Hidden Truths (The Hidden Series Book 1)

by Kristin Coley

  Hidden Truths

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  HIDDEN TRUTHS

  First edition: September 1, 2016

  Copyright © 2016 Kristin Coley

  Written by Kristin Coley

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  I checked the time before grabbing my book bag and flying down the stairs. If I hurried, I had a few minutes to eat breakfast before the bus came.

  “Hey, Paw Paw,” I said, dropping a kiss on his silver hair, as I moved through the kitchen. I scanned the contents of the fridge before settling on an apple and yogurt. I figured I could eat the apple on the way if I ran out of time.

  “Hey, Addie,” he replied absentmindedly, while reading an article in the paper. Seeing a large black and white picture on the front page, I glanced down at the newspaper at what looked like a child’s school picture. I didn’t recognize the boy and didn’t really think much of it, as I dug through the drawer for a spoon.

  We still received the paper every day. It was a requirement of my grandfather’s when he moved in after Maw Maw died. I could mock him by saying there were better ways to get the news, but there was something comforting about seeing him read the paper. It was a familiar sight from my childhood—one I wasn’t ready to lose.

  Maw Maw’s sudden death had taken everyone by surprise. Her death was especially hard, because I had never lost anyone before, and guilt that I hadn’t done more to save her weighed on me. I had been terrified Paw Paw would die too, and I begged him to move in with us. He was the closest thing I had to a father, after my actual dad skipped out when I was a baby. Mom worked constantly to keep the bills paid, so it was actually kind of nice to have Paw Paw there full-time.

  I was finishing off my yogurt when Mom walked in. She was putting her earrings in, as she read the paper over Paw Paw’s shoulder.

  “What a tragedy. I can’t imagine what that boy’s parents are going through.” She looked over at me. “Don’t ever disappear like that, do you hear me? They said he might be a runaway.” She shook her head as she looked at the picture. “Where could that boy be?”

  Her question was rhetorical, but the answer presented itself to me anyway. This was not the first time I knew the answer to a seemingly impossible question, but this one had bigger implications than any I had faced before.

  He’s not a runaway, I wanted to tell her, he’s in the woods, gagged and bound. Phantom sensations rushed over me, as I felt the bite of a rope stinging my wrist and the suffocating sense of something shoved in my mouth.

  I gasped and coughed as the experience faded, and my mom asked, “Are you okay? Are you coming down with something?”

  I shook my head as the moment crystallized in my mind—that split second when you find your life irrevocably changed and going in a direction you never anticipated. Never before had I felt anything like this, or imagined I would have to make the choice I now faced.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said, a bit desperately, eager to get away so I could think. I had never expected my ability to yield life and death answers.

  “I love you!” I called, walking out the door and going to the end of the drive to wait for the bus. We couldn’t afford a car for me, so the bus was my primary mode of transportation; at least to school and home.

  My gaze was unfocused. My thoughts were spinning around a boy I had never met. It dawned on me that I didn’t even know his name. I hadn’t read the article, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt, he was tied up on the floor of a cabin, deep in the woods, somewhere north of me. I knew if I got in a car I could drive straight to him, but I couldn’t tell anyone exactly where. It wasn’t like I had an address for the middle of the woods, but I did have an internal compass that pointed me directly to him.

  A sense of urgency overcame me. My foot tapped with nervous energy as I waited. I debated with myself about going back into the house to tell my mom I knew where he was, but I knew the questions would come.

  Questions I couldn’t answer.

  Questions I’d avoided for years, for fear they would label me crazy.

  Questions that might implicate me in a crime. Because, logically, how else would I know where he was, unless I’d been the one to put him there?

  I heard the bus before I saw it, the rumble of its diesel engine loud, as the brakes squealed to a stop. I hopped on. The driver pulled the doors closed behind me and I kept my eyes down as I slid into an empty seat in the back. There was no escaping the thought that I had to save him. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a clue how I was going to do it. All I knew was he needed my help.

  Chapter Two

  “Hey!” Carly called, cheerfully. “Are you ready for Mr. Hutchinson’s pop quiz?” She looped her arm through mine, practically dragging me through the doors. I wondered how anyone could be this cheerful about going to school, but that was Carly. She perpetually smiled and thought the world was rainbows and sunshine. Most days, I appreciated her positivity, but today the sick feeling that had crawled into me, when I realized I knew where that kid was, wouldn’t leave.

  “What’s wrong?” Carly asked, her intuitiveness a distinct disadvantage at the moment. “Did you not study? You’re the one who told me he was going to give a pop quiz, and you’re never wrong.” I gave her a weak smile, glad she assumed my lack of enthusiasm was about school.

