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

Clive’s car, but he has the keys to yours,
remember?” I said. “They will use that to get away in, and then
dump it.”
    Slowly,
Kale reached into his pocket. There was a jingling sound as he
pulled out his car key. “You don’t think I knocked that table over
by accident, do you? I saw Morris place them down on it. So I
knocked the table over and when I dropped to the floor, I snatched
the keys up and hid them in my pocket. Morris and his girlfriend
won’t be going anywhere real quick,” he said, a faint smile on his
pale lips.
    Smiling
at his cunning, I lay on my back next to him in the mud and said,
“I think we make a great team, me and you.”
    I looked
up into the sky at the first rays of sunlight. The smoke had been
seen quicker than I thought, as in the distance I could just make
out the faint sound of approaching sirens.
    “ There’s just one thing I wanted to ask before unconsciousness
takes me again,” Kale croaked.
    “ What’s that?” I asked, watching the clouds drift over the
rising sun.
    “ How did you know as soon as we stepped into the room that it
was a trap?” he whispered.
    “ I saw a pair of wellies by the front door and they were
covered in mud,” I started to explain. “Someone had recently taken
them off. They were too big to be worn by a woman, so I thought
perhaps they belonged to Morris and he had returned to the
farmhouse. Then when we got to the room and I saw Clive lying on
the floor stabbed and wearing no shoes but just socks, I knew that
they must have belonged to him. He had taken them off at the door
so as not to spread mud throughout the house. So who was the man
lying dead on the floor? It couldn’t have been Clive because at
that time we believed he was waiting outside for us. So who was the
dead man? Morris? But who could have killed him? Not the girl, as
she was tied to the chair. But when I looked at her, I knew it was
she who had killed the man on the floor. But who had gagged her,
tied her to the chair? She had done it herself. As Sarah gasped,
pretending that she was somehow choking, I couldn’t help but notice
how she sucked part of the gag into her mouth as she breathed in.
This suggested the gag hadn’t been secured tightly. The rope that
secured her hands behind the chair hung loosely against the floor.
What kidnapper would leave their victim so loosely bound? But it
wasn’t just that. Her trainers were covered in fresh mud, as were
the hems of her jeans. How so if she had been held hostage in that
room for the last few days? No, she had recently been out walking
in the mud. But the large flecks of mud on the legs of her jeans
suggested that in fact she had been running. Running from who and
to where? I guessed that Sarah had run back to the room, where she
hastily secured herself to make it look like she was being held
captive. But why? To set a trap, of course. It’s pretty straight
forward when you think about it,” I said, turning my head to look
at Kale.
    His eyes
were closed and he was snoring gently. Had he heard a word of what
I had said to him? Probably not.
    I smiled
to myself, and looking back up at the rising autumn sun, I waited
for the sound of those approaching sirens to grow ever
closer.

The Menacing Stranger

 
    “ Someone had cut the dog’s head clean off,” Wendy Creswell
said. “I had never seen so much blood. It was
terrifying.”
    Wendy
Creswell sat opposite me in my poky upstairs apartment. Kale sat in
the chair beside me. We glanced at each other, then back at Wendy.
She sat on the very edge of the threadbare chair, her face pale and
thin hands folded in her lap. Her visit to my apartment had been a
total surprise. I had never laid eyes on her before she rang my
doorbell just half an hour ago. She was a complete stranger to me.
But Wendy wasn’t the only visitor to have surprised me that
morning. I hadn’t been up and out of bed long, only long enough to
shower, scrape my hair into a ponytail, throw on an old pair of
jeans