Dangerous Past

by Cobe Reinbold

  Dangerous Past

  Flankstone Book 1

  By Cobe Reinbold

  Digital ISBNs

  EPUB 978-0-2286-0293-4

  Kindle 978-0-2286-0294-1

  WEB 978-0-2286-0295-8

  Amazon Print 978-0-2286-0296-5

  BWL Publishing Print 978-0-2286-0297-2

  Copyright 2018 by Cobe Reinbold

  Cover Art Michelle Lee

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to my wonderful and loving parents. Thank you for setting great examples and for always supporting me in whatever I want to pursue.

  Acknowledgement

  BWL Publishing acknowledges the Province of Alberta for its financial support.

  Chapter 1

  “Brian… Brian… Honey, wake up.”

  I pried my bleary eyes open. Mom stood over me, her hand on my shoulder. The usual five alarms I set the night before never did the trick, so Mom was forced to shake me until I managed to get my eyes open.

  Swinging my legs over the side of the bed I grabbed the towel from the back of the door and walked like a zombie to the bathroom. After a quick shower, I glanced at the clock in the bathroom — twenty minutes until I had to leave for school. I dried off and got dressed in a rush. Good enough.

  I tamed my shaggy brown mop with some hair wax, grabbed the car keys off the nightstand and ran downstairs to the kitchen. Mom and Dad were already there, doing their daily morning dance of trying to get around each other as they grabbed coffee and bagels and headed off for work.

  “Morning, guys,” I called from the doorway.

  “Morning, Brian,” Dad responded, never taking his attention from the coffee machine. “You’re late for school.”

  “Not yet, but if I don’t leave within the next…” I paused to check my watch, “…two minutes, I will be.” I grabbed a bagel and spread cream cheese on it.

  “Bye honey, have a great day.” Mom walked around the center island and kissed me on the cheek. She headed towards the door to the garage which clicked behind her.

  Mom is a real estate agent, selling houses all over our small Idaho town to tourists. Dad is one of the best corporate lawyers in the country. His passion was always defending criminals, said it gave him more of a challenge. When I was born he decided to become a corporate lawyer, and though he didn’t love it, he ended up being pretty good at it.

  I reached the door just as Mom pulled out of the garage. Dad followed on my coattails. Flicking the fob, I unlocked the 2017 Mercedes Benz my parents gave me on my 16th birthday. I backed it out of the garage and onto the large driveway. I drove toward the street noticing the people working on the bushes lining the driveway. The strong scent of the huge poplar that grew in our front yard wafted in the open window. I slowed down and pressed the button to swing the gate open, and took a right at the end of the street, heading towards the downtown nestled in the middle of mostly vacation homes.

  Flankstone is located on the edge of Priest Lake, surrounded by pine trees and low shrubbery. It was that weird stage between spring and summer, where the grounds were still wet with the massive mounds of melting snow from the long Idaho winter, but the weather was starting to look up. I could just imagine the boating and rope swings that were just around the corner. I sped down the road towards town, the sun just peeking above the horizon.

  When I reached the smaller homes belonging to mostly local people, I took a right into a cul-de-sac before reaching the main road. I pulled up at a blue house next to the house I once lived in. My best friend to this day was the first person I ever met in school.

  It only took a minute after I texted him for Jason to come out of the house. Jason’s Dad worked years to be at the top of one of the major mining operations in the mountains across the lake. They owned the local grocery store, and his Mom ran it when she wasn’t busy tending to house and home.

  “Hey, Buddy!” he exclaimed, swinging open the passenger door wide, hopping in, and slamming it so hard that if it didn’t have an automatic safety function to slow the door before it slammed, I would have been worried about my window shattering.

  “Morning, Jason.” My voice rumbled in the groggy deep tone it took on in the early hours of the morning. I already started driving down the road towards the main street, zooming past parked cars.

  “Late night for you? You know Ms. Franklin with kill me if I’m late for first block one more time.”

  “You know I have a hard time waking up in the morning. I only got a quick shower.”

  “That’s the most first world problem I’ve ever heard. You know there are kids in Africa that don’t even know what a shower is.”

  I thought Jason was full of crap. I turned on the radio, letting Jason pull up his own music, and took as many shortcuts I could think of to get us to school on time.

  I heaved a sigh of relief as I parked in the lot in front of Flankstone High. The long brick building looked like a prison, and the classes made you feel like you were in one, too. I rushed into Ms. Gates classroom as the second bell rang, signaling the start of new day.

  “You’re late.” she said sternly.

  I joined my group at the back of the class and listened to Ms. Gates go on for what felt like hours about alleles and genes pairs. In actuality, it had only been an hour, but that was good news nonetheless. I was on the downhill sprint towards the finish line, only a half hour left to go and I could go to my second block class and be rid of Ms. Gates for another day.

  That was when the phone rang. I hardly payed attention to it at the time.

  “Brian, you’ve been called down to the principal’s office.” Her voice held no emotion at all which kind of scared me.

