, regretting the words as soon as they were out of my mouth.
Dad took another step towards me. ‘Curious about what?’ he asked.
‘Like … I don’t know,’ I said, brain screaming at me not to say anything else stupid. ‘It’s just, you know, they both just got here, and neither of their parents work in the Shackleton Building, so …’
Dad folded his arms and turned his head up to the ceiling, like he was deciding on something.
‘Tell you what,’ he said, suddenly normal again. ‘I’ve got to go into the office on Sunday to take care of a couple of things. Why don’t I take the three of you in with me? I’ll give you the grand tour and prove to your mates that they’ve got nothing to be curious about.’
‘All right,’ I said, feeling nauseous. But what else was I meant to say? ‘Sure.’
Dad reached around to clap me on the shoulder. ‘Great! All set, then. Listen mate, I’d better get back to work.’
‘Uh-huh. Yeah, I’ve got some homework I should probably get onto,’ I lied.
‘Good on you,’ said Dad. He held up his phone again. ‘Remember,’ he winked, dropping it into his pocket, ‘you never saw this.’
‘Never saw what?’ I grinned, heading for the door.
Dad sat back on the couch and reached for his laptop.
I climbed up the stairs to my bedroom, head throbbing, and crashed onto my bed.
I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to go to bed and sleep away the next eighty-three days and if the world ended, at least I wouldn’t have to watch my dad help make that happen.
I pulled up the covers and rolled onto my side, staring across the room at the extra bookshelves that Dad put in the week before Mum and I arrived in Phoenix.
Behind the windmill, I thought vaguely.
And suddenly I was kicking the covers off and staggering out of bed and stumbling across to the other side of the room. I stuck both hands into the narrow gap between the bookcase and the wall, and started grabbing at the big wooden frame I’d hidden there.
When Mum and I first got here, I’d come up to my room to find this stupid framed picture of a grassy field hanging on the wall. I wanted to get rid of it, but Mum had said not to throw it out, so I just shoved it down here behind the bookcase.
I clawed the picture back out again and laid it on the carpet.
A grassy field.
A grassy field with a giant freaking windmill standing in the middle of it.
You moron.
How could I have wasted three days on this?
I flipped the frame over and started prying open the little metal tab things holding the picture in place.
Come on, Bill, you bloody maniac, give me something to work with here …
I pulled back the last tab and lifted up the heavy sheet of cardboard at the back of the frame. And there it was.
A print-out of an email, with six pages of photos underneath.
And if I’d believed that decoding Crazy Bill’s clue would make me feel better about our chances of surviving this mess … I was even dumber than I thought.