November Lake: Teenage Detective (The November Lake Mysteries) Book 1 by Jamie Drew Read Free Book Online

No!” the man barked, raising one hand in the air. “Don’t call
the police.”
    “ Why not?” I asked, kneeling beside him. “If your sister has
been kidnapped like you say she has, then shouldn’t the authorities
be called in to help?”
    “ It’s not that simple,” Clive winced again through the
pain.
    “ It seems simple enough to me,” Kale said, eyeing the man on
the ground.
    Drawing
a deep breath that made a rattling sound in the back of his throat,
the stranger started to explain. “Fifteen years ago, I was just a
kid – twenty – I committed an armed robbery. Not on my own. With a
friend. Morris Cook. We got away with a few thousand, or so we
thought. But we were wrong, or at least in some small part. Morris
was caught, left some DNA at the scene – a hair or summin like
that. But Morris never gave me up. He kept silent about who was
with him that day and where the money was. He got twelve years and
served every moment. But twelve years is a long time in a young
man’s life. Morris changed while in jail, and I changed, too.
Whereas Mo became hardened, I took another path. The money didn’t
last long. It soon went on women, drinking beer, and smoking pot.
When the money ran out, I ran out, too. I ran out on Mo. Although
twelve years seemed like forever, I could never quite forget that
Mo would someday be released and he would come looking for me and
his share of the money.
    “ So I moved away, got a job, and eked out a life for myself. I
wanted a quiet life. Like I said, I was just a kid the day I
committed that robbery. And in the twelve years since, I’ve had
plenty of time to think and grow up. I never married, but when my
parents got divorced, my kid sister, Sarah, came to live with me.
She’s eighteen now, and never has a brother been more proud. She’s
not like me. Sarah is smart. Going off to University she
is.
    “ Then, just like I feared he always would, Mo showed back up in
my life. It seemed that I hadn’t run far enough. He wanted his
share of the money. He had little prospects of getting a job like I
had done. Who was going to employ someone who had just served a
twelve-year stretch for robbery? When I told him I had none of the
money left, Mo went berserk. I offered to pay him back out of my
wages. I could pay him a few hundred every month. That was the most
I could afford. I was a mechanic in a small garage and didn’t earn
a fortune. Mo took the money, but with each passing month, he
demanded more and more. When I refused, he threatened to tell the
law that it was me who was with him that day and had committed the
robbery. He said he had evidence – proof – that I was with him. But
worse than that, he threatened to tell Sarah about me. I couldn’t
have that. I couldn’t have Sarah think bad of me. I didn’t want her
to know about my past. It would’ve broken her heart to think of me
as some criminal. So I kept paying the money each month to Mo until
I had paid him back more than we had ever stolen. But still he
wanted extra until I was paying him more each month than I actually
got in my pay pack. All I had left was my home, and I wasn’t going
to sell that. It was for me and Sarah. It was our home. So I took
out loans, ran up huge bills on credit cards until I was drowning
under a sea of debt. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing as the banks
chased me for money. I had debt collectors banging on my door day
and night while Morris slept peacefully in the remote farmhouse he
had bought with the money I had given him each month. It was only a
matter of time before Sarah realised that something was very wrong.
I wasn’t sleeping and I looked like shit most of the time. Then one
night I broke down and told her everything. She held me close, and
for the first time since Mo’s return, I felt as if I could breathe
again. Sarah didn’t judge me like I feared she would.
    “ So when he showed up again demanding money, I told him I had
explained everything to my sister. I wanted him