Read November Lake: Teenage Detective (The November Lake Mysteries) Book 1 for Free Online

empty. I glanced left and right into the fog. “Where’s the
driver gone?”
    “ Beats the hell out of me.”
    Brushing
past Kale, I leant into the car. I shone the torchlight over the
seat, the foot-well, steering wheel, and dashboard. Once I had seen
enough, I turned to look back at Kale.
    “ He went that way,” I said, pointing back in the direction we
had come.
    “ He?” Kale raised his eyebrows. “Could have been a female
driver.”
    “ No,” I said, shaking my head. “The driver was male, at least
six feet tall, has blonde hair, smoked, right handed, likes to
listen to classical music…”
    “ Are you making all this stuff up, November?” Kale
sighed.
    “ No,” I said, looking at him through the fog. “Why would
I?”
    “ I dunno,” Kale shrugged. “How could you know all this stuff
about the driver? You only stuck your head in the car for a couple
of seconds.”
    “ Look,” I said, shining the torch back into the car. “See how
far the driver’s seat is pushed back from the pedals? The driver
had real long legs and I’m guessing he would have to be over six
feet in height. Very few women are ever that tall. He is blonde, because
there are strands of blonde hair against the headrest. I know he
smokes because there are traces of old cigarette ash over the
driver’s wing mirror. This is from where he flicks the ash from the
tip of his cigarette end. As the ash is all over the wing mirror,
it suggests he holds the cigarette in his right hand, therefore,
making him right handed.”
    “ And the classical music?” Kale said. “No, don’t tell me, he’s
got a stack of classical CDs on the dashboard?”
    “ I haven’t seen any CDs,” I said with a shake of my head. “But
I did see that his radio was tuned into Classic FM.”
    “ So how do you know he headed back in the direction we came
from?” Kale asked.
    I
pointed the torch down at the spots of blood that led from the car,
leaving a bloody trail to be followed. Kale looked down, then back
at me.
    “ He would’ve had to pass by us. We would’ve seen him,” Kale
said.
    “ In this fog?” I said, setting off back in the direction we had
come from. I followed the trail of blood. Kale walked alongside
me.
    “ He couldn’t have got far if he’s bleeding,” Kale
said.
    “ But not badly,” I said, following the spots of blood that were
now growing smaller and fainter. “I knew he was a
weirdo.”
    “ Who?”
    “ The guy who was staring at me back at the petrol station,” I
reminded him.
    “ So you think that’s who this is?” Kale asked.
    “ He was filling up a 4x4 the exact same colour as the one
wrapped around that tree. And besides, the petrol gage indicated
the car had only just been filled up,” I told him.
    “ Hang on,” Kale said, slowing down, a smile creeping across his
face.
    I looked
at him. “What?”
    “ That’s how you knew so much stuff about the driver,” he
smirked. “You were just remembering what you had seen back at the
petrol station. You had seen him before.”
    “ Not so,” I said, turning away and following the bloody trail
again.
    “ Well, however you came across that information, you can’t
explain why he would want to drive us off the road,” Kale said, as
if teasing me.
    “ I’ve already told you why,” I said, stopping to look at him.
“The guy was a creep. There wasn’t something quite right about
him.”
    “ What…because he was looking at you?” Kale quizzed, hands
thrust into his jacket pockets, keeping his fingers warm against
the chill wind.
    “ It was more than that,” I said, turning away and catching a
glimpse of Kale’s car in the fog. I headed toward it.
    Reaching
the car together, Kale said, “Why did you shut the doors? I hope
you’ve got the car key.”
    “ I never shut the car doors,” I said back, remembering how they
had been left open, the key swinging from the ignition.
    “ Great,” Kale sighed, combing his messy fringe from his brow
with his fingers.