TUESDAY, MAY 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.