  I was confused, but instead of questioning her, I just headed to the office.

  I walked towards the main office. For a second I wondered if it would be a safer bet just to leave school now and take the sick day, but I couldn’t do that. Trouble would just find me eventually, better to face up to it now.

  “Hi, I’m here to see Principal Strane,” I said to Mrs. McNeil. She didn’t look up, and at first, I thought she hadn’t heard me. I was about to repeat myself when she got up and walked towards the principal’s office. I took that as my cue to follow her a couple feet behind, worrying I would walk straight into her if she stopped suddenly.

  “You can go in,” she spoke for the first time. At the time, I thought she sounded bored. Looking back on it, it was the voice of someone who was upset beyond belief.

  Mrs. McNeil left me staring at the door. I didn’t know whether I should knock or just walk in, but since she already say I should go in, I turned the handle. There was a man sitting in one of the two chairs that lived in front of Principal Strane’s desk.

  I knew who he was, Officer Nickfern.

  “Hey Brian, come have a seat.” Principal Strane motioned to the seat next to the police officer. It was serious, but I didn’t know exactly how serious. I thought maybe they made a highlight reel of everything I ever did that broke the law and were here to tell me I was expelled.

  I lowered myself into the chair. Maybe if I took longer to sit it would postpone the lashing I was about to get from not only the sheriff and principal, but my parents when they heard the news.

  “Why am I here?” I asked. I was scared and for a horrible moment thought I might throw up. I wiped my palms on my pants.

  “Brian, we’ve got
some bad news for you. Officer Nickfern is here to ask you some questions about something that happened this morning.”

  Oh God! Did something happen to my parents? Did my house burn down in the hour after I left this morning?

  “I’m still not sure I understand.”

  “This morning the police department received a call about a missing girl. We think you might know something about it due to your relationship with her,” Officer Nickfern spoke for the first time.

  The only thing I thought in that moment was ‘Thank God. My parents are safe. I saw them both this morning.’

  “Who is it?” I asked, turning to the officer, more confused than ever.

  “Mady Smith.” The officer bowed his head.

  Chapter 2

  I guess this would be as good a time as any to introduce Mady Smith. She is the most beautiful person I ever laid eyes on. My first thought was: If I could just talk to her, I would be the luckiest guy in the world. Somehow the stars aligned in my favour the first day of grade 9. I gathered enough courage to go talk to her. Ever since that day she has been the love of my life.

  It took some convincing, and some late nights talking on the phone, but after two long months, Mady agreed to date me. Time felt like it slowed down with her, Mady brought out the best in me. I hoped she would look at me and feel a tenth of the happiness I did when I looked at her. That was Mady Smith.

  The idea she was “Missing” was incomprehensible to me. Physical pain gripped my chest while my heart shattered in a million pieces. I never cry in front of people — ever. But this was different. I couldn’t control my emotions or gather the thoughts and fears whirling in my mind. Mady? How could my Mady be missing?

  They didn’t ask me many questions at the school. I was so distraught the powers that be quickly shuffled me through the office doors and down the hall towards the exit.

  Principal Strane followed me towards the doors, both men speaking to me, but I couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. It was all white noise in the background. Once the officer got me into his car, I broke down. Who could have done this? Mady never skipped a day of school in her life. This was totally out of character for her. She was just as serious about school as I was, maybe even more so. If she had something going on she would have told me, so that only left one option. Somebody must have taken her.

  It was a short drive from the school to the police department. The roads in Flankstone aren’t too busy this time of day. It felt strange being in the passenger seat of the police car. I always assumed my first ride in a cop car would be in the back with a couple friends I’d gotten into trouble with. Instead, I was sitting in the front next to a sympathetic officer, the tense silence stretching between us.

  I looked up in surprise when Officer Nickfern parked the car in the parking lot around the back of the station. The drive from the school seemed far too long and unbelievably short. The lot was mostly empty, except two police cruisers. Nickfern jumped out of the car without saying a word and I hopped out after him. I followed him into the back door of the police station and down the narrow hallway.

  I’d never been in the station — thank God — but it seemed out of place. I’d been everywhere in Flankstone, except here. Everything felt alien and I was somehow detached from it all. He showed me into an interview room with a large odd looking mirror dominating one wall. I sat down on one of the two metal chairs next to the metal table. The furniture was bolted into place. To keep them from being thrown around, I supposed.

  I still didn’t know if I was a suspect. If they really believed Mady was taken by someone then, of course, I was the likely culprit. Fear skittered down my spine. In all the police dramas the boyfriend was the person they always looked at first. Although, Officer Nickfern hadn’t treated me as a suspect so far. He left the room for a brief moment, probably turning on the video camera behind the one-way mirror. My image in the reflection looked slightly skewed, it might be because my eyes were blurry from crying. He came back in, sat down, and spoke for the first time since we left Principal Strane’s office.

  “When was the last time you saw Mady?” He scratched something on a pad of paper in front of him.

