BooksBarbecue
Back Found Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Title
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. About the Author
  5. About the Book
  6. Dedication
  7. Your Worst Nightmare
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. The Answer to All Your Prayers
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. THIRTEEN
  22. FOURTEEN
  23. FIFTEEN
  24. SIXTEEN
  25. SEVENTEEN
  26. EIGHTEEN
  27. NINETEEN
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. TWENTY-FIVE
  34. TWENTY-SIX
  35. TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. TWENTY-NINE
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. Somebody Else’s Child
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. FORTY
  50. FORTY-ONE
  51. FORTY-TWO
  52. FORTY-THREE
  53. FORTY-FOUR
  54. FORTY-FIVE
  55. FORTY-SIX
  56. FORTY-SEVEN
  57. FORTY-EIGHT
  58. FORTY-NINE
  59. Sunlight on Water
  60. July
  61. September
  62. Acknowledgements

Naylor shakes her head.

‘No joy at all there,’ she says. ‘Evan’s making progress, but he’s still not speaking.’

‘The Petersen’s website’s been taken down,’ says Hagen. ‘Which suggests that if Gillard was one administrator, there’s at least one more still out there. We should be going after them.’

‘And how will you do that, Bradley?’ asks Campbell.

Hagen and Naylor are silent.

‘I’m afraid the time has come,’ says Campbell. ‘Unless and until we receive new information, I want you to keep your main focus on your other cases.’

Somebody Else’s Child

Somebody Else’s Child

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-TWO

13 October

Jack never meant to fall asleep, but he’s had so little rest this past couple of weeks. He lay down next to Dora just to hold her hand for a while, but the comfort of that feeling with the softness of the pillows was a seductive combination. How long has he been asleep? He doesn’t know. Probably not long, as the sun’s still high, and the shadows in the bedroom look no different to what they did when he lay down.

What’s woken him is the shaking of the bed: not just the play of springs as Dora turns on to her back, but a full-on, bone-rattling shaking. Drowsy and disoriented, he looks around for the source, and finds it in Dora herself. Everything about her is trembling; her eyelids are fluttering over the whites of her eyes, her back is rigid and arched and she’s drooling mucous liquid from the corner of her mouth.

In panic, Jack runs around the bed, stands over her and tries to hold her down, thinking he can somehow force her out of the fit, shouting her name to snap her out of it. It can’t go on long, he thinks, but the spasms won’t let her go, and he begins to think of stories of people choking on tongues and vomit and of the recovery position. He’s seen pictures of it and rolls her on her side, all the while calling her name, praying he can break through the wall of the seizure and bring her back. When he thinks she’s in the right position, he takes the pen from her book of word-search puzzles and jams it in her mouth, doing his best to anchor her tongue flat.

This is an emergency, and Jack won’t leave her. At the bedroom door, he listens to hear who’s downstairs.

‘Claire! Claire! Are you there?’

His shouts fall into silence, so he runs to the bedroom window and throws it open. The red roses in Dora’s favourite vase are past their best, their petals scattered on the sill. On the bed, Dora is momentarily still, so still Jack fears that she’s dead. When she begins to shake again, it’s almost a relief.