Polar (Book 2): Polar Day Read Online Free Page A

was jealous of how in shape he seemed. No sense at all that there was anything wrong with him. Next thing I know he stopped and I thought I saw something in front of him, like a shadow or something. I thought it was just a trick of the light. Then he grabbed his throat and stumbled like he couldn’t keep his balance. Tessa and I thought he was choking so we got up to run over and help him. You know what happened then.”
    “Tessa didn’t mention seeing anything in front of the guy,” Meyer said.
    “She didn’t. She wasn’t even looking in his direction until I pointed him out to her after I noticed he had stopped. I wouldn’t have seen him either if I hadn’t noticed two kids heading into the woods right before this happened.”
    Meyer pointed at two frightened teenagers standing huddled together near the outfield fence. “Those two?” he asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “From what we know they were the closest to the scene. Why don’t you go talk to them? We still need their statements.”
    Danny walked over to the boy and girl he had watched walking into the woods earlier in the evening; before the baseball game had turned into a waking nightmare of fire and death. He noticed the kids covering their faces in futile attempts to block the still permeating smell of burning flesh.
    “You two all right?” he asked.
    The boy, who was dark-haired, thin and lanky, looked as if his torso had not caught up with a recent growth spurt, spoke first.
    “We’re fine,” he said, clutching the girl’s hand protectively. The two of them looked no more than 15 years old.
    The girl, her red hair pulled back into a ponytail, was as petite as the boy was tall.
    “We didn’t see anything,” she said.
    Danny made note of her defensiveness. “What were you doing in the woods?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
    “Nothing,” the girl replied.
    “That’s not an answer,” Danny said. “You were obviously doing something.”
    “We were just taking a walk, okay?” the girl said.
    Danny held his hands up, palms facing the teens. “How about you just tell me your names? I think we got off on the wrong foot here and I’m not sure why.”
    “I’m Will and she’s Melissa,” the boy said, still holding his girlfriend’s hand in what looked to Danny like a death grip.
    “Okay Will and Melissa. I’m Detective Fitzpatrick. And I was sitting right over there,” Danny said, pointing to his and Tessa’s now abandoned lawn chairs, “when I saw you two go off into these woods right before the fire started.”
    “So?” the boy asked.
    “So it might seem a little weird, you two leaving the game and disappearing into the woods right before all hell breaks loose. It’s especially weird since you say you were doing ‘nothing.’”
    The two teens glanced at each other and remained silent.
    “Are you afraid to tell me you were going in there to have sex? You think I give a shit about that?”
    “We don’t want to get in trouble,” Melissa said. “If our parents…”
    “I’m not saying a word to your parents or anyone else. And trust me, there isn’t a soul here who wouldn’t have known what you two were up to when they saw you sneaking off into these woods.”
    The teens looked at the ground.
    “Just walk me through it,” Danny said. “You may have seen or heard something and didn’t even realize it.”
    Melissa let out a breath. “Alright. Right after we walked past those trees, we heard the jogger make a weird noise. We turned around and thought we saw something in front of him.”
    “What was it?”
    Will answered. “We didn’t know. It was like a shadow or something. It was weird.”
    Melissa nodded in agreement.
    Danny kept his face impassive. “What then?”
    “Nothing,” Melissa said. “It was there and then it wasn’t. Next thing we knew the guy started burning.”
    Will turned red and stared at the ground.
    “What else?” Danny asked. “I get the feeling you’re leaving something out.”
    “It