The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4) Gregg Dunnett (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📖

of saving these for a special occasion. But I guess this kinda counts.” He offered them to Amber.

Amber waved them away. “Go on.” But she had to wait until Billy had taken and bitten into one of the cookies. When he continued the explanation there were crumbs falling from his lips.

“When the explosion happened I went to look. I saw someone had died, I could tell he was security from the bits of jacket, and it was obvious there was nothing I could do to help. I was pretty scared, I thought there might be another explosion, that the site was blowing up. And I thought we’d get blamed, even though we had nothing to do with it.” He took a deep breath, then pulled a second cookie from the packet. “Are you sure you don’t want one?”

“I’m sure. Go on.”

“OK. I went back to where we’d parked the car. I thought I’d find James and Oscar there, waiting for me. But I didn’t find them. I waited ages. I went looking for them. So then I figured they must have thought I died in the blast, and since I had the car keys on me, they must have tried to escape on foot. In the middle of the night, when it was freezing cold.”

Amber didn’t see how this connected to her original question, but she didn’t interrupt. Billy’s answers had a way of getting there via routes she never expected.

“I drove back home, to Littlelea. I thought they might find their way there, even though it’s miles away. But they didn’t, I waited the whole night, and the next morning. And then I went to get the ferry – we all had return tickets. I prayed I’d find them there, alive. But when I got to Goldhaven I looked all over the port, and I couldn’t see them anywhere. When I got on board the boat I looked all over there too, but I couldn’t find them.” He stopped.

“And?”

“And I couldn’t leave. I felt like I’d abandoned them. I saw my face on the TV in the cafe, and I didn’t know what was going on. I thought they were probably dead but I had to try to find them. I ran back down to the car deck to drive off the boat, but the car was totally boxed in by then, there was no way I could get it out. So instead I just ran off the boat, just before they closed the bow doors.”

“No one saw you leave?”

“I guess not. I wasn’t even trying to avoid the ferry workers, but they were all up the other end of the ship, so no one noticed me. But then I was stuck. I went into the terminal to see if I could rent another car, but they had a TV playing and that had my face on too, and then I saw the police saying the explosion was from a bomb made out of a pressure cooker. Then I was completely freaked out. I just didn’t know what to do. What it all meant.”

“What did you do?” Amber asked after a moment.

“Well I realized I wasn’t going to rent a car anymore. And I worked out I didn’t need to search for James and Oscar. That somehow they planned the whole thing.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

“How did you get here, it’s miles?”

“Oh that was quite fun, actually.”

“What?” Amber stared incredulously. Then she shook her head and grabbed a cookie. She took a bite. “Go on.”

“Well, I knew that coming here was the best thing I could do. Dad had finished most of the inside by then, and he’d started sleeping over, so there were blankets, and some food. But I didn’t have any transport, and like you say, it would take miles to walk, and someone might see me.”

“So what did you do?”

“You know the boatshed in Goldhaven? Past the old ferry dock?”

Amber raised her eyebrows. “No.”

“Oh, well there’s a boatshed there, and there’s a few old kayaks and things stored there. I took one of those.”

“I thought you said the water was freezing cold.”

“I did, but I wasn’t going to get wet. It was calm and still, and paddling for seven hours made me pretty warm.”

Amber sighed. “OK, so you stole a kayak and paddled here. What did you do then?”

“I didn’t steal it, I borrowed it. Dad took it back, the owner will never know I used it.”

“Alright, you borrowed a kayak. What then?”

“I did the only thing I could do. I just waited. I figured either you or Dad would come and find me soon enough. Dad had to wait four days before the police weren’t parked outside the house. I’d pretty much run out of food by then.”

Amber looked around, at the computers set up. One of the screen was still showing the camera feeds from the lane she’d driven down.

“And all this?”

“I told you. I got Dad to bring all my old computer gear. I needed to protect myself in case the police come looking.”

“But you can’t… I mean you can’t just stay here. Why can’t you go to the police? Tell them it was James and Oscar who did it. Tell them about this pressure cooker?”

“It’s not the police, it’s the FBI,” Billy reminded her, and she glared at him.

“OK. I can’t. Not until I have evidence. I don’t really know why James and Oscar framed me, but they obviously expected me to blame them. They’re ready for it. And they’ve been clever.”

Amber shook her head in confusion. “How?”

“Look at this.” Billy grabbed one of his laptops, and spent a few moments opening a saved webpage. “This is from James’ Facebook page. He posted it on the night we broke into the compound. It must have been planned out in advance.”

Amber looked at the screen, which showed a series of photographs posted to James’ account, with the caption: Chilling at home. There were three of them in the images, James, Oscar and the other girl