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

car.
We must have passed each other in the fog. The car was locked and
there were no keys to be taken. If there had of been, don’t you
think I would’ve taken your car to get to my sister instead of
staggering, wounded, across these muddy fields? Why would I waste
such time?”
    I looked
at Kale. We had a guy here who had just unknowingly confessed to
taking part in a twelve-year-old robbery. But he was a victim, too,
and part of me couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He had perhaps
been punished for that crime more harshly than any sentence a court
of law could have passed. But what were we to do now? He had told
us his sister was being held captive in a farmhouse not too far
from here. My common sense told me to call 999 and ask for backup,
but the lack of a signal bar on my phone told me that wasn’t going
to happen.
    “ Will you help me?” Clive asked, glancing up at Kale, then back
at me. Even though it was cold, a feverish sweat had broken out on
his forehead.
    I knew
we should at least try and get some kind of backup and an ambulance
for Clive, but my instincts told me that time was running out for
his sister. Morris Cook was out on the moors somewhere, he had
taken our car keys, so he was holding us captive out here, too.
Kale and I were both police officers, and however inexperienced we
were, we had to do something to help this man and his sister. I
looked at Kale, and he stared back at me. Without saying anything,
both of us reached down and helped Clive to his feet. He grunted in
pain, clenching his teeth.
    “ Show us where this farmhouse is,” Kale said. “But once we are
there, you stay back and let me and my friend, November, deal with
the situation.”
    “ You don’t know what Morris can be like,” Clive said. “He can
be extremely violent – dangerous. You’re just a couple of
kids…”
    “ I think we will be just fine,” I said, shooting a quick glance
over Clive’s shoulders at Kale. I had undertaken the unarmed
defence training at police school already, but neither I nor Kale
had our cuffs, baton, spray or Taser with us. If this Morris Cook
decided to kick off, Kale and I really would be fighting
unarmed.
    “ When we get to the farmhouse, you stay back,” Kale told Clive.
“You’re injured and we don’t want to make your situation any
worse.”
    The
three of us trudged through the fog and the bitter cold. It was
eerily quiet as the fog swallowed us up. Wispy jets of breath
escaped from our mouths and melted away. Mud sloshed about our feet
and splashed the backs of our jeans. When we did eventually arrive
at Kale’s parents’ they were going to think we had hiked all the
way to their house. Then, as if suddenly rising out of the ground,
I could see the farmhouse. It was small in size and had two floors.
There were two upper windows and two lower ones. In the dark they
looked like two sets of dead eyes watching us as we stepped from
the fog toward it. There was a wooden front door, which had been
painted white, and a paved front path led up to it. A chimney poked
out of the roof, and if any smoke tumbled from it, I couldn’t tell
for all the fog. The world seemed silent, and out on the desolate
moor, it felt like the rest of the world had disappeared, eaten up
by the fog, leaving only the three of us. The farmhouse was in
darkness and the only sound was that of our laboured breathing and
racing heartbeats. I shone the torch at the front door.
    “ Is this the place?” I whispered.
    “ I guess,” Clive whispered back.
    There
was a pile of freshly cut fire logs set aside by the front door. We
walked Clive toward them.
    Helping
him to sit, Kale said in a hushed voice, “Now, you wait here. Let
us check the place out and see if we can’t find your sister,
Sarah.”
    “ What about Morris…” Clive started, eyes wide in fear or pain.
I couldn’t be sure.
    “ Leave him to us,” Kale said, trying to sound confident and
cocksure of himself. Was that just all an act?
    “ But