  “I studied last night. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed is all,” I told her, hoping she would let it go. There was no way I was telling her the truth. Carly meant well, but this could permanently smash her rose colored glasses. She gave me a narrow look, but let it slide. She chattered happily about a guy in her math class, as I pulled books from my locker. A headache had formed behind my eyes, and I was afraid it was only going to get worse.

  “I’ll see you after English,” she grinned at me, breaking away to go to her next class. We shared two classes and lunch, which was more than I had expected for our senior year. Almost all of my classes were advanced this year, but we did share gym and a history class I had taken as an extra elective.

  Some sadist felt that gym should be included in all four years of high school. That person evidently didn’t realize that not everyone could have gym last period, so some of us remained sweaty for the duration of our day.

  Once I got to the room, I saw the teacher had left a note on the board telling us to go to the library for class. Fate must be smiling down on me today, I thought. I could look up the news story on one of the computers in the library. Any information I could find on the kidnapped boy would help.

  “Alright, class. We’ll be spending one class a week in the library for the rest of the semester. This will give you an opportunity to research your term papers and write them.” There we
re no groans at this news—not in a library full of high achievers.

  Our teacher had informed us at the beginning of the semester that we would have a research paper due before the end of the year. I had already started planning my topic: An in depth look at how the mass epidemic of drug abuse and addiction in other countries was dealt with. I was grateful for my head start, because I could devote my time to the problem of one kidnapped kid.

  By the end of the hour, I knew considerably more about the kid, but was no closer to knowing why he had been kidnapped. He was from a middle class family with one older brother. The kid played in the middle school band, for pity’s sake. The family begged for information, promising to pay any ransom request, except a request never came. He had been missing for four days now. His family adamantly denied that he could have run away, and the police felt it was foul play.

  I kept going back to the older brother’s picture. I couldn’t shake the thought that he had something to do with the kidnapping. I didn’t think he had done it, but I had the feeling he was involved. I shook away my thoughts, since the ‘why’ didn’t matter at the moment. I knew where he was, and I needed to figure out how to rescue him without raising questions as to how I knew. Nothing complicated about that.

  When the bell rang, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and headed to the gym - a class I normally loathe - but today I needed to talk to Carly. More specifically, I needed her to ask me questions.

  I shoved my backpack in the gym locker while pulling out my gym clothes. I took a quick sniff to make sure they didn’t stink. I had forgotten to bring them home over the weekend to wash.

  “Hopefully, no one will get close enough to smell you,” Carly said, grinning as she opened the locker next to mine.

  “You might want to stand downwind,” I joked back, stripping down to my underwear. I had spent most of high school uncomfortable with my body. I had developed breasts in elementary school and it took years for everyone else to catch up, at least that’s how it had felt to me. My breasts were still bigger than most, but I had finally stopped caring. I didn’t seek to flaunt my DDD cup, but I also stopped trying to hide them. I was narrow hipped with a large chest and my shape felt awkward, compared to other girls, but I learned to work with it. I had finally accepted that I wore a size small pants and an extra-large in shirts. A fact my mother and best friend found amusing when we went clothes shopping.

  “What do you think they’ll make us do today?” Carly moaned, her dread evident. If there was one thing that could bring a chipper Carly down it was gym. She didn’t mind when we did sports, but on the days they made us run or do exercises, it was game over. Neither of us could pretend to be cheerful about that.

  “Probably something outside,” I answered, already running through the options. We had done football already, maybe we would get lucky with softball and could stand out in the field talking. One could only hope.

  I pulled my long dark hair into a messy bun, as we walked into the gym a few minutes later and stood around while the coach called roll.

  “Alright, ladies, we’ll be outside today,” our coach shouted. She coached volleyball and basketball and felt you should be able to perform a triathlon if you were in her class. I heard a few groans at the fact we would be outside, but it didn’t upset me. The day happened to be gorgeous. A perfect October blue sky, and the temperature had even given us a break. It was a comfortable 72 degrees outside.

  We walked outside, and as soon as I saw the track it was my turn to groan. “No!” Carly gasped, staring at the field in horror. I couldn’t help but agree. They had set up an obstacle course on the track. I was a lot of things but coordinated wasn’t one of them. This would not be a pleasant hour for me.

  They made us go through the course in groups, and of course we were in the first group. I managed to trip while jumping through the tires, causing a chain reaction. After we picked ourselves up from that, we climbed a rope wall, which did nothing to ease my fear of heights, before crawling on our bellies under netting. By the time we finished, I was sweaty and covered in dirt that was quickly becoming mud from the sweat dripping off me.

  “Pretty sure I’m going to have to wash my uniform tonight,” I muttered, as we stood on the sidelines watching the other groups complete it. I felt a vague satisfaction that they weren’t any better than we were.

  “At least it’s over,” Carly said, obviously striving to be positive. “They can’t make us do it two days in a row, right?” She’s looking at me with such desperate hope that I couldn’t crush it, so I pretended to agree with her.