  “Yesterday at school. We’re supposed…” I stopped myself mid-sentence, my breath hitching in my throat. I tried my hardest not to break down for the second time in one day. “We were supposed to hang out today, after school.”

  “And when you saw her yesterday, did anything seem off?”

  “No, not really. She was her usual happy self.” This was the first time I realized the door to the hallway was open. I wasn’t cuffed or anything, I could just get up and run for it. The thought crossed my mind. Obviously, that wasn’t practical. In such a small town, it would be a matter of hours before he found me again. The fact Officer Nickfern hadn’t shut the door cleared me as a suspect in my mind. So why was I here?

  “She didn’t seem upset in any way?”

  “No. She seemed tired in the morning, but who isn’t tired on a Monday morning?”

  “Brian, I didn’t want to tell you this at the school, but I think if I’m straight with you it might help you remember some things she may have said. Mady is missing, but there’s more to the story. This morning, when her parents went in to wake her up, they found a note on her bed. By the sounds of it, it was a suicide note. We have our team out searching everywhere in town, but we have yet to find a body.”

  My head swam and I forgot to breathe. I wanted to leap up and run — run anywhere — it didn’t matter. Instead, I sat there paralyzed, my body refusing to react to the frantic signals ricocheting around my brain. Not only was the love of my life gone, the search just went from a rescue mission to a recovery mission.

  At least when I had the notion someone kidnapped her, there was still a chance she was alive. Now, there didn’t seem to be any hope. Things like this didn’t happen to the perfect girls. The girls that had life figured out and didn’t care what others thought. You heard about people who weren’t happy with themselves committing suicide, but never about people who had everything. Did Mady have a secret life I had no idea about? Maybe, deep down, she was depressed and terribly unhappy. But it was hard to believe.

  “Brian, are you okay?” Officer Nickfern’s voice broke through my thoughts. The concern on his face made me realize it probably wasn’t the first time he’d asked.

  “Just keep going with the questions.”

  If he kept asking me questions I could get my mind off the confused thoughts running around in my head and get to the bottom of what happened to my Mady. I already came to the conclusion Mady was abducted, and the abductor made her leave a note so no one would search for her.

  “Did she ever seem suicidal? Talk about leaving or going away forever? Maybe she went through a rough patch and she was dealing with things she didn’t want to tell her parents, so she turned to you? It seems like she trusted you the most, and we believe she might have exhibited some warning signs.”

  “No, she never said anything like that. She didn’t kill herself. Mady wasn’t like that. Something must be going on. Maybe whoever took her made her leave a suicide note so you wouldn’t come looking? I don’t know, but one thing I do know is she would never kill herself. She had everything, and she knew it. She wouldn’t throw that all away.”

  “Brian, with all due respect, she may have been depressed and just never felt comfortable enough to tell you about it. Many people keep their depression a secret because they feel ashamed of it. At this point, we’re looking for a body. We were hoping you would know a place she might have gone. Maybe she went somewhere she liked in town. Somewhere she only shared with her closest friends?”

  I pondered this for a minute, thinking about somewhere Mady would have gone if she had, for some reason, decided to take such a drastic step. Then it came to me. “The only place I can think of would be the old abandoned railroad tracks by the river. She loved going down there late at night and looking at the stars. Said the lack of light
made it easier to see them. If she really did kill herself, would she really go through all the trouble of hiding before she did it? Wouldn’t she just do it in her room or something?” I was trying to prove to him, and to me, that she wasn’t gone.

  “Maybe, but in many suicide cases the victim doesn’t want to do it where they know loved ones will have to live with it every single day of their lives. Many teens don’t do it in their own house, since they know it would hurt their parents even more. They tend to go somewhere secret where they felt safe and wouldn’t be discovered. Maybe she went down to the train tracks so the last thing she saw was something beautiful.” Officer Nickfern paused.

  I didn’t want to hear any more. He was obviously convinced she was dead, and there was no use in me trying to convince him otherwise.

  “If you have no more information for me, I’m going to go and arrange for some officers to go down to the train tracks and search. I’ll let you know if we find anything.”

  Officer Nickfern got up and walked out after telling me one of the people I loved most in this world was dead. He referred to her as if finding her body was just something they needed to do so they could close the case. I didn’t blame the man. Police are trained to distance themselves from their cases. Maybe his way of doing that was by pretending a dead body was just another piece of evidence. I didn’t really care what he needed to do. He was the one who told me Mady was gone and I needed to take all my anger and grief out on someone. He was as a good a target as any. Once I was alone, I exploded in a frenzy of tears and anger. I wanted to break things — make them hurt as much as I did.

  An hour later, Nickfern returned and sat in the metal chair. I stared at him through bleary eyes, my jaw still clenched in anger. For some reason, I felt if I could stand up to him and hide my emotions then I could make it through this disaster unscathed. If I could pull it off, one day I would wake up from this bad dream and Mady would be at school when I got there.