November by Gabrielle Lord Page A

inside and put the babies down when I spotted a police patrol car on the street. The babies were crying and I panicked . I ordered my partner to grab one of them, while I grabbed the other, and we split. I ran out to the car, thinking my partner was following me, but he wasn’t. I waited behind the wheel for him, but I didn’t see him come out of the building.The cop car returned so I slammed my foot on the accelerator and sped off. I drove all the way back to my place, and just as I stepped inside, my sister Sandra turned up—she was living with me at the time. There I was with a damn baby screaming his head off. I couldn’t think quick enough to make up a story about the predicament she’d caught me in. She was horrified at what I’d done. She’d raised me—was like a mum to me—and she was furious. She’d just heard about the kidnapping on the radio and couldn’t believe someone would do such a thing … let alone me. Her little brother. Turns out my partner had abandoned the other baby in the old house, and made a run for it alone.’
    The old man’s lips quivered at the memory.
    ‘I didn’t know what to do with the baby. He wouldn’t stop crying. I had to keep him quiet and out of sight so the neighbours wouldn’t suspect anything. I begged Sandy to help me. Regretfully , she took the little guy from me and calmed him down. She was great with him. She fed him, and put him to sleep. Before we knew it, days had passed, then weeks, then months. Sandy had fallen in love with him. I told her we couldn’t keep him any longer, that she had to get him out of the house. But she had nowhere else to take him. Finally she found a friend who couldn’thave children, and together we organised dodgy adoption papers.’
    ‘What happened to the other baby?’ I asked. ‘The one your partner left behind?’
    ‘He was eventually found by the cops. He was cold and hungry, but he was fine.’ Durham stopped speaking and stared at me. ‘He was reunited with his family late that night.’ His bloodshot eyes examined mine. ‘You’ve probably guessed by now who the child was.’
    A sick feeling welled up in my stomach as so many of the unexplained things from my life started falling horribly into place.
    I was the child who was returned.
    Durham’s eyes continued to bore through me.
    ‘Sandy’s friend never knew any different. She took the other baby, and the white toy dog he was clutching when we took him, and thought the adoption was legal and above board. She never knew that Sandy was the sister of Toecutter Durham.’
    The white toy dog of my nightmares—the dog I’d discovered in Ryan Spencer’s room—started making more sense.
    ‘The abduction happened on the eleventh of November. The date I left on your blog.’
    ‘You did that? You hacked my blog?’
    ‘I wanted you to investigate the date. Iwanted you to realise who you were. I wanted you to know about the other boy—your twin. But then I ended up sending Ezekiel and Chook to find you and bring you in so I could tell you myself.’
    I was speechless.
    ‘I’ve felt bad all my life about taking those kids—bad about that mum losing one of her boys, bad about separating twins. And now that I’m an old man, I finally understand the damage I did to that family, stealing their children like that, tearing them apart. So anyway,’ he said, taking a big breath, ‘I needed you to know the truth … while I was still able to tell it to you. I feel better now,’ he whispered, barely audible. ‘I feel lighter already.’
    ‘Who was the person who hired you to do the contract job?’ I asked.
    Durham was silent.
    ‘Who was it?’ I asked again, thinking of the list of names from Rathbone’s office. My shock was suddenly being overtaken by anger. This guy had ripped me off from having a life of growing up with my brother. He’d taken us from our parents, and my twin—Ryan—had never been returned. ‘Who ordered the kidnapping? Was it someone called Deep