  “Nah, once is enough,” I replied, looking away from her. Personally, I thought it was a lot of trouble to set up an obstacle course for one day. I already knew we’d be doing this all week, but I wouldn’t voice my thoughts.

  “Have you heard about that kidnapped boy?” I asked abruptly. I hadn’t forgotten my need to find the kid, but the obstacle course had interfered with my plan to talk to Carly.

  “Oh, yeah! My mom mentioned it last night, along with multiple warnings to be careful; don’t talk to strangers; don’t get in cars with strangers; etcetera,” Carly said. I was trying to decide how to word my next thoughts, when Carly asked a question I had been wondering about.

  “Why would someone kidnap him?” she asked, her forehead wrinkled as she frowned. The answer immediately trickled through my mind that they’d kidnapped him to shut his brother up. But why did they want to shut him up?

  I ignored that thought for the moment, so I could focus on the more important question I wanted her to ask. “I bet he’s in the woods somewhere outside of town,” I said casually. “They go for miles, and it’d be easy to hide him.”

  “I think they have search parties looking,” Carly replied, agreeing. “My dad was thinking about joining one.”

  “Maybe I will too,” I said, knowing I would be tramping through the woods soon enough, but I needed help. One, I didn’t have a car and two, while I knew I could find the kid, I wasn’t sure of my ability to find my way back out. Carly looked at me in surprise, but I kept my face neutral.

  “Something about this kid makes me want to help,” I answered, shrugging my shoulders. “If I had someone to drive me, I’d go right now,” I said, the words slightly desperate. Class was almost over and I needed her to ask me. I might not have another chance. This was a crazy plan to start with, but it was the best I had come up with on short notice.

  “Who would drive you?” Carly asked, her mind pondering the logistics of what I said. I laughed silently to myself in relief, as I suddenly saw his face. Now I just needed to find him. “Our parents are at work and neither of us have a car. I’d drive you if I had a car!” Carly said, staunchly. I smiled at her loyalty. “We could go together, but we’d have to wait until after school.” I nodded absentmindedly while she talked. She could go on for a while about this. Her mind wanted to sort the problem out into a neat solution. I didn’t tell her she had already given me the answer.

  Class was dismissed and we started walking to the locker room. I had his face in my mind and a name: Jake. I was sure I had seen him before and reasoned he must be a student. But where? I was positive he wasn’t in any of my classes, but with a student body of four thousand, searching for him could be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

  We didn’t have time to shower, so I swiped the dirt off with my gym shirt before changing. I looked like I had already been wandering through the woods.

  Carly headed to the south wing of the school, as we left the locker room. The school was an enormous square with a courtyard in the middle of it. The gym and fields were all on the north side, meaning she had a long walk to her next class.

  “I’ll see you at lunch!” she called, waving as she headed away from me. I waved back, already moving around the gym to the east side and my physics class. I was wondering how I would find him, when I glanced across the bleachers. I snorted at the sight of him. Fate was working overtime this morning.

&nbs
p; Chapter Three

  He was hanging out next to the gym, not far from the bleachers. I shoved my bag higher on my shoulder and walked over to him determinedly. He was with a couple of other guys I had never seen and would rather not meet. They were grungy, to state it politely, and I had the impression they would rather knife me than talk.

  I scrounged up my courage, as I approached them. I needed him. I knew this from the moment the boy’s face formed in my mind. We were connected. He just didn’t know it yet. They stared at me, as it became clear I was walking toward them.

  “You lost, princess?” one of them called to me. The others laughed, one gripping his crotch. I ignored them, my eyes never leaving Jake. His face was blank. He wasn’t participating in their taunting, but he also wasn’t going to stop them. A moment of doubt gripped me, as I wondered if this was a good idea.

  “Looking for a good time?” another one leered at me, his eyes glued to my chest.

  “No,” I responded shortly, walking right up to the face that was going to help me find the kid. His eyes studied me, giving me a quick once-over before locking on my face. Unlike the other guys, I didn’t have the impression he was checking me out, but instead analyzing a threat. I suppressed a shudder at the coldness in his eyes.

  “You looking to buy?” another guy asked, his eyes hooded. His question alerted me to the fact that these guys were drug dealers. I shook my head slightly, my gaze still focused on Jake.

  “Can we talk?” I asked, my attention never leaving him. I could tell he wanted to refuse, and I wouldn’t allow that. I reached out, my hand brushing his arm, “Please.”

  The other guys laughed and cat-called, apparently thinking I was coming on to him. I saw the refusal in his eyes, the slight shake of his head warning me away, but I couldn't leave. He was my chance at rescuing that kid, and I was determined.

  “Jake,” I barely breathed his name, a soft sound, but he heard me. I saw his eyes widen slightly, a flicker of something crossing his face, when suddenly he gripped my arm and dragged me away from the other guys.