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

what if he is out on the moors and comes back?” Clive said
just above a whisper.
    “ Then holler,” I said.
    Stepping
forward and pressing his fingertips against the front door, Kale
looked at me. “Ready?”
    “ Sure,” I said, taking a deep breath.
    Kale
pushed against the door and it slowly swung open.
     
    I lit up
the dark hallway with my torch. We crept inside. There was a set of
wellies by the front door covered in mud. The mud was fresh. Had
Morris Cook came back from off the moor, with Kale’s car key
swinging from his fist? The walls had been whitewashed and a few
pictures hung from them. They were paintings of valleys and rolling
hills. Not the sort of pictures you imagine an armed robber and
kidnapper would have hanging from his walls. We inched forward, one
small step at a time. The torch cast eerie shadows up the walls, as
if we were being silently stalked by winged phantoms. I shivered
and gripped the torch tighter. There was a staircase that led up
into the darkness. From above there was a sudden sound of movement.
I aimed my torch up at the ceiling as we both glanced upwards. It
sounded like someone was creeping about. Kale and I looked at each
other. I could see his Adam’s apple slide up and down as he
swallowed hard. His early confidence had been an act for Clive. I
didn’t believe Kale had tried to be cocky, he had simply been doing
what all good cops did when their backs were against the wall. They
had to hide their fear, even though all they really wanted to do
was run in the opposite direction. Cops didn’t get to run away. We
had to stay and protect those who were unable to protect
themselves, like the girl I believed was being held captive
upstairs.
    In the
darkness, I reached out and gently squeezed Kale’s hand. He
squeezed my fingers back, then let go. “C’mon,” he whispered,
heading for the foot of the stairs.
    We
climbed them to the top. Every one of our steps slow and precise,
desperate not to make one wooden floorboard creak, giving us away.
At the top we found ourselves on a landing. There were three doors
leading from it, and all of them were closed. Two bedrooms and one
bathroom? I wondered. The noise we had heard from downstairs came
again. This time closer, from behind the door nearest to us at the
top of the stairs. It sounded like chair legs being scrapped across
floorboards. Kale looked at me, his face an eerie mask in the
torchlight. Side by side we crept toward the closed door. We stood
outside it in the gloom of the landing.
    “ Okay?” Kale whispered.
    “ Okay,” I nodded.
    Without
another word, Kale threw open the door. I was struck by two things
at once. The body lying on the floor and the girl sitting on a
chair before it. The girl looked up at once, her eyes dark and wide
as she peered over the gag that covered the lower half of her face.
She made a gurgling noise in the back of her throat as if drowning.
She wore a black sweater and blue jeans and trainers on her feet.
She had long, black hair just like me. Her arms looked like they
had been tied behind her back. I could see what looked like a
length of rope trailing down behind the chair. I glanced at the
dead man lying on his back. A large knife protruded from the front
of his chest, his shirt wet with blood. There were blood splatters
up the wall and over the dusty wooden floorboards. The man had been
stabbed several times. He wore jeans, but no shoes, just grey
coloured socks.
    The girl
made another murmuring sound in the back of her throat. Kale leapt
from the open doorway toward her. I shot my hand out and gripped
his arm.
    “ No, Kale!” I shouted. “It’s a trap!”
    He
glanced back over my shoulder, a look of bewilderment on his face.
The girl sprung from out of the chair as Clive came rushing into
the room from behind us. There was a horrendous squelching noise as
the girl pulled the knife from the chest of the corpse. She waved
the knife in the air before us, blood flying from